by S. A. Sidor
“I’m not defending this guy,” I said. “He was drunk and stupid. But I took him out. I don’t think he’s going to be happy when he finds out I kept his gun. We can let him go.”
Balthazarr remained silent. He carried the unconscious man lightly, as if the body weighed nothing. He wasn’t even breathing hard. His powerful legs crashed through the frozen weeds that grew at the back border of the property. He stomped them down, heading to the river, only halting when he reached the bank. Steam curled from his mouth, as thick as white smoke. What was he going to do? He couldn’t take the guy past the water.
The Miskatonic hadn’t frozen over completely. Along its edges, cloudy lips of ice made long, smooth curves out into the black water. The man on Balthazarr’s shoulder groaned. The artist stared across the river, unblinking. He murmured something, a prayer, in an alien tongue. I couldn’t make out all the words. Only it wasn’t Spanish.
“Wait!” Nina shouted.
But it was too late.
In a remarkable display of strength, the Spaniard lifted the unconscious hooligan’s body straight over his head and threw him far out into the water, beyond the snow-covered shoreline. There was an explosion of water. The body sank. Balthazarr walked away from the river without looking back. I stared dumbfounded, waiting to see if the man might break the surface and begin thrashing about for a saving hand. I studied the bank for a stick, something I might use to hook him back to shore.
But the man never popped up.
“He killed him,” Nina said. She couldn’t believe what she’d witnessed.
I couldn’t either. I refused to.
“The current has taken him downstream. He must have come up. Only we didn’t see.”
“That water is deadly. Throwing him in is as good as tossing him in a fire,” she said.
Like a pyre, I thought. Like a ritual sacrifice.
We turned to the mansion. Balthazarr was already at the apartment house. He was singing to himself. A song of joy and exuberance, perhaps a drinking song, but not in Spanish. The language had a cloggy sound. Guttural, throaty. He belted it with gusto. Did he sing out, “Yuyu-Vabadaa?” I don’t know. He may have. He really may have.
When we caught up with him, he was smiling. He ensnared us in his great woolly arms, pulling us tight. “You are my friends! New friends! I love Arkham in winter!”
“Juan Hugo, what did you do?” Nina asked, incredulous.
The painter looked back over his shoulder at the Miskatonic.
“I gave a gift.”
“A gift?” Nina was having none of it. His flippant attitude caused her agitation to grow. “How can you care so little about human life? You murdered that man!”
Balthazarr drew his head back and howled with laughter.
“I think we’d better go back inside,” I said to Nina. I didn’t want to anger Balthazarr.
“Murder? Did I murder a gangster who tried to force his way into your home? This brute who could not control himself. You have sympathy for him? No, no.” Balthazarr shook his head.
“You’ve gone too far, Juan Hugo. We don’t condone murder here in Arkham,” I said.
“Murder again. What is this talk of murder? Look around you, Alden. Nina. Your town is rife with crime. Its industries have at their very foundations the exploitation and violence of one class of people carried out upon another. Bones. This is a city built on bones. But I am only a visitor here. Yet, I am accused of doing what? Drowning a mongrel who attacked my friends?”
Nina pointed her finger at Balthazarr. “You won’t get away with this. It’s barbaric.”
“I think you do not understand barbarism,” he said. “You only think you do.”
We started to walk away.
Balthazarr called out. “My friends! Do you see? There! Under the lamppost?”
Nina and I stopped, looking to the end of the block, where the river veered close to the road. The bank was terraced and lined with stone steps for fishermen to sit and cast their lines.
The shape of a man plodded into the circle of light. He was composed of shadows, really, little more than an animated mass, drizzling water onto the pavement, exuding tendrils of fog, and shivering so profoundly that his vibrations smudged his outer silhouette to an indistinct blur.
“He is alive! Your worries are for nothing!” Balthazarr laughed again, and he took up his gruff, rasping song; its hoarse refrain like croaking from a swamp, a phlegmy cough repeated and repeated. “Good night, amigos. You are softhearted. Dream, my dreamers. Dream!”
