The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  I ducked into the bathroom on my way back, flushed the toilet, and washed my hands, making sure to leave them a tiny bit damp. Every con artist knows it’s easy to get away with lies the size of Mount Rushmore, but missing the tiny details will kill you every time.

  “—barely have to pay them,” Artie was bragging to Paolo when I walked back into the living room. “You promise them points based on net profit. It’s called Hollywood accounting. Hey, look who’s back! I thought you fell in.”

  “Sorry,” I said, patting my stomach and wincing as I sat down on the sofa. “Turns out drinking vodka all night and starting the day with a greasy breakfast burrito is not a winning combination.”

  My wallet wasn’t where I had left it, and my host had a new bulge in his hip pocket. Perfect.

  “I’ve been there,” he laughed. “So we were talking about your, uh, collection.”

  The front door rattled on its hinges, and heavy footsteps slapped against the marble tile. I looked over as our new guest arrived, a hard-eyed piece of bad news in a gray wool blazer. He peeled off the jacket as he walked, giving us a good look at the nickel-plated .38 in his shoulder holster. Clunky cop shoes, cop jacket, cop gun. I tried to make myself very, very small.

  “What is this?” he said, looking at the three of us. “A sausage party?”

  Artie forced a smile, giving a nervous laugh that didn’t fit his bodybuilder’s frame. “Hey Carl, just entertaining some fans. Sit down, grab a beer with us.”

  “Yeah, that’s okay, you guys can go back to suckin’ each others’ dicks. Is she here?” He jerked his thumb toward the back of the house.

  “Well yeah, but—”

  A thunderstorm brewed behind the cop’s eyes. “But?”

  If Artie had squeezed his beer bottle any tighter, it would have shattered in his hand. “Just…maybe don’t mark her up this time, okay? I’ve got some friends coming over tomorrow.”

  Carl sauntered over, resting his hand on his shoulder holster.

  “We got a problem here, Artie?” he asked quietly.

  “No, no, of course not! Hey, go on back, she’ll be happy to see you.”

  Carl stomped off. A picture formed in my mind, as shiny as the shield on his belt. Now I realized why something about Artie had put me on edge the moment he opened his front door. Down in the tunnel, Eric had described the men who dumped Stacy’s corpse.

  Skinny guy with a face like a hatchet, and a bodybuilder with a blond perm. Hatchet-face was the one who liked waving his gun around.

  It fit Artie and his pal Carl perfectly. Eric had only seen one badge. He just assumed they were both cops. A nasty little suspicion occurred to me.

  “Wow,” I laughed, shaking my head. “Your friend’s pretty intense, huh?”

  “He’s not my—I mean, he’s, yeah. Intense.” Kaufman sank into the sofa, pouting like a six-year-old.

  “What’d you say his name was? Carl? I was watching something on the news last night about a detective, what was his name?” I pretended to concentrate, then snapped my fingers. “Carl White. That’s not Carl White, is it?”

  “Nah, his name’s Holt. Listen, guys, I’d better let you go, he’s in a mood and this could get…I just don’t want to deal with it.” He handed me one of his business cards, crisp block lettering on soft cream. “Call me tonight, all right? I really want to talk to you about your collection.”

  I promised I would, and Paolo followed me out into the sunlight. As I revved up the Mustang’s engine, he looked at me incredulously.

  “That guy totally stole your wallet. It was on the sofa, and I watched him scoop it up.”

  “I know.” I leaned back and smiled. “He was supposed to.”

  11.

  I tugged off the Black Eye, the steering wheel jerking in my other hand. A world of sensations flooded my senses with the force of a brick to the face. I dropped the talisman into my lap and gripped the wheel, taking shallow breaths until I felt human again.

  “You,” Paolo said, staring at me from the passenger seat with one elbow cocked out the window, “are one weird dude.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “What do you mean he was supposed to steal your wallet? You had me working all night on those IDs!”

  “That’s right. He should be online right about now, digging up anything he can about Peter Greyson. Look at it from his perspective: he thinks I’ve got what he wants, a genuine snuff movie, which is also illegal as hell. I might be legit, I might be a crackpot, or I might be a cop trying to snare him in a sting. If he thinks he’s got a handle on who Peter Greyson is, he’ll feel safer, more likely to stick his neck out. Also, now I have a reason to go see him again, once I discover my wallet is missing.”

