Small Talk

           When Detective-Inspector Nels came to, he was surprised to find himself lying down in the backseat of someone’s car. However, the initial confusion ceased when his frantic eyes came down upon Detective-Sergeant Pudget, who sat in the driver’s seat.

           With a sniffle that ultimately caused more harm than good, Nels asked, “I take it you carried me out of there?”

           “I didn’t have much choice.” Pudget replied, “You were out cold.”

           “My hero.” A hint of sarcasm in his tone, Nels sat up, trying to wipe the drying blood off of his own face.

           “Are you going to be alright?”

           “I’ll live, at least as long as I get food.” The dark-haired inspector paused for a moment.
           “Wait. Is this your car?”

           “No, I stole a taxi. Of course it’s my car.”

           “But how did we get to your car? We took a taxi to The Clumsy Trespasser.”

           Pudget shook his head with a small snicker that almost appeared to make his thick moustache bounce on his face. “It’s a long story involving a taxi and me carrying you.”

           Nels accepted that answer. “I’m serious, though. I need some food.”

           “Low blood sugar?”

           “Hypoglycaemia.” Nels responded, confirming the theory.

           Giving in, if only just to keep Nels alive, Pudget put the car into drive and pressed his foot down on the accelerator. Not wearing a seatbelt, Nels leaned through the space between the driver and passenger seats with his book in his right hand and his silver pen in his left.
           “Well, Mr. Michael Heathrow was a no-go.” He stated as he scribbled something out of his flip book.

           “Are you sure? I mean, maybe it’s just me, but usually when someone punches you in the nose it means they’re panicked because they’re guilty.”

           “I don’t think Mr. Heathrow panicked, Pudget. I think he just hated my face and wanted it out of his.”

           Pudget shrugged. “Fair enough.”

           For another moment, Nels stopped to think. “Actually, I’ve changed my mind. I think I’d rather just drink something.”

           “You sure about that?”

           “I’m not ready to share a meal with you yet, Detective-Sergeant.”

           Pudget was sure there was a joke in that statement somewhere, but he couldn’t find it.

           It wasn’t long before Pudget parked his car in the parking lot of a modest little all-night diner near the heart of town. The unlikely duo stepped out of the vehicle into the night and entered the diner, where Nels immediately approached the counter. The waitress, holding an empty mug from a coffee maker, looked up at him and fell silent in shock before she so much as welcomed the new customers.

           “Hi,” Nels started, “Do you have a bathroom here? I’d quite like to wash this blood off of my face, you see…”

           Mutely, she pointed off to the right, where there was a hallway.

           “Thanks. You’re a doll. I mean, a dear. I meant “doll” in a nice way.” With a rather out-of-place thumbs up gesture to finish off his awkward yammering, Nels rushed away, leaving Pudget to pick a table.

           Nels returned into the dining area after a minute or two. The lower half of his face was still ever so slightly tinted red, but the blood was gone. It took him a moment to find his partner, but when he did, he walked over and sat across from him.

           No more than thirty seconds later, the waitress appeared at their table.
           “Would you two like anything to eat?” She asked.

           “No thanks.” Nels answered.

           “Alright then. Anything to drink?”

           “Yes, please.”

           The waitress nodded and opened her order book, a double-sided pencil in her right hand.

           “I’ll have a glass of cold milk with a little bit of coffee and a lot of sugar.”

           Pudget heard the waitress’ pencil snap. She flipped it to write with the other end before turning her head to the sergeant. “And you?”

           “I’ll take my coffee black, thanks.”

           “How black?” The lady pondered.

           With a deadpan look on his face and a blunt tone in his voice, Pudget answered.
           “I want my coffee so goddamned black that the bloody Ku Klux Klan bursts in and tries to�"”

           “Alright, I’ve got it.” She said before she casually turned and wandered off, writing Pudget's order down with her eyes half shut lazily as though he had said nothing strange.

           Pudget leaned forward, his arms resting on the table, and stared at Nels. The inspector raised a brow, confused by the gesture or perhaps waiting for Pudget to say something.

           “Something on your mind?” He asked innocently enough.

