Free The Cauldron by Jean Rabe, Gene DeWeese Page A

eventually arrived. No wonder the place is deserted. They don’t even have a cook anymore, just a can opener.
    Salt, pepper, the two crackers that came in a cellophane package in place of the cornbread he remembered hot and steaming, even ketchup failed to render the chili edible. Carl couldn’t choke it down.
    “Something wrong?” the waitress asked, returning to fill his cup with more of the pale fluid that passed for coffee.
    “Just not hungry, I guess,” he said.
    She glanced at him with a wry smile that told him she thought the same of the food as he did, but she slapped his bill on the table anyway. He got up and went to the cash register, where a dark-rooted blonde took his money with an automatic, “Enjoy your meal, sir?”
    He pocketed his change and started to turn away. On impulse, he turned back. “Is Thelma still around?” he asked.
    “Thelma who?”
    “She was the cook here. I used to live on her chili.”
    The cashier’s smile faded slightly. “Can’t help you. I’ve only been here a couple years myself.”
    Carl shrugged. “Not important.”
    “Charlie might know, if you’re really interested.”
    “Charlie? Charlie Marshall?” A hazy memory bobbed to the surface. Charlie had been a couple of years ahead of him in school, gone off to college somewhere. His father had owned the Tip-Top. Sure.
    “You know him?”
    “Yeah. We went to school together.”
    The woman’s smile went out of shape. “Sure you did. How long ago was that?”
    “Thirteen years, probably fourteen.”
    She laughed. “Wrong Charlie Marshall, Mister.”
    “I doubt it. His father owned this place, last I was here.”
    “Oh?” The woman’s face hardened with suspicion. “Okay, mister, what’s your game? Whatever it is, you better get your facts straight before you try it again.” She slid out from behind the cash register and started for the kitchen.
    “I don’t understand—”
    The blonde stopped, her hands on her hips as she turned briefly toward him. “Wrong approach, Buster. I happen to know Charlie Marshall real well. His dad died over twenty years ago, got that?” She set her shoulder against one of the swinging doors and pushed through.
    What the hell? Carl wondered.
    Ah, Charlie fed her a line, he thought. Looking for a little sympathy, and then some, saying his dad had died that far back. Though God knows why he’d want a blowsy woman fifteen, twenty years older than him. The kitchen door swung open. The cashier was back, with a man in her wake, a grayish man in his sixties. Lines were forming in his rounded face, and his hair, what was left of it, was mostly gray. He wore a tie, but no jacket, and his sleeves were turned up almost to his elbows.
    That’s him, her eyes said as she gestured in Carl’s direction.
    Run!
    The same cold urge he’d felt so often the past couple of weeks. Abruptly, Carl wanted to be out of here. He didn’t want to meet the man, whoever he was. The closer the man came, the stronger was the urge to run.
    Run!
    But he couldn’t move.
    “You said you knew me in high school?” The man looked him over, head to toe, with a raised eyebrow. “Sure you don’t mean my son?”
    “You’re—”
    “Charlie Marshall. This is my restaurant.”
    Impossible. Charlie Marshall couldn’t be a day over thirty-one, thirty-two at the outside. “Is your son’s name Charles, too?” Carl asked.
    “Jerry.”
    Carl felt his head shaking side to side. “Sorry.” The urge to run tugged at his knees, at his ankles. “My mistake.” And then he gave in. Spinning on his heel, Carl pushed his way through the door, and, almost running, hurried out to the street and flung himself into his car, closing his eyes while the terror ebbed. Terror? Over a small social error?
    The face of the man seemed to hang in the air before him. And the face was familiar. It did look like someone he had known, but …
    With unsteady fingers, he started the engine. “ What is going on?” he asked himself