Day Shift (Midnight, Texas #2) (15 page)

“So how do you feel about that?” Fiji said.

“I liked you until you said that, sister,” the old man said. “I want you to know how I feel about something, I’ll tell you. This place is dead, but it’s safe. And it gets more and more interesting. That old man in the hat? His suit looks older’n me. The boy keeps growing overnight. The two men who run the antiques store—hey, are they a couple? Ain’t we modern here? Suzie made it over to the pawnshop; she says the guy who runs it is a hunk and there’s all kinds of weird shit inside. Oh, and your cat came down yesterday, Fiji. He walked all around having a good look like he was thinking about buying the place. Then that Eva Culhane came in, and Harvey and Lenore ran up to stick their noses up her ass, and she said, ‘No pets! This is a pet-free zone!’”

“Oh, no,” Fiji said. She looked around the room. Mr. Snuggly was not in sight. He was a wise cat. “So what else did Eva Culhane do?”

“I think she was just checking to make sure we was all still alive.” Tommy laughed his wheezy laugh. “She was the one scooped us up in Vegas.”

“Really?” Olivia looked as though that was very interesting. But she clearly didn’t know what to make of it.

“This was fun,” said Tommy Quick, né Bustamente. “If you want to come down and visit, bring some of them muffins. Scones. Whatever.” He heaved himself to his feet and carefully made his way out. They heard him going down the steps slowly, and Fiji got up to make sure he reached the sidewalk without falling.

“Okay, he’s on his way back to the hotel,” she said, resuming her seat. “That was interesting.”

“You haven’t read any stories on the history of Las Vegas, I take it,” Manfred said.

Olivia and Fiji shook their heads in unison.

“Not in the earliest mob days, but not far after, Tommy Quick was a knee-breaker for organized crime,” Manfred said.

“You know this how?”

“My grandmother had a storefront in Las Vegas once upon a time,” he said. “She was full of stories. And that got me interested, so I read some books.”

“I wasn’t even worried about the hotel,” Fiji said. “Now I have to worry about the hotel.” She threw up her hands. “Every damn thing is a problem here. And my cat! He’s lucky they didn’t kick him or run him over. He crossed the Davy highway by himself! Idiot!”

“I’ve done it before,” said a sour little voice. Mr. Snuggly emerged from behind Fiji’s counter. He strolled over to the group of humans and paused to sit by the little table, his fluffy tail wrapped neatly around his legs. “I look and look and look, and then I run very fast.” Olivia, not a fan of the cat, glared at him, and he returned the look. She glanced away first.

“Why?” Fiji said. “Why did you go down there?”

“I knew they were real old people, but not helpless old people. I wanted to find out why they were here. I wanted to know if they were magic.” Mr. Snuggly began licking a paw.

“Are they?” Manfred asked, tired of being left out of the conversation, even if it was with a cat.

“No. Not at all. They are old. They’ve done bad things. They’re not mean. One of them is dotty. That’s right, isn’t it? That’s what Aunt Mildred used to say. Dotty.”

Fiji looked taken aback. Apparently, she hadn’t ever heard the cat refer to her own great-aunt as “Aunt Mildred.”

“Sure, that’s right,” Manfred said quickly. “No magic there, huh?”

“None,” said Mr. Snuggly emphatically. “Plenty of ghosts at the hotel, of course. And lots of misdirection.”

“What does that mean?” Olivia glared down at Mr. Snuggly, who met her eyes without any problem at all.

“I’m going to take a nap now,” the cat said, and went back behind the counter, presumably to jump in the padded cat bed Fiji had put under the counter.

Manfred was having a hard time picking up the thread of the plan they’d been considering before Diederik, Tommy, and Mr. Snuggly had intervened. He put his head in his hands.

“The boy is growing at twenty times the normal speed,” he said. “An old hoodlum just popped in to promise us he’d keep silent in return for scones. Mr. Snuggly has uncovered bad doings at the hotel. And I still need to clear my name of these bogus theft charges, which draw attention to Midnight, and therefore to all this other shit that should remain secret.”

“That’s a good summary,” Fiji said brightly.

Olivia said, “Let’s get back to the part where you were freezing someone.”

“Bertha, the maid,” Manfred said helpfully. “And then you and I run up the stairs, Olivia, and we search the study lickety-split. We find the jewelry, we call the police, and it’s all over.”

“Except we have to explain to the police how we knew where to search.” Olivia had gotten up to pace back and forth in the limited space. At every turn, she fixed her eyes scornfully on a glass dolphin or a stained-glass rainbow. “And the maid can tell the police that Fiji did something to paralyze her.”

