Repairman Jack [09]-Infernal by F. Paul Wilson Page A

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