8
They’d moved to their table, a half banquet
in a rear corner with a good view of the stage. The backrests were
done in alternating sections of black and white; their table
sported pieces of blond and brown wood done up in an art deco-ish
pattern.
Tom looked around. Only half the tables were
occupied. His brother’s reservation had been redundant.
Canned music—nondescript blues—was playing
too loud. Tom nursed his second vodka while they waited for their
appetizers. He’d had a couple of pops at the hotel bar before
coming over and so he could take it easy now. Didn’t want to get
sloppy in front of this woman.
“Where’s this band you came to see?” he
said.
Jack shrugged. “It’s blasphemy for a blues
band to start on time.”
Tom hoped they never came on. He wanted to
talk to Gia, learn all about her. Something he couldn’t do if the
band really cranked up.
“Do you like blues?” Gia said.
“I like all kinds of music.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Really? How about
opera?”
“Love it. Tristan and
Isolde is my favorite.”
Not necessarily true. He used to hate opera,
but part of the politics of his judgeship included attending an
endless line of functions and fundraisers. Too many of them
included nights at the opera, or the ballet, or at an art museum.
Boring as all hell, but his wives, all three, had loved the
affairs, loved mingling with Philadelphia’s haul monde. Those were the times they appreciated
being the wife of a judge.
Along the way, mostly through osmosis, Tom
had managed to become an esthete manqué, absorbing enough culture
to blow highbrow smoke when the situation called for it.
As Gia’s eyes lit, he sensed this might be
one of those situations.
“I love that one too,” she said. “The Merry Widow is another of my favorites. It’s at
the Met now.” She cocked her head at Jack. “But try getting your
brother to go. He hates opera.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Jack said. “I like
opera just fine… it’s just the singing and all the gesturing I
don’t like. Lose those and do it in English and I could be a major
fan.”
Gia laughed and leaned against him. “Stop
it.”
Jack turned to him. “Gia’s an artist—she sees
things in opera and ballet that I can’t.”
“That’s because you don’t lend yourself to
the experience,” Gia said.
“Artist?” Tom said. “Have you had a
show?”
Still smiling, she shook her head. “I hope to
someday, but it’s commercial art that pays my bills—advertising,
book covers, that sort of thing. Between assignments I’m working on
a series of fine-art oils for an eventual show.”
Time to score some points, Tom thought as he
nodded.
“Speaking of fine art, Gia, may I say that
you are a vision straight out of a Botticelli.”
Her cheeks colored. “What a sweet thing to
say.”
He didn’t mention that he was trying to
picture her posed as Botticelli’s Venus.
“Botticelli…” Jack said, snapping his fingers
and looking perplexed. “Botticelli… isn’t that the tropical plant
place down on Sixth?”
“Ignore him,” Gia said with a laugh. “He
loves to play the philistine.”
“Are you sure he’s playing?”
Her fingers wrapped around Jack’s hand. “I’m
sure.”
Tom repressed an insane urge to grab those
intertwined hands and yank them apart. Gia should be holding
his hand.
He took a sip of his vodka and forced himself
to lean back.
What was the matter with him? Why was he so…
so smitten with this woman? Yes, that was what he was: smitten.
He’d been under her spell since the instant he’d laid eyes on her.
Why?
Maybe it was genetic. Jack was obviously
smitten too. Maybe Gia emitted a pheromone that interacted with the
genes they shared.
She added, “But he really does not like opera.”
“Or ballet,” Jack said.
Gia nodded. “Right. Hates ballet.”
Jack said, “Hold on now. I don’t know about
hate. Don’t I go to The Nutcracker with you
and Vicks every year?”
“And every year you doze off during the first
act.”
He shrugged. “It’s always the same story. I
know how it ends.”
Gia looked at Tom. “And to be honest, your
brother’s not too crazy about modern art either.”
“I like lots of modern art. I just don’t like
linoleum patterns and drop cloths passing as art. Who’s that guy
who does all those big splatters?”
“You don’t mean Jackson Pollock?” Tom said,
trying to worm his way back in.
“That’s the one. Pollock. Gia can paint rings
around him.”
Gia gave Jack an appraising look, then turned
to Tom. “I take that back. He is a
philistine.”
