Ducking behind the glass counter, Sam yelled, “No! You are supposed to be asleep. Sleep!”
The dust fell to the ground in a pile in the now-empty center of the room.
After a moment, the gray grit swirled again, but this time in a vertical cone, soon taking the shape of a man. It condensed and solidified into Ping, with a look of shock on his face.
“What happened?” Ping said.
Sam kicked remains of pumpkin pie off his shoe and said, “I’m not sure, but I think I prompted that dragon inside you to go back to sleep.”
CHAPTER 9
Sam pulled a chair out of the mound of furniture blown up against the wall and walked it to the empty floor of the bakery’s public area in front of the counter. He set it down and returned to the periphery of the room to grab another. As he walked back and forth, setting up tables and chairs, he kicked green flyers out of his path that had blown off the counter. Ping pushed a mop in a yellow bucket on wheels through the swinging doors and started to clean up pumpkin pie filling that had splattered the floor.
“There doesn’t appear to be any permanent damage,” Sam said. “Luckily, with the rain coming down like it is, foot traffic has been slow.”
“Yes, it is fortunate no customers were here,” Ping said distractedly as he mopped.
“What was that all about? I thought you had a deal worked out with the dragon. He was supposed to sleep until you died, and then he could have your body. That was the dragon, right? It wasn’t my imagination.”
“I think so. Maybe it was the equivalent of tossing and turning in your sleep or a nightmare.”
“Has that happened before?”
“No. I’m always aware that he’s here, but nothing physical like that has occurred since we fused during the battle with Mara in Oregon City.”
“Well, let’s hope he doesn’t start sleepwalking or something,” Sam said, putting the last chair back in place. He looked up to see Ping staring at him with a look of panic.
“You don’t think that will happen do you?” Ping said.
“How would I know?”
“You said you prompted him to go back to sleep.”
“Yeah, that’s when the whole scene ended.”
“So we have some way of dealing with it if it becomes an issue.”
“Maybe. It could have been a coincidence that it ended when I yelled. My prompting might not have been what caused it to stop at all. I didn’t interact enough with him to get a sense of that. Anyway you realize that, even if I did prompt him, the effect would only be temporary. It’s not like I can solve the problem, if there is a problem.”
“We’ll have to wait and see.” Ping leaned forward and wrung out the mop, then turned and pushed the bucket back through the swinging doors.
Sam wove between the tables, bending over and picking up the flyers and other loose papers that had blown to the floor. While he struggled to pull one from under a table leg, he heard the front door open. Someone rustled an overcoat, apparently shaking off the rain. Once Sam got the paper out from under the table leg, he looked up to see a burly bald man in a trench coat standing in the glass doorway, surveying the bakery. He looked annoyed.
Sam straightened and said, “Hi, can I help you?”
“Yeah, tell me what happened to the ceramics store.” His annoyance looked like it was turning to anger.
“Mr. Ping decided that he would rather have a bakery. Kinda cool, huh?”
“Not how I would characterize it, young man. Where’s Ping?”
“He’s in the back. Are you sure there’s not something I can get for you? We’ve got some fresh Danishes—just came out of the oven this morning.”
“Tell Ping that he’s got a visitor who would like to talk to him.”
“Can I tell him who—”
“That’s not your concern, young man. Go get Ping.”
Sam turned, walked behind the counter and pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Ping stood in front of a bank of ovens, bending between open doors removing a rack.
“More pies?” Sam said.
Ping smiled and said, “Pumpkin. Customers have been requesting them. We’re only two weeks from Thanksgiving. Have you ever had a Thanksgiving dinner before?”
“Where I come from we didn’t have a lot to give thanks for.”
“All that’s changed, hasn’t it? I’ll give you a slice of pie after they cool down.”
From the front of the store a growl reverberated, “Ping!”
Sam jutted his head back toward the doors and said, “There’s a guy out there who wants to see you. He doesn’t look too happy.”
