Darker Than Noir

by Riley, R. Thomas; Zoot, Campbell; Chandler, Randy; Kauwe, Faith

  He got off on the second floor, went down the corridor to room 206. He listened to the silence inside then knocked knuckles on the door.

  Nothing stirred inside. Trench got an uneasy feeling in his belly—usually a fairly reliable barometer for reading atmospheric evil or lurking danger. He knocked again, harder.

  This time something did stir in 206. It stirred, mumbled and cursed. Glass shattered. Another curse.

  Trench pounded the door and shouted: “Hotel detective, open up! Now!”

  The latch snapped back and the door swung open.

  A tall man wearing a priest’s collar stood in the doorway, looking bewildered. He was ruggedly handsome, though in need of a shave. His heavy five-o’clock shadow set off intense blue eyes. He worked his mouth but uttered no sound.

  “Everything all right in there, Padre?” Trench asked.

  “You are…?” The man avoided looking directly at Trench.

  “House dick.” Waited a beat. “Hotel detective? Your neighbors complained about the noise. Like somebody was getting hurt.”

  “Oh, no. I’m the only person here.” The priest looked absently at the carpet. “What’s today’s date?”

  “May twenty-second.”

  “What year?”

  Trench looked question-marks at him.

  The priest shrugged apologetically and said, “I have these spells. They can be terribly disorienting. The year? Please?”

  “Nineteen hundred and fifty-five. Year of our Lord, and all that.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Sorry, Father, but I need to come in and look around. To verify that nobody’s getting murdered or molested here.” Trench winked, hoping the padre wouldn’t take great offense.

  “Surely. Come in.” The priest stepped back to allow Trench entry.

  As he entered the room, the stench hit him full-face. A rotten scent with a tinge of sweetness, like meat gone bad. His first thought was: ripening corpse. But then as he went past the priest he was sure that the holy man was the source of the big stink.

  “You should open a window,” Trench said. “It’s stuffy in here.”

  “I don’t like the sun,” the priest muttered.

  “Then how the hell…heck did you end up in Miami?”

  “I’m not really sure.”

  Trench went to the window, opened the curtains and raised the window. Fresh spring air wafted in on a warm breeze. The priest shielded his eyes against the sunlight slanting in.

  “You can close it after I leave,” Trench said. He saw that the framed picture from one of the room’s walls was on the floor amid a scatter of glass shards. “What happened here?”

  The priest shook his head. He said, “I think I’m in trouble.”

  “For breaking that crappy hotel-room art?”

  “Uh, no, not that. That’s only a symptom.”

  “Symptom of what, pray tell?” Trench was trying to show respect for the man’s calling but the priest’s stench and Trench’s lack of faith in religion were making it hard. If he didn’t blow off a little steam with his sarcasm, he was liable to toss the priest out the window, and God—if such existed—wouldn’t be too happy about that turn of events.

  The priest hung his head. “Sickness unto death.”

  A phrase from Trench’s dogface days popped into his head: Tell it to the chaplain. He bit his tongue, then said, “Look, Padre…What’s your name?”

  “Father Ryan Hurley.”

  “Right. Father Ryan. If you’re sick, you should see a doctor. And a shower now and then wouldn’t hurt either, know what I mean?”

  When the priest didn’t answer, Trench glanced at the man and saw that he was staring into the mirror over the dressing table.

  “Padre?”

  “Something’s in there,” the priest said.

  “What, in the mirror?”

  “There, in me. The other me. Like behind the mirror but not really. Watching me.”

  Trench looked in the bathroom and saw no signs of violence. “Well, that sounds like a deep personal problem. You should take it up with one of your own. Or a headshrinker, maybe. No offense.”

  “Would you do something for me? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Trench.”

  “Mr. Trench, there’s a pawnshop two blocks from here. You know it?”

  “Sure. I’ve been in there on occasion.”

  “I want you to buy me a tape recorder and a reel of tape. I saw several in the window, so they should still have one.” Father Ryan put a wad of folded bills in Trench’s hand. “That should be enough.”