“Is that the man who walked you home?” I asked Nina. “Is he up from the river?”
“Too far to tell… but who else…?”
The shape at the end of the block shuffled off.
“Balthazarr is right. He taught the man a lesson. No one died. We can go to bed.”
“He didn’t know what would happen.” Nina opened the front door.
“Nothing happened.”
Nina mounted the stairway to our floor. At the top of the stairs, she paused.
“Something did happen,” she said.
Without inviting me in, she passed over her threshold, shutting the door behind her.
I went into my room and fell into bed, asleep with my clothes on, right until morning.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I have to go. You said so yourself. Preston needs a friend to steer him from trouble.” I stood at the mirror in my bedroom, tying my bowtie. The darkness had come on quickly. Black velvet night pressed its face to my window; a thin beard of ice spilled frostily over the sill.
Nina was adamant. “I’ve changed my mind. You’re more important to me than Preston ever was. And remember, I know him as well as you do, or better. He’s quite resourceful and responsible for his own actions. The situation’s too dangerous. We saw what Balthazarr was capable of yesterday. The man’s unpredictable. You can’t say what will happen tonight. You can’t, because you don’t know.”
I went over to the bed where she was reclining and kissed her. “That is precisely why I must be there. To protect Preston from unforeseeable events.” I hadn’t told Nina about Minnie’s visit or her disturbing report on the recent changes in her fiancé. I was more worried about my old friend than I was letting on. Sharing that with Nina would only cement her determination to keep me at home. Preston needed my support. “I predict that several foolish men will drink too much alcohol, speak boldly, and smoke too many cigars. They will grow weary of each other’s company because they are not so young as they once were. The end.”
Nina rose from the bed, brushing me back.
“I don’t like it. But it’s your decision.” Her coldness conveyed utter disapproval.
I combed my hair, watching Nina in the mirror, in the doorway, slowly receding.
I finished grooming. Yet I stayed where I was, my eyes locked on Nina’s reflection. She opened her mouth about to speak. “Please save your arguments,” I said. “I’m going.”
A flash of red-hot anger. “Go on, then! It’s you who’ll regret not listening.” She stormed out. Her heels clicked as she crossed my bedroom, not slowing down as she entered my studio. Soon she would be gone. Out the door. I turned and ran after her.
“Wait! Nina!”
Her hand rested on the doorknob. She was staring at the wood panels, the ghostly message the gargoyle had left for us, though it was barely visible in the lamplight. She saw it.
“I’ll find you when I get home,” I said. “If that’s what you want me to do.”
Without another word she left me standing there.
I went into the closet and fetched my overcoat, leather gloves, and black bowler.
A long chilly night awaited me.
•••
I took a cab to Independence Square.
I wasted no time entering the park. The brut
al temperatures inspired me to keep moving. The park shelters occasional unsavory characters after dark. I quickly recognized the loiterers hanging around Founder’s Rock at near midnight, polluting the air with expensive tobacco smoke. My fellow partiers pour la nuit.
“There you are, Oakesy!” Preston said around his imported Havana.
“Let me have a look at you,” I said, sounding more worried than I had intended.
Preston made a strange face and held out a silver flask. A tad gaunt, dark around the eyes, but his skin was flushed with drink. Overall, he did not appear as a man bedeviled.
“You need to catch up,” he said. By the proof of his breath and wobble in his steps, he was speaking the truth. He slugged me boyishly in the upper arm. He and Minnie were very fond of administering a light pummeling during conversation. I pictured them aged in the Fairmont mansion, having abandoned language entirely, relying on biffs and thwacks.
“Who’s on board with us tonight? Connors and Read? Bug-eye Westy? Did you wrangle Thurlow, Shattuck, and Nettleton? I fear a reunion with that gang might kill me off for good.”
