Day Shift

by Charlaine Harris

  There was a lull in the conversation, during which they all took a step back from being upset.

  Manfred said, “Olivia, didn’t you tell me that you were looking for a desk for your apartment?”

  Olivia took the cue. “Thanks for reminding me. Joe, I do need a desk, if one comes in that’s not too fragile or pricey.”

  “I did get a fauxtique desk yesterday,” Joe said, smiling. “Probably from the nineteen sixties and very sturdy. I don’t know if we could get it down the stairs to your place, though. We’d have to come around to the side, take it straight in the east door. . . .”

  They embarked on a technical discussion about moving the desk.

  “Maybe I can use my high school math skills for once,” Manfred said. “I knew there was a reason I had to take it.”

  They were able to have a decent dinner together, though Manfred became distracted by trying to figure out another plan. He yearned to be out from under his situation the way a man in the desert yearns to spot a palm tree.

  Olivia elbowed him when he was thinking vaguely about suing Lewis for slander. Or some other defamation. “What?” he asked her.

  There was a stranger inside the doorway.

  “That’s Mr. Big Eyes, Shorty Horowitz’s grandson,” she said.

  The stranger waited to be seated, and Manfred called, “Just take a seat anywhere. Madonna or the kid will be with you in a second.” He nodded and took one of the tables for two along the front wall. Unfortunately, it was the Rev’s table.

  “Any one but that one!” Olivia said. He raised his eyebrows and pointed to the one nearest the door. They all nodded.

  Olivia muttered, “I could kick myself. I should have thought that at him, to see if he’d react. I know he heard me thinking about how pretty his eyes are, at the hotel.”

  The man was looking down at his silverware rather pointedly.

  “He can hear my thoughts,” she said to Manfred.

  Joe and Chuy had gone to the counter to talk to Madonna for a moment, while the new boy was coming to their booth with the credit card and charge slip.

  “I’ve met a person who could do that, before,” Manfred said.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not at all.” Manfred signed the slip and got out of the booth to walk to the newcomer’s table. Mr. Big Eyes looked up, unsurprised.

  “Hi,” Manfred said. He hesitated. “Do you, by any chance, know a waitress in Louisiana? Works in a bar in a little town called Bon Temps?”

  The difference in the newcomer’s face was comical. He looked startled, alarmed, and panicky in quick succession. “Why do you want to know?” he said, with unconvincing indifference.

  “Because I know her, too, and my friend here believes you share a trait with her.”

  Olivia, who’d been right on his heels, stepped up to Manfred’s side.

  “I’m Olivia Charity,” she said. “I hear you’re Shorty Horowitz’s grandson?”

  “Your buddies told you,” the newcomer said. He was tall and lean, and he looked as if he’d spent a lot of his life looking behind him and around corners, waiting for an attack. “Yeah, I’m Rick Horowitz.”

  “Manfred Bernardo.” Manfred held out his hand, and somewhat reluctantly, Rick shook it. When he let Manfred’s hand go, he looked a little surprised.

  “So you do know Sookie,” he said. “You’re a friend?”

  “Yes, I am,” Manfred said. “Olivia, I’ll tell you about her someday.”

  “Is everyone in this town different?” Rick said, keeping his voice low.

  Manfred smiled. “Brother, you have no idea,” he said. “If you’re going to be in town for a few days, drop in to see me. You can’t spend your whole time in the hotel.”

  Olivia said, “We don’t see too many new faces here, Rick.”

  The newcomer looked from one of them to the other. He seemed to come to a conclusion. “Please,” he said. “If we’re going to know each other beyond saying hello, you can call me Barry.”

  Rick—or rather, Barry—told Manfred he’d visit the next morning. He’d glanced down at his cell phone at a weather screen, and then told them he needed to order.

  “You have somewhere to be tonight,” Manfred said.

  “Not exactly,” Barry said. “I don’t stay out after sunset in Texas.”