  “I could do it on my lunch break. But if you’re too sick to walk a couple of blocks, then I should get you a doctor instead of a tape recorder.”

  “No!” Father Ryan’s voice turned cold and commanding. “Thank you for your concern, but a doctor can’t help me.”

  Trench didn’t like the guy’s new tone; his temper flared, but he held back the heat. “You want I should get you a priest?”

  Glancing at the mirror, Father Ryan laughed. It was a hollow laugh devoid of mirth, somehow an evil laugh. “No thanks, I’ve already got one. A phone call away.”

  “Maybe you should make that call, Padre. I have to say, you’re in a bad way.”

  Now the priest made eye contact with Trench for the first time, and Trench didn’t like what he saw behind the man’s bloodshot blues.

  “You’re very perceptive, Trench. That can get you in a lot of trouble. But I’m sure you know that. Your eyes have seen things that should have remained unseen. You’ve looked too deep into the face of the god of war. You’ve seen the Lord of Light up close. You carry much within you that may yet destroy you.”

  “Save it for the sanctuary, Padre. I’m not looking to get my soul saved.” Trench headed for the door. “And keep the noise down the next time your friend in the mirror feels like raising hell.”

  * * *

  As he rapped softly on 205’s door, Trench wondered what was behind the priest’s comment about what he’d seen in the war. Probably just a lucky guess, since most able-bodied American boys had gone off to fight Hitler or Tojo. But Trench couldn’t shake the feeling that Father Ryan had looked into his soul to see all the carnage Trench had seen on the battlefields. And the postwar carnage too, including the killing he’d done to some very bad eggs. Murder, in the eyes of the stone babe with the blindfold and scales.

  A fleshy harsh-faced woman came to the door. She held her robe together with one hand and a cigarette in the V of the fingers of her other hand. Her nails were fire-truck red, chipped.

  “Yeah? Whaddya you want?” she said, snorting smoke.

  “House detective. You complained about the noise next door?”

  “Yeah. Something bad was going on over there. Sounded like somebody was getting gangbanged…or worse.”

  “Tell me exactly what you heard,” Trench said, “after you invite me in.”

  “What the hey, come on in.” She waved him in, smoke trailing her fingers.

  She sat on the sofa. He remained standing.

  “You look like a house dick,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “Tall, half handsome and rough around the edges.” She took a deep drag on the butt and then added: “I do a lot of traveling, and you dicks all look alike, to an extent.”

  He shrugged that off. “Tell me what you heard next door.”

  “First I thought it was a couple guys having an argument. Then one of them starts yelling, almost chanting, so I figure they’re drunk. Then this third bird starts in. I say bird cuz it sounded like a giant bird shrieking. Like a harpy? You gotta understand I was sleeping off a bit of a hangover so the whole magilla might’ve been a little twisted, the way I heard it.”

  “But there was definitely more than one person.”

  “You ever heard of a one-person gangbang. Hell yeah it was more than one person.”

  Trench got the idea the woman enjoyed saying gangbang a little to
o much but he let it go. “You can say for sure you heard a female voice?”

  She tittered, choked on smoke, coughed and then crushed the butt in the ashtray. “That or a guy with fairy dust in his panties. But the weirdest thing was when one of the heathens starts yelling ‘Fuck Jesus! Fuck Jesus!’ Pardon my blasphemy. A lady don’t talk like that. Not a God-fearing lady.”

  Trench shook his head.

  The woman lit a new smoke and went on. “Then something hit the wall and broke, there was screaming and crying, and finally everything went quiet. I thought somebody got cold-cocked. Or worse. That’s when I called the desk.”

  Trench thanked her and left.

  As he went down the corridor to the elevator, he felt someone watching him. He looked back over both shoulders. Doors all shut, nobody in the corridor but him. Yet he was sure he was the object of unseen scrutiny, and he didn’t like it.

  He stepped into the service elevator at the end of the hall. The door rumbled shut.

