The Edge of Madness Cafe (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 2) (35 page)

“Will you join me
tomorrow for tea, then?” she asked a second time.

And he knew she would not
ask a third
time. Arnold brushed the back of his hand across his forehead, and it came away dripping in
sweat. When had the afternoon become so hot?

“It would be my pleasure,”
he said, forcing a smile. A part of him wanted to reach out and take her hand,
to plant a small kiss upon the knuckle. Fortunately, he squelched the urge
before it could manifest into something embarrassing. He was a schoolboy with a
crush on the new, young poetry teacher.
Maybe some private lessons are in
order, Arnold. Some extra credit activities that would—

“Come by my place at
1:45,” she said, Arnold’s reverie of alien thoughts and urges swept away like
wind through honeysuckle.

“1:45. I’ll be there on
the dot.”

“Splendid,” Serena said,
looking girlishly pleased and smug both at once; paradox was her gift. She
glanced over her shoulder, catching Nicholas in a sweeping gesture that
included
the doorway,
the back of the bookstore, and that half of all reality he occupied. “Then I’ll
see the both of you tomorrow.”

“
Both?
” Arnold turned sharply on Nicholas Dabble who, more adept at deception, merely nodded. And
Dabble’s apparent collusion only fueled Arnold’s outrage. As if Nicholas
Dabble, that miserable, foppish, salt-licking hider of another man’s things did
this kind of thing all the time, wined and dined a woman like Serena while
those like him toiled the hard road. “I don’t think so!”

Serena turned, looking
genuinely concerned. “Is something wrong, Arnold?”

“Something most certainly
is. I will not sit down to tea with that … that …”

Serena placed a hand gently
upon the Garbageman’s shoulder. “Arnold, your nose is bleeding.”

Arnold
swung a fierce, confused look in her
direction, shrugging her hand away. His other hand wiped viciously at his face,
finding the small string of bloody that had run between his nose and lip, and
smearing it upon the ball of his thumb. “There is no way I’m
sittin’ down to tea with this … this
… salt-lickin’, lyin’, no good—”

“You’re
declining
my invitation?” Serena looked aghast.

The Garbageman dropped
his eyes. Order was the cornerstone of the universe, and honor the key to order;
he could hardly decline an invitation once accepted. “Of course not, Serena.
I’ll … I’ll be there tomorrow for tea, I swear.”

“Splendid,” she said.
“We’ll settle all differences then. You’ll see. Everything will be made right.”

“You know what she is,
Serena,” the Garbageman challenged, refusing to let his petition go unheard.
“She’ll
unravel
everything, you know that.”

“I am very aware of what
she is, Arnold, and what she can do. Never pretend to understand more than I about
the grand scheme of things. Arrogance is unattractive.”

She turned and started
away. The Garbageman jabbed a finger in Dabble’s direction. “We’re not done,
you and me.”

But Nicholas Dabble had
already turned away, retreating back into his store.

Serena paused at the hulk
of the garbage hauler. “Arnold, would you be so kind as to move your truck.
It’s blocking the way, and I need to get back to my shop. We can settle all of
this tomorrow. Until then, I suggest a course of mutual disassociation: no
actions taken, no grievances aired. Everything about this matter is to be laid
aside until tomorrow when it can be discussed in its fullest and broadest
ramifications, all details attended to. It is the way things should be done, wouldn’t
you agree?”

Arnold
nodded sullenly, and returned to his
truck, moving it so that Serena could get back to her coffee shop.

Until tomorrow.

Jack toiled at the keys,
working in his shadow as the sun slid into the evening. Somewhere across the
limits of time and space, as far as infinity, as close as the screen before
him, Ellen’s encroachment upon a world she did not belong in was being decided.

Sweat ran across his
scalp and neck, sliding down his face in distracting trails. He wiped it away
with the heel of his hand, dried it on his jeans, and returned to the unfolding
electronic pages. He was in the groove, on a jag, no stopping him now, no
stopping the story so long as he stayed on. The single, greatest benefit of the
Nexus was isolation and loneliness; everything he needed and no distractions.

He pressed his hands to
the small of his back, arching until the bones emitted a satisfying litany of
pops and cracks. He took brief respites to relieve himself, usually against the
side of one of the numerous pieces of trash littering the junkyard. Sometimes
he would wander as far as the kitchen for something to eat. Then back to work.

