The Collected Short Fiction, page 92
Next came a sequence of weirdly static shots of a dark, watery expanse. The quality was blurred and seemed alternately too close and too far. Milk-white mist crept into the frame. Eventually something large disturbed the flat ocean-a whale breaching, an iceberg bobbing to the surface. Ropes, or cables lashed and writhed and whipped the water to a sudsy froth. Scores of ropes, scores of cables. The spectacle hurt my brain. Mist thickened to pea soup and swallowed the final frame.
I hoped for the lights to come up and the film to end. Instead, Helios Augustus squeezed my forearm in warning as upon the screen a boy, naked as a jay, scuttled on all fours from a stony archway in what might've been a cathedral. The boy's expression distorted in the manner of a wild animal caged, or of a man as the noose tightens around his neck. His eyes and tongue protruded. He raised his head so sharply it seemed impossible that his spine wasn't wrenched, and his alacrity at advancing and retreating was wholly unnatural…well, ye gods, that had to be a trick of the camera. A horrid trick. "The boy is quite real," Helios Augustus said. "All that you see is real. No illusion, no stagecraft."
I tugged a handkerchief from my pocket and dabbed my brow. My hand was clammy. "Why in hell did he take those pictures?"
"No one knows. Muybridge was a man of varied moods. There were sides to him seen only under certain conditions and by certain people. He conducted these more questionable film experiments with strict secrecy. I imagine the tone and content disturbed the prudish elements at university-"
"You mean the sane folks."
"As you wish, the sane folks. None dared stand in the way of his scientific pursuits. The administration understood how much glory his fame would bring them, and all the money."
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah. The money. Thanks for the show, old man. Could have done without it, all the same."
"I wanted you to meet young master Conrad," the magician said. "Before you met Conrad the elder."
The boy on the screen opened his mouth. His silent scream pierced my eye, then my brain. For the first time in I don't know, I made the sign of the cross.
We loaded my luggage then swung by Dick, Bly, and Vernon's joints to fetch their essentials-a change of clothes, guns, and any extra hooch that was lying around. Then we made for the station and the evening train. Ah, the silken rapture of riding the Starlight Express in a Pullman sleeper. Thank you, dear Mr. Arden, sir.
My companions shared the sleeper next to mine and they vowed to keep a watch over me as I rested. They'd already broken out a deck of cards and uncorked a bottle of whiskey as I limped from their quarters, so I wasn't expecting much in the way of protection. It was dark as the train steamed along between Olympia and Tacoma. I sat in the gloom and put the Thompson together and laid it beneath the coverlet. This was more from habit than expediency. Firing the gun would be a bastard with my busted fingers and I hoped it wouldn't come to that. I'd removed the bandages and let it be-a mass of purple and yellow bruises from the nails to my wrist. I could sort of make a fist and that was all that mattered, really.
I fell asleep, lulled by the rattle and sway of the car on the tracks, and dreamed of Bane's face, his bulging eyes, all that blood. Bane's death mask shimmered and sloughed into that of the boy in the film, an adolescent Conrad Paxton being put through his paces by an offstage tormentor. A celebrated ghoul who'd notched his place in the history books with some fancy imagination and a clever arrangement of lenses, bulbs, and springs.
Didn't last long, thank god as I snapped to when the train shuddered and slowed. Lamplight from some unknown station filtered through the blinds and sent shadows skittering across the ceiling and down the walls. I pointed the barrel at a figure hunched near the door, but the figure dissolved as the light shifted and revealed nothing more dangerous than my suitcase, the bulk of my jacket slung across a chair. I sat there a long while, breathing heavily as distant twinkly lights of passing towns floated in the great darkness.
The train rolled into Ransom Hollow and we disembarked at the Luster depot without incident. A cab relayed us to the Sycamore Hotel, the only game in the village. This was wild and wooly country, deep in the forested hills near the foot of the mountains. Ransom Hollow comprised a long, shallow river valley that eventually climbed into those mountains. An old roadmap marked the existence of three towns and a half dozen villages in the vicinity, each of them established during or prior to the westward expansion of the 1830s. Judging by the moss and shingle roofs of the squat and rude houses, most of them saltbox or shotgun shacks, the rutted boardwalks and goats wandering the unpaved lanes, not much had changed since the era of mountain men trappers and gold rush placer miners.
