Waiting

by Stephen Jones

  At this Mr. Brady looked somewhat shocked. Did I not know that Dr Van Bogusteen’s Preparation had long ago been proscribed, as it contained various highly narcotic substances? I said I did not care, as it was the only thing that relieved my stomach problems of which I gave him a comprehensive, indeed exhaustive, summary. He took my “organ recital” very well, considering, and asked me if I had seen a doctor. I replied that I had not. He seemed perturbed and said I should do so at once, and that his “Bureau” would defray any expenses; then, immediately correcting himself, he said he would do so personally. I really cannot fathom this young man; but then, as my literary friends keep reminding me, an understanding of human nature has never been one of my strengths as an artist or as a man.

  A further oddity occurred, for when I happened to mention that the vividness of my visions of late may have been due to my ingestion of Bogusteen’s Preparation, he immediately said that he would “see what he could do,” but he also insisted I should visit a doctor. We took our leave most cordially. I cannot help liking Mr. Brady. He is obviously a gentleman, even though he appears to work for a living. What precisely is the nature of that work, I have yet to discern.

  April 30, 1937

  The first thing Brady did after checking into his hotel on West 54th Street was to call up his friend Charlie Chin. He and Charlie had been star pupils together at the Harvard Law School and an immediate friendship had been formed that, despite the fact that Charlie was a New Yorker and Brady was based in Washington, D.C., had endured. After Harvard, Charlie went back to New York to help run his father’s very successful string of chop suey joints in the Broadway area. Brady, whose family had lost everything in the Wall Street crash and subsequent depression, needed to earn money fast and so joined the FBI straight from graduation.

  Charlie, whose energies were prodigious, had, in addition to running the chop suey establishments, set up a law firm on Broadway, specializing in show-business clients: theater contracts, copyrights, and the like. He had immediately written to his friend Brady offering him a partnership. Brady, who had begun to find his work at the Bureau engrossing, had reluctantly declined, but not without the warmest expressions of gratitude to his old friend Charlie.

  They met, that evening, at Sardi’s on West 44th Street, in the Theater District. Both men were delighted to see each other again, Brady noting that his old friend looked the very image of prosperous contentment. But it was not long before Brady came to the point. He wanted to know if Charlie—whose store of show-business gossip had always been prodigious—had heard about any trouble going on at a theater that was under construction or renovation in the area.

  Charlie Chin leaned back on the banquette and studied Brady with an anxious, puzzled look on his face. It was unusual for Charlie to look anything other than completely at his ease.

  “You wouldn’t like to tell me exactly what all this is about, Nathan?” he asked.

  “It’s an FBI matter. We’ve heard some rumors. I’m afraid I can’t be too specific.”

  “All right, Nathan, but you’re going to go carefully aren’t you?”

  “Okay, so what have you got, Charlie?”

  “Ever heard of Micky ‘the Angel’ Buonarrotti?”

  “I am familiar with his reputation. The Bureau has him on file.”

  “Well, then you know he is not a man to be messed with. He is sometimes just known as ‘Micky Angel’—so-called because he was once an altar boy in the church of St. Ignatius in the Lower East Side and looked angelic. Once. Then came puberty and he joined his uncle—Joe ‘Claw Hammer’ Buonarotti, so-called because, well, you get the picture. Joe specialized in liquor importation and extortion, and young Micky Angel learned his trade quickly and developed it to include prostitution, numbers rackets, you name it. He is now one of the most notorious and powerful hoodlums in all New York. My advice, Nate, is on no account to seek acquaintance with this guy. He has a way with a sawed-off that is in no way gentlemanly, and his close associates are no longer choirboys either.”

  “So? Where does the theater came in?”

  “Micky Angel is an empire-builder. He is always acquiring businesses and property—legit or illegit, it makes no difference to him. Well, one of the properties he acquires is a run-down old theater on Broadway called the Roxy Palace and he is in the process of restoring it and putting on a swanky show there mainly for the benefit of his current doll, a Miss Billie Bernard, a Broadway hoofer with ambitions to be a star.”

  “So?”

