I am Providence

by Nick Mamatas

  “Started a fight with Tracy McKendrick?”

  Colleen shut her mouth.

  “I would have retreated from Tracy’s attack.”

  Amato snorted. “That would have been a good idea either way,” he said, “so why didn’t you?”

  Colleen said, “She was like a wild animal, or the sort of bullied kid who one day goes crazy and shoots up the school, killing both her bullies and everyone else. I thought she might have something going on. Her and Phantasia. And don’t they?”

  “Never mind about Mr. Greenfeld for now,” Amato said. “I want you to tell me how I can know you had nothing to do with the murder of Panos Panossian or Charles Cudmore.”

  It was a shocking question, like being thrown into a wall. But the wall crumbled and Colleen’s central nervous system took over and she spoke, “Had I wanted to kill Panossian, I could have done so at any time. Why would I lure him away from my room to kill him? Why isn’t there blood or anything leading back up to my room? Cudmore? My alibi is your police force bringing me here at about the time Cudmore was killed. I was in a cop car, or down in the morgue, depending on exactly when it happened. It’s obvious, really, Detective Amato. Am I free to go?”

  Amato shook his head. “Not quite yet. Here’s a mind-blower for you, broccoli-top”—Colleen’s hand reflexively touched her hair—“what if there is no book?”

  “But there is! Cudmore—”

  “Did you see Panossian’s copy of the book?”

  “No...” Colleen said.

  “How do you know he had one then? Doesn’t it seem strange that he would have a copy?”

  “He said the author, we called him ‘Skinner’ because he was anonymous, sent it to him as a token of his appreciation,” Colleen said.

  “Does Panossian seem to you like the kind of guy who would get expensive presents from secret admirers?”

  “No, not normally,” Colleen said, “but he did have his fans. And frankly, if anyone was going to be a fan of Panossian, a crazy person with a skin-book is probably it.”

  Amato shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Okay, but think of it this way—someone really wants that skin-book. Panossian doesn’t have it; he made it up, or heard that it was real and faked up some leather Moleskine or something to make a few bucks. It’s not the sort of crime the victim would call 911 about, is it? No skin off Panossian’s nose, right?” He snorted at his own joke.

  “But, Colleen, imagine the sort of person who’d buy Panossian’s book. How angry might he be if he paid up a bunch of money—”

  “Where’s the money then?” Colleen asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. Everyone has smartphones; the book-buyer could have done a transfer with an app. Anyway, he pays the money, gets the box, and finds out that it’s empty.”

  “Don’t you think the buyer would want to examine the book first?”

  “Okay; he opens the box, looks at it, realizes that Panossian tried to pass off some normal leatherbound book as a human skin-book, and then...what happens?”

  “An argument.”

  “A fight.”

  “A fight...” Colleen said. “A fight that ends with him killing Panossian and taking his face?”

  “Killing him via taking his face,” Amato said.

  “How is that possible?” Colleen said.

  Amato said nothing. Colleen looked at him. He twitched an eyebrow and lifted his chin.

  “Big tough guy knocks little rat-faced guy out?” Amato held up a hand and lifted his index finger.

  “Multiple people cooperate to hold him down and cut him.” His second finger went up.

  “Panossian was already weakened, perhaps by his roommate?” Third finger, but he winked.

  “He was a little tipsy, a little out-of-sorts. He didn’t seem very healthy. I imagine him living in a coldwater flat, eating ramen from a hotplate and wearing gloves while he typed out angry emails on his laptop because he couldn’t afford heat or a Starbucks coffee.”

  “Easy to knock off, that’s your estimation?”

  “Let’s say I agree with your estimation,” Colleen said.

  “Easy enough for a small woman like Tracy McKendrick to knock off?” Amato asked.

  “I suppose anything is possible,” Colleen said.

  “Exactly,” Amato said. “Anything is possible. That’s what we want you to keep in mind. You know, in the future, when one of your friends gets killed and you decide to start interrogating suspects in washrooms.”

  Amato looked over the top of Colleen’s head and nodded. “Do you understand? Capische?” Colleen could feel, she thought, someone looking at her, but she knew better than to turn around.

