Rocca Place was a short street a short distance from the Hotel Bel-Air.
The restaurant manager made his obligatory rounds. After coming back inside from the patio, he ordered an assistant server to wheel out a space heater.
The assistant server was observant, which made him quite good at his job. He would refill glasses before they were emptied and remove plates with uncommon efficiency.
He noted an unusual nervous streak in the manager, never a particularly gracious man, curiously unsuited for the business of hospitality.
The sudden and very specific command struck the assistant server as strange.
It was not a chilly morning.
And it was not normal, as he had been ordered, to position the gas heater on the corner of the patio by the banana palm.
