The Edge of Madness Cafe (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 2)

by Mark Reynolds

  Everything seemed to be different, as if the world had been standing still all this time, secured in a glass bubble where nothing changed but the fall of plastic snow. And now it was changing, revealing the telltale signs of beginnings and endings.

  “Ellen.”

  Serena stepped into the bookstore and closed the door behind her. “You’re just the person I was looking for.”

  * * *

  Arnold Prosser would have followed Ellen Monroe, learned what she was and how she managed to elude him for so long, maybe even killed her right there on the spot and been done with it.

  But circumstance intervened.

  He was met at the drifting hauler by a police officer who, upon establishing that it was in fact his rig blocking traffic, ordered him back into the truck to “move that goddamn thing” before he impounded it. He was forced to park back in the alley and listen while the officer lectured him on safety and leaving a running vehicle unattended. The speech was long and ended in a rather officious threat of arrest.

  The very idea was ludicrous, but the officer was ignorant to that fact; most were unaware of how close to death they came on a daily basis. And there was no point in making a scene. The Garbageman had five unscheduled pick-ups already; a scene would only make matters worse.

  A young man in a black pickup drove past, flipping him the bird. The man would die in a car accident—six years, three months, twelve days—slammed from behind by an angry driver and driven off the road, his chest crushed against the steering wheel because he didn’t like the government telling him to wear a seatbelt.

  A woman drove past in a champagne Lincoln, thanking the officer for his prompt assistance. She would die—eleven months, four days—from multiple strokes, the first causing her to fall and strike her head against the kitchen table, the next three in rapid succession as she lay upon the floor. The medical examiner would console her widowed husband, saying she went quickly. It was a lie.

  A woman in a red Camero yelled, “My taxes pay your salary, asshole.” Not true. She would die—seventeen years, one month, two days—from complications of Hepatitis-C; liver failure and an insurance carrier that would not support her lengthy stay on a donor list.

  Piss on ‘em. He was Arnold-fucking-Prosser, the Garbageman. What these people thought—that this gaggle of upright simians with their fucking opposable thumbs actually thought at all—was of no consequence to him whatsoever. All that mattered was finding the girl and restoring order to the universe.

  The officer’s speech dragged on, threatening arrest, suspension of license, the whole ball of spit. Arnold endured with indifference. The officer’s breath smelled of syphilis. He apparently lacked the simple sense to cover his cock before pumping a freebie from the hookers he shook down. Well, she would have the last laugh; that he knew.

  He was Arnold Prosser.

  He was the Garbageman.

  After nearly fifteen minutes, the police officer ended the tongue-lashing and sent him off with a final verbal rebuke to the regards of public safety. “It won’t ‘appen again, officer,” Arnold Prosser told him. “A momentary lapse of reason. You won’t see no more trouble from me.”

  That, at least, was true.

  The police officer returned to his squad car and waited. Arnold pulled slowly into traffic, making sure to use his turn signal and allow plenty of space. He looked in his sideview mirror as the first pins and needles of pain struck the officer’s left arm and shoulder. A few seconds later, it settled squarely in his chest, and it wasn’t pins and needles anymore; it was railroad spikes. He passed quietly behind the wheel of his parked cruiser, and he never saw any more trouble from Arnold Prosser.

  Syphilis took too fucking long.

  The Garbageman drove purposefully towards Dabble’s Books, looking for the girl from Freddy Kohler’s mind. He entertained no real hope of finding her after all that wasted time, but he was looking all the same. He didn’t know the girl’s name, and he wasn’t sure he much cared to. It was enough that he knew what she was.

  Simply put, she was something that did not belong. Knowing who she was, how she got here, or even why she had come at all, hardly mattered. She did not belong.

  He was the Garbageman. He disposed of things that did not belong.

  She was the important piece of the puzzle. She was the key. She knew Frederick Kohler. She lived in the building where he found two unscheduled pick-ups; it couldn’t be by chance. And then there was her smell, that mix of aromas that told him what others disavowed knowledge of, affirming his suspicions, hardening his resolve. Besides the oily aroma of the doctor—if Freddy’s little cousin had lived past nineteen, she might have resembled that stripling of a girl—he smelled Nicholas Dabble; the old salt-licker had had his sites on this girl. As had Serena. And both had noticeably failed to mention this little cherry tart. Did they think he was stupid? Did they think he wouldn’t find out? That they could fool him? Him? The Garbageman?

