Anything But Zombies (20 page)

Mel already had a steaming cup of coffee in front of him by the time Toby sat. The cook had lost a lot of weight since the last time Toby'd seen him, though he would always be a big guy. He gnawed at the piece of gum at the side of his mouth like a piece of tripe, smiling the whole time.

“How you doing, Mel?” Toby asked.

“Mr. Writer,” Mel addressed him in thick East European–accented English as he'd done ever since finding out Toby was an author. He hadn't told him or anyone else, but Toby had found it true that secrets traveled fastest in small towns. “Quicker'n the clap in a whorehouse,” Sheriff Karlo had told him the year before last, warning Toby to guard his closely. Mel nodded and scooched the little bowl filled with tiny, individual cups of half-and-half closer before heading back into the kitchen.

“Shrimp and grits. Shrimp and grits,” he said as the double half doors swung shut behind him.

Toby dumped two little cups of creamer into his coffee, followed by a shovelful of sugar. By then he'd noticed the two strangers one stool over. Toby rarely ran into anyone he hadn't signed something for when he was in town, and he would've been willing to bet he'd been the last stranger who'd come into town to stay beyond a fill-er-up at Hank's Hi-Octane.

“Did I hear the old man right?” the closer stranger asked. Toby noted his red-rimmed eyes and assumed the man was drunk. “You a writer?” Toby smirked and turned in his seat to face the two. Either they had heard of him or they hadn't, but almost everyone who found out he was a writer was immediately impressed and wanted an autograph even if they didn't read him.

He held his hand out for a shake. “Why, yes. I'm Tob—”

The man launched himself at Toby, fist-first, swiping the dishes in front of him off the counter in the process. Toby managed to put his extended hand up to block the oncoming blow despite his surprise. The punch grazed his fingers as the man crashed to the floor. Toby stood from his stool. He got a good look and saw the man was in no shape to fight. The fire quickly went out of him, though his heart still raced.

“Who is this guy?” Toby asked, and then looked up at his partner. The second man looked slightly less ill, and just to be on the safe side Toby put one foot behind him and put his hands up. He'd taken six weeks of a boxing class at the Y, though he had trouble remembering which punch he should throw first if it came to it.

“Hey,
no más
, pal,” the second man said, putting his hands up in mock surrender. He had dirty blond hair and a horseshoe mustache.

Mel must not have heard, otherwise he would have charged out of the kitchen and thrown both men out by the scruff of their necks.

“What in Sam Hill is all the kerfuffle for?” Wanda asked, with a ‘Cut it the hell out this instant' kind of tone.

“My friend,” Horseshoe said, kneeling and looking at her and Toby. “He's sick.” He twirled a finger around his ear. “Flu's got him seein' and hearin' things. Sorry. Really, we got nothin' against writers. Hell, one of my fav'rite people's a writer.”

Toby lowered his shaking hands. He nodded, not trusting his voice wouldn't quiver.

“Look, the food was real good, but I think we should go now.”

“Agreed,” Wanda said, hand firmly on narrow hip as Horseshoe collected his friend. He dug a ball of cash out of his pocket, shucked off five bills and placed them on the counter, thought a moment, then added two more to the pile.

“For the dishes.”

Wanda fixed him with her blue-eyed, laser-sharp stare. Toby had only seen that look once before when a couple of teens who'd been fighting outside dragged their battle through the vestibule and right beside two occupied booths. She hadn't laid a hand on either boy, but they sobered up quick and were as contrite as a reverend late for church. Horseshoe averted his eyes as if she would convert him to stone, his friend draped over him as they turned and staggered to the door. Toby had no idea how they managed to schlepp their way out as awful as they looked.

“Wanna know what Ah think?” she said. “Ah think you need a slice of my pie.” She marched around the counter and lifted the heavy glass lid off the pumpkin pie. They didn't sell too much of it, though whenever Toby was in town Wanda baked it special for him. It was his one celebrity perk. Toby watched as Horseshoe just about rolled the other man into the passenger seat of an old, powder-green Lincoln and shut the door. Horseshoe yelped, then yanked the door open, bent and scooped something off the ground, and tossed it into the unconscious man's lap.