           “I’m just thinking about that poster, Nels…”

           Nels furrowed his brows. “I wouldn’t think so much of it, Sergeant. It’s not relevant.”

           “But what if it is, and we just don’t realize it yet?”

           The fair-skinned man shook his head, sighing in resignation. “Look, Pudget. You can follow up on that if you want, but I’m staying out of it.”

           “Why? Are you afraid?”

           Nels said nothing, instead gazing silently out the window with his head resting in the palm of his left hand. He looked solemn, which didn’t register well in Pudget’s head. Something was off. Perhaps he was doing something incorrectly?

           Before he could ponder more on the subject, the waitress returned with two cups, placing them in front of their respective requesters.
           “One “glass of cold milk with a little bit of coffee and a lot of sugar” and one cup of black-as-night coffee.”

           The duo thanked her, and she smiled (somewhat insincerely, Pudget believed) before wandering off to take care of another set of customers.

           Curiously, Pudget craned his neck a bit to see into Nels’ cup. The liquid inside the glass was white like milk with a swirl of light brown still coiling toward the centre.

           “I… can’t say I understand why you ordered something like that.” Pudget admit.

           “I need sugar, but I can’t stand coffee.” Nels answered before lifting the glass and taking a big gulp. Pudget flinched, waiting to see the inspector spit the concoction everywhere, but no such thing happened. Instead, Nels placed the cup back down onto the table, and with a satisfied exhale, announced,
            “Sweet mother of god, yes.”

           The detective-sergeant thought about what a strange man Alexander Nels was as he took a sip of his hot black coffee.

           “Igh.” Nels grunted, flinching himself just watching Pudget imbibe the bitter liquid.

           “What’s the matter with you?”

           “Our tastes are so different, aren’t they? You can’t understand why I like my drinks sweet enough to rot my teeth just by inhaling the air around them, and I can’t understand why you like your drinks bitter enough to kill a cat.”

           Pudget felt his eyes bulge somewhat. “Where did that come from?”

           “… I couldn’t think of a hyperbole for yours.”

           “So you thought about killing a cat?”

           “Cats can only taste bitter things.”

           “You really are weird, you know that?”

           “I try.”

           The two shared a laugh together, something that Pudget hadn’t really anticipated. Once the laughter slowly came to a halt, Nels sat leaned forward against the table, his hands clasped under his chin. His snowy blue eyes, looking particularly soft, rest calmly on Pudget. It was at that particular moment that Pudget noticed that Nels’ nose was beginning to slowly dribble blood again.

           “Your nostril is leaking blood, Nels.” Pudget pointed out.

           “Mm.” The responding noise from Nels was flippant and unconcerned.

           “What are you staring at?”

           “Not a clue.”

           “You alright?”

           Nels, not taking his eyes off of Pudget, took another sip of his coffee-diluted sugar milk. The inspector was gradually beginning to look almost suspicious of the sergeant, who felt a tightness in his throat and a bead of sweat running down the back of his neck.

           Maybe Nels had already figured out his supposed partner’s true motive?

           The air tense with an unspoken conflict, Nels placed his glass, now empty, back down onto the table, finally taking his eyes off of Pudget to watch the two surfaces connect.

           “N-… Nels?”

           Inhaling deeply through his nose, Nels raised his head, an insincere smile of his own on his slender face.
           “I’m fine.” Again, Pudget couldn’t help but feel that the assuring statement was a lie through Nels’ teeth.

           Breaking eye contact with Nels to gaze in the direction of the checkerboard-patterned floor, Pudget took a small sip of his coffee.

           “The poster.”

           “Hm?” Pudget nearly choked on the coffee, surprised by the sudden words.

           “Do you really think we should look into it?”

           Placing his cup back into its saucer, Pudget replied, “I simply believe we should look into all potential leads.”

           Nels crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, and Pudget felt the inspector’s legs graze his to stretch out. A droplet of blood from his left nostril was now resting above his thin upper lip.
           “Then let’s do just that.”

           Pudget would have smirked, since Nels agreeing to look into the fake poster put his plan back into order, but he was still bothered by Nels’ sudden shift from cheery to almost morbidly serious.