I am Providence

by Nick Mamatas

  Of course Bhanushali didn’t have any real evidence that Colleen was the murderer, but now Colleen knew that Bhanushali wasn’t just mistaken, she was putting on a performance, aiming to convince someone else that Colleen was guilty, Bhanushali knew who did it.

  Who was she protecting with this charade? Who was she performing it for? Ginger J was defending Colleen, but she couldn’t imagine Bhanushali taking his opinion at all seriously. The cops, perhaps, since he was so guileless. Hiram had tried to evacuate Colleen, and he had a decent reputation in the field. It was him Bhanushali wanted to convince, or at least confuse.

  What was Hiram trying to say with his story? What did he know, or suspect?

  “Who did it, Hiram?” Colleen asked aloud, killing the conversation flying over her head.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know who killed Panossian,” Hiram said.

  Then Colleen smiled. “You do. Everyone else was talking about Cudmore. That’s the issue, right? More than one person. It’s why everyone’s alibis are so tight.”

  Barry stood up, ready to do something, but Colleen pulled her phone from her pocket. “Don’t you people know how to disarm a twenty-first century girl? I’m streaming this shit.”

  Armbruster ran up the aisle, and in six long strides was atop Colleen, scrambling for the phone. She tossed it from her right hand to her left, then slapped Armbruster’s wounded left palm. He jerked back, more in surprise than pain, but that was moment enough for Colleen to shove her hand into his pocket. He pushed her away, but she came up with his knife. Colleen dropped to her knees, planted the blade in Armbruster’s instep. He screamed, then gulped as Colleen sent her forearm into his crotch. He fell over and clutched at his genitals, whimpering and bleeding.

  “That’s how you do,” Colleen said. “Blood on the carpet!” Then she muttered, “Christ, I finally won one of these...” mostly to herself.

  “Anyway, here is my theory,” Colleen said. “Cudmore, ever the climber, sent Panossian a rare copy of Arkham, the book with a case made from his own flesh, without realizing that Panossian was a social and political dead end in the Lovecraftian scene. He wanted it back; there were plenty of other friendlier and more helpful people he could impress with such a gift. But how to do it? Buy it, but with what money? So, pretend to buy it and strongarm him. Who’d believe Panossian over…

  “Over whom? David Cob and Ms. Phantasia. Two extravagant members of the community, well-liked because of their eccentricities, and both locals, which is important when handling something like a book made out of human skin. You can’t exactly hand it to the concierge.

  “My guess is that Cob was the buyer, and Phantasia was going to be the book handler. But there was an argument of some sort. There’s always an argument of some sort when Panossian is in a room with other writers. Good thing Armbruster was there then, with his retired drill sergeant act. There was a fight. Maybe it started out with some yelling over the sound of the washing machines. Perhaps Panossian tried to shoulder his way past Armbruster and ended up tripping and smacking his head on the corner of one of the washing machines.

  “Maybe the plan was to murder Panossian all along, just to be rid of him.

  “Did Cob have the money to buy the book? He has money for parties. It hardly mattered, anyway, since the idea was to get the book back from Panossian, and he’s cheap. But there was some kind of altercation down there. I’ll be kind and suggest that he hit his head. Blood was everywhere. What else to do but call in the help?

  “How many people does it take to clean a laundry room?” Colleen looked meaningfully at R.G., then Raul and Barry. “A bunch to really scrub clean all the evidence. You three would be glad to help. Maybe Ranger helped clean up too, in his papier-mâché Cthulhu suit. If that got a little blood splatter on it, would a mundane staffer even notice? Ranger could walk right outside with the suit, and it would be easy enough to burn in a fireplace at Cob’s house. Maybe Panossian was even alive then, and someone promised to take him to the hospital.

  “Norman, you’re a big fan of Panossian. Wouldn’t he really like you back, as a true-blue friend, if he woke up with stitches and a bandage and his new best friend standing over him, watching? I see you smiling at the idea. But…maybe you were mad at him, or maybe you just fucked it up somehow and freaked. Or maybe Panossian was already dead, and you decided on a truly irreplaceable souvenir—a genuine Evil Dead-style Necronomicon with a face on the cover, a face of the man you were obsessed with. Here at the Summer Tentacular, you could make that dream a reality. After all, you know an expert on…what’s the phrase again, Hiram?”