“Okay,” said Fiji. “So . . . we go when she’s not there. Right after she leaves work.”

“No one will be there to answer the door,” Manfred said. “Lewis lives in the pool house. Even if Lewis is in the house and decides to open the door, he knows me. And if you froze him, he’d squawk till the cows come home.”

“We’re talking ourselves into believing this is impossible.” Fiji’s generous mouth skewed to one side as she thought.

“Too bad Lemuel’s not here,” Manfred said. “He could hypnotize Lewis into showing the police where the jewelry’s hidden after we find it.”

“Yeah, because that’s what Lem lives for, to make your life easier,” Olivia snapped. “For your information, Lem can’t do that.”

Taken aback by her vehemence, Manfred stared at her. “I’m sorry,” he said, wondering what he was apologizing for. But he knew it didn’t make any difference, that just saying the words was important. He braced himself for another scathing remark, but to his astonishment, Olivia relaxed.

“I’m just missing him,” she said, not looking at either of them.

Apologies are contagious,
Manfred noted. He also observed that both he and Fiji were a little embarrassed at Olivia’s moment of tenderness. He considered patting Olivia on the shoulder, but he felt he might lose his arm if he did—or even worse, somehow, he feared she might be grateful.

Just then, Fiji’s pocket made a squealing sound, and they all looked down at it, Fiji included. She pulled out her phone and said, “Hello?” Suddenly, she flushed from her throat to her eyes. “Oh, hi,” she said, and turned her back on Olivia and Manfred to walk briskly down the hall to her kitchen. They could still hear her, but she had the illusion of privacy, Manfred figured.

“Yeah, I had a good time, too,” she was saying, and Olivia raised her eyebrows. She glanced over at the pawnshop and back to Manfred. He shook his head vigorously. Whoever her caller was, it wasn’t Bobo Winthrop, which would have been wonderful.

“I’m pretty sure he would have told me,” Manfred whispered.

“What’s he futzing around for?” Olivia hissed. “She’s not gonna wait forever! A woman has needs!”

“Okay, I can do that,” Fiji was saying. “Then I’ll look forward to it. Sure, seafood is fine.” Her voice got louder as she apparently began walking back to the shop from the kitchen. “See you then.” And she was punching the “end” button on her phone as she rejoined them.

“Who’s the guy?” Olivia said. “Anyone we know?” Manfred admired Olivia’s perfectly light tone.

“You remember the bouncer at the Cartoon Saloon?”

“From when we all went there? Sure. The good-looking guy?”

“Yeah.” Fiji seemed a little proud of that. “So, I called him after a couple of weeks, because I was tired of staying at home.” That last was added a little defiantly. “And we’ve been going out from time to time.”

“Bouncers get nights off?” Manfred had no idea what a professional bouncer could expect in the way of downtime, but he felt he had to say something.

“He has a day job as an EMT during the week, and he’s a bouncer on weekends,” Fiji said. “We’re going to Little Fishes in Marthasville tomorrow night. And a movie.” She took a deep breath. “Back to the original problem. Sorry for the interruption.”

“If I were in an action movie,” Manfred said, after a long pause, “I’d put some of that plastic explosive on the door of the Goldthorpe house, blow it up, race in dodging bullets, and sweep all of the books out of the shelves in the library, so the first thing the police saw when they came in would be all the missing stuff.”

“I have no idea where to get plastique, I have no idea how to use it, I don’t know who would be shooting at you since no one’s living in the house, and we aren’t sure that the library is actually full of books, or that the jewelry is in one.” Olivia stood up. “If I had to check all the books, I’d pick an atlas first, because of the ‘world’ reference. This is getting us nowhere. I’m going to go walk and think.” She left.

“Ahhhh . . . okay,” Manfred said. He stretched and rotated, feeling stiff physically and full of cobwebs mentally. “When I come up with a plan, I’ll get back with you, Fiji. Thanks for letting us brainstorm here, even if nothing came of it . . . yet.”

Fiji, who had settled back into the office chair, didn’t budge. “All right. I’ll think about it, too. Maybe I’ll come up with something.”

“That would be great,” Manfred said. “What’s bad for me turns out to be bad for Midnight, too. Have a good time on your date.”

She nodded, and Mr. Snuggly appeared to jump into her lap and curl up in a contented golden ball. She scratched behind his ears. He began purring, loud enough for the sound to reach Manfred. For once, Mr. Snuggly sounded like an absolutely normal cat.