  “What you are saying is that you’re going to let me go, and that I can head back to the hotel, but that I definitely should stop poking my nose into police business, stop following people, and that I absolutely should not try to find the book because it probably isn’t real. Because, as you say, anything is possible.”

  “Exactly,” Amato said. “I don’t want to see you here again, not in handcuffs. And that isn’t up to me, it’s up to you.”

  “I will definitely behave in the manner you describe,” Colleen said plainly.

  Colleen was sure that Amato was secretly giving her the go-ahead to continue to root around. He had spelled out some alternatives she hadn’t considered not to dissuade her, but to arm her, to keep her from leaping to conclusions without thinking through all the possibilities. And anything is possible.

  If anything is possible, then yes, an untrained writer could find a murderer.

  Amato snapped his fingers in her face. “Hey, Ms. Danzig. Earth to Danzig, did you get sucked away by the Mi-Go? I said your ride is here.” And he pointed.

  Colleen turned around and saw R.G. R.G. lifted her hand and waved, jingling a set of keys. “C’mon!” she said.

  “Oh!” Colleen said to Amato. “Thanks. Thanks for calling her.”

  “No sweat,” Amato said. “I’ll walk the two of you out. C’mon.”

  Outside, R.G. strolled over to a motorcycle, complete with sidecar. “Cool, eh?”

  “Wow,” Colleen said. “Is it yours?” R.G. pushed a helmet at her chest, and she oofed a bit.

  “Yup. Once upon a time I had a real job, and made some real money, and this is my baby. I don’t park it near the hotel because I didn’t want some angry white dude to vom in the sidecar,” R.G. said. She waved a hand toward it. “Hey, get in! Watch out for the mic when you put on the helmet.”

  Colleen gingerly stepped into the sidecar, put on the helmet, and lifted the visor. “I’ve always wanted to ride in one of these.”

  R.G. smiled as she straddled her bike. “So has everyone who has never ridden in one before. It’s kind of like rolling down the highway in a La-Z-Boy recliner, so…” She unfolded the lever with her right foot, stepped onto it, and kickstarted her bike. R.G. whoooed over the roar of the engine, shut her visor, and signaled for Colleen to do the same.

  “Can you hear me?” R.G.’s voice echoed tinnily in Colleen’s helmet.

  “Wow, yeah,” Colleen muttered.

  “What!” R.G. said.

  “Yes, I can hear you!” Colleen shouted, way too loudly for her helmet.

  “Just talk only a little louder than normal, like you’re trying to make yourself heard over the droning of some white dudes going on about the thematic importance of titties in video games.”

  “Got it!” Colleen said. Then the sidecar jerked and they were off.

  “You know what they say,” R.G. said. “You ride a motorcycle, but you drive a sidecar. It’s pretty cool!” R.G. didn’t handle the sidecar all that well, and Colleen thought she heard something rattling.

  The helmet limited her view of the mounting bracket holding car to bike and suddenly Colleen felt very vulnerable. “Does it always rattle like this?” she asked over the helmet radio.

  “I don’t know!” R.G. said. Everything was a shout. “Never rode in it. Never let my kids ride in it either. I u
se it for packages, groceries, that sort of thing.”

  “Why did you come get me? How did you know?” Colleen asked. “Nobody ever came to get me before.”

  “I don’t know that either!” R.G. said. “They just made an announcement that everyone was free to go, and that if someone wanted to pick you up, someone could!”

  Everything felt suspicious now. Were the cops going to just put the squeeze on Chloe till she confessed to both killings or named accomplices? She and Phantasia were weird enough that any trial would be a formality. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, look at these freaks! One thing Colleen had never considered—R.G., Raul, and Barry. They seemed as though they were friends with Panossian, but who knows? Panossian had bullied Barry into wearing that dumb nametag. R.G. used to have money, but didn’t anymore, and a copy of Arkham delivered to the right hands could go a long way toward solving that problem. And Raul...it hardly mattered, but he was probably nuts in some way. Anything was possible. That’s what Amato wanted her to know. Colleen had ignored some potential suspects and now was riding along with one of them in a mobile death trap. Was R.G. going to drop the heel of her boot on the bracket and send the sidecar spiraling off into a ditch, or just swing over across the traffic line and let a semi take Colleen out?

