Three

“Did you hear that?” Esther cried, rushing around the counter. “Something’s wrong with Mr. Scrib! We have to help him!”

Matt reacted quickly, moving so fast that he nearly collided with Esther at the base of our spiral staircase.

“Look out!” I shouted as an object careened down from above. When it hit the ground floor, I realized it was a take-out coffee. Esther recoiled as the liquid splattered her and Matt.

At the top of the steps, Mr. Scrib was raving. He gripped the wrought iron banister with one white-knuckled hand and hurled something else with the other. Whatever it was landed with a slap somewhere on the floor. Then another object came flying—the vintage metal sign that I’d hung early this morning. It clattered face down on the table beside me.

The three of us watched, paralyzed, as Mr. Scrib screamed, his eyes wide with terror.

“Stay away!” he cried. “I knew you’d come back for me!”

His first coherent words were followed by an agonized groan. Then Mr. Scrib began to descend the spiral staircase. Instead of gripping the railing, the man’s arms waved wildly in front of his face, as if he were fending off an attacker.

Though Mr. Scrib’s eyes were open, he seemed oblivious to his actual surroundings. Whatever imaginary terror was playing out in his mind, it created a very real danger for him on those stairs.

“He could break his neck!” I cried. “Matt, help him!”

My coffee-hunting ex had dealt with countless dangers around the globe, which is why I called on him while physically pulling Esther back in case the old man fell.

Matt darted up the stairs and intercepted the ranting man just as he lost his balance. As he righted Mr. Scrib, the old man dipped a hand into his coat pocket and whipped something out. I caught a flash of silver—

“Knife! Matt, watch out! He has a knife!”

But I was wrong. The old poet was slashing the air with a silver pen.

“Don’t hurt him!” Esther pleaded.

Matt ducked the pen point and grabbed a firm hold of Scrib’s skinny flailing arm. The pen clattered down the metal steps.

After that, it was easy. Matt simply grabbed Mr. Scrib by his waist, slung him over one muscular shoulder, and carried the distraught man to the bottom of the stairs. Dropping to his knees, Matt laid Mr. Scrib on the hardwood floor, but kept a firm grip on his shoulders, holding him down.

The old man’s arms still waved, but weakly now, and his shouting melted away into mumbled moans. As his energy waned, his fingers curled, as if he were trying to grasp some object visible only to him.

Esther knelt beside the man and touched his cheek. “It’s me, Mr. Scrib. It’s Esther.”

At first, he didn’t respond, but she kept talking to him. Miraculously, her voice and her touch calmed him. Scrib’s frenzied eye motions ceased, he lowered his arms, and some semblance of sanity seemed to return. Focusing his watery gaze on Esther, he pleaded—

“It’s the Kismet. Stay away from the Kismet!”

Kismet? I thought. What in the world could that mean?

Finally, Mr. Scrib squeezed his eyes shut. But instead of falling into a merciful unconsciousness, he began to shiver.

“He’s going into shock.” Matt turned to me. “We need to cover him.”

I ran to the back and had Nancy help me bring out a stack of folded aprons.

“I already called 911,” Nancy assured us. “They’re on the way.”

“Good job,” I told her, and together we cocooned the man in our Village Blend aprons. Mr. Scrib seemed almost comfortable now, though he looked feverish.

As Esther continued to talk to him, his convulsions slowed. While she remained by his side, whispering verses of poetry, Matt finally released his grip and rose.

“I wonder why he freaked out like that,” Nancy whispered. “Maybe he forgot to take his medications.”

“What the screaming was about I can’t imagine,” Matt said. “But I’ve seen the onset of sudden chills and fever many times—like last year, when I was hunting Kivu cherries along the eastern border of the Congo.”

“I doubt it was the same cause,” I said.

“Right. Those were cases of cerebral malaria. The quinine that the coffee farmers needed had to be airlifted on a government helicopter. It arrived too late in many cases.”

“That’s awful, Matt, but I’m guessing Mr. Scrib hasn’t visited the tropics lately.”

“No, I know.” He shook his head. “I’m still orienting myself back to the States.”

“Maybe the shivering was just because he was cold,” Nancy offered.

The sound of sirens came next. Then a red-and-white FDNY ambulance pulled up to the Village Blend’s front door. An NYPD patrol car parked right behind it.

As I took a relieved breath, Matt scooped up the pen and waved it.

“Let’s not report this, okay? The poor SOB has enough problems without facing a charge of assault with a deadly writing implement.”