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

resisted the impulse to punch his brother’s doughy face. Instead he took out his wallet, found a ten and two fives, and flagged down the barmaid.
    “Could you give me a twenty for these?”
    She glanced at Jack, then at Tom, then back again.
    “Is this some kind of game?”
    “No. I just need a twenty.”
    She shrugged and retrieved the bogus bill. Jack took it, then snatched a five from Tom’s change and handed it to her.
    “For your troubles.”
    She smiled. “Thanks.”
    Tom shot him a venomous look.
    Screw him.
    Jack started toward the elevators up to street level.
    “Let’s get you set up in your room.”

5

    “The Pennsylvania Hotel?” Tom said as he followed Jack across Seventh Avenue. “Never heard of it.”
    He was feeling the vodka percolating through his bloodstream now, dulling the pervasive shock of being the son of a man murdered by terrorists. He and Dad had never been close—hell, who have I ever been close to?—but still… he was his father and he’d been scheduled for a stayover next week. Tom didn’t kid himself—Dad’s primary reason for coming had been to see his grandkids.
    But still…
    Vodka usually made the world look a little friendlier, a little easier to handle. Not today.
    This city was partly to blame. He’d never liked New York. Always struck him as more toxic landfill than city. Too big, too coarse, completely lacking the élan of Philadelphia. Philly… now there was a city.
    But here…
    He eyed the passing parade of New York’s lumpenproletariat : the glaborous, the rugose, the nodose, the labrose. An endless procession of elves, spriggins, goblins, trolls, fakirs, shellycoats, gorgons, Quasimodos, and Merricks.
    He watched his brother walking ahead of him. The Jackie—oops, he wants to be called Jack now—Tom remembered used to be a klutzy younker. A skinny little pain in the ass who was always underfoot.
    He was still a pain in the ass—an uptight pain in the ass. Look at how he’d reacted to switching that twenty. Like some sort of Miss Priss. Where’d he pick up his holier-than-thou?
    Yeah, still a pain in the ass, but no longer skinny. His shoulders filled out his sweatshirt; he’d pushed his sleeves up to his elbows revealing forearms that rippled with sleek muscles just below the skin. Not much fat on Little Brother.
    But that’s okay, Tom thought. I’ve got enough for two.
    “Used to be the Statler,” Jack said. “Look, you’re right across the street from Madison Square Garden, and just crosstown from the morgue.”
    Tom shook his head. “Yeah. The morgue.” He looked up at the tall ionic columns of the entrance. “ This could be a morgue.”
    “It’s old, but it’s been completely renovated.”
    Tom had a feeling Jack didn’t give a good goddamn if he liked it or not.
    Too bad they’d got off on the wrong foot, but that was Jack’s fault, not his. And anyway, who cared what a college dropout loser thought of him?
    Jack led him across the wide, retro lobby toward the registration desk.
    Blast. He’d been sort of counting on staying with Jack. He didn’t feel like ponying up for a hotel, especially on a completely unnecessary trip like this. Why Jack couldn’t have simply signed for the body and shipped it back to Johnson was beyond him.
    Well, at least it had got him out of Philly. That counted for something. As much as he revered the place, he wished he could find a way to be a former Philadelphian for good.
    “I reserved it in your name,” Jack said, pulling out his cell phone. “Go ahead. I’ve got a call to make.”
    Tom gave his name to the check-in clerk, an attractive twenty-something with curly black hair, pretty despite the fact she looked like a mix of every race on earth, and waited while she checked her computer.
    “Ah, here it is,” she said with a dazzling smile. “You’re staying only one night, correct?”
    She put down the card and began tapping on her keyboard. Tom noticed his own name on the form; a credit card