The Haunted Air

  No way he was buying into a haunted TV set, though. There had to be an explanation, a rational one—like some kind of battery inside—and he was going to find it.

  Lyle headed for the garage and his toolbox…

  3

  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 pants—shiny in the seat from wear—and 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, um—"

  "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 place—except Edward, of course—knew 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 LA—a friend of Tommy's, this jolly-looking guy Jack never would have guessed had it in him—pulled 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 harumphed and returned to his shot and beer.

  "Thank you, Julio," Jack muttered.

  Meatloaf's opuses were hard to take on any day—twenty-minute songs with the same two or three lines repeated over and over for the last third—but 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 lima… 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 and—"

  "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. Gu
ardian 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 and—"

  "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 'something.' 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 happens—that is, if I don't have to step in and restrain him—we'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 'weirdest,' but it earns a spot in the 'odd' category."

  Jack glanced at the sheet of paper. "Eli Bellitto" was printed in large letters.

  "Bellitto?" Jack said. "That's not an Irish name."

  "Who said it was?"

  "Nobody, but, I mean, you've got this Irish accent and that's an Italian name."

  "And because the 'O' is on the wrong end you're after saying that Eli can't be Irish? Would you believe that where I grew up in Dublin we had a Schwartz on our block? God's truth. His accent was thicker than mine, don't you know. My American uncle came to visit and couldn't understand a word he said. And then there was—"

  Jack held up his hands surrender style. "Point made, point taken." He tapped his finger on the downtown address below the name. "What's this 'Shurio Coppe' mean?"

  "That's the name of his shop. He sells—"

  "Don't tell me. Curios, right?"

  Edward nodded. "Antiques, odd stuff, rare books, and all sorts of grotesque thingies."

  "Where's his home?"

  "Right over the store."

  Well now, Jack thought. Isn't that convenient. It meant he wouldn't have to trail this bozo all the way out to someplace like Massapequa for the next three nights.

  "When's close-up time?"

  "The store? Usually at nine, but he'll close early tonight because it's Sunday. You'll be wanting to get there before six."

  He handed Jack the thinned envelope and stuffed the remaining bills into his pants pocket. Then he leaned back, closed his eyes, and placed a hand over his heart.

  "You all right?" Jack said, thinking he might be having a heart attack.

  Edward opened his eyes and smiled. "I am now. I've been worried sick about this since he told me. I felt I had to be doing something, and now I have. I'd never be forgiving meself if he hurt some poor innocent…" He stopped, glanced at his watch, then slapped his hands on the table. "Well, I've taken up enough of your time, Mister Repairman. I'll be letting you get on with your day."

  Jack waved and watched him thread his way through the tables and disappear out the door. He thumbed through the bills in the envelope and stared at the photo of Eli Bellitto. Two days, two fix-it jobs. Not bad. Although this Bellitto deal wasn't exactly a fix-it. More like preventive maintenance.

  He glanced at the clock over the bar's free beer tomorrow… sign. Time to get rolling. Had to get home and fix himself up for his date with Madame Pomerol.

  4

  "Your dad gave a def sermon this morning," Charlie Kenton said.

  He stood next to Sharleen Sparks at the sink in the basement of the New Apostles Church. After the morning service he'd come down here with her and a few other volunteers to pitch in on the church's weekly Sunday dinner for the poor and homeless. The sink was old and rusted, the big gas oven battered and scarred, but both did their jobs. The linoleum floor curled up in the corners, the old tin ceiling flaked here and there, but a spirit of love and giving that Charlie sensed around him made it all feel new. He'd just peeled his way through the first half of a bushel bag of potatoes; his fingers ached but he didn't mind at all. It was for a good cause.

  "Yes, praise God," she said. "He was in rare form today."

  Charlie glanced up from the potato he was peeling to steal a peek at her, wondering what to say next. Had to say something. He'd been waiting for a chance to talk to her alone, now he had it and his mind was flatlined. Maybe it was her beauty, inside and out, or the fact that she didn't seem to know she was beautiful.

  She had corn-rowed hair, huge brown eyes, and a smile that made his knees go gumby. She was wearing a white T-shirt under her loose denim overalls, the bib front doing a poor job of hiding her full breasts. He tried not to look at them.

  He'd never been this tongue-tied before his conversion. Back in those days he'd been some kinda playa, ragged out in chains and silk, always stocking a little powder and some boo-yaa weed. The women he called bitches and bizzos back then painted on their clothes and faces, wore wigs and big jingly zirconium earrings. Not one thing real about them, but they was easy. He'd sidle up to o
ne, offer a taste of this or that to get her loose, mack her up and down with a few sweet lines, and soon they'd be heading to his place or hers.

  He shook his head. A life of sin. But he had the rest of his life to make up for it.

  "Sharleen," said a deep voice, "do you mind if Charles and I have a few private words?"

  Charlie Kenton looked up to see Reverend Josiah Sparks, a big man whose black face was made all the blacker by the mane of white hair and beard that wreathed it. He'd just arrived after trading the clerical suit and collar he'd worn at the service for a work shirt and bib-front overalls like his daughter's.

  Sharleen gave Charlie a concerned look. "Oh, um, sure Daddy."

  After she'd moved away to one of the stoves, the rev peered at him through the thick lenses of his rimless glasses. "Have you given more thought to the matter we've been discussing?"

  "Yes, Rev. Every day."

  The Reverend Sparks took up a knife and began quartering the peeled potatoes, then throwing the pieces into a pot. Eventually they'd be boiled and mashed.

  "And what have you decided?"

  Charlie hesitated. "Nothing definite yet."

  "It's your soul that's at stake, son. Your immortal soul. How can there be even an instant of indecision?"

  "There wouldn't be… if Lyle weren't my brother, know'm sayin'?"

  "It matters not that he's your brother. He's leading you into sin, making you an accomplice in his evil. You must break off from him. Remember, 'If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, for it is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than have two eyes and be cast into hell fire.'"

  "Word," Charlie replied.

  "Yes, it is. The Word of God, spoken through Matthew and Mark."

  Charlie glanced around. Sharleen was out of earshot and no one else was nearby at the moment. The rev was keeping his voice low. Good. Charlie didn't want the whole congregation to know his problems. Especially Sharleen.

  Sometimes he wondered if he'd made a mistake in opening up to the rev about Lyle's spiritualist act. The man now saw Charlie as a member of his flock in danger of losing his salvation, and he was determined to save him.

  "But what about Lyle's soul, Reverend? I don't want him in the everlasting fire."