Borscht dribbled down the old man’s chin. It curved a dark line around the crag of wrinkles, shifting when it hit the Band-Aid covering the scab of a removed melanoma. It dripped off a spot the old man had missed shaving, highlighting the white prickles with reddish-brown broth. It splotched his crisp white shirt. The man hardly noticed.
When the body of the towel attendant crashed through the wood paneling of the bathroom, it shocked Ray as much as the old man who was sitting in direct eye line of the hole in the drywall. Boom-Boom hadn’t built to the grand finale, instead he’d asked one question and then burst.
“Where’s the rest of ’em?”
“Excuse me?”
That was all the towel attendant said. Excuse me?
There was no malice in the “Excuse me?” No accusation. For all Ray could tell, he ha
