He could have said any of these things. While they probably would have dampened Janine's ardor, they also would have had the ring of truth by virtue of actually being true. But Sam was torn. A part of him didn't want to dampen an ardor that was driving his brother crazy, and he was all about driving his brother crazy. But a part of him wanted her to shut up about Dean already. Finally, he said lamely, "You know, you could just ask him."
"Oh, I don't want to interrupt! 'Sides, he's talkin' with Aldo about cars. So not my thing. All I know about cars is if you turn the key it starts and you hit the brake it stops."
"Yeah," Sam said with a tilt of his head, "that's pretty much where I am." He gulped down some more of his beer.
The Shamrock claimed to be an authentic Irish pub, but looking around at the dark furnishings, the scuffed walls, the wobbly chairs, the ragged tables, and the ethnic diversity of the clientèle (to wit, not all Irish), it looked pretty much like every other bar he and Dean had been in all across the country. The only thing that made it seem in any way like an Irish pub was that it had Guinness and Killian's on tap.
He then heard musical words: "I gotta take a dump." It was Aldo, getting up from his chair after finishing his Coke. For whatever reason, Aldo didn't drink—and he was the only member of Scottso who wasn't smoking a cigarette, either. Thinking back, Sam remembered that all the band members had beers with them on stage except for Aldo, who just had ice water. Dean had singled Aldo out as the only competent person in the group, and Sam was wondering if there was a correlation there. Janine was out of her own chair like a shot and was sitting next to Dean almost instantly. "Hey, Dean," she said in a dreamy voice.
"Uh, hey, Janine."
"So, you havin' fun?"
Dean actually squirmed in his seat. Sam covered his huge grin by sipping more beer. "Uh, yeah, actually, this is a lot—lot of fun. Hey, listen, I was wondering, you know that bartender, Jennifer?"
"Yeah. She's cool. She used to babysit me, and she still does for my brothers. Why?"
Blowing out a long breath, Dean said, "Uh, nothing, really, I just—"
"So what do you like to do for fun?"
"Fun?"
Sam couldn't help himself. "Yeah, Dean, 'fun.' Three-letter word meaning 'enjoyment.' "
"Thank you, Ask Jeeves," Dean muttered. "I, uh—I like listening to music."
Another eye roll. "Well, duh. I mean, I figured that from you bein' at the Park in Rear. You know, I got to see Tull at Carnegie Hall last year? They rocked."
Dean frowned. "They're still together?"
"Duh. Of course. They tour, like, all the time. And Ian Anderson's, like, a thou-sand years old, but he still prances around like—"
Manfred appeared out of nowhere. "Hey, Dean, is my niece buggin' ya?"
Sam could just see the war on Dean's face—tell the truth or be polite to the man in whose house he was sleeping?
The latter won out, but Sam could tell it was close to a photo finish. "Nah, she's cool."
Janine's already large doe eyes went as big as saucers, and she clasped her hands between her knees. "Real-ly?"
Okay, Sam thought, this was worth sitting between her and Dean babbling about cars. He then heard a tinny version of "China Grove" by the Doobie Brothers playing next to him. Looking over, he realized it was coming from Janine's purse, which was still on the chair next to him.
"Uh, Janine," he said, "I think that's your phone."
She rolled her eyes again. "Ignore it. It's probably Mattie."
"Who's Mattie?" Dean asked.
Manfred said, "Her ex."
Letting out a dramatic breath, Janine said, "Who won't stay ex. I so hate guys who won't take 'screw off and die' for an answer. Hey, you got a cell phone?"
Slowly, Dean said, "Uh, yeah."
"I'm thinkin' about gettin' a new one. Can I see what you got?"
Shrugging, Dean said, "Okay, I guess." He took it out. It was a pretty standard flip-top model, one that looked like about seventy-five percent of the phones out there. Where Sam had gotten a Treo, preferring to have the most cutting-edge and versatile phone he could, Dean pretty much stuck with the simplest, most common model that required the least thought on his part.
She flipped it open and started pushing buttons. Dean leaned forward nervously. "Uh, listen—"
"Cool phone." She closed it and handed it back to him.