The next morning we ate breakfast at a shop a couple of blocks from the hotel, then Dick and Bly departed to reconnoiter Paxton's estate while Vernon stayed with me. My hand and ear were throbbing. I stepped into the alley and had a gulp from a flask I'd stashed in my coat, and smoked one of the reefers Doc Green had slipped me the other day. Dope wasn't my preference, but it killed the pain far better than the booze did.
It was a scorcher of an autumn day and I hailed a cab and we rode in the back with the window rolled down. I smoked another cigarette and finished the whiskey; my mood was notably improved by the time the driver deposited us at our destination. The Corning sisters lived in a wooded neighborhood north of the town square. Theirs was a brick bungalow behind a steep walkup and gated entrance. Hedges blocked in the yard and its well-tended beds of roses and begonias. Several lawn gnomes crouched in the grass or peeked from the shrubbery; squat, wooden monstrosities of shin height, exaggerated features, pop-eyed and leering.
The bungalow itself had a European style peaked roof and was painted a cheery yellow. Wooden shutters bracketed the windows. Faces, similar to the sinister gnomes, were carved into the wood. The iron knocker on the main door was also shaped into a grinning, demonic visage. A naked man reclined against the hedge. He was average height, brawny as a Viking rower and sunburned. All over. His eyes were yellow. He spat in the grass and turned and slipped sideways through the hedge and vanished.
"What in hell?" Vernon said. He'd dressed in a bowler and an out of fashion jacket that didn't quite fit his lanky frame. He kept removing his tiny spectacles and smearing them around on his frayed sleeve. "See that lug? He was stark starin' nude!"
I doffed my Homburg and rapped the door, eschewing the knocker.
"Hello, Mr. Cope. And you must be Vernon. You're exactly how I imagined." A woman approached toward my left from around the corner of the house. She was tall, eye to eye with me, and softly middle-aged. Her hair was shoulder-length and black, her breasts full beneath a common-sense shirt and blouse. She wore pants and sandals. Her hands were dirty and she held a trowel loosely at hip level. I kept an eye on the trowel-her manner reminded me of a Mexican knife fighter I'd tangled with once. The scar from the Mexican's blade traversed a span between my collar bone and left nipple.
"I didn't realize you were expecting me," I said, calculating the implications of Helios Augustus wiring ahead to warn her of my impending arrival.
"Taller than your father," she said. Her voice was harsh. The way she carefully enunciated each syllable suggested her roots were far from Washington. Norway, perhaps. The garden gnomes were definitely Old World knick-knacks.
"You knew my father? I had no idea."
"I've met the majority of Augustus' American friends. He enjoys putting them on display."
"Mrs. Corning-"
"Not Mrs.," she said. "This is a house of spinsters. I'm Carling. You'll not encounter Groa and Vilborg, alas. Come inside from this hateful sunlight. I'll make you a pudding." She hesitated and looked Vernon north to south and then smiled an unpleasant little smile that made me happy for some reason. "Your friend can take his ease out here under the magnolia. We don't allow pets in the cottage."
"Shut up," I said to Vernon when he opened his mouth to argue.
Carling led me into the dim interior of the bungalow and barred the door. The air was sour and close. Meat hooks dangled from low rafter beams and forced me to stoop lest I whack my skull. An iron cauldron steamed and burbled upon the banked coals of a hearth. A wide plank table ran along the wall. The table was scarred. I noted an oversized meat cleaver stuck into a plank near a platter full of curdled blood. The floor was filthy. I immediately began to reassess the situation and kept my coat open in case I needed to draw my pistol in a hurry.
"Shakespearean digs you've got here, Ma'am," I said as I brushed dead leaves from a chair and sat. "No thanks on the pudding, if you don't mind."
"Your hand is broken. And you seem to be missing a portion of your ear. Your father didn't get into such trouble."
"He got himself dead, didn't he?"