And then the two of them leaned together and
laughed. The sound was acid, etching the chambers of Tom’s
heart.
The way these two looked at each other,
laughed with each other, and seemed to communicate on their own
private wavelength filled Tom with a boundless longing. He’d never
had that sort of easy intimacy with a woman—no, not just intimacy…
friendship. He’d never thought it mattered,
never cared enough to miss it. But seeing his brother so bonded to
a woman like Gia, sharing something precious, timeless, and so
uniquely theirs… it awakened strange feelings within him… strange
because he’d never experienced them, never known they existed,
wasn’t even sure what they were.
One feeling he did recognize: envy.
He wanted that for himself. He couldn’t
remember any woman ever looking at him the way Gia looked at Jack.
But he didn’t want just any woman to look at him that way, he
wanted Gia.
The waiter arrived then with the appetizers.
Tom had ordered the craw-dad soup—crayfish in a thick brown broth
he couldn’t identify.
Delicious.
“A delightful decoction,” he said. “Anyone
wish to partake?”
Gia’s eyebrows rose. “Decoction?
Really?”
He’d used the term loosely and she’d caught
him. Obviously she knew her way around a kitchen.
Before he could backtrack, the house lights
went down and a voice announced Jesse Roy
Bighead Dubois and his band. As the musicians filed onstage and
picked up their instruments, a tall black man took the microphone
and introduced himself.
The singer said, “Our first song is dedicated
to a fellow in the audience. No, wait. Not just dedicated—about. I wrote it for him and about him. I won’t
point him out because his deal is slipping through the cracks. He’s
a ghost, my friends. You don’t see him unless he wants you to. But
he’s out there now, among you. The song’s called the ‘R-J Blues.’
The music comes from Elmore James, but the words are mine. This
one’s for you, Jack.”
A piece of cajun shrimp stopped halfway to
Tom’s mouth.
Jack?
He looked across the table and knew
immediately from his brother’s tense posture and uncomfortable
expression that he was the Jack Bighead was talking about.
Jack… a ghost who slips through the cracks?
This was going to be interesting.
Bighead gave his band the count and then they
ripped into an up-tempo blues. Tom immediately recognized the
wailing slide riff of Elmore James’s version of “Dust My
Broom.”
Then Bighead started to sing.
I wake up ev’ry mornin, feelin troubled all the time
You know I wake up ev’ry mornin, feelin troubled all the time
Gotta find me a repairman, who can fix my worried mind
Goin down the corner, find this guy I heard about
Gonna drop a dime on Ma Bell, call this guy I heard about
Gonna tell this guy my problem, see if he can help me out
Well I give him all my money, every cent and that’s all right
Yeah, the repairman took my money, every cent but that’s all right
He went and fixed that problem, and now I sleep so good at night
Don’t go messin with this fella, or you’ll find a world o’ hurt
You mess with the repairman, you could find a world o’ hurt
You may think you’re havin’ dinner, but you’ll get yo’ just desserts.
This guy might be an angel, but he could be the devil too
Yeah, Jack might be an angel, or he could be the devil too
Only thing I know is, you don’t want him mad at you.
Tom sat mesmerized as the song closed with a
slide guitar solo and the sparse audience gave up an appreciative
round of applause. Was that about his kid brother?
And then he saw Gia lean close to Jack’s ear.
Tom caught her whisper.
“I don’t know what you did for that man and I
don’t want to, but to have that kind of effect on a life, to make
someone want to sing about you… that must be indescribable. I can
see why you keep going back for more.”
And then it all came together.
Dad’s remark about calling on Jack if he
needed someone to watch his back… then that character Joey this
morning asking Tom if he could “hack” what Jack hacked… and now
this blues singer talking about a ghost named Jack who slips
through the cracks, and singing about a “repairman” named
Jack…
Somewhere along the line Dad had come up with
the idea that Jack was a repairman… an appliance repairman. But the
“R-J Blues” was about someone who fixed other things.
R-J… Repairman Jack? Was that what it stood
for?
Had to be. Little brother was some sort of
urban mercenary.
Taking it further, Tom realized that might
explain why Jack had needed him to claim Dad’s body. It wasn’t that
he hadn’t wanted to claim it—he couldn’t. Because he was probably living under a
false identity.
Ho-lee shit.