Ping wiped his hands and walked into the front of the store. The man stood at the end of the counter, looking as if he were about to stomp into the back of the bakery. He held his place as Ping cleared the doors and said to him, “There you are.”
“How can I help you, sir?”
“Ping, it’s me, Carl.”
“I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“What are you trying to pull, Ping? It’s me, Carl Galinsky. I was driving by, and I noticed the ceramics place is gone. Vandy’s not going to be real happy when he hears. What’s going on?”
“If you are looking for a ceramics store, I’ve got the card of another establishment back in the office. Give me a minute, and I’ll get it.” He turned to go into the back.
“I don’t need another ceramics store. I need to know what happened to this one. Why is there a friggin’ bakery where my boss’s ceramics store is supposed to be?”
“I think there is some confusion here. This is my business. I don’t have a partner.”
The man rolled his shoulders, puffed out his chest and pulled up his belt. “I think Mr. Vanderberg is going to think differently.” He leaned across the counter to get into Ping’s face. “Look, you’ve got a choice to make. You can tell me what you’re up to now, or you can wait until Vandy tells me to pull it out of you. It’s up to you.”
Ping’s face flushed. “I’m sorry, um, Mr. Galinsky, but I don’t know anyone named Vandy. So, unless you’re going to buy a cake or some Danishes, I’m going to ask you to leave.”
Galinsky’s jaw flexed several times as he stared back, trying to figure out how to respond.
Ping subtly leaned away from him.
Slapping his hands down on the counter, Galinsky said, “Your call, Ping. I hope for your sake the inventory at the warehouse is accounted for.” He turned and walked out the door.
Ping didn’t move, only watched after him. He heard the light shoosh of the swinging doors behind him. Sam stuck his head out and asked, “Is it okay to come out?”
“Yes, he’s gone,” Ping said over his shoulder.
Sam stepped out with a soggy, steaming brown lump in his hand. “What was that all about?”
“I’m not sure. It appears there may have been more going on with my business interests than I had anticipated.”
“It’s your business. What right does that guy have to tell you what to do with it?”
“Again I’m not sure. I went over all the paperwork before I shut down the ceramics store. There was no mention of a partner. Of course my counterpart could have had arrangements that were, shall we say, off-the-books.”
“You mean, something illegal?”
“Or perhaps something everyone wanted to keep private for some reason.”
Sam licked at his dripping hands. “Sounds like it could be a mess, especially that part about the warehouse.”
“Yes, a steaming big brown mess. Sort of like that pumpkin pie you have mauled.”
“It’s kind of runny, but it tastes good.”
“You have to let it cool before you eat it.”
“Sorry, I guess I jumped the gun.”
“I think I may have as well.”
CHAPTER 10
A bell jangled with a loud rattle as Mara opened the front door to Mason Fix-it Shop. She hopped across the threshold, shook the rain from her jacket and to
ssed back her hood. She turned, flipped the Open sign in the door’s window to face outward and reached for the light switch. As the main room of the little shop illuminated, she noticed the flicker of the stained-glass light fixture suspended over the front counter. The word Billiards winked from it several times before staying lit. She’d have to switch out the bulbs soon.
Hanging her wet jacket on the antique coat tree in the corner to the right of the door, her gaze swept the shop, making sure everything was in its place. Old lamps, reel-to-reel tape recorders, typewriters, assorted kitchen appliances and other gadgets filled the shelves and covered every wall of the little shop. Antique alarm clocks sporting huge ringers, alongside pocket watches, locket watches, plain wristwatches and electronics—such as calculators the size of bricks—were neatly displayed in a lit glass counter to the left of the door.
