"What's across the street?" Dean asked. Sam quickly explained what he'd been told by Anthony. Then he marked the corner of Webb and West 195th, then Cambreleng Avenue between East 188th and East 189th. "Bring the notebook over, will you?" he asked Dean.
Dean did so, kneeling next to Sam. Sure enough, he could re-create a portion of Samuels's sigil just by connecting the three dots he had.
"Yahtzee," Dean muttered. "The location of the cottage—the original location, based on what your guy said—is the 'locus of strong Anima,' and we've already had the 're-Creation of events of Great Importance and Power.'"
Sam kept drawing, finishing the sigil. "Right, and nothing's more powerful than a spell that takes a life." He finished it and sat upright. "Well, if we're right, then the next Poe-inspired murder will be on Monday at either Fordham Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard or at Webster Avenue just south of Bedford Park Boulevard." After letting out a long breath, he said, "Now if we just knew who was doing this."
"Actually," Dean said, standing upright and moving to the couch and Sam's laptop, "I think you may have found prime suspect number one." He tapped the space bar to get rid of the screen saver—it was the generic Windows one, since Sam knew that any attempt to personalize his screen saver would just open the door for Dean to tease him about it, and he saw no reason to make it that easy for his brother—and revealed the Poe enthusiast website he'd found that morning.
"You found something on the site?" Sam asked, getting up to join his brother on the couch.
"Kinda." Dean traced a finger on the track pad onto an "about this site" link, which called up a description of the site and a picture of the person who ran it, who was named Arthur Gordon Pym. The man had a huge nose, small beady eyes, thin lips, a cleft chin, and thin brown hair. "Guy's got a serious hard-on for Poe—even changed his name. Pym's a character in one of Poe's books. Seems to me this guy'd die happy if he got to meet his hero, and we've seen nuttier motives."
Sam's eyes went wide as two different pieces of information in his head clicked together. "Oh my God."
"What? You know this dweeb?"
"No, but—" He shook his head. "I saw him, earlier today." Quickly, Sam summed up the rest of his trip to the Poe Cottage, and then his abortive attempt to check the house on Webb and 195th.
"Somebody pulled up to the house—it was this guy," he said, pointing at the screen.
"All the more reason."
"Honey, I'm home!"
Sam and Dean both looked toward the living room door to see Manfred walking in, wearing dust-covered denim overalls, work boots, and a long-sleeve shirt under a leather jacket. "Damn—ain't listened to Floyd in a pooch's age. Good choice, fellas."
"Thanks," Dean said. "Uh, sorry 'bout the mess."
"Don't worry 'bout it," Manfred said. "Nice to have a house guest who appreciates the finer things in life. Anyhow, you guys're comin' up to the gig tonight, right?"
"Wouldn't miss it," Dean said.
Sam turned to look at Dean but didn't say anything until after Manfred said, "Far out. Or awesome, I guess. Gonna go change," and went upstairs.
"What?" Dean asked at Sam's look.
"If the spirit is always here after their gigs, maybe we should stay behind and see if it manifests."
"And if it doesn't manifest until Manfred gets home, then we'll miss out on some fine live tunes, won't we?" Before Sam could object, Dean said, "Hey, you wanna be a homebody, knock yourself out. I'm goin' to the gig."
Sam thought about it and then said, "Nah, I'll come with. It's obviously tied to the gigs somehow, so we should check out the gigs themselves." Also, he wasn't thrilled with the idea of being by himself in this house for some reason. While Dean had made himself right at home, Sam felt like he was intruding. Certainly, he had no problem using the guest bed and avoiding another round of the credit card-fraud shuffle—especially now with Dean's face in every law enforcement database in the country—but just sitting here by himself as if he owned the place the way Dean had all day wasn't something he felt right doing.
He wasn't sure why, but the feeling was there. Besides, if the band really did play seventies rock, there was no way Dean was going to be paying close enough attention to anything odd about the band that might explain the ghost. He needed to be there to back his brother up.
"Sweet," Dean said. "So we'll do the gig, check out the spirit, maybe even get rid of it, then find the Poe geek tomorrow."
