AHMM, Jan-Feb 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Grayson Reed had just heard on TV about the accident and his own close brush with death. He was cowering in a dark corner of his apartment when Mason arrived with two uniformed officers. Mason knocked. Then he identified himself and knocked again before ordering his men to break down the door. Reed panicked and tried to flee down the fire escape. At the open window Mason called for him to stop. When Reed did not, Mason shot him as he clattered down the iron steps.

  Gibbie set the newspaper aside the next morning, unsure what to do. Clearly Mason thought he'd killed the Carolers Club murderer. And maybe he had. The police lieutenant was a professional, after all. Maybe there was some innocent explanation for why Heck was under the SUV. Maybe Sammy had hired him to fix something. Gibbie saw no need to rush into things. If the killings stopped, then Mason was right. Gibbie nodded to himself, pleased with his logic.

  Besides he now had his hands full working night and day to help the Widow Sammy fill the gigs her late husband had booked. More work meant more money. Now Gibbie's fireside chats turned to talk of getting medical help for Tiny Tim, finding good women's colleges for Belinda and Martha Cratchit, and getting Master Peter into West Point.

  A week later, Fast Freddy Farmer was pushed from a subway platform in front of an express train, and the story started going around that someone was trying to kill off the Carolers Club. Gibbie knew that someone as Heck. But he was willing to take his chances now. Overnight the crowds picked up, meaning more money, since the performers got a cut of the gate.

  Those who came hoping to see a murder right before their eyes were not disappointed. First Cornelius O'Kelly, the Dublin Nightingale, was electrified by a loose connection as he plugged in the amplifier at the start of his act. He did a smart little Irish jig before falling backwards off the stage, dead as a doornail. Then Vera Vail, Mrs. Bob Cratchit, paused in mid monologue to take a sip of water and slumped over dead. (The police had checked the carafe on the dais for poison but not the rim of the glass she drank from.)

  With the Carolers Club members dropping like flies around him, Gibbie suddenly felt himself alive and exhilarated. The immense game of Russian roulette he was playing with Heck was the most exciting thing he had ever done. Even when Bolton Sharpe died onstage in a blizzard of Inuit words and paper snowflakes—the police discovered edges of the snowflake origami paper had been dipped in curare—Gibbie soldiered on. “Who's the gutless wonder now?” he asked the naked hand puppet of self-reproach, but received no reply.

  The Carolers Club murders, the hot news item that Christmas, got Gibbie an invitation to appear on the Late Show with David Letterman. The program began with a film clip shot in Gibbie's apartment with the non-Cratchit puppets lined up on the mantel. Gibbie introduced them and had Scrooge, Marley's ghost, the ghosts of the three Christmases, and Scrooge's Cousin Fred wish Letterman a merry, merry Christmas in their various voices.

  After the film clip the puppeteer joined his host in front of the cameras. He wore Tiny Tim on his right hand and Bob Cratchit on his left, with the rest of the family peeking from his jacket pockets. He and the puppets sported black armbands all round. Gibbie delivered a brief eulogy to the Carolers Club dead and ended with the club's battle cry of “Eeffoc Moor.” Then, sitting down with Letterman, he explained about Dickens's coffee room. When he segued into Mary Tyler Moore's Swen, Vermont, the studio audience went “Aww!” Then Tiny Tim gave his blessing and the studio audience went “Aww!” again. Letterman asked him to come back next Christmas.

  The following day Gibbie got a phone call about his ad in the Carolers Club newsletter offering Billy Napier's Kinky Carol puppets for sale. He didn't recognize the voice. But the person was prepared to pay Gibbie's price if the goods were as filthy as specified. They agreed to meet at the bus terminal where Gibbie kept Napier's stuff in a locker. (He'd never for a moment considered bringing it back to the apartment with his puppet family.) Gibbie waited for an hour before remembering he'd never heard Bosley Heck's voice plain, without the laid-on English accent.