  “So the business cards you had me do up—”

  “Are for a real outfit in Los Angeles. EpiCalc was an accounting-software company that went belly-up last year. Kaufman will see the company’s legit, but he won’t have any way to verify whether Peter really was a sales manager there. Then there’s the receipts. If you see an ATM receipt showing a person’s account is fifty-eight bucks overdrawn, and then a liquor store cash receipt from that same afternoon for a twenty-dollar handle of vodka plus he’s splurging on a rented Mustang, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?”

  “The guy’s in a downward spiral,” Paolo said.

  “Right. Probably needs cash, too, and fast. Put the story together, and Peter Greyson is a desperate man in a bad situation. He’s the kind of person, in other words, who Kaufman can wave some money at and bend over a barrel.”

  I pulled up outside the Love Connection. Before he got out, Paolo gave me a long look.

  “Careful. He’s got an ego, but he ain’t dumb. That cop buddy of his looks like real trouble, too. You sure you aren’t in over your head?”

  The real trouble, I thought, is the woman who could have shredded us both into bloody confetti without breaking a sweat, but Paolo doesn’t need to know that.

  “If I’m not in over my head, I’m not trying hard enough. Thanks for the assist, Paolo. I’ve got it from here.”

  I took the side streets on my way across town. I wasn’t afraid of being followed; I just needed time to think. I kept the Mustang’s top down. The breeze felt good on my skin, an antidote to the desert heat.

  Detective Carl Holt. Same Holt, I’d bet cash money, as the one who gave Jud Pankow the runaround. He and Artie had dumped Stacy’s body and now he was in charge of investigating the case. Nice arrangement. Carl and Artie weren’t friends, that much was obvious. I had Artie pegged as a typical bully, happy to slap around women half his size but easily cowed by a more dominant personality. Carl fit the bill. Hell, he had a key to Artie’s house and walked in like he owned the place.

  To see “her,” I reminded myself, and unless there was somebody else in the house, that means Caitlin. I remembered Artie’s protest about “marking her up” and bristled, squeezing the steering wheel.

  What kind of demon would Artie summon? Obvious answer, the number one go-to choice for every wannabe sorcerer out there: a succubus. Thing is, according to all the lore I’d read, a succubus’s kiss could be just as potent as mainlining heroin. Just as addictive, too. I ran the numbers in my head and built a theory.

  Artie binds Caitlin to his service. Artie murders Stacy. Artie introduces Caitlin to friendly Detective Holt and gets him hooked on her supernatural charms. The offer couldn’t be simpler: “You can romp in the sack with my pet demoness any time you want; just help me cover up this pesky little murder first.”

  Both men had something to hold over the other. Carl could expose Artie as a killer, and Artie could take Caitlin away and introduce Carl to the joys of occult drug withdrawal. Mutually assured destruction. No wonder they hated each other.

  I could work with that.

  #

  “So what are my options?” I asked Bentley, leaning against the front counter at the Scrivener’s Nook. He looked up at me from behind an antique cash reg
ister, arching an incredulous eyebrow.

  “Well,” he said, “he can order his demon to tear you to pieces, or he can have his police officer friend shoot you and cover up the murder. Or maybe he can just beat you to death with his bare hands. It sounds like he might be abusing steroids, and that sort is prone to uncontrollable rages, I understand.”

  I looked around at the clutter of books, stacks upon stacks covering vintage tables and overflowing mahogany shelves. Bentley and Corman’s store existed in a constant state of controlled chaos. They prided themselves on a filing system dictated by whimsy and decor that was trendy two hundred years ago. Every time I came in, I felt like I’d walked into a Charles Dickens novel.

  “I was kind of hoping for some more concrete guidance in the research department? Maybe from the backroom collection?”

  “Just exorcise her. You know how to do that,” Corman said, easing his way up a ladder on the other side of the store with a box of hardcovers precariously balanced against his hip. I jogged over to hold the box while he finished his climb.

  “She’s not possessing a human. She’s an incarnate, I’m sure of it.”