  “Pull over!” Colleen said. “I feel like I’m gonna puke!”

  “But we’re almost there,” R.G. said.

  “I’m going to puke in your fancy helmet!” She made some gagging noises into the mic. “I’ve been up all night, no food, in a dirty prison cell. I need air!”

  “Calm your tits, Danzig, I’ll pull over at that doughnut shop.”

  R.G. pulled into the parking lot, just like an ordinary person not planning on murdering Colleen. She even took off her helmet and waited for Colleen to step out of the sidecar and do the same. Of course, once Colleen took off her helmet, R.G. would have a clear shot at Colleen’s head with her own helmet. The store was oddly empty of traffic for a Sunday afternoon. Didn’t people buy cardboard jugs of coffee and doughnuts by the dozen for brunch anymore? The doughnut shop had definitely seen better days. It was once a Dunkin’ Donuts but the Brand Police had been by and stripped the signage and posters, probably due to poor economic performance or one too many health violations.

  “Gosh, thanks,” Colleen said into the mic. She could hear her own voice coming from the helmet in R.G.’s hands. “Look, I spit up in the helmet a bit. Let me just go to the restroom, okay?” She ran off before R.G. could answer, but heard a worried-sounding “okay” through the mic as she entered the shop.

  The cashier barked at her. “Hey!” She reached down under the counter and came up with an aluminum baseball bat. “If you think you’re gonna rob this place, I’ll ring your damn bell,” she said. She was a small round woman, and despite the edge in her voice she still sounded like a girl. Her uniform had once been a Dunkin’ Donuts ensemble, but the logo was covered by an oversized, and blank, plastic name tag.

  Colleen lifted her visor. “Wait, I’m just... I need your bathroom.”

  “You have to buy something.” She placed the bat on the countertop, within easy reach.

  “Okay, a coffee.” Colleen dug out a few crumpled dollar bills from her pocket and pushed them at the cashier.

  “Your hair is green,” the cashier said. She pressed a button on the cash register.

  “Uhm...yes,” she said.

  “I heard some cops talking about someone who was killed the other night. He had green hair too. Is that why you’re wearing a helmet?” the cashier said. She wasn’t getting the coffee was what was happening.

  “Wait, what?”

  “The other person with green hair,” the cashier said, her voice still cutting and light at once, like a little girl snapping at a doll. “He was brained. Head smashed open. You figure wearing that helmet indoors will keep someone from sneaking up on you?”

  “Oh,” Colleen said. “Well, no. Where did you hear about this? Did it make the news?” There were newspapers for sale on the counter, but only USA Today, not the Providence Journal.

  “Nah. People just come in here, police especially, and talk like they’re all alone, you know?” the cashier said.

  “What else did the police say?”

  “Don’t you want to use the bathroom?”

  “Well...yes!”

  The cashier shrugged. “We don’t have a public restroom, sorry. Let me get you that coffee.”

  Finally the cashier turned her back on Colleen, leaving the baseball bat unguarded. She wanted to grab it, just for safety’s sake, or to augment her demand for the bathroom.

  “Do you have an employee-only bathroom?” she said, sliding her fingers toward the bat.

  “It’s for employees only,” said the cashier.

  “Thus the name,” Colleen said. She rolled the bat onto the floor. “Whoops! Oh, sorry, please let me use it, just once. I think I’m going to be sick!”

  The cashier spun on her heel, coffee held high. “What are you doing? Give me that bat back! No, wait, don’t touch it. Freeze, or I’ll throw this coffee in your face!”

  Colleen slapped the visor of her helmet down. “Ha!” But she put her hands up.

  “What’s going on in there?” It was R.G., through the helmet mic.

  “Want me to call the cops?” the cashier said. “They all love me, you know.”

  “Want me to pee on the floor?” It wasn’t even about R.G. anymore. The cashier was just another enemy now, another person saying “No” and being belligerent for no reason other than petty authority. No, lack of authority. She was just a minimum-wage worker who didn’t even qualify to work for a real Dunkin’ Donuts.

  “You can go pee out by the dumpster, you fucking freak,” the cashier said.

  “Can I at least have my coffee?”

  The cashier shoved the cup at her. “Here you go. God knows why you want to pee and drink at the same time. That’s like buying a coffee just to dump it out.”