  “Anthropodermic bibliopegy,” Hiram said.

  “The ultimate collectable,” Colleen said. “You just didn’t realize, Norman, that Hiram still had a shred of decency in him and refused. He was maybe even repulsed. Maybe he confronted Cudmore. Cudmore, because Cudmore was a skinny little dude with a paunch. Even a milquetoast like Hiram wouldn’t be too worried about a physical altercation with Cudmore. Perhaps Cudmore was mostly innocent—he wasn’t on the scene when Panossian was killed. But he was terrified that someone knew about the book, and even more horrified when he was told about Panossian’s missing face.

  “He was going to spill the beans. He had already arranged to be a part of special trip to the grave of…Lovecraft’s cat. Tensions were running high with Cob, and they shared a car. He couldn’t take it and stupidly just walked off instead of hailing an Uber like a normal person,” Colleen said.

  “Did I say normal person? That brings us to Panossian’s little mini-me, Chloe. Chloe, a very-much not normal person, did manage to hail an Uber, spotted Cudmore walking along the side of the road. She gets out of the car, follows him to the little wooded area right behind the hotel, where she threw a rock at Cudmore’s head, killing him. Maybe that’s manslaughter, maybe it’s murder. Did Phantasia put her up to it? With Cudmore dead, the cops wouldn’t go to his dumpy little apartment to look for the book, or for Panossian’s missing face. Was she going into business for herself, like a Manson Girl? Maybe she was just trying to get his attention in a dark wood and didn’t know her own strength, was surprised by her own aim. Who the hell cares, except for Ronald Ranger?

  “How did Phantasia and Chloe end up under suspicion? They stood out. They made mistakes. But they didn’t kill two men for no reason, by themselves. Maybe I’m wrong about Cob. Maybe we can just swap him out for you, Bhanushali. Anyway, that’s my theory. We have a room full of killers and accessories. If I didn’t name you, how do you feel about your precious writer heroes and the Summer Tentacular now?” Colleen inhaled sharply and glanced over at the door. Armbruster was getting up. His shoes were off, and he had taken off his socks and tried to tie them around his bleeding foot to staunch the flow.

  “Ms. Danzig,” Bhanushali said. “I misjudged you. You do have a gift for fiction, after all, though your ratiocination doesn’t hold a candle to Poe and your invention pales in comparison to Lovecraft. Ludicrous spectacle. Do you honestly expect anyone to believe such a long and involved story, such a web of conspiracy? Though I suppose if you’re streaming it onto the Internet, where people see traces of the Illuminati in music videos and believe that the CIA destroyed the World Trade Center, you’ll find a small if ardent audience. That’s about your level.”

  There was some shouting out in the hallway, muffled by doors and distance. Only Colleen heard it, because only she was listening for it. “Oh, I wasn’t streaming it. I just speed-dialed the front desk and had my speaker phone on. I needed a long, confusing theory, to give them time.” The large doors at the back of the conference room flew open. The concierge and several staff members barged in shouting and pointing.

  “Blood on the carpet! What is this? What are you doing to this girl? We called the police. Nobody is going anywhere or doing anything till they arrive, and then you are all out!”

  Over the shoulder of the concierge, past a few feet of carpeting and on the other side of the large windows that opened up into
the hotel’s parking circle, a line of Providence PD black and whites roared into place, sirens howling.

  Colleen was driven to the station by Officer DiRonalde. When Colleen tried the door, she realized that she was being detained.

  DiRonalde glanced into the rear-view mirror, and then cut her eyes over to the clock tower. “You might miss your Amtrak train,” she said. “They have some vending machines inside, I think. No nice restaurant or bar though.”

  “If you wanted to question me, why drive me here first? We could have talked on the way. Plus, I want the MBTA, not Amtrak.”

