The Last Coin by James P. Blaylock Read Free Book Online

International
. No one on earth can tell you whether ‘window’ refers to the solid business that keeps the wind from blowing in or to the hole in the wall, the hiatus itself. You can close the window and you can climb through it and you can wash it and you can break it. Imagine being able to climb through something solid enough to break.
    “It’s an astonishing business, language, and I’ll tell you that it seemed a lot more astonishing last night after a couple of glasses of scotch. I thought at first that I’d fallen onto the secret of the bottomless cup of coffee, except that it seemed to work against me. I could see straightaway that I couldn’t profit from it. Just the opposite. I pour two cups and the customer only gets a cup and a half out of them. I lose a half a cup for every two I pour. Imagine the loss over the years. What is it? Say two hundred cups a day, two days a week, and half a cup each disappearing due to mathematics—that’s fifty cups a day gone, multiplied by … Will we close this place down on holidays?”
    “And Mondays, maybe. Everything closes down on Mondays.”
    “Yes,” said Andrew. “We weren’t going to be open on Mondays anyway. Now I’ve lost count. Fifty times what?” Andrew shook his head and shrugged. “Anyway, I wanted to show it to you. I’ve written up a brief explanation and mailed it off to the ‘Mr. Wizard’ program, just as a sort of joke. Kids love this sort of thing. Don’t tell Rose, though. She’d think I was wasting time.”
    “I won’t. Don’t worry about that.” Pickett sat on his stool and stared out toward the street, as Andrew sipped at the cold coffee and studied his copy of
Grossman’s Guide
. “How are people going to find you here, tucked away like this off the highway?”
    Andrew looked up from his work. He was drawing up a list of bar implements—three lists, actually: the necessary, the desirable, and the questionable. He’d rulered the page into three columns and headed each with an N, D, or Q. Neatness was impossible in broad matters, so he made up for it in small ways when he could. The first list covered an entire column and spilled over onto the back of the page; the Q list had only one item on it—flex straws, which it seemed to him were children’s items. He didn’t intend to cater to children, not from the bar anyway.
    “Reputation,” he said.
    “You need to do some footwork. Xeroxed flyers aren’t enough. The best menu in the world isn’t enough.”
    “I rather thought we might slip something into the
Herald
, with you on the staff part time and all.” Andrew picked up a comical napkin and studied the grinning, pipe-smoking dog on the front of it. “Do you know anyone in advertising?”
    Pickett nodded. “There’s Pringle, but he’s a wash-out. He hates me for the gag letter I printed with his name on it. He’d boasted about being one of the founders of the Pringle Society, but that turned out to be a lie. They wouldn’t even let him in. Anyway, I ribbed him about it and now we can’t stand each other. He’d ruin any ad we ran. I could trust Mary Clark, though. She’s sharp. Has an eye for design. Speaks French, too.”
    “A pity no one else in Seal Beach does. We’d better run it in English, I think.”
    “Of course, of course,” Pickett said, gesturing. “But it should have a Continental air to it. This isn’t going to be a hamburger joint. I’ll draw something up. Leave it to me. Have you worked out a menu yet?”
    “No. I’m still experimenting. Never having worked in the restaurant business is a handicap. I can see that. But I can turn it to advantage, I think. The customer is bound to find something here to surprise him. The Weetabix, for example. Show me another restaurant that serves them. They don’t. All they’ve got are those variety pack cereals—the same everywhere. That’s the truth of it. A man in the business sees nothing but the business; he’s hidebound, blown by the winds of