by Scott Blade
I said, “You’re pretty much looking at it.”
She said, “What do you mean?”
“I drink coffee. That’s about all.”
“What? You just drink coffee all day?”
“Not all day. I sleep some of the time.”
She smiled and said, “That seems unlikely if all you do all the time is drink coffee.”
I stayed quiet.
She said, “What’s your name?”
“Cameron.”
“What’s your last name, Cameron?”
“That is my last name. First name’s Jack.”
“Jack Cameron?”
I nodded.
“You don’t go by Jack?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t. Go by Cameron. Always have.”
“I like the name Jack. But Cameron’s cool, too.”
She said, “So what do you do really? For money?”
I said, “Nothing.”
She said, “No job?”
I said, “Nope.”
“How do you pay for things?”
“I have some savings.”
“That must be nice. So what, you just go wherever you want and live off your savings?”
I nodded.
She asked, “What’ll you do when you run out?” I stayed quiet and she said, “Will you run out?”
I said, “Of course. Someday. But I don’t really think about it. Guess I should, though.”
She smiled and said, “Well, Jack Cameron. Will you please take me with you? I’d love to get out of this dump.”
I said, “Why don’t you?”
She looked sad for a second, and she said, “I might. I couldn’t because of my mom. Not before anyway.”
“Where’s she?”
Kara paused a beat and said, “She passed away about two weeks ago.”
I said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks.”
A silence fell between us, and a bit of awkwardness set in. Kara reared back and looked at the parking lot. I craned my head and looked in the same direction.
A black Ford Explorer, newer model, pulled in slow and chary like an undercover surveillance cop on his very first day of the job. It stuck out and seemed more of an outsider than I was.
“Regulars?”
She said, “Never seen that vehicle before.”
She turned back, smiled at me, picked up her coffeepot, and returned to the counter. She waited there, fiddling with the various machines like she was busy, like millions of service industry employees did everyday across the world.
Kara stayed behind the counter, waiting for the driver of the Ford Explorer to get out and enter the restaurant like a new customer. But that never happened.
Chapter 8
THE BLACK WAITER returned from behind the building where he must’ve been smoking cigarettes. He walked up to the front of the diner. I saw him from the window, but before he returned inside, a man rolled down the passenger window of the Ford Explorer and called him over.
I watched the waiter turn back to the guy and walk over to the Explorer.
The vehicle had its interior lights off, but the rear lamps remained on and low. Exhaust clouded up and pooled behind the vehicle.
The waiter stopped five feet from the SUV like he was suddenly afraid to step any closer.
Kara watched with impatient eyes like she had gone through the trouble of returning to her default waitress position to welcome these guys in and they weren’t even coming inside.
The truck drivers continued to speak in low murmurs to each other, and I drank more of my coffee.
Kara had a look on her face like she was saying to herself, What in the hell is taking so long?
The black waiter turned and looked back at the diner and then back to the guy in the Ford Explorer. He nodded like he was answering more questions. Finally, the guy in the Explorer rolled his window up, and the waiter turned, shrugged, and came back inside.
He stopped at the door and looked at me like he was surprised to see me. Then he walked over to the counter and spoke to Kara.
She said, “What’s that all about? They coming in or what?”
The waiter said, “Not sure. They asked if we were busy. How many people were in here and stuff.”
“That’s weird.”
“They asked about you.”
Kara said, “What? Why?”
“They just asked if you were working. Never said why. Guess they want you to wait on them.”
Kara said, “Be here all night. Like usual.”
The waiter said, “I know. I told ’em.”
“Guess they’re waiting for someone.”
The waiter nodded. He looked around the diner, made a particular gesture about how empty the place was.
Kara looked at him and said, “Suppose you wanna go home?”
The waiter nodded and said, “If that’s okay?”
“Sure. Get your side-work done!”
“I did it already!”
Kara said, “Fine. Then get out of here.”
The waiter smiled and went behind the counter. He walked over to the register and started to print out paper receipts. The machine was ancient in terms of cash registers. He had to pound on keys and wait for a printer that was just as old to print up the receipts. He stayed there printing for twelve minutes, and then he took the heap of printed receipts over to an empty spot on the countertop. He sat down and started counting up check totals. He used his cell phone as a calculator and wrote down the totals on an old yellow pad.
I watched his facial expressions as he mouthed “carry the one” silently.
After he was done adding things up, he pulled out wads of rolled-up cash money. He set it all down on the countertop.
One of the truckers lifted his head and looked at it.
He said, “Whoa! You buying coffee tonight?”
The waiter said, “It’s not all mine. Most of it belongs to the house.”
The trucker nodded and said nothing.
The waiter continued his calculations, and after another seven minutes, he was satisfied. He piled the dollars into two piles. One was large and the other much smaller. I assumed that the small one was his tips because he looked disappointed.
After he gathered up the money, he handed the large pile to Kara, said goodnight to everyone, except for me, and left.