  He hurried back to his apartment, whose atmosphere now had an alien charge to it. Had Heck been there? Gibbie crossed to the mantel. Was his puppet family cowering? Had Heck dared to threaten them? Well, Gibbie would put a quick stop to that. He telephoned Mason. He said he'd just seen Bosley Heck, a ghost from the Carolers Club's past, washing dishes in a Mexican restaurant in the Bowery. Mason understood and thanked Gibbie for the information.

  Hanging up, Gibbie called a fireside chat. “That was Lieutenant Mason I was talking to. You remember him, right?” He made the puppet voices assure him they did. “Well, you're all safe now. Mr. Heck'll never threaten you again. I see now I shouldn't have stood by and let him murder everybody like that. Well, none of us is perfect, right? Remember, you're my family. I did it all for you."

  Time for Tiny Tim's blessing. But when Gibbie reached for the puppet it recoiled as if from his touch. It moved. It was alive. Gibbie turned white. No! A live Tiny Tim could just as well say, “God bless us every one, except you, Mel Gibbie, you bastard!” Gibbie had to get control of his world again. With a curse he jammed his hand inside the puppet.

  Heck surrendered peacefully when the police arrested him at the Mexican restaurant. The man confessed to his crimes, insisting the murders were a far, far better thing than he had ever done. He would spend the rest of his life in an asylum for the criminally insane.

  Mason came round to tell Gibbie the news. When the puppeteer didn't answer his knock he grew concerned and hunted up the super. Let into the apartment, Mason found Gibbie dead, face down on the floor before the fireplace. He was wearing Tiny Tim, now grown immense, for Gibbie's hand had swollen up so large it split the puppet down the back.

  When Forensics told him of the six-inch Mexican scorpion they found inside the hand puppet, Mason recalled that the restaurant where Heck washed dishes had once been raided on a tip they were holding cockfights in the basement. Instead, the police discovered a room where shouting bettors crowded around a tabletop arena or stood on chairs in back with rented binoculars to watch pair after pair of virulent scorpions fight to the death.

  Copyright (c) 2006 James Powell

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fallen by Joan Druett

  It all began when the second mate dropped dead.

  Two hours earlier, the lookout's sharp eyes had glimpsed a pod of whales just after the sun had risen, though the light was glittering blindingly on the surface of the mid-Atlantic sea. “There blows!” he'd howled, and the decks of the small and elderly Nantucket whaleship Paths of Duty came alive with excitement. Captain Smith raced to the highest part of the mainmast, took a long look through his spyglass, and then came racing down again, bawling orders for the four whaleboats to be lowered.

  Wiki Coffin, who belonged to the second mate's boat, went to the waist deck, where that particular whaleboat hung in the davits, and within seconds was joined by the other three oarsmen of the second mate's boat's crew. With no more than a nod and a grunt, the second mate hurried up and jumped into the boat while it was still swinging, quickly followed by his harpooner, a Portuguese from the islands of the Azores, far off the coast of Portugal. His name was Miguel Dalgardo, and he was new to the crew, having been shipped at Fayal, three weeks before. Wiki and the remaining three lowered the boat into the sea, and when it hit the waves they jumped down into it and took up their oars.

  The second mate was also new to the ship, having been shipped at Fayal at the same time as Miguel. The old hands watched him warily, because this was the first time they had raised whales since he had come on board, and as he was over sixty, far too old for the whaling trade, they fully expected him to let them down. However, he stood like a gnarled warrior at his great steering oar as he sang out encouragement, and the boat pulsed on toward the spouting whales.

  Then they were up to the pod. “Stand, Miguel!” the second mate cried as the boat drew up to the first huge bull, and the Portuguese harpooner put down his oar, and st
ood up in the bow, while the oarsmen watched him surreptitiously over their shoulders. Despite their blackest suspicions, he immediately made it obvious that he had done this many times before too. Without the barest hint of fear, he braced his thigh into the notch in the bow thwart, gripping the ash handle of the harpoon and aiming it unwaveringly as with a great stinking belch the bull whale spouted.

  The second mate had steered well—the boat was directly in line with the hump. “Let him have it, Miguel!” he shouted, his tone quivering madly with excitement. Thump! went the iron, and the whaleline whistled out. Off went thirty fathoms as the whale startled, and then the second mate reached down and snubbed it to the loggerhead.

