Free The Rocketeer by Peter David Page B

eyes were wide open in a perpetually surprised expression, as if amazed that anyone would actually come there to eat. A pipe stuck out of its mouth with a sign reading OPEN hanging down from it. The exterior had the word EATS painted in big letters on either side, and down the front of its left and right front legs were the words, respectively, TAMALES and ICE CREAM , which, so claimed some cynics, were indistinguishable from each other the way that Millie, the owner and head cook, prepared them.
    The door to the café was situated smack in the fake animal’s belly, and at that moment a large, genuine bulldog was scraping at the door, asking to be let in.
    Millie, wearing a gingham dress with white apron, came to the door in response to the animal’s pathetic whining, but her face was stern. “Forget it, Butch,” she said. “I’d let you in, but that genius over there”—she pointed in annoyance in the direction of Cliff Secord, who was seated opposite Jenny in a booth—“had to go and feed you some beef jerky. You know what that stuff does to you. I can’t have you in here stinking up the joint.”
    Butch whined for sympathy and lay down on his side, looking pathetic and questioning.
    “I know, I know,” said Millie in irritation. “Was up to me, I’d’ve thrown Cliff out with you. Thought he was being funny, Mr. Secord did. But he’s here with his girl and all and, well, you know how it is.”
    Butch looked up at her and obviously didn’t know how it was.
    Millie sighed. “Wait here.” Moments later she returned with a large soup bone which she tossed to Butch, and the obnoxiously homely dog caught it in his large mouth and trotted away, satisfied with the transaction.
    Millie walked back to behind the counter, but not before stopping to give Cliff a quick rap on the head with a frying pan. This drew amused laughter from Skeets, Goose, and Malcolm. “Hey!” Cliff protested.
    “That’s for giving Butch the beef jerky,” she said.
    “I could get amnesia or something!” Cliff told her, rubbing his head. “Forget how to fly, or where I live or my phone number or something.”
    “Phone number!” said Jenny suddenly. “Oh, thanks for reminding me, Millie. I’ve got a new phone number.”
    “Wish she’d picked a way to remind you that was easier on my noggin,” Cliff said.
    “They changed the number on the pay phone at the boardinghouse,” she said. “We were one digit off from a movie theater, and people kept calling and asking us for the times.”
    Cliff patted himself down. “Anybody got a piece of paper Jenny can write her new number on?” he called out.
    “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she said, and she got up and went to the wall next to the café’s phone. Nearby were framed photos and other aviation mementos. And around the phone was a series of various phone numbers written right on the wall. Jenny pulled out the pen she always kept with her, not wanting to be caught short the first time someone might ask for her autograph, and wrote ‘Jenny’ on the wall, followed by her number and, as always, her trademark heart with the arrow through it. Then she put the pen back and returned to the table.
    By this point Cliff had recovered enough from the unexpected visitation on his skull by a skillet to remember what he’d been in the middle of saying. “Oh, the Sinclair film!” he said.
    “Yeah, you were tellin’ us about it,” Goose said.
    “Right. Right. So . . . get this, fellas! At the end of the movie he flies over the enemy trenches and drops a bottle of champagne!”
    “Let me guess!” said Goose. “It hits the general and we win the war, right?” This drew a chorus of guffaws from the fliers. They were used to the Hollywood depiction of themselves as all-powerful heroes, but giving good booze to the bad guys . . . uh-uh.
    Privately, Jenny had thought it was a bit much herself, but she was the one who had chosen the movie and talked it up, and she felt constrained to