Manfred crossed the porch and walked down the flagstone path to the sidewalk. He was glad to leave Fiji’s shop because he was disappointed they hadn’t made a plan. As he crossed Witch Light Road, he admitted to himself that he was also dismayed that Olivia was not acting like Olivia ought to act—tough, callous, decisive. Fiji was behaving in a confusing way, too; they all knew (except the man most concerned) that for years she had carried a huge flaming torch for Bobo Winthrop, who regarded the witch as his best buddy. Yet she was
going out with the bouncer, whom Manfred remembered as a very tough guy.

To cap off Manfred’s unsettled feeling, when he stopped at the end of his driveway to open his mailbox, he found a bill from Magdalena Orta Powell. He opened it and winced when he saw the bottom line. He sat down at his computer to work with renewed dedication.
If I ever have to go to court over this,
he thought,
I might as well forget ever buying a new car. Or my own house.
He wondered what Magdalena’s house looked like. Perhaps the plumbing was made of gold.

Manfred reminded himself that while his car was humble, it was paid for, that he didn’t need a house, and that adding a room to the lawyer’s house was better than being in jail.

Much better.

J
oe went farther on his morning run than he’d ever gone. He enjoyed the quiet time for thinking, not that there was exactly a cacophony in Midnight or that Chuy’s conversation was not welcome. But sometimes the solitude of running was just what he needed. This morning, with the sun already blazing on his back, Joe was thinking of their little Peke, Rasta, and of all Rasta’s health problems. The dog was getting older, and Joe knew there would be hard times ahead. He and Chuy had not aged, or at least not that Joe could perceive, in many, many, years.

That didn’t mean they were invulnerable. Just as Joe was thinking of the previous week when Chuy had cut himself with a kitchen knife, Joe looked down, saw a rattlesnake right in front of him, and tried to leap sideways in midstride.

Joe realized three things as he lay by the side of the road. First, the snake had not been a diamondback at all, but a gopher snake. He still would not have wanted to tread on it, but it wouldn’t have
injected him with poison. Second, he had landed poorly and his ankle was hurting like a bitch. And third, there was no one coming in any direction.

“Okay,” Joe said out loud. “Okay. First, I have to sit up.” His palms and elbows were scraped and bleeding. That was minor but uncomfortable. Joe rolled onto his knees and pushed up. He glanced around for the snake, but it was gone.

Sometimes Joe saw a rancher or a commuter to Magic Portal on his morning run, but today was not one of those days. He hobbled back into Midnight, struggling not to say any of the words that popped into his head. The pain tempted him to break a promise he and Chuy had made to each other long ago. Joe looked up at the blue sky, at a vulture floating on the thermals far above, his wings spread wide. He took a deep breath, restraining himself. A promise was a promise. He limped on.

The first person to spot him was the boy Diederik, who was standing outside the Rev’s cottage. Diederik came running to Joe’s aid, seeming delighted to have something to do.

“You need help, yes?” the boy said.

“Yes,” Joe said. “I definitely need help.”

He found it was very easy to put his arm around the boy’s offered shoulder. The boy was almost as tall as Joe now.

“How are you feeling?” he asked Diederik, only realizing it was odd that he was the one asking the question as the words left his mouth.

“Very strange,” the boy said. “I feel like there are two people in me.”

Joe didn’t understand, but he didn’t have to, to see the boy’s distress. He said, “I know you miss your father.”

“He hoped to be back by now,” Diederik said, trying to sound matter-of-fact, but failing. “I don’t think he will be back in time.” They were making progress on the sidewalk, and they crossed the
road to the shop, Joe gasping with the effort. Diederik was feeling Joe’s weight after a few steps.

“The Rev’s trying hard to take good care of you,” Joe said.

“I miss my father and my mother,” Diederik said breathlessly. “But my father told me to be brave and he would return.”

Joe had no reply to that.

Chuy was reading a magazine at his workstation when Joe and Diederik made their awkward entrance, and his eyes widened as he looked from one to another.

“Mr. Joe saw a snake,” Diederik said simply. “And he fell down.”

“Pretty much in a nutshell,” Joe said, trying to smile.

“Let me see,” Chuy said, kneeling at Joe’s feet. Joe, feeling a little ridiculous—but also ridiculously glad to see Chuy—held out the injured limb. Chuy got the running shoe off quickly and as gently as possible, but the pulling and tugging made Joe gasp. The ankle was already discolored and swollen.

Chuy said, “I’ll run upstairs to get an ice pack.” His glance went over to Diederik. “And some clothes for the boy. For tomorrow.” He hurried out the front door to go up the outside stairs. Not for the first time, Joe reflected how nice it would be if their stairs were inside the building, like the ones in the pawnshop. He distracted himself by imagining the project. Maybe this winter . . . ?