"Listen," Manfred said, "I was thinkin' we might wanna head back to the ol' homestead."
"Good idea." Dean almost shot to his feet as he pocketed the phone. "Janine, it was great meeting you, really."
Also getting to her feet, Janine's face fell into an adorable pout that Sam just knew Dean would have to struggle to resist. "Aw, you're leaving? C'mon, Freddie, you can stay a lit-tle while longer, can'tcha?"
Manfred shook his head. "'Fraid not, kiddo. Gotta hit the hay. Ain't as young as I used t'be."
Dean added, "And, uh, we actually have some stuff we gotta do tonight before we hit the hay ourselves."
"Well, you'll be back tomorrow night, right?"
Janine asked earnestly.
This oughta be good, Sam thought, draining his beer.
"Prob'ly not."
"I was just kinda hopin' we could get to know each other," she said, moving a bit closer to Dean. Then she brightened. "Listen, call me, okay? I put my number in your phone—call me any time, day or night."
"No problem," Dean said.
They all said their good-byes—Robbie, the keyboard player, promised to drop Janine off at home—and then the three of them went out to the municipal lot across the street from the bar. At this time of night the parking was free, but there were parking meters that needed to be filled during the day. As soon as they got in the car, Dean said, "Just shut up, Sammy."
"I didn't say a word, Dean. Though if I did say a word, that word would be, 'Wow, I can't believe you fell for the can-I-see-your-cell-phone trick.'"
Dean angrily slammed the key into the ignition and turned it. "That was at least a dozen words."
"Well, I still can't believe you fell for it. And what's the big deal, anyhow? She was into you, man." He leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head. "She was tuned in to Dean-TV."
Turning around to back out of the parking space, Dean said, "I will kill you with my hands."
Lowering his hands, Sam said, "Seriously, Dean, what was the big deal about her? I mean, I've seen you hit on girls a lot younger."
"Yeah, but they all had taste."
Sam muttered, "That's arguable."
Dean pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road right behind Manfred's four-by-four, and then they followed him onto various back streets that Sam had a hard time keeping track of in the dark until they wound up on 248th and in front of the house. There weren't any parking spaces to be found, and Manfred just pulled farther into the driveway so the Impala could fit behind it. Once they were parked, they shrugged out of their coats—yes, it was chilly at two-thirty in the morning in November in the Bronx, but they needed the freedom of movement—and tossed them into the backseat. Dean opened the trunk and pulled out two shotguns, one each for Sam and him. Sam took his and immediately opened it up to make sure both barrels were filled.
Walking down the driveway, Manfred looked at the two weapons with more than a little apprehension. "Uh, fellas?"
"It's okay," Sam said quickly. "These have rocksalt rounds."
"Rock salt? What, you wanna make sure the ghost don't slip on the ice?"
Sam closed his shotgun with a snap. "Spirits are vulnerable to rock salt. It dissipates them."
Manfred frowned. "What's that mean, 'dissipates'?"
"Means they go away for a while."
"I don't want it goin' away for a while, I want it gone."
Dean closed the trunk. "Only way to do that is to find the body the spirit belonged to and salt it and burn it."
"Again with the salt." Manfred shook his head. "All right, whatever, man, just get that damn thing ou
tta my house."
"That's what we do. We see the ghost tonight, we blast it with the rock salt, we figure out who it is, and we salt and burn the body it belonged to. Nothin' to it."
Manfred stared at them a second. "You fellas do this every day?"
"Not every day," Dean said.
Sam added, "Just most of them."
They started walking toward the front porch. Sam put a hand on Manfred's shoulder. "Maybe you better stay out here."
Manfred hesitated, then said, "Yeah, prob'ly." He chuckled. "Hell, I ain't been stayin' in the house when I see this broad anyhow."
Leaving Manfred to lean against the Impala, Dean and Sam slowly worked their way toward the front door, shotguns in a low ready position. As soon as they moved, Sam's body went on autopilot, the drills Dad had worked with them so many times when they were kids coming as easily as breathing. Dean hung back while Sam moved to the porch, Dean keeping an eye on the door while he did so, then moving to the door.
