Twelfth Night (A Wendover House Mystery Book 2) by Melanie Jackson

    “Good God,” Mary whispered. I was glad she stopped there.
Our wine-soaked brains couldn’t absorb any more. I’m sure Brandy struck everyone
as being an airheaded material girl rather than someone more imaginative and
spiritual. But whatever she had seen that night had shaken her to her bones and
filled her with dread that could reach across decades and still touch her. She
had come to the edge of the rational world and crossed over someplace no one
else ever wanted to go. In fact, I think everyone—excepting perhaps Ben—was
hoping to forget the story as soon as possible.
    “I have a story too. A real one and I never talk about it
either,” Jack said quickly, surprising me. Supernatural stuff had never been
his bag. He went on, perhaps hurrying to get the story out before he changed
his mind. “This was not too long after I moved to Chicago. A buddy of mine was
getting married and we took him out the weekend before the wedding for a barhop , a sort of goodbye to single life, a last debauch
thing.”
    We all exhaled at the change of subject and I passed Brandy
a handkerchief, though she wasn’t really crying so much as brooding. I didn’t
think we were really ready for another ghost story, but no one wanted to talk
about what had happened to Brandy. Truth or hallucination, it didn’t need
discussion.
    “Tim liked historic bars, so we were hitting the old ones,
some in hotels, some underground. I was getting tired since I was just off my
crutches and not used to walking, but Tim was kind of tight and he was going on
about how he loved me like a brother—and not a Cain and Abel kind of brother—so
I stuck it out in spite of the aching leg.
    “The last place we visited was called Del’s .
It used to be run by a wise guy called Fat Friday. He had rubbed out the
original owner and moved in on the bar, the bootlegging, and on Del’s girl, Mona. More about her later. I gotta tell you though, they raised girls tough out
there.”
    The sound of the clock faded away. The wind continued to
sing its violent cantata, but it too was muted. Jack, as raconteur, was doing
as good a job as anyone could have.
    “By then it was late and down to just Tim and me. The others
had gone home or to strip clubs, but I was feeling pretty fascinated by all
these old places and drunk enough to be sentimental, so I stayed with him while
we ankled it uptown.”
    I almost smiled at his use of this old slang. Jack was a
Dashiell Hammett fan and sometimes used the vernacular.
    “All the bars we had visited had atmosphere, but this place
was different—I felt it the minute I walked in. There was a kind of anger in
the air—and cold. Tim kept right on walking but I stopped by the coatrack for a
minute to check out the crowd.”
    Jack took a swallow of wine. I don’t think he was so much
thirsty as preparing himself to go on. Normally his grimace and glower would
have been a blight on the mood, but it only enhanced
our dread of what was coming.
    “No one looked on the verge of going postal, no guns or
knives, so I ignored my crawling skin and followed Tim to the bar. The barkeep
was a tough guy with a big breezer that had been
broken a few times. He didn’t need the knuckle tattoos he sported to
intimidate, but some men just don’t do subtle. And I guess in his job it saved
time to advertise in places drunks would see before all hell broke loose on
them. I also don’t think he had a lot of imagination because he never seemed to
be uncomfortable, which I would have been once I knew what went on there.
    “So, Tim stumbled and I helped him up. He and I were kind of
leaning on one another as we weaved our way to the bar. The air was thick with
cigarette smoke and the choke of decades of cigars and cheap booze and sweat.
It was nasty—but every table and stool was taken—and we really needed to sit
down, at least I did. My leg was finally giving out. ‘There’s
no chairs ,’ Tim said. And he was right. Except there
was one table at