Arkham Detective Agency: A Lovecraftian-Noir Tribute to C. J. Henderson

by C. J. Henderson

  About 3 a.m., she finally started to wake up. Her eyes fluttered and focused on me. At first, they were hard, like frozen daggers, but they softened as they grew used to the dim light of the television.

  “How long have you been watching me?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “All night. You needed the sleep.”

  She sat up and the blanket fell from her, revealing all her beauty. She held her arms out to me with her head down, and her fingers beckoned. I should have not moved. I should have stayed on the other side of the room. But, of course, I shouldn’t have come back at all.

  Hours later the sun was beginning to rise, and there was a sheen of sweat covering our naked bodies. She continued to play with me as if she had to convince herself that I was really there. At least, that’s what I told myself she was thinking.

  “Who hurt you, Anna?”

  She turned her face away. “You know who did it. I’m sorry I called you. I shouldn’t have gotten you mixed up in this again. I just didn’t know who else to call. I’m so sorry about everything I did to you. It was Phil. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t do what I did. I never meant to hurt you.”

  Like everything Anna said, there was probably a kernel of truth in there somewhere. The problem was figuring out which part.

  “Do you have any money?” I asked. “We can just get out of town and keeping driving. Alaska. Let’s drive to Alaska. He’ll never find us up there. We’ll get a cabin out in the woods and live off the land.”

  I saw a wave of disgust wash over her only to be quickly replaced by the pained, injured little girl who oozed sex.

  “I can’t leave, Mike. It’s too dangerous. Phil’s gotten worse since you … left.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She leaned back, away from me, and lit a cigarette. “He’s been going crazy looking for some kind of antique jewelry. I don’t know what it is, but he’s hell bent on finding it. Calls it some kind of ‘Shining Trapezohedron,’ whatever the hell that is.”

  I hadn’t heard of it before but if ‘Big Phil’ wanted it, it couldn’t be anything good.

  “What’s he want it for?”

  Anna shrugged, turning her profile to me on purpose. “Who the hell knows? He’s been losing it for a while now. Claims that this piece of junk is a ‘window on Time and Space’ but I don’t know what good that would be to him. Phil’s always hated everyone and everything. Maybe he thinks that it’ll kill everyone for him.”

  I got up and stumbled over to the bathroom. Standing over the toilet, I got the same feeling I always had around Anna. I couldn’t think very straight and nothing made much sense. The only solution was to keep moving and hope I could come out of it alive.

  “So what’d he beat you up for, Anna? Do you have this jewelry?”

  I went back to the room and she was already putting her clothes back on. “No,” she said, “but he thought I did. That’s why he roughed me up. But then I took off, so I’m sure he thinks I have it now.”

  I started getting dressed. “And why’d you call me, Anna? You won’t run away with me, so … what? You want me to kill him?”

  There was a glimmer of lust in her eyes when I said that. She lunged at me and pushed me against the wall, her mouth hot on mine. “Yeah, Mike, that’s what I want you to do. You kill him for me and I’ll go away with you. Anywhere you want to go. I’ll be all yours. I’ll do anything you want, any way you want me to. Just kill him, okay? For me.”

  I grabbed her by the hair and flipped her around so now I had her pinned against the wall. I wasn’t a big guy, but I could be strong when I wanted to be. I pushed her into the wall and took her hard. I took all of the frustration of the last few years out on her, and she let me.

  Later I convinced Anna to stay in the motel and lie low. Phil’s goons would be looking for her, and I had a better chance of getting around quietly without her. I didn’t like Phil, wouldn’t have minded if someone else put a bullet in his ear, but I wasn’t going to be the one to do it. No, my brilliant idea was to find that thing Phil was looking for and use it to bargain our way out of Arkham. I was gambling that Phil wanted that jewel more than he wanted either of us.

  Did I mention I had a bit of a gambling problem? Mainly, making too many lousy bets was the problem.

