Authors: F. Paul Wilson
The Haunted Air (14 page)
Jack sat in the rear of Julio's and sized up his latest potential customer. The man had introduced himself simply as Edward, without offering his last name, a precaution Jack could appreciate.
A few of the regulars were already at the bar getting their first dose of the day. Morning sun filtered through the funeral procession of dead ferns, Wandering Jews, and spider plants lining the front window, then moved on to light up the cloud of tobacco smoke hovering over the bar. Jack's was the only table without the burden of upended chairs. The relatively cool air back here in the shadows wouldn't last; the day was promising to be a scorcher. Julio had opened the rear door for cross ventilation, to waft out the smell of stale beer before he had to close up and turn on the AC.
He approached now with a coffee pot.
“You want anything in the java, meng?” he said as he refilled Jack's cup. “Little hair o' the dog?”
Julio had his name on the front window. He was short and muscular, with a pencil-line mustache. And he stank.
“Had a canine-free night,” Jack said, and tried to ignore the odor. He'd got his first cup up front, which Julio had poured from the far side of the bar. He hadn't noticed the smell then.
Julio shrugged and turned to the customer. “Top you off?”
“That would be lovely,” Edward said with a Barry Fitzgerald brogue.
Come to think of it, he sort of looked a little like Barry Fitzgerald too: sixty-five, maybe even seventy from the look of his gnarled hands, white hair, compact frame, twinkling blue eyes. He was oddly dressed: on top he wore a graying T-shirt that might have been white once but had spent too many cycles in with the dark wash; below the waist he was dressed for a funeral with black suit pantsâshiny in the seat from wearâand black socks and shoes. He'd brought a large manila envelope that lay between them on the table.
Edward frowned and sniffed. He rubbed his nose and looked around for the source of the odor. Jack felt he had to say something.
“Okay, Julio, what's the new aftershave?”
Julio grinned. “It's called Chiquita. Great, huh?”
“Only if you're trying to attract radical chicks who happen to be nostalgic for the smell of tear gas.”
“You don't like it?” He got a hurt expression. He turned to Edward. “What you think, meng?”
Edward rubbed his nose again. “Well, I, umâ”
“You ever been Maced, Edward?” Jack said.
“Well, no, I can't say that I have.”
“Well, I have, and it's pretty close to Chiquita.”
Just then the old Wurlitzer 1080 against the front wall roared to life with “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”
Jack groaned. “Meatloaf? Before noon? Julio, you've got to be kidding!”
“Yo, Lou!” Julio called, turning toward the bar. “You play that, meng?”
A rhetorical question. Everyone in the placeâexcept Edward, of courseâknew Lou had a jones for Meatloaf songs. If he had the money, and if the other regulars didn't strangle him along the way, he'd play them all day and all night. One night a couple of years ago he overdid it. Played “Bat Out of Hell” one too many times. Some writer from LAâa a friend of Tommy's, this jolly-looking guy Jack never would have guessed had it in himâpulled out a .357 and killed the machine. Julio had picked up this classic Wurlitzer as a replacement and didn't want it shot up like its predecessor.
Lou shrugged, grinning and showing sixty-year-old teeth stained with fifty-nine years of nicotine. “Could be.”
“What I tell you 'bout Meatloaf when the sun out, eh? What I tell you?” He strode over to the jukebox and pulled the plug.
“Hey!” Lou cried. “I got money in there!”
“You jus' lost it.”
The other regulars laughed as Lou harrumphed and returned to his shot and beer.
“Thank you, Julio,” Jack muttered.
Meatloaf's opuses were hard to take on any dayâtwenty-minute songs with the same two or three lines repeated over and over for the last thirdâbut on a Sunday morning ⦠Sunday morning required something mellow along the lines of Cowboy Junkies.
“So, Edward,” Jack said after a sip of his coffee, “how did you get my name?”
“Someone mentioned to me once that he'd enlisted your services. He said you did good work and weren't one for telling tales.”
“Did he? Mind telling me who that someone might be?”
“Oh, I don't think he'll be wanting me to talk about him, but he had only good things to say about you. Except for your fee, that is. He wasn't too keen on that.”
“Do you happen to know what I did for him?”
“I don't think he'll be wanting me to talk about that either.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Especially since it wasn't exactly legal.”
“Can't believe everything you hear,” Jack said.
“Are you telling me then,” Edward said, flashing a leprechaun's grin, “that you're as gossipy as the village spinster and you work for free out of the goodness of your Christian heart?”
Jack had to smile. “No, but I like to know how my customers find me. And I like to know which ones are shooting their mouths off.”
“Oh, don't worry about this lad. He's a very careful sort. Told me in the strictest confidence. I might be the only one he's ever told.”
Jack figured he'd let the referral origin go for now and find out what this little man wanted from him.
“Your call mentioned something about your brother.”
“Yes. My brother Eli. I'm very concerned about him.”
“In what way?”
“I fear he's ⦠well, I'm not quite sure how to be putting this.” He seemed almost guilty. “I fear he'll be after getting himself into terrible trouble soon.”
“What kind of trouble and how soon?”
“The next couple of days, I'm afraid.”
“And the trouble?”
“He'll be getting violent, he will.”
“You mean, going out and beating people up?”
Edward shrugged. “Perhaps worse. I can't say.”
