12 Feb The Demon in the White Suit

Snow. I absentmindedly watched the white flakes lazily drift down from the sky, remembering that the forecast called for a blizzard by noon. It didn’t seem like it would get that bad, at least not now. But I couldn’t spend all day looking at the pretty weather. I had to clock in, even if this would probably be the most dead day I’ve ever worked at the diner.

I hurried into the back and grabbed my apron, noting that Francine’s and Angela’s were still hanging on their hooks. “Everyone else call out because of the weather?” I shouted, knowing that Joel- the cook- was already back in the kitchen. I could hear the pots and pans banging about.

“Nah, Grant told them not to bother coming in.” Joel poked his head in the door. “Unfortunately you’re the name he pulled out of the hat. Look on the bright side, all you’re probably gonna be doing today is chilling back here with me.”

“Yeah, but no customers means no tips, and I have rent due at the end of the week,” I pointed out.

“If your landlord kicks you out, you can always sleep in my basement. Marla loves you.”

I laughed quietly and punched in. “Thanks, but I like my privacy. And you’re allergic to my cat.”

Joel wrinkled his nose. “… You and that little furball,” he grumbled before he ambled back into the back.

Well, at least I had to pretend to work in case Grant showed up. He was chill for the owner, but he wouldn’t be down with me just hiding out back playing Zen Koi on my phone. I had to at least be out front… odds are playing more Zen Koi on my phone.

I was just heading out of the back room as the bell at the front door rung.

I couldn’t believe it. The weather was already starting to take a turn for the worse and someone chose to have breakfast at this greasy spoon. I knew it wasn’t Grant, he always came in the back way.

“Hello?” I slipped my apron over my neck and tied it around my waist. “Welcome to The Red Beaks, feel free to sit anywhere you like!”

When I walked into the diner, at first thought I’d gone crazy. I didn’t see anyone. Then I turned to the far corner and saw the only customer I figured I’d see all day.

I’d expected one of the old couples who were determined to have their breakfast at their favorite place, no matter the weather. But it wasn’t. The young man sat there was probably not much older than I was, dressed in a pure white suit with a navy blue tie. With blonde curly hair he was currently brushing the snow out of and round red cheeks, he almost looked cherubic.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, I didn’t really expect anyone out here in this weather!” I said with my friendly customer service laugh as I handed him his menu.

The young man smiled. “I can’t imagine you did. I’m Edwin, I’m only passing through and decided this would be the perfect place to get some business done.”

“Business?” I repeated. “You expecting somebody?”

“A few people, but they shouldn’t be here for a while. You wouldn’t mind if I stay here for a while?”

I glanced around, knowing dang well not to expect a full house anytime soon. “As long as you buy breakfast, and we don’t suddenly get slammed, I don’t think it’ll matter,” I decided.

“Wonderful. Can I have some black coffee, please? I could really use something to wake me up.”

“You and me both,” I joked. “Just a second, I’ll have that right out for you. Take your time to order, don’t feel rushed.”

I hurried back into the kitchen, where Joel was trying to stick his head out to take a look. “Who the hell comes out on a day like this for coffee?” he said.

“I don’t know, but he wants to hang out for a bit. Says he’s expecting some people, so we might actually get some business today,” I said as I grabbed the coffee pot. “Told him it was fine.”

“Eh. No skin off my nose.” Joel stuck his head out again. “Why the hell is he wearing a suit?”

I shrugged. “You wanna ask, be my guest. I’m going to get him his coffee.”

I headed back out, where Edwin was casually looking through the breakfast side of the menu. “The suit’s to look professional. And white, because it makes me stick out,” he said without looking up at me.

“Oh, I didn’t know we were talking that loud,” I said as I handed him the steaming mug of coffee. “Sorry.”

“You’re both perfectly fine. I have sensitive hearing.” Edwin picked up his mug and took a slow sip, sighing with appreciation. “Mmmm. Thank you for this, I genuinely appreciate it. I’ll make sure it’ll show in my tip. As for my breakfast, I’d like an egg benedict, with some bacon on the side please.”

