L sat in the courtyard at Bittersweets this time, his hands folded in a steeple under his chin, and stared straight ahead. If you didnt know better, he could have been enjoying the morning sun. Early business had placed him in the vicinity of their breakfast venue and why not wait. It was after all, a lovely day. A marvelous blend of coffee sat steeping away in a french press. It smelled of a home long lost to fire and all the memories therein but- L seemed too distracted to notice. His eyes stared out into nothing and everything, taking the measure of man, and thinking back on choices made- paths walked- So much to DO. There was scarcely time enough to take in these simple little excursions, but “If we dont *make* time, we wont *have* time..” one of his wiser denizens once intoned. And so, coffee. But yet. He was possibly a million miles away. And when he came back he wasnt alone.
A very small girl child maybe 4 or 5 had stopped walking behind her mother to stare blatantly through the rail at the courtyard to watch L on his journey through the nothing. Her blonde hair was just long enough to pull into little tufts at the sides of her hair, unevenly, and her eyes were wide and green and vast and deep and she was staring right at the Deceiver, Father of Lies. It was just like that, her little hands clenched on the rails and her face an inch beyond when,
pulling back to the present, L noticed her little dress waving slow in the breeze, and shifted his eyes to find hers watching him. Studying him. She ran her gaze from his shoes, over his suit, to his hair to his hands to his eyes and lingered- but she did not show fear. Which was the usual response to anyone at all locking eyes with a Devil. THE Devil. Grown and brave men had been reduced to tiny little quivering pieces in his presence- A general once soiled himself before violently ending his own life when he’d entered the room. But she appeared to see him. To see HIM. And she was not afraid.
His head tilted ever so slightly to the left, and hers followed him a second later. Then to the right. And then she smiled at him missing her two front teeth. Shy. Strong. L blinked, then very slowly, and so very, very subtly, the tips of his mouth began to consider the idea of maybe in the summer turning up in something resembling a shadow of a smile to see what it was like, then abandoned the notion as folly- but still the idea was there.
It was then, that a plain white panel van parked across the street entered the field of notice of Lucifer. Its visible occupant had been carefully looking up and down the not busy street full of very early morning traffic, noted a distracted mother occupied with too few hands for the package she was only just now attempting to cram into the confines of a small hatchback not far away. Of a little girl watching an elderly man through the barrier separating a coffeeshop courtyard from the street. His gaze lingered then and L’s own timeless eyes narrowed imperceptibly.
He checked his watch of immaculate craftsmanship and pushed the plunger down on the french press compressing the grounds into the bottom of the vessel in a swirl of deep deep brown almost black oils. He took just a moment to lament the turnings in the universe, then he stood up and turned away just as the panel van’s rear door unlatched and swung open. The thin, balding man in a flannel shirt peeked out, both ways, then at the mother, then at the retreating elder man to be careful, then back at the little girl oblivious to his presence, before stepping briskly out into the street. It wouldnt take a minute to vanish her forever.
Earlier.
Maintenance that morning didnt clear Henry to start his route until he was nearly 10 minutes behind schedule. Henry loathed being late. It was one of the best things about him. He was not concerned with the chief mechanics assessment of the brake shoes of this, maintenance schedules of that- that was a company concern and literally as soon as the chief pulled away, clipboard in hand and at best a dubious look- Henry’s mass transit machine roared out of the garage. And for his quick thinking and assertive attitude he had almost made up that gap in time. Through a series of what could only be miracles in light traffic and empty bus stops he was a full 17 minutes early when he crested the hill (had there always been a hill?) at Bittersweets Coffeeshop and Bakery when the brakes on his 22 ton bus literally fell apart beneath it. He couldnt have stopped if he’d wanted to.
Now.
When L returned to his seat, J and Jabari were already there but standing at the rail looking thoughtfully at an accident 20 yards away where a bus was lodged into the side of a fire engine that had apparently been returning to a station not far away. The full crew of firemen were attempting to administer aid to a broken, broken thing that was pinned between the bus and the firetruck. It did not move. A mother was shielding the fierce green eyes of a squirming blonde headed mass from the accident. The panel van stood open. Vacant now.. J sighed heavily, and they both turned back to the table to find L sitting there, pouring a cup of coffee for each of his companions. Sugar and cream sat on the table, napkins, a scone for Jabari- you wouldnt know that a very violent collision had just taken place minutes before. Jesus sat on the left, Jabari sat to the right, but before he added sugar to his coffee, Jabari paused and glanced first at L, then at the accident, then back to L. The firefighters were having trouble using the jaws of life to cut the bus away from man between. A loafer lay neglected in the middle of the street not far away. L’s gaze was fixed at a point between the fire engine and the bus. He put sugar in his cup, tasted it, stirred, tasted it again and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with the handkerchief in his suit pocket without once blinking or shifting his gaze to the rest of the scene nor the people at his table. J was studying the bottom of his coffee cup. And then Jabari remembered the agreement. “We do not discuss business at the table.”
“Oh.” he said quietly, and took a slow sip of his coffee his hands shaking- just a little.