  “So, they have completely renovated the stage area, including putting in a revolve and a hydraulic system under the platform, but there is a problem. The builders and workmen he has hired are refusing to work down there. Micky throws threats and money at them in equal measure and still they refuse, and many, including Micky, natch, are beginning to suspect that Leo ‘the Artichoke’ is at the bottom of it all.”

  “The name is not familiar to me, Charlie.”

  “That has been til now your good fortune, Nate. His full name is Leo ‘the Artichoke’ Vinci. He is a big hoodlum and maybe the only one who can make Micky Angel still look like an altar boy.”

  “Why ‘the artichoke’?”

  “Believe me, Nate, you do not want to know.”

  “So?”

  “So, in the first place Leo runs a fashionable nightery called the Garden of Allah, which is just a block away from the Roxy, and does not take too kindly to Micky Angel setting up an even classier establishment on what he considers to be his territory. And second of all, Miss Billie Bernard used to be his doll and used to sing and dance at the Garden of Allah. Well then, these guys start turning down well-paid work in Micky’s theater and won’t give no clear reason. Then a couple of nights ago, something else happens.”

  “Tell me, Charlie.”

  “This is only rumor, mind you, and I had it at third hand, so you didn’t hear it from me, and anyway the details are so hazy . . .”

  “Yes, yes! Well?”

  “Some guy who’s still working at the Roxy disappears. Just vanishes. And while he’s working in the building. Honestly, that’s all I know.”

  Brady shivered. It may be that Lovecraft’s vision had been accurate. It was a thrilling and decisive moment, but something in him wished he had been wrong.

  After a pause, Brady said, “So how do I find out more, Charlie?”

  “I suppose you will not take my excellent advice and have nothing to do with this?”

  “Charlie, I took an oath to the flag and to J. Edgar.”

  “You always were such a Boy Scout, Nate. All right then. My advice is to hang around Mindy’s, the restaurant. It’s where all the showpeople go, it’s cheap and if you don’t prefer chop suey as you should, the food’s not half-bad. And you know how showpeople gossip. There’s bound to be someone in from rehearsals at the Roxy. Make yourself out to be some kind of an agent—a theatrical agent, I mean, not a G-Man, for Christ’s sake! Or a newspaperman. Most showpeople have an inordinate and misplaced faith in agents and newspapermen, until they become old and cynical, so pick on the young ones. You never know, you might find it amusing. You look like you need some recreation.”

  “And you won’t tell me why this Leo guy is called ‘the Artichoke’?”

  “My lips are sealed. Have a Cognac.”

  March 1st, 1937 (from the diary of H. P. Lovecraft)

  My dyspeptic condition is no better and I am running out of Dr. Van Bogusteen’s Preparation. Ever since my vision, the phrase “The Armies of the Night” has been echoing through my head like some execrable tune by Messrs Gershwin or Berlin. Well, having nothing better to do by way of editing or writing, I decided if I might try to see what it signified. Among the volumes bequeathed to me by Grandfather Whipple was an ancient and battered copy of Dr. Dee’s translation of the Necronomicon (1598). It is, alas, incomplete and in some respects inaccurate, but I have been denied access (as has everyone) to the only copy of the more comprehensive and accurate Latin version by
Wormius (from which, in any case, Dee derived his version) at Miskatonic. Well, enough of this pedantry! Following a minute perusal, I did come across the following:

  It is written that the Great Old Ones shall lye a-dream till certaine awakenings shall happen. Then they shall mingle with mortalls-perforce, or by the debased and willing subjection of some-and bring forth a race accursed, a half-broode. And these shall be called the exercitus noctis or armies of the night, or, in their owne blasphemious tonge: Rugelloi fo Ixion [as usual, Dee, never having heard the language spoken, has transcribed it inaccurately]. And they shall rise up from beneath the earthe and smite all in their pathe, and though many perish, they cannot be subdued till one shall perform the three Voorishe Invocationes under the protectioun of the Hand of Glorye.

