Page 56 of The Bad Weather Friend

“A lot of bones,” she said.

“Bones are bones. They break. Doctors set them. Life goes on.”

“I was also a little surprised,” Benny chimed in. “I was under the impression that you used only intimidation. Maybe you didn’t say as much. I can’t recall. But you seemed to imply it.”

“Most of the time,” the giant said, “intimidation is enough. But those bad boys didn’t intend just to take the Explorer. They meant to kill you and me, then kidnap and gang-rape Harper.”

Benny put his burger down, not sure that his appetite would be sustained.

Pausing with a fork of Cobb salad halfway to her mouth, Harper said, “Murder and rape? How can you know what they would’ve done?”

Spike answered her with one raised white eyebrow.

“Oh,” she said, “because you’re a craggle.”

When Harper was able to continue eating without further pause, Benny picked up his burger. After two bites and some consideration, he said, “Why couldn’t you just have sidelined them, put them under a spell until we could get away?”

“And when they reanimated,” Spike said, “they would still be wired and crazy and eager for action. They would have foundsomeone else to murder, someone else to rape. We wouldn’t want that on our conscience, would we? Now they’re out of commission for a week or two. And because I allowed them to remember me and all my little craggle tricks, they have a newfound sense of the deep strangeness of the world, perhaps an appreciation for the truth that life has meaning. Given time, sure, they’ll slide back into depravity. But before then, one might die of an overdose, and one might be killed when he picks a fight with another of their kind. Or maybe they’ll cross our path again and give me the chance to blow their minds, scare all the courage out of them, destroy their self-confidence so the only crimes they’ll dare commit will be speeding in school zones and running red lights. I can’t do more. My mission is to protect you, Benjamin, not to save the world. None of us can save the world. The world has to save itself. It knows the way.”

Knife in one hand and fork in the other, Spike turned to what remained for his attention, the meatloaf, and began to demolish it.

Benny went to the men’s room, and Harper went to the women’s, and Spike remained at the table, efficiently metabolizing every molecule he consumed.

When Benny and Harper returned, the dirty dishes had been taken away. Nine of the ten desserts offered by the menu were plated on the table, all at the moment untouched.

Spike felt it necessary to explain why he hadn’t ordered ten. “White chocolate sucks. It isn’t really chocolate. White chocolate is a fraud.”

Benny sampled the pear tart, and Harper sampled the mandarin-orange cheesecake, and they drank coffee while they watched Spike prove that craggles had no fear of diabetes.

“This F. Upton Theron guy,” Harper said, “is supposedly worth billions and billions. According to Oliver Lambert, he’s a weird old dude, pretty much a recluse. His house is a fortress. Big-time security, way more than Lambert. We aren’t going to be able to walk in on him like we did Handy Duroc, and he won’t be throwing a party we can invite ourselves to. Are you sure we can get at the creep?”

“Piece of cake,” Spike confidently declared as he ate a piece of cake. After he consumed the last morsel, he wiped his mouth with a napkin and leaned back in the booth and sighed. “That was much better than the meal I had at your house, Benjamin. I believe I will leave a four hundred percent tip.”

“Shane can buy a new car,” Benny said.

“Will my extravagance embarrass you?”

“I’m beyond embarrassment.”

“You are a humble man,” Spike said.

“I’m anexhaustedman. I need to conserve my energy for more important things than embarrassment. Like terror.”

Shane brought the bill, and Spike said he’d pay cash. As the big guy peeled hundred-dollar bills off a fat bankroll and as the gratuity kept growing, the waiter’s studied cool was tested. In the best tradition of the Unimpressible Generation, Shane maintained the deadpan expression of one who had seen everything there was to see a long time ago and who soldiered on, world weary and indifferent to material pleasures. When he picked up the pile of cash, he said only, “Decent of you, sir,” as if he had morphed into a British butler with the mastery of understatement required of that position.

When Benny stepped out of the restaurant, anxiety rising, he surveyed the night for the equivalent of the three carjackers who had targeted them at the service station.

Seeing his companion’s uneasiness, Spike said, “Please relax, my friend. Over these many centuries, I’ve served as the protector of twenty-nine others like yourself, men and women who were too nice for their time and culture. Twenty-seven lived long lives full of accomplishment and prosperity.”

Harper said, “What about the other two?”

“They were murdered horrifically,” Spike said.

Although they were perhaps forty feet from the Explorer, with the potential battleground of a parking lot all around them, Benny halted.

Massaging the back of Benny’s neck with one hand, Harper said, “Jeez, Spike, that’s a ten percent failure rate.”

Clearly hurt by her observation, the craggle said, “That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think? I haven’t lost ten percent of the people assigned to me. It’s more like seven percent. Besides, it wasn’t anything I did that got them murdered horrifically. Gee whiz, guys. I’m dismayed you’d think it was anything I did.”

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