The Last Coin (40 page)

Andrew found himself feeling bad for the old bird as he clunked up the steps into the cafe, hauling the canister. Just when she’d gotten the invalidism licked, this new ailment set in. On an impulse, he filled a bowl with Weetabix, sprinkled sugar on them, poured milk into a pitcher, and headed upstairs. He knocked on Aunt Naomi’s door and went in. The sight of the Weetabix seemed to cheer her.

She’d been watching out the window again, staring at the lonesome ocean. She looked at him wistfully and said, “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right.” At first he thought she was talking about her own troubles, but she wasn’t. She was talking about Rose and him. “She’ll see things straight soon,” Naomi said, spooning up the Weetabix. “Just do what you have to do.”

Andrew went back downstairs feeling a little bit cheered, and he stopped to pet the cats on the bottom landing. He chatted for a moment with the toad on the service porch on his way back to the cafe, asking after its health, but the thing just floated there with its fingers outspread, doing nothing. Andrew realized abruptly that he half-expected it to respond. This, he told himself, is insanity. But then he remembered the parrots, and he shrugged.

Turning toward the cafe door, he noticed that Rose had taken the brick off the top of the toad’s aquarium and was using it to block the back door open. He stopped again and considered it. If
he
had done that, Rose would have pointed out his mistake. She still wasn’t enthusiastic about the creature, and wasn’t fond of the idea of it slipping out of the tank and making away through the house. And here she was, giving it just such a chance. Well, he’d be big about it, and not point out the contradiction in her behavior, not remind her of the lecture she’d given him. And if she neglected to put it back, and the toad got out … Andrew shrugged. It would give him a certain edge, wouldn’t it? …

He felt suddenly like a jerk. He was working hard at feeling sorry for himself is what he was doing. If he could
invent
misdeeds for Rose, then it would seem to even things out. What he was thinking of doing was using this petty brick business against her, in order to gain back some lost ground. Only it wouldn’t gain
anything
back, and he knew it; it would only make him contemptible.

He had caught himself—nipped his self-pity in the bud. He hadn’t let himself make the stupid error of picking a fight over nothing, just to cast blame. His spirits lifted. He saw Rose heading across the backyard, toward the open door, carrying the library rug, which she’d been beating in the yard. He stood smiling at her. He would say something about the brick, is what he’d do, something lighthearted, that showed that he was aware of the possible trouble connected to removing it from the top of the toad’s aquarium, but that he had too much faith in Rose to remind her to replace it.

But then just as abruptly as his spirits had lifted, they fell again. He was puffed up with pride, and he knew it. He marveled at the shifting of virtues and emotions. You couldn’t keep them straight. One was always edging the other one aside or swamping it entirely. You had to juggle them continually, and when you thought you had them all balanced and spinning just so, down they came, in a tumble, and you were reminded all over again that you were the biggest fool of all when you put on airs. Well, sometimes that was a healthy reminder—because it was true, you were. And it was when you congratulated yourself most loudly that you were in the most trouble; that’s when the fall was greatest.

Andrew laughed for the first time that day. There was a certain humor in the irony of it, in the up and down tangle of guilt and remorse and desire and joy that drove people along as if they were sitting in motor cars built by madmen, trying to steer but finding that the wheel kept coming loose in their hands and that the tires were out of round. And yet somehow, in the face of it all, he was sure that he would get to where he wanted to go—wherever that was—despite the fog and the joke car and the crooked and roundabout route.

He resolved again not to tell Rose the Pennyman business. He was big enough to shoulder it. He knew that he would have liked to abdicate some little bit of his responsibility to her in order to lighten the burden on himself, just like he’d left the mess in the cafe kitchen, half-hoping that Rose or Mrs. Gummidge or elves or cats or someone would clean it up for him. This was his chance to turn that around, his chance to come through.

When the battle was won or lost, when his tour of duty in the Legion of the Coins was through, Rose could be made to understand what had gone on. All would be revealed. He needed patience, that and a clear head, because he could feel it in his bones that there would be trouble tonight.

