She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,21

at least two paid days off per week!”

The large beast of a man in the kitchen waved a spatula at her through a smoke-filled haze. “He obviously hasn’t caught you sleeping in the storage room or sneaking out for cigarettes every ten minutes when you’re supposed to be on the floor. Last I checked, chatting up the customers was not in the job description, either. Order up—” his meaty hand slapped a bell at the window, and he set a plate of steak and eggs on the sill.

Preacher learned this man was Elden Krendal, owner of this fine eatery for nearly twenty-three years. He had graced this planet for a total of sixty years and weighed in at a horrendous three-hundred and twelve pounds. His blood pressure routinely topped 140 over 110, yet that was the least of his doctor’s concerns—according to his files, that honor fell on Krendal’s cholesterol. His total level rested comfortably around 310, while his triglycerides rang in at 503 at his latest checkup. Of course, Mr. Krendal probably wasn’t aware of any of this, considering his hearing was shot and he refused to wear a hearing aid. Most likely, he just nodded as the doctor rattled off the various things competing to kill him and no doubt recommended immediate correction, possibly even hospitalization. How this man was alive at all was a medical mystery.

Gargery retrieved the plate from the window and set it before an elderly man about a dozen stools away on the opposite end of the counter, then returned. “You don’t look familiar. I know all our regulars.”

“Oh, I’m hardly a regular. I try to make it in here when I pass through town. Some of the best cooking in the city.”

Gargery chuckled. “You must be eating in all the wrong places.”

Preacher tried not to look at her hands, yet his eyes were drawn to the cigarette stains on her fingertips. He had seen her wash her hands at least three times in the past hour. How ingrained does a filth have to be to withstand the rigors of routine scrubbing? He smiled back at her. “That boy I see in here sometimes, is that your son?”

“Jack? Naw, nephew. My sister’s kid.”

“It’s good to see a boy take work seriously at such a young age. Instills good, strong values.”

“It keeps him off the street and out of trouble, is what it does. Around here, there is plenty of trouble to get into.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“He’s not working today?”

She shook her head. “Nope, not today.”

“I grew up on a farm in Illinois, corn mostly, a couple of dairy cows, a few chickens. My parents had me out there working from the time I could walk. I hated them for it back then, all my friends always off playing when I had chores. But as I got older, I realized that childhood caused me to work just a little harder than those around me, a little longer, a little smarter. I thank them for it every chance I get.”

This was a lie, of course. Preacher didn’t know his parents and never had. His folks left him at a fire station in Oklahoma only a few hours after his birth. His loving parents packed him into a cardboard box and covered his naked little body in newspaper, then simply left him on the door stoop like discarded trash. No note, no food, no nothing. This was in the fall, when the temperature routinely dropped down into the fifties at night. By the time anyone found him, he had the makings of a good cold, which later turned into full-on pneumonia and spent the next week recovering in a hospital. From there, he found his way to the Sisters of Mercy Orphanage in Lawton, where he would spend the first eight years of his life fighting with other unwanted children for the few scraps of food split among them as potential parents paraded through in search of a good find, not unlike bargain shoppers at a yard sale. Although most babies have little trouble finding a home, the singular gift his parents left him with was a congenital heart defect, and that was more than enough to ensure these baby shoppers walked right on by without giving him so much as a second glance. The nuns at Sisters of Mercy were not shy about reminding him that such a condition typically resulted from uncontrolled diabetes, alcohol or drug abuse, or exposure to industrial chemicals during pregnancy. Apparently,