  The Hand of Glory, I understood. It is an ancient magical instrument made from the severed hand of a condemned man, but the “Voorish Invocations” I could not fathom. I knew that the Wormius Necronomicon contained a section at the end (which Dee had not translated) on ancient Voorish magic, so perhaps the invocations were there. But the Miskatonic Necronomicon was no longer available to scholars such as myself. Long years ago I was briefly granted access to their copy, but, alas, I only took a cursory glance at that last section because it was in some form of code. No doubt that was why Dee made no attempt to translate it, though he was a friend of Trithemius and something of an expert in cryptograms.

  My friend Mr. Brady called on me. He expressed great interest in my researches and asked me some detailed questions about the possibility of gaining access to the Miskatonic Library in order to examine the Wormius Necronomicon. He seems to have some ulterior motive in wanting all this information from me, which I cannot fathom. Still, he is a gentleman and treats me like a gentleman, and that is a rare thing.

  He gave me the name of a physician whom I should see for my gastric problems, telling me that I had no need to trouble over the expense as he and others who admired my work had arranged for all bills to be paid. He also gave me a bottle containing a liquid which, he told me, would have much the same effect as Bogusteen’s Preparation. I have tried it and it does, but it is not nearly so foul to the taste as the Preparation. For some reason, this is rather a disappointment; my Puritan blood runs deep.

  March 2, 1937

  When Brady got to Mindy’s he sat himself at a table near the wall so he could watch all comers and goers. He ordered a coffee and a plate of ham hock and sauerkraut, which, he was told, was Mindy’s specialty. It was six o’clock, which was about the time that most Broadway players come in from rehearsals, or to grab something to eat before doing a show. Brady watched the clientele with the fascination of a born observer as they came in and out, insisting on their favorite tables, or, eyes wandering, looking for a friendly face: the almost-famous who made a grand entrance to attract attention, and the already-famous who tried desperately to avoid it.

  Brady was on his fifth cup of coffee and Mindy, the proprietor, was beginning to eye him unfavorably, when a group of chorus girls came in and sat themselves in the booth next to Brady’s. They exuded life, vitality, and laughter, and it seemed to Brady that they were taller than the average hoofer. Brady was struck in particular by one of them, darker than the rest with jet-black shingled hair, golden skin, high, aristocratic cheekbones, and wide, smiling eyes. A slight Southern drawl permeated her Brooklyn accent. They began to gossip about the show they were rehearsing and much of it, suffused with giggles, was incomprehensible. But then he began to hear odd fragments of conversation which interested him.

  “So what’s with this revolving stage?”

  “They’ve stopped working on it.”

  “For Micky Angel? That’s bad news for them. What’s the beef?”

  “Someone said the smell. Like a million-year-old dead fish. Haven’t you caught it even in the dressing rooms? And it’s worse down there. Much worse.”

  “So there’s a smell down there. So can’t they wear masks or something?”

  “And then this guy who’s working down there just vanishes. Young guy and all. With a wife and kids. And Micky goes ape.”

  “Why, it’s not the poor guy’s fault. Maybe he just—I don’t know . . .”

  “No. But Billie says Micky thinks it’s the Artichoke at the bottom of it!”

  “Jeez! Keep your voice down, Ellie. You don’t know who might be listening.”

  Suddenly a blonde, bubble-curled head appeared above Brady’s stall.

  “Excuse me, sir. But might you be earwigging on a private conversation? If so, please desist forthwith or you might get a sock in the kisser.”

  Brady remained calm. “That would be regrettable, Miss—?”

  The blonde who, in spite of herself, seemed favorably impressed by what she saw, introduced herself as Lisa Bolt. The others were also introduced by name, including the dark girl who was called Miss Ellie Jackson. Brady bowed formally and told the girls that he was Nick Carraway of the New York Sun.

  “But I assure you, ladies,” he said, “that I will regard anything you say as off the record.”

  “Oh, yeah!” said Lisa. “I’ve heard that one before.”

  “Aw, give the guy a break,” said Ellie. Brady caught a smile that was echoed in her eyes.

  “You give the guy a break, sister. I’m off home to give my kitty his tuna au naturel. Are you coming girls?” The others, apart from Miss Ellie, followed Lisa Bolt, who was evidently a leader of women. The one left behind was neither leader nor led—and Brady registered the possibility of a kindred spirit.

