Spookshow V: Half-Boys and Gypsy Girls, page 20
His eyes rolled slowly to hers. “I’m not sure. Is this Hell?” He tried to smile, but it came out all wrong, looking more like a perverted grin. “Alright, Billie?”
“I’m fine. Worried about you.” She pressed her fingers to his brow. No fever. “I don’t know how to help you. How do you feel?”
“Bright as a daisy,” Gantry muttered. “After it’s been stomped under a hundred jackboots.”
Billie shared a glance with Mockler. “Gantry, I don’t know how to help you. Are you thirsty? Hungry, cold, anything?”
“Cup of tea would be nice.”
“It’s right in front of you,” Mockler said.
“Tah.” Gantry reached for it but his hand was too weak to grasp it. He gave up. “I’d murder someone for a smoke, but I seem to have misplaced my fags. Along with my clothes, it seems.”
“Gantry,” Mockler broke in, “what happened to you?”
“Issat you, Mockler?” Gantry rumbled. “Run down the shop for a pack of ciggies, would you? Navy cut. There’s a good lad.”
Mockler shook his head, eyes up to Billie. “You’d think dying would leave someone a little humble. Not in this case.”
Billie studied Gantry. His movements were slow, as if simply turning his head took concentration. She patted his bony knee. “You should rest. The questions can wait till later.”
“No.” A flicker of life sparked in Gantry’s eyes. Hot, almost angry. “I don’t ever want to sleep again.”
“Maybe some black coffee would help,” Mockler suggested.
“The ciggies would do better.” Gantry’s smile still wasn’t working, a lopsided sneer more like.
“I’ll be damned if I’m running to the corner for cancer sticks.”
Rising to her feet, Billie squeezed the detective’s elbow. “Get the coffee. Make it strong.” She looked back at the vacant-eyed man shrouded in the bed sheet. “I’ll sort the rest.”
The cigarettes were old and stale, a half deck that Gantry had left behind in her flat a month ago. She had been laid up at the time, sick as a dog after witnessing an evil man bricked up into a wall by a cohort of angry ghosts. Gantry had spent a few days looking after her. She wouldn’t say he ‘nursed her back to health.’ It was more like he hung about to make sure she didn’t die on him.
The smell of it was awful, but Gantry seemed to come back to life as he hoovered the nicotine down. The glassy blankness in his eyes slowly hinted at their usual glint of cruel glee. “Cor,” he groaned. “Jesus didn’t feel this bad crawling out of his tomb.”
Spewing blasphemy, Billie thought. He must be feeling better. She ventured a question. “What happened to you?”
“Some bastard stabbed me in the back. Those other tossers, they just ran right over me.”
“You were pronounced dead,” Mockler added. “They tossed you in a body bag and dropped you at the morgue. Then, you vanished.”
“Did I?” Gantry crushed the cigarette into a makeshift ashtray. “Neat trick.”
Mockler gritted his teeth, steeling himself for a long string of riddles from the slippery eel. “Did you plan that somehow? Did you get up off the slab and wander off?”
“Something like that,” Gantry said.
“How?” Billie asked. It was best to be skeptical around the man.
“Trade secret, luv.”
“Quit the bullshit already,” Mockler bit. “How did you do it?”
“Just a bit of hocus-pocus. Nothing fancy, mind you, just journeyman stuff.” Gantry brought the coffee to his lips slowly, his movements still shaky. “I knew those bastards were coming for me. So, I worked up a quick plan to get out of prison. It worked up to a point. Rising up from the slab is not like pulling a rabbit from a hat.”
Billie stayed quiet. She didn’t put anything past Gantry these days. She could see that Mockler was another story. He didn’t know the Englishman as well as she did. The homicide detective still operated in a world of logic and facts.
“For the record, I don’t swallow a word of that horseshit,” Mockler warned. “But, for the moment, let’s roll with it. You wake up and just stroll out of the morgue. Then, what?”
“It was more of a crawl, really. Hands and knees, like a sick dog. I was halfway down the hall when they found me.”
“Who?” Billie asked. “The staff at the morgue?”
