The Waiting Room
~ Chapter Nine
Lost Smokes
Mort
covered his face, plunging himself in the false belief that if he
couldn’t see them, the idiots didn’t exist. But
when he removed
his hands they were still all there.
God! he thought, how is
this to end? Where is the ending in all of this? Isn’t it all
about
the ending?
He opened the bottom drawer again and stared at
the bottle. No, not a drink. He closed the drawer, being careful not
to make the same mistake that set off Lerner and Sands earlier.
No,
what he really wanted was a smoke. He pulled open the top drawer.
Nothing but Dorito crumbs and empty cigarette packs. He tried the
center drawer. To his surprise he only found sheaves of corn husks.
He shook his head in disbelief as he closed the drawer. His attention
was drawn to the men gathered at a far table. Smoke encircled them
like a thick tobacco fog.
Raoul Duke waved a newly lit
cigarette in his hand, ecstatic that he had found a new, unopened
pack on the bar. He shared his new found prize with the other men.
“You stole my cigarettes.” The Mississippian accent
crawled across the room. They all looked over to the man at the desk,
the black hat back on his head.
“Christ, Rainey. That’s
getting old.” Brasco bitched at him, “Put the damn
hat away and
start typing!” The New York cop was getting tired of the
writer’s
antics.
Mort snatched the hat from his head and tossed it to
the desk, throwing himself back into his seat. The force of the move
rammed the chair into the paneled wall, splintering the wood .
“S--t,” Mort cursed as he spun around to see the
damage.
Slivers of wood stuck out in every direction. He brought his foot up
to scrape away the extended pieces that hung from the chinked wall.
“I can fix that,” Roux began. Mort twirled around
to face
the gypsy, a murderous look of intent on the writer’s face.
Roux
stepped back.
“ I meant to say…I can fix
that…tomorrow.”