Lobster Johnson: The Satan Factory

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  Squatting down, he fished along the ground for a rock. Finding one with the adequate weight and heft, he tossed it into the darkness ahead.

  A rat the size of a small dog bolted from its concealment, red eyes glinting eerily as it ran along the opposite wall heading away from him.

  It was good to be careful down here, always better to be safe rather than sorry.

  At a junction, he split off into a tunnel no longer in use, climbing over the wooden barricades placed there to prevent passage. He didn’t have much further to go. He began to count the tracks just beyond the barrier as he walked, until reaching the specific number; he turned to the right and approached the tunnel wall. Looking down to the ground, he found a discarded piece of pipe and picked it up, tapping out a rhythm on the wall—a code.

  When he was finished, he dropped the pipe and stood quietly, waiting for a response.

  “Who goes there?” a gravelly voice asked from somewhere nearby, startling him even though he expected the question.

  “Is it friend or foe?” the creepy voice added.

  “It’s me,” he said. “Jake Hurley.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so,” the voice responded, suddenly jovial.

  Then there came the sound of grinding gears and stone rubbing against stone, as a passage in what appeared to be a solid wall rose up to grant him access to a set of metal steps that would take him further down into the darkness.

  —

  Hurley descended.

  He reached a tight corridor lit every foot or so by small lights hidden beneath metal grates that ran along both sides of the floor. At the end of the short hall was a door.

  His destination.

  As he walked down the corridor, he allowed himself to recall how he had come to be here, how he’d come to be yet another pair of ears for the mysterious vigilante known as the Lobster.

  Jake Hurley had been a good cop . . . too good, as some of his fellow boys in blue would tell him. Where many of his brothers on the force would partake of benefits bestowed upon them in the form of kickbacks and bribes, Jake refused to participate in any such illegal activity.

  It ate at him that fellow officers, men who swore to uphold the law, were actually in cahoots with the criminal element. It was more than enough for many a sleepless night.

  Finally, Jake couldn’t stomach it any longer. He had to put a stop to it, naively believing that one good man was enough to right a serious injustice. Even if that would mean the prosecution of some of his own, he felt that something had to be done.

  The guilty had to be punished . . . but that wasn’t what happened.

  Like rats forced into a corner, they came at him, doing everything they could to turn the tables and make him look like the guilty one. Fellow officers, even some that he believed to be friends, sided with those tainted by their criminal acts in order to bring him down.

  Within a matter of months he had been stripped of his job, and as the final nail in his coffin, they’d even gotten to his wife, convincing her of his guilt and driving her, with their baby daughter, away.

  And that was when he had died. Stripped of everything that mattered, Jake Hurley crumbled into a shell of his former self. The street became his home, cheap liquor the only friend that he could trust.

  But a rage burned deep in his gut, a rage that refused to leave him no matter how hard he tried to make his figurative death a reality. Eventually, driven close to madness by drink and isolation, he could no longer keep the rage in check.

  Knowing who was really responsible for the fate that had befallen him, Hurley had gone to a gentlemen’s club in Little Italy, forcing himself inside to confront the one that had taken so much away from him.

  The monster’s name was Rocco Fazzina.

  Drunk on cheap gin and high on adrenaline, Hurley had fought his way inside the club wielding a Louisville slugger.

  He still remembered the looks on the faces of Fazzina’s goons as he came into the club swinging. They didn’t know what hit them as he let loose upon the club’s clientele. It was just his luck that Fazzina was nowhere to be found that night, but he still took enormous pleasure from his destructive actions.

  He’d already known that he would probably die that night, but he was ready for it. After what he’d been through already, how bad could it be?

  Eventually Fazzina’s enforcers managed to overwhelm him. They grabbed his bat and drove him to the floor under a flurry of punches and kicks. He was just barely conscious when they dragged his beaten and bloody body into a back room to finish what they had started.

  A part of him had welcomed what he’d known was coming—finally there would be an end to his pain. But another, smaller part of him saw it for what it really was.

  Suicide.

  Hurley remembered the shame when he finally realized how weak—how pathetic—he had become. It had almost been enough to save him, a sudden burst of strength allowing him some final licks before they again restrained him, and prepared to put an end to his life.

  What happened next was all a blur. He’d taken quite a few knocks to the head, and his vision was pretty hazy. All he knew was that while Fazzina’s boys were getting ready to murder him, somebody shot out the bulb that was the back room’s only light source.

  Plunged into total darkness, the room erupted into panic. There were scuffles and screams and more gunfire, and through the muzzle flashes, Hurley thought he could see a figure dressed all in black, as if he were wearing the shadows.

  He didn’t think he had passed out, but he would never be quite sure. All he remembered was a sudden silence in the darkened back room.

  His thoughts raced. What just happened here? he’d wondered as he started to crawl across the floor, his hands falling upon the bodies of Fazzina’s men.

  He’d just about had a heart attack when a flashlight clicked on, illuminating the mysterious figure clad in black leather. He wore a helmet and goggles, the insignia of a blue lobster claw decorating the center of his chest.