  With a tremendous lurch the whaleboat straightened up, and then it surged forward at a cracking pace, tugged along in the wake of the whale. Spray flew all around them, and everyone—except for Wiki, who, being the most junior hand, had the job of bailing out—hung onto the sides. The Nantucket sleighride didn't last long, because the whale tired out fast. After a few gigantic circles he slowed and then sank to a stop, and the old second mate ordered shakily, “Haul line, boys, haul line!"

  His voice was so strange that Wiki looked curiously up at him, to see that the old man's face was flushed scarlet and purple. The veins in his forehead stood out like worms, and his reddened eyes popped. The oarsmen in the bow were hauling hard on the whaleline to bring the boat up to the whale's side, dragging it in and tossing loose coils into the bottom of the boat. This was the moment when the second mate was supposed to change places with the harpooner. He was meant to step daintily along the length of the boat to the bow, pick up the sharp-bladed lance, and finish off the whale. Instead, however, he dropped dead.

  Wiki watched the old fellow double over, and paw feebly at the air. Then there was a big thud as he collapsed in a heap. For a moment, there was blank silence in the boat, punctuated by the swish of the sea and a snort and a slap as the whale recovered his wits and sounded, taking the line and harpoon with him before anyone could do anything about it. At that moment, everyone in the boat was too stunned even to notice the whale's departure. Someone reached out a tentative hand and nudged the second mate, but it was already plain to all that he was lifeless.

  As the boat's crew marveled after they got back on board, his very last words had been, “Haul line, boys, haul line!” The sailors of the Paths of Duty thought that this was truly remarkable, much more notable than the manner of his death. The second mate had definitely been too old for the whaling trade, liable to heart attacks because of the moments of great excitement that whaling involved—as everyone knew, Captain Smith had hired him only because he was desperate for an officer. While it was bad luck to lose him so soon, no one could say it was unexpected.

  Consequently, the funeral, when the captain said a prayer and the shrouded corpse was tipped over the rail into the sea, was almost perfunctory. Not only was he old, but over the three weeks since they had left the Azores no one had got acquainted with the old man. However, the ritual at the foremast next day, when the dead mate's effects were auctioned off, was surprisingly solemn—or so Wiki noticed.

  The captain presided, setting down the second mate's sea chest at the foot of the foremast, and then holding up his few belongings—a couple of shirts, a pair of shabby trousers, a few pipes, and a small bag of tobacco—and calling out for bids. According to tradition, the money raised would be sent to the dead man's family, something that not a soul on board the Paths of Duty believed for an instant, all of them being quite convinced that the captain pocketed the cash. However, the bids had come freely as men bought up the poor things, and the atmosphere had been remarkably somber—which, as Wiki found later that same day, had surprising consequences.

  It was during the evening dogwatch, the time of the day when everyone on board relaxed a bit, and the routine of night watches hadn't yet started. Wiki was on the foredeck quietly digesting his supper, when out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the harpooners lunge up and lean on the starboard rail beside him. His name was Isaac Norton. Wiki thought he might be a Martha's Vineyard man because he had joined the ship at Edgartown. They hadn't had much to do with each other: Norton was the harpooner for a different whaleboat and bunked in the steerage instead of the forecastle. So when Isaac cleared his throat, Wiki merely lifted his eyebrows and nodded politely before returning his contemplative stare to the quiet water.

  Then he heard Isaac remark grimly, “I don't want my gear sold off like that, not when I'm dead and gone."

  Wiki paused, not at all sure what to say. Auctioning off the contents of the dead man's chest was the usual custom with whalemen, one that he thought quite sensible. Otherwise, not only would a place have to be found to store the dead man's duds over the several-years-long voyage, but other seamen, who as a rule did not have much in the way of belongings, wouldn't be able to put stuff he didn't need any more to good use.

  However, Norton didn't seem to need a reply, as he went on broodingly, “I guess you don't have customs like that where you come from. Don't you bury it all with the deceased, or summat like that?"

  Wiki shook his head, biting back a grin. “Quite the opposite. When someone dies, people come from miles around to collect on debts, and it's amazing how much disappears."

