The New Magic - The Revelation of Jonah McAllister - Landon Wark (bill gates best books TXT) 📗

over briefly before going back to writing. Sandy’s brow furrowed. He didn’t look like the kind of person you would meet muttering in a deli. He was thin enough for sure and pale enough, and his face was unshaven, but he didn’t have the look in his eye. The kind of half glazed over look that a person got when his brain had finally been levelled by alcohol or drugs or maybe even syphilis. His appearance was unkempt, but more from lack of effort than from lack of proper facilities. He took care of himself, but he really phoned it in.

“Excuse me!”

Half the people in the deli looked over. A younger Sandy Jenkins would have blushed, but that blush was hidden by years of disgust.

“What?” he returned finally.

“You think you could keep it down o’er there?” she asked.

“No.”

Taken back by the bluntness of it Sandy remained speechless for a moment. Moments that were getting shorter and shorter all the time.

“People are trying to eat,” she pushed.

He looked over once again, studying her from top to bottom. “You’re obviously succeeding.”

In an instant Sandy Jenkins reached a state she thought unreachable, going past thorough disgust into a state that was beyond description. She opened her mouth to tear into the man, suddenly painfully aware of the swaying of her jowls when he shoved his chair out from behind himself, gathered up all of his possessions and turned toward the door behind her.

“I’ll save you the effort of a reply,” he said.

A police cruiser coasted by the large glass deli window.

The man stopped in his tracks, an action that seemed to go unnoticed by anyone but he and Sandy. The chair opposite her at the table squealed as he pulled it out and parked himself definitively in it.

“That looks like an interesting book,” he remarked without a second of delay.

She scooped the book with its cover of a muscular warrior and a half dressed maid into the bag at her side.

“I don’t see what business that is of yours.”

His eyes widened at the sound of car doors closing. Sandy turned around to see the two officers from the police car walking up to the deli. Her brow furrowed with the understanding that she should get away from him as fast as humanly possible. She tried to get up, but his hand clamped down on her arm.

“Wait,” he said. “Just until they leave.”

“Let go of me,” she demanded. He winced at the volume of her voice.

“Shhh! One hundred dollars to stay until they leave.”

He didn’t look like he had one hundred dollars, and the offer offended her. She tried once more to get up as the officers reached the sidewalk outside.

“One thousand!” he hissed. “One thousand dollars to have a friendly conversation with me until they go.”

Offended or not, the offer made her eyebrow arch. The chair groaned underneath her as she settled back down and his grip relaxed on her arm.

“Lemme see the money,” she said.

He frantically pulled two hundred dollar bills out of his pocket, placed them under a napkin and slid the parcel across the table to her as the officers opened the door to the deli. “I don’t have the rest on me. You can get it from me later.”

Her eyes widened at the sight of the money and the way it coasted effortlessly across the table. Sandy bit her lip and glanced at her watch. She had fifteen minutes until she had to get back to work. She could tolerate someone for that long, couldn’t she?

“You work around here?” he asked quietly, his eyes straying to where the two officers were ordering coffee.

“I don’t wanna tell you where I work,” she replied flatly.

“Fair enough. Is the weather out here always this hot?”

“Spring, summer and fall.”

“No snow?”

“Not unless hell freezes over.”

“It gets cold back home,” he muttered.

“You from up north?”

He paused for a moment. She sensed something sarcastic on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it.

“Yeah.”

The cashier was making disgusting chit-chat with the two officers, both married men.

“Bitch.”

The officers finished with her, both taking identical sips from their steaming cups. Sandy thought for a moment of stopping them, of saying there was something strange about the person sitting across from her, but she shoved the notion aside. She doubted she would ever see the second installment of her pay for this errand, and likely shouldn’t try, but the thought of it intrigued her. It was the intrigue that kept her going more than the money. Nothing ever happened around here.

“So…” he trailed off as the door opened, bell announcing the departure of the patrolmen.

He stood up almost instantly, ripping a page out of the back of the notebook and scribbling something down on it.

“I’ll leave the money at the desk of this hotel,” he muttered curtly. “You can pick it up tomorrow.”

Sandy looked after him as he left, still thinking about going after the two patrolmen, or even going down to the station a few miles away, but a look at her watch warned her that her lunch break would soon be over and she should be getting back to the call centre. The incident was already beginning to fade from her mind with the disgustingly sly smile given to her by the cashier.

Jonah McAllister waded through the pile of shirts and pants that had taken up residence in the dark hotel room. He kicked a pile over, rummaging through the harvest of paper that was revealed. He uncurled most of the scraps before shoving the whole pile aside. The families and cliques of the piles were so familiar now that he knew what he was looking for was not there after a few moments. He grumbled softly to himself, flopping down on the bed