At the end of the display case, a wooden counter, Mara’s work space, featured an antique bronze cash register and an old black rotary-dial telephone off to one side. Behind the counter, a collection of lit neon signs advertised soft drinks, beer and cigarettes, hanging among cuckoo clocks and wall-mounted telephones. Mara looked past all those potential distractions and locked onto the cathedral radio sitting on a shelf next to the clocks. It was the Philco 90—actually the empty casing for a Philco 90 that Ping had employed to trick her into using her metaphysical abilities for the first time. A thin layer of dust accumulated across its arched wooden top. She needed to dust as well as change out some bulbs.
From the back of the shop came a shout. “Mara, that you out there?” It was Bruce Mason, the grandson of the shop’s owner who ran the bicycle repair business out of the rear of the gadget repair shop.
“Hi, Bruce, it’s me.”
“Some guy called earlier—named Bowhammer or something like that. He had a southern accent. He wants you to call him back. He wouldn’t leave a message, but it sounded like he really wanted you to call him.”
“Bohannon? Was his name Bohannon?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Oh, and Abby says she stopping by a little later to see you.”
Mara smiled. “I don’t think it’s me that she’s stopping by to see.”
“She did drop a hint that she was available for lunch.”
“Abby doesn’t hint.”
Bruce walked out front, wiping his hands on a rag. “No, she doesn’t. Actually she pretty much asked me to lunch. I get the impression she’s been angling to go out since we went on that bike ride.”
“She doesn’t angle either, Bruce.”
“I don’t mind hanging out, but I don’t want to give her the wrong impression, you know? I mean, she’s still in high school and all.”
“You need to be up-front with her. Abby doesn’t mince words, and she doesn’t pick up hints, so you need to be blunt back at her. Don’t worry. She won’t get her feelings hurt, and she’ll respect you more for saying what you mean.”
Bruce turned to go back to “his garage” as he called it. Over his shoulder he said, “I don’t know. Being blunt isn’t one of my strong suits.”
“Give it a shot. If I have to, I can wave her off,” Mara said.
The bell over the front door jangled, and Sam walked in. “Hey, Mar, you got a sec to talk?”
Mara reached into her jeans pocket, grabbed her keys and tossed them to him. “If you run out to my car and get the sewing machine and the bag of parts next to it while I get a till for the register, I’ll be able to talk for a minute.”
“Deal,” he said and walked out.
Mara went into the small office in the far end of the shop, removed a tray of cash from the safe and returned to the front as Sam pushed through the front door with his backside, carrying a wood case in both hands and holding a canvas bag against his side with one elbow. He waddled across the floor to the counter, struggling to keep the bag from slipping while balancing the machine.
“You can let the bag drop. You won’t break anything,” Mara said.
It dropped with a thunk. Sam straightened and set the sewing machine on the counter. “It’s got a little heft to it,” he said.
“That’s actually a half-weight antique model. It’s called a 1940c Harris hand-crank sewing machine. It’s porcelain, and it’s driven manually, not electrically. It’s very cool. I can’t wait to work on it.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Why don’t people get a computerized model or, better yet, buy their clothes online, and save the time and hassle?”
“Sewing is a craft, an artistic expression. Using a simple mechanical device like this connects a person to the work in a way that pressing a bunch of buttons can’t. Haven’t you ever had a hobby?”
“Nothing that involved cranking an old machine.”
“So what do you want to talk about? And please tell me it isn’t Dad.”
“It’s not about Dad. It’s—”
“And why aren’t you at Mrs. Zimmerman’s getting educated?”
“I’m on my way over to her house right now. Now can I tell you what I came here to tell you without getting the third degree?”
“Did you tell Ping I wanted to talk to him?”
“Yes, now shut up and let me speak. I have to get going.”
“Speak.” Mara smiled.
“Ping seems to be having trouble with his, I guess you would call it, his inner dragon.”
“What do you mean?” Mara leaned forward.
“He kind of blew up into a cloud of dust like he does, and then it sort of started to look like a dragon.” Sam turned and walked to the door. “Thought you should be aware, you know, in case it becomes an issue.”
“Wait!” Mara said.
