Page 19 of The Forest of Lost Souls

“That’s for sure the truth.”

“Doin’ time.”

When he fails to invite her inside, she says, “Maybe I can say hello to your folks.”

“Like introduce yourself.”

“Yeah.”

“Nobody home but me.”

She cocks her head. “So why am I standing out here on the porch? You afraid of me, Morgan Slyke?”

He rises out of his fog enough to smile. “I think maybe I could be.” He steps back. “You maybe want to come in for some breakfast, Ceecee?”

Entering the house, she says, “You cook?”

“Monday breakfast is special. Monday breakfast isn’t about cookin’ anything.” He closes the door and heads back along the hallway.

Following him, she says, “What’s Monday breakfast about?”

The kitchen decor is calculated country. The knotty-pine table has four captain’s chairs with tie-on green cushions.

“Warm a chair,” he says. From a cabinet he extracts two tall glasses and puts them on the table. “I celebrate with mimosas.”

“What’re you celebrating?”

“Monday.” He opens the refrigerator. “Monday is my day of celebration.” He takes a carton of orange juice from the door and brings it to the table.

“Why Monday?” she asks.

“Weekends are for makin’ money. Mondays are for doin’ what I make money for.”

Pouring half a glass of orange juice for each of them, she says, “Where do you work weekends?”

“All around,” he says as he opens an under-the-counter wine cooler and extracts a bottle of chilled champagne. “I work all around, here and there, wherever there’s my kind of work to do.”

“What kind of work is that?”

“The kind of work pays big but you don’t break a sweat.”

“How many guesses do I get?”

“How many guesses do you get?”

“To name what work you do,” she says.

“I already told you what work.”

“I get it. You’re a man of mystery.”

He likes the sound of that. “Exactly! I’m a man of mystery, Ceecee Cooper.” He picks up a dish towel from beside the sink.

At the table again, he falls silent, attempting to open the champagne. The wire hood caging the cork is a simple fixture, but he struggles with it before stripping it off and throwing it aside with a snarled curse. He’s in no condition to operate heavy machinery.

He pulls the cork. A large volume of thick, white foam gushes from the mouth of the bottle and down the neck into the dish towel.

Morgan grins at her. “That’s the same how it looks like whenIget off.”

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