The Imago Sequence

by Laird Barron

  "What's that?"

  "A book about demons and devils. Something to talk about at church."

  "The hell y'say. Lord have mercy. Well, I ain't seen Mullen, uh, Hicks, in weeks, though y'might want to check with the Honeybee Ranch. And Trosper over to the Longrifle. Be advised—Trosper hates lawmen. Did a stretch in the pokey, I reckon. We got us an understandin', o' course."

  "Good thing I'm not really a lawman, isn't it?"

  "What's the guy's story?" Murtaugh stared at the photo, shifting it in his blunt hands.

  I said, "Hicks was born in Plymouth. His father was a minister, did missionary work here in California—tried to save the Gold Rush crowd. Guess the minister beat him something fierce. Kid runs off and joins the circus. Turns out he's a freak of nature and a natural showman. P. T. squires him to every city in the Union. One day, Iron Man Hicks decides to start cutting the throats of rag pickers and whores. At least, that's my theory. According to the docs at Cedar Grove, there's medical problems—might be consumption or syph or something completely foreign. Because of this disease maybe he hears voices, wants to be America's Jack the Ripper. Thinks God has a plan for him. Who knows for sure? He's got a stash of dubious bedside material on the order of the crap he stole from Barnum, which was confiscated; he'd filled the margins with notes the agency eggs still haven't deciphered. Somebody introduced him to the lovely hobby of demonology—probably his own dear dad. I can't check that because Hicks senior died in '67 and all his possessions were auctioned. Anyway, Junior gets slapped into a cozy asylum with the help of Barnum's legal team. Hicks escapes and, well, I've told you the rest."

  "Jesus H., what a charmin' tale."

  We drank our coffee, listened to rain thud on tin. Eventually Murtaugh got around to what had probably been ticking in his brain the minute he recognized my name. "You're the fellow who did for the Molly Maguires."

  "Afraid so."

  He smirked. "Yeah, I thought it was you. Dirty business that, eh?"

  "Nothing pretty about it, Sheriff." Sixteen years and the legend kept growing, a cattle carcass bloating in the sun.

  "I expect not. We don't get the paper up here, 'cept when the mail train comes in. I do recall mention that some folks are thinkin' yer Mollies weren't really the bad guys. Maybe the railroad lads had a hand in them killin's."

  "That's true. It's also true that sometimes a horsethief gets hanged for another scoundrel's misdeed. The books get balanced either way, don't they? Everybody in Schuylkill got what they wanted."

  Murtaugh said, "Might put that theory to the twenty sods as got hung up to dry."

  I sucked on my cigarette, studied the ash drifting toward my knees. "Sheriff, did you ever talk to Hicks?"

  "Bumped into him at one of the saloons durin' a faro game. Said howdy. No occasion for a philosophical debate."

  "Anything he do or say seem odd?" I proffered my smoke.

  "Sure. He smelled right foul and he wasn't winnin' any blue ribbons on account o' his handsome looks. He had fits—somethin' to do with his nerves, accordin' to Doc Campion." Murtaugh extended his hand and accepted the cigarette. He dragged, made an appreciative expression and closed his eyes. "I dunno, I myself ain't ever seen Hicks foamin' at the mouth. Others did, I allow."

  "And that's it?"

  "Y'mean, did the lad strike me as a thief and a murderer? I'm bound to say no more'n the rest o' the cowpunchers and prospectors that drift here. I allow most of 'em would plug you for a sawbuck . . .or a smoke." He grinned, rubbed ashes from his fingers. "Y'mentioned nothing stuck to our lad. Has that changed?"

  "The evidence is pending."

  "Think he did it?"

  "I think he's doing it now."

  "But you can't prove it."

  "Nope."

  "So, officially you're here to collect P. T.'s long lost valuables. I imagine Hicks is mighty attached to that book by now. Probbly won't part with it without a fight."

  "Probably not."

  "Billy Cullins might be fittin' him for a pine box, I suppose."