  They both regarded him with some astonishment. When he didn’t expand on this statement, Manfred said, “Sure. Well, see you around.” With the new busboy hovering to take Barry’s order, they waved and left Home Cookin.

  “Doesn’t stay out after sunset in Texas?” Olivia muttered to Manfred as they walked home.

  “I don’t blame him,” Manfred said. “I think he’s vampire-phobic.”

  “Just in Texas?”

  “He hasn’t told us the whole truth about anything but that. He’s really worried about vampires. I guess it’s lucky Lemuel isn’t around.”

  Olivia obviously disagreed, but she said, “There aren’t any other vampires in a two-hundred-mile radius of Midnight. Did you know that? This Rick, rechristened Barry, might be glad to hear it.”

  “No,” Manfred said, very surprised. “I never realized . . . well, okay. Interesting. Listen, what do you think of asking this new guy to step into Joe’s place in your plan?”

  “You have that much confidence in him after knowing him for ten minutes?”

  “Would you quit your bitching? Who else are we going to find?”

  To Manfred’s surprise, she laughed. “I wish I could think of someone. You’re chipper all of a sudden.”

  “It’s interesting having someone new in town,” he said. “And I think you’re right. From what I get from him, I’m almost certain he’s a telepath, so that’s even more interesting. Kind of unnerving, though.”

  “To have someone know what you’re thinking? Damn straight, it’s unnerving. Did I understand you were telling him you knew another telepath? You kept that one close to your chest.”

  “You have more secrets than I do.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  Manfred laughed again. “I haven’t heard anyone say that in years.”

  “My grandmother . . .” But then Olivia clamped down on whatever she’d thought of telling him, somewhat to Manfred’s disappointment.

  “Too many people know too much here, anyway,” she muttered. “I have to take over the pawnshop now.” She hurried up the front steps of the pawnshop and the CLOSED sign flipped over to OPEN.

  Bobo popped out of Midnight Pawn almost as soon as Olivia went in. “Hey, buddy,” he said easily. “I’m just about to go grab some supper before Home Cookin closes. Sometimes Madonna doesn’t want Dillon around anymore, so she sends him home.”

  “Dillon?”

  “Dillon Braithwaite. The new kid. The waiter.”

  “Only you would know his name,” Manfred said.

  “You didn’t ask him who he was?” Bobo seemed surprised and a little reproachful.

  “Never occurred to me,” Manfred said with absolute honesty. “I’d never do that in a city, so I never thought of doing it here.”

  “Well . . . gosh.” Bobo shook his head and hurried off to get some food. From Dillon the waiter.

  As he stopped by his mailbox and retrieved a hefty bundle of envelopes, Manfred wondered if his lack of curiosity about the boy made him a bad person. Did he routinely ignore waitstaff? He shrugged. He couldn’t work up a lot of concern about it.

  From the size of the bundle, Manfred did realize he hadn’t opened his mail in a couple of days. He sat at his desk, conveniently handy to a trash basket, to sort through it. He pitched several ads, two offers for credit cards, one letter from a local cemetery offering to give him a tour and sell him a plot at a reasonable cost for his final resting place, and one Hallmark card from his mother, who wanted him to know
that she was “Thinking of You.” Though Manfred loved his mother, he couldn’t say that he gave her a lot of thought in return. But he did need to call her. He was overdue in his duty. He glanced at his calendar and saw that he hadn’t talked to her for three weeks.

  He dug out his cell phone and placed the call, knowing that if he didn’t do it right at this moment, he’d put it off again. Rain Bernardo picked up on the first ring.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said. She responded with almost embarrassing fervor. He thanked her for the card, told her he was working long hours as usual, told her he still liked his house and the town, and came very close to telling her about Rachel. But the enormity of the gap between his life and hers seemed so wide; there would have to be so much fill-in before he could talk across it. In the end, he told her nothing new.

  But she had news for him. “I’m getting married,” she said, almost defiantly.