Of course, the front door was locked. They'd been standing next to Manfred when he locked it. Dean turned to Manfred and mouthed the word Keys!
Manfred frowned, and mouthed the word What?
Sam sighed.
"Keys," Dean said in an intense whisper. The lightbulb went off over Manfred's head.
"Oh, right!" He dug into his jeans pocket, pulled out a huge key chain, and tossed it toward the porch.
It landed about a foot in front of the porch, skidding on the concrete path. Dean let out a breath through his teeth and jumped down off the porch to get the keys. Sam saw that the keys were all labeled: House, Car, Garage, Locker, and so on. Given the various substances Manfred had drunk, ingested, and smoked in his time, labeling the keys made sense.
First, Dean tried one of the ones labeled House, which didn't fit, but the second one did. It unlocked the bottom lock. The first one he tried got the top lock that was right next to the small stained-glass window.
The door opened inward, and Dean just let it go. It creaked, sounding distressingly like the front door in every haunted-house movie ever made. John Winchester had been a well-trained Marine, and he taught his sons well. They moved in proper formation, Dean going in low first with Sam covering him, then Sam going in ahead of him with Dean covering him, and so on through the front hall.
The house looked pretty much the same as when they had left.
Then the rattling started.
Looking around, Sam saw that the framed posters on the hallway walls were vibrating, the metal of the frames banging against the sheetrock. Several of the items on the small table in the hall fell off. Stealing a glance to his left, he saw that the record albums Dean had left lying on the floor were now dancing across the floor, and the stuff on the coffee table was also falling off. Some of the CDs fell out of their racks, the jewel cases splitting open.
Slowly, Sam moved forward toward the kitchen, shotgun still in the low ready position, Dean covering him with shotgun raised. It occurred to Sam that they never found out from Manfred what room he had to enter before the spirit manifested itself. Now, however, wasn't the time to go out and ask.
As they moved into the kitchen, Dean cradled the shotgun with one arm and pulled out the EMF with the other. It was lit up like a Christmas tree. Not that they needed the confirmation, since the house was behaving like it was on a fault line. That was pretty much impossible, though—the house was built on solid rock. There was no basement, even—the laundry room, which Manfred had given them free use of, was located in a nook off the kitchen. They checked it after they were done with the kitchen, but still nothing. The washer and dryer were rattling as if they were on, but both machines' dials were in the off position.
They went back through the hallway into the living room, where more items had crashed to the floor. Dean winced as he stepped on the broken glass from the frame of the Isle of Wight poster. Still no physical manifestation of the spirit, just the house shaking and—
"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haha-ha-ha!"
No matter how many times Sam encountered sudden noises in his life—and he figured he encountered more in the average month than most people did in their entire lives—his heart still skipped a beat when it happened.
Only one beat, though. As soon as he heard the cackle, he got down on one knee, shotgun raised. But there was still no physical manifestation. The cackling faded and the same voice started chanting the words "Love me!" over and over again.
Sam looked at Dean. Without any sign or facial indication, Sam knew that his brother agreed they should check upstairs next.
Dean went up first, Sam standing at the base of the stairs, shotgun raised. Once he made it up, Sam followed. Taking advantage of his long legs, he took two steps at a time.
The house was still shaking, and the cackling was now intermixed with the exhortations to be loved. Manfred had hung pictures of people Sam assumed to be family on the walls, and some of them had fallen down to the floor. Others rattled on the nails that held them to the wallpaper-covered wall.
"Love me!"
Sam whirled around and saw the face of a woman with bottle blond hair that was flying out in all directions—and couldn't help but think it was a little ridiculous that the woman's spirit had a dye job—as well as a body, but no discernible arms and legs. Her shoulders and hips kind of just faded off. She floated down the hallway toward him and Dean, her mouth wide with her cackling, her eyes looking somewhat demented. Her entire form was also transparent—which wasn't true of all spirits, but this one barely had any substance. Plenty of spirits—especially angry ones—could manifest physically, but this woman seemed to focus most of her ectoplasmic energy on laughing and wanting to be loved.
