Read Something More Than Night for Free Online Page B

hole.
    “Draw two in the dark,” I said, fishing in my pocket for change.
    She didn’t jot that down. “Your usual?” she said.
    “Yeah. And wreck ’em.”
    I asked flametop, “You want anything besides coffee?”
    She shook her head.
    “You really should eat,” I said. “It’s on me.”
    “I don’t want food poisoning,” she said.
    “Relax. It ain’t like you can die again.” Well … The way I figured it, better to keep things simple for now. Too many tangents and I’d never get her back on her feet.
    To Flo, she said, “Just coffee, please.”
    Flo tossed the paper ticket on the sill of the order window. The cook snatched it. The cups Flo filled for us had matched once, but hard living had given them mismatched chips and cracks like a bad marriage. I got the dregs of the pot; they tasted like they’d been on the burner since Christmas last. I tossed a handful of change on the counter.
    “Whoa,” said Molly. “What’s that?”
    A silver feather glimmered among the nickels, dimes, and lint. It stood out like the Hope Diamond among a showgirl’s sequins. She lifted it by the stem, twirled it in her fingers. It sent streamers of starlight flickering through the diner like a celestial disco ball. There was no mistaking this for a human artifact. The radio in the kitchen thrummed with the music of the spheres.
    Rats. I cleared my throat. “Uh. That used to belong to the guy you’re replacing.”
    “What are you doing with it?”
    “He was a pal. Can’t a guy keep a memento?” She flipped the feather to the other hand, and wrapped her fingers around her cup to warm them. Gabriel’s was a cold beauty. She cocked an eyebrow. “Okay,” I added. “Maybe I was planning to hock it. He doesn’t need it anymore.”
    At that, Molly narrowed her eyes. She set the feather down and lifted the cup to her lips, but again, didn’t drink. “Why not?”
    I decided to keep it simple. “He moved on,” I said, and left it at that. Figured there was no need to mention Gabby had been taken off the payroll. I put the feather back in my pocket. Flo’s a fine gal, but with a tip like that she could buy this joint and still have enough change left over for a yacht. I was doing her a favor. She wouldn’t enjoy the country club life.
    “Why am I replacing him?”
    “He carried a lot of weight around here. We need somebody to pick up the slack. One fella moves on, somebody else comes along to take his place. It’s just the way it is.” I pulled a flask from an inner pocket and spiked my cup with a little hooch. There’s no coffee so burned that a little rye won’t improve it. Flametop declined when I offered her a tipple. I shrugged. “See, we’re the Prime Movers. We spin the celestial spheres. You might say we keep the trains running on time.”
    I winced. Poor choice of words.
    “I don’t know how to do that.”
    “You’re doing it right now.” I sipped. The coffee hit the spot. “Whether you know it or not, your ideation of reality, of how it ought to be, is melding with similar conceptions from the rest of us. You’re contributing to what the wise-heads call the Mantle of Ontological Consistency. ’MOC’ for short.”
    It was a mouthful, and she almost choked on it. But whether she was choking on ontology or on the effort not to laugh, I couldn’t tell. “You didn’t come up with that.”
    “Told you, it was some of the higher-ups. I don’t care for the five-dollar words. They get stuck in my throat.” Another sip helped with that. “See, what you monkeys—”
    “Call me that again and we’ll see who screeches.”
    “—(sorry, doll, it’s just a nickname) what the mortals think of as reality is more or less what the Choir says it is. In theory—we’re talking frictionless planes and spherical cows here—an angel all by its lonesome could shape reality to any old whim, anything at all, and change its mind every Tuesday. Some of us are better at it than others. But there’s one