The Last Donut Shop of the Apocalypse (Kelly Driscoll Book 2) Read online

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  For Jeremy

  And for my Grandmother, Hazel

  s a formerly successful and then not-so-successful bounty hunter, Kelly Driscoll hated working as herself. After gaining access to Amenity Tower as an elevator inspector, hamster grief counselor, FDA criminal division agent, and various city officials, she had somehow been named interim manager of the building. These days, she showed up to work as herself.

  Being Kelly Driscoll meant that she winced when anyone in Amenity Tower, Pothole City’s finest (and only) luxury condominium building, recognized and greeted her. It felt wrong to not radically change her eye color, her skin, her facial shape, her hair, her clothing, her body type, her occupation, her name.

  But she didn’t mind being herself at home, which for weeks had been the top two floors of a 1920s-era art deco high-rise a couple of blocks from Amenity Tower in downtown Pothole City.

  She gathered her ash-blonde hair in a bun and went into Mr. Orange’s office, packed full of small, single-purpose angels, or SPs as she called them.

  They had all moved in before the destruction of the city with the notion she could protect them. After she sent Murray―the corrupt angel who killed the SP in charge of audio equipment―to indefinite retirement in a hell lodge, the rest of the SPs stayed with her, and now she worked a steady job with benefits to keep them in Cluck Snack products.

  This time, her employer wasn’t the Destroying Angel of the Apocalypse, who begrudgingly paid out expense forms after a few months, and it wasn’t a Jackal who wanted to steal a painting from an ex―it was a shadowy property management conglomerate who paid for health insurance.

  The small angels sat in a group in Mr. Orange’s office wearing pajamas, eating cereal, and watching Clucking Along Holdings Presents the Cluck Snack Weekday Cartoon Adventure Hour, with animated and live-action segments.

  “Back at five,” she said.

  They waved with spoons that flicked droplets of milk and bits of cereal across the room and on the marble floors. She grabbed her bag and a phone rang the minute she started out the door.

  “Where is there a phone?” she said, to an empty hallway.

  It kept ringing.

  She did a U-turn and went into Mr. Black’s office, thinking it was one of the two landline phones, one black and one red, on the massive metal desk, though they had never rang before.

  But the ringing was farther away.

  She went back into the center of the floor and listened. The call was definitely coming from inside the house.

  It sounded like it came from the pneumatic tube room, even though it didn’t have a phone, but to her surprise, when she unlatched the casing of a red metal box she found a ringing phone labeled Answer: ‘Special Situations International: We’re Usually Awake.

  Kelly shook her head, wondering how she’d missed that, unhooked the receiver and put her own spin on the instructions. “SSI, You Won’t Catch Us Napping.”

  Special Situations International once had their headquarters in the spacious top floors where Kelly now lived rent-free. As far as she knew, Don, the Avenging Angel of the Apocalypse, had used it for out-of-town guests, but no one ever bothered her about it. The company’s origins and purpose remained a mystery to her, but she knew that Mr. Black―a former SSI executive whose office she occupied―used to be an elite orienteer, evidenced by the photos on his wall.

  “Yeah, this is Jerry Shanks,” said the loud voice on the other side of the call. “I’m a bail bonds agent with Shanks Brothers Bonds down on Locust Street.”

  Kelly held the phone a few inches from her ear. His voice would carry up to a passing airplane.

  “My client failed to make his court appearance,” Jerry said. “This is the number he gave me as a contact.”

  “What’s the name of the client?” She got a pen and memo pad.

  “Driscoll,” Jerry said, practically yelling at her. “Archie Driscoll.” He pronounced it AH-chee Dris-kul.

  She sat on the one small chair in the tiny room and saw an SP zip by on a modified sled.

  Archie Driscoll? Probably just a coincidence he had the same last name. No shortage of Driscolls out there. Sure, one of them had to be her father, but not this one. She never thought she would ever meet her father, and had no doubt that would remain the case. In her mind, she put the thought in a tiny jar, gave the jar to a salamander in a canoe, and watched him row away into thick fog.

  “I need to recover that money,” Jerry said. “I’m responsible for the bond payment. Hello? You still there?”

  She knew full well how his business worked. “Yeah, I’m here. Did this Archie Driscoll give a company name?”

  “C-A-H. That mean anything to you?”

  Because of his thick accent, she said, “Charlie-Alpha-Hotel, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Clucking Along Holdings, a Driscoll Family Company. One of the last buildings standing after Pothole City was obliterated. Maybe she had a living relative. Or maybe this had nothing to do with her. It was probably just some random Driscoll who knew someone from SSI or any other company that used to be in the building, or who used to work in one of those companies.

  She didn’t know SSI was supposed to do in this case, but that wasn’t her concern. Regardless, she may as well try and pick up some extra money.

  “You need him apprehended?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jerry said. “That’d be helpful.”

