| |
The next afternoon, Tango hobbled into Bitter Beans on his crutches.
"Tango! Glad to see you on your feet!" I said. "How are you feeling?"
"Lousy," he spat back. So much for my attempt to be a normal, compassionate human being around him. Tango scanned the room. "Do you know where Echo is?"
"He and Johnny sometimes stop by before his shift," I informed him.
"I know," he said.
"Well, that's not creepy at all," I stated, unable to keep the sarcasm from dripping from my voice.
"You have free coffee refills," he pointed out, like I was some sort of an idiot. "Of COURSE Echo is going to come here. He's a frickin' mooch."
"Speaking of," I said, hoping to give him the hint that he needed to buy something or leave, "what can I get you?"
Disinterested, he scanned the board. "Give me four shots of espresso over ice."
"Um... you sure your doctor would approve that much caffeine? You seem a little amped up already." He threw hate daggers with his eyes my direction. I held up my hands in defeat. "Just don't need your heart to pop before your tour tonight." As I fired up the espresso machine, I thought to myself that outcome would involve him actually having a heart. But I kept it to myself. "So, hey, you and Echo have a pretty intense rivalry."
The muscles of his jaw clenched.
But I wasn't done poking this bear. "They say that hate and love are different sides of the same coin. You two have a history together or something?"
"You wouldn't understand," he said, leaning his crutch against the counter to get his wallet out of his pocket.
"Try me."
He fiddled with the dollar bills and threw them on the counter. "We were partners once. Back in high school."
"Huh," I said, trying to imagine these two dorks running around in their trench coats, hunting down ghosts before they were even old enough to drive.
"We both thought we saw something at the school. We became best friends."
"So, what happened?"
"There was this girl..."
It always came down to an unrequited love, didn't it? Heck, I had a hard enough time getting Nate and Trevor to stomach standing in the same room with each other.
"She said what we did was dumb, so we both tried to prove her wrong."
Okay, so maybe not unrequited love. Maybe more of a professional ego bruising.
"Echo wanted to find solid proof that ghosts were real, and then wanted to present her with the cold, hard facts so that she'd know she was wrong. I, however, knew she'd never listen to something she didn't see, so I... may have used some theatricality to convince her."
I poured the ice over the top of the espresso and gave it a swirl. "How'd that go?"
He flushed red. "Echo betrayed me and told her what I was about to do. She tried to embarrass me in front of the whole school and said some really terrible things. And then Echo was mad I 'made a mockery' of our profession and ended our friendship."
"Huh," I said, putting a lid on the cup and pushing it across the counter at him. I really wanted to ask him what she said and what exactly he had planned that made her so angry. But this was the longest he had talked to me without shouting, and I didn't want to press my luck.
Tango took the cup while I ran him up. He took a sip, regathering himself from the memory of that slight. "But jokes on her. And him. Everyone else thought what I was doing was super cool, and they started coming to my haunted houses. And I always finished those nights with a real séance, so it isn't like I was lying or anything. I was just... creating an atmosphere where they might be receptive to what was going on."
"And Echo got jealous?" I hazarded.
"He started up a rival séance group and tried to poach all of my... well, I don't know if you'd call them 'friends', but people who came to see the truth I was speaking."
"And here you are," I said, giving him his change.
"He's just so stingy. Stingy with his gifts. Stingy with his friendship. There's not a generous bone in his body. He's been out to get me and prove his way is the best way, not by becoming great, but by destroying me."
I could see Tango think about putting the leftover coins in the tip jar, but then changed his mind and shoved everything in his pocket. Typical.
"Well, I hope someday you can... be friends again," I said lamely.
Tango darkened with spite. "Never."
But at that moment, the door to Bitter Beans opened and we both turned. Johnny and Echo entered. I could see Echo start to puff up like a tomcat about to get into a fight.
"He's so predictable," Tango uttered, shaking his head. He lifted up one of his crutches and pointed it at Echo. "You sabotaged me and could have gotten me killed!"
"Me?" Echo replied, shocked by the accusation. "You poisoned me!"
"What are you talking about? I didn't do anything!" shouted Tango.
Johnny put his hands on Echo's shoulders, lightly directing him back toward the direction of the door. "Look, dude, maybe we should go?"
Echo pointed his finger at Tango, like Johnny was holding him back, although it was pretty clear Johnny was barely touching him. "You brought me some food as a peace offering and after I ate it, I was puking up my guts!"
"As much as I would love to spike your dinner with something that would cause your insides to rot, I didn't do it."
"And as much as I would have loved to have sliced through that floorboard, I didn't do it."
But his words struck me. The sawing through the floorboard was just something that Tim had joked about with Nate and me, and I was the only one who noticed the cut in the wood. How did Echo know that was what happened?
Johnny leaned forward, trying to get between the guys by speaking a language they both understood. "But what if it was ACTUALLY an encounter with the poltergeist who was trying to give you a message?"
It was like a slap across the face. For just a moment, Tango and Echo stood there contemplating the idea.
But then Echo clamped onto this thought like a dog with a bone. "YEAH! Why are you complaining if you had an ACTUAL encounter with the poltergeist during your séance? Or did you fake it so that people would think you had an encounter?"
"Why would I drop an entire bookshelf on myself to fake a ghostly encounter?"
"You've faked it before."
It was a very low blow, especially after hearing from Tango how their friendship had fallen apart.
But maybe it was the memory of what they once had, or the secret longing to return to those days, that caused Tango to try and reach across the years and extend a little bit of an olive branch.
Tango got very still. "Do you think it could have been the poltergeist?"
Echo shrugged and folded his arms. "If he didn't want you there, it would make sense."
Tango bumped the tip of a crutch on the ground, like he was trying to figure out whether to share something that was on his mind or not. Finally, he made his decision. He turned to me. "Whatever it is, it does not want a historical museum built. It left this on the shelf for us. The shelf that fell and crushed me." He held out an old matchbook from the Grand Hotel with a logo from long ago.