  "That's exactly it!” Norton exclaimed, animated.

  "It's actually a kind of ritual plundering, what we call muru,” Wiki informed him.

  "And that's what I don't want to happen!"

  "No?” said Wiki. He wondered greatly where this conversation was headed.

  "Nope,” said Norton firmly. Then he was silent a moment, his mouth pursing in and out as he stroked his stubbled chin and studied Wiki with sideways looks. Then he observed, “Folks tell me that even though you're jest a Kanaka, you know how to read and write."

  "Aye, that's true,” said Wiki, without taking umbrage. Though he was half American and the other half New Zealand Maori, he was so used to being called a Kanaka—the Yankee name for a Pacific Islander—that it didn't trouble him any more.

  "You're sure?"

  Wiki cast him an icy glance. “I told you—it's true."

  "I didn't mean to cast aspersions,” the harpooner said hastily. Wiki was big and well muscled, and had stood up for himself several times already this voyage. “It's just I had trouble believing it,” Isaac Norton went on. “On account of you seem awful young to be educated. How old are you, anyways?"

  "Seventeen,” said Wiki. Before he had left New Zealand, his mother had told him to be sure to remember that he had been born in the year 1814, as Yankees set great store by birthdays.

  The other nodded. “I s'pose you was educated by the missionaries."

  As it happened, Wiki had originally learned to enjoy books because a drunken Yankee beachcomber—a man who, once upon a time, had been a respectable Edgartown captain—had taught him how to read. However, he kept a diplomatic silence, and at long last Isaac came out with what was on his mind.

  "I want you to write my will,” he said.

  "Your what?"

  "My Last Will and Testament. I'm not going to have my effects auctioned off at the foremast like that,” Isaac said grimly. “And who knows what accidents might happen before we get back to the Azores?"

  "We're going back to Fayal?” exclaimed Wiki, very startled.

  When they had been there three weeks previously, he had gone ashore at Fayal with the captain, to act as a witness. Hiring a new second mate and a new harpooner had been a long, drawn-out, difficult affair, because the United States consul had been so distracted. Not only were there locals in and out all the time trying to sell great baskets of onions and oranges to Captain Smith, but a visiting American merchant had stormed in to report the theft of a wallet of gold. What with all the commotion and bad temper, it had been many hours before they had been able to return to the ship. Having heard the skipper cursing Fayal so fluently, it now surprised Wiki greatly that he was entertaining the notion of revisiting
the place. It was also highly unusual for anyone in the crew to know the ship's next destination, as all captains were convinced that their crews would start plotting desertion if they knew where they were headed, and so kept it a deadly secret.

  "Fayal,” confirmed Isaac Norton. “The cap'n reckons he's had enough of cruising around here, what with all the foul luck we've had, and so he wants to provision for the passage around Cape Horn. But he daren't continue the voyage without yet another replacement second mate, and another harpooner as well. We've lost too many of the after gang already, and he wants a harpooner in reserve."

  Wiki nodded, understanding. There had been a lot of changes in the after cabin of the Paths of Duty in the three preceding months of voyage, what with the constant attrition of captains and officers. There had most surely been a lot of death on the old Nantucket whaleship—which brought them back to the matter of the will.

  This turned out to be quite a simple affair, as Isaac Norton was leaving everything he owned to Miguel Dalgardo. Wiki felt puzzled, as Dalgardo had been on board such a very short time. However, it seemed that Miguel and Isaac had been shipmates on a previous voyage. The form of the document was more taxing than the contents, as Isaac insisted that it should look too official to ever be questioned. Wiki cut a blank page from the back of his journal, and headed it up in the beautiful copperplate script that the Edgartown beachcomber had taught him, but after he had written down the name of the single beneficiary, there was still a lot of empty space, which Isaac didn't like, perhaps because he thought someone might sneak in a few extra items after he was dead. In order to fill it up, Wiki asked him to list the items in his chest, which turned out to be just a few assorted shabby garments, a bar of soap, a spare pair of shoes, a couple of double-eagle dollars, and some tobacco. However, putting them down filled up the page the way Norton wanted.