D. Schmidt - They Ate the Waitress?

Wendy moaned, exhausted. “Mr. Wergild, I’ve had a very hard week, and I would really like to get home to get some sleep. Would you mind taking care of the old man for me?”

“No problem.” He smiled, lighting a cigarette and walking out to the alley. “Hey Nappy!” he called. “We’ve got to have a little talk.”

“What’s about?” the old man asked, grimacing like he had a lemon wedged in a very uncomfortable place.

“Do you have health insurance?”

“Of course. How else would I have lived this long? You kids think new livers grow on trees?”

“Not in this climate. Listen, Nappy, every insurance company in the country has public health provisions in their contracts, which you have broken. Hell, you didn’t just break them, you stomped on them and smashed them into little pieces. Unless you have about a half million dollars to turn over to your insurance company, I’m going to have to arrest you.”

“You can’t do this!” Napoleon screamed. His bird squawked in fright, flapping its wings futilely. “You’ll bankrupt me! They’ll take my store!”

“Relax. They will probably just take the lion’s share of your money now, and then seize whatever’s left when you die. It’s just like having kids…”

“I’ll get you for this, Wergild!” He balled his hands into fists. “I’ll bash in your skull!”

“The last time I punched an elderly man, it ended up on the local news. Turns out, he wasn’t even the real Elvis. So let’s skip the fistfight, okay?”

“Well, can I at least run away?”

“Fine. I’ll get your cane.”

Napoleon didn’t get very far. Nick waited for a security team to arrive and take the old man into custody. He would be held just long enough for evidence to be collected and for the insurance company to investigate the rate of cancer in the area. The insurance company would reimburse any victims, using Napoleon’s fines to cover their losses. If he had anything left over, he would probably lose it in the numerous lawsuits that were certain to follow. All things considered, not his best day.

On his way home to Vancouver, Nick set his transmitter on the dashboard and contacted Todd Sweeney again. “I may not have found Flockhart’s bones,” Nick said, “but the trip was still worthwhile. If the art dealer doesn’t have Renée’s remains, that only leaves two options: the killer still has them, or disposed of them someplace else. I’ll try to find out if an unidentified skeleton has been discovered in the Vancouver area. In the meantime, I think I need to visit your restaurant again.”

After that, he put in a transmission to a friend at Seattle Safe Harbor, a crime insurance company. He was forwarded to video mail. Either his friend was away from his desk, or he was avoiding Nick’s calls. Probably both.

“Hey, buddy.” Nick always called his friends “buddy.” It was easier than learning their names. “I need you to do me a favor. Let me know if there have been any Jane Does found in the past month. The one I’m looking for should just be a pile of bones by now. If you find her, I’ll consider deleting those photos of you with your mistress. …Is that the right term? Not sure what to call it when it’s a horse. Anyway, call me back.”

The sun slid below the horizon, setting the sky ablaze in crimson and violet. The lights in the parking lot flickered on, buzzing like trapped houseflies. “And here I am again,” Nick thought, “at a restaurant for white collar cannibals. I still can’t believe it. It’s even worse than that place that sold chicken tartare…”

He watched a cluster of foreign businessmen walk inside, grinning and laughing at some private joke. Even at a distance, he could tell that one of their suits cost more than what he made in a decade. Behind the businessmen came the local weatherman. He was wearing a baseball cap, scarf, and sunglasses, obviously trying to keep from being recognized. A few minutes later, a baseball player from a Portland team walked in, his wife beside him. She was holding their infant daughter.

“At least she’s too young to eat meat,” Nick decided. “For a few more months, anyway. And then it can be pureed…” He shuddered involuntarily. Noise from across the road pulled him away from unpleasant thoughts.

The strip mall across the street was dominated by a gaudily-painted bar called “J.B. Funambulist’s.” The owner was Steven Jenkins, a local celebrity who had written a popular book on speed-reading. Most people finished the book in under an hour thanks to his great tips, and the fact that it was only ten pages long.

A handful of protesters stood outside the bar, waving signs and shouting something he couldn’t quite hear over the traffic noise. A man near the front of the group was wearing a three-piece suit, a top hat, and a monocle, like a caricature of a nineteenth-century railroad tycoon. Nick waited for a break in the traffic and hurried across the street. Stepping into the bar’s parking lot, he could finally make out their words.

“One, two, three, four! Evil millionaires who eat the poor! Five, six, seven, eight! Does human flesh really taste that great?”

Nick wandered over to a woman holding a bullhorn, apparently leading the chanting. “Excuse me, but do you realize you’re protesting the wrong business? Hand to Mouth is across the street.”

“I know that!” she said slowly, slurring her words. “Don’t you think I know that? We wanted to protest over there, but the owner said we couldn’t use his popperty… property… without buying something. And everything he sells has human flesh in it. And that’s… icky.”

“And J.B. Funambulist’s let’s you protest in their parking lot?”

“They sure do,” she laughed “as long as we buy a round of drinks every twenty minutes!”

The top-hatted man stumbled to the edge of the parking lot, shaking his fist more or less in the direction of the restaurant. “You evil, heartless bastards! I’ll show you! I’ll show everybody!” Apparently the thing he was so desperate to show everyone was in his pants. He fumbled with his belt, dropped his trousers, and made a sound like a lovesick moose. Nick lurched back as the man regurgitated several pints of beer onto the pavement.

Nick placed his hand on the leader’s shoulder, guiding her away from the putrid muck. “I noticed you folks are all wearing gold pins,” he said, reading the engraving. “What’s ‘Scunner Consulting’?”

“They paid us to be here today. Next week, we’re protesting a slim… skim… a scrimshaw dealer a couple towns over.” The woman put a finger to her lips. “Shh! That’s a secret! Who told you that?”

“Well, I’m sure you’re busy, so I’ll let you get back to chanting slogans.” Obviously, she was far too intoxicated to be helpful. He left her to her drunken faux activism and returned to the restaurant.

The maitre d’ at Hand to Mouth was a tall, lanky man with a neatly shaved head and a wispy mustache. His name tag said “Paulo.” Paulo peered at Nick suspiciously, like he was a maggot swimming in his foie gras. “Do you have a reservation, sir?” he said in a tone that clearly indicated “sir” was code for “you underclass piece of filth who couldn’t afford to eat here even if you brought your own food and ate it while cowering in the men’s room.”

“Actually,” Nick explained calmly, “I just came inside to tell you that your car is being stolen.”

“What? Not my baby! Oh my sweet lord!” Paulo ran from his station in a panic. Heading for the door, he grabbed a potted plant from the lobby, apparently to defend himself against the would-be car thieves. Smiling to himself, Nick wondered what kind of person would consider an angel-wing begonia a dangerous weapon.