"Sounds like a plan," Sam said.
EIGHT
The Park in Rear
Larchmont, New York
Friday 17 November 2006
Dean decided that the only way this night could possibly get worse was if he actually stuck redhot pokers into his ears. And that was looking like a viable alternative to listening to one more note played by Scottso.
In his life, he had heard a lot of live music by a lot of mediocre bands. The low-spending necessities of the hunting life meant that three-figure arena tickets to see his favorite bands were simply out of the question. Instead, he took his live music where he could find it, in dives like the Park in Rear. He'd seen bands in roadhouses, arthouses, converted houses, and outhouses. He'd seen blues musicians in Chicago, jazz musicians in New Orleans, and cover bands in Key West. He'd seen college bands play in converted garages and garage bands play in college towns.
And in all that time, he'd never heard a band as wretchedly awful as Scottso.
That wasn't entirely fair—he'd seen bands whose pretentiousness was only matched by the strain their emotional baggage put on their voices. As a follower of classic rock, he'd seen what years of bleating till their veins popped had done to the likes of Robert Plant and Steve Perry, and Dean's sole consolation in watching these losers had been that they, like Plant and Perry, would spend their latter days with severe vocal damage. That would be a blessing to the music community, especially since the songs they wrote were so bad.
But those bands didn't bother Dean as much because the only music they were ruining was their own. Sure, they played for crap, but they were playing crap anyhow, so what the hell.
Scottso, on the other hand, were covering some of Dean's favorite songs: "Cocaine," "Ramblin' Man," "Rock On," even, God help him, "Freebird."
And they were mangling the holy crap out of them. It started with the drummer. The only shorthaired man in the band, he changed the tempo about once every six measures, kept missing the cymbals, and had this annoying tendency between songs to do a rim shot, whether or not anybody said anything funny. As if that wasn't bad enough, he also wore purple shorts and a puke green T-shirt.
Like most bass players, this one had the stage presence of a really bored redwood. He stood straight, wearing a black T-shirt, black vest, black jeans, and black cowboy boots. His almost-black hair was slicked back, extending past his shoulders. An unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth. The only reason Dean knew for sure that he was alive was that his fingers did actually move across the strings, plus he occasionally bent over between songs to sip from his beer, somehow not dislodging the cigarette. A good band had a rhythm section that was locked into each other, bass and drums feeding off each other and providing the foundation for the other instruments. Scottso, however, was not a good band. Dean wasn't even sure that the bass player and the drummer were on the same planet, much less playing the same song.
The keyboard player was the only one besides Manfred with serious gray in his hair, and also the only one of the long-haired set that tied his back into a ponytail, which just accentuated how much he'd lost on top. The bar lights glowed blindingly off his pate. He did an amazing job of matching the notes of the songs they were covering without managing any of the feeling. It wasn't that he did anything wrong—in fact, he was better at keeping tempo than the rhythm section—but he was just soullessly playing the notes. The best cover bands did one of two things: Some made the old songs their own; others perfectly re-created the original experience. These guys were only halfway to the latt
er because they didn't so much re-create as imitate. And at that, the keyboardist was only marginally good at it.
Then there was Manfred Afiri, a man whom Dean had respected right up until he opened his mouth on the stage of the Park in Rear. It wasn't that he sang off-key. He hit the notes—although on some, all he could manage was to slap them around a little. But he had no power, no oomph, no soul, no heart. Hell, if it wasn't for the microphone, Dean doubted he'd even be able to hear Manfred singing—which, thinking about it, would've been a blessing. Dean went to the bar for something like his sixth beer—he'd lost track, knowing only that he hadn't had nearly enough yet—and hoped this time he'd get the cute girl bartender instead of the grizzled guy one. Normally, he'd just wait for the cute girl to be available, but Scottso had put the acquisition of alcohol at the very top of his list of things to do.