  “You know what style of architecture that is?” Officer DiRonalde asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Brutalist style. Isn’t that funny—the architects insulted themselves in the very name of their style.”

  “It’s from the French, béton brut. Raw concrete. It just means that the building has concrete exterior walls and is supposed to look important.”

  DiRonalde narrowed her eyes. “You pick up a fair amount of architectural terms when you get involved with Lovecraft. He liked scenes and buildings, not people. There were all these ancient races, building or living in cyclopean structures,” Colleen told her.

  “Like the clock tower? The clockface looks like one big eye.”

  “No, cyclopean means huge and rough-hewn stone. Imagine primitive giants hefting huge boulders and stacking them up to build a wall.”

  “We had some sophisticated giants working here, I guess,” DiRonalde said. “French giants, pouring brutal concrete.” DiRonalde licked her lips and smiled a twitchy smile. “Where did you get your moves?”

  “Gongfu. I had a crush on Donnie Yen as a little girl.”

  “How much of that story you told is true? About the conspiracy?”

  Colleen snorted. “You tell me!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I don’t know either. I didn’t find a shred of evidence for anything. As a story goes, it was a plausible one, I guess. Maybe it really was Phantasia killing Panossian to get the book, and Chloe killing Cudmore to keep him quiet, and both of them just randomly, stupidly hoping that they wouldn’t get caught.”

  “Or not caring if they got caught,” DiRonalde said. “Some people will do anything to get famous. I bet their books will hit number one on the best-seller chart once the papers start publishing their mug shots.”

  “I thought you couldn’t profit from writing books about crimes.”

  “If you’re guilty, and your book is about the crime,” DiRonalde explained. “We tore Mister Fantasy’s apartment apart. Nothing. No book, no face, no emailed plans, no texts on their phones, nothing.”

  DiRonalde peered into the rear-view mirror. “Ditto Capobianco’s.”

  “Oh, is that Cob’s real surname?” Colleen asked.

  “Yeah, it is. I hate it when Italians try to assimilate by changing their family names. It wasn’t Ellis Island that shortened it for his grandfather or anything; he did it himself. Capobianco is still his legal name,” DiRonalde said. “I hear that your man Lovecraft didn’t like the idea of Providence becoming an Italian town very much.”

  “Yeah, he was a fucking racist piece of shit if you ask me,” Colleen said. “Good writer though, I guess. I won’t be reading him anymore after this weekend though. Can I leave this shithole town now?”

  “You think that’s why Mister Cob changed his name?” DiRonalde asked. “To make good with the ghost of Lovecraft? To blend in with the past of Providence, instead of its future?”

  Colleen shrugged. “Maybe a publisher told him to do it. It’s easier to go into a Barnes & Noble and ask for the latest novel by Cob than it is to ask for Capobianco. And even if you can say it—it’s not that hard—there’s no guarantee that the seventeen-year-old kid at the information desk will be able to spell it. Or anything, for that matter.”

  “You know how to spell Capobianco?” DiRonalde asked. Then she spelled it out, nice and slow. “Maybe you should Google him later. Sounds better than ‘Cob’ to me. Like something a hillbilly would stick up his ass. Anyway, you’re going to get on the next train, right?”

  “The next train to Boston, sure.”

  “That where you live?”

  “No. I have a connection there to go home.”

  “Where’s home?” DiRonalde said.

  Colleen didn’t say anything.

  “You gave the front desk the information,” DiRonalde said. “I can look it up back at the station.”

  Colleen tilted her head, then righted it, staring right back at the cop through the rear-view mirror. “Do that then.”

  “We’re just having a conversation here.”

  “We were,” Colleen said.

  “My orders are to put you on the train and make sure it leaves the station, and then pace it across the border. It’s a royal pain in the ass, I don’t mind telling you.”

  “My friend was killed this weekend, and then I found out that I don’t have any other friends because they tried to kidnap me, and I had to stab somebody in the foot,” Colleen said.

  “Don’t forget that girl you attacked.”

  “The one in jail right now waiting arraignment on murder charges?”

