“I knew a guy, he sold flints.” The man shook sugar in his coffee. “You wouldn’t figure there’d be much in it. But you never know.”

Joe nodded. He had taken a seat at the counter because he was alone; booths were for couples. Even if the place was empty. You sat in a booth alone, the waitress took the other placemat and silverware away, as though you’d muss them up. Which you just might. In any case you felt like you had to tip more, as though you had an imaginary date who’d ordered the special.

You sat the counter, you were invisible. Or so it was supposed to be, anyway. The Big Boy was empty except for him, the waitress, a cook in the back whistling some private melody, and the guy who’d sat down two stools away and began to wear Joe’s ear down to a nub.

“. . . but matchbooks, that’s a line. Everyone needs matchbooks. You got a trade organization?”

The Guild of Prometheans. “No. Union printers, but that’s it.” He coughed and picked up his newspaper. How long could a hamburger take, for Christ’s sake.

“Yeah, well, that’s good sometimes. The old lone wolf. Out on your own. Ahh-oooh!”

Shutup. It had been a long day, and he’d stopped to get something in his stomach before he went home and faced a fridge full of congealed chicken. The morning had begun forty miles north of Ashtabula, dealing samples to a fat German who ran an auto dealership. Then a bank in a small town that didn’t look like it threw off enough money to support a peanut cart, let alone a lending institution. But the banker had the calm remote air of bankers everywhere, the same smug peace of a priest in the Church of Compound Interest. He bought a custom job, and Joe looked forward to that one. “I want something that gives people a sense of safety,” the banker said. I’ll put Chase Manhattan on the cover, Joe thought. Three more stops – diner, old folk’s home (smelled of medicine and hard stools) and a cold-call on a motel that looked healthy enough to pop for a little take-away advertisement. Nice young couple ran the place. Fresh paint, plants in the office, baby in the back. High hopes. Not a customer in the lot. They bought 30 boxes. He wished he could have spent the night, but he had the feeling they’d hang around and ask if he needed more towels or perhaps some ice. You got that sort of attention when they were just starting out, or starting to go down.

And now he was here: hungry. tapped, tired, trying to read the paper, catch up on the world. Judging from the front page it hadn’t come up with anything new.

“Yep yep,” said the man to no one in particular. He whistled a few notes, then stirred his coffee, clanging the spoon against the cup.

He was was about forty. Nice suit; made Joe feel shabby just looking at the fabric. You could cut bone with the crease on his pants, and the shoes practically glowed, as if he’d spent all his time working out sex problems by buffing his loafers. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who eats at the Big Boy at 11 PM. His face said he was a square-john citizen, home with the wife by ten, reading a Condensed Book in bed while she slapped on the cold cream. The suit said he spent his nights in a jazz club pulling olives off a stirrer with his teeth, settling into his third martini.

He’d sat down, grinned, said “cold out, huh?” and read the menu with exaggerated interest. “The Brawny Lad for me,” he’d said to no one, then turned to Joe and asked what sort of line he was in. “Habit of mine, like to guess. Sales?” Joe had said he sold, and designed, matchbooks. The man was impressed. And as it turned out he knew a fellow who dealt in flints.

“Yep yep,” he said, when it became clear the introduction of the flint salesman had failed to produce an exchange of life stories and family photographs. “Yep. What do you know.”

The waitress deposited a hamburger before Joe; he smiled his thanks and rearranged his newspaper, just in case the man saw this as an opening. But he stayed quiet. Joe took a bite and read something about Soviet power struggles in the Kremlin. The words didn’t stick. The man was quiet, but he’d ruined the peace. The threat would always be there.

It was a good hamburger. Big Boys had that sauce. Two patties, a divot of toast, and that chunky pink stuff that made you almost ashamed to think about ketchup. He liked Big Boys; the décor was modern and unreal, the walls covered big stones like chunks of lava, ceiling beams shooting up at ridiculous angles. Caveman modern. He never liked the mascot, with his leer and fat gut and shiny big pompadour, but you can excuse a lot if the sauce gets it right.

“How’s the hamburger?” the man asked. “Thinking of getting one myself here.”

“Top notch,” Joe said without looking up.

“Great then.”

