“Good,” the old man said. “Very good. I wish I had more of those when I was younger. They build character, makes you feel like less a pussy. Are your taking your change or what?”
The old man had been holding the change for a while.
Alfred took the money and pocketed it.
“You have a nice, chill week,” the old man said. He looked outside, to the rain pouring angrily against the window of the store. “The weather forecast predicts rain for the rest of the week.”
“Thanks.” Alfred said. He put the plastic bag under his arm, and prepared to face the rain.
“Hey. Wait.” The old man signalled him to stop. “Where do you live, son?”
“Me? Main and Clayfall.”
“Clayfall you said? That’s just three blocks away,” the old man said. “Look. Wait for a second. Let me close the shop, and I’ll give you a lift home.”
“It’s very kind of you, but you don’t have to—”
“Of course I don’t, but I’ve got nothing better to do. Now wait over there and be quiet for a moment. Won’t take long.”
“Er … sure. Thanks.”
The old man grunted something back to him.
Alfred waited. The old man took the cash out of the cash register and counted every bill and every penny. When he was done, he switched off the light of the store, took a set of keys, and limped toward the door. He took a heavy rain jacket from a coat hook beside the entrance door and opened the store’s door.
“Let’s go,” he said. “The car is right in front of the store.”
The old man’s car was an old Gran Torino as white as a bride’s dress.
“Nice car,” Alfred commented.
“Sure she is. And she knows it.” The old man winked at Alfred. “Come on. Jump in.”
Once they were both inside the car, the old man started the engine. They drove away from the store on to Main Street.
“So,” the old man said, driving like he owned the entire street. “Was it a bus or a girl?”
Alfred smiled. “Neither.”
“Then what?”
“Well. I … I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
Alfred looked at the old man. He seemed a bit rough around the edges, but a fine old man nonetheless. “Today I saw a person die in front of me,” he confessed. His eyes went downcast.
“Jesus Christ,” the old man blurted out, looking at Alfred with eyes wide open. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Alfred said. “He … this guy. He just screamed and fell to the ground and then … and then he died.”
The old man shook his head and cursed under his breath. “Well, that explains your face.” He nodded toward the bottle of rum Alfred was holding.
“Yeah,” Alfred said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Have you ever … have you ever seen somebody die?”
“Can’t say I have.”
Alfred paused. Then he looked at the old man again and said, “I knew he was going to die.”
“What do you mean you knew it?”
“The man,” Alfred said. “I knew he was going to die before he actually died.”
“What the Hell are you talking about, son?”
“I was not alone,” Alfred said. “A few days ago, I met this person. He can do things, with time. And he can see when people are going to die. Yeah. He can see death coming.”
The car stopped suddenly. Alfred looked out of the window. Unknowingly, they were in front of his apartment.
“Listen, son,” the old man said. “You need a long night sleep. Talk with a friend tomorrow, or talk with your family. It’ll help.”
“I don’t have any friends,” Alfred found himself saying. “I don’t have any family.” He looked at the old man and nodded. “Thanks for the ride.” He opened the door and went inside his building without looking back.
By the time he was home, it was well past eight o’clock. He put the bottle of rum on the kitchen table and realized how hungry he was. He just had a Thai crepe the entire day. He opened his refrigerator and found it deserted, so he took his phone out and ordered Chinese food.
The food arrived one hour late, cold and wet. Alfred ate it anyways. He was famished. When he was done with the box of noodles, he found a fortune cookie he hadn’t noticed before. He left it on the table and decided to keep it for later.
When the table was cleaned and the leftovers thrown into the garbage, Alfred took the bottle and put it on the table. He sat, and found himself staring at the bottle for a long while, contemplating the many implications of opening it and drinking it.
In the end, with much effort, he decided against it. He put the rum on the tallest shelf in his kitchen, the most difficult and inconvenient place to reach, and closed the cabinet.
He didn’t need it. No. He was fine.
There would be enough time for second thoughts, in case things got weirder the following days.
After all, Alfred thought, his week with Pacific had only just begun.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a book is a lonely job, but it gets less so when you bother other people and ask them what they think of your story. This book would not be the same without a bunch of folks who made it better in so many ways I can’t even begin to list them all.
Thanks to my brother and to my Italian friend Alessandro, whose suggestions and comments made me think more deeply on what kind of concepts I really wanted to focus on. Thanks to my Canadian friend Jackson, who took the time to edit the very first manuscript of Wicked Time and was kind enough not to point out my lack of understanding of the many nuances of the English language.
Thanks to Benjamin Roque, who designed a cover I just can’t stop looking at, and thanks to my lovely Mana, who makes me a better person just by standing at my side an believing in my stories.
Michele Amitrani
Tokyo. December 30, 2018
Can’t wait to know what happens next?
Neither can I!
But I am delighted to present you with this special preview from
TIME REAPER
Book Two of the Dark Mentor Series
Enjoy!
