Inside the diner I saw him immediately and sat in the booth beside his, my back to his back. Arliss’s Diner was perfect: featureless and devoid of charm yet filled at this hour with the breakfast crowd who could work a full shift at the docks once they’d swallowed the marvel of Arliss’s five-dollar docker’s skillet washed down by her lusty unlimited coffee. Here we could talk quietly amid the din of morning and watch the sleet play havoc with the waking streets through scuffed plexiglas.
“This better be good,” said Dreisel.
“It is. At least for your tastebuds. They toss every fried thing in there you ever thought of.”
“You know what the fuck I mean. Ain’t here to eat.”
Suddenly I wasn’t hungry either. I found eye contact with a waitress and mimed a coffee with my pinkie raised, which made her smile. I was glad someone could still do that. Smile, I mean.
Caffeinated, I looked away from him anew and settled on sincerity.
“So we tailed Langstrom, and that was fine. Every day we saw him leave and return to his apartment.”
“Then why’re we talking about it here, fucko?”
Fucko? This man wasn’t stable.
“We’re discussing it here, jefe, because of one thing: when we checked out his apartment, it was never there.”
I felt him shift behind me and heard him slurp his coffee like a great beast at some tenuous waterhole between dry seasons, scowling at a blurred horizon.
“Go on,” he said.
“There was a door, but beyond it, nothing. We don’t know where he went when he came home. There was no home, just a door.”
He cleared his throat, finished the dark dregs of his cup, and somehow sent out vibes that would curdle your blood.
“You leave now. Next time we meet, you will tell me things that make sense. If you tell me things that don’t make sense, like now, everything will go badly for you. Now get the fucking fuck out of here.”
Something in me balked. No idea why or why then. Maybe the absence of grace in everything he did and everything he said. I’d worked for him a long time, and a long time is sometimes enough to nurture a coal of loathing. From across the greasy air, my waitress raised a brow, and I beckoned her with a nod. She came right away, and I saw her eyes skim the booths and see the boss. I could tell she felt it too.
Like the world had drawn a bow across some terrible vibrancy.
Dreisel wanted to move, ached to reassert himself, but the place was awash with life and sound and smells, and the peach-skin eastern light had snuck inside unnoticed.
“More coffee?” she asked, her ruby throat frail with hummingbird doubt.
“Yes. And bring me that docker’s skillet after all. I got me a sudden appetite.”