Excerpt of Cold Slice by L.T. Fawkes

A kid they called The Witness…

Something funny was going on at Carlo’s Pizza. The way they described Carrie Hall’s accident, it didn’t make any sense. But it wasn’t my job to worry about it. My job was to learn to be a pizza driver. There were already three other black-shirted drivers standing at the front counter waiting for deliveries, so I got in line behind them.

The guy standing in front of me turned around, took my empty pizza bags from me, and stacked them on the pile of empty bags that was sitting on the far left of the counter. He was a weird-looking little kid, maybe nineteen, twenty, skinny, with brown hair sticking out every which way from under his black Carlo’s cap. When he copped a look up at me, checking out the new guy, it seemed like his eyes weren’t quite right.

“Who are you?” he asked belligerently.

“Terry Saltz,” I told him, looking down my chest at him, and trying not to let my voice sound any friendlier than his did. “Who are you?”

“Ed Hanus,” the kid said nastily. “I suppose you’re taking Carrie’s place.”

“I suppose I am.”

He grimaced. “I’d rather have Carrie back.”

I shrugged. “People in hell want ice water.”

He blinked up at me. “Carrie was pretty. I was gonna ask her out.”

I said, “Well, dude, now you got me. So, whatcha got in mind? Dinner and a movie?”

He got a horrified look on his face and snapped around to face the counter. The driver in front of him was just moving away with his stack of deliveries. Ed edged past me cautiously with his own stay-warm bags, and I stepped up.

I was chuckling. “What’s that little Ed guy’s deal?” I asked the dispatcher.

“Ed?” He gave me a puzzled look. “Oh, you mean the Witness. That’s

what we call him because he mainly just stands around and watches everyone else work. Ignore him. He’s a little creep.”

The little creep was about to get himself murdered, but of course we didn’t know that then.