  “Incarnate demons are rare for a reason,” Bentley fretted. “The sheer power required to create a physical body out of nothing but raw spiritual energy…most of them just can’t do it. They have to climb inside a human or an animal to survive in our world. You’re absolutely certain?”

  “Kid knows how possessions work,” Corman grunted, saving me the effort. “If he says she’s an incarnate, she’s an incarnate.”

  Bentley held up a finger. “Point of order? Can we use ‘it’ rather than ‘she’? It’s an important distinction. Daniel, I know that these men are…abusing her, and I understand how you feel about that, but you must remember that you aren’t seeing what you think you’re seeing. That isn’t a woman, or even a person. It’s a creature born of sin and corruption in its purest form.”

  “What he’s saying is…” Corman reached down to take another book from the box. “She’d gut you as soon as give you the time of day, no matter how nice she smiles.”

  “I get that,” I said, pretending I hadn’t had Caitlin on my mind since the second we met. “If I’m going to take these guys down, though, I need to get around her somehow. Look, Kaufman must have a binding contract somewhere in his house. If I burn the contract, doesn’t that—”

  “Set the demon free on the spot?” Bentley said. “Oh, yes, most assuredly, at which point it will thank you with a wet and messy death. Oh, and you’ll have succeeded in unleashing a free-willed menace upon the world to spread havoc and misery however it pleases.”

  Corman shook his head. “Bad play, kiddo.”

  “Don’t suppose I’d have any chance in a straight-up fight?” I asked.

  Bentley tapped his bony finger against his chin. “You’re talking about an incarnate demon with at least a few centuries of power and experience. How do I draw a comparison for you? Let’s see. Cormie, what was that delightful science fiction movie we watched last weekend?”

  “The Terminator,” Corman grunted.

  “The Terminator.” Bentley nodded. “Have you seen it, Daniel? You might find it instructional.”

  #

  I had hoped to come home with answers. Instead I brought back a fifth of Bacardi, a two-liter bottle of Coke, and a microwave pizza from the convenience store down the block. I knew I’d been having too many nights like this in a row since Roxy left, but it was a comfortable rut.

  I booted up my laptop and got things ready. Time to call Artie. I kept a box of burners in my closet, cheap Nokia flip-phones with a few hours of prepaid time for jobs like this one.

  “Mr. Kaufman?” I said when he picked up, trying to sound harried and breathless. “I’m so sorry to bother you this late, I’m sure you’re busy. This is Peter, Peter Greyson from this morning? Paolo’s friend?”

  “Hey, Pete!” he boomed. “How the hell are ya? Sorry we had to cut things short, bro.”

  “Totally understand, you’re a busy man. I didn’t leave my wallet over there, did I? I dropped it somewhere, and I’ve been going nuts trying to find it all afternoon.”

  “As a matter of fact, you did. I found it in the sofa cushions just like, five minutes ago. I was about to call you and let you know.”

  I exhaled with mock relief. “Oh, man, thank you, you’re a lifesaver.”

  “So, Pete,” he said slowly, building himself up to it, “you said you’re a collector. Paolo said you might be able to get, you know, some really rare videos?”

  “I have one that you might like. Listen, normally I’d share it for free since you’re my favorite director, but I’m in a little jam here—”

  “Say no more, bro. We’re both men of the world. It’s all ups and downs, am I right? So how do you feel about a nice fat stack of cash in your hand? I can make that happen, if you’ve really got what I’m looking for.”

  “Oh, I’ve got what you’re looking for.”

  “Yeah?” he breathed. I felt like a phone-sex operator, getting him all hot and bothered. Grimacing, I tapped my keyboard.

  “I’m not saying anything on a phone line, you know, but, well, listen to this.”

  Before calling Artie, I had logged on to Netflix and took a quick spin through the horror section. I’d queued up a one-star-rated film described as “raw, brutal torture porn” and paused it on a scene where a masked killer with a drill was terrorizing a naked co-ed.

  I held my phone up to the cheap computer speakers and hit play, treating Artie to six seconds of flesh-tearing shrieks. The special effects were terrible, but I bet the screams sounded pretty believable on his end of the line.

  “Just saying,” I murmured into the phone, hitting pause.

  “Holy shit, bro.”

