The Waiting Room
~ Chapter Thirty-Two
Was it Something He Ate?
Sam
watched Sparrow order a bottle of his finest from the young
bartender, whose name also was Jack. They referred to him as Young
Jack whenever they talked about the young man who had once worked at
a private resort.
“I need to talk to you.” Sam spun
around, grabbing his hat to keep it from falling off his head. Before
him stood Mort and he didn’t look happy.
Sam’s hand shook
as he pointed to the computer. “I wasn’t doing anything with it,
Mr. Rainey. Honest, I didn’t break it or anything.”
Mort’s
eyebrows came together as he glanced at the laptop on his desk. It
was closed, just as he had left it. He brought his eyes back to Sam.
“I need to talk to you about lunch. Something I ate sent me
to the shitter. That’s the second time Sam. What the hell are you
putting in the food?” Mort placed a hand on his stomach as it
grumbled again. The writer made a move as if to head back to the
bathroom but stopped as soon as the grumbling subsided.
“If
I keep going like this Sam I’m going to need Shooter’s shovel to
get out of the bathroom next time. You understand? “
Sam
nodded as he backed away from the desk, cautiously making his way
back to the kitchen.
“Sure, Mr. Rainey. I understand. I’ll
be more careful in the kitchen.”
Sam turned and broke into a
run, never hesitating as he hit the kitchen door and disappeared in a
blink of an eye.
Mort watched as Sam made his escape. “Maybe
I was too hard on him,” Mort thought to himself. “After all, no
one else seemed to be affected.” He gave the room a once over and
confirmed that indeed, no one else seemed to need to use the
bathroom.
“Must be allergic to something.” He opened the
bottom drawer and pulled out a crumpled bag. “Best be sticking to
Doritos.”
He shook the last of the broken chips into his
hand and stuffed them into his mouth, crunching loudly. He gave his
hand a wipe on his shirt front and reached over to open the laptop.
“Odd” He pressed a few keys to bring the screen back to
life, recalling that he had only put it in sleep mode, not turned it
off.
A picture flickered and flashed then came into focus.
Mort was a bit confused and leaned in closer to the screen for a
better look. There was a man, laying asleep on a boat…someone
reached over, shook his shoulder and handed him a package. The man
sat up and Mort could see him more clearly.
“Depp!” He
screamed. “Get the f--k off my computer!”
Mort hit the
alternate, control, delete keys, but to his dismay nothing happened
except the scene began to repeat again.
“What the hell is
this s--t?” Mort bitched and hit the keys again. Again, Depp
appeared, sleeping, the same scenario repeating.
Mort took a
different approach and moved the curser up to the back button and
clicked.
The boat scene disappeared but was replaced with a
picture of a smiling girl in an oversized sombrero hyping Mexican
food.
“Whose been screwing around with my laptop?” He
yelled out to the room. All around the men shrugged, mumbled,
claiming innocence.
All except one man at the bar. He hadn’t
moved, keeping his back to Mort.
Mort narrowed his eyes,
trying to bore a hole in the pirate’s back, trying to make him turn
around and face him. He was about to make his accusation when
suddenly his intestines demanded relief.
“Jesus!” He
yelled as he grabbed his stomach and ran for the bathroom slamming
the door behind him.
“Jesus!” came another shout from
beyond the door along with some very unpleasant sounds.
Over
at the bar Sparrow raised his drink, clinking glasses with Young
Jack..
“What are we toasting?” Young Jack asked. He saw
his question brought a gold-filled smile to the pirate as he turned
and looked at the bathroom door.
“To Metamucil, my lad. To
Metamucil!”