Noreen Violante

A Stone's Throw

Part 1 Michael Perez sat alone at the end of Packy’s bar, a dark, dingy dinosaur of a public house near the docks in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Except for him and Sam the bartender, it was empty on this spring afternoon. He was hunched over, uncomfortable in his Gucci black suit, and was swirling the rest of his amber colored whisky in a stout glass that had probably been used to celebrate the end of World War II. Sam was absent mindedly drying some beer steins, while his eyes flitted back and forth from the door to twisting gray rag.