Hammerlock kept him
supplied with fresh coffee, hazelnut-flavored and mixed with cream and sugar
the way he liked it. It was a menial task for a Guardian, but could not be
helped; there was no one left for Hammerlock to guard him against, the
Wasteland purged of everything but Jack Lantirn and the Café, the landscape
outside dead beyond repair.

In that moment, watching
the robot guardian walking a hot cup of coffee out to him through the scatter
of debris and dead machines, Jack had an insight into hell. Not demons and
torment, blistering fire and freezing ice and all manner of pain beyond human
endurance, but isolation and unending loneliness that begged a single question:
will this ever end?

Yes, sometimes hell was
that.

You are a romantic,
Jack. Hell is nothing of the sort.

Hammerlock placed the coffee mug down on the open bed of the
battered Ford truck where the Caretaker sat straight-legged, computer on his
lap. He thanked him, but the robot simply turned and left. He did not speak;
were he even able, Jack doubted there was much the two of them had to say to
each other.

He sipped the coffee, catching
a hint of subtler flavors: nutmeg, cinnamon, and something else, something
secretive:
scarab husks and cactus meat, lotus blossoms and black forest
mushrooms brewed by ancient means stolen from the dark corners of the last rain
forest where spirit animals still communed with men, and gods sometimes walked
the earth.

Or maybe the Café had
simply neglected to thoroughly clean the cup.

He placed his fingers
back on the keyboard, let his eyes look at the blankness of the screen then
through it to the essence of unfulfilled possibilities, and plunged back in.

Things were moving fast
now.

*     *     *

When Nicholas Dabble came back from the
alley, Ellen thought he looked tired, his expression sullen, brows knit in an
uncharacteristically grave display of concern. To her knowledge, her boss had
never demonstrated concern over anything. He was not uncaring, so far as she
knew, just unemotional.

Until today.

“Are you okay?” Ellen
asked.

Dabble turned and looked
at her, a queer, distracted look as if he was refocusing his attention from
somewhere far away, mind groping for answers. “I’m not feeling all that well,”
he told her plainly. “I thought I would close the store early.”

It was Ellen’s turn to
stare, unsure what to make of this unprecedented decision.

“If it’s all the same to
you, why don’t you take a half day today and go on home?” He walked to the
front of the store where he turned over the
OPEN
sign in the window to read,
CLOSED — Please Come Again
.

“Will you be all right?”
she asked.

He looked at her again with that strange quizzical stare.
“I’m sure, come tomorrow, I’ll be as right as ever. Everything should work
out.”

Ellen went to the counter
to gather her belongings, asking, “What did the man at the backdoor want?”

“Nothing. Something.
Everything. It’s complicated.” Then he followed her towards the door, gently
urging her on her way as if she were a willful child reluctant to go to bed. “I
want you to forget about the man at the backdoor. I’m taking care of that. And
I want you to go straight home. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t stop for anyone.
Just go straight home, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Everything will be fine.”

“Are you sure? I could
run down to the drugstore if you need something.”

“You’re very kind, Ellen,
but you don’t really belong here … looking after me. You never did. This place
is a way station for you on your way to better things.” Then he frowned, almost
regretfully. “Just go on home and enjoy the afternoon.”

And to her surprise,
Nicholas Dabble leaned forward and very gently kissed her forehead, the
lightest touch, a snap of static and the unusual heat of his skin. Dizziness
washed through her, starting in her toes and making her scalp tingle…

…And she was standing on the front step of
Dabble’s Books
,
staring at the glass door as Nicholas Dabble pushed it slowly shut, no memory
of stepping outside, no memory at all after his melancholic speech, after…

Nicholas Dabble, who had never so much as shook her hand
before today, had gone so far as to kiss her on the forehead, as if bestowing a
blessing, or perhaps merely sending her to bed: s
weet dreams little one; off
you go.

Behind the glass, the shop went dark, the shadows
impenetrable.

Ellen went home as
advised, the street unnaturally quiet. There was none of the usual
mid-afternoon traffic, not cars or pedestrians. The world seemed empty, as if
it had stopped. Not ended—neither so apocalyptic nor so final—it had simply …
stopped
.

She passed a white garbage
truck parked in an alley. Ellen recognized it from earlier, the one that caused
so much trouble outside of her apartment. Only now it sat quietly, cab empty,
driver missing.

