Hold Me Closer, Necromancer - Lish McBride [4]
“That’s disgusting,” I said.
In the last hour before closing, I crouched under a table with a putty knife and chipped old gum away. I led a very exciting life. Brooke was going to make Frank do it, so I offered before that could happen. Instead he got to sweep, and I was that much closer to winning the pool. Brooke sulked behind the counter, blacking out teeth and drawing mustaches on the people pictured on our tray liners. There were no customers, and the only sound besides the scrape of my putty knife and Frank’s sweeping was Ramon, who for some reason hummed show tunes while he cleaned the grill. Right then it sounded like “Luck Be a Lady.” He danced too. Ramon was a triple threat.
As I ran the putty knife along the wood-style plastic of the table, I wondered why people would pick this as the final resting place for their gum. Seriously, we had garbage cans, trays, wrappers—hell, they could stick it on Frank—so why always the table? While I considered this, I heard the door swing open. The sound wasn’t loud, but I hadn’t expected anyone else to come in so late on a weeknight. Especially with what appeared to be dress shoes. Plumpy’s caters to the sneaker set. I tilted my head so I could peek out.
The man seemed to be of average height, but since I was lying on the floor, it was hard to tell. Everyone looks tall from that angle. I twisted my head so that I could follow him with my eyes, and as he got closer to Brooke, I decided that he must be just about an inch or two shy of six feet. He was skinny too. No, lean. But he gave off the impression of being much bigger than he was. His shoes weren’t like anything I’d seen in a department store, and his charcoal suit looked expensive. He held an old-fashioned doctor’s bag in his left hand and a piece of potato in his right.
Shit.
He held the potato out to Brooke. “I’d like someone to explain this,” he said.
The guy had a preacher’s voice, smooth and rolling, worn with use.
That voice sent a shiver of unease down my spine. I froze under the table, not even daring to bring my arm and putty knife back down.
Brooke looked at the man, her eyes cool, her body language saying casual indifference. She pointed one dainty finger at the man’s right hand. “It’s a potato,” she said.
The man didn’t respond. “You know, a kind of tuber? Grows in the ground. Almost killed Ireland. Any of this ringing a bell?”
I could see Brooke’s face and the pink fingernail polish she was wearing as her hands gestured at the man.
“I know what it is,” he said.
“Then why did you ask?” Brooke rested her hip on the counter and crossed her arms.
The man didn’t move, but I saw his grip tighten on the handle of his bag.
I stayed motionless under the table, even though my arm was starting to get tired from holding the putty knife up. I didn’t know why Brooke wasn’t scared of the man, but my guess was that being the only girl raised alongside a bunch of gigantic, lacrosse-playing male siblings had more than one benefit. When she first started going to shows with me, I’d insisted on staying close to her, afraid she might take a rogue fist from the mosh pit or get swallowed by the sweating mass of the audience. That was until I saw her split the lip of an overly affectionate drunk at an all-ages show at El Corazón.
Brooke doesn’t scare easy. Wish I could say the same about myself.
The man took a deep breath. His grip relaxed around the handle of the bag. I could only see the back of his head, but I bet his anger never showed up on his face. “What I want to know is why it was in the broken taillight of my car, which was in this parking lot.”
Brooke put her elbows on the counter and cupped her chin in her hands. “Oh, I love riddles,” she said. She kept her eyes wide and innocent, her pink lips straight. Her blond ponytail slipped forward, and she absently twirled the end of it with one finger. Brooke had long ago mastered the vapid look. “I give up. Why did you put a potato in your taillight?”
“I didn’t. It was there when I got back.”
Brooke’s eyes