Toby was sure he hadn't seen that right. It had looked like a hand.

“What is goink on?” Mel said, sliding Toby's bowl in front of the stool where he'd been sitting. He wasn't sure if he was in the mood to eat anymore. “Is problem?”

“Nothin', Mel.” Wanda tore off the ticket with the old couple's order on it and handed it to him. “Just cook this up, m'kay?” Mel's loose-skinned face curtained into an expression of confusion, then his head bobbed up and down and he trudged back into the kitchen with her order. She had an equally mildly apologetic expression, watching him go, though she didn't call him back.

“Oh my goodness, will you look at this mess?” Wanda grabbed a bucket for clearing tables and began tossing pieces of broken dishes and glass into it.

“Be careful,” Toby couldn't help saying, as if she'd been on the verge of accidentally slashing her wrist before he'd chimed in. He sat down and went through the motions of salting grits, and by the time he took a sip of his tepid coffee found his stomach alive.

Mel came out with plates in hand, saw what she was doing, and continued to the floor, placing the food before the elderly couple. By the time he got back, she had taken the bucket to the back and was waiting for him, hand on hip, a much mellower version of the laser stare upon the big man.

“Now what didja do that for?” she asked.

“You were busy.” Mel shrugged. “I do.”

“Mel, I don't need you doin'. I got this. Those are my customers, they don't wanna see you.”

It sounded more cruel than intended. Toby had been privy to this conversation before. Cooks were typically messy, with various sauces and meat juice stains on smocks, pit-stained shirts, and her personal opinion that people thought a cook out here meant something was burning on the grill. He was able to recite the next bit from memory, resisting the urge to mouth the words along with her.

“You don't see me in the kitchen flippin' burgers, Mel.” Her face softened. Sandy's didn't serve burgers, but the point was made just the same. “I . . . appreciate the help, but next time lemme do it myself, m'kay?”

She was chiding Mel, but either because English was a fourth language and something was lost in the words or nothing Wanda said had a negative effect on him. By the way Mel's eyes always followed her, Toby suspected the latter.

“You should take break,” he said, his accent thickening. He put a paw around one of her skinny arms and stroked it. Only when they came in physical contact was he reminded of Bluto and Olive Oyl. Although now a little more svelt Bluto. “Go out back for smoke—I come with.”

“No, I don't need no cigarette.” She gently slapped his hand away. It looked to Toby as if she'd liked it being there. Mel stepped close enough that his mouth was mere inches away from her ear and began speaking low and fast.

“Not in front of the C-U-S-T-O-M-E-R-S,” she whispered as if Toby couldn't spell and shoved him away.

“The cus . . . the cus . . .” Mel had a big worry-knot between his eyebrows.

“Not in front of me, Mel,” Toby said. He couldn't resist. He'd seen the two of them sneak quick little pecks and side-eye glances at each other. Wanda was widowed and Mel
never
spoke of his supposed family back in the old country, but they made a good-looking couple as far as Toby was concerned. She was nearly six feet, rail-thin, and strikingly pretty despite being somewhere in her fifties and Mel . . . was Mel. He wondered how a person could be on Earth for as many years as her and still care what other people thought, but as far as Toby could tell, Wanda was the holdout in that relationship going public. Maybe she thought she would have been dishonoring her husband or something.

She fixed Toby with that laser stare, daring him to say another word, to her now or to anybody else on earth at any other point in time.

“Not a word,” she said.

“Yes, ma'am,” Toby said.

She turned and snatched up the money the man with the horseshoe mustache had littered on the counter, pulling a disgusted face. Mel almost put a hand on her shoulder.

“What is wrong?” he asked.

Toby almost thought she hadn't heard. “Nothin'.” She looked at Toby one last time, an expression of half confusion, half something familiar he couldn't nail down until later, before turning and heading into the back. He quickly went back to his food, wanting to eat his pumpkin pie before she came back and snatched that, too.

