Page 1 of Silver Sinner

1

PIERCE

Frank’s Diner sits on a rundown corner just off the highway, two turns after the underpass.

Outside, crumbling sidewalks and a pothole-filled road make the place easy to miss when racing past to a safer part of the city, but Frank’s is my favorite place in the entire world.

Warmth pours from light fixtures that have seen better days, and yet they continue to bathe all twelve booths in orange light that turns the red seating into a deep mauve.

Twelve booths, five tables, and countless seats around the counter always offer a weary soul a place to rest. I don't think I've ever seen this place empty, not that it really matters.

If customer traffic faded out and the lights flickered, I'd still be here, seated in my regular booth with a plate of hash browns and eggs in front of me while I nurse coffee tainted from a machine well past its age.

It's still my favorite place.

"Boss?" The soft voice of my right-hand man, Moses, cuts through my wandering admiration of a place filled with people who side-eye my well-cut suit and smoothly combed hair. A man like me doesn't belong in a place like this.

Shifting my weight back into the soft booth, one of the more forgiving details of this place, I turn back to Moses. "Hm?"

"Did you hear anythin' I just said?" His fingers drum lightly on the table next to his half-eaten steak and eggs.

"I did."

"So?" One dark brow arches, giving me a better look at the bright blue eyes usually squinted behind Moses’ perpetual frown.

"So…"

Thinking back, I'd gotten distracted by the change of music on the jukebox and let my eye wander to the homemade cakes and pies resting behind finger-print blurred glass on the counter. Donations, if I remember correctly, from one of the cooking classes nearby.

"No." I give in. "Sorry, I was miles away."

"You good?" Moses' brow lowers, but he continues to stare at me with mild curiosity.

"Yeah. I was just thinking."

"About?"

"This place."

"Please tell me your tastes have finally changed." Moses picks up his knife and fork and resumes carving up his steak with mild aggression. "I'm dying for a steak that doesn't require bicep curls to cut through."

"Maybe you should stop getting it well done."

"And when I'm down and out from food poisoning, who's gonna protect you?" He leans up and shovels a piece of that steak into his mouth. "Would it kill you t'eat somewhere with a star?"

"I like it here."

"Sure. It's a nice place. It's not ‘three times a week for the past however many years,’ nice, though."

"And yet you always come with me."

Moses snorts and points his grease-stained knife at me. "I go where you go," he says around the steak piece. "Non-negotiable."

"Exactly. So eat your shitty steak."

An amused snort rises from Moses as he goes back to sawing the steak in half. "The things I put up with."

He's been with me more years than I care to count. The kind of loyalty Moses gives me isn't something you can buy. It's earned through decades of careful diligence and a little give-and-take. He can put up with his bad steak and I put up with the bad coffee for one reason.