  I placed a call I never thought I’d make to someone who never thought they’d hear from me again. We made plans to meet at the Kinsmen Bar over in South Arkham. I didn’t want to go, but if anyone would have information on this jewel, it’d be him.

  He was sitting at the far end of the bar when I got there. Frank Nardi, head of the Arkham Detective Agency and one of the few people who scared the crap out of me. Nardi was a tough old-school cop out of New York who had retired in Arkham and set up a private detective company that ended up getting a rep for handling ‘special’ cases. Nardi was a powerful man who could take you apart in about the time it would take to microwave a bowl of soup.

  He grunted as I sat down next to him and ordered a beer.

  “Didn’t think I’d ever hear your voice again,” he said, finishing his boilermaker.

  “It wasn’t the plan,” I replied. I bowed my head slightly. “I heard about Balnco. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Sure. I’m sorry. You’re sorry. His wife’s sorry. His kids are really sorry. Don’t matter either way. He’s still dead. What do you want? This isn’t the time for social calls, and I’m not feeling very friendly.”

  “I got a tip about something big. Figured that you would be the only person to know anything about it. You ever hear of the ‘Shining Trapezohedron’?”

  For the first time, Nardi looked at me. There was no fear in his face but there was a lot of wariness.

  “What the hell you want to know about that for? That’s way above the stuff you used to nick when you worked for me.”

  “I heard someone’s looking for it and thought I could maybe make a quick buck out of it.”

  Nardi went back to his beer. “Why should I tell you anything? I should just kick your ass up the hill to Miskatonic University and back down again.”

  I kept my eyes leaning away from him. “Because you owe me.”

  The anger in Nardi was growing like puss on an open wound. “What the hell did you just say? How the hell do I owe you anything?”

  I fumbled in my pocket and put a small coin on the bar. It was ancient and had weird symbols on both sides. I slid it over to Nardi and took a little bit of pleasure in seeing his face go cold.

  “Remember the Gault case?” I said.

  Nardi nodded and picked the coin up, running his fingers over the edge. “I thought it was Tony that pulled me out of that.”

  “Yeah,” I said, taking a sip of my beer. “That’s what he let you think. You went into that warehouse without any backup, but I called Tony and dragged you outside while the whole place burned and froze around us. You were out cold. When you came to, I was gone and Tony was there, so you just assumed it was him, and I didn’t correct him. After all, I had stolen that amulet out of your pocket. You figured you’d lost it in the warehouse, but you didn’t.”

  “You son of a bitch.” I wasn’t sure if Nardi was going to hit me or not but I braced myself for it anyway.

  Instead he pulled a piece of paper out of his coat pocket and wrote something on it. He shoved it over to me. “This guy might have a lead for you. After that, I don’t want to see or hear from you again. And I’m keeping this.” Nardi stuffed my coin in his pocket and walked out the door, slamming it hard on the way.

  “Looks like you made that guy pretty angry,” the bartender said, clearing away Nardi’s glass.

  “Nah,” I replied, “he’s always angry.” But he was right. I couldn’t risk pushing Nardi too far. I didn’t have the skills or balls to fight two sides at once.

  The name on the piece of paper meant nothing to me: “Wilson Monahan.” There was an address up on the hill, in the heart of Miskatonic University. That was one of the last places I wanted to g
o.

  - - -

  The old man who answered the door looked as if he would die if he sneezed hard enough. He seemed friendly but cautious.

  “Mr. Monahan?” I asked and he nodded in agreement. “I’m with the Arkham Detective Agency and I need to ask you a few questions.”

  He looked me up and down, moving his bifocals to get a good view. “Nardi send you?”

  “Yes,” I lied (sort of). “It’s important that I talk with you right away.”

  The man leaned on his cane and unlocked the screen door. He walked down the hallway and motioned for me to follow. The walls were filled with old photos of people who looked kind of like the old man. Probably family.