“Is good, no?” Mel said, a blocky-toothed grin on his face. Toby nodded, and the big man retreated into the kitchen, presumably to check on Wanda.

Toby finished lunch without further incident, not seeing the waitress for the rest of his stay, which forced Mel to cash him out. The man may have been a wizard on the grill, but a chochem he was not with his fat fingers on the cash register.

“Now that would make an interesting story,” Toby said after he'd climbed into his SUV, thinking of the incident with the two men. He turned the key in the ignition and put it in Drive, but before he could pull out someone walked right in front of his vehicle.

It was Pete Erskine, who had been at the far end of the counter nursing a cup of coffee with a little something extra in it, if you could believe Mitty Hayes. Toby could believe he was drunk by the look on his face, but did a double take, realizing it was the same half confused, half
something
expression Wanda had worn.

Erskine backed away from him, crossing Ames Street, but having eyes only for Toby.

“What is wrong with
you
?” Toby asked, but didn't wait around for the off chance the man might have provided an answer. Twenty minutes later he was in front of his typewriter again, but had nothing to give. He sat forward, his hands poised over the keys.

Nada.

His cell rang. His daughters had changed the ringtone to nonsensical conversation between two minions from
Despicable Me.

“Saved by the bell,” he said, then, “Hey, honey.”

“How's the writing going?” Phyllis asked. His wife was always a straight-to-the-point kind of girl.

“I'm great, how are you?”

“Trying to figure out where to hide the bodies.”

“Really?” he asked. “How many?”

“Just three this time.”

“Oh, well, there's a small patch that hasn't been dug up in the corner of the backyard.”

“I didn't even look over there. Thank you.”

“No problem. Get the girls to help.”

They both laughed and she proceeded to tell him about the three jerks she'd run into at the grocery store. Joking about murder always helped to depressurize stressful situations. He proceeded to tell her about the run-in at Sandy's and ended it with the odd expressions of Wanda and Pete Erskine.

“You don't think you should call the police, do you?”

“Nah. Those guys were in a bad way. The girls could take them.”

“The girls could take down a lot of people, though.”

“Good point. Maybe I could use them to work security.”

There was a metallic scraping sound outside.

“What was that?”

“What?”

“I don't know. Something outside. Hang on while I check.” Toby dashed downstairs, peeking out the front window before stepping out. It didn't take long to figure out what it was; a large piece of aluminum siding had been pulled away from the house and half of the strip was missing.

“—'s going on?” Phyllis was saying when he put the phone back to his ear.

“Somebody stole a piece of the house.” It was so laughable he wasn't even upset. He'd needed to replace the siding when he'd bought the place; the insurance claim would be just the boot in the butt to get it done. He explained to her exactly what he meant, and his wife told him to call the police immediately and call her back. Toby nodded, then responded with actual words, then hung up.

Since his area wasn't on the 911 system just yet, he called the sheriff directly. Interim sheriff Fran Carey had given him her number in case anything ever came up and said it would be her personal pleasure to answer the emergency call of a famous writer. Toby was freaked out just enough to set his humility aside and call.

She showed up less than three minutes later and examined the damage as if she were a claims adjustor. Carey was Red Deer Rapids' first and only female sheriff's deputy and had been filling the shoes of sheriff since last year. The city council hadn't seen fit to give her the job proper even though Sheriff Karlo's stroke had all but officially retired him.

“Prob'ly done it with some prunin' shears or sum'nlikeat.” It had taken Toby a good week before he'd learned that last word was actually three words: something like that. There were a couple of others he'd had the pleasure of eventually translating, like “paper saik” (paper sack) and “fixin' to” (getting ready to).

“Any ideas on who could've done this?” Toby asked. Sheriff Carey looked at him.

“I wish in Sam Hill I knew, but I imagine I'd be usin' that particular ability for the numbers. We ain't had a case of vandalism in nigh on four years. You didn't see nothin'?”

“No. I was upstairs writing.”

“Really.” The sheriff smiled. “Durand gonna be dealin' out more death in this one than last time? 'Cause I thought he was gettin' a bit too talky last time out.”