  I pulled out a roll of wrinkled bills, subtracted a significant number and tossed them on the desk. Plenty more where that came from, hidden under a floorboard at the hotel. I always travel flush. "The agency's contribution to the Purdon widows and orphans fund."

  "Much obliged, Mr. K. Whole lotta widows and orphans in these parts."

  "More every day," I said.

  5.

  BELPHEGOR IS YOUR FATHERMOTHER. This carmine missive scrawled in a New Orleans hotel room. In the unmade bed, a phallus sculpted from human excrement. Flies crawled upon the sheets, buzzing and sluggish.

  In Lubbock, a partially burned letter—"O FatherMother, may the blood of the- (indecipherable)-erate urchin be pleasing in thy throat. I am of the tradition."

  Come Albuquerque, the deterioration had accelerated. Hicks did not bother to destroy this particular letter, rather scattered its befouled pages on the floor among vermiculate designs scriven in blood—"worms, godawful! i am changed! Blessed the sacrament of decay! Glut Obloodyhole O bloodymaggots Obloodybowels O Lordof shite! Fearthegash! iamcomeiamcome"

  Finally, Bakersfield in script writ large upon a flophouse wall—

  EATEATEATEATEAT! Found wedged under a mattress, the severed hand and arm of an unidentified person. Doubtless a young female. The authorities figured these remains belonged to a prostitute. Unfortunately, a few of them were always missing.

  The locket in the delicate fist was inscribed, For my little girl. I recalled the bulls that stripped the room laughing when they read that. I also recalled busting one guy's jaw later that evening after we all got a snoot-full at the watering hole. I think it was a dispute over poker.

  6.

  Trosper didn't enjoy seeing me at the bar. He knew what I was and what it meant from a mile off. First words out of his egg-sucker's mouth, "Lookit here, mister, I don't want no bullshit from you. You're buyin' or you're walkin'. Or Jake might have somethin' else for you."

  I couldn't restrain my smile. The banty roosters always got me. "Easy, friend. Gimme two fingers of coffin varnish. Hell, make it a round for the house."

  The Longrifle was a murky barn devoid of all pretense to grandeur. This was the trough of the hard-working, harder drinking peasantry. It was presently dead as three o'clock. Only me, Trosper and a wiry cowboy with a crimped, sullen face who nursed a beer down the line. Jake, I presumed.

  Trosper made quick work of getting the whiskey into our glasses. He corked the bottle and left it in front of me.

  I swallowed fast, smacked the glass onto the counter. "Ugh. I think my left eye just went blind."

  "Give the Chinaman a music lesson or shove off, pig. You ain't got no jurydiction here."

  "Happy to oblige." I did the honors. Flames crackled in my belly, spread to my chest and face. Big grandad clock behind the bar ticked too loudly.

  Good old Jake had tipped back his hat and shifted in his chair to affright me with what I'm sure was his darkest glare. Bastard had a profile sharp as a hatchet. A regulator, a bullyboy. He was heeled with a fair-sized peashooter in a shoulder rig.

  I belted another swig to fix my nerves, banged the glass hard enough to raise dust. Motes drifted lazily, planetoids orbiting streams of light from the rain-blurred panes. I said to Trosper, "I hear tell you're chummy with a bad man goes by Tom Mullen."

  Jake said, soft and deadly, "He told you to drink or get on shank's mare." Goddamned if the cowboy didn't possess the meanest drawl I'd heard since ever. First mistake was resting a rawboned hand on the butt of his pistola. Second mistake was not skinning said iron.

  So I shot him twice. Once in the belly, through the buckle; once near the collar of his vest. Jake fell off his stool and squirmed in the sawdust. His hat tumbled away. He had a thick mane of blond hair with a perfect pink circle at the crown. That's what you got for wearing cowboy hats all the fucking time.