  For a second, Manfred was too stunned to say anything. “Wow, that’s great!” he blurted, desperately trying to fill the silence. “Gary, I’m assuming.”

  “Yes, of course, Gary.”

  “When will it be?”

  “We’re just going to slip off some weekend soon,” she said evasively.

  “I’ll come,” he said, absolutely certain that he must make the effort. He owed his mother that much. “Just let me know for sure.”

  “Well, we haven’t set a date yet,” she said.

  “What are you not telling me?”

  “Oh, son, you’re so sharp.” She sighed. “The thing is, Gary’s kids aren’t as . . . agreeable to the idea as you are.”

  “Why not? You’re one of the nicest women I ever met,” Manfred said honestly.

  She laughed, but only a little. “That sounds like you came up to me at a party or something, instead of me being your mom.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. He waited.

  “Well, the thing is, they . . . oh, they’re just silly, stupid people,” she said, in a burst of anger that was as unexpected as it was refreshing.

  “Me,” he said, suddenly understanding. “They don’t like me.”

  “They don’t even know you,” she said, and the anger was still there, full force. “They just don’t like the idea of you. A psychic. Isn’t that stupid?”

  “It’s an excuse,” Manfred said. He’d had more experience with human beings than some people three times his age. “They just don’t want their dad to get married, to you or anyone else. I can bet that if I were super-wealthy, they wouldn’t have any objections at all to what I do.”

  “I hate to think that, but I have to say there’s something to it,” Rain said.

  “Mom, you’re just barely over forty, so you can have a long and happy marriage with Gary. Go for it.” Rain had been unmarried and in her teens when she’d had Manfred, and she would never talk about his father. If his grandmother, Xylda, had known, she hadn’t said a word. Manfred thought she didn’t know who her daughter had been sleeping with, or she’d have found a way to let him know without actually telling him. Xylda had loved him, maybe more than she’d loved her own daughter, Rain, but she’d loved drama most of all.

  “I do deserve to be happy,” Rain said now, as if she’d been told that but was just now believing it. “I am going to marry Gary. And if we decide not to tell his kids in advance, we may not tell you, either. We’ll just go do it.”

  Since he’d already told her that was what he wanted, Manfred could only repeat that he agreed and wished her luck. “Tell me when it’s done,” he said. “I love you, Mom. If Gary’s the guy you want, go for it.”

  When he hung up, after having the whole conversation with Rain several times, Manfred sat back in his chair and worried for a minute or two. Gary and his mother had been dating six years, but those were years that Manfred had not been around much, since he’d been living mostly with his grandmother. He realized that he didn’t know Gary very well. Presumably his mother did, and that was what was important. Should he check Gary out? But Rain had dated the man for a long time. If she hadn’t found out if he had a criminal record in that length of time, she didn’t want to know.

  Manfred decided to leave well enough alone.

  It would be strange when his mother had a last name that was different from his.

  Once he had thought of that, he realized he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember Gary’s last name. He laughed out loud. The great psychic couldn’t remember his mom’s future name. Redding. That was it.

  Having settled that, Manfred gave the subject no more thought. Instead, energized by his interest in the new guy, Rick (or Barry) Horowitz, he settled in to work for over an hour before knocking off to watch some television. He figured he’d made back what he’d had to pay Magdalena Orta Powell . . . but he’d thought of something else he needed from her. And he knew he couldn’t get it in a straightforward way.

  He found the bill and cover letter he’d received from Powell’s office. He examined it carefully.

  Then he started comparing fonts in his Word program.

  —

  “I sent a letter to Rachel’s house,” he told Olivia the next morning, after he’d been to the Davy post office. He knew he sounded smug, but he was feeling pretty optimistic. Ever since Fiji had laid the “confidence” spell on him, he’d had these moments of sheer . . . rightness. Like he couldn’t do the wrong thing and every idea he had was a good one. “It’ll be delivered tomorrow, and Lewis will have to sign for it.”