But, as it turned out, I had no worries. None of the old gang made it to Preston’s bachelor party. Had they drifted away only to have their shoes filled by New Colonists? Not including myself, I counted six Colonists in tonight’s group. I’d never seen Preston with any of them before now. From the far side of Founder’s Rock emerged the caped, top-hatted Juan Hugo. He was walking with a cane, not because he needed it, but for the effect; his stick was blackthorn, its knob might have been a natural bulbous peculiarity, but it seemed carved and cycloptic.
“A few days ago, I read in the newspaper that my countryman Ramón Franco crossed the Atlantic in an airplane. From Spain to South America in less than two and a half days. Imagine what the Conquistadors would have done if they had airplanes. Our world is shrinking fast, mis amigos. Getting smaller each day. Soon it will implode violently, like a massive star. Where do you go when there is nowhere to run? When it collapses, where will you be?” he said.
“I’ll be good and drunk.” Preston tipped back his flask. It was empty. He tapped the last drops of whiskey into his mouth then capped the flask before chucking it into the bushes.
“Hey, that was silver! Wasn’t it?”
The Colonist who had spoken was named Devereaux. He wrote Dadaist-inspired poetry, cutting up epic poems – Beowulf and Dante’s Divine Comedy were favorites – mixing in local newspaper advertisements, and reassembling the random fragments into blocks of text, out of which he removed every other vowel. He performed these aloud. His aim, he said, was to destroy language. He complained his task was impossible. Although, I thought he did a pretty decent job.
“Damn my silver! I’ve twenty-nine more at home!” Preston shouted.
Balthazarr rubbed his bare hand on the Founder’s Rock, looking at the sky.
“Isn’t it cold?” a painter named Fowler asked, crouching at his feet.
The Surrealist studied the oblong stone dedicated to Arkham’s original colonists.
“Not to me, it isn’t. The menhir boils with energy surging from the earth’s core.”
“That’s frostbite you’re feeling,” I said.
As Balthazarr watched me, his rubbery mouth pulled into a clownish grin. Shadows filled the hollows of his face. He was a handsome man, but a grotesque animation enlivened his sneer, or perhaps it was the spotty electric lighting in the park. Glass shards from multiple damaged lamps littered the pavement. Vandals, I guessed. Ruffians. Nothing more sinister than that. Was I trying to convince myself? Or did every detail hint at a hidden threat?
“I am going to die tonight.” Preston’s tone startled me, forcing me to regard him with genuine unease. He pointed at the ground. “I will literally freeze right where I am standing.”
“Where to next, Mr Balthazarr?” It was the other painter who tagged along with Fowler. Jeremy Whipple. He died not too long after that night. After sailing to Australia to paint scenes of farming life, he fell under a Sundigger cultivator.
“La Bella Luna,” Balthazarr chewed on the words, biting into succulent fruit.
“La Bella Luna!” Preston yelled.
Nine well-dressed men of the city intoned his mantra.
I was too sober to enjoy our parade up Garrison Street. It was a relief to reach our destination. The warmth inside La Bella Luna seemed overmuch, a tropical contrast to the tundra of the park. Preferable, but soon I was sweating, my forehead beaded. The Italian bistro was unpopulated at this late hour. I hadn’t realized we were planning to dine. My companions, apart from Preston and Balthazarr, appeared equally puzzled. Balthazarr tapped his stick on the podium, summoning a slouching concierge who counted out nine menus.
“Allow me,” Preston said.
Balthazarr acquiesced, letting one of Arkham’s native sons take the lead.
“Marco! It is Marco, isn’t it?” Preston asked.
The concierge inclined his head a fraction of an inch in acknowledgment.
“Marco, can you serve a private party of our size? Downstairs?” Preston flashed a playful gaze back at us.
“We are crowded at the moment, sir,” Marco said. “Maybe if you come back later.”
I gawked at the empty tables.
Then I smirked as the reality of the exchange dawned on me.
“I always have a table waiting for me downstairs.” Preston added a theatrical wink.
“Right this way, sir. Please follow me.” Marco put the menus back.