  We walked into a room the likes of which I haven’t seen since my grandmother died. It was old. Filled with old furniture and old wallpaper and old books and old papers and several old cats. The one thing I noticed that was especially odd was the fact that, in the middle of the day, all the lights in the house were on.

  He sat down on a wooden rocking chair, and one of the aged cats immediately jumped into his lap. I sat down on the sofa opposite him. No cats came near me. Cats have never liked me. I don’t know why.

  “So what do you want?” he asked, ending in a smoker’s cough that failed to dislodge the cat or the mucus.

  “I need to ask you about the ‘Shining Trapezohedron.’” I asked and watched for his reaction.

  I wasn’t disappointed. My old cop instincts told me that this guy knew something about it and didn’t like the fact that I was asking.

  He looked at me a long time before saying anything.

  “You didn’t grow up in Arkham, did you?” he asked. I shook my head “no” and he seemed pleased at that.

  “I did. My parents moved here back in ’39 from Providence, Rhode Island. My old man had been a cop there, up in the Italian section, on Federal Hill. Anyway, he saw something there one day that made him move us out of the city. I was just a little shaver then, ’bout ten years old, so I didn’t know nothing.

  “Anyway, the old man goes off to fight in the war over in Europe and gets himself hurt real bad. When he came home most of his mind and body were gone. Lost both legs from the knees down after being too close to an exploding shell. He didn’t have much of a life after that.

  “The government gave my ma a nice pension, and you could actually live pretty good on that back in those days. I grew up here and went to the university and became an architect. But you don’t give a shit ’bout any of that, do ya?”

  I smiled a bit, because he was absolutely right, and he knew it.

  “I asked if you were from here because, if ya were, I wouldn’t have to explain anything. I’d just say, ‘leave it be,’ and you’d get my gist. Except that I can see you wouldn’t listen to me anyway. You’re one of those haunted-type people. What do you want it for?”

  “We got a tip that someone bad is looking for it, and they’re looking to do something really bad with it.”

  Wilson nodded. “Yep, they could do that, all right. Why should I give it to you? Not that I wouldn’t like to be rid of it, ya follow? Haven’t had a good night’s sleep since my old man gave it to me.”

  “It’ll be safe with us. The Arkham Detective Agency has a special vault for these types of relics. Nobody will be able to get near it.” I lied again.

  “Is that a fact? Seems like Nardi would’ve told me that a long time ago.”

  Thinking fast, I responded, “Until now, he knew you’d keep it safe, but it’s too risky with these people searching for it.”

  “I suppose that makes some sort of sense. All right, then. Follow me.”

  I should have been suspicious. I should have realized that this was all too easy, but like I said, I never could think very clearly where Anna was involved.

  The old man walked down the hall and opened a side door to a basement. Light poured out of that doorway like there was a miniature sun down there. It didn’t seem to bother the old man, who walked down the steps without missing a beat.

  I followed him down and saw that the basement was simply one large room. There were four large floodlights on stands posted at the corners of an invisible square, all focused on the object in the center.

  There was a simple pedestal in the middle of the room. No carvings or designs; just a wooden pole with a flat top on it. On top of the pedestal was a small object that was barely the size of a desk phone. It was a metal box that was peculiarly asymmetrical. The metal was yellowish in color, and there were strange markings on it that showed weird-looking creatures like I’d never seen before, even on all of the artifacts I’d ‘procured’ for Anna. The box had a hinged lid and was closed. I stepped forward to open it, when the old man grabbed my arm with a lot more strength than I’d given him credit for having.

  “You don’t want to be opening it,” he said, “trust me. The gem’s inside. Best you lock it away unopened. My old man found it in a belfry of an old Italian church in Providence way back in ’38. Said that it was mixed up in the death of some writer fella. Turns out the old man had met the writer a few days earlier and told him some unnerving stories about that church and a ‘Haunter of the Dark’ that lived there. When he found out the writer had died days later, found dead in his chair of a lightning blast that had killed the man but not broken the window he’d faced or damaged anything else in the room, he went into the church and found this.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

  The old man looked at me quizzically, as if he had thought me more intelligent than I was in these matters. “There’s something that lives in the gem. It thrives in the dark. Once you look into it, it grabs hold of you and never lets go. That’s why my father moved us from Providence. He’d looked into it, you see, and it haunted him until the end of his days. He didn’t get wounded in the war by accident. He was trying to get himself killed but it didn’t work. In time, the thing ate his mind to the point where I didn’t know if I was talking to my father or something else.