“That’s what I thought at first,” Gantry said. “But then they started stomping me with their boots. When they threw a hood over my head, I guessed they weren’t the morgue attendants.”
“Who?” Mockler spat.
“Aside from their boots, I never got a look at them. They tossed me into a van and off we went. Everything’s hazy after that.” Gantry reached for another cigarette. “I was laid out on a table in a dark room. There were two of them, both with surgical masks hiding their faces. They juiced something nasty into my veins, kept me higher than a flipping kite.”
Mockler waved the smoke away. “What did they do to you?”
“They had questions. I wasn’t in the mood to chat so, they got clever with the knives and the clamps. Amateurs, really. No knowledge of pressure points.”
“What did they want to know?”
“Everything,” Gantry said. “Trade secrets, like I said. Operations. They asked about the Bourdain woman and the Murder House. My associates, my past. All kinds of things.”
“Associates?” Mockler leaned in, nodding at their host. “You mean Billie? They know about her?”
“They’d heard rumours about a powerful psychic, but not much more than.” Gantry noted the concern in both of their eyes. “Don’t worry, I told them bugger all.”
Billie furrowed her brow. “You said nothing? Didn’t that just make it worse?”
“Oh no, I prattled my arse off. Reams of utter gobshite and occult nonsense. They lapped it up, the stupid sods. Even taking notes at one point. I wanted to see what they fixated on, which ridiculous tale tickled their fancy.”
“Why?”
“To twig who they were. They were after power. Knowledge and secrets.” A shudder passed over him, spilling coffee from the cup in his hand. Gantry set it down and looked at his rescuers. “How did you find me?”
“Billie tracked you down,” Mockler replied. “We drove around half the city till she zeroed in on that building.”
“I see.” The man in the bed sheet seemed peeved. “It didn’t occur to you to look until now?”
“Don’t be an asshole,” Mockler said. “We looked high and low for you. Billie more than me.”
“You were hidden,” Billie said. “Whoever took you knew how to mask your presence from me.”
“What changed?”
Billie sipped her tea. “Ray was showing me a crime scene. An occult one. An image of a building flashed in my head. That’s where we found you.”
“The two incidents must be related,” Mockler added. “The people responsible for the crime must be the same ones who abducted you.”
Gantry’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of crime are we talking about?”
“Homicide,” replied Mockler. “Victim killed in what appears to be a kind of ritual. Symbols were cut into his flesh and horns attached to his head.”
“Horns?” Gantry spat. “What sort? Goat horns or antlers?”
“Antlers.”
“Shite.”
A shudder passed through the Englishman, his face darkening. Billie exchanged a glance with Mockler and then asked, “What is it?”
“You need to show me this crime scene,” Gantry said. He looked down at the sheet he was wearing. “After I find some clothes first.”
“You’re in no shape to go anywhere,” Billie stated. “You need to recuperate.”
“I need to see this bloody thing, before it’s too late.” Gantry shot to his feet, but vertigo overwhelmed him, causing him to teeter like a tree ready to timber. He dropped back onto the sofa. “Once the room stops spinning, of course.”
“What’s so important about it, Gantry?” Billie asked.
“Trouble is coming. And I’m nowhere near ready for it.”
Mockler crossed the room to the front door to retrieve something. Billie touched the sick man’s brow to test his temperature again. “Is it this threat you keep hinting at? The approaching evil something-or-other?”
“Rising darkness,” he corrected her.
“Whatever.”
“Not whatever. There’s a difference.”
“Does it matter?” she huffed.
“Depends who you ask—” Something dropped into Gantry’s lap, cutting him off. A plain manila folder. “What’s this?”
Mockler took his seat. “The crime scene. In glossy colour. Have a look.”
Gantry opened the folder and went through the photographs, examining each one carefully. Silent, the hard set of his eyes falling away and tipping into something close to fear. “Give me the details,” he said. “Who’s the lad?”