  Should he be worrying about this? He didn’t know, and he only realized theoretically that he should care.

  “Why?” she said blankly.

  “I duplicated Magdalena’s letterhead. Her letter tells Lewis that the old folks are coming and they should be allowed access to search for possessions of theirs in the library.”

  “Show me,” she said.

  So he did, smiling all the while. “Pretty damn official, huh?”

  Olivia looked at the “letter” very carefully. “You idiot,” she said, but she didn’t sound furious, which Manfred took as a compliment.

  “Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

  “When did you get the idea that lawyers talked like this?”

  “What, you know a lot about lawyer talk?”

  “I know more than you do, apparently.” She reread the letter. “However, this isn’t bad, and Lewis may swallow it. It gives us a kind of layer of credibility. Unless he calls Ms. Powell. Didn’t think of that, did you?”

  Manfred felt that he should be crestfallen, but he wasn’t. “He won’t. He’ll be so angry he’ll be getting ready to repel the boarders. So he’ll get the letter tomorrow. And we should plan on going to the house the next day, or tomorrow afternoon, even. What do you think would suit the old folks best?”

  Olivia said, “Say we leave here day after tomorrow at nine. We’ll have to stop at least once, because they’ll have to pee. We get to Dallas, take them to a Golden Corral or an Outback or something, and then go to Bonnet Park. We’ll get to the Goldthorpe house between one and two, give or take. And we’ll spend about an hour there. We should be able to have them back by dinner.”

  Manfred had been confident she’d end up being glad about his taking the initiative. “Now we have to enlist Barry. We’ll have to take two cars. He can ride with one of us, and the other will drive the old people.”

  “I’ll go talk to him,” she said.

  “I’ll go over to Fiji’s,” Manfred said, to his own surprise. “I haven’t seen her today.”

  As Olivia set off for the hotel, Manfred crossed Witch Light Road to see Midnight’s own witch.

  As soon as he saw her, he felt completely sober.

  20

  Fiji was crying. It made something inside Manfred twist and cringe. For a second he stood, shocked, and then he said, “That Travis! Last night! Did he hurt you?”

  Fiji looke
d as surprised as a weeping woman could. “No! Are you kidding? I would have killed him if he had.”

  Manfred felt a relief so intense that he had to sit down in one of the wicker chairs. “Then what?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  “I didn’t have a good time,” she said. She was making a desperate attempt to stop crying, and it wasn’t doing her voice any favors. Her words kind of hiccupped out.

  “Lots of dates are like that,” he said, having to suppress an impulse to laugh.

  “How the hell would I know?”

  “Why wouldn’t you?”

  “Oh, Manfred,” she said disgustedly.

  He was bewildered.

  “Seriously,” he said. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t know that. Did you just date one guy all through high school or something?”

  “I’m fat,” she said, as one stated the obvious.

  “Not so,” Manfred said instantly. “You have a woman’s body, a butt and boobs.” He started to say, “And even if you were, you’re still pretty,” but he had enough sense to shut up while he was ahead.

  She looked both embarrassed and flattered. “Nice of you to say so.”

  “I speak the truth, grasshopper,” he said seriously. He had no idea what that reference was, but his grandmother had always thought it was funny. Fiji seemed to find it so, too. “So anyway, what was wrong about your date with Travis, since we’re agreeing that nothing’s wrong with the way you look?”

  She sighed heavily. “We just don’t seem to have anything in common.” She propped herself on her elbows and swabbed her face with a tissue. “We always talk about the Cartoon Saloon and the crazy people who come in there. He asks me how things are with the shop, and I say okay. Last night, he asked me who actually comes to my shop.”

  “And you told him?”

  “I told him I sold alternative-lifestyle things for women, mostly, and led classes in how to find your inner strength, and that I was a witch and sold some stuff pertaining to witchcraft. So my clientele is mostly women. And I’m a practitioner as well.”