  By the dumpsters, Colleen did actually dump out her coffee. She had to think—was R.G. the killer after all? There were so many possible suspects. Nobody seemed to like Panossian, and virtually anyone at the Tentacular would do something drastic to get their hands on Arkham. If not kill someone, then come across a dead body clutching the book and just pry it from Panossian’s cold, dead hands.

  “Of course, who the hell would be in the laundry room?” Colleen said, aloud. “Half the guys haven’t even changed their shirts all weekend.”

  “What?” It was R.G., communicating over the helmet connection. “Aren’t you done yet? Are you really peeing outside?”

  Colleen bit her lip. R.G. didn’t ask about the laundry room—was that because she already knew about the laundry room? Did the uniformed cops tell people where Panossian had been killed as part of the interviews they did with everyone?

  “I have to…do some laundry when we get back to the hotel. I was just thinking aloud,” Colleen said into the helmet.

  “Let’s go. I want to make the closing ceremonies. Everyone is going to be there because…you know.”

  “I know,” Colleen said. One more chance to get everyone together. With two bodies in the morgue, R.G. wouldn’t dare try to kill Colleen now. It would be irrational.

  Like…tearing off someone’s face.

  For the moment, Colleen decided to trust R.G., or at least act as though she did. Back in the sidecar, she asked. “Who do you think did it?”

  “Panossian?” R.G. said. “Asparagus Head. You know, Cudmore. And then Chloe killed Cudmore.”

  “But why?”

  “Who the fuck knows, Colleen. People are just crazy,” R.G. said. “Cudmore was always a looney. Chloe was probably just doing a Fatal Attraction thing with Panossian. She attacked you, didn’t she? She was probably just jealous that you were staying with him.”

  “How did Chloe know to kill Cudmore then? How did she get to the field?”

  “Christ, I don’t know,” R.G. snapped. Her usual g
ood humor was gone. “Let me drive.”

  It was worth considering. Cudmore kills Panossian and takes his face, maybe with the help of other people, as Amato suggested. Either Chloe was one of Cudmore’s confederates, or found out about Cudmore’s role in the murder and took some sort of sick revenge.

  So, who did Chloe know who also knew Cudmore? Phantasia, obviously, since Phantasia had been around for decades and knew everyone. So did Ronald Ranger, who called Cudmore a good friend. And Cudmore was with the whole Bhanushali crowd digging up that cat, but had had some sort of disagreement with them. She was back in the incestuous tangle of Lovecraft fandom—everyone had multiple connections to everyone else, rivalries and friendships, resentments and admiration, cults of personality and long-simmering vendettas.

  Before she knew it, Colleen and R.G. were a block from the hotel. R.G. parked on the street, took her helmet off, and smiled widely. “Ready?” she said, her voice raised.

  Colleen didn’t want to take off her helmet. Things were quieter inside, and darker, and subtly warped, like she was peering at the events from a distance, or via a screen. She felt safe. Nobody could take her face while she wore the helmet, or sneak up behind her and cave in the back of her head. Why didn’t everyone wear motorcycle helmets all the time? Why didn’t they shower in them, and clean off the visors with Windex? Why not fuck in them, smacking the hard shells together instead of kissing?

  R.G. leaned in and rapped on Colleen’s helmet with one knuckle. “Hullo? You fall asleep in there? C’mon!”

  Colleen took off her helmet and ran a hand through her short hair. “Okay, let’s get this done. I guess I’ll just wait in the lobby.”

  “Why?”

  “Armbruster,” Colleen said.

  R.G. shrugged. “What’s he going to do? Throw you out again? Call the cops who just let you go, again?”

  “He might just do that,” Colleen said, but she followed R.G. into the lobby and directly into the large conference room where the opening ceremonies had been held just two nights before. This time, the room was packed, and even the hotel bar was likely empty. Bhanushali was on stage, in a black business suit, as was Ronald Ranger. A large blow-up of Charles Cudmore’s author photo, with his pointy head and feathered hair and oversized eyeglasses, was set on an easel between them. Panossian was represented by a print-out of his publicity still on 8.5 x 11” paper, propped up against the corner of the Cudmore poster.