TWENTY-ONE
Ritter watches Sylvia as she stands by the upstairs window of his building and looks down at the buses in the parking lot. She’s still wearing her Safeway uniform. But not for long, he thinks as he watches her. She tells him that she should lose a few pounds but Ritter tells her he likes the padding.
“Why do you live here anyway? It’s like you’re always at work.” She says this without turning around. Then she takes a sip of the drink in her hand.
Ritter smiles. He’s wearing a wife-beater and sitting in the faded and torn leather club chair he found at a garage sale in south city.
“How many buses do you have?”
“Just the two.”
“You like talking about the murders, don’t you?”
He sips his drink. “Is that what you’re thinking about? Murder?”
Sylvia turns to face him. “I was t
