Concerning Whitechapel

    He called himself Whitechapel Fred, and dressed like a sadistic, demented carnival barker pedophile, a used car salesman hawking scurrilous and suspect attractions. His top hat might have been silk, or felt, but was crushed and stained to the point of molting velvety ochre fabric. He wore a grey checked three piece without a tie and a sardonic smirk. Hoell didn't have time to run before Whitechapel had grasped the lapels of his raincoat.
  "We meet at last! I've been looking for you, you see."
  Hoell's fingers arpeggioed an unconscious Memphis Minnie. "I was, uh, thinking I might find you here."
  "Of course you were, of course you were. Tell me, why do you think I might want to find you?" If he'd had a moustache, he would have twisted it in eagerness.
  Hoell pulled a crumpled cigarette and struggled to light it with an even more crumpled matchbook. "Haven't a clue," he answered.
  Whitechapel jerked him closer, shaking the cigarette from his lips. "I want it, jazz man. I NEED it. He's back, and he will want it."
  "I don't have it!"
  "Then GET it. Or did you miss it when I said HE was back?"
  Hoell fingered the bullet still in his coat pocket. He felt the presence of someone softly moving up behind him, another one of Whitechapel's soulless acolytes. Fred released him, brushed out a wholly imaginary crease from Hoell's coat. "Come back when you have it, old boy," he said, adjusting the feral top hat at an angle. "I think you know where to find me."
  He nodded to the creature behind, and disappeared into the lights and sounds.