Just before he fired his shotgun, Sam noticed that her T-shirt had some kind of funky design on it. The rock-salt rounds did their job. As soon as the salt hit her form, it started to dissipate, features dispersing across the hallway until there was nothing left.
Though the echoes of her last cry of "Love me!" sounded throughout the old house, the interior had stopped shaking, and once the echoes faded, there was silence.
Dean looked at Sam. "What the hell's a spirit doing wearing a 'rÿche shirt?"
Sam frowned. "What's a rike shirt?"
He immediately regretted asking, as Dean gave him his most disgusted look, which meant that he had made the mistake of professing ignorance about music Dean worshipped.
"Dude! Queensrÿche. They did Operation: Mind- crime, which is only the best concept album ever created."
Unable to help himself, Sam said, "They're the ones with the umlaut on the y, right? How do you pronounce that, exactly?"
"Bite me, Sam."
"And I didn't realize that there were any good concept albums."
"Excuse me?" Dean cocked his head, his mouth hanging slightly open. "Tommy, Thick as a Brick, hell, Dark Side of the Moon, for Christ's sake, they're—"
Realizing he'd teased his brother enough, Sam said, "Shouldn't we tell Manfred it's safe to come into his own house?"
Dean blinked. "Right." Without another word, he moved back to the stairs.
Sam followed after pausing to chuckle at how easy taunting Dean could be sometimes, so Dean was already out the door by the time he got to the bottom.
Manfred and Dean came in together a few seconds later. "You sure it's safe?" Manfred asked, not sounding the least bit convinced.
Dean looked around the house. "You hear any cackling? Anybody asking you to love her?"
After looking all around, and actually putting a hand to his ear, Manfred finally said, "No."
"She'll probably be back tomorrow night, but for tonight, it's safe."
Manfred looked at Dean. "So you dislocated her?"
"Dissipated, yeah."
Shaking his head, Manfred said, "Man, I need a toke." He went into the living room, walking over to the sideboard. While dusty bottles of booze were piled haphazardly on top of it,
the side had two doors with keyholes, a skeleton key sticking out of one of them. Manfred turned the key, opened the door, and reached into it, pulling out a Ziploc bag full of green leaves and a yellow box.
The brothers exchanged a glance, shrugged, and set their shotguns carefully against the hallway wall before joining Manfred in the living room. Manfred was sitting on the easy chair, leaning forward while he put some of the stuff on the coffee table onto the floor, next to the stuff that the spirit had already knocked off, thus clearing space for him to construct his joint.
Sam and Dean both sat on the couch perpendicular to him. In a gentle voice, Sam said, "I'm sorry, Manfred, but we need to ask you a few questions."
"What, now?" Manfred didn't look up.
"We actually saw it," Sam said.
At that, Manfred looked up. "Really? Whoa."
"It was a girl," Dean said, "blond hair—"
"Dyed," Sam added.
"Right, dyed, kind of a hook nose, and wearing a Queensrÿche shirt. Ring any bells?"
Manfred shrugged. "You know how many women in 'rÿche shirts I see all'a time?" He gingerly finished rolling his joint.
Dean asked, "You ever take any of 'em home?"
"Maybe." Manfred shrugged again, then dug into the pocket of his leather jacket, which he had yet to take off after coming in from outside, and pulled out a lighter. "Honestly, I took lotsa women home, from the Park in Rear, from other places—Christ, I can't even remember last week, y'expect me t'remember that?" And then, to accentuate the point, he took a drag on his joint.
Dean looked at Sam.
Sam just shrugged back.
"You guys want a drag?" Manfred said in a much more mellow voice, smoke blowing out his mouth.
"No thanks." Sam got to his feet. "We actually have some stuff we gotta take care of tonight."
Manfred grinned. "Thought you was just sayin' that to blow off Janine."
Dean actually looked embarrassed. "Yeah, about that—"
Holding up a hand, Manfred said, "Don't sweat it, Dean. She flirts with anything that moves. You show up tomorrow night, she'll hit on y'all over again. You don't show up, she'll forget all 'bout you."
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