“I’ll get it out to you as soon as I can!” I said.

“Oh, and whatever you want for yourself. I imagine being up this early, you didn’t have time for a good breakfast?”

I sputtered for a few moments. “I- I don’t think-”

“It’s my treat. Same for your chef.”

My brain temporarily fizzled out as I stared at Edwin, trying to figure out just what the hell he was up to. Edwin just smiled back, sipping his coffee without a hint of irony or like he was going to pull a fast one. Without another word I headed into the kitchen, handing the order slip to Joel. “So, the guy wants to treat us to breakfast,” I said.

Joel laughed until he looked up and realized I was dead fucking serious. “… For real? I mean, I’m busy back here, but if it’s on his bill, I’m gonna have some orange juice on his tab,” he joked.

I chewed on my inner cheek. “This is a weirdo, yeah?” I asked.

“I mean. Probably. Who the fuck else is out here during a winter storm wearing a suit and buying the staff breakfast?”

My stomach growled and Joel snickered. I sighed before I caved.

“Well, since there’s no one else out here…” I thought for a moment. “Sign me up for scrambled eggs, toast, and potatoes. And tea. I slept through my alarm, I didn’t have time for a cup.”

I returned with both of our breakfasts once they were done, although I didn’t sit with Edwin, just at the table across from him. “Were you serious about paying for my meal?” I asked before I started chowing down. If he said ‘psych’ I’d be able to handle it myself.

“Oh, of course.” Edwin took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t make promises I don’t keep. It’s the least I can do since I’ll likely be warming this booth until closing time tonight.”

“When are you expecting your uh… business friends to show up?” I asked.

“Mmm…” Edwin twisted his mouth as he thought. “Probably around thirty minutes, or an hour. They’d be here sooner but this weather,” he tutted his tongue, “it’s quite a blizzard outside.”

You’re telling me, I thought as I looked out the window. It was really coming down now. If Edwin hadn’t showed up, I imagine both me and Joel would be rioting to go home early, before we got snowed in here.

After I finished my meal, I went into the back and tried to make myself busy. I didn’t want to just awkwardly hang around Edwin the whole time. I ended up sorting the fridge before I heard the telltale sound of the front door’s bell ringing. Thankful not to be just twiddling my thumbs, I headed out there.

It was another businessman, except in your typical gray suit rather than the flashy white one Edwin wore. He barely acknowledged me, just stomping his shoes off on the mat in front of the door before heading for Edwin’s table. I put on my smile before I walked over.

“What can I get you-”

“Coffee.”

Jeez. I wasn’t able to hide my discontent entirely with how rudely I’d been snapped at, but he didn’t notice. But Edwin did.

He frowned before he reached across the table and tapped the businessman’s wrist. “Excuse me, friend, but if you want this meeting to continue, you should treat the waitstaff with a little more respect.”

It didn’t sound like a threat. Edwin sounded perfectly calm. But the businessman certainly took it as a threat. The color drained from his face before he looked up at me. “Um… sorry, it’s been a long morning.”

“It’s fine,” I reassured him. “So, coffee?”

“Uh, yeah. Just coffee… this won’t take too long?” he glanced over at Edwin, and I saw a bit of sweat forming on his forehead.

Edwin smiled. “Not long at all. We don’t have too much to go over,” he said.

When I returned with the businessman’s coffee, the two were engaging in a hushed conversation. The conversation paused as I put the coffee down, and it didn’t continue until I was gone. Edwin was right though, the meeting didn’t take more than ten, fifteen minutes. By the time I came to refill the coffee mugs, the businessman was hurrying out the door. He looked incredibly relieved, like he’d just dodged a bullet. Under his only half-empty mug was a fifty-dollar bill.

“Your tip,” Edwin said as he pushed away his clean plate. “He felt terrible about how he’d snapped at you.”

Fifty dollars. For a cup of coffee. “Will all your business partners tip so well?” I joked as I picked up the bill. That alone made it a little more worth it to come into work.

