Free Mercury Man by Tom Henighan Page B

tell you, Tom — the thing that might make it stick is the man in black. I think he’s the key to the whole thing. The only trouble is that his actions don’t make sense.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWhy would he be waiting around outside? Once he got you in the building he’d be in there to make sure you stuck. Are you sure this guy was following you?”
    â€œGrandpa!”
    â€œAll right, all right, you’re sure. Then I guess you might see him again, and if you do, you’re going to have to go right up and talk to him.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI don’t mean in a dark alley, of course. But in a public street, why not? You have a right to ask him why he’s trailing you. I just wish I could be there when you confront him.”
    â€œYou think he’ll show up again?”
    â€œIf he’s part of some conspiracy, sure. You might not be too difficult to trace.”
    Tom shivered. “Grandpa, someone was phoning the apartment tonight. Mom told me. But they hung up without speaking.”
    Jack’s look was grave. “I would expect something like that. If he gets through when you’re there alone, talk to him. Then let me know right away. Now look, we both have to think things out. You need some rest and so do I. You go and clean up, have a shower, and I’ll set up the sofa in the office for you. We’ll talk more about this over breakfast.”
    As soon as his grandfather suggested this, Tom realized how exhausted he was. Even so, he dragged himself to the shower, while Jack sat smoking and drinking coffee, looking grave and preoccupied.
    When Tom finished in the bathroom he found the bed in the office laid out with clean sheets and a pillow. His grandfather stood at the door and said quietly, “Try to get some rest. Nobody’s going to bother you here. I’ll try to sleep on this. We’ll work out a strategy over breakfast.”
    But Tom sat up, restless, hearing sounds all around the house and out in yard. A couple of times he went to the window and peered into the semi-darkness, expecting a figure to rise from the skeletal lilac bush. Finally, he took down his grandfather’s Mercury Man comics and began to read them through. When he got to the fourth comic, the one in which Mercury Man was about to foil the Nazis at a California airplane factory, he fell asleep.

C HAPTER S IX
The Pursuit Continues
    â€œTwo hash coming up!” shouted Fast-Fry Willy from the window. A couple of customers looked up hopefully. Willy’s hash and scrapple were famous. Tom wiped the counter and stared out beyond the neon and the slatted blinds at the grey street. Nothing suspicious was happening out there — it was just another grubby morning on the east side, enlivened as usual by the smell of good food and strong coffee, the rumble of conversation and laughter, the flare of cigarettes being lit like candles in the smoky den that was Damato’s.
    And across the room and through the smoke Tom saw a reassuring sight: his grandfather at a corner table, reading a tabloid and slyly watching the door for any sign of a stranger.
    Tom worked up front at Damato’s Diner, but not regularly, because the two behind-the-counter men, Fast-Fry Willy and Singapore, were almost never absent. When he really needed the money Tom wouldsometimes fill in for one of the kitchen guys, but mostly he liked it at the front.
    The diner was actually an old place from the forties, looking a bit like a shabby boxcar but fixed up enough to pass the health and fire regulations, if only just. It had air conditioning, after a fashion, and an unflappable waitress named Hester, who never let a coffee cup get less than three-quarters full.
    Nobody seemed to know who owned the restaurant — it certainly wasn’t anybody named Damato — and nobody much cared. It was located on the edge of Mechanicstown, near the Greyhound bus station, and populated by