  Making conversation with Trosper, who was currently frozen into a homely statue, I said, "Don'
t twitch or I'll nail your pecker to the floor." I walked over to Jake. The cowpoke was game; by then he almost had his gun free with the off hand. I stamped on his wrist until it cracked. He hissed. I smashed in his front teeth with a couple swipes from the heel of my boot. That settled him down.

  I resumed my seat, poured another drink. "Hey, what's the matter? You haven't seen a man get plugged before? What kind of gin mill you running?" My glance swung to the dim ceiling and its mosaic of bullet holes and grease stains. "Oh, they usually shoot the hell out of your property, not each other. Tough luck the assholes got it all backwards. Come on, Trosper. Take a snort. This hooch you sling the shit-kickers kinda grows on a fellow."

  Trosper was gray as his apron and sweating. His hands jerked. "H-he, uh, he's got a lotta friends, mister."

  "I have lots of bullets. Drink, amigo." After he'd gulped his medicine I said, "All right. Where were we? Oh, yes. Mr. Mullen. I'm interested in meeting him. Any notions?"

  "Used to come in here every couple weeks; whenever he had dust in his poke. Drank. Played cards with some of the boys from the Bar-H. Humped the girls pretty regular over to the Honeybee."

  "Uh, huh. A particular girl?"

  "No. He din't have no sweetheart."

  "When's the last time you saw him?"

  Trosper thought about that. "Dunno. Been a spell. Christ, is Jake dead? He ain't movin'."

  "I'll be damned. He isn't. Pay attention. Mullen's gone a-prospecting you say?"

  "Wha-yeah. Mister, I dunno. He came in with dust is all I'm sayin'." Trosper's eyes were glassy. "I dunno shit, mister. Could be he moved on. I ain't his keeper."

  "The sheriff mentioned Hicks had a condition."

  "He's got the Saint Vitus dance. You know, he trembles like a drunk ain't had his eye-opener. Saw him fall down once; twitched and scratched at his face somethin' awful. When it was over, he just grinned real pasty like, and made a joke about it."

  I got the names and descriptions of the Bar-H riders, not that I'd likely interview them. As I turned to leave, I said, "Okay, Trosper. I'll be around, maybe stop in for a visit, see if your memory clears up. Here's a twenty. That should cover a box."

  7.

  I was riding a terrific buzz, equal parts whiskey and adrenaline, when I flopped on a plush divan in the parlor of the Honeybee Ranch. A not-too-uncomely lady-of-the-house pried off my muddy boots and rubbed oil on my feet. The Madame, a frigate in purple who styled herself as Octavia Plantagenet, provided me a Cuban cigar from a velvet humidor. She expertly lopped the tip with a fancy silver-chased cutter and got it burning, quirking suggestively as she worked the barrel between her fat red lips. The roses painted on her cheeks swelled like bellows.

  The Honeybee swam in the exhaust of chortling hookahs and joints of Kentucky bluegrass. A swarthy fellow plucked his sitar in accompany to the pianist, cementing the union of Old World decadence and frontier excess. Here was a refined wilderness of thick Persian carpet and cool brass; no plywood, but polished mahogany; no cheap glass, but exquisite crystal. The girls wore elaborate gowns and mink-slick hair piled high, batted glitzy lashes over eyes twinkly as gemstones. Rouge, perfume, sequins and charms, the whole swarming mess an intoxicating collaboration of artifice and lust.

  Madame Octavia recalled Hicks. "Tommy Mullen? Sorry-lookin' fella, what with the nerve disorder. Paid his tab. Not too rough on the merchandise, if he did have breath to gag a maggot. Only Lydia and Connie could stomach that, but he didn't complain. Lord, he hasn't been by in a coon's age. I think he headed back east."

  I inquired after Violet and was told she'd be available later. Perhaps another girl? I said I'd wait and accepted four-fingers of cognac in King George's own snifter. The brandy was smooth and I didn't notice the wallop it packed until maroon lampshades magnified the crowd of genteel gamblers, businessmen and blue-collar stiffs on their best behavior, distorted them in kaleidoscopic fashion. Tinkling notes from Brahms reverberated in my brain long after the short, thick Austrian player in the silk vest retired for a nip at the bar.