This had come down to a personal battle between him and Pennyman—an almost petty contest of wills that had begun that night on the front porch and had become a quite possibly deadly affair. Pennyman would act, and soon, too. That’s why he had come home starched and pressed and cheerful today. Inside he was a festering mass of hatred; outside he wore the mask. But he would rip it off that evening. You could bet on it.

Trouble came early. It was six o’clock and KNEX hadn’t shown up. Andrew’s frantic calls to the station were useless. The crew was out in the field. They couldn’t be called back. Canceling the piece was out of the question; if it was going to be done at all, then tonight was the night. There was static clicking and a dial tone. Subsequent calls turned up nothing but a busy signal, until finally, after a half-dozen tries, it seemed as if Andrew had got a connection again, except that on the other end there was nothing but silence and then a distant chattering voice sounding like a humanoid insect. Andrew was gripped with the suspicion that the phone trouble was manufactured, and he thought he heard muffled laughter just before the connection was cut.

Too many people were showing up at the cafe. It began to seem as if he wouldn’t have enough gumbo, and if he were going to make more then he’d have to hustle. Even with help the process would kill a couple of hours. He felt like sitting in a chair. He wanted a pint of beer, but the keg wasn’t working worth a damn. It was pouring out a steady stream of foam, leaving a quarter inch of beer in the bottom of the glass. Pickett had gone to work on it and failed, so now Rose was having a go. But Andrew would have to call her away to chop onions and bell peppers.

And just an hour earlier it had seemed as if everything was set. The fire was lit, and a pile of split eucalyptus logs sat on the side of the hearth, ready. Each table was arranged just so, with a tiny bouquet of blue sweetpeas arranged around a pink carnation; Rose had done that. There were ceramic salt and pepper shakers on each table along with a cut-glass sugar bowl and a pair of candlesticks and the flowers. The whole effect, with the print tablecloths and oak chairs and mismatched silver and china was so homey that he had suddenly wished
he
was eating there, carefree and waited upon. Then it had struck him that the idea of it meant that he had succeeded, that the cafe was going to work. Rose seemed to think so, too.

Pickett had come dressed in a black jacket and a bow tie and with his shoes polished. His very appearance made it clear that he was putting aside his demons and devils for the evening and was rallying ‘round. He took Mrs. Gummidge in hand, the two of them agreeing on the folding and placement of napkins, on the topping off of water glasses. Mrs. Gummidge would pour conventional coffee; Pickett would brew more exotic coffees in the espresso maker and tend bar. Rose would bus tables and wash dishes, helped out generally by Mrs. Gummidge when Pickett could spare her. Aunt Naomi would tally and distribute the checks and would keep the cats out.

The cats insisted on coming in—hiding behind counters, under tables. Andrew had chased them out again and again, losing the patience he’d developed for them over the past few days. They wouldn’t be persuaded, though. They
would
come in, like it or not, and Andrew finally threw in the towel, warning Aunt Naomi to keep them at bay, and to be ready in an instant to pitch them out if a customer complained. He had been certain, by four in the afternoon, that everything would work as smoothly and accurately as a seven-day clock. With only two tables reserved, they couldn’t fail. They would come close to outnumbering their guests.

By five everything had been ready and there hovered in the air an atmosphere of anticipation. Pickett had polished glasses that were already clean, holding them up in the evening sunlight gleaming through the casements and buffing out traces of fingerprints and waterstains. Mrs. Gummidge had brewed Aunt Naomi a cup of tea out in the house kitchen. She insisted that tea was a natural curative, and that Aunt Naomi drink half a dozen sugared cups a day, which the old lady did, perhaps to humor her. There had been a generally cheerful bustle as the minutes ticked away toward six o’clock.

Andrew, finished for the moment in the kitchen, had stepped out to survey the bar—the pint glasses, the bottles, the little refrigerator case full of beer and white wine, the debris he’d picked up from Polsky and Sons. Their liquor couldn’t be argued with. Most of it would be wasted in a mixed drink, though. They’d discourage mixed drinks. They weren’t Pickett’s forte anyway. Andrew had felt like a general, surveying the field before a battle, satisfied with the troops ranked just so about the hillsides, with the cannon and camouflage and with the satisfying smell of victory already in the air.