We trailed him through the bistro, its walls papered with gold velvet fleurs-de-lis. Past the kitchen entrance was a second door, hidden behind the corner. Marco opened it, revealing a wooden stairway and strains of live jazz piano rising from below.
Preston tipped Marco. We descended into the passage.
“Tell them Marco said to let you in,” the concierge called down after us.
At the bottom of the steps: a steel barrier. A spy hatch slid open in the center of it.
Preston repeated the concierge’s words.
Bolts were thrown. A roar of music escaped as we were admitted.
“Welcome to the Clover Club, boys.” A towering redhead in headdress greeted us. She had arachnid eyelashes, large hands, and a six-shooter on her hip. “No weapons permitted. Check your pieces here. Lie to me, you’ll regret it. Ooh, I like your beard, hon.”
The hostess stood nose to nose with Balthazarr and tweaked his chin whiskers.
“You are a very tall woman,” Balthazarr said, blushing.
“I’m from Texas. Everything’s big in Texas. What about your stick? Got a sword inside?”
“No, madam. It is natural solid wood.”
The hostess held out her palm. Balthazarr laid the cane across it. She checked the stick for concealed blades, then returned it. “You coldcock anybody, we’ll use that thing to break your legs. Understand? This here’s a peaceable joint. We don’t like shenanigans.”
Balthazarr’s eyes grew large in mock terror. He pretended to quake.
The lower level of La Bella Luna housed a speakeasy in full swing at midnight. Brick walls, part of the building’s original foundation, contained most of the noise; the opulent dark green draperies, hanging ceiling to floor around the club, smothered the rest. Adorned with silver palms, the stage glowed in the center of the main room. A jazz band was playing. The same band that played at Preston and Minnie’s party at the observatory. The piano player began to sing of lost love and memories best left undisturbed.
“Get a load of this place!” Whipple’s head swiveled left and right.
Fowler nudged him with an elbow. “Act like you’ve been here before.”
“But I haven’t. Have you?”
Fowler shook his head and pointed to a row of archways at the back, their openings partially concealed with clacking strings of multico
lored glass beads. Men and women parted the curtains, heading in and out, offering glimpses of felt-covered tables, card players, and spinning roulette wheels. “The high-rollers must hang out in there. I’d like a peek.”
“Go on, fellas. Make yourselves comfortable. Oakesy and I will find a table. Come back when you’re good and ready. Here’s some seed money.” Preston peeled off bills from a stack of crisp green lettuce. “Let’s see who’s lucky tonight.”
Fowler, Whipple, and Devereaux headed for the card room. The other three New Colonists, whose names are not important, grabbed their allowances and advanced like a line of windup automatons to the club’s poker tables, where they leave our story, never to return.
Balthazarr, Preston, and I ambled over to the bar in the corner.
Preston bought three whiskies. Balthazarr made a beeline for an empty table. A bull wearing a tuxedo stopped him, informing him that table was reserved, and he needed to look elsewhere. Balthazarr apologized but never broke eye contact with the bouncer.
“There’s a table,” I said. “Those people are leaving.” I grabbed a chair, sat down.
“That’s Naomi O’Bannion’s table you tried to steal, Juan Hugo. Strictly off limits,” Preston said, sliding into a seat nestled between Balthazarr and me.
I recognized Naomi’s name from the bootleggers’ camp. Winston had mentioned her talking to Freddie in the ice truck, while I was rolling around with mackerel. My mind flashed to the ditch, on their eyeless faces gaping at the stars through the pine needles.
“Who is O’Bannion?” Balthazarr asked, sipping his bootleg drink.
“Her family sells vice in this city. Naomi’s fiancé is Peter Clover. This is his place.”
“Ah, so that goon is her goon.” Balthazarr was still watching the club muscleman.
“Somebody’s making a killing tonight. The place is packed,” I said.
“Alden’s never been here,” Preston said. “But Minnie and I love it. The club really swings. You wouldn’t believe what we’ve seen happen down here. Crazy things.”
