Free The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror by Charles L. Grant Page A

starched apron down from a peg and slipped right into the ordering rhythm without turning a hair.
    Judith was tending the register, and when she looked around and saw him, she allowed him a harried grin and a wink. She was his age, perhaps a year or two older, with curly black hair and a plump pale face touched with dark freckles. She moved quickly without seeming to, small hands darting, red lips moving. Her red shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows, and black slacks covered by a red checkered apron, were neither too snug for her slight figure nor so loose that she fooled the males into thinking she was a boy.
    She was attractive without being intimidating, and more than one man, after seeing her, was reminded with a bittersweet pang of a high school sweetheart he had never seen again after sharing that last, graduation night kiss.
    When she had a moment, she hurried over to him, got up on her toes and kissed his cheek.
    “You’re a lifesaver.”
    He nodded and saluted. “Yep. Sergeant Muir of the Yukon, with his trusty Jeep, King. Where’s Casey?”
    She slapped angrily at the bartop with a towel, scooped up a tip and dropped it into a empty coffee can next to the rinsing sink. “I don’t know. I don’t care. I hope he falls in a goddamned well.”
    “Not very familial.”
    “If my father were alive today, he’d shit a brick if he saw what his son was doing.”
    “Your father, by all you’ve told me, hated his guts.”
    “He’s over there in the corner, by the TV.”
    “Who? Your father?”
    Exasperation made her scowl. “No, idiot. Casey. He came in about five minutes ago. And if you want to keep your scalp, don’t you dare sell him a drink.”
    He laughed softly and squeezed her hand, then deftly filled several orders and passed quips with Piper Cleary about the state of his beloved coon hound, Dumpling.
    The wind still bothered him, and his knuckles still stung.
    “What about the light your brother saw?” he said to Judy as he nodded to one of the waitresses picking up her tray. “Was he drunk or what?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe somebody’s moved in.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Then he was drunk.”
    He leaned closer, barely moving his lips. “Parrish called me just before I came over. He said there was someone ready to buy the place, land and all, and turn it into some kind of leisure resort. You know, condominiums and like that.”
    Judy tilted her head, and looked at him sideways. “You’re kidding, right?”
    “That’s exactly what I said to Parrish. He said, very indignantly, that he wasn’t.”
    “Jesus. Well . . . Jesus!” She plucked at her hair and glared at the register. “Well, we can’t let it happen, you know that, right? I mean, we just can’t. God, you mean Casey was actually . . . we’ll just have . . .” Someone called her name and she nodded. “We’ll talk about it later.”
    “Sure,” he said, wondering how he could bring up the afternoon wind and not sound like a fool. “Okay.”
    She put a hand on one hip and set her back to the bar. “Doug, what’s bothering you?”
    He gave her a painfully false smile. “It’s nothing,” he insisted. “I’m still . . . I guess I’m still back there at the old drawing board.”
    It was obvious she didn’t believe him, and didn’t know the right question to ask; the trouble was, he didn’t know the right question either.
    “Later,” she said.
    “Right.”
    People came, people left, and it was close to nine o’clock before lank and mustached Gil Clay, the night bartender, arrived with apologies for being late, and Doug was able to lean back and watch the crowd.
    It never changed, and he didn’t care.
    There were towners in their cliques, a few travelers trying and failing to fit in, and in the high-backed, red leather booth by the door two men he knew instinctively were not here just to pass the time. They were dressed casually, but not in jeans; they were watching the steady flow of patrons without