Decatur Read Online Free Page A

through the revolving door even though she was hidden by the back of the last wooden booth used by the waitresses as their own office of sorts. When she had phoned Father Weston about her visit to the palm reader, he had gotten his new friend the professor involved, and now here he was, at the end of the shift. She had lined up all the ketchup bottles in a v-shape on the booth’s table, just like she always did, because it helped to have everyday habits, and was methodically emptying the dregs of one into the red fullness of the other, wiping their white caps and their necks and bases so by tomorrow it would appear that every bottle of ketchup served by the Surrey was brand spanking new. It was fifteen minutes to closing and even Scott seemed a little less like a used car salesman at the door as he pulled the vinyl covered menu with the little mimeographed sheet from the small stack by the door.
    The professor Max Rosenbaum wore his corduroy jacket and a neck scarf over neatly cuffed pants and he smoothed his graying dark hair in an artless way as his eyes darted around the dining room. Nearly empty. Unconsciously he sighed in relief, clutching his black leather-bound volume of notes more tightly, reassured by their presence. He hated being paranoid but as his old mullioned windowed office at the University of Chicago seemed increasingly like a dream and the visits from polyester-suited Federal Bureau of Investigation officers cruising over from Springfield in big Ford sedans to “check in” on him in his new cramped quarters at Charlesworth happened like clockwork, Max had begun to avoid talking on both his office and apartment telephone and always looked in the rear-view mirror for someone shadowing him.
    Sitting in the booth second to the back, he waited for the waitress named Marilyn to approach him. From long practice, the professor carefully opened his leather-bound pad and made a note of the time and date, and then laid his ink cartridge pen across the top signaling that he was ready. She came bearing coffee in a glass and plastic beaker and a thick cream-colored mug. Max was glad that they didn’t use the cheap white dinnerware that was almost translucent. He had taken peyote buttons once with a shaman in the New Mexican desert and on the way back had stopped at a diner that used the cheap white china and it looked like a sick person’s skin to him, and he couldn’t eat or drink off of it ever after.
    “Have you thought about what I asked you?” His voice was deep and he smiled in way that crinkled up his eyes, but Marilyn knew that he was just trying to appear relaxed.
    “You better order, professor. Walt don’t like to cook as it is and ten minutes to closing he will start cleaning that grill no matter who is sitting here. Get the special.” She lightly touched the mimeographed sheet where it said Amanda’s American Chop Suey . Biting his lip and fighting back memories of Szechuan scallops and snow peas from his favorite Chi-town Chinese restaurant he nodded, “Sure.” Max watched her turn and enjoyed the sway of her ass as she went through the swinging doors to get his supper. Marilyn might be a waitress and had never read Jung much less the mysteries of the Kabala, but she was by far the most interesting woman in Central Illinois.
    She brought back two homey plates of macaroni, tomatoes, and hamburger, with fluffy white rolls and a side of slaw. Shrugging she sat the plates down and then herself, casually announcing to Scott by the register, “I’m gonna eat now.”
    Scott nodded, totaling register tapes on the adding machine with a wheezing series of clicks. “Better get the scholar to pay, Marilyn if we want to get out of here tonight.” She smiled inscrutably and pushed a little green ruled slip across the table with hurried script that read “special and coffee”, the total came to $6.95, and Max fished in his pocket for his wallet, laying out a five and three singles. She scooped up the