  Hurley, and many others on the police force, had believed that he was just a boogeyman, another urban myth created by the criminal element. But the Lobster was real. He had saved Hurley’s life, and was standing right in front of him.

  Hurley was speechless.

  “You saved me,” he remembered stammering, his words distorted as they traveled over swollen and bloodied lips.

  “Was it worth my efforts, Jacob Hurley?” the Lobster had asked him.

  “How do you know my . . . ?”

  “The Lobster knows what he needs to,” the figure answered cryp-tically. “And I need to know if I wasted my time in saving your life.”

  Suddenly Hurley had wanted desperately to crawl up from the grave he’d already put himself in. “No,” he had replied. “No, I want to live.”

  “Good,” the Lobster said. “I could use somebody like you to help me with my fight.” He offered his black-gloved hand.

  And Hurley had taken it, allowing himself to be pulled up from the darkness.

  —

  The door at the end of the corridor swung open with a creak and Hurley entered.

  A husky man wearing grease-stained overalls stood just inside, wiping his big, grimy hands on an oily cloth.

  “Hey, kid,” Bill said. “How’d you like my scary voice back there? Think I could be on that Inner Sanctum program?”

  “Sure,” Hurley answered.

  The fireplug of a man laughed, shoving the rag into the back pocket of his work clothes. “Naw, and leave all this?” he asked. He turned and headed back toward the truck he’d been working on. He picked up a welder’s mask from a worktable on the way and placed it on his head. Then, slipping on a pair of heavy gloves, he retrieved his torch from the floor beside the truck.

  “Bein’ on the radio, I’d probably have to work too hard,” he added with a gruff laugh, slipping the mask down over his weathered face as he ignited the white-hot flame of the acetylene torch and returned to his work. It looked li
ke he was adding metal plating to the sides of the vehicle. Offhandedly, Hurley wondered why, but the conversation was clearly over.

  He left Bill to his chores, passing through another doorway, and down a shorter corridor to a much larger room.

  There were two more people there, a younger man dressed in tan slacks and a sweater vest, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled to the elbow. He sat, leaning his chair against the wall, his face buried in an issue of Weird Tales. His name was Lester, and every time Hurley had seen him, he’d been reading something.

  “Bob, all’s I’m saying is that just because a yeti body has never been found doesn’t mean that they don’t exist,” Lester said, making his chair wiggle as it balanced on its back two legs, his eyes never leaving the printed page before him.

  “And I’m saying because we haven’t found a body, or anything else really other than stories, that makes it more likely that they don’t,” Bob argued.

  He sat on a high swivel stool in front of a work station crowded with all sorts of lighted instruments and machine parts, holding a strange device in one hand and using the other to fiddle with one of its many knobs. From what Hurley had seen, this guy was the brains amongst the Lobster’s operatives. He certainly looked the part with his neatly cut and combed hair, bowtie, and round, wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Give me some solid proof that a species of large, ape-like creatures exists in the Himalayas and I’ll be more than happy to . . .”

  The device started to hum like a swarm of angry bees and a bolt of electricity arced from the end of the machine to strike the magazine in Lester’s hands, turning it into blackened confetti.

  “Holy Toledo!” Lester exclaimed, all four legs of his chair returning to the floor as burning black snow fluttered down around him. “Damn it, Bob,” he yelled, brushing the paper ash from his head and the exposed flesh of his arms. “I wasn’t done reading that yet!”

  “Sorry about that, kid,” Bob said, barely able to contain his amusement. “Didn’t know it was loaded.”

  “I oughta punch you in the nose,” Lester said as he pushed the sleeves of his shirt higher.

  Bob set the device down on the worktable and threw his hands up in surrender. “I give!” he exclaimed, laughing.

  And that was when they finally noticed Hurley standing there.

  “Oh,” Bob said, suddenly serious. “Didn’t see you standing there, Jake. How’s it shakin’?”

  “Hey, Jake,” Lester joined in. “Good thing you’re here. I was just about to rearrange Bobby’s pretty face.” He cracked his knuckles menacingly.

  Hurley felt uncomfortable. He was not yet a part of the bizarre camaraderie that these men shared with the mysterious crime fighter known as the Lobster.

  A palpable silence followed before he decided to break it.

  “Is he here?”

  Lester was about to answer when the Lobster emerged from a patch of shadows at the back of the room.

  “I’m here,” he said, his voice lacking any emotion. “What do you have for me?”

  A black man who went by the name of Harry followed the Lobster from the shadows. He was smoking a pipe, the sweet smell of his tobacco beating back the musty smell of dampness that permeated the underground headquarters.

  “Four guys, they’re planning on knocking over the First National on Wall Street this Saturday,” Jake told him. He reached into his pocket and removed a wrinkled piece of paper where he’d scrawled the criminals’ names, handing it to the crime fighter.

  The Lobster took the paper and studied the names through the red lenses of his goggles. Then he dropped it to the floor and turned, limping slightly, as he proceeded down another corridor to one of the many other rooms in the vast, underground lair.

  “Was he limping?” Bob asked.

  “What went on tonight?” Lester piped up, sitting down and tipping his chair against the wall again.