Both bartenders were helping people, so he squeezed between a couple who were making out on the bar stools on one side and two frat-boylooking types on the other. He stared at the dark wood of the bar, which looked like half the universe had scratched something into it over the years. The girl got the two frat boys a couple of froofy drinks that made Dean instantly dismiss the two from his worldview. Then she came over to him. In fact, the "girl" looked to be in her late thirties, but she was quite hot. Her brown hair was tied back into a ponytail, letting her nicely round face show off on its own. She had very small eyes—Dean couldn't make out their color in the dim light of the bar—and very full lips that he gave an eight out of ten on his personal kissability scale—maybe 8.5. Like the other bartender—who was a tall, lanky guy in his fifties—she wore a black T-shirt with a drawing of the outside of the bar in red. Unlike the other bartender—who wore it as a muscle shirt and really, really, really shouldn't have—she wore hers nice and tight, and had the curves to make it work real well.
"'Nother beer?" She spoke with a fairly thick accent, which he figured to be local. All he knew from New York accents was how they talked on NYPD Blue, and she sounded sort of like that.
"Yeah, another Brooklyn." One of the points in the Park in Rear's favor was that they had Brooklyn lager on tap. Dean had last had it during a job in Pittsburgh, and he found that he'd missed it—besides, it was fitting to finally drink it in its hometown. But the urge to switch to tequila was strong.
She grabbed a fresh glass and started pouring the beer into it expertly—holding the glass at the right angle—without even looking. "I ain't seen y'round here before."
Never one to pass up an opening, he said, "My first time. The name's Dean."
"Jennifer." With her accent, the last syllable was more "fuh" than "fer." "And I'm impressed. We don't get too many newbies, y'know?"
"We're friends of Manfred's, actually—from out of town."
"Got it." She finished pouring the beer with one hand, grabbed a napkin with the other, placed it on the old wooden bar, and gently set the glass down on the napkin. "Like I said, not too many new guys."
"Mostly just regulars, huh?"
Jennifer nodded. "Nice t'see a new face."
Dean took a sip of his beer and said, "Well, it's even nicer to see yours."
"That's five bucks for the beer."
Nodding, Dean said, "Right," and handed her a ten. She went over to the cash register, giving him the opportunity to note that her jeans were even tighter than the shirt, and while she was perhaps wider in the hips than he generally preferred, on her it worked. She rang him up and gave him five ones. He left four of them on the bar. "Thanks."
She tilted her head. "Thank you. 'Specially since you only tipped Harry a buck."
"You're more fun to look at than Harry."
Jennifer made a noise like a pipe bursting. "Damn well hope so."
Scottso finally finished "Freebird," and then Manfred said, "We're gonna take a short break."
"Thank God," Dean muttered as Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl" started playing on the bar's PA system.
One of Jennifer's eyebrows shot up. "You don't like the band?"
"Uhm—well, the guitarist is good."
"Yeah, Aldo knows his stuff."
He was actually telling the truth there—the guitarist was the one bright spot. Called upon to re-create riffs by the likes of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Paige, Gregg Allman, and Ritchie Blackmore, he managed it brilliantly. His solos had been the only enjoyable part of an otherwise dismal musical experience. It's too bad he's stuck with these other losers.
Frowning at him, Jennifer said, "Thought you said you were a frienda Manfred's."
Dammit. "Well, yeah, but—let's just say he used to sing better."
The bursting pipe again. "Manfred's been singin' at this bar for long as I been here, and he never could sing worth a damn. And that's ten years."
Dean laughed, relieved. "I guess. I was trying to be nice."
"'Sides, you couldn'ta heard him ten years ago, you were what, twelve?"
Defensively, Dean said, "Seventeen, actually."
Putting on his most sincere tone, he added, "Which can't be older than you were at the time, so what the hell were you doin' hangin' out in bars?"
"Very cute, Dean, but I got food in my freezer older than you. Now I 'preciate the tips and the compliments, but you wanna hit on someone, there's about a dozen girls come in here that might actually getcha somewhere."
"Nah." Dean took another sip of his beer. "Anybody comin' in here's gonna probably like the music, and that's just something I can't deal with. You, at least, I know aren't here by choice."