Mockler gave him the bullet points. About the victim being Justin Burroughs, lately of the Paranormal Trackers and the chaos at the Murder House. The details of his death, the symbols and about his missing ghost-hunting pal, Owen Rinalto. He summed it up with how the investigation had stalled out.
Gantry held up one of the photos. “The time stamp on these pictures. Is this the date the body was found?” The detective said it was. Gantry stared at the picture again. “What’s the date today?”
“The 17th,” Billie said.
“When’s the next full moon?”
Mockler raised an eyebrow at the question but Billie did not. She checked her phone. “The 25th. Christmas day.”
“That gives us eight days,” Gantry fumed.
“Until what?”
“Until they try again,” stated Gantry. “Presumably with the other kid, Ollie.”
“Owen,” Mockler corrected him. “They’re gonna pull another ritual?”
“Quick as ever, detective.” Gantry got to his feet again, slowly this time. “We need to crack on.”
“Stop,” Mockler ordered. “You need to explain this. Properly. No enigmatic bullshit, no sly riddles. Just the truth.”
“Not in a bloody bedsheet I’m not. I need some clothes first. Shower, too.” He shuffled for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Billie demanded, going after him.
“Back to H.Q. to clean up. I’ll be back in a tic.”
Mockler followed him to the door. “You can barely stand, Gantry. Sit down.”
“Bollocks. Just need some fresh air is all.” Gantry turned to address the detective, but a queer look fell over his face as he fell against the wall and slid to the floor. “Whoops.”
“Back to bed, tough guy.” Billie scooped the downed man’s arm and looked up at Mockler. “Help me get him up.”
“Let him crawl back,” Mockler said with no small hint of disdain. “I’ve carried his sorry ass enough for one night.”
Billie’s glare was withering and Mockler relented, lifting the limey back to the lumpy sofa. Gantry crumpled forward, his head cradled in his hands. “Better fetch a bucket,” Gantry groaned.
Billie lunged for the wastebasket under her desk and thrust it under the Englishman just in time. She and Mockler backed away as the injured man wretched into it. Gantry wiped his mouth and looked up at the other two, his face paled and slick with sweat. “I still need some clothes.”
Mockler scowled. “I’ll go get them. When I get back, you’re gonna spill everything. Where is this place of yours?”
Gantry cursed as he scrounged up a pen from the coffee table and wrote something on a scrap of paper. “The green door at the end of the hall. The closet in the back room.” He handed it across to the detective. “Get the gear, but don’t touch anything.”
Mockler looked at the address scribbled on the paper. “Right. You got a lot of expensive furnishings in this rat hole of yours?”
“No. Just a lot of nasty stuff. Some of it bites.”
The detective glanced at Billie and then back to the man clutching the bucket. “Behave yourself while I’m gone and do everything Billie tells you.” He marched for the door. “I’ll be back in a flash.”
The apartment shook as the door slammed shut. Gantry grinned like he was having a grand time and then he stuck his head back into the wastebasket and dry-heaved.
Frowning, Billie dashed into the bathroom for a proper bucket and a dampened washcloth. When she returned to the sofa she found her guest leaning back against the cushions, catching his breath. “Why do you make everything so hard?” she asked.
Gantry raised his head to answer, but panic lit into his eyes and he thrust his face back into the bucket.
Billie perched onto the arm of the sofa and waited for the dry-heaving to pass. “Sneering at everything is the easy way out,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “Being kind is hard. It takes strength to be gentle and kind. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”
Gantry lifted his face from the bucket, panting hard. His eyes narrowed, as if contemplating her words. Then, he spoke. “If you quote Morrissey one more time, I’m going to vomit up a vital organ.”
Chapter 26
THE ADDRESS SCRIBBLED on the scrap paper was a narrow wedge of brick on Catherine Street that had once housed a drugstore. The entrance was around back, up a rickety fire escape that rattled precariously under Mockler’s steps. The hallway was rank and speckled with trash, but at the far end loomed the green-painted door that Gantry had promised. Reaching up, Mockler ran his fingers over the dusty lip of the doorframe until he found the key and unlatched the door.