Sam stopped with his hand on the doorknob.
“Ping said the dragon was sleeping. That was the deal. The dragon sleeps until Ping dies, then the dragon gets to have his body.”
“So you guys told me. Looks like there might be some hitches in the plan. Talk to Ping about it. I really have to go.” Sam opened the door, turned back and said, “Oh, you should probably ask him about the gangster-looking guy who stopped by this morning. That might be a problem too.” The door closed with a rattle and a jangle from the bell above.
Mara opened her mouth to call him back but stopped herself. “Great. Sam’s got Daddy issues. Ping’s got dragon issues, and Abby’s got Bruce issues. I’m not even an hour into my workday.” She took a deep breath and decided to focus on the sewing machine. She slid it across the counter and unlatched the cover when the black rotary phone rang. She grabbed the receiver and slipped it to her ear, raising her shoulder to hold it in place while she continued opening the sewing machine case. “Thanks for calling Mason Fix-It. This is Mara. How can I help you?”
“I figured the old phone at that gadget place didn’t have a screen with my name popping up on it, so you’d be most likely to answer,” the caller on the other end said.
“Detective Bohannon. I’ve been meaning to get back to you,” Mara said, setting aside the lid to the sewing machine.
“It’s been a couple weeks. I thought you promised to explain things to me after the incident out at the office park near the airport. We’ve got a lot of open cases around here—passengers of that flight of yours who have disappeared and other strange goings-on.”
“Last I heard, you had a couple broken legs and would be laid up for a while. I didn’t think there was a lot of urgency getting back to you since you would be out for a while.”
“Turns out one broken leg. The other was a bad bruise and a sprained ankle. I’m moving around with a cast and crutches now. I want to come by and talk later today.”
“Jeez, I don’t know, Detective. I’m kind of slammed around here. Mr. Mason still hasn’t come back to work, and it’s been kind of crazy.”
“Listen, Ms. Lantern, we’ve got a host of strange reports. Now you and I can have a nice private conversation, or I can tell my lieutenant to start sending investigators over to talk to you. You’ll probably have a dozen of them over in that sho
p within a couple hours.”
“Please don’t do that. There’s nothing I can do to help with most of that.”
“I want to understand what is going on. I want to know what happened at the office park a couple weeks ago, why Suter turned into a monster and attacked us. Maybe if I know what’s happening, I can help steer things in the right direction around here.”
“I know I promised, but—”
“Talk to me, or get prepared to spend the next couple months in an interrogation room downtown.”
“Look, I can tell you everything I understand about this whole mess, but you’re not going to believe it, so why waste the time?”
“Let me worry about that. All you need to do is be honest with me. After seeing Suter turn into a fire-breathing nightmare, you’d be surprised at what I will believe.”
Mara sighed, and her shoulders dropped. “Okay. I need to get some work done today. Can you get over here to the shop about six o’clock this evening?”
“I’ll be there.”
“I’m assuming it will be all right with you if Mr. Ping joins us? He might be able to explain some of this stuff better than me.”
“Fine by me.”
“I’ll ask him to come by.” She hung up and absentmindedly turned the hand crank on the antique sewing machine. The needle slowly slid up and down as she turned the round wheel. “Great, the only things I can fix without a thought are the things that I really want to work on.”
CHAPTER 11
Mara cranked away at the little wheel mounted on the right side of the black porcelain sewing machine. The needle jogged up and down, punching through the edge of the canvas bag, dragging the black thread through the material, creating a row of perfect stitches that sealed the top closed. At the client’s home, when she had picked up the device, it would not crank, and the needle was jammed up somehow. Now it worked perfectly, and all Mara had done was move it and unpack it. It had been weeks since she had physically repaired something. Now, it seemed, all she had to do was touch a broken device, and it would repair itself. It was taking all the fun out of her job. She’d have to ask Ping what to do about it.
Broken Souls (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 2) Page 5