“Worse? Are we talking about some sort of homicidal maniac here?”
“I can be assuring you that he's a rather proper sort most of the time. He owns a business, right here in the city, but at certain times he ⦠well ⦠I think he goes off his head.”
“And you think one of those times is soon. That's why this couldn't wait till tomorrow.”
“Exactly.” He wrapped his fingers around his coffee cup as if to warm them. But this wasn't January, it was August. “I'm afraid it's going to be very soon.”
“What makes you think so?”
“The moon.”
Jack leaned back. Oh, no. He's not going to tell me his brother's a werewolf. Please say he's not.
“Why, is it full?”
“Quite the opposite. Tomorrow is the new moon.”
New moon ⦠that sent a ripple through Jack's gut, tossing him back a few months to when the drawing of some very special blood from a very special vein had to be timed to the new moon.
But this didn't sound anything like that.
“Lunatic ⦠the origin of the word is
luna â¦
moon.”
luna â¦
moon.”
“Yes, I know,” Edward said. “And it's not as if this happens every new moon. It's just that it's going to happen this one.”
“How do you know?”
“Eli told me.”
“He told you he's going to go wilding or something tomorrow night andâ”
“It could be tonight. Or Tuesday night. The new moon phase lasts more than one day, don't you know.”
“Why would he tell you?”
“He just ⦠wanted me to know, I guess.”
Jack knew the answer to the next question but felt obliged to ask. “Just where do you think I fit in?”
“Well, it's not something I can be going to the police with, is it now. And I'm too old to be doing it meself. So I was hoping you'd be watching over him.”
Jack had been afraid of that. Guardian angel to some lunatic. Make that new lunatic.
“Afraid not, Ed. I'm not in the bodyguard business.”
“Wait, now. It's not like a real bodyguarding job. You wouldn't be after protecting him from someone else. You'd only be protecting him from himself. And it's only for three days, lad. Three days!”
Jack shook his head. “That's the problem. No way I can spend three days baby-sitting some wacko.”
“It wouldn't be three whole days. Just at night, after he closes his shop.”
“Why do you need me at all? Why not just hire a professional bodyguard? I can get you a couple of numbers.”
“Oh, no,” Edward said, vigorously shaking his head. “It's imperative that he not know he's being watched over.”
“Let me get this straight: you want me to bodyguard your brother without him knowing his body's being guarded?”
“Exactly. And the beauty part is, you might not be having to do a thing. He might not go off at all. But if he does, you can be there to restrain him, and perhaps be preventing him from hurting himself or anyone else in the process.”
Jack shook his head. Too weird.
“Please!” Edward said, his voice rising. He reached into his back pocket and wriggled out a thick legal-size envelope. His trembling hands unfolded it and pushed it across the table. “I scraped together every spare cent I have. Please, take it all andâ”
“It's not a matter of money,” Jack said. “It's time. I can't spend all night watching this guy.”
“Then don't! Just Watch him from the time he closes his shop till, say, midnight. We're talking about a few hours a night for three nights, lad. Surely you can do that.”
Edward's intense concern, almost anguish, for his brother wormed under Jack's skin. Three nights ⦠not forever. The only other fix-it he had running was the Kenton brothers, and he didn't think watchdogging their place would be necessary after last night.
“All right,” Jack sighed. “For three nights, I suppose I can give you something.”
Edward reached across and grasped both Jack's hands. “Oh, bless you, lad, that's wonderful! Wonderful!”
“I said âsomething.' No guarantees.”
“I know you'll be doing your best. I know you won't let me down.”
Jack pushed the envelope back toward Edward. “Give me half of that. I'll keep an eye on him for three nights. If
nothing happensâthat is, if I don't have to step in and restrain himâwe'll call it even. If there's any rough stuff, any at all, you owe me the other half.”
nothing happensâthat is, if I don't have to step in and restrain himâwe'll call it even. If there's any rough stuff, any at all, you owe me the other half.”
“Fair enough,” Edward said as he lowered the envelope into his lap and began counting the bills. “More than fair, actually.”
“And speaking of rough stuff, it may come down to putting the hurt on him if he decides not to listen to reason.”
“Hurt? How?”
“Disable him. Put him down hard enough so that he won't be able to get back up.”
Edward sighed. “Do what you must. I'll trust in your judgment.”
“Right,” Jack said, leaning forward. “Now that that's settled, where is he and what does he look like?”
Edward jutted his chin at the manila envelope on the table. “You'll be finding it all in there.”
Jack opened the flap and pulled out a slip of paper plus a candid photo of a balding man who appeared to be about sixty years old. Jack stared at the upper-body shot; the man's face was partially turned away.
“Doesn't look much like you.”
“We had different mothers.”
“So he's really your half-brother.”
Edward shrugged and kept counting bills.
Jack said, “Don't you have a better photo?”
“I'm afraid not. Eli doesn't like to be photographed. He'd be upset if he knew I took that one. I wish I could be telling you more about him, but we weren't raised together, so I hardly know him.”
“But he came to you and told you he was going to do something crazy?”
“Yes. It's the weirdest thing now, isn't it?”
“I don't know about the âweirdest,' but it earns a spot in the âodd' category.”
Jack glanced at the sheet of paper. “Eli Bellitto” was printed in large letters.
“Bellitto?” Jack said. “That's not an Irish name.”
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