The Edge of Madness Cafe (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 2) by Mark Reynolds Page B

title page, slicing it as neatly as a razorblade. That fast, the page
was folded in his fingers and vanished up his sleeve. Then he walked to the front
of the store, book in hand.
    “Why would someone leave
a box there?” the woman complained. “I mean, anyone could fall over it.”
    Dabble knew her; she
frequented the store, poring over the romance section. Hair in a kerchief, peacock
blue overcoat, yellow slacks struggling to contain the trunks of her legs, she
was some kind of ridiculous bird; a ridiculous, squawking bird. “I could have fallen
and broken my hip. Why would anyone be so irresponsible?”
    “I’m so sorry,” Ellen said,
but Nicholas Dabble knew her apology went unheard. The woman was into her
spiel, the one she reserved for the assistant manager of the supermarket who
would not honor an expired coupon, or the young retail clerk who failed to find
the hand lotion she required, or anyone younger than she, anyone for whom hope
has not died. “I thought I was only going to be gone a moment,” Ellen said, “and
I left the books—”
    “It was my fault,” Dabble
interrupted crisply, holding the book out to Ellen. “Go on or you’ll be late.
It’s my store. I’ll take care of this.”
    The old woman turned a
wrinkled face to him, jaw painfully narrow and lined, lips drawn into a pucker.
He read her instantly, and knew she had not been kissed in many years, and had
not enjoyed it much when she had. She liked cakes and pudding better; chocolate
most of all.
    “Go on,” he said again.
“Everything will be all right.”
    Ellen nodded, mouthing a
thank-you to him that the old woman did not see, then grabbed her bag from
below the register and left. She placed the book safely down inside and
quickened her pace, dress flouncing nicely as she turned towards the bus stop.
    Nicholas Dabble returned
his attention to the bird woman. “You should go now.”
    “That young woman is careless,”
she insisted. “She has no regard for the welfare of others. Why, I could’ve fallen—”
    “But you didn’t,” Dabble replied
matter-of-factly. “You could have been hit by lightning, but that didn’t happen
either. You could have married Richie Moynihan, who fancied you since junior
high; you disliked him because he was fat and already losing his hair by
eighteen, and thought you could do better. But you didn’t. You could have
finished college, gotten a job, married and had children, grandchildren, all to
help distract you from the emptiness in your soul. Or you could have been hit by
a garbage truck and killed. Best not to dwell on what could have been.”
    The old woman stared back
at him, a tic causing her mouth to flinch on one side, her face trembling, eyes
glassy and wet, swimming. She seemed about to say something, but all that came
out was a small puff of air.
    Nicholas Dabble turned
away. “If you need anything, I’ll be in the back.”
     
    *     *     *
     
    The backroom of Dabble’s
Books was storage, narrow aisles of steel shelves stacked floor to ceiling,
artificial walls erected from cardboard boxes of books. Dabble threaded the
cramped aisle-ways, sidestepping a short ladder from the last inventory. Unnecessary.
Inventory was a task for those who did not know what they had, and Dabble knew
everything there was to know about anything within his store. He knew how many
of every copy of every book by any author was under his roof, down to the exact
location, the date it was received, and the story it contained. He knew his
store the way one knows a lover, knows her likes and dislikes, the places to
touch that will bring her pleasure, the features she thinks are pretty (whether
they are or not) and the blemishes she works to hide. Nicholas Dabble knew
everything in his store in that way, and he reveled in the fact that here, if
nowhere else, he was God. He knew the paper mites that attacked his stories, and
the insects that dined upon each aspect of his collection of books, from