Part 17 (2/2)
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, flas.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.suring 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 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.”
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