03:01
Episode 3: Dog Days Mechanix
Part 1
“Crap. We’re never going to get a seat,” said Violet.
Violet Capagio and Laurel Swanson, the two current employees of Skyway Mechanix, stood inside the doorway of the Four Cities Diner looking for an empty table. It was Saturday morning and the line to be seated was ten deep.
“Why are we here again?” asked Laurel. “Why can’t we meet at Mountain Mudd or Applebee’s for Christ’s sake.”
“Some of us actually eat food, sweetie. This place is supposed to have the best breakfasts in the Twin Cities and Lynda wanted to meet here. Make the client happy.”
“You’ve never been here, either?”
Violet shook her head. “Not really a hang out for the family.” She placed a finger to the side of her nose.
Laurel looked puzzled. Her eyes rolled to the side as if she were trying to remember something. After a moment she smiled and put her finger to side of her own nose.
“Gotcha. The mafia.”
Violet sighed. “Sweetie, I know that, being a robot and all, you have internet access in your head, but you can just ask if you don’t understand something.”
“My dad put that in so I didn’t have to ask him questions all the time. Is it annoying?”
“It’s distracting,” answered Violet.
“Why?” asked the robot.
“I never know what you’ll find.”
Laurel stuck out her tongue. A waitress with dark mascara rings around her cartoon blue eyes and a hoop through her eyebrow as big as a quarter stood next to the ‘Please wait to be seated’ sign holding two menus.
“Capagio and Swanson?” she asked no one in particular. She flipped straight black hair out of her eyes and searched for a response.
Violet raised her hand and smiled at the little goth. “That’s us. You have a table?”
The waitress turned and walked to a booth the back of the restaurant. “Follow me.”
Violet and Laurel followed her all-black silhouette through the crowded room to the very back where a short red head sat drinking tea in a booth.
“Would either of you like something to drink?” the waitress asked after they had sat down. She stared intently into Laurel’s eyes.
“Coffee, please,” answered Violet.
“Nothing for me,” said Laurel. “Something wrong?”
“Those are the best contacts I have ever seen,” the waitress told her. “Where’d you get them?”
“I don’t wear contacts,” Laurel snapped. “Those are my eyes.”
The girl backed away, turned and fled into the kitchen.
“Sweetie,” Violet said. “Be a little kinder, okay?”
“She thought my eyes aren’t real.”
“They’re not – and most people don’t have purple eyes.” Violet turned and smiled at Lynda whose deeply furrowed face looked amused at the conversation between the girls.
“I see you two are getting along,” she said. “What have you been up to?”
“Let’s see,” started Violet. “We visited Laurel’s father’s grave and the lawyers announced she had inherited everything. I assume we have you to thank for that?”
“It was nothing,” said Lynda.
“Apparently his sister doesn’t agree. She’s suing Laurel for the estate.”
Lynda looked shocked. “Oh my. I’ll have that taken care of.”
“Thanks. Other than that we’ve been sitting on our hands waiting for work.”
“You are free to work for whomever you wish. T&T won’t stand in your way.”
“Doing what?” asked Laurel. “Miss bossy boot won’t let me join the Alliance.”
“Alliance?” asked Lynda.
“The World Hero Alliance,” she told Lynda. “They wouldn’t take her anyway. She’s under age and she doesn’t have a sponsor.”
Laurel folded her arms and pouted, looking out the big windows facing the snow-covered parking lot. “Just because some dumb bitch went haywire back in the eighties doesn’t mean it’ll happen to me.”
“Well, until you can decide what to do,” said Lynda, “I have a small job. It won’t take more than a week and T&T will pick up any expenses.”
“What is it?” asked Laurel, her eyes sparkling with sudden excitement. “Are we looking for a magical thingy? Hunting vampires?”
Lynda lifted a tan leather satchel onto the table, opened it and extracted a purple phone. The phone was as large as a thin paperback book, sported a full keyboard and a display peppered with dully colored icons. From the top sprouted an antennae like a child’s fat, purple crayon. She read from the screen.
“A client of T&T is vacationing in Berne and….”
“And he wants us to be his bodyguard,” said Violet with a practice air of apathy. “No prob. When do we leave?”
