A Man of the Mountain VII (The Busy Bee Diner)

7. The Busy Bee Diner

     Shirley sat at the counter of the diner, sipping a cup of coffee that had been watered down to the point where she questioned if it had any caffeine at all. The woman serving was wearing a yellow and black uniform that ran in horizontal stripes. The brightness of it made Shirley squint, and stare back down at the slightly brown coffee. Her hands were shaking, part from lack of sleep, and part from rage at the idiocy with which Rick Mansen had been parading around town.

     For the first few days she had shown up on set, but after that had realized it was pointless. The only chance they stood of killing Bigfoot was if it was allergic to autographs. Most of the footage on the upper mountain was shot from hidden vantage points, and Rick didn’t even go up to collect them. All of his parts had been filmed on local hiking trails around the base of the mountain, and had been so scripted that she wanted to gag. After three days of “searching”, they were no closer to finding the monster, and if anything, her credibility had been shot even further to hell.

     Shirley looked over her cup and noticed a suspicious man, sitting shrouded by a newspaper. When she caught sight of him, he raised it further, trying to obscure himself completely. The weirdos in this town, she thought, ignoring the fact that she was wearing a necklace filled with sasquatch hair. She brushed her hair out of her eyes, and tried to remain convinced that something productive was going to come out of the History Channel segment.

     He has to go up the mountain at some point. Part of her doubted that Rick would actually have any idea of how to deal with the beast once they got there, but it would serve him right. A brief chill crept into her as she noticed the man peaking over his paper again. There was something off about him, and it made her nervous.

She distracted herself with schemes of how to get Rick to actually do his job. There’s only one way to get him up that mountain. I have to play to his ego. Shirley tussled up her hair a bit and wondered if she could seduce him. This thought was quickly put to rest by the scowl on the waitress’s face as she refilled Shirley’s coffee.

     The diner was relatively quiet for a Saturday morning. All of the usual patrons were out on set, trying to get their big break. Being on TV for fifteen seconds was enough to declare a work holiday as far as they were concerned. Out of the corner of her eye, Shirley spied movement. The man with the newspaper had moved to a bar stool just ten feet away from her. The paper was now opened wide so that she could see nothing below his chest.

     “Can I help you?” she asked, bitter, and in no mood for practical jokes. The man shifted his newspaper to look at her over one end. He had awkward eyes, shifting back and forth between a messy crop of light brown hair. She was only able to see it briefly, as he had lifted the paper again. “There’s no need to be childish. If you’ve got something to say, then come out with it.”

     The man did not lower the newspaper, but began to speak. “I’m sorry, I was merely pondering an answer to your first question.”

     “My first question?”

     “Can I help you?” he said, as if lost in deep thought. “You see; I was under the impression that I was here to help you.”

     “Well I’m doing quite fine thanks.” Shirley slammed a five-dollar bill down next to the coffee cup and got up to walk away.

     “Then that git Mansen has caught and killed the beast for you? Amazing, I didn’t think he had it in him.” The man had lowered the paper to reveal a handsome face, and a gloating smile. Shirley’s face must have betrayed the truth, because he made a tutting noise, put the paper down and walked over to her. “I’m Nick Ventner, and I think I can help you a great deal more than those idiots over at the History Channel.”

     Nick had said this statement loudly, and a man got up from a booth and left, muttering “This whole damned town has gone completely crazy.”

     “Don’t mind him,” said Nick. “Although, I suppose you’re used to people calling you crazy at this point. I’ve read your columns, and I must say, while most of them are trash, you do know what you’re doing when it comes to ‘Bigfoot’, as you’ve taken to calling it.”

     Shirley’s mouth hung open. She had a great desire to punch him, and also swoon from the acknowledgement of her work. Her face settled somewhere in between a grimace and a half-hearted smile. Nick walked out of the diner, and motioned for her to follow. Mostly out of shock, she did.

     “Don’t take it as an insult. I speak my mind, and I speak it plainly. There’s no point in wasting time. Speaking of which, when is Mansen’s team heading up the mountain? I want to be front row seated with popcorn when he gets disemboweled.” He said it with the casual air of someone discussing the weather forecast.

     “I’m not sure he’s actually going to go up there.”

     Nick’s eyebrows raised, but it felt forced. “Rick isn’t actually going to go confront the beast? Well, we’ll have to do something about that. Where are they camped out? I’d love to pay a visit to such a dear old friend.” His voice was filled with a slow venom, and Shirley felt frightened of him despite his disarming nature.

     “They’re just at the base of the Clear Falls hiking trail.”

     “They really were creative when naming their landmarks weren’t they?” Shirley laughed, and Nick gave her a smile. “Let’s head over there and see if we can’t goad Rick into doing something stupid.”