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

the back. It was a small oaken round with a deep gouge
and a funny stain on one side. There was also a chair that looked like it had
come out of a fancy restaurant. You know the kind—the rubbed red velvet with
gold tassels and big buttons and carved legs that look like animal claws.”
    I nodded since he was looking at me, waiting for a prod.
    “So, nobody is sitting there at the table, but there’s a
tumbler of whisky and a cigar sitting in an ashtray right in front of the
chair. Tim says to me, ‘Twenty bucks says you won’t sit in that chair.’ Tim’s a
little pale. But so was everyone in that light and he’d been drinking, so I
didn’t think that much of it.
    “I looked at the barkeep but he’s busy pulling beers. So, I
said, ‘Sure I will,’ and went over to the table.”
    Jack paused.
    “I’ll admit that I had had a lot to drink, but you know that
I’m not a fanciful person even when I’m falling down drunk. Not the kind of
person who imagines things—at least not supernatural things. But I was feeling
something unnatural that night.”
    Jack looked away.
    “The barkeep made me wary, not a stupid red chair, or so I
told myself. But the closer I got, the colder it got. At about six feet I could
see the small hole in the upholstery. My breath was coming out white too. It
was hard to see in the smoke, but I swear my breath was frosted.
    “Tim was following me but he stopped about four feet out.
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t do it.’ But if course I had to—guys code, right? He’d
dared me and we made a bet. So I kept going even though I didn’t want to. I got
right to the chair and reached out a hand—and it was shaking by then—but just
before I could touch the chair back, something jerked it away. Only a couple
inches, but I swear it moved.
    “That was enough for me. I felt sick to my stomach and am
sure I looked it because Tim pulled me away and rushed for the door. The people
in the bar laughed behind us. We moved as fast as we could back onto the
street. Outside it was still warm, but we had to walk several blocks before I
could get warm. While we were walking, Tim told me the story about Fat Friday
and how Del’s old girlfriend Mona had finally had
enough of him beating on her. She walked into the club on Christmas Day and
shot him in that very chair. He’s been there ever since. It’s his blood
staining that table. Nothing can get it out.” Jack’s voice was revolted, his
face pale. I knew better than anyone the kind of fear he had felt. It happens
at the brainstem and can’t be intellectualized away, no matter how many logical
arguments you make. When you touch the other ,
you are changed by it.
    I glanced at Ben and could see he was fascinated. He would
be. This kind of thing was right up his alley. Jack and Brandy were probably
going to appear in a book someday soon—well disguised, of course, and probably
released under a pen name.
    “The new owner tried getting rid of the chair because now
two guys had been killed while sitting in it and the thing was clearly bad
luck, but the first guy he hired to carry it up the stairs got shoved down the
staircase—by nobody he could see. The next guy tried to take it out in a
freight elevator out back, but it got jammed, the whole mechanism fused like a
welder had been at it.”
    Ben grunted encouragingly. I knew he was taking mental
notes.
    “Night after night, the barkeep would come in and find a
shot glass on the table and broken bottles on the floor. Finally they gave in
and just started pouring out a glass every night once the sun went down. Fat
Friday had had his routine and he was sticking to it.
    “Tim told me that he had tried to sit in the chair before
but had been so unnerved that he’d chickened out before he reached the table.
He wanted to know if it was just his nerves reacting to the story or if
something was really there in the bar. That’s why he’d tried to get me to do it
for him.
    “I can’t prove anything,