In the next room, a baby cried briefly. Spinsters with a baby. I didn't like it. My belly hurt and my ear throbbed in time with my spindled fingers and I wondered, the thought drifting out of the blue, if she could smell the blood soaking my undershirt.
Carling's left eye drooped in either a twitch or a wink. She rummaged in a cabinet and then sprinkled a pinch of what appeared to be tea leaves into a cloudy glass. Down came a bottle of something that gurgled when she shook it. She poured three fingers into the glass and set it before me. Then she leaned against the counter and regarded me, idly drumming her fingers against her thigh. "We weren't expecting you. However, your appearance isn't particularly a surprise. Doubtless the magician expressed his good will by revealing Conrad Paxton's designs upon you. The magician was sincerely fond of your father. He fancies himself an urbane and sophisticated man. Such individuals always have room for one or two brutes in their menagerie of acquaintances."
"That was Dad, all right," I said and withdrew a cigarette, pausing before striking the match until she nodded. I smoked for a bit while we stared at one another.
"I'll read your fortune when you've finished," she said indicating the glass of alcohol and the noisome vapors drifting forth. In the bluish light her features seemed more haggard and vulpine than they had in the bright, clean sunshine. "Although, I think I can guess."
"Where's Groa and Vilborg?" I snapped open the Korn switchblade I carried in the breast pocket of my shirt and stirred the thick dark booze with the point. The knife was a small comfort, but I was taking it where I could find it.
"Wise, very wise to remember their names, Johnny, may I call you Johnny?-and to utter them. Names do have power. My sisters are in the cellar finishing the task we'd begun prior to this interruption. You have us at a disadvantage. Were it otherwise…But you lead a charmed life, don't you? There's not much chance of your return after this, more is the pity."
"What kind of task would that be?"
"The dark of the moon is upon us tonight. We conduct a ritual of longevity during the reaping season. It requires the most ancient and potent of sacrifices. Three days and three nights of intense labor, of which this morning counts as the first."
"Cutting apart a hapless virgin, are we?"
Carling ran her thumbnail between her front teeth. A black dog padded into the kitchen from the passage that let from the living room where the cries had emanated and I thought perhaps it had uttered the noise. The dog's eyes were yellow. It was the length and mass of a Saint Bernard, although its breed suggested that of a wolf. The dog smiled at me. Carling spoke a guttural phrase and unbarred the door and let it out. She shut the door and pressed her forehead against the frame.
"How do you know Paxton?" I said, idly considering her earlier comment about banning pets from the house.
"My sisters and I have ever been great fans of Eadweard's photography. Absolute genius, and quite the conversationalist. I have some postcards he sent us from his travels. Very thoughtful in his own, idiosyncratic way. Quite loyal to those who showed the same to him. Conrad is Eadweard Muybridge's dead wife's son, a few minutes the elder of his brother, Florado. The Paxtons took him to replace their own infant who'd died at birth the very night Muybridge's boys came into the world. Florado spent his youth in the institution. No talent to speak of. Worthless."
"But there must've been some question of paternity in Muybridge's mind. He left them to an institution in the first place. Kind of a rotten trick, you ask me."
"Eadweard tried to convince himself the children were the get of that retired colonel his wife had been humping."
"But they weren't."
"Oh, no-they belonged to Eadweard."
"Yet, one remained at the orphanage, and Conrad was adopted. Why did Muybridge come back into the kid's life? Guilt? Couldn't be guilt since he left the twin to rot."
"You couldn't understand. Conrad was special, possessed of a peculiar darkness that Eadweard recognized later, after traveling in Central America doing goddess knows what. The boy was key to something very large and very important. We all knew that. Don't ask and I'll tell you no lies. Take it up with Conrad when you see him."
"I don't believe Paxton murdered my father," I said. The baby in the other room moaned and I resisted the urge to look in that direction.
"Oh, then this is a social call? I would've fixed my hair, naughty boy."
"I'm here because he sent a pair of guns after me in Seattle. I didn't appreciate the gesture. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe he did blip my father. Two reasons to buzz him. Helios says you know the book on this guy. So, I come to you before I go to him."