Then the first party arrived, dressed in suits and furs and looking very cheerful. Pickett had just seated them near the fireplace when the second party came in through the door, a very old couple and a very young couple—the young couple evidently the grandchildren. The old man was nearly deaf, and seemed to think he’d been mistreated. Pickett seated them three times, before, with a gesture of contempt, the old man was satisfied and asked immediately for dry toast. Pickett explained graciously about the set menu, about the unavailability of dry toast, and the old man had to be humored by the rest of the party. He picked up the saltshaker, a blue ceramic doggy with inflated cheeks. He stared at it as if in disbelief and then put it down, hiding it behind the flowers. That’s where the cat trouble will come from, thought Andrew, looking out through the kitchen door.

Then there was another party, without reservations: four women from Leisure World. They revealed that they were on the staff of the
Leisure World Recliner
, and did the restaurant column. Behind them, to Andrew’s indignant surprise, was Ken-or-Ed, looking very cheerful and accompanied by his wife. He caught sight of Andrew in the kitchen and swarmed in toward him, waving his hand and apologizing and leaving his wizened wife standing by the street door, wearing, of all things, a mumu intended for a woman six times her size.

Andrew gritted his teeth. This stank. Something was rotten in Seal Beach. Here was Ken-or-Ed, being big about it all. Andrew could hardly accuse him of being a hireling of Jules Pennyman, not with Rose and Aunt Naomi there, not without seeming to be a lunatic in front of the contingent from the Leisure World newspaper.

Andrew rousted himself. He would have to work like a fiend. He couldn’t afford to drink beer. Rose had done something to the keg, and now it was flowing moderately well. There was a cat on the counter staring into the gumbo and another wandering out into the cafe, looking for a lap to leap into. Andrew hissed at the passing Mrs. Gummidge to see to the cats, but she hurried off to “lay tables” as she put it, and was looking for silverware,

KNEX finally strode in almost at seven o’clock—two of them altogether, with video equipment and looking tired and out of sorts, as if it had been a long day. God almighty, Andrew thought, watching the sudden turmoil in the cafe. Pickett ushered the crew into the back corner, then went around to the tables explaining things. The old man was skeptical. He squinted at the video camera and said, throwing down his napkin, that he didn’t want a salad, that he couldn’t stand “roughage.” He wanted soup. Pickett grinned at him. The soup would be right up, he said, and explained again about the camera crew, who waved equipment around and talked too loud, joking between themselves. The old man asked where his toast was, and the young lady at the table patiently explained that there wasn’t any toast.

Andrew hid in the kitchen. He hadn’t even inflated the hats yet. He had no idea whether they’d inflate at all. His brilliant notion of publicizing the restaurant by wearing floating chef’s hats was turning out to be a nitwit idea, and he felt suddenly defensive about it. He heard the old man, talking too loud out of general deafness, say, “I’ve been told that there
isn’t
any toast!”

Mrs. Gummidge came through the kitchen smiling just then, looking around. She had a vacant, bemused expression, as if she only half-remembered why she was there at all. She found a spoon on the counter, rinsed it off, dried it, and went back out, humming. Another batch of guests had arrived. The place was filling up. They needed salads, they needed silverware, they needed this and that and the other. Andrew was tired. His back ached and his elbow joints hurt. He had to have aspirin. He felt as if he’d aged ten years in the last two days.

Suddenly there was a shout from the cafe. Andrew knew the voice. He would have guessed it would come from the dry toast man, but it hadn’t. It was Ken-or-Ed, cutting up rough. “You’re God damned right!” he shouted, evidently at Pickett. “In my
salad!”

A woman shrieked. Leaving his cast iron kettle on the fire, Andrew stepped across to the door and looked out. There was Mrs. Ken-or-Ed, standing up, her hands thrown across her chest, a look of surprised horror on her face. Her water glass was tipped over, her chair thrown back. The rest of the patrons were obviously restless, peering under their tables and lifting napkins. The cats! Andrew thought, suddenly seething.