Thursday 12 January 2012

The Coffee Shop Man 2

The coffee was hot. Good. If it’s not painful to drink, I drink it too fast. The jazz was interrupted by some garbled French babble before flowing back into some slow swing music.
My target didn’t look up when I sat down. Whatever. His pouting was almost laughable. “You shouldn’t have moved your hat. You know how hard it is to miss your beady little eyes,”
He grunted. I continued. “Seriously though, I thought you left this town. What happened? Vengeance not a strong enough motivator anymore?”
He grunted again. It was a distinctly cordial grunt. I sipped my coffee and burned my tongue. Somehow he sighed without moving his chest. “Mik,” he grated, “I don’t wanna talk. Go ‘way.”
I didn’t move. He looked at his mug like he just realized he was holding it. “I dunno why I came here. They don’t even serve booze.”
“Hey, focus,” I couldn’t figure out how he could be so apathetic. “What happened to Logan? You had the train ticket and everything. Why are you still here?”
“Hey, I’m not still here. I’m long gone.” He slumped forward and flopped his forearms on the table. “Point is, I came back. Been back for three days.”
Usually it’s easy for me to keep my voice steady, but for some reason it started getting all shrill on me. “So you were there for what, a few hours? Didn’t you find them?”

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