My alter ego does not look in too good a mood today. (de Pury)
Following your last glimpse of our heroine Gertie as a mere scrap of a child, the reader is now invited to step into her life almost seventy years later. She and a gent of her acquaintance, going by the name of Neville, run a small Greek cafe in a city which shall be nameless. Our heroine has declined to have her current photograph included in these pages, referring you instead back to that one taken 40 years ago, of which she is fond. And she is also rightly pleased with her cafe, pictured above, should you wish to patronize it. If you can find it, that is. And of course, there’s 
Neville, whom she seemingly dismisses as of no consequence, altho’ I have heard tell that he is an excellent chef, and it will be his cuisine you sample should you choose to visit NoName Cafe.
As we step into their lives on this lazy and already hot Sunday morning, we find them relaxing with the Sunday edition of the International Herald Tribune on the peaceful patio of their cafe. The smoke from Neville’s cigar circles lazily up through the untidy tangle of hanging ferns and other assorted greenery. Colorful flowers spill from chipped and cracked terra cotta pots. A cage sporting a bright red, green, and golden parrot hangs in the corner.
Our intrepid couple lounge in two rockers, occasionally sipping tea from the mismatched cups and pot sitting on a table between them. Sunlight filters in through the tangle of plants, creating changing patterns of light. It is oddly still, with just the occasional chatter of the parrot or the clinking of cup and saucer breaking the silence. Finally, with a bit of a grunt, Gertie gets to her feet to begin watering the flowers with a watering can which sits nearby.
A slowly cruising nondescript car on the street suddenly speeds up and gunfire erupts explosively onto the patio, shattering the peaceful quiet of this slumbering neighborhood. Neville dives for cover, tripping Gertie with his cane to get her down, too. (It would appear that both seem to pull significant looking weapons from places of concealment on their persons as they go down.). The parrot’s cage crashes to the floor, with wild curses erupting from the ruffled and angry bird.
The gunfire ceases as abruptly as it began. Water squirts from the bullet-ridden watering can, as plants continue to topple. The shrieking of the parrot is deafening.
“Shut up, Cuddles!”
“Up yours! Up yours!”
As Gertie gets to her feet (with a spryness that rather widens our eyes), she straightens her wig, and shakes out her overly voluminous skirts (far too much clothing for this hot day in our opinion). For a long moment, she stares thoughtfully at the street with narrowed eyes, and then turns her gaze to Neville, still trying to sort himself out from the jumble of greenery and broken crockery.
“Get up, you old fart. What d’you think the chances are they were after Cuddles?”
(to be continued)