  “I think she might be pleading down to involuntary manslaughter. I think she had some line about how she was just trying to throw the rock to scare off a ‘scary stranger.’” DiRonalde mimed quotation marks around the words. “It was dark, she couldn’t see anything. You know, you told us that you couldn’t see very much that night either. Of course, on Monday, she could look at the judge and demand to go to trial.”

  “She’s…unpredictable,” Colleen said.

  “I downloaded one of your stories, onto my phone,” DiRonalde said. “Couldn’t make heads nor tails of it, sorry.”

  “Panossian used to say that the best thing to tell a writer is, ‘I bought your book but I haven’t had time to read it yet.’ That way they can feel accomplished and mentally add two bucks to their bank accounts, and not worry about getting a negative critique right to their face,” Colleen said.

  “Heh,” DiRonalde said. “Why do you think they killed him?”

  “They? Is that a plural or a singular?”

  “The drag queen said he didn’t do it. Then he had some sort of altercation in his holding cell.”

  “What happened?”

  “He slipped and fell, banging his head against the toilet in the holding cell. It’s pretty gross, the men’s toilet. You can imagine.”

  Colleen could imagine. “So, how many times did he trip and fall against the toilet?”

  DiRonalde shrugged.

  “More than one time, I bet,” Colleen said. “So, it was someone from the Summer Tentacular, wasn’t it? Who?”

  “Naw, we found him on the floor when we brought in your former friends from that little town hall meeting for prints. It was a WaterFire weekend, you know, so we had a lot of guys who needed an overnight cooling their heels with us.”

  Colleen just looked confused, so DiRonalde explained. “You didn’t go? You should have. Sounds like it would have saved you a world of trouble. A hundred fires floating on the rivers—the Woonasquatucket, the Moshassuck, and the Providence—around downtown and by Waterplace. Didn’t you hear about it? You’d think your conference was held this weekend so you could go see it. They have all sorts of music and little events along the waterfronts, and the fires are pretty wicked when the sun goes down. It’s a real spectacle. Anyway, there are always a couple of drunks…” DiRonalde peered up into the rear-view again. “You know, Massholes. Between WaterFire and you people, we had our hands full.”

  “Maybe I’ll come back next year and check it out,” Colleen said. She remembered now that Chloe had mentioned something about it. Maybe next year Chloe would get to see WaterFire too, from the inside of a prison bus rumbling past.

  “Don’t,” DiRonalde said. Then neither of them had anything to say for a while. “Your train’s coming in five minutes. Unless you’ve got anyt
hing else for me, let’s go inside.”

  “Why didn’t we just wait inside the entire time?” Colleen said.

  “I would have had to cuff you, that’s why.”

  The doors unlocked with a thunk and DiRonalde stepped out and opened the back door for Colleen. “I still might have to. Just walk to the ticket machine, buy your ticket, and I’ll put you on, and then just stay there. Sit by a window. Don’t go to the restroom. Don’t try to buy a Starbucks. If it wasn’t me pulling this assignment, someone would have driven you to the Mass border and let you out of the car on the shoulder of the road.”

  “That sounds highly irregular for twenty-first century police work,” Colleen said.

  “It’s been an irregular weekend,” DiRonalde said, sneering. Then she lightened up. “Hey, sorry. You know, cops have to stay ‘on.’ Nobody respects us otherwise.”

  “Women cops especially, I bet,” Colleen said.

  “Women writers too, eh?” DiRonalde said.

  “Fuck yeah,” Colleen said.

  After a long moment of silence, Colleen said, “So…why do you want me to Google Capobianco?”

  “Google him and find out,” DiRonalde said.

  The train idled on the platform for several minutes, and as she had been instructed Colleen took a window seat. DiRonalde stood on the platform, standing guard over Colleen’s position, her arms folded across her chest except for when she was asked a question by a confused-looking tourist with luggage and an old-fashioned paper map. Then she pointed a finger in the direction the traveler had just come. She stayed on the platform through the all aboard signal, only turning and taking off in a trot when the train lurched into motion.