A Grain of Sand
Alfred woke up several times that night. He could not sleep well, no matter how hard he tried. Eventually he decided it was pointless to keep staring at the ceiling, so he got up and went to the kitchen.
He turned on the stove, took a small pot and filled it with water. While he was preparing his tea, he looked for something to snack with, and could only find the Chinese fortune cookie he had left on the table the day before.
The water started boiling. Alfred put the water in a cup with a teabag and nursed it for the next twenty minutes, barely sipping the content.
His mind was trying to sort things out, to make sense of what had happened the previous day.
Pacific had opened up a window to a world he did not understand. And in that world, Alfred was lost.
He was no longer debating the reality of it all. No. He knew it had happened. The difficult part was to shut his rational mind and welcome the impossible.
But how do you do that when you question your own sanity?
Alfred closed his eyes, and recalled his first day with Pacific.
He saw a fat man looking at him with eyes full of horror. He was screaming in pain, his hands grasping his chest. There was a countdown six feet above his head, coming closer and closer to its end.
Alfred’s heartbeat quickened, his hands started shaking. He kept his eyes shut.
The fat man disappeared, replaced by a tall man dressed in a long, dark coat. He was taking pictures of passersby while sitting on a bench. The man lowered his camera, looked at him, and smiled a wicked smile.
Alfred turned sharply and started running away from him, until he was out of breath and could run no more. When he looked up again he found himself in a completely different place. He was now in t
he middle of a graveyard.
Alfred moved toward the closest tombstone, and read the inscription:
R.I.P.
Alfred Lafayette White.
Another life wasted.
Alfred’s eyes jerked open. A huge mirror was in front of him now. He blinked, confused, as he saw a young man with a cup of tea staring back at him. Then he saw the red numbers, clear and unforgiving, six feet above his head.
Alfred gasped. He suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his chest. He let the tea cup fall, and it shattered on the floor with a shrieking sound one second before Alfred himself fell from the chair, his eyes wide with shock. He glanced back at the mirror, and could see the countdown coming closer and closer to the zero.
Three …
Two …
One …
Alfred woke up screaming.
Every single muscle in his body was tense. He frantically looked above his head. There was no countdown, only the white ceiling of his apartment. A nightmare, nothing more than a nightmare, he repeated to himself, trying to steady his breath. He looked down. The teacup was shattered, its content spilled all over the floor.
His phone was buzzing on the table, the ringer reminding him that it was time to start preparing for his meeting with Pacific.
Alfred cursed under his breath. He looked at the table. The thin, folded cookie he was planning on eating was still there. He broke it, picked up the slip of paper and read out the content.
“Be careful what you wish for.” Alfred snorted. “Aren’t we a bit predictable, destiny?” He threw away the cookie, the paper, and the broken tea cup into the garbage bin, cleaned up the floor and started dressing.
When he was done, he put five hundred dollars into his wallet.
“I’m ready,” Alfred said, looking at the mirror. “You’re ready.”
A lie. He knew that. But it was enough to get him to leave home hiding his worry as best he could.
Another cloudy day was waiting outside.
Once Alfred was just a stone’s trow away from the Spear, he paused and looked at the skyscraper for a very long time.
It was strange to be there. Almost wrong. Now that he no longer worked for the company, it was like watching a very tall and odd collection of glass and steel that looked strangely familiar.
Alfred looked around, searching for Pacific. Eventually his eyes found a tall man wearing a laminated coat. He stood out among the legion of people heading toward the Spear like a white shark among salmons. Pacific was sitting on a low wall made of bricks that flanked the road to the Spear’s entrance. He was looking at the people going through the entrance, his arms folded, his eyes shielded behind his dark sunglasses.
Alfred walked toward him, showing a confidence he did not have. “Morning,” he said, then sat on the low wall, right beside Pacific. The tall man didn’t answer, he just kept looking at the people going through the entrance.
“An hourglass,” Pacific said suddenly. Then nodded thoughtfully, still looking at the building’s entrance.
Alfred blinked. “What?”
“An hourglass,” Pacific repeated. He looked at Alfred for the first time, as if he was expecting something from him.
“I’m sorry,” Alfred said, spreading his arms. “I don’t think I was included in that conversation between you and yourself. Care to bring me in?”
Pacific pointed both hands toward the entrance door. “See the entrance?” he said.
Alfred nodded. “What about it?”
“Don’t you find it amusing, the way people go in? Their will to enter without questioning, to follow the stream without caring, to abide to the rule that governs their life with no clue on the ‘why’? It’s fascinating. And it all starts from that entrance.”
Alfred scratched his head. “Honestly, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I mean, it’s just an entrance.”
“No, it’s not.” Pacific moved his hands to form an imaginary square. “It’s much more than that. Don’t you see? People go into that building like sand flowing through an hourglass. Every single one of them feed the building with their time to keep it working, to keep the wheel spinning. You were one of those grains of sand just a few days ago.”
