P.Webb
Kleftiko Kitchen
10:16 p.m.

George crumpled up the post-it note in her hand and tossed it into the nearest garbage can as she stomped angrily back down the street,

"What the fuck are you looking at?" she snarled when one man stared at the blood splatter across her crisp blue blouse. Alright, so she was in a bad mood.

It had turned out that Kleftiko Kitchen, while sounding innocent enough, and actually being innocent enough, had been a Greek restaurant, and 'kleftiko' could be translated roughly to 'dead animal on a stick'. Over an open flame, no less.

Combining that with dancing, sharp knives, skewers, Ouzo, and a really big stained glass window honouring Athena – well, it hadn't been pretty.

The best way to describe it succinctly was to say that P.Webb had found himself on the wrong end of a kebab knife.

Extensively, however, it had something to do with the fact that the birthday boy – who was consequentially not her reap – had alcohol on his breath when he went to blow out his candles. The flame had launched across the table, hit the gas burner attached to the barbecue, exploded, and caused a pressure wave so strong that it had sent several skewers across the room. One skewer smashed through the stained glass window, littering the floor and the ouside sidewalk with colourful glass crystals, and continued soaring.

Mister P. Webb – whose full name was, in fact, Percival Webb – had been outside when all of this happened, but the skewer that launched through the window had found its way into his throat.

That was the first time George had seen arterial spray actually arc like that.

So there she was, heading back to Der Waffle Haus because she'd been stupid enough to forget to take her goddamn car to her goddamn reap rather than run all the goddamn way there. Fucking Rube – if he'd given her the post-it earlier, she wouldn't have had to run, and she'd have had enough time to get there without rushing. What the fuck was his problem, anyways?

By the time she'd reached the door, George had decided she was going to give Rube a piece of her mind.

She stormed her way through the restaurant, directly over to the booth Rube sat in, and she started off great. Reflecting on it, her voice had been strong, her stance had been powerful, everything about it had screamed 'I am George, hear me roar!', and this was how she started:

"You know what? You can't just -"

And that was how she finished, because that's when she saw his face.

It wasn't like he'd sunk into gloomy, murky depths with enormous shadows beneath his eyes or anything, but there was something about his expression, the way he was sort of staring listlessly at the far wall, how his fingers were kind of gripping at his coffee cup, how that little tiny worry line had formed between his eyebrows. He looked melancholy, even for Rube.

Anything she had been about to say died in her throat; every protest, swear word, and childish insult she'd had loaded in her bitch clip had become a blank. If she said them now, they'd just be noise pollution, because now, with his eyes looking like that, it would mean nothing.

So she sat down across from him, plucked up a menu, and pretended to read it for a moment, even though they both knew she had it all memorized by now. She peered around the menu,

"Hey," she said, and this seemed to startle Rube out of whatever thought he'd been stuck in.
"How did your reap go?" he asked.

George subtly shifted the menu in front of her blouse,

"Good," she lied, "It went good. Great. Everything, you know, went like it was supposed to. Guy died. It went good."

"Good." Rube agreed, and was silent again.

"So, um," George said, leaning forward, putting her elbows up on the table and tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear, "How are you, Rube?"

For a long time, Rube said nothing, but regarded George with his wise eyes. He didn't think they were very wise, of course, but George knew better – with all of the philosophy, and observations about life and death, and how much guidance he gave them all, Rube couldn't be anything but wise.

And that made it difficult to keep eye contact with him. Sometimes George felt like he could look right into her head; not in the weird way Kiffany seemed to know what they were going to say before they said it, but it was like Rube really knew everything going on in her brain. Like he could see it all, read her entire life and her every thought like she was a book.

That kind of freaked her out.

"You're a good kid," Rube said eventually, "I'm proud of you."

And that freaked her out a little more. She barely had time to register her surprise at his comment, or ask him what drugs he was taking and if she could have some, because Rube was getting to his feet.

"Where are you going?" George asked, looking up at him.
"I've got to go do my reap," Rube said, gesturing with the post-it a little. "You'll need to soak that shirt soon if you want to get the blood out; it looks like a Jackson Pollock."

George opened her mouth to speak, but he was already heading out the door. A few moments later, Kiffany placed a warm cookie in front of her.

"Wha-?"
"From Rube." Kiffany shrugged, and walked away.

She stared down at the cookie, and it stared back. It was chocolate chip, but someone had the brilliant idea to put the pieces of chocolate into the shape of a smiley face. George held the confectionary up in front of her eyes, watching it.

Happy little cookie, so perfect and pretty and round and satisfied with its little life; it made George want to just bite its little head in half.

And she did, and swore when she bit into a walnut chunk that had somehow got into it.

"Georgia, that's no way to speak in public!" Daisy exclaimed, and George nearly spit up in surprise. She regarded Daisy with narrowed, vicious eyes, and a mouthful of cookie. "Nor is that the way to eat; you should know better."

George raised her middle finger at Daisy, and the blonde seemed to take that as an invitation and sat down across from her.

"You know, you should really get that shirt washed," Daisy said, pointing to the spotty, reddish stream across her blouse. "Or you'll never get the stain out."

"My reap went fine, thanks for asking, and yours?" George asked sweetly, taking another bite of her cookie.

"Oh it was pretty easy. It was in a library," Daisy said, eyes looking up at the ceiling, beginning to wave her little hand around to make her story easier to visualize, "This dear sweet librarian was up on this wobbly old sliding ladder, putting away the books, and one of them fell off and simply crushed her skull,"

George made a sort of 'blearrgh' sound, and tried to swallow her cookie before it could come back out.

"It was really very sad," Daisy said, and then a dazzling smile went over her face, "Kiffany, a diet coke with chipped ice and a very small slice of lime, thank you so much sweetie."

That was the thing about Daisy that drove George up the wall. She never knew when the woman was being honest; she could burst into tears and George would still have trouble figuring out if she was acting or actually crying. Yeah, she was good, and it was annoying.

"Did you, uh, see Rube on your way in?" George asked.
"Yes, he passed right by me, I don't think he even saw me." Daisy said, "He didn't even say 'hello'."
"Well, did you say 'hello' to him?"
"Hum? No, why would I do a thing like that, silly girl."

George decided not to question this polluted stream of logic, and forged bravely onwards,

"He seem kind of – weird – to you or anything, Daisy?" George asked.

"'Weird'? That's very eloquent Georgia," Daisy said, and gave a little smile when her drink was put down in front of her. She didn't see the glare George gave her when she took a sip. "'Weird' how?"

"I don't know, just kind of – distant. Sad."
"We are talking about Rube." Daisy said, and George knew she had a point. She couldn't remember a time where Rube didn't look sad; even when he was happy he looked sad.

"I think there's something wrong." George said, poking a little at the plate her cookie had been on, regretting that it was gone, but satisfied it wasn't watching her anymore.
"He's dead," Daisy said simply.

"Well, yeah, but I think there's more to it then that. If he was mourning his death, he would've done it a long time ago."

A long silence followed, and the two women stared at each other.

"How did Rube die, anyways?" George asked.

"I – don't know." Daisy said, shaking her head, one of her delicate brows furrowing very slightly, "I don't think he's ever said."

"Do you ever get the feeling he's hiding things from us?"
"All the time."