  Trench felt as if something had entered the elevator with him, though clearly he was alone in the descending box. Something about the loco priest had spooked him, he told himself. Just that and nothing more. Like having to spend a few minutes in a place of filth and feeling that you needed a shower the minute you left the foul place. In fact, the reeking scent of the holy man was still on him and would remain so—the same way you carried the stench of battlefield dead long after you’d left the field.

  He got off in the lobby. The elevator door shut behind him, but he couldn’t shed the feeling that something other than a bad odor had ridden him out of 206. He shrugged his shoulders involuntarily, as if to dislodge an imaginary piggyback rider.

  A voice whispered in his left ear. He spun around to find nobody there. But he’d heard the voice, clear as a church bell. It had whispered: “Harpy on your back.”

  What the fuck was a harpy, anyway? he wondered. A bird, sure, but not a real-life bird.

  He went to the desk, got Doyle’s attention and said, “You’re an educated man. What exactly is a harpy?”

  Doyle gave him a look, then smiled and said, “If you’re serious, it’s a monstrous bird with a woman’s head. From Greek mythology. Predators that swoop down and snatch up their victims. Sometimes used to refer to a shrewish woman, what you would no doubt call a wicked bitch. Why do you ask?”

  Trench said, “It came up in conversation. As in ‘harpy on your back.’”

  “I believe that should be ‘monkey on your back,’” Doyle said. “I’ve never heard of a harpy on one’s back.”

  “Maybe I misunderstood. It was sort of a low whisper.” Trench tapped a fingertip on the desk and said, “How long has Father Ryan Hurley been with us?”

  Doyle checked the register, then said, “A week tomorrow.”

  “What’d he give as his home address?”

  “He didn’t. Said he was in between assignments.”

  Trench nodded then turned started away. He stopped, turned back to Doyle and said, “I’ve been meaning to ask. What did you do in the war?”

  “Stayed home. A heart murmur kept me out.”

  “No shit?”

  “Watch your language,” Doyle said. “We have an image to uphold.”

  “Knew a lot of guys who didn’t have the heart for war.” Trench bared his teeth in a grin that didn’t feel friendly. “They died over there just the same.”

  Doyle’s suave mask slipped just a bit. Trench caught a glimpse of the sheepish face behind it.

  “Smug sonofabitch,” Trench said just loud enough for Doyle to hear. “You think I don’t see through you?”

  Doyle reeled backward as if gut-punched.

  As he walked away, Trench wondered why he had needlessly needled Doyle. Sure, he disliked the phony snob, but there was no point in antagonizing him. Just the same, he’d taken evil pleasure in doing it. The hell of it was, he knew he’d do it again.

  * * *

  He hiked to the pawnshop at half past noon. Pelican Pawn was a grungy dump that seemed to repel the outside brightness of the Miami sun.

  The seedy pawnbroker behind the cage had skin paler than a cadaver. He always had the soggy stump of a stogie clamped in the corner of his mouth and all his words seemed to come out of the cigar like it did his talking for him.

  “Tirty bucks,” the cigar said when Trench asked the price of the only tape recorder on the shelf. “I’ll trow in the tape fer nuttin.”

  “Nuttin doing,” Trench mocked the man. “I’ll give you twenty for the whole works. That machine’s seen better days, pal.”

  Then to Trench’s amazement, the cigar did talk. It said, “Tough guy what tinks his shit don’t stink. I plug you wid my .45, you’ll get duh works.”

  It must’ve been the stogie talking because the man’s mouth didn’t move at all. Trench shook his head as if to clear it. He was “hearing” the pawnbroker’s thoughts.

  “Twenty, asshole,” Trench said with a snarl, “and before you can reach that cannon I’ll put a .38 slug up your nose.”

  Trench opened his lightweight coat to show the pawnbroker the cold-steel heat in his shoulder rig.

  “How did…I didn’t…Aw skip it. Give me twenty and take duh damn ting.”

  He did. As he toted the recorder back to the hotel, Trench didn’t waste time trying to figure out how he’d read the pawnbroker’s thoughts. Or why he felt there was a harpy perched on his shoulders. He already knew.

  It was owing to the damned priest in 206.