  But she worried him also, this little stripling, this trespasser. There was something else on her, something harder to explain. She had looked at him; she had looked right at him! And she hadn’t been afraid. He had scared her, sure, all bluster and ranting. But she had looked right into his eyes and she hadn’t been afraid. She had sand. What bothered him was what desert that sand came from, and whether or not it was the color of bone.

  And the smell about her! Untainted, an aroma of innocence with just the hint of vanilla. It was wrong. It was all wrong. It shouldn’t be here. Not here on this side. It contaminated the order, it corrupted the design, and every moment it existed it threatened everything—everything! Dammit all to hell—that he stood for.

  He turned the hauler down the alleyway that ran beside Dabble’s Books. No matter, he thought. He knew who the girl was now. It was the one piece that he didn’t have this morning; the one piece that would allow him to put that pompous prig into the ground, to twist his spine like a fucking rubber-band, to tear off his head and drink from his goddamned skull. He would settle things. He would see to Dabble. Then he would see to the girl. Then everything would be right.

  He would set matters straight, no question.

  He was Arnold Prosser, the Garbageman.

  * * *

  “You’re looking much better today, Ellen,” Serena said conversationally. “Did you try my tea?”

  Ellen noted an edge to the woman’s tone that suggested she might already know the answer, asking more from a sense of formality. “Yes, thank you. It worked so well I don’t exactly remember when I fell asleep. It almost made me late for work.”

  Serena nodded. “I noticed you weren’t in for your usual cup of coffee.” The proprietor of the coffee shop leaned closer, her voice a whisper meant to conceal her remark from Nicholas Dabble. “I thought maybe you had taken the reins and left town; run from that charlatan doctor of yours. Tell me you won’t go back to him, Ellen.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no chance of that.”

  “Good for you. You look a whole self better than yesterday when we talked. Actually, that’s why I came to see you.”

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t know as it makes any difference, seeing as how you’ve decided to break with that doctor of yours, but you left your prescription over at the café yesterday.”

  Ellen started. “I’d completely forgotten about that.”

  “Apparently, so did I. I found it last night while cleaning up. Tea was spilled on it. The ink bled straight out of the paper. I’m afraid it’s ruined; I had to throw it away. I’m sorry.”

  Ellen shook her head. “Don’t be. I don’t want it.”

  “Still, I feel I may have interfered. If you had chosen to stay with this doctor, where would you be then? I was meddling, and I shouldn’t have.”

  “I asked you for advice. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “You’re kind. I imagine that’s what he likes about you.” Instead of explaining her remark, she said, “I’d like to make it up to you. Join me
tomorrow for tea, just a quiet little get-together. Is one-thirty all right?”

  Ellen felt an objection rise in her throat, an excuse about nothing of any consequence. She couldn’t have tea tomorrow; she had to work.

  But her objection went unvoiced, whisked away by Serena’s gaze, her polite mannerisms disguising a woman who would not be deterred by anyone, who had never heard the word no, and would not oblige if she did. Ellen suddenly felt like she was moving, a passenger aboard a speeding train; too late to jump off, all she could do was hang on for the ride, the doors locked, the windows sealed, the engineer mad or missing, and the conductor some genteel woman with enchanting eyes, a brewer of her own teas.

  Serena turned to address her concerns with Nicholas Dabble—concerns she herself had never voiced, her tongue frozen to the bottom of her mouth. “Nicholas, would it be all right if I stole Ellen away from you tomorrow? I would like to have her for tea at 1:30. You won’t need her after that time, will you?”

  Nicholas Dabble nodded mildly, seemingly considering Serena’s request without actually considering it. When he finally answered, it was only a matter of course. “She’s welcome to an afternoon off if she would like.”

  “Splendid. Ellen, I’ll see you tomorrow, 1:30 sharp. Just come to the shop. I live right above it.”

  Ellen nodded dumbly.

  “Wonderful.”

  There was a pounding on the backdoor as if someone were beating upon the wood with his fist. Dabble looked up, not altogether surprised.