  “May I join you?” he asked.

  “It’s a free country.”

  “I hope so, Miss Ellie,” said Brady, seating himself opposite those smiling brown eyes. “My view, for what it’s worth, is that the jury’s still out on that.”

  “My! A newspaperman and a philosopher. I’ve never met one of those before. Or are you a newspaperman, Mr.—what was it?—Nick Carraway? A swell literary name that. Now where could I have read it before?”

  Brady had reached a moment of decision: to trust or not to trust. He plunged.

  “You are working at the Roxy Palace?”

  She nodded. “And you?”

  “Nathan Brady, FBI. I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss Ellie Jackson.”

  Ellie had little more to add to the information Brady already had about the situation at the Roxy Palace, but she promised him that she would observe. She admitted that she had been troubled by what had happened and that the place “had a bad feel about it.” To lighten things, Brady ordered two dishes of Mindy’s famous apple pie and asked her about the show.

  Ellie explained: “It’s a musical called Zip Ahoy! It’s about this guy called Johnny Saint who’s an inventor, like poor but honest, that stuff. And he’s soft on this doll, right, and she’s like a big star called Dorita Sunshine, or Sonnschein, only she’s not Jewish or nothing. And she’s a great doll because she loves Johnny, even though he’s poor and stuff. And this guy Johnny invents this zip fastener, see. Only it’s a great zip, like a million times better than the ordinary zip and he’s going to make a whole lot of potatoes from it. Only there’s this Ritzy gangster, called Rocco ‘the Slasher’ Golstein—but he’s not Jewish, neither, he’s kind of Jewish-Italian—so he blackmails Johnny and steals the formula and he says he’s not going to give it back or nothing unless he can have Dorita, and Johnny says nuts to that, but Dorita she wants to save his invention ’cause she really has the hots for him and wants to be his ever-loving wife and all that, so she says she don’t love him no more and they all get on this ship where Dorita is singing in the cabaret and there’s this big mix-up over some missing pearls which end up in Johnny’s cabin so he is arrested and put in the sneezer on board. But there is this doll on board called Ruby Emerald and she’s a jewel thief and Dorita recognizes her and threatens to tell the cops and put her in the sneezer unless she steals back the zip and anyway it all ends happily. And I’m a hoofer in the chorus and understudy for
Ruby Emerald, who is played by Miss Billie Bernard, Micky Angel’s doll.”

  “I see.”

  “Sounds a bit of terrific, huh?”

  “I hope Billie Bernard is prevented from playing Ruby Emerald so I can see you in the role.”

  “Don’t you wish that on me, Mr. FBI. Micky Angel will not be pleased if Miss Billie Bernard is stopped from being a big star, which is what this show is all about. Anyway, Billie is an okay broad and I would never wish harm on her.”

  “Can I pick you up after rehearsals tomorrow?”

  “You may, Mr. Brady.”

  “Thank you, Miss Ellie. I’ll be outside the stage door.”

  III

  March 4, 1937

  “You seem to have done well, young man,” said Hoover. “And this informant of yours. Miss Ellie Jackson. Is she to be relied on?”

  “I am sure of it, Mr. Hoover.”

  “Hmm. She is, however, a woman, Brady. And a woman, Brady, is always a woman. Note that down.”

  “I’ll bear it in mind, Mr. Hoover.”

  “The next thing is to gain access to the theater.”

  “I am working on that, Mr. Hoover.”

  “Good man. Now this stuff about the three invocations and the Hand of Old Glory.”

  “Hand of Glory, sir.”

  “Hand of Old Glory. What are we doing about getting hold of them?”

  Brady explained the difficulty of acquiring the invocations without access to the Miskatonic Library; and getting hold of the severed hand of a condemned criminal also presented problems.

  Brady added: “But all this is just superstition, Mr. Hoover. In an old book.”

  “Don’t knock old books, young man. They may be old, but they can sometimes give you the low-down, such as the saying: ‘There are more things in heaven on earth.’ Do you know who said that?”

  “I think it was Hamlet in—”

  “A great American called Buffalo Bill said it. Not a lot of people know that.”

  “No, sir.”