  Taking a side gig could interfere with her work at Amenity Tower, or taking care of the SPs, or her relationship with Af, if that really was anything. But she could handle an additional job, and it would be good to have a project that took advantage of her talents rather than constantly reminding her of her limitations, and didn’t involve running a condo building.

  In her head, Jay Vanner told her, Kelly, invest energy in your natural talents and seize the opportunity to show them off. In one job, you may feel like a failure, but in this job, you can achieve something.

  “Give me the info, then.”

  “What, are you going to do this?”

  “I’m more than qualified.”

  She took down some notes and by the time she hung up, had a job―the kind of job she could do well, and the kind of job she liked. But she had resolved to make an effort to be herself, to be the real, accept-no-imitations Kelly Driscoll.

  No reason she couldn’t do both, right?

  Just as she closed the door to the tube room, the phone rang again. For a phone that hadn’t made a peep since she took up residence, it was disconcertingly active.

  One more call, but then she would really have to leave. She had to film an episode of What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi before meeting Af, the former angel of destruction she spen
t way too much time thinking about as of late.

  “Special Situations International,” she said on the red phone. “We’re Excessively Caffeinated.”

  Tubiel, the single-purpose angel in charge of the protection of small birds, and the SP she was closest to, came in and held up a Cluck Snack cereal box. He wore his usual outfit of shiny black patent sneakers with a mirrored metal letter on the sides; jeans with a large mirrored metal brand sign; a puffy black nylon jacket zipped up to the top; and mirrored aviator sunglasses, on the top of his head.

  “This is your client,” a male voice said over the phone. Confident, and with an undertone of urgency. “Institute Code Cluck Snack immediately.”

  Her client. Right.

  She checked inside the phone case to see if it contained instructions or a code. It didn’t, but she would start with the basics.

  “I’m actually new here. Which client?”

  “Your only client.”

  “I don’t have any clients. I just got my badge.” As far as she knew, no badge was involved with working for SSI, but then again, maybe it did.

  “Clucking Along Holdings. SSI’s only client!” He let out a frustrated breath. “This is Hamlet Gonzalez, Clucking Along Holdings’ Vice-President of Snacks and Flavors.”

  Kelly recovered. “Of course. I meant that we, the elite team here at Special Situations International, share you as a client.” She had no idea what SSI did or what kind of special situations they handled or if they were an elite team of anything except orienteering, but covered for her ignorance. “As much as I have to be reminded since they took my employee photo, I realize I don’t have an exclusive relationship with Clucking Along Holdings. Though it often feels that way.”

  Kelly wanted to uphold SSI as a functioning entity because she wasn’t paying rent. They were technically squatting in the building since she’d stopped working for Don, King of the Demonic Locusts.

  Clucking Along Holdings was SSI’s only client? If Clucking Along Holdings somehow owned SSI, as a subsidiary or division, and discovered that the SSI executives abandoned the company, they could kick her and the SPs out on the street.

  If that happened, she would have to steal and take temporary residence of the Cluck Snack street van, and then just like that, she’d be running the mobile Cluck Snack operation whether she wanted to or not.

  Hamlet sucked in a breath. “Since you’re new, I’ll lay it out for you, but then do yourself and SSI a favor and learn the codes. Code Cluck Snack is the top emergency level, the top priority. It means that you drop everything and find our missing president. We would like to handle this discreetly. Clucking Along Holdings has never held a press conference and does not encourage media visits to its plants, so do not inform the press about this.”

  “If you insist,” Kelly said, humoring him. “You have a code for finding your missing president? How often does he go missing?”

  “Not often. Not for this long, anyway. Don’t you have a guide or a legend or a manual or anything like that?”

  “We have a manual, but Mr. Orange dropped it down the laundry chute and it got stuck.”

  “Yes, that is like Mr. Orange,” Hamlet said in a thoughtful and slightly critical tone. “May I speak to him, or your supervisor?”

  “I’m sorry, but everyone’s out for Founder’s Week.”

  “SSI takes a whole week to celebrate their founding?” Hamlet sounded incredulous. “We take only one day at CAH.”

  “Oh, SSI takes our founding very seriously.”

  “I’ll have to take that up with Mr. Orange,” Hamlet said. “They left you in charge, by yourself?”

  “I’m the only one who can lift the water jug for the cooler.”

  Hamlet Gonzalez didn’t know that Special Situations International had vacated their headquarters without leaving so much as a forwarding address, and what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him..

  “Tell me more about this missing president.”

  Kelly closed her eyes as a fallen angel with curled-up black lycra wings leaned over and patted her face with powder. The giant water scorpion, normally the elevator attendant, applied color to her lips with one arm and brushed her hair with another.

  Restless, she shook off the angel and the scorpion and sprang out of the chair. “I have a small window of time for these two interviews. The accountant is meeting me in twenty minutes.” Those two sentences summed up why she felt like a mastadon in a cat carrier.