The man signaled for the waitress. He asked for the Brawny Lad, and made rather detailed requests: medium rare, light sauce, heavy onions, relish on the side, crisp fries, double parsley. He thanked her, then stood, sighed, said “gotta see a man,” and walked to the other end of the restaurant where the RESTROOM sign glowed.

He left a book of matches by his coffee cup. Joe looked. Can’t hurt. Professional curiosity.

Big Boy. Bad print job, but you get a bum batch every now and again. Not the best illo, either; BB’s red cheeks looked like he had rash. Plus, he’s running, and he’s looking at a hamburger. Mother told us never to run with hamburgers. Joe flipped the book to the B side. A picture of the burger. What is this white stuff is – asbestos? Some sort of albino lettuce?

Then he thought: Azar?

Big Boys around here belonged to the Frisch outfit. Azar was another chain. This was like that matchbook he got from a friend on the other side of Chicago, the ones for Marc’s Big Boy. It was like familiar but strange, like seeing a Coke bottle with Russian on it. Azar?

Oh, of course. Joe put down his newspaper and waited. When the man returned, humming, Joe cleared his throat. “So,” he said. “Passing through?”

“No, no, Cleveland born and bred. You?”

“Same.”

“Like this place?”

“Beats eating in the car,” Joe said.

“What do you like? Me, I think they go heavy on the sauce myself.”

“The sauce is what counts. The sauce gets them through the door. Too much you can scrape off. Not enough, you have to ask for more.”

“I suppose.” The man nodded. “You just wonder how much people notice, though. You cut back on the sauce a little, no one cares, but the overhead – well, it’s like your line. If you sold matchbooks with two less matches, you’d save in the long run, and who’d care?”

“I would. You’d have a narrower book. Smaller canvas. Like Guernica on a postcard, you know?”

“Sure, sure, gotcha, gotcha. Never been there myself.”

Joe cocked his head towards the back. “How’s the bathroom?”

“Huh? Oh, nice. Clean. They have the butcher paper towels on a roll, instead of the bifolds.” He shrugged. “Matter of taste, I guess. And they have the granulated soap, comes out of the dispenser when you knock the handle. Gets everywhere. Hard to keep clean, you gotta send someone in every half hour.”

“They all like this?”

“Like what?”

Joe spread his hands. “Like this. Big Boys. Lots of sauce and paper and the wrong soap. The whole Frisch franchise. They all like this?”

“I wouldn’t know.” He gave Joe a queer look.

Joe pointed to his matchbook, and grinned. “C’mon. You’re a spy. Big Boys are Fritsch around here. You work for Azar. Checking up. Right?”

The man went blank. “Just passing through,” he said.

“Through Cleveland. Where you’re born and bred.” Joe shrugged. “Okay.”

The man said nothing more. When his hamburger came he carved it in half; he ate one portion, made a few notes in a small black book, then waved the waitress over and asked for a bag for the leftovers. He left a dollar at the counter and stood.

Joe leaned over, looked at his tab.

“Hey,” he said. “Five percent? We tip ten. Cleveland tradition.” The man stared at him. “And tell your people to forget the pickle spear. I’ve been telling people for years. No one listens. Look at this.” He pointed at his plate. “You see a lonely pickle spear? You see a pickle that has no point in life? You learn one thing from this espionage mission, it’s that. Skip the pickle. In fact you could build an ad campaign around it. A little mascot named Skip. Skip the Pickle.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The man gave Joe a nod, and left; the door bell dinged and Joe was alone again. Someone was washing dishes in the back; he heard the spray of water, the clatter of silverware.

The waitress came out and asked if he wanted anything else.

“No, I’m fine. Say, that guy. Know what I think? He was a spy for the other Big Boy chain. Seeing how you do things, reporting back to the home office.” She shrugged. “I’m serious. Look at the matchbook.”

She picked it up. Shrugged. She cleared away the man’s plate, and held up a coin: “Spies,” she said, “are lousy tippers.”

Not his chain, Joe thought. Not his tribe. He had another cup. By the time he finished he had three character sketches for Skip the Pickle. Came out looking like Mr. Peanut’s country cousin. Needed a piece of straw in his mouth, maybe.

Make that parsley.