“I hope so. The man I just dealt with, our contract isn’t going to be called in for another ten years. That’s why it didn’t take so long. Everyone else is reaching their deadlines,” Edwin explained.

“What sort of work do you do?” I asked.

Edwin only smiled.

“I’d like another piece of toast, miss, if it isn’t too inconvenient. And of course, more coffee. I can never get good coffee back at the office.”

Right. Okay then. Wasn’t going to get a straight answer about that. That only led to one conclusion.

“Yeah, I think Edwin is involved in some shady things, I just got the biggest tip of my lifetime for coffee. Coffee he didn’t even finish,” I told Joel as I placed the dirty dishes in the sink.

“No shit.” Joel snorted. “Took you that long to get there?”

I smacked Joel on the shoulder. “Should we phone Grant and tell him about that guy?” I asked.

“… How much of a tip did you get?” Joel asked.

I pulled the fifty out of my pocket. Joel’s eyes bugged out and he tripped over his words for a moment. “Um- I… yeah, Grant doesn’t need to get bothered about this. Put the tips in the jar and we’ll split it when the day’s over.”

“My thoughts exactly.” I popped that fifty in the jar. Grant always took a bit off the top when he was in for the day. Calling him now wouldn’t exactly be profitable. Besides, mob guys usually took care of the people that took care of them, and who else could Edwin be running with?

It was a long hour before the next person came in. And this one I recognized- one of my old classmates, Michael. He had been planning on college, but as life goes, things didn’t go according to plan.

Michael didn’t look at me, only heading right for the table Edwin was at. He took a seat across from him and reached for his pocket.

“Ah… wait, might as well order while you’re here.” Edwin held up his hand as I approached the table. “Hello again. I’d like a fresh cup of coffee, and what would you like Michael?”

Michael looked up at me and his eyes widened in shock when he recognized me. “Um…” his gaze dropped in… well, shame. Like I was catching him doing something wrong. “Yeah, coffee sounds great. Can I also get some bacon and eggs?”

“How do you take your eggs?” I asked, flipping out my notebook.

“Ummm, scrambled.”

I nodded before I walked away. I lurked outside the kitchen for a moment, long enough to hear Michael grumble something about ‘not wanting anyone he knew knowing about this’ before I went to put in their order.

When I came back with the fresh coffees, there were several pictures on the table. Michael jumped out of his skin when he heard me coming, desperately pushing the pictures off the table. In his haste one fell onto the floor, right on my shoe.

I picked it up. It wasn’t anything crazy. All I could tell was that it was taken in a dark room, everything else was blurry, like the camera jerked at the last second.

Edwin cleared his throat and held his hand out expectantly. I handed Edwin back the photo before giving the men their coffee. “Your food should be out shortly,” I said before I left them back to their ‘business’.

They were much more careful to hide their business from me when I returned with breakfast, but I could feel the embarrassment coming off of Michael in waves. He barely even touched his scrambled eggs, leaving a mostly full plate. I’m not even sure if he actually ate any, or if he just poked it a bit with his fork. Although he left an amazing tip, I felt a bit wrong taking it. Only a bit- I got rent to pay, you know.

“So, what business do you do?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

Edwin cocked his head to the side as he thought over answering my question. “My business is in give and take. I can offer quite a bit to people who come to me. Whatever I give though, I demand to be given back to me. For that young man that was just here, he wanted his business to take off. So far, it’s done quite well. He has about seven years left on his contract, and he’s doing quite well. I imagine he’ll have paid me back by then.”

Business… I vaguely remembered seeing on Facebook that Michael had started a game shop, right before the pandemic started. Not a great time to start anything, really. “I guess that’s all right, as long as no one gets hurt,” I said.

Edwin just chuckled.

“Can I have a glass of water? It’ll be a while before my next client arrives, probably closer to lunch time.”

She did show up right when Edwin said she would. I didn’t know her, but she wasn’t like the first ‘client’ of Edwin’s. She wore an unflattering flower printed dress, her eyes were surrounded by dark circles, and her arms were so beat up it looked like she’d been in a fight.

The flower lady went to Edwin’s table and I got there just as she blurted out, “I want my husband dead.”