  “It hates the light, you see. It’s the only thing that will keep it away which is why my electric bill is so high. It’ll be nice to finally shut these damn lights off for a change. Take it. Take it away from here. Lock it up or toss it in a fire, it’s all the same to me. Just damn the thing—and you, too, for that matter.”

  Without another word, I snatched up the box and put it in my coat pocket. It barely fit, but enough to make do. I muttered thanks and started walking up the stairs, when the old man spoke again, “You know, I’m just an old man and no one gives a damn about what I think, but isn’t locking away something that gets its strength in the dark inside a vault a rather stupid idea?”

  I shrugged. “I’m just the hired help, Mac,” I said.

  “Aren’t we all?” he answered as he walked around the room, finally shutting off all the lights.

  I got halfway down the street to my car before I got jumped. I’d been half-expecting it, but I was sloppy and out of practice. An unnaturally large man pounded my head against a brick wall, and I was falling deep down into a pit of darkness.

  When I woke up, I was tied to a chair in an old, broken-down warehouse somewhere. It smelled like fish, so we were probably near the waterfront. My head hurt like hell. Without touching it, I could feel the welt on my head where it had been rammed into the wall. Slowly I opened my eyes and saw ‘Big Phil’ standing there, grinning at me. He was a large man, but although he looked bulky, it was all muscle. As usual, he wore a stylish suit and his hair was perfect.

  “’Bout time you woke up, pally,” he said. “Would have been a shame to start without you.” He was holding the metal box in his hand, but it was closed. I could see two mugs standing in back of Phil. One was the gorilla who busted my head before, but the other one was a rodent-like guy. I could sense someone else standing close behind me, but I couldn’t see them. All I could smell was fish.

  Phil started laughing.

  “I gotta admit,” he laughed, “I
didn’t think it was gonna work. I mean, nobody could be that dumb, right? After last time, when we kicked your ass outta town, who’d figure you’d come back? I knew you were slumming it down in Podunk, Rhode Island, and I figured ‘he’s never gonna climb back outta that hole for nothing or no one, nohow.’ But I was wrong, wasn’t I, babe?”

  The figure in back of me walked forward. I didn’t have to look to know who it was. I could hear the dress swish around her hips, could feel the sneer on her lips. Anna’d gotten me. She’d gotten me good and I had no one to blame but myself. I only hoped they’d just shoot me quick and get it over with, but Phil was one of those guys who like to hear their own voice.

  Anna walked up to Phil. No, not walked, she slinked up to him like something out of a gangster film from the ’40s. She kissed Phil on the cheek and smiled.

  “I told you I could get him back, baby,” she said. “All I had to do was whistle, and I knew he’d come running.”

  “Lemme guess,” I said, “you couldn’t find that thing on your own because Nardi had it sewn up real tight and off the books. So you needed someone to get it out of him.”

  “And who’d have thought that he’d actually tell you?” Phil said. “I mean, the odds of this are unbelievable! I’d go gambling at the casino right now if I didn’t know those games are fixed.”

  “So what now? You gonna put a slug in me and dump me in the Miskatonic?”

  Phil smirked. “Nah, nothing that easy. You see, when you go after the big fish, you need to put something big on the hook. You’re bait, pally.”

  He nodded to his men. “Hold him.”

  The big guy got behind me and pulled my head back so hard that I couldn’t close my eyes. Phil walked toward me with the box in front of him.

  “Get a good, deep look, pally.” And he opened the box.