“Yes,” Alfred agreed. “And now I’m jobless and free. Is that want you want to say?”
“Free?” Pacific shook his head. “No, you’re not free. You’re powering another wheel, now. My wheel. You are giving me your time, remember? One is never completely free of anything. No. We’re always bound to a cause, a person, an obligation, or a fear.”
“And what are you bound to?” Alfred asked.
“Me?” Pacific looked at Alfred as if he had asked the dumbest question. “To time itself, of course.”
“OK, sure.” Alfred cleared his throat. “Well, just for conversation’s sake, what are you going to do with my time?”
A smile flashed on Pacific’s face. He stood up abruptly, then smoothed his long coat and said, “I’m going to build another wheel. Walk with me.”
Pacific started walking and Alfred had to hurry to keep up with his long strides.
“Did you bring the cash?” Pacific asked.
Alfred’s hand went to his pocket. “Yes I did,” he said.
Pacific gestured for Alfred to give him the money.
“All of it?” Alfred said, frowning. “What do you need it for, anyways?”
“To solve world’s hunger.” Pacific held his hand out. “Any other questions?”
Alfred looked at his cash, doubtful. “Will I have it back?”
“Would it make you feel better if I said yes?”
“Of course it would.”
“Well then, yes, of course,” Pacific said, reassuringly.
Alfred glared at him. “You’re not going to give me one single dollar back, are you?”
Pacific said nothing.
Alfred’s eyebrows shot up. “OK. Well, if I’m just going to give you five hundred bucks it better be for a damn good reason. What will I get in return?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“You’ll get nothing,” Pacific repeated. “You’ll just prove your commitment to learn. That’s all.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Look, it’s real simple. Give me the money, or don’t. The choice is yours.”
Alfred hesitated. Somehow, he felt Pacific was testing him. In which way, Alfred could not tell, but he was sure giving him the money meant something. Alfred looked at his wallet, then reluctantly handed the cash to Pacific.
“So,” Pacific said once he had secured the five hundred dollars in his pocket, “how did you sleep last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you had a good night’s sleep?”
“I didn’t.” Alfred thought of his sleepless night. “I was thinking about … well … You know. I was thinking about yesterday.”
“Yes, that is what you were supposed to do. Think.” Pacific nodded approvingly. “And what was the outcome of that thinking?”
“Haven’t figured that out, yet.”
Pacific stopped at the very end of the wall that flanked the path to the Spear’s entrance.
Countless businesspeople moved around, heading toward the skyscrapers as if a tractor beam was pulling them in. The two of them were the only still people around.
“What are we waiting for?” Alfred looked around, his hands deep in his pockets. “You didn’t mention it yesterday.”
“We are waiting for one of my ancillaries.”
“Ancillaries?” Alfred frowned. He was about to ask Pacific what the Hell was that supposed to mean when he noticed a short, bald man with a flat face walking toward them. He was clearly limping, helping himself walking with a long stick that looked like a broken branch pulled out of a tree.
Once the stranger was in front of them, he nodded briskly toward Pacific.
“Eugene,” Pacific greeted him back. “How’s the leg?”
“It’s
getting worse,” the man grunted back, his eyes focusing on Alfred. “Like the rest of the body. I’ll be in a wheelchair by the end of the year. Who’s the kid?”
“This is Mr. Alfred White,” Pacific replied. “He’s a student of life, following me in a quest for knowledge.”
Eugene shifted his eyes on Pacific, studied his expression, and then he started laughing. “Really?” he roared, his eyes glancing back to the young man, his sneer open and wide. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”
Pacific’s hands joined. “Well?” he said. “Have you brought it?”
“Yes,” Eugene said, with a much more business-like attitude. He took a folded sheet out his sleeve and handed it to Pacific.
Pacific evaluated it.
“By the way, the pick up place is five blocks away.” Eugene scratched his unshaven chin until it became red. “My guy is waiting for you. Just tell him Juice sends you. He’s expecting cash, by the way. One hundred dollars.”
Pacific folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “Understood,” he said. It was his turn to get something from his sleeve. It was a small glass bottle that looked like an ampoule. He handed it to Eugene. “This should get you going for at least six more months. The wheelchair will have to wait.”
“Nah,” Eugene said, waving the bottle away. “I don’t want any more of that shit. Today I’ll take good, ol’ cash.”
“That’s not what we agreed on.”
“I don’t give a fuck what we agreed on. It’s cash or nothing. Gimme that, or I’ll call off the deal.”
“If that’s your choice.” Pacific said. “Cash it is, then. But I don’t have much. You know I don’t often deal with that kind of currency.”
“Bullshit,” Eugene spit on the ground. He looked at Alfred with hungry eyes. “I’m sure this kid is loaded. That’s why you have him around, right?”
Pacific shock his head. “I told you. He’s just a student.”
“Whatever,” Eugene snapped. “How much have you got?”
Wicked Time Page 8