Where did he go, she
wondered, the garbageman who knew too much about things he should know nothing
at all about? She reached her apartment’s foyer without seeing him—without
seeing anyone—but could not shake the feeling of someone watching her,
following her with their eyes.

Dr. Kohler would have
labeled her suspicions as paranoia. Except, of course, Dr. Kohler would not
label her as anything. Not anymore.

*     *     *

Arnold Prosser watched
Ellen Monroe from the moment she left the bookstore, careful to avoid her
notice; he would allow Serena that much on the matter. She revealed nothing he
did not already know, most of all the secrets she kept from him. And that
bothered him. He would allow Serena to speak her mind out of respect—and maybe
something more, who’s to say—but it would not affect his decision. There was
only one thing left to do, one fate left to befall her, this strip of a girl
who so affected the doctor and Dabble and the derelicts and the woman from the
coffee shop. The order of the universe was at stake. The dead had no place in
the land of the living, forgotten or no. There could be no exceptions. Once the
threads started to unravel, the entire tapestry was jeopardized.

No, no matter what Serena
had to say, rules were rules. The world was what it was.

*     *     *

Slithering through
alleyways like fog retreating before the sunlight, Gusman Kreiger followed
Ellen Monroe, keeping her in sight, keeping in earshot of each soft step she
made across the sidewalks and pavement of this humdrum reality. The avatar was
still about, watching and waiting, biding his time. Kreiger kept an eye on him
as well, watching for any sudden movements that might signal the moment he had
been waiting for. As for the others, he had been a fool not to see them before.
They hid themselves better, more adept at dissolving into the world around
them, becoming a part of the living landscape, invisible to outsiders like
Ellen and even himself. But he should have smelled them. At least then he would
have had some warning.

Now all that was left was
to run—run fast enough that you never realized your feet were treading on
nothing but air.

*     *     *

Ellen climbed the stairs
to the landing of her apartment. Written on the wall leading up to the roof
were the words
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
in thick letters like a kind of direction for the lost. Someone
had obviously hand-printed them in magic marker.

Probably herself, though
she did not remember. How like her, of late.

She went inside and locked
the door. The world outside had changed. There was no more sanctuary in its
steadfastness, its unchanging form. Something was happening; she was unsure
what, but somehow it involved her.

Jack knew, but he never
told her. His book ended where it ended, and there was nothing more. She’d read
it and reread it, searching for clues, looking for meaning, or sometimes just
taking comfort in reading his thoughts and descriptions, feeling, even briefly,
like he was there with her.

But he existed only in
dreams now. And somewhere far over the edge of reality, across a great sea
fished by a cat in search of ghosts to crew his ship, he was waiting for her in
a small café, writing because that was all he really knew, all he really
understood.

No, that wasn’t true. He
knew one other thing. He knew her. And he loved her. And he would not abandon
her so long as she did not forget him.

Ellen put water on to
boil, and poured some of Serena’s special blend of tea into the bottom of a
teapot. She had enough for one more then it would be gone. What would she put
in the teapot then?

Do you remember
exactly when or where you got this teapot?

No.

Do you remember much
of anything from before?

No.

Are you absolutely certain there was a before? Not just
bits and scraps of memories like random lines torn from a book, but an actual
life with a mother and a father and a high school prom, and a fourth grade
teacher you hated, and the little boy from next door who you played doctor
with, and that boy who first kissed you on the lips? Are you certain you had
any of that?

No.

Maybe it’s something less linear, something involving too
many drugs, a few mistakes that might have been misconstrued as an attempt at
suicide, a time in an asylum where you were abused by drugs in a different way,
and a segue to a saloon on the edge of reason and madness where the trains
would come and go bound not simply for other stations, but other worlds. Maybe
not so much a saloon as a way station.

This place is a way
station for you on your way to better things
, Nicholas Dabble told her. And then he kissed her
forehead.

She stood very still in
the middle of the kitchen, listening to the water boiling on the stove, and trying
to make sense of it all.

Finally, she gave up and poured
boiling water into the teapot. While the ground leaves and herbs steeped, she
sat down to read
The Sanity’s Edge Saloon
. It was the only book she read;
the only book she owned. Only maybe there was more to it, something left unfinished,
a work in progress.

Things set in motion.

She poured some of
Serena’s tea into a coffee mug, wondering idly if tea in a coffee mug was sacrilegious,
and breathed in the steam, sipping from it while she read.

As the pages turned, so
did the world.

And slowly, it turned
into night.