Night Shift(45)

“Not yet,” he said. “In an hour, honey.” But Mamie had already focused her attention on the television screen, though from her blank expression she wasn’t really engaged with what she was seeing.

Manfred tried again to think of a way he could help his friends. And he came up with nothing.

He said as much to Suzie and Tommy. “All I can do,” he said, “is ask Fiji if she’s got any ideas. And try to solve this problem in Midnight as soon as possible.”

“People just show up and . . . blam!?” Suzie shook her head.

“That’s how it’s happened,” Manfred said. “No motive, no warning.”

“Mamie never was too big on Fiji, but I don’t think she’d care anymore, long as she gets better,” Suzie said wearily.

“All right, buddy-boy,” Tommy said. “You run back to Midnight and you fix things up with Fiji. Mamie shouldn’t be suffering like this.”

Manfred signed out in the lobby, only vaguely conscious of the curious look the volunteer was giving him at his quick departure without his friends, whom he often took on an outing.

Manfred walked slowly to his car. The temperature was only in the low eighties, but he was too preoccupied to enjoy the relief from the summer’s heat. He’d never had such a jarring visit at Safe Harbor. He found himself dismayed and worried to a degree that surprised him. Until this moment, Manfred hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on his visits with Tommy, Mamie, and Suzie. He missed his grandmother; their conversation had somehow eased the loss for him, but he hadn’t even understood that. Some psychic I am, he thought.

As he started his car, planning to drive right back to Midnight and talk to Fiji, Manfred found himself—nonetheless!—excited at the prospect of calling Stell. He wondered how long he had to wait until he punched in her number. “I must be really shallow,” he muttered, and he drove back to Midnight thinking of a jumble of things, both happy and sad.

Fiji had customers, so Manfred waited until they’d left before walking over to The Inquiring Mind. He found his friend sitting in one of the wicker armchairs, and she was definitely in a serious mood.

“What?” she said, as he sank into the chair opposite her. She turned her face to his abruptly, as if she’d been interrupted in a conversation with someone else.

“Maybe I should come back tomorrow?”

“No,” she said wearily. “That’s okay. Let me guess. There’s some problem I have to help solve.”

“Ahhhh—yeah.”

“Gee, I’m surprised.”

Manfred had never heard Fiji fall back on sarcasm. “You don’t seem to be in the mood to put yourself out,” he said. “Is there something I can do to help you?”

For a terrible moment, he thought she was going to cry. To his profound relief, the moment passed. Fiji kind of shook herself and then forced a smile onto her face. “So, what is it?” she said.

He explained about Mamie, leaving any mention of Stell out of the story, though he was in the mood to drag her into every conversation.

“So you want me to drive up to Davy and cast some kind of spell on poor old Mamie so she doesn’t want to walk to Midnight to commit suicide,” Fiji said. “And you want me to do this without anyone at the assisted-living place being any the wiser.” She rubbed her face with her hands.

Manfred hadn’t really thought about the difficulty of his request. “Yes,” he said. “That’s about the size of it. I’m sorry, Fiji, I probably wouldn’t even have brought it up if Tommy hadn’t been so positive one of us could do something about it. He thought I could, but I can’t think of any way a psychic could change Mamie’s mind when this awful thing, this impulse, is hijacking her.”

“So that’s what you think is happening?” Fiji seemed to be considering the idea. “Maybe you’re right, Manfred. Did you ever watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”

The change of subject left him teetering. “Ah . . . sure. My grandmother loved it.”

“Do you ever wonder if Midnight’s on the Hellmouth? Like Sunnydale?”

Manfred laughed. “That’s exactly what it feels like,” he said. “You must be Willow, and Olivia must be Buffy. And Lemuel is Angel.”

That brought a smile to Fiji’s face, too. “I would classify Olivia more as Faith,” she said. “Bobo can be Xander.”

“So Diederik would be Oz.”

For a reason Manfred couldn’t fathom, Fiji flushed.

“As long as we’re having a neighborly chat,” Manfred continued when she didn’t speak, “I’m thinking something’s wrong with the Reeds.”