  “It’s three hours long. Her throat gives out about two hours in, though.”

  “Yeah,” he breathed, “yeah, I think we can do business. Hey, my usual poker night is tomorrow. Why don’t you come on by, sit in for a few hands, chill with us, and then we can have a private viewing?”

  “Wow, I haven’t played poker in years,” I said, “but I guess I can give it a shot. You guys play for real money?”

  “Five-hundred-dollar buy-in. You could make some real money, you play your cards right.”

  “I don’t know. I really need every dollar I can scrape together right now. Five hundred’s just about everything I have left.”

  “Come on,” Artie said, “trust me, these guys I play with are chumps. You’ll probably steamroller them. Every dollar counts, right? And even if you lose, I’m gonna pay you a lot more than that for the video. You walk out with cash in your pocket, no matter how it goes down.”

  I counted silently to five, letting the tension simmer. “Oh, all right, I’m in. What the hell, right? Could be fun.”

  I promised to be there at seven sharp and hung up the phone. The poker invitation stank like a rotten fish. He wanted the video that badly, practically drooling into the phone, but we couldn’t meet to trade it before the game started? Or tonight, even? My gut said Artie didn’t intend to pay me a dime. He believed I was a desperate man in dire straits. Desperate and reckless enough, maybe, to be pushed into putting the video on the table when I’d lost everything else.

  The lion’s den awaited. Artie Kaufman, a sadistic killer expecting a prize that I didn’t have. Carl Holt, a corrupt cop with everything to lose. Caitlin, who had literally clawed her way out of the pits of hell. Then there was Nicky Agnelli’s connection to the whole mess, a big fat question mark dangling from the barrel of a gun.

  I only had one chance to yank the rug out from under Artie. If we made it to the end of the night and he figured out my “movie” was nothing but a blank DVD, no way was I getting out of his house alive. I didn’t like my odds. Still, I had two good reasons not to drop the job and walk away: Jud and Stacy Pankow. They both needed my help to move on, in their own ways. I’d live, if I walked away, but I wouldn’t be able t
o live with myself.

  12.

  I woke with the dawn and guzzled a bottle of water to chase away my hangover. Then I stumbled into the shower, letting the warm spray blanket me while I rested my forehead against the cool tile wall. Hazy dreams slipped between my fingers, dancing at the edges of my mind. I thought I had dreamed about Caitlin. Imagined her standing there, in the darkness of my bedroom, watching me sleep.

  I toweled off but didn’t get dressed yet. Instead I went to my closet and pulled out a couple of dog-eared books, flopping down on the bedspread to page through them. I needed an edge for tonight, a card up my sleeve in case things went sideways.

  “The Harlot’s Curtains,” I read aloud, my finger sliding across the page. “Oh, Aleister, your magic was dodgy, but you sure knew how to sell it.”

  The enchantment called for a lodestone, some powdered amethyst, and a dram of pigeon blood, among other ingredients. While it’s true that you can get anything you want in Las Vegas, that’s a privilege generally reserved for high rollers. The rest of us have to improvise.

  Once you know how magic works, once you’ve tasted its waters, you realize how few concrete rules there are. Most sorcerers come up with a deeply personal catalog of symbols and patterns expressing their unique approach to the art. I knew a guy who collected those advertisements for escorts you find scattered all over the sidewalk on the Strip. He read them like tarot cards.

  If you can figure out another magician’s mindset, you can take their spells and translate them into your own metaphor. Half an hour of legwork gave me a list of equivalent ingredients, my own version of the Harlot’s Curtains. All that remained was to put the enchantment together. I pushed the bed aside, uncovering the patch of floor where I’d carefully cut away the carpet and exposed the bare wood underneath. Chalk dust from a hundred rituals scuffed and streaked the faded boards.

  Four hours later I sat cross-legged, my naked body glistening with cold sweat, and blood roaring in my ears. The room danced with light from a triad of black candles. The last words of my invocation fell from my lips with the last of my energy, gutter-Latin escaping my body on a gasp. I had lost track of time along the way, carried aloft by a spell that wove itself from the desert air. A white poker chip from the Sands Hotel, a long-gone legend of the Strip, glistened in my open palm like a beacon in the shadows.