I dropped my notepad in shock. Edwin didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. “Well, that’s a common demand. Ahem, how about we order lunch?”

It was like the flower lady just noticed me. Her cheeks colored a little bit, but she quickly steeled herself. “I’m not hungry. Just a water for me please,” she said.

“And I’ll have a cheeseburger with onion, lettuce, and ketchup, along with a side of fries,” Edwin said.

My hands trembled so badly when I wrote down their orders, my handwriting looked like chicken scratch. I couldn’t run back to the kitchen fast enough to put in the orders. Joel frowned when he saw my face. “What happened out there?” he asked.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “… I don’t know,” I said, only half lying. Did I really hear that right? Stories of hitmen for the mafia went through my head at lightspeed. “Just. If I run in here and lock the door, already be calling 911.”

Joel nodded before he glanced out the window. “If they can even get here with this weather,” he mumbled before he started on the order.

I had to make myself walk back out there to give them their order. The flower lady seemed much more calm and relaxed, and for a second I almost thought I’d imagined what had first popped out of her mouth when she first arrived.

“So it needs to be a natural death for the insurance payout,” Edwin said after I set down his plate.

The flower lady nodded. “I just can’t live like this anymore. Especially after what he did to Mabel… our daughter…” the woman shuddered. “I could take it when it was just me. But she’s only twelve. I want her to grow up happy, and with his life insurance payout, she’ll never want for anything.”

I wanted to vomit. I set the glass of water in front of her and hurried away, but not before I heard Edwin say, “Well, that’s easy enough. Now we talk about what I’ll need from you.”

Jesus.

I had to steady myself in the kitchen, and I was more than grateful when Joel pulled his flask out of his apron and offered it to me. The whiskey was cheap, but I couldn’t be doing this sober anymore. Even if it sounded like this was an abusive situation, the fact that the charming man in the white suit out there was so cold-blooded about it… it rubbed me all sorts of wrong ways.

The flower lady didn’t leave as nice a tip as the rest of them, but it was still a decent one. Edwin cleared his throat and I nearly dropped the cleared dishes. “You know, she won’t have to pay that much for a job like that. And I gave her a long time to pay, nearly twenty years. She might even be lucky enough to be a grandmother by then, if she somehow can’t pay.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” I blurted out. “Just… I don’t.”

Edwin twisted his mouth and for a second, I thought I might have to run and have Joel make that call. But all Edwin did was nod.

“Fair enough. I’ll still leave a slot at the end of my day so we can talk about what you could want. After all, I’ll be the one indebted to you if I leave you unpaid for this favor, and I’m not a man who likes a debt unpaid. Now, my next guest should be here in a few minutes. I know him quite well, so I imagine he’ll want a coke. As for if he’ll want anything actually to eat, well, that’ll be seen.”

The rest of the afternoon passed like this. A new guest every hour or so, although unlike the flower lady, most hushed their conversation whenever I came by to refill their drinks. They’d leave behind generous tips, and during the down times, Edwin would be reading a book or just staring out the window.

The tip jar was full of five and ten dollar bills by the time I went to Edwin to get his order for dinner. He’d set aside his book and had already decided what he’d wanted. But he also had another request-

“Have your chef friend come out. It’s time we talk.”

Joel was so tense when he came out of the kitchen it was a wonder he didn’t just snap. Edwin was perfectly calm, as he’d been all day. “Good to finally meet the man who’s been working in the kitchens. Your food is delicious,” he said.

“Thanks,” Joel responded as he sat down next to me. “What do you want?”

“It’s not about what I want,” Edwin tutted his tongue and leaned forward. “It’s about your wants. You’ve been such good hosts, your boss was right- you’re his best employees.”

I inadvertently shivered. “Grant knew you’d be here?” I asked.

“Of course. He let me use his diner for my business today. It’s part of paying back his own contract.” Edwin glanced around the diner. “How do you think he afforded this place?”