  “Smile more!” The camera operator gave up on her with an exasperated sigh, then gave her a pleading look next to the monitor. “Ask yourself, ‘What would Roger do?’”

  She smiled, but not in the way the operator would likely want. “Roger would transform into an iguana the size of a whale and ascend to the higher form of regional manager.”

  “Ha ha,” the camera operator said. “OK, our first guest is on in five, four, three, two, one.” He pointed a finger at her, indicating she was live.

  “This is What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi, the award-winning local access variety show out of Amenity Tower―Pothole City’s finest, and only, luxury condominium. I’m your host, Kelly Driscoll.”

  She glanced out the window at the waiting area outside the door, where residents started to gather. “You may have seen our first guest eating a power breakfast of coffee and angel claw at his new favorite restaurant, Pothole City Donuts, located right here in Amenity Tower.”

  Smiling with strained cheerfulness, she added, “‘Pothole City Donuts: We Fill the Potholes of Your Soul with Fried Goodness.’”

  After a deceptively short second, in which she took in the scope of her life thus far and wondered how, exactly, fate and her choices had put her in Roger’s studio chair, she continued. “Or you may have seen him installing and personally trimming sculpted hedges in the shapes of Pothole City business leaders. It’s the mayor of Pothole City, Whip Whipson.”

  The mayor strolled onto the set, displaying a Pothole City Donuts-loving girth, pasty skin, and a blue, elbow-length, elastic-sleeved blouse. Looked like a minor demon.

  “Hello, Roger, it’s good to be here.” He eased himself into the chair and let out a tortured wheeze.

  “My name isn’t Roger,” she said, though she wouldn’t have minded pretending to be Roger for the show. It would make things easier.

  The mayor turned to check with his assistant, a movement which seemed to take much longer than it should have. “Isn’t this―?”

  “What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi? Yes,” she said, “but I’m not Roger Balbi.”

  “Well, we can’t all be Roger Balbi, can we?”

  “No, we certainly can’t.” Kelly smiled. “Mr. Mayor, can you compare the condition of Pothole City a mere three weeks ago to its condition today?”

  The mayor, his forehead already sweating, put on a serious expression and steepled his bratwurst-sized fingers, which didn’t have the ‘master of reason’ effect he was probably after.

  “Yes, Roger.”

  She didn’t bother.

  “After the loss of nearly twenty-thousand buildings in Pothole City, only three structures remained: first, the building we’re in right now, Amenity Tower.” He paused to catch his breath. “Second, the former headquarters of Special Situations International, just across the street.” Break for extended wheezing, and to blot his forehead with a tissue. “And third, the current headquarters of Clucking Along Holdings, makers of Cluck Snack products.”

  The mayor shifted in the chair and adjusted his elastic cuffs.

  Outside the window, a butterfly-like monster with orange-slice wings and a white-furred head zoomed around the management office to the obvious consternation of a monster with a smooth, cyndrilical body crowned with hundreds of wildly swishing feathery tentacles.

  The mayor continued. “Our city is very fortunate that Clucking Along Holdings took the lead on the rebuilding efforts. New buildings are sprouting like shoots from the rubble. Within just days after the conflagrati
on, entrepreneurs started businesses on any platform they could find. In fact, new business formation is at an all-time high, as entrepreneurs from all walks of life have set out to meet the needs of our population during the rebuilding process.”

  “Such as the vice and bootlegging entrepreneurs who are taking control of the city and dominating illegal markets with the assistance of the city’s so-called business leaders?” Kelly said evenly.

  The mayor’s assistant, standing by the door to the studio, shook his head as if trying to shake off a spider. The mayor coughed into his hand, which resembled a cinnamon roll.

  “The mayor’s office and the Relief Society are doing everything in their power to restore authority,” the mayor said.

  The popularity of Amenity Tower had skyrocketed since the apocalypse turned the city into ruins, and she got grumpier by the day. Interviewing the mayor did not help, and dealing with the Amenity Tower board of directors gnawed at her soul.

  But she needed to wrap up the interview and storm through the next one so she could get on with her work.

  Not for the first time, she wondered how in hell Roger got by. What was his secret to keeping his sanity while he worked at Amenity Tower as manager: Meditation? The black magician suit? The bright red tie? Diplomacy? Sorcery?

  No, the tie. It had to be the tie.

  “What are you doing to rebuild a semblance of government in Pothole City after the previous apocalypse?” she asked.

  The mayor cleared his throat, a sound that reminded her of the faulty carburetor in the sidecar motorcycle she had used to drive Tubiel around returning small birds to their many different owners, all over the city.

  “After the destruction, I signed a proclamation and assigned administration of the relief initiative to the Pothole City Relief Society,” he said.

  “And who are the members of the Pothole City Relief Society?” Kelly asked.

  “The city’s most prominent business leaders.” The mayor puffed out his chest.

  “Who exactly are the business leaders in the Relief Society?” She wouldn’t have asked if she didn’t already know it was a short list.