“What’s good here?” she repeats.

“I’m sure it’s all good,” I say, slightly annoyed. I’m thinking about the whiz kid on my left, wondering if he’s self-employed. Maybe he could use a line of credit to expand his business.

The elderly lady says, “What do you order?”

I frown. I’d hoped to have a quiet lunch, maybe fortify myself with a glass of sake to keep me from going back to work and cutting Hilda’s head off. For a moment I think about stuffing her bloody, severed head in her panty hose like so much sausage, and smuggling it out of the bank. I picture her fat head bobbing up and down in the Ohio River current like a volleyball.

“I usually get the Derby Roll,” I say. “It’s got tempura shrimp in it. I don’t usually go for the raw stuff.”

She’s watching the sushi chef pack a roll.

“Does he touch everyone’s food with his hands like that?” she says, her voice much louder than necessary.

The sushi chef glares at her across the top of the glass bar, and I can only hope he doesn’t think we’re together. I look at his face and feel like hiding under my chair. She can’t possibly comprehend the magnitude of the insult she’s given him—suggesting he’s unclean. I try to diffuse the tension before the old bat insults him again.