  After a moment, the pounding repeated, this time more loudly. Ellen jerked at the noise, startled by the intrusion upon the bookstore’s silence. She looked to her boss, but his eyes seemed far away. She looked back at Serena.

  “That would be the wolf knocking at your door, Nicky,” Serena said mildly.

  Nicholas Dabble gave her nonsensical remark a sideways glare that came off petulant and empty.

  And again, there was pounding, the caller refusing to be ignored. He would simply pound and wait, pound and wait, pound and wait. Eventually, Ellen thought, the bookstore would collapse under the assault the way a mountain finally crumbles under the siege of time and wind and the elements.

  That, or Nicholas Dabble would answer the door.

  “Is everything all right, Mr. Dabble?” Ellen asked, amazed at how her voice sounded in the emptiness between poundings, a barely audible whisper, her voice betraying concern and leaving her speaking empty breath like the pleas of a church mouse.

  Dabble turned on his way to the door, caught only the edge of her eye, and looked quickly away. “Yes… and no.”

  “Should I… should I call someone?”

  A kind of half-smile twisted at his mouth then tangled into a grimace. She thought the question seemed to strike him as humorous, if she wasn’t mistaken. “No, this is a personal matter, and time it was settled.”

  * * *

  Dabble found Arnold Prosser standing in the alleyway still wearing the same denim coveralls from this morning, the same coveralls he always wore. The Garbageman loathed change like he loathed fair guises; he came at you straight.

  Lies and deceit were Dabble’s bailiwick.

  He closed the door tightly behind himself, a very careful and deliberate gesture not missed by Arnold Prosser, and never once took his eyes off the Garbageman. No, that absolutely would not do. Not at this stage of the game. “What can I do for you, Arnold?”

  “I was afraid I’d ‘ave to bash your door down, Dabble. Whatsa matter, salt-licker? Wax in yer ears? Didn’t ‘ear me knockin’?”

  “I heard,” Dabble replied coolly.

  “No, you musta ‘ad wax in your ears, Nicky, ‘cause otherwise you woulda ‘eard me earlier today when I asked you if you were hidin’ anything from me. You woulda ‘eard me and you woulda told me the truth instead o’ lyin’ ta me like ya did. So it musta been wax, eh Nicky?”

  “Quit playing, Arnie. You’re no good at it. If you have something to say, stop strutting about my back alley and spit it out.”

  If Nicholas had slapped him, Arnold Prosser could not have looked more furious. “Alright Dabble, if that’s the way you want it. You wanna shoot straight; we shoot straight.”

  Nicholas folded his arms over his chest and nodded. “From the hip.”

  Arnold Prosser took the thick work gloves from his hands and threw them aside, then pointed sharply at Dabble. “You got something o’ mine that you’re keeping from me.”

  “Really, Arnold? And what would that be?”

  “Don’t be fuckin’ sassy with me, you two-bit used car salesman. You know damn well what it is, so don’t you be pretendin’ you don’t.”

  “Something of yours, Arnold? I confess I’m a little confused. How could something of yours have found its way into my hands? Doesn’t that seem a little … unusual?”

  “Unusual, my ass. It’s impossible. Somethin’s fuckin’ with the order of the universe ‘ere, Dabble, and you know what the fuck it is. You’ve known all along, and you’ve been trying to hide it from me.”

  “Stop bleating esoteric notions about order and design, Arnold; you know I find your obsession trifling. It’s an unattractive trait that keeps you home on Saturday nights with nothing but your impure thoughts and your left hand.”

  Dabble saw Prosser’s attack; he was in no position to defend himself, but he saw it. It was more than most could expect. One moment Prosser was standing there, face reddening, neck scarlet and bulging with rage, and the next Dabble felt his face explode with pain, his head snapping back suddenly, looking at the sky. Knees weakened, he wobbled a step before regaining his balance, one hand already touching the blaze of pain that set fire to his lips and cheek. There was a delicate red stain upon his hand when he drew it away, tiny lines of crimson painted into the swirls of his flesh.

  Arnold Prosser had hit him!

  Now you know how much this means to him, old man. How much does it mean to you?

