"Who gave you the toaster?" he asked.
"Henry and Vera. They said they found it in one of the cabins at the old Sea Breeze Motor Lodge."
The Sea Breeze had been abandoned for decades. A few years back, using a somewhat dubious legal claim of squatter's rights, Henry and Vera Emerson had moved in and proceeded to make it their home. To date no one had challenged them. Given the very large dogs they kept on the premises, it was unlikely that anyone in his right mind would try to evict Henry and Vera without the backing of a small army. Thus far no one with an army had shown up.
"You know," Fallon said, "now that you've got a steady job, you could probably afford a new toaster."
"Probably." She slathered butter on the toast. "But I like this one. It has a cool vintage look, don't you think?"
"Probably because it is vintage. Must be more than fifty years old. Amazing that it still works."
"It needed a little tuning up, but Henry got it running again."
"I can see that. Not every toaster can put a couple of slices into orbit."
"Nope." She looked pleased. "Mine is one of a kind."
It occurred to him that he had not given her a housewarming gift.
He sat down at the wooden table and examined the two neatly arranged place settings. The knife, fork and spoon were in proper order. The napkin was neatly folded. There was a tiny flower in a miniature bud vase positioned between the two place mats. He felt as if he had stepped into another dimension.
"So," he said. "When are you going to tell me how you wound up in Scargill Cove?"
"Later," she said. "At the office. Breakfast first. It's the most important meal of the day."
SHE FED HIM a heaping plate of eggs scrambled with ricotta cheese, a pile of toast and a fresh, juicy pear, hoping that the old adage was true and that the way to a man's heart really was through his stomach. A large man like Fallon Jones needed his food.
He left after his third mug of coffee, taking the clock with him. She stood at her window and watched him walk through the fog--the damp kind off the ocean--to the office of Jones & Jones.
She had seen him kill. He was certainly not the first extremely dangerous man she had known. But he was different. Fallon Jones was that rarity in the modern world, a man who lived by a code, a man who cared about old-fashioned things like honor and a woman's reputation.
The Sunshine Cafe was open. She knew that the regulars would be at the counter, eating Marge's delicious homemade muffins and drinking coffee. They would see Fallon come down the street and go into his office. By noon everyone in town would know that he had spent the night with her.
She smiled to herself. "Fine by me."
9
Mr. J-Jones?"
Fallon paused at the top of the stairs, the key in the lock of the office door, and looked down at Walker.
Walker rarely entered any building except his own cabin.
"What can I do for you, Walker?" Fallon asked.
If Walker had a last name, no one in town was aware of it. He was the closest thing that Scargill Cove had to a homeless man but he was not, strictly speaking, homeless. He had a cabin out on the bluffs where he took short naps during the day. All the evidence indicated that Walker did not need a lot of sleep. He was a man with a job to do. Patrolling Scargill Cove was his calling, and he was faithful to the task.
He bathed in the hot springs out at the Point. He wore his clothes until they became tattered and frayed. When he needed new garments, someone in town would leave whatever was necessary on top of a garbage can. Walker would only take items that he found in the trash. He refused flat-out gifts of any kind. I don't take charity was part of his code and he lived by it.
He got plenty to eat. Marge at the Sunshine always left an evening meal out for him at night and fresh muffins and coffee in the mornings. In between times Walker foraged in the trash behind Stokes's Grocery. Although he seemed physically healthy, he never gained any weight. Fallon figured that was because Walker was nearly always in motion. He walked the streets of Scargill Cove all night long, regardless of the weather.
"Got to t-talk to you, Mr. Jones."
Walker hardly ever spoke. When he did, it was always in very short sentences. Most people in the Cove assumed that Walker had done some hard drugs when he was a young man. They said he had gone out on a very bad trip and never found his way back home. Fallon wasn't so sure of that diagnosis. He sensed that Walker was some kind of talent. Something had happened here in the Cove decades ago that had launched him on his relentless patrols.
Fallon turned the key in the lock and opened the door. "Come on inside. I'll make some coffee."
Walker said nothing but he climbed the stairs and entered the office. He stood in the doorway for a minute, looking around uncertainly.
Fallon set the blanket-covered clock on a table and shrugged out of his jacket.
"Have a seat, Walker," he said, indicating Isabella's chair. It was the only chair in the room other than his own. There had never been much need for a client chair. J&J got very little in the way of walk-in business. Mostly the firm was a single-client agency and that client was the Arcane Society. The services of J&J were available to all members of the Society, but when those calls came in, Fallon usually handed off the work to other investigation firms operated by sensitives in the Arcane community.
Walker hesitated and then lowered himself gingerly onto the chair, as if he was unaccustomed to sitting in one. He stared hard at the blanket-covered clock, fascination and dread drawing his taut face even tighter around the bones. He started to rock.
Fallon poured water into the coffee machine. "Something wrong, Walker?"
"It needs to go back," Walker said urgently. "It sh-shouldn't be here."
"What needs to go back?"
"Whatever is under that b-blanket. It needs to go back."
Fallon had been about to shovel the ground coffee into the machine. He stopped, put the package on the table and contemplated Walker.
"Do you know what is under the blanket, Walker?"
Walker shook his head. He rocked harder. His eyes never left the blanket. "No, Mr. Jones. I just know it needs to go b-back. It should be with the other things in the vault."
Fallon forgot about the coffee altogether. He jacked up his talent a little. A multidimensional spiderweb appeared in his mind. For the moment several of the strands remained concealed in the dark night of chaos energy. But that would change as bits and pieces of data came in. Each item of information would land somewhere on the web, get stuck and light up. Relationships, connections, links and associations would gradually illuminate the delicate design. Eventually he would see the answers he needed.