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I nod, only because that describes him perfectly. He is an oddity.
She looks relieved. “But these two, they just felt cold. That same oddity, but cold. I’ve been in this town a long time, Benji, and I’ve seen a lot of people come through here. But never something like them.”
A buzzing noise starts in my ears. “Did they say who they were?”
Rosie shakes her head. “I tried to get names, but they ignored me. I thought at first that maybe they were police or something, but the more I think about it, the less I’m sure.”
FBI? I think, remembering Corwin’s card in my pocket, and his earlier visit. With all that’s gone on lately, he’s been the furthest thing from my mind. Maybe he sent someone else to follow up here in town. I tell Rosie this, but she’s shaking her head again even before I finish.
“I don’t think that’s it, Benji. They weren’t asking about Big Eddie or Griggs.” She glances over her shoulder again out onto the street. It’s empty. She turns back to me. “They were asking about Cal.”
I can’t prevent the shock on my face. “Cal?”
She nods. “They called him Calliel. They described him perfectly, asking if anyone in the diner had seen him. I had a few of my regulars in there. The doc, Julie from the mayor’s office. Worley had come down off the mountain for a cup of coffee and a burger like he does every week.”
I’m horrified. “They all know him,” I whisper.
She snorts. “We do, yes. But you should know us better than that, Benji. They let me talk, and I didn’t say a thing. I told them I hadn’t seen the person they described. I asked them who they were and what they wanted, but they just said they were trying to find their old friend Calliel. They looked around the diner like they thought I was hiding the big guy somewhere. Then they left and started walking down Poplar Street, store to store. I got the doc and Worley to start calling the businesses to warn them, and I took the back alley from the diner down to here.”
Her loyalty is almost enough to cause me to crumble. “Rosie… I—”
She heads me off. “Oh, no. Don’t you even do that, now. You know we take care of our own here. Big Eddie always did right by us, by me, and you’ve done the same since you’ve stepped up in his place. And I don’t think I’ve seen you as happy in that whole time as you’ve been in the last two weeks.” I start to sputter, but she glares at me and I subside. “Do you trust that man?”
I don’t hesitate. “Yes.” The answer surprises even me.
“Then that’s good enough for me. I liked him the moment I saw him. I don’t need to know what he did, if he even did anything. I don’t know where he is right now, and for some reason I’ve got a feeling you don’t, either. But if you speak to him, you tell him old Rosie’s asking about him and that he’d better get his ass back here before I hunt him down.”
“I miss him,” I admit. “I don’t know….” I allow myself to trail off.
Rosie hears the bitter notes in my words. She reaches over the counter and grabs my hand. “He’ll be back,” she says, her gaze softening. “You should see the way his eyes light up when he’s talking about you. It’s always ‘Benji this’ or ‘Benji that’.” She grins at me. “Remember when you guys came in for dinner a few days ago?”
I nod. It had been the day before the gunman. The day before I called him to my bed.
“When you weren’t looking, he’d steal these little glances at you, out of the corner of his eye. I don’t think he knew anyone saw him, but we all did. Everyone except you. And that look? Oh, Benji. That look was everything.”
My heart hurts. My bones ache. “I—“
The bell rings overhead. The door opens.
Two men walk in, unfamiliar to me. The room immediately goes cold. Both are wearing matching black suits, white dress shirts, and skinny black ties. They are big men, almost the size of Cal. Both have cropped dark hair, and for a moment I think that they might be twins, but one has darker skin, almost bronzed, while the other is a pale white. The darker-skinned man appears younger than his counterpart, who has lines around his eyes and mouth. Their eyes are the same, though, and I can see why Rosie had said they were like Cal. Their eyes are like black pools of oil, almost without any white around them. They look like Cal’s eyes, but even from here, they seem darker. Older. Emptier. The strangers cause my stomach to twist.
The younger man, in the lead, looks around the store, jerking his head erratically, like a bird. He stares at the ceiling for a moment, narrowing his eyes. I follow his line of sight, seeing scratch marks against the ceiling tiles overhead. It takes me a moment to place them, only because I can’t imagine what could cause those marks ten feet overhead. Then it hits me and my blood runs cold.
Cal’s wings, wrapped around me, protecting me from gunfire.
I drop my gaze to find the pale-skinned man staring at me. “Help you?” I say, my voice somehow even.
He ignores me, averting his eyes to Rosie. “From the diner,” he says, his voice oddly flat. There’s no accent to it, no lilt to his words. Each word down to the very letter sounds exactly the same. Even in Oregon there’s a specific cadence to the speech. This voice sounds like it comes from nowhere.
Rosie grins cheerfully. “Came to say hello to my friend!” she says, her voice booming. For an old broad, she’s got some balls, that’s for sure. “Why am I not surprised to see you boys again. Say, I didn’t catch your names earlier.”
“We didn’t give them,” the darker man says, his voice just as strange. “What happened there?” He points to the ceiling with the scratch marks.
I glance up just for a moment, pretending to study what he’s showing me. “Don’t rightly know,” I finally say, slowly. “Can’t say I spend much time looking at the ceiling.”
Rosie frowns as she looks up. “Probably the electrician,” she says. “These old buildings are wired like you wouldn’t believe. Looks like tool marks to me.”
I shrugged. “Could be right.”