I followed the waiter’s departure as he walked out the front door, back out to the parking lot, and past the black Ford Explorer. The Explorer’s engine ran idle with the interior lights still off.
I tried not to stare. In case they could see into the diner, I didn’t want to make it obvious that I was going to sit there all night, which I was willing to do. In fact, a strategy that had crossed my mind already was to outwait them. If the sheriff’s deputies showed up first, then they could take over guard duty. I could leave the scene without even being noticed.
Problem with that was that it might work tonight, and Kara would be okay tomorrow, but what about the day after? Or the day after that?
I couldn’t guard her forever. These guys might just move on when they saw the cops and wait for another day. Kara wasn’t going anywhere, and I was sure they knew that.
I decided to wait and see what the cops would do. Certainly, they’d come to the diner and question her. That would be the next step after John Martin explained to them what happened.
If he ever woke up to explain.
Chapter 9
I WAITED FOR NEARLY TWO HOURS before I gave up on the idea of the police showing up or on John Martin taking over guard duty. In that time, I drank one and a half pots of coffee.
Kara had talked to me for a long time. I think it was because I was the only person left in the joint. Occasionally, she looked back to the parking lot to see if the Explorer was still there. And every time, she commented on it. It started to worry her. I recommended that she call the cops if she was so worried, but she didn’t.
I decided
to take matters into my own hands.
I said, “Gotta pay phone?”
“No phone. But you can use my cell phone.”
“It’s local.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s a cell phone. As long you’re calling in the US, it’s free.”
I shrugged. I didn’t use cell phones very much. I didn’t even have a cell phone bill. I had never had one. So I wasn’t too familiar with the structure of current calling plans in America.
She unlocked the screen and handed me the phone and walked off to give me some privacy, but she didn’t go too far. No one is trusting of someone using their cell phone. Was different when I was a kid. If a stranger wanted to use your house phone, it was generally accepted. People never guarded their house phones like they might get stolen, but cell phones were different. I imagined the hefty price tags of smartphones were a big part of it.
I looked at the screen and pulled up the phone icon. I googled the nearest hospital and memorized the number. I returned to the dial pad and dialed it.
The phone rang and whirred, and an operator or a nurse or a receptionist with a thick Mexican accent but with great pronunciation answered.
“Hello, Cedar Corner emergency room?”
I said, “Yes. My father was admitted earlier. I wanted to check and see how he’s doing.”
She said, “What’s your dad’s name?”
I said, “John Martin.”
She paused a beat, and then I heard some keystrokes on the other end of the line. She didn’t go to retrieve a doctor or anything, which was a good sign.
She came back on the line and said, “He’s stable.”
“Has he woken up yet?”
“No, sir. I’m afraid he’s under heavy sedation. They had to do an emergency operation on him. He came out okay, but he’s not out of the woods yet. We’re keeping him here till he’s good enough to move to Albuquerque Memorial. Hopefully, in the morning.”
I said, “Has the sheriff been there yet?”
“There’s a deputy here now. Don’t worry. They’ve posted a guard with him all night. No one’s going to get to your dad.”
“That’s a relief. I’m tied up at the moment. Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Can you call the other family members? I’m the black sheep of the family. I can’t tell them.”
She paused a beat, and then she said, “Of course. I understand.”
I thanked her and hung up the phone and set it down on the table for Kara to pick up.
As she started to walk over to me, I glanced out at the parking lot again and saw a car’s headlights breach a dip in the road and turn into the space next to the black Explorer.
The car was a dark Ford Taurus, an unmarked police car for sure because the back was covered in antennas and the driver handled it with a careless bravado that I had seen in other cops. Not a regular cop but some sort of big dog cop like a guy who thought he was the alpha male. Usually, this kind of attitude was because the cop felt as though he were untouchable like there was no one else around to challenge him. He was the king of the jungle. I had not seen this kind of behavior too much in patrol men or deputies or the everyday men and women in blue, not to say that it was never there. Mostly, I had seen this kind of behavior in lower level feds. The middle management types—a new detective or FBI agent, or someone recently promoted to a position of authority with little supervision.
Whatever the cop was like didn’t matter to me because I was just happy to see him.
I smiled because the cavalry was here. Good thing, too, because I was getting tired and antsy. I was ready to move on, preferably to a motel room with a soft, welcoming bed and a good night’s sleep to follow.
But once again, I was dead wrong.
Chapter 10
THE COP WHO GOT out of the unmarked police car wore a thin leather jacket, a shirt and tie, and blue jeans. He looked like he’d been driving awhile, maybe all night because as soon as he stepped out, he stretched his legs and arms.
I watched as he made several stretches to the right and then to the left like he was getting ready to go jogging.
He walked over to the guys in the black Ford Explorer, but something was wrong about his demeanor. He didn’t look like a cop who was questioning a couple of bad guys. He looked like he knew them. And he did because the occupants of the Explorer stepped out of the vehicle.
