Love Letters from the Skeleton Kingdom of the Moon - Part 4

Cable approached the damp musician with a measured pace. The man was sitting cross-legged, with a black velvet top hat out in front of him. Whether there was money in the chaparrel was impossible to tell, since it was half-full of water. As cable drew near, he could see that the man's eyes were glowing a pleasant lemon-yellow.
"Hello, Evan," said Cable. Evan Worth was someone who Cable had met on a previous case. Last time, though, he had been playing the accoridian and running from the law. "You're a long way from Prague."
The man, Evan, smiled at Cable winningly. "Hello, detective," he chimed, not pausing the uneasy melody of his guitar. "I hear you've got a tough case."
"News travels fast around here. Still palling around with zombies, are you?" Cable barbed, knowing that his day of investigation must have stirred the hive.
"They're so much more decent than the living," the guitar player bantered back, "They tell you right up front that all they're interested in is eating your brain." Evan giggled, still smiling braodly. "With the pre-dead, you've got to dance around it all night. Present company excepted, of course"
Cable smiled in spite of himself. Evan had his flaws, but on the whole the gumshoe liked him. Sort of in the way that a man trapped underground in a tomb liked a fresh breath of nitrous oxide. It didn't help, but it was not altogether unwelcome. Reaching into the pocket of his soaked trenchcoat, Cable retrieved thirty-five cents and a city bus token. He tossed them into the musician's top hat where they disappeared with a wet 'plorp' sound. Evan dipped his head in appreciation.
"I know you're the kind of person who hears things," Cable said meaningfully. Evan's eyebrows raised as his fingers found a diminished chord. "Do you know any deceased who might have been sending mash notes to one Mrs. Jones?"
Evan grinned an insane grin. "Well," he chirped, "you're right about me hearing things." He paused for a long time and closed his eyes while he wound his way around an extended cadenza. Cable was patient, already as wet as it was possible for a human to become and thus in no further danger from the precipitation. "I owe you from before," Evan offered. It was true; Prague had been a bad memory to Cable for a long time. "I have my little failings, but I pay my debts," the musician finished. Meridian nodded.
Evan stopped his music abruptly and looked Cable squarely in the eye. The lack of music seemed to echo through the empty street. "Those envelopes, word got round that they has some funny numbers on them."
"Do you know what they mean?" Cable inquired without hesitation. Evan smiled a little smile and stood up, placing his guitar in the concrete corner of the stairs that lead up to the hotel. Bending over, he picked up his hat and swiftly put it on to prevent the contents from pouring out.
"Do you know that Hindu werewolf that hangs out down by the airport?" he asked directly.
"The guy they call 'Hairy Krishna'? Yeah, I've heard of him," Cable said, narrowing his eyes.
"He might be able to help you. Well, so long gumshoe." Evan then rounded the edge of the stairs and walked away, down the street in the pouring rain, without looking back. Cable glanced at the abandoned guitar, considered the warm lobby of the Russle Hotel with fondness for a moment, and then flagged down a taxi.

- J