“…and he would like someone to watch his dog while he is away,” Lynda finished. She returned the phone to the satchel and set it back on the seat next to her.
Laurel and Violet stared at Lynda across the table. Neither spoke or took their eyes off the petite red-head.
“That’s it?” asked Violet after a minute. “Dog sitting?”
“If you’re busy I could have one of our other operatives take on the job.”
“No. That’s all right. We’ll take it,” said Violet. “When do we start?”
“This afternoon. The client is Robert Bitterman and he expects you at two.”
The waitress returned and kept to Lynda’s side of the table as she handed Violet her mug of coffee.
“Have you decided?” she asked brightly.
“Do you have pigs in blankets?” asked Violet.
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll have that.”
“And you?” she prompted Laurel.
“I’m not hungry,” Laurel answered.
“Just toast for me,” said Lynda.
The waitress sagged a little at the cheapness of the order but the plastic smile never left her face. When she was gone Lynda sipped her tea and pointed to a photograph above the booth.
“Did you notice the photos on the walls?” she asked Laurel. “Those are one of the reasons I wished to meet you here.”
Laurel shook her head.
“These are really quite unique.”
Laurel, who was still pouting, uncrossed her arms and looked up at the photo. It was of twenty teens standing in three rows in front of a large brick building. From the clothing styles Laurel judged the photo to be from the 1980s.
“Who photoshopped that?” she asked.
“Who indeed?” answered Lynda.
Violet looked up. “Robbinsdale High School? That’s New Robbins Valley high school.”
Laurel looked at the other photos up around the room.
“Looks like someone’s been busy. All the photos are like that.”
“What do you mean?” asked Violet.
Laurel pointed to a photo of a New Robbins Valley water-tower with the name ‘New Hope’ painted on the side and then to another of the local post office renamed ‘Golden Valley Post Office’
“Why would anyone do that?” asked Violet.
“You mean change the names?” asked Lynda.
“Yeah. Why bother?”
“According to the owner of this restaurant those names aren’t changed. Those are real photographs.”
“And the buildings are really from other cities?” asked Violet.
Lynda nodded.
“Is that why it’s called the ‘Four Cities’, because there’s more than one city here?”
“Precisely. New Hope, Robbinsdale, Golden Valley and… some other city I can’t recall. New. Robbins. Valley. Mr. Rencil photographed each of these buildings himself.”
Laurel smiled. “He’d be Bill Rencil then. Total fruit cake. He does this for publicity. The Sun runs his story every couple of years.”
“Bill Rencil disappeared five years ago,” Lynda said, “and some of these photos have been up since before there was any such thing as Photoshop.”
“Still fakes,” insisted Laurel in a sing-song voice.
“Perhaps. Mr. Rencil insisted these were photos of other places right here in New Robbins Valley. He said there was a world just over the next hill or around the corner…”
Laurel cut her off, completeing the quote, “…and if you knew what to look for you could enter it.” She snorted. “Bull shit.”
Lynda shrugged. “Five years ago he disappeared. His son, Anthony took over. The new Mr. Rencil puts up a current photo once in a while. He claims his father sends them to him.”
Laurel laughed. “From where? The other side of the mirror?”
Lynda pointed to a color photo of an elderly man in front of a sign that read ‘New Hope Duk Duk Daze 2011′. Both Violet and Laurel stared at it.
“But he’s dead,” said Laurel in a hushed tone. “His son declared him dead.”
When the pair turned back Lynda had vanished. On her side of the table was a square of paper neatly lettered with an address for Robert Bitterman and ‘two o’clock’ written underneath. The goth waitress reappeared with Violet’s pancakes and Lynda’s toast.
“Will your friend be coming back?” she asked dropping off the food.
Violet closed her eyes and shook her head. “No. I don’t think she will be back.”
“And you’re covering her bill?”
Violet nodded. “Yes. I will cover her bill.”
The waitress smiled and left.
“Where’d she go?” asked Laurel.
Violet dumped a small pitcher of fake maple syrup on her breakfast and began slicing it up.
“To the other side of the mirror, sweetie,” she said and took a bite.