Diederik moved restlessly, and Joe realized it was past time to get his weight off the boy. “Help me over to the chair,” Joe said. “We’ll both feel better.”

Diederik helped Joe into one of the manicure chairs. Joe didn’t want to collapse onto one of the antiques in his sweaty condition. And the plastic chair rolled, a huge plus. Following Joe’s directions, the boy wheeled the other manicure chair over to prop Joe’s foot on. Then Diederik regarded Joe with a fascinated gaze until Chuy returned, his arms full.

First, Chuy wrapped the injured ankle in a washcloth, then put cold packs around it and secured them with an elastic bandage. He gave Joe a bottle of water, some ibuprofen, and a hug. Then he handed a pair of his own shorts and a T-shirt to Diederik. “For tomorrow,” he said.

“I don’t think I can grow any more,” Diederik said. “I am almost as big as you gentlemen!” He smiled. “But I’m grateful for the clothes.”

If anything could distract Joe from the pain in his ankle, this was it. “He looked about eleven the day after he got here,” he whispered. “Now he could be fifteen.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Chuy said, his voice low. “Diederik, where is the Rev?” he said, in a louder tone.

“He is digging a grave,” the boy said. “I offered to do it for him, but he said I could take a walk, that it was his sacred duty. And Miss Fiji, she didn’t have anything for me to do this morning, and no more muffins or cookies.” He looked at Chuy hopefully.

“Oh,” Chuy said. “Hmmm. I’ve got some English muffins. You could have them with butter and jelly.”

“I’m always hungry,” Diederik said simply.

“Then you watch Joe while I go fix them.” Chuy went out the front door to mount the stairs again.

Joe’s ankle was subsiding to a dull throb now. He figured nothing was broken.

“Is everyone in Midnight like me?” Diederik said suddenly.

“No, only the Rev,” Joe said. He would have enjoyed some quiet, but the boy was too restless for that. “We’ve never seen anyone like you, either,” he added, his eyes closed while he shifted the chairs around in an attempt to be more comfortable. “You’re growing so fast. I’ve seen you look at Grady. Most kids grow like him, not like you.”

“Am I very—peculiar?” Diederik had to grope for a word that would fit. His accent was not as pronounced as it had been when
he’d first gotten to Midnight. In the few days he’d been in residence, his speech had grown, right along with everything else about him.

“Peculiar?” Joe thought about it. “No. Not in the sense of weird or bizarre. But I don’t think there are many like you around.”

Diederik fidgeted and finally went to seek out the broom and dustpan. He swept the already-clean area around Chuy’s workstation, and then the English muffins came downstairs borne by Chuy, along with a thermos of juice. Diederik fell on the muffins like he was starving, and he drank all the juice. He sat in one of the antique chairs very neatly and promptly fell asleep.

“Where’s Rasta?” Joe asked abruptly. The men exchanged startled glances.

“He was in here with me when you two came in!” Chuy leaped to his feet and began looking around. “You don’t think he got out when I went upstairs?”

“Maybe Mr. Snuggly sneaked in,” Joe said. Rasta and Mr. Snuggly had a long-running feud, though more often than not Rasta barked and danced around when Mr. Snuggly came near. He’d never hidden before.

Joe called, “Rasta! Here, boy!” with a kind of hushed urgency. He didn’t want to wake the boy.

They heard a pitiful whine.

“Look,” Chuy said, pointing to an old desk about ten feet away. A tiny face peered from behind the furniture, ears back.

“He’s scared,” Joe said, recognizing the look and attitude.

“Of what?”

Joe reached out a hand to touch Chuy’s arm. When Chuy looked down at him, Joe nodded toward the sleeping boy. “Him.”

They were thoughtful for a while. No one came into the store to disturb them, and the phone didn’t ring. None of the old people from
the hotel stopped by, which was something of a relief. Visits from the newcomers formed an increasingly frequent (and not always welcome) part of the day. The boy slept on. From time to time, he twitched in his sleep or his hand went to his face as if something about it bothered him.

“He’s like the Rev,” Joe said finally, so quietly Chuy had to strain to hear him.

“But the Rev is the only one left.”

“He thought so. What if he was wrong?”

“So the boy is about to . . .” Chuy’s eyes widened.

“Yes,” breathed Joe. “Go look on the computer.” Chuy left most of the electronic work to Joe, but he could search for a calendar as well as anyone.

“Full moon in three nights,” he said. “What can we do to get ready?”

Joe shrugged. “We can stay upstairs and bolt the door,” he said. They fell silent and looked at Diederik.