  “That was ta get your attention, salt-licker,” the Garbageman snarled. “We said straight and that means straight. No lies and no fancying about with things that aren’t part o’ what we’re doing ‘ere. Now I’m gonna give you just one more chance to come clean with me. You know what’s going on, an’ ‘ave from the start. You got some little strip of a girl working in your store that ain’t supposed to be there. And when I say she ain’t supposed to be there, I mean she ain’t supposed to exist at all. She don’t belong here. She wasn’t born which means she can’t die, and that means she doesn’t belong.”

  “Just a lost soul looking for a home,” Dabble supplied, and spat a gobbet of blood upon the ground between them.

  Arnold’s eyes sparkled darkly. “That’s right. A lost soul lookin’ for a home. See, you do know what I’m talkin’ about. More importantly, who I’m talking about.”

  “This morning, you came sniffing around for something that had to do with some unscheduled pickups. Why should I assume that my assistant had—?”

  The Garbageman’s response lifted Dabble off his feet, and sent him crashing into the backdoor, the blow nearly splintering the wood at his back. Nicholas tumbled upon the steps, facedown in the alleyway and staring at Arnold Prosser’s hardened leather boots.

  “That’s two, Nicky. If I get to three and you’re still givin’ me shit, I’ll put you out. You get me, you miserable little piece o’ snake shit. I’ll … put … you … OUT! No more fucking’ around. No more games. I will end your sorry existence once and for all. You may be prince o’ the nines here on this ball o’ dirt, but in my sphere, you don’t count for crap. Damned or saved, it makes no difference to me, you know. They’re all mine in the end. You get that? Do you comprehend what that means for the likes o’ you?”

  Nicholas Dabble climbed slowly to his feet, eyes hardening. But the Garbageman wasn’t done yet.

  “Your whole purpose, your very existence, is of no consequence to me whatsoever. I win either way. So you keep giving me guff, and I relieve myself of my problem righ
t now, and put you out of my way. Is that clear enough for you, Nick? Are you startin’ to see the light?”

  Dabble straightened, fingers curling, muscles tightening. The next time the Garbageman crossed the line, he would find Nicholas Dabble waiting on the other side. The time for games was over!

  “Now crawl back in that hole of yours, and bring out that little girl,” Arnold Prosser said, unimpressed. “She’s mine and you know it. She was always mine; she just never realized it.”

  “And neither did you, I gather.”

  Arnold Prosser looked at the other with a measuring stare, mouth cocked in a half-grin. “Slippery, Dabble. Very slippery. No, I didn’t realize she was missin’. Sometimes they slip my notice for a while. But not forever. Not even for long. They give themselves away. Five unscheduled pickups, and all of ‘em have her smell about ‘em. I wouldn’t ‘ave found ‘er so quickly, but fer you and Serena chummin’ around with her, mixing your fucking karma up with hers. That was stupid, Dabble. Real stupid.”

  “Actually, she’s mine,” Dabble said, knowing it would upset the Garbageman and no longer of a mind to care. Serena had said she would fix this, and maybe she would yet. But if she didn’t hurry, he might just fix it for both of them—for good! “I found her first and I hold a legitimate claim upon her. If you want her, you’ll have to buy out my share. But I won’t just walk away.”

  Prosser simply looked at him, eyes wide, mouth a small “O” of amusement. “I musta hit you harder than I thought, Nicky. I’ve obviously scrambled your brains. Let me make this perfectly plain so that there won’t be any misunderstanding. Walk your bony ass back inside, take that little stripling by the shoulders, and usher her out the backdoor to me, then walk the fuck away. I’m restoring the order of the universe, dammit! She’s not meant to be here. She’s not meant to be alive. Every second she spends on this side of the river is another moment closer to complete and total annihilation. How long do you think the universe can hold up under a paradox like ‘er?”

  This time, it was Arnold Prosser who was caught off-guard. The stocky little man was hurled backwards into the side of his hauler, the metal echoing a loud clang as Arnold crashed against it. When the Garbageman looked back, shaking the dazed expression from his face, Dabble was already positioned between him and the back entrance, arms at his sides, palms open, fingers spread. “Ellen Monroe is not going with you, Arnie. If you knew me half so well as you think, you’d know I thrive on chaos and annihilation.”