Free Cabin D by Ian Rogers Page A

bacon.”
    “Coffee?”
    “Constantly,” Henry said, and grinned.
    Rachel didn’t like that grin. There was something artificial and a little unsettling about it. It stretched too tightly across the skin on his face. Like a skeleton’s grin.
    She turned away and went through the swing door to the kitchen. Reg was just coming back in, taking off his coat and hanging it on the wooden peg next to the door.
    “We have a customer,” Rachel told him, and recited Henry’s order.
    “Really?” Reg said, amused. “Hell must have frozen over.” He slipped his apron on over his head.
    “Guy looks kind of weird. Says he hitched in with Eddie Ray.”
    Reg dipped his head down so he could see through the partition in the wall. “He looks harmless enough. Although I don’t know many bums who ever used a newspaper for anything other than a blanket.”
    “I don’t think he’s a bum,” Rachel said. “He seems kind of . . . strange.”
    Reg shrugged. “Strange or not, he’s got an appetite.”
II
    Ten minutes later, Rachel emerged from the back with Henry’s order on a large serving tray. As she dished it out, Henry moved each plate around like chips on an oversized bingo card. When he had everything where he wanted, he looked up at Rachel with that same beaming grin.
    “This all looks great. Really great.”
    Rachel smiled politely, tucked the empty tray under her arm, and returned to the kitchen.
    Henry picked up his fork and knife and began to cut up the four sausages on one of the side plates. When he was done, he cut up his eggs, forked some hash browns on top of them, and began to eat.
    Rachel watched him through the partition. Henry didn’t seem to be aware of her staring, and that was good because she couldn’t seem to make herself stop. She followed his fork as it scooped up eggs and sausage and hash browns and deposited them into his mouth. He chewed mechanically, as if he were a machine and the food was his fuel.
    He seemed to relish the food, closing his eyes and letting out long, satisfied sighs of pleasure between bites. It was like sex. He wasn’t just eating the food; he was savouring it. Like he had never eaten before. Or might never eat again.
    Like a death-row inmate
, she thought.
    Henry took a big gulp of coffee, tilting his head back to get the last drop. Watching from the partition, Rachel noticed dark smudges under his eyes. At first glance Henry had seemed full of buoyant, invigorating energy, but upon closer examination she saw he was quite thin and pallid, almost sickly. The phrase
death-row inmate
clanged in her head, and Rachel reassessed her initial observation.
    No, he looks like death. Or someone close to death.
    Regardless, Henry continued to eat steadily throughout the day. After finishing his breakfast, he ordered a tuna-fish sandwich on rye and a glass of milk. Rachel topped up his coffee—almost filling it past the overflow point in her daze—and went back to Reg in the kitchen with his order.
    “Maybe he’s one of those food critics,” Reg said, taking an enormous bottle of mayonnaise out of the big, steel-doored walk-in. “Sometimes they travel in disguise.”
    “I don’t think so,” Rachel said.
    By the time noon rolled around, Rachel had filled Henry’s coffee cup at least a dozen times. He had polished off the tuna-on-rye and ordered a side of French fries with gravy. He told Rachel that you could tell a lot about a restaurant by the quality of their gravy.
    At three PM, Josie Sutton pulled up in her lime-green VW bug with the bumper sticker that said TENNE-SEEIN’ IS TENNE-BELIEVIN’! She was wearing her waitress uniform and the magenta hoop earrings that she had bought off eBay because they supposedly once belonged to Tammy Wynette.
    She gave Henry a passing look as she strolled through the swing door. She was reaching for her time-card in the slot on the wall when Rachel stopped her.
    “What’s wrong?” Josie asked.
    “Do you mind if I take your shift