Two guys who looked like the kind of guys I had seen before—rough and less-than-upstanding citizen types.
The driver from the Explorer was a big guy, probably as tall as me but heavier. He looked like he had a lot of gym hours penciled into his days. He was so big that if a blood test returned anything other than verification that there were huge amounts of steroids in his veins, I would’ve been shocked.
The driver walked around the vehicle and opened the passenger door. A slick-looking older man stepped out. He had a gray beard, cropped close to his face, and a steely look like he was the guy in charge.
At first, I thought that maybe they were all cops. Maybe John Martin had called them. Maybe they were US Marshals. Maybe they were here to stake out the diner and protect Kara or her mother. But that was obviously not the case.
The cop was definitely a cop. He looked, walked, and stood like a cop. But not the other two. No way. I had grown up around cops, and I had met all kinds of cops. These two were not cops.
The three of them walked up to the diner, slowly and spaced far apart like they were prowling. The big guy and the cop looked around like they were scanning the scene for threats. I knew the look. These two were the employees. The steely guy with the gray beard was the leader. He walked like a man who paid guys to do his work for him. He was the first to enter the diner. He scanned the room quickly and honed in on Kara.
About five seconds later, the big guy entered. He looked around the room as well. He looked at the truckers first, and then he looked right at me. His eyes were tiny black holes wrapped up in small eye sockets. There was no real life there. He was obviously a human being, but he looked as emotionless as a shark.
He followed the leader to a booth in the front corner of the diner, diagonal to me. They were maybe twenty-five feet away.
The cop walked in after. He stared directly at me, didn’t even look at the truckers or Kara. He followed the others over to the booth but didn’t sit down with them. Instead, he pulled up a chair from another table and sat on it.
Kara walked over to them with some menus.
The leader said, “You gotta waitress here named Kara?”
“That’s me. Not wearing my nametag tonight. Left it at home.”
The leader nodded slowly like something was dawning on him. He said, “You got another Kara here?”
She said, “No. Just me. I’m the only one.”
He said nothing.
She said, “My mom used to work here. Her name was also Kara. I’m kinda a junior.”
The steely guy smiled and said, “Where’s your momma?”
“She passed away.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She said, “Thanks. Can I get you boys something?”
“So you don’t recognize me?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
He said, “I’m an old friend of your momma.”
“Really?”
“Yep. I knew her…oh…fifteen years ago. I guess when you were just a little girl.”
“I was five years old then.”
“And you don’t remember me?”
“No. Sorry. Did we know each other?”
The steely guy said nothing. He and the other two just stared at her for a long, awkward moment.
Finally, one of the truckers called to her. She turned and said, “I’m comin.”
She left them with menus, but they never picked them up. The cop fidgeted around in his chair like he was uncomfortable. He pulled out a gun that had been tucked into a clip-on holster and placed it on the table. I glanced over
at it but didn’t stare. I didn’t want to make eye contact with them, and the big guy was still staring at me.
The gun was a Glock 22, I was pretty sure, which was a standard weapon for a lot of police departments. It was standard for US Marshals. John Martin had had one in his car earlier, which didn’t necessarily mean anything.
The truckers asked Kara for their checks, separate. They each paid and stood up from the counter and left at the same time. After five minutes, the big rig truck without a trailer hitched to it that was out in the parking lot cranked up and drove away. A few minutes later, a second one with a short white trailer hitched to it drove past the diner from another parking lot down the street. It was most likely one of the truckers.
Now, Ceanna’s Diner was completely empty except for Kara, the three guys, a cook, and me.
Chapter 11
PEOPLE ALWAYS CLAIM THAT time seems to drag whenever you’re waiting a long time. Take the airport and waiting during a layover when your plane delays seem to take forever. That feeling is doubled when you’re locked in a dangerous situation with three possible criminals who want revenge on a federal witness.
The cop’s back was to me, but something told me that didn’t mean he had taken his eyes off of me. He probably watched me in the window’s reflection. Not a great view but effective enough to know my position in the room. Certainly, he would know if I stood up or made any drastic movements.
I sat, drinking my coffee, acting as if I hadn’t a care in the world and had no intention of leaving.
Kara came over and asked, “You having more coffee?”
“No, I guess not. Better lay off for a while.”
She nodded and returned to the other guys. The cop drank coffee. The big guy drank nothing. The steely guy had ordered a coffee but hadn’t touched it. It rested in front of him, steam piping out of the cup. He stared at me.
The big guy didn’t stare, but he looked in my general direction, acting as if he was studying the cheap paintings on the wall. He looked bored.
Boredom was a great tactic in conflicts. Boredom made the other side weak, complacent. It made them overconfident. They would either think they could manage on autopilot, or they’d think there was no real threat.
Boredom was going to be my advantage, but I had made a mistake. The mistake that I had made was that no man could drink as much liquid as I had and not have to go to the bathroom. Coffee was primarily water. And water goes straight through any man very, very fast. Especially when ingested in long hours of waiting.