Free 1 Breakfast at Madeline's by Matt Witten Page A

talk show host. I got the feeling she realized she was under an umbrella and I wasn't, and she hoped if she kept on yakking, I'd eventually get tired of being rained on and go away.
    My attention wa ndered from her monologue. I no ticed the words H udson falls building and renova tion on the side of the cement truck, and was reminded that the mayor owned a similar company, Kane Construction. "So how's the construction busi ness, Mayor?" I asked him.
    I was only making conversation, trying to shut off Gretchen's flow of words. But for some reason the mayor didn't seem to take it that way. He tensed his jaw and narrowed his photogenic blue eyes at me sus piciously.
    Gretchen quickly stepped in. "You know, I'm getting tired of standing in the rain," she said. "Why don't we go to Madeline's? That'll be the perfect place to talk about Donny."
    Meanwhile the mayor had recovered his cheerful equanimity. "I wish I could join you guys, but business calls," he said, waving a friendly good-bye and then striding off purposefully down Broadway.
    Gretchen and I headed off in the other direction. But when we came to the stoplight, I turned around and took a look back at the mayor.
    As it happened, the mayor had turned around too.
    And he was standing there, watching me.
     
    As soon as Gretchen and I stepped into Madeline's, she began working the room. First she glad-handed a city councilman named Walsh. After that she collared Linda Olive, who ow ns Saratoga's premier video pro duction company—in fact, Saratoga's only video pro duction company—and sweet-talked her into saying she would produce, g ratis of course, a video promot ing the new Arts Center. Then Gretchen stopped to speak with someone else, a big man with a big tie whose name I didn't know. Gretchen, however, knew absolutely everybody . The woman was a wonder.
    She was also driven as hell. Why? I realized I knew almost nothing about her personal life. She was mar ried, but I'd never met her husband. Or her kids, if she had any.
    I wiped the rain off my face with a jacket sleeve and went up to the counter, where Madeline and Marcie were doing the honors. There was a long line, since Madeline's tends to get busy on rainy afternoons, so I had plenty of time to study the two women. It was like watching a ballet, the way they were able to move flu idly and quickly in the narrow space behind the counter without ever bumping into each other. One woman would ring up the other woman's sales if it happened to be more convenient. Seeing them work so well together reminded me that they were cousins; Madeline had once mentioned they were just like sisters growing up.
    They were both very attractive, but in different ways: Marcie was totally out there with her sexuality, while Madeline was more demure. Most men, if given the opportunity, would probably choose Marcie for a one-night stand, but they'd feel safer marrying Made line. Rob was a lucky guy.
    Marcie broke into my thoughts. "May I help you?" she asked. She must have been out in the rain, because her T-shirt was clinging to her. Tearing my eyes away from her curves, I looked up at Marcie's face. Her eyes twinkled. I wondered, for the thousandth time, if she knew what kind of effect she had on me.
    Gretchen came up behind me and broke the spell. "What'll you have, Jacob? My treat."
    Madeline turned away from the espresso machine and gave me a bittersweet smile. "I made a pot of Ethiopian."
    I gave the smile back to her. "Then that's what I'll have. By the way," I added, "did you used to give The Penn free coffee?"
    Madeline shook her h ead. "No. Matter of fact, he al ways paid with exact change. I used to wonder how he managed to get ninety-seven cents' worth of change every single day."
    Since I didn't have an answer to that, I took the coffee and headed for the b ack room, while Gretchen got in volved in yet another shmoozing exercise. There was an empty table way at the rear, near the back stairs to the basement. As I sat down, I