Something different today he thought. He had been coming to Pillipe’s Bistro weekly now for the first two months he had been in town. Sometimes lunch, sometimes dinner. Tonight he had come later than usual but luck and a slow night got him a table at one of the windows looking onto the street and the surrounding neighborhood.
Movement caught his eye. He looked up and it was gone. Then, again. He counted the windows in the building across the street. Five floors up, a series of windows were brightly lit, exposing the colorful interior of the corner apartment. A person – no, two people were in the room. They appeared to be having an animated conversation. It was two men. One was taller than the other. The shorter man was bald with a round cue ball head and an enormous nose like Cyrano De Bergerac. He glanced around the restaurant to see if anyone else was watching this go on across the street. His table was the last in the row along the window and as such he had the only view that could see through the buildings.
Viewing back to the building he saw only the brightly lit interior with no people. Coffee came and had distracted him. The men were back, this time in a different pair of windows. Each man was framed in his own window. It was like watching his own private silent miniature puppet show. The men appeared to be even more agitated, shouting silently at one another. The taller one turned, bent over and turned back. From somewhere below his view he saw a bright flash in front of the tall one. He thought it was perhaps a camera. Just as quickly a flash flared by the bald man. The tall man lurched backwards and fell down. He almost spilled his cup as he turned to try and catch anyone else watching this scene from the restaurant. Everyone was absorbed in dinner and conversation. He was sure he had just witnessed a murder. From the window above the bald man glanced down. Their eyes met.
A season passed. Summer, winter, on to the next spring. His diligence in the matter had turned up no article, report or mention of the murder he was sure he had witnessed. His lease had been up and he had inquired into the apartment building just across the street from Phillipe’s Bistro. Quite handy for him. He loved Phillipe’s and had become friends with him over the past year. He had almost forgotten about the incident until he looked down from his first full dinner in that new apartment. About 5 floors off the street, it had a perfect view into the dining room at Phillipe’s.
A bald man with an enormous nose was seated in the window at the restaurant below. There was something about him. Over the rim of his coffee he saw a flash, like someone had taken a picture. The bald man was standing and the man across the table from him was slumped over the table. The bald man threw a chair through the restaurant window and stepped over the sill. He calmly looked up and their eyes met, if only for an instant. Then he disappeared down the street. He was sure this had been the same man he had seen before. Was he an assassin? A mobster?
He had lost his appetite and besides, the commotion across the street was too interesting to finish dinner or to even clean up. His heart raced as he switched on the TV to see any late breaking news. There was a low knock on his door. He went to answer.
