Free The Wolf in Winter by John Connolly Page A

really didn’t take much to keep customers loyal, but it always amazed me that so many businesses couldn’t work up the energy to make the minimal extra effort required.
    I found Dave Evans, the Bear’s owner, marshaling the troops for the assault to come. I hadn’t worked there in a while. Like I said, business had been good for me in recent months, maybe because, like the Bear, I tended to go the extra mile for my clients. In addition, some ongoing litigation relating to the purchase of my grandfather’s old house on Gorham Road had been settled in my favor, and a lump sum had found its way into my accounts. I was solvent, and likely to remain so in the foreseeable future. Still, I liked to keep my hand in at the Bear, even if it was only once or twice a month. You hear a lot from people in bars. Admittedly, most of it is useless, but the occasional nugget of information creeps through. Anyway, my presence would allow Dave to take the rest of the night off, although he was strangely reluctant to leave.
    “Your buddies are here,” he said.
    “I have buddies?”
    “You used to. I’m not sure if the word still applies where those two are concerned.”
    He indicated a corner of the bar that was now looking significantly smaller than it usually did, thanks to the addition of two massive men in polyester jogging suits: the Fulci brothers. I hadn’t seen them since Jackie Garner’s funeral. His death had hit them hard. They had been devoted to him, and he had looked out for them as best he could. It was hard for men so large to keep such a low profile, but somehow they’d managed it during the months since Jackie’s death. The city might even have breathed a bit easier for a while. The Fulcis had a way of sucking the oxygen from a room. They had a way of knocking it from people too. Their fists were like cinder blocks.
    Dave’s concern was therefore understandable. But despite their appearance, and an undeniable propensity for violence that seemed resistant to all forms of pharmaceutical intervention, the Fulcis were essentially brooders by nature. They might not brood for very long, but they did tend to take some time to consider which bones they might enjoy breaking first. The fact that they’d stayed away from me for so long meant that they’d probably been considering the fate of their friend with a certain degree of seriousness. That boded either well or very badly for me.
    “You want me to call someone?” said Dave.
    “Like who?”
    “A surgeon? A priest? A mortician?”
    “If they’ve come here to cause trouble over Jackie, you may need a builder to reconstruct your bar.”
    “Damn, and just as the place was coming together.”
    I worked my way through the crowd to reach their table. They were both sipping sodas. The Fulcis weren’t big drinkers.
    “It’s been a long time,” I said. “I was starting to worry.”
    To be honest, I was still worrying, and maybe more than before, now that they’d shown up at last.
    “You want to take a seat,” said Paulie.
    It wasn’t a question. It was an order.
    Paulie was the older, and marginally better adjusted, of the two brothers. Tony should have had a lit fuse sticking out of the top of his head.
    I took the seat. Actually, I wasn’t too worried that the Fulcis might take a swing at me. If they did, I wouldn’t know a lot about it until I woke up, assuming that I ever did, but I’d always gotten along well with them, and, like Jackie, I’d tried my best to help them whenever I could, even if it meant just putting in a word with local law enforcement when they stepped over the line. They’d done some work for me over the years, and they’d put themselves in harm’s way on my behalf. I liked to think that we had an understanding, but Timothy Treadwell, that guy in the Herzog documentary who was eaten by the grizzlies he’d tried to befriend, probably felt the same way until a bear’s jaws closed on his throat.
    Paulie looked at Tony. Tony nodded.