Hitting the light switch, the overhead bulb flickered intermittently as if poorly wired. The space was narrow and cluttered from floor to ceiling with what, to Mockler, looked like trash. A hoarder’s burrow, somewhere between a used book shop and junk dealer. Shelves lined almost every wall where old books and magazines were crowded for space with odd statuary and bizarre-looking instruments. A stuffed raven stared out from one shelf, its black plumage and glass eyes frosted with dust.
Mockler picked his way through the stacks of oddities on the floor into the main room where a large desk straddled the north end, lousy with documents and an overflowing ashtray. Opposite the cluttered desk was a kitchenette with very little counter space and a single sink heaped with dirty cups. The icebox was an antiquated Kelvinator with a chrome hinge handle. It reminded Mockler of the one his parents had in the basement, a relic used for extra space. He gripped the handle, but stopped before opening it. Would it surprise him to find a severed human head in John Gantry’s fridge? Or even a whole corpse stuffed inside, the remains of some poor bastard who had gotten on the wrong side of the slippery Englishman? He yanked the handle and the whole refrigerator shook as if balanced on wobbly footing.
The detective was almost disappointed to find no human head staring back at him from the shelves of the icebox. There were cartons of old take-out and half empty jars of condiments, but most of the space was occupied by cans of beer, English ales and Czech pilsners. The Kelvinator, like the rest of the place, resembled a demented bachelor’s pad by way of an obsessed hoarder. It seemed almost too cliché. He was about to close the fridge when he heard something move within. Bending down, he caught sight of something slithering inside the icebox back behind the cans of beer. Dark and scaly like the skin of a snake, it undulated past the crusty bottle of ketchup. Mockler slammed the door shut, rattling the fridge on its wobbly stand.
“Okay,” Mockler muttered to himself. “Get the clothes and then get out.” He scanned the apartment again, wary of any other nasty surprises creeping out from behind the stacks of junk.
The back room was a marked contrast to the rest of the place, clean and orderly, no junk strewn here. The bed was big and tastefully done, the spread complimenting the colour of the walls. There were even a few throw pillows on it, an oddly feminine contrast to the stanky man-cave feel of the outer room. The closet was tidy and organized, Gantry’s dark suits hung properly. It seemed almost bi-polar, the pristine orderliness of the bedroom versus the junkshop chaos of the other room.
Shrugging it off, Mockler gathered up an armful of clothes and crossed back into the outer room. The cluttered mess of the place was stifling, the overstuffed shelves rendering the air claustrophobic and stale. Halfway to the door, something caught his eye and he stopped to take a closer look. Teetering on the edge of the bookshelf stood an enormous glass carboy with a wide flue and something dark bobbing in its chemical depths. Here was the severed head that he had expected to find in the icebox, a ghastly orb pickled in its formaldehyde bath. Male, 40s to 50s, with a straggly beard and a lot of hard living etched into the lines of the face. Both ears were docked from the man’s head. A brittle yellow label was fixed to the glass, scribbled penmanship in blue ink. Edward John Dimond.
Mockler studied the gruesome exhibit, trying to discern the plastic seam or rubber joint that would give the piece away as a prop, when the eyes popped open and the severed head stared back at the man through the heavy glass. The mouth chomped open and shut soundlessly through the chemical liquid as if screaming for help.
The clothes fell to the floor. Mockler cursed, scooped them back up and ran. He glanced back once before slamming the door. The head was spinning in its formaldehyde, the mouth still screaming.
~
Gantry sat slouched with the bucket between his knees, as still as a stone Buddha. He hadn’t spoken a word since Mockler left and Billie thought he had fallen asleep in the sitting position. She chewed her lip, wondering if she could ease him down onto the sofa without waking him.
“I’m awake,” he said.
Billie sat on the coffee table across from him. “Feeling any better?”
“No.”
His reply was oddly frank, with no veneer of mockery to it. It matched the wasted slant of his eyes and the trembling in his right hand.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
“Freezing.”
Fetching the blanket from the armchair, she draped it over his shoulders and settled back onto the coffee table. “This place is drafty. I can turn up the heat if you’d like.”