This time she laughed.
"Well, it's about damn time. I was startin' to think your smile muscles didn't work."
"Show me a bartender that smiles, I'll show you a crappy bartender." And then she smirked. "Or a bartender who's being hit on by a cute kid."
Dean held up his glass as if to toast. "Thank you."
"And honestly, I don't even hear the music anymore. I been doin' this too long."
"In that case, Jennifer, I envy you." Again he held up the glass, this time actually sipping more of the beer.
She shook her head. "You ain't like mosta Manfred's friends, I'll give you that. For one thing, you ain't got enough hair."
Thinking of Ash, Dean had to smile. "Yeah, I can see that."
"'Scuse me, I gotta help somebody. You need anythin', just ask, okay?"
Dean hadn't even noticed the person who'd walked up to the bar. Jennifer went to take his order, which was apparently for an entire table.
"Yeah, no problem." He'd flirted with bartenders in the past, and he knew that you could only do it a little at a time or they couldn't do their jobs. Bartenders lived off their tips, so he knew better than to do the long-form version of his methodology. Instead, he'd go for the gradual effect. When he finished this beer, he'd go back, ask for another, and find out what music she did like. True, she was older than his usual, but she was also pretty and smart, and didn't seem at all interested in anything beyond taking his compliments—and tip money. Dean decided to take that as a challenge. Food in her freezer, my ass. Besides, he needed something to distract him from the music.
His plan in motion, Dean worked his way back to the table in the back where he and Sam had been sitting. The Park in Rear had a lot of nooks and crannies. When you walked in the front door, the bar was against the wall on your right. Right in front of you were a bunch of small bar tables and chairs, and then to the left was a raised section with tall tables and bar stools at them. All the way at the back was the stage, with a small dance floor in front of it.
There were support pillars all around, on which people had scratched even more than they had on the bar, and they made it easy to hide in corners. However, the bar's PA system was such that one could not escape from the music on the stage—even if you had done as he and Sam had, and chosen the table in the corner of the raised section, the farthest spot from the stage that was still in the bar proper.
Sam was nursing a light beer—freakin' lightweight—and studying the s
cratches in the table.
"You know," he said as Dean approached, "somebody actually scratched the words 'Kilroy was here'? I didn't think anybody did that in real life."
"I think I'm startin' to figure out who the spirit is," Dean said as he sat in the stool opposite his brother.
"Really?" Sam sat up straight.
"It's the ghost of the DJ they named themselves after. He's haunting Manfred in a desperate attempt to get them to stop desecrating his good name."
Sam chuckled. "C'mon, Dean, they're not that bad. I mean, they're not that good, but they're a cover band in a dive in Westchester County. Whadja expect?"
"Dude, did you hear what they did to 'Cocaine'?"
Showing his total lack of appreciation of the finer things in life, Sam said, "Whatever. I assume you took so long 'cause you were hitting on the bartender." He grinned. "He didn't strike me as your type."
"Funny boy," Dean said tightly as he sipped his beer. "Nah, I got the girl this time. Her name's Jennifer, and she has good taste in music. Or at least doesn't like this music." He looked over at the stage, where several women were practically throwing themselves at all five band members for no good reason that Dean could see, and added, "Which is more than I can say for most of the female population of this bar."
Minutes later Manfred walked over, with a very short girl hanging all over him. She was wearing a sweatshirt that said IONA COLLEGE. "Hey there, fellas, you havin' a good time?"
"We're having a blast," Sam said quickly. "This is a great place."
"Yeah, I love this joint."
The girl nudged Manfred in the ribs. "Freddie, intro-duce me."
"Oh, sorry, baby. Sam, Dean, this here's Gina."
"Ja-nine, " she said with a roll of her eyes. "God. You always get that wrong."
Dean Winchester had spent most of his life pretending to be other people in order to hunt more effectively, and also had spent a lot of that time cultivating a pretty damn good poker face, and even with all that, it took all of his considerable willpower not to scream. Sam, thank God, saved him by speaking before he said something that would force them to look for a hotel. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
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