  He delivered the recorder and an ultimatum: “Okay, Padre, now you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on here. Things ain’t been right since I left out of here this morning. Strange things are happening and they all trace back to you. What gives?”

  “What things? What do you mean?” Father Ryan fingered rosary beads. He was back to avoiding eye contact. If he’d shaved, his shadow was already growing back on his chin, cheeks and jaw.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know,” Trench warned. “I’ve got a demon bird circling overhead and sometimes I can almost feel it on my shoulders. I can read people’s thoughts...”

  Father Ryan’s eyes were bloodshot a richer red. He was sitting in the armchair with his head slightly hanging. But suddenly he stiffened and sprang from the chair with startling speed.

  Trench drove a fist into the priest’s gut. Foul air blew out of Father Ryan’s mouth as he fell back into the armchair. His mouth worked guppy-like, gasping for breath. The rosary beads dangled from a tangle in his fingers.

  Trench shrugged and opened his fists. “Sorry, Padre, but you shouldn’t have jumped in my face that way. Reflex.”

  The priest held up a hand as if in half-assed benediction. But then the hand bent into a claw and he jerked it down and clenched it in his armpit, as if to hide or restrain it. Then he did something that made Trench step backward and shudder as if suddenly chilled. Father Ryan’s face contorted into a tortured rictus grin that was painful to see. Trench wanted to look away but couldn’t.

  The priest spoke through his hideous grimace: “It’s touched you too. So much darkness. In you. In us. It finds such places to lodge, to thrive. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it could happen so quickly. It took days to worm its way into me.”

  “What the hell are we talking about here?”

  Father Ryan’s grimace let go and his face took on its usual haggardly slack look. “The Devil,” he said. “You’re not Catholic, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Not a religious man.”

  “No.”

  “When it takes me over, I have little memory of it. When I’m lucid, like now, I am aware of its presence but it’s vague, an ill-defined thing, crouching back in dark fog but there all the same, always watching, waiting.”

  “The Devil,” Trench said with equal parts disgust and disbelief.

  “Yes. Demons, to be more accurate. Representatives of the Devil. You know what an exorcism is?”

  “Not in so many words. I’ve heard o
f it.”

  “A month ago I assisted another priest in trying to drive a demon from a possessed parishioner in St. Augustine, Florida. He was the exorcist, I was there only to assist, since it was my first time. It took three days to expel the demons. In the process, one or more of the evil ones found an opening in me and kept at me for days afterward until they finally got inside.”

  Father Ryan began coughing. A dry hacking cough that made Trench think of a cat trying to hack up a stubborn hairball.

  Trench reached for the water pitcher with the intent of pouring the padre a drink, but before he touched it, the pitcher hurled itself across the room and shattered against the wall. “Jesus…!” he yelled.

  The priest’s coughing became filthy laughter. The laughing went on for nearly a full minute, sounding to Trench like thick sludge gurgling in the throat of a half-clogged drain. From that same drain came a subterranean voice: “Don’t call That One’s name if you don’t know him. You won’t be happy to meet him.”

  “Who, Jesus?”

  “Don’t say that! We told you not to say that.” Father Ryan’s claw-like hand signed the air with an invisible symbol. “Plug in that recording machine. We want our voices on the record. For the fucking record, you understand? For the Sunday funnies.”

  Trench plugged in the recorder, threaded the tape onto the empty reel, then clicked the lever to Record. “Okay, Padre, for the record, how the hell did you make that water pitcher fly into the wall without touching it?”

  “I didn’t do it.” His voice lost its sludgy sound, for the moment. “The Evil One did. The unclean spirit. He surfaces at will now. When he does, I have no control. Or very little. You have to see that Father Thomas Riley in St. Augustine gets this tape. He…he…he’ll need to know…what happened…that I’ve been…infested.”

  “C’mon, Father, tell me how you did that. What’s the trick? I’ve seen some decent magicians at burlesque shows but this beats ‘em all. ‘Fess up, Padre. I ain’t buying that this is any kind of supernatural evil. I’ve seen evil and it always has a human face. And a lot of heavy weapons.”