I didn’t feel well. I felt cold sweat dripping down the back of my neck. “Who are you? I don’t want to get involved with the mob or anything-”

Edwin cut me off with his laughter. He literally wiped tears from his eyes as he chuckled, shaking his head. “Is that who you think I am? A common mobster?” he asked.

“Why else would you be handling a hit job?” I blurted out. Joel’s eyes nearly bugged out of his skull, but he didn’t add anything.

“A hit job? Oh, no. It’s nothing so… pedestrian.”

Edwin leaned forward, his smile taking on a darker appearance. The wind howled outside like wild animals, and the lights flickered above our heads.

“Look at me, both of you. Really, really look at me.”

I didn’t want to. I really didn’t. But I didn’t have a choice. I saw Edwin, really saw him for the first time.

He wasn’t a man in a white suit, not really. He was horrible. A white humanoid figure, with claws on his six fingers and a maw full of bloodied, spine like teeth. I screamed and clung onto Joel for dear life as the being in front of us stared and laughed, its rusty colored spittle landing on the table and melting little holes in it.

Then it was all back to normal. Edwin was back to being a man in a white suit, sipping away at his cup of water. I could faintly smell the stench of urine hanging on the air and I am pretty sure it was coming from Joel. If it wasn’t for the damaged table, I would’ve assumed I was hallucinating.

“Do you understand now?” Edwin asked.

I nodded, unable to breathe.

“See, the most common deal with devils is just offering your soul. But there are other things you can offer, you know. The blood of dead men, the pain of the innocent, I like those a little more. There’s a bit more give and take, you see.”

Edwin looked between Joel and me for a bit before he nodded. “Well, you served me well today. How does wealth sound? Not a crazy amount. Ten, twenty thousand apiece?”

I nearly choked. Joel sputtered for a moment before he spoke up. “Just for serving you food all day?” he said.

“Indeed,” Edwin nodded. “Now imagine what I can do for you, with a bit more to work with. I imagine you’ll each want to talk with me alone. I know a lot of… embarrassing things after all, about the both of you. Things that’ll probably be relevant to our contracts.”

I glanced at Joel, expecting him to tell Edwin to get lost.

Joel just stared at his hands. He swallowed and shifted a few times before he nodded.

“I think we can talk. Um, Meredith? Mind wiping down the kitchen?”

I couldn’t believe it. That Joel was willing to deal with a literal demon.

But I didn’t tell him he was stupid. I just headed into the kitchen and closed up shop for the night. I took my time. So when I headed out there, I was just in time to see Joel and Edwin shaking hands. Joel was so pale I thought he looked ready to faint. He didn’t have the nerve to look me in the eye as he hurried out. I heard the back door slam, and now I was alone with Edwin.

Edwin gestured for me to take a seat, and against my better judgment I sat across from him.

“He’s a good man, Joel,” Edwin noted, twiddling his thumbs around each other. “He just wants his daughter to be healed.”

“What did he pay?” I asked.

Edwin tutted his tongue and shook his head. “It’s rude to ask about someone else’s deal with a devil,” he scolded. “You can ask him, but I doubt he’ll tell you. Now, let’s talk about you.

“You’re alone.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the gut with those two words alone. But Edwin kept talking.

“All you have is work, your cat, and a few friends you keep at arm’s length. Why? Because you already lost so much. Parents, killed in a plane crash. Your brother, overdosed on heroin after years of abuse, so you’d lost him a long time before his death. Any other immediate relatives aren’t interested in you. Even your significant others abandon you, one in particular because of your infertility. You… want… security. Safety. People that won’t leave you after a short amount of time. You want to go home and be happy. A husband who loves you, children’s laughter echoing off the walls. And you want a real home, not that cardboard box of an apartment you live in. I can give you all of these things.”

“How?” I shook my head. “That’s not possible.”

“Anything’s possible with a little give and take. I make sure you run into the perfect man of your dreams. Your broken ovaries will be miraculously fixed. An inheritance will show up in the mail, one that comes with a fully paid off house and all the money you could use to be comfortable. You’ll finally have everything you want.

“Your happiness is right in front of you, Meredith. Are you willing to deal?”