"Reconnaissance is always wisest. Murder is not precisely what occurred. Conrad drained your father's life energy, siphoned it away via soul taking. You know of what I speak-photography, if done in a prescribed and ritualistic manner, can steal the subject's life force. This had a side consequence of effecting Mr. Cope's death. To be honest, Conrad didn't do it personally. He isn't talented in that area. He's a dilettante of the black arts. He had it done by proxy, much the way your employer Mr. Arden has you do the dirty work for him."
She was insane, obviously. Barking mad and probably very dangerous. God alone knew how many types of poison she had stashed up her sleeve. That cauldron of soup was likely fuming with nightshade, and my booze…I pushed it aside and brushed the blade against my pants leg. "Voodoo?" I said, just making conversation, wondering if I should rough her up a bit, if that was even wise, what with her dog and the naked guy roaming around. No confidence in Vernon whatsoever.
"There are many faiths at the crossroads here in the Hollow," Carling said, bending to stir the pot and good god her shoulders were broad as a logger's. "Voodoo is not one of them. I can't tell you who did in your father, only that it was done and that Conrad ordered it so. I recommend you make haste to the Paxton estate and do what you do best-rub the little shit out before he does for you. He tried once, he'll definitely take another crack at it."
"Awfully harsh words for your old chum," I said to her brawny backside. "Two of you must have had a lovers' quarrel."
"He's more of a godson. I don't have a problem with Conrad. He's vicious and vengeful and wants my head on a stick, but I don't hold that against him in the slightest."
"Then why are you so interested in seeing him get blipped?"
"You seem like a nice boy, Johnny." Carling turned slowly and there was something amiss with her face that I couldn't quite figure out. That nasty grin was back, though. "Speaking of treachery and violence, that other fellow you brought is no good. I wager he'll bite."
"Think so?" I said. "He's just along for the ride."
"Bah. Let us bargain. Leave your friend with us and I'll give you a present. I make knick-knacks, charms, trinkets and such. What you really need if you're going to visit the Paxton estate is a talisman to ward off the diabolic. It wouldn't do to go traipsing in there as you are."
"I agree. I'll be sure to pack a shotgun."
She cackled. Actually and truly cackled. "Yes, yes, for the best. Here's a secret few know-I wasn't always a spinster. In another life I traveled to India and China and laid with many, many men, handsomer than you even. They were younger and unspoiled. I nearly, very, very nearly married a rich Chinaman who owned a great deal of Hainan."
"Didn't work out, eh? Sorry to hear it, Ms. Corning."
"He raised monkeys. I hate monkeys worse than Christ." She went through the door into the next room and I put my hand on the pistol from reflex and perhaps a touch of fear, but she returned with nothing more sinister than a shriveled black leaf in her open palm. Not a leaf, I discovered upon receiving it, but a dry cocoon. She dropped it into my shirt pocket, just leaned over and did it without asking and up close she smelled of spice and dirt and unwashed flesh.
"Thanks," I said recoiling from the proximity of her many large, sharp teeth.
"Drink your whiskey and run along."
I stared at the glass. It smelled worse than turpentine.
"Drink your fucking whiskey," she said.
And I did, automatic as you please. It burned like acid.
She snatched the empty glass and regarded the constellation of dregs at the bottom. She grinned, sharp as a pickaxe. "He's throwing a party in a couple of nights. Does one every week. Costumes, pretty girls, rich trappers and furriers, our rustic nobility. It augers well for you to attend."
I finally got my breath back. "In that case, the furriers' ball it is."
She smiled and patted my cheek. "Good luck. Keep the charm on your person. Else…" She smiled sadly and straightened to her full height. "Might want to keep this visit between you and me."
Vernon was missing when I hit the street. The cab driver shrugged and said he hadn't seen anything. No reason not to believe him, but I dragged him by the hair from the car and belted him around some on the off chance he was lying. Guy wasn't lying, though. There wasn't any way I'd go back into that abattoir of a cottage to hunt for the lost snowbird, so I decided on a plausible story to tell the boys. Vernon was the type slated to end it face down in a ditch, anyway. Wouldn't be too hard to sell the tale and frankly, watching Bly stew and fret would be a treat.