  Fame preceded me. Seemed everybody who could decipher news print had read about my exploits in Pennsylvania. They knew all there was to know about how I infiltrated the Workers Benevolent Association and sent a score of murderous union extremists to the gallows with my testimony. Depending upon one's social inclinations, I was a champion of commerce and justice, or a no-good, yellow-bellied skunk. It was easy to tell who was who from the assorted smiles and sneers. The fact I'd recently ventilated a drover at the Longrifle was also a neat conversation starter.

  Octavia encouraged a muddled procession of counterfeit gentry to ogle the infamous Pinkerton, a bulldozer of the first water from the Old States. Deduction was for the highbrows in top hats and great coats; I performed my detecting with a boot and a six-gun. I'd bust your brother's head or bribe your mother if that's what it took to hunt you to ground and collect my iron men. Rumor had it I'd strong arm the pope himself. Not much of a stretch as I never was impressed with that brand of idolatry.

  Introductions came in waves—Taylor Hackett, bespectacled owner of the Bar-H cattle ranch; Norton Smythe, his stuffed-suit counterpart in the realm of gold mining; Ned Cates, Bob Tunny and Harry Edwards, esteemed investors of the Smythe & Ruth Mining Company, each beaming and guffawing, too many teeth bared. An Eastern Triad. I asked them if they ate of The Master's sacrifice, but nobody appeared to understand and I relented while their waxy grins were yet in place. Blowsy as a poleaxed mule, I hadn't truly allowed for the possibility of my quarry snuggled in the fold of a nasty little cult. Hicks was a loner. I hoped.

  After the contents of the snifter evaporated and got replenished like an iniquitous cousin to the Horn of Plenty, the lower caste made its rounds in the persons of Philmore Kavanaugh, journalist for some small town rag that recently folded and sent him penniless to the ends of creation; Dalton Beaumont, chief deputy and unloved cousin of Sheriff Murtaugh; John Brown, a wrinkled alderman who enjoyed having his toes sucked and daubed mother of pearl right there before God and everyone; Michael Piers, the formerly acclaimed French poet, now sunk into obscurity and bound for an early grave judging from the violence of his cough and the bloody spackle on his embroidered handkerchief. And others and others and others. I gave up on even trying to focus and concentrated on swilling without spilling.

  There wasn't any sort of conversation, precisely. More the noise of an aroused hive. I waded through streams and tributaries from the great lake of communal thrum—

  "—let some daylight into poor Jake. There'll be the devil to pay, mark me!"

  "Langston gone to seed in Chinatown. A bloody shame—"

  "First Holmes, now Stevenson. Wretched, wretched—"

  "—the Ancient Order of Hibernia gets you your goddamned Molly Maguires and that's a fact. Shoulda hung a few more o' them Yankee bastards if you ask me—"

  "—Welsh thick as ticks, doped out of their faculties on coolie mud. They've still got the savage in them. Worse than the red plague—"

  "Two years, Ned. Oh, all right. Three years. The railroad gobbles up its share and I get the pieces with promising glint. California is weighed and measured, my friend. We'll run the independent operations into the dirt. Moonlighters don't have a prayer—"

  "—Barnum, for gawd's sake! Anybody tell him—"

  "I hate the circus. Stinks to high heaven. I hate those damned clowns too—"

  "No. Langston's dead—"

  "—poked her for fun. Dry hump and the bitch took my folding—"

  "—Mullen? Hicks? Dunno an don' care. Long gone, long gone—"

  "The hell, you say! He's bangin' the gong at the Forty-Mile Camp, last I heard—"

  "—the Professor's on the hip? I thought he sailed across the pond—"

  "My dear, sweet woman-child. As quoth The Bard:

  Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

  