Newford Stories (20 page)

"Nah, I'm still flush."

She left, walking deeper into the junkyard
to the old VW bus she'd been sleeping in all summer, and then there
was only Moth and Hank and the dogs sitting out under the sky,
smelling the night air, watching sparks from the fire jump over the
rim of the oil drum to die in the dirt.

After a while Moth turned to Hank. "Terry
said you asked him to run Eddie to the bank tonight."

"You don't mind?"

"Why should I?"

"No reason."

Hank picked up a pebble and tossed it
against the side of the oil drum. The soft
ping
it made
lifted all the dogs' heads.

"You ever wonder about Jack?" he asked, not
looking at Moth. "Where he gets those stories of his? Why he tells
them?"

Moth shook another smoke out of his pack,
lit it. "Helps him make sense of things, I guess. Or maybe it's
just something he's got to do. Like Benny has to take a bet."

"I think maybe there's more to it than
that."

Moth remembered that question Hank had asked
Jack earlier. He took a drag from his cigarette, watched the glow
from the oil drum through the gray wreath the smoke made when he
exhaled.

"How so?" he asked.

"I saw two of them last night. Bird girls.
Like the people in his stories."

He'd known all day that something was
bothering Hank, but Moth was never one to push. If Hank wanted
advice, needed help, he'd ask. Moth had thought maybe Hank was
trying to get some girl off the street again, or wanting to help
somebody make bail. Something simple. Nothing like this.

"You want to run that by me again?" he
said.

He sat and smoked while Hank told him about
the woman he'd stopped to help last night, how he'd been shot, how
these two girls came out of nowhere, killed the guy, healed up
Hank's shoulder with nothing more than spit.

"The guy shot you," he said when Hank fell
silent.

Hank nodded and started to lift his
shirt.

"You don't have to do that," Moth told him.
"I believe you."

But Hank already had his T-shirt off. Moth
leaned closer and saw the white pucker of a scar on Hank's
shoulder. They'd been moving scrap to the back of the junkyard
yesterday, shirts off, sweating under the hot afternoon sun. Hank
hadn't had that scar yesterday.

"Guy was a pro?" he said.

"It wasn't the first time he shot someone,"
Hank told him. "I could see it in his eyes when he was standing
over me—just before the second girl killed him."

"Hard to kill someone like that—blade in the
back. Usually takes a while to die."

"I thought about that—later."

Moth had to laugh. "Maybe she was using spit
on the blade, too."

Hank smiled. He put his shirt on again and
settled back in his chair.

"You ever hear of anything like this
before?" he asked.

"Only in Jack's stories. Maybe you should
talk to him."

"I don't know," Hank said. "Jack's not much
of a one for straight answers."

"Well, that kind of depends on whether you
take him literally or not."

He finished his cigarette as Hank worked
that through.

"Jesus," Hank said after a moment. "You're
saying his stories are true?"

Moth shrugged. "They're true for him. He
makes no secret about that. How that translates into things other
folks can experience, I don't know."

"True for him," Hank repeated softly. "And
now for me."

"Maybe you should call that woman, too."

Hank gave him a blank look.

"Think about it, kid," Moth said. "The guy
was trying to kill her."

"Animal people."

"Say what?"

"She said she was out looking for animal
people."

Moth sighed. He looked out across the
junkyard. The moon was almost down now and the familiar shapes of
the junked cars and scrap had taken on odd shapes and shadows in
the starlight. He'd never taken Jack's stories at face value, but
right at this moment, he didn't know what to think anymore.

"Sounds like she found them," he said
finally.

Hank nodded thoughtfully. "Found something,
anyway."

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