  Harry continued to puff on his pipe. “Same as every night,” he said with a shrug. “Somebody else faced the justice of the Lobster’s claw.”

  “Amen ta that,” Lester said with a smile. “Hey, Bob, I’m feelin’ a little parched, how’s about some refreshment?”

  The scientist turned toward a battered metal case close to the floor and opened the door with a creak, removing a bottle of what Hurley imagined to be whiskey.

  “I’m guessing this is what you’re talking about?” Bob asked.

  “You read my mind,” Lester answered, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

  Bob found four glasses and placed them atop his work station.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Harry said, removing his overcoat, and hang-ing it from a screw protruding from the joint of a pipe overhead.

  “Jake?” Bob asked, holding an empty glass out to him in invitation.

  Hurley felt his mouth grow dry as if suddenly stuffed with cotton. How long had it been since he’d last had a stiff one? It was the night that he’d gone to Fazzina’s to die.

  The night that the Lobster had given him another chance to live.

  He’d sworn off liquor that night, and hadn’t touched a drop since. He couldn’t let himself start again now.

  “No, thanks,” he mumbled. And without another word, Hurley turned to leave.

  He did not belong to this family.

  He belonged to no one.

  CHAPTER THREE

  —

  The Devil sat upon his throne, thinking about all the fear for which he had been responsible. He remembered their eyes most of all, the way their milky-white orbs bulged from the sockets as they realized they were in his presence. Rocco “The Devil” Fazzina remembered them all in flashes of violence and the looks of horror on their faces and the fear that filled their eyes.

  That fear belonged to him. He owned it, and that was what gave him his strength.

  Fazzina reached for the glass of wine on the table beside him. Bringing it to his lips, he tried not to think of what had roused him from his bed and brought him to his study at this ungodly hour, but only of what gave him his strength.

  What gave him his power?

  What was it his father used to say? Make them fear, and they will bow down to you.

  The old man had tried to instill that belief in Rocco at an early age, knowing that someday it would be his turn to run the family business. His father had been a cruel, unloving man, but Rocco understood the man’s motivations. He had to know fear before he could be its master.

  He sipped his drink, remembering the countless beatings, the days and nights spent locked in the woodshed.

  Rocco remembered the pity that he saw in his mother’s eyes after the many degradations heaped upon him by his father’s hand. She had no idea of his father’s intent, and at the time, neither did he. But Rocco came to understand, with each biting sting of the belt, each passing hour crammed within the cool damp darkness.

  He came to understand.

  A kind face . . . a gentle, caring face flashed before his mind’s eye.

  Her name was Isabel and she had labored as a maid in his family’s home. She too had seen his father’s actions, and had wanted to save Rocco. She had been the key to his enlightenment.

  It had come on a blazing August day. His father had forced him back into the woodshed for some minor indiscretion; he couldn’t remember what it was, but it might have been something as minor as not eating the crust of his bread. After a beating, he’d been locked in the darkness alone, with the scurrying insects that only emerged after the door had closed.

  Sometimes he could still feel their inquisitive touch on him, their whip-like antennae stroking his cheek, their many limbs slowly moving across the landscape of his hand.

  But on that particular day their exploration of him was interrupted. At first he had no idea what was happening. Had his father returned to punish him some more? He was certain that he had not yet served the time allotted for this latest wrongdoing.

  The heavy wooden door was pulled open, allowing the searin
g rays of hot light to flood the darkness, driving back the denizens of the shed’s cool shadows. Through squinted eyes, Rocco saw Isabel, dressed in her gray-and-white uniform, standing in the doorway, reaching through the darkness to drag him into the light.

  Fazzina could still remember the steely grip of her hand as she took his arm and began to pull. At first he’d let her have him,

  a part of him glad to be leaving that dark, horrible place, but then he remembered why he was there . . . why his father had put

  him there.

  He had to learn about the power of fear.

  He had fought her then, pulled his arm from hers and returned to a corner of damp shadow untouched by the beams of sunlight streaming in through the open door.

  I still have to learn, he had told her.

  Isabel came at him again, entering the shed to retrieve him. She told him that she could no longer bear seeing his father torture him so, and that she would save him.

  Isabel hadn’t understood. His father wasn’t torturing him, he was teaching him, teaching him how to be stronger than everybody else.

  The maid had grabbed him again, and tried to haul him out into the light, and again he had fought her. She kept telling him that she was taking him somewhere safe, somewhere where he would no longer have to be afraid.

  But Rocco couldn’t have that. In a panic he’d dug his fingers down into the cool, bug-filled earth, searching for purchase to keep her from pulling him out of the darkness, and in so doing, he had found his answer.

  The rock was colder than the dirt around it, and it fit perfectly into his hand, almost as if it had been made especially for him, for this very purpose.

  He had pulled the rock up out of the dirt and swung it toward the maid’s kind face. The first blow grazed her temple, knocking her violently to one side. She slumped to the ground and started to moan.

  And that was when he began to truly understand everything that his father had been trying to teach him.

  Fazzina could feel the fear coming off of her in waves.

  He could see her eyes glistening wetly in the darkened end of the shed, where the sunshine could not reach. He could see her fear and thought that it was wonderful.