Thursday, July 20, 2006

Pretty: Cheeseburgers

"Welcome to the Chuckles Cantina! The coat check is over there, and I will find you a table while you're taking care of that. Smoking or Non?" The hostess giggled, for some reason Jack couldn't quite fathom. Perhaps it was required.

"Non-smoking, please." Jack smoked on occasion, but the man he was looking for didn't smoke, so non-smoking made more sense. After shucking off all of his cold-weather gear, he was led deeper into the restaurant.

Jack did not pay much attention to the menu, he ordered a cheeseburger. These days, of course, it wasn't really a cheeseburger, but it looked similar and almost tasted the same, and it wasn't like better restaurants had better stuff, they just cooked it differently.

"Been working here long?" He was working on the waitress, priming her, really.

"Yeah, it's a good job. Good hours, decent pay when you folks tip like you're supposed to. No real grab-asses to worry about like my last gig."

"Don't fret about the tip, I've got one for the pool and maybe a little extra just for you."

"You do, huh? That's awfully pleasant of you." Suspicion crept into her eyes.

"Don't worry, it's just a question or two. I'm trying to track down a friend of mine."

"A friend, huh? Seems to me a friend would have told you where he went. But go ahead, what's your friend look like?"

"It would have been two days ago, around eighteen-hundred. He's about a hundred-sixty cents tall, weighs maybe sixty keys or so. Green eyes, dark hair. I have an sketch of him if you want me to show you."

"Your friend, would he have been alone?"

"I'm not entirely sure, actually. He lives around here, and I know he made it as far as the Mouth on his way home from work. Sometimes he stops off for food, sometimes not."

"Show me the sketch, it was a kind of busy night."

Jack took out his notebook and flipped back a few pages. He was a pretty fair artist, and had drawn this picture with the help of the person who had hired him. He saw recognition in the eyes of the waitress.

"Yeah, I remember your friend and his associates. Not much in the way of tippers, I'd say."

Associates? Jack slid a twenty across the table. "Remember anything else?"

"Well, the other guys, they had tattoos, matching ones. Some kind of bird on their forearms."

This was probably the worst thing she could have said to Jack. "Some kind of bird? Would you say it could have been a raven? Black bird, mean-looking?"

"Yeah, that's it. Big mean looking black bird."

"One last question, were the tattoos on the guys' left arms or right?"

"Umm, right, I think. One of them signed the check, and I think he was right handed."

"Thanks a lot. You might have just saved my friend's life."

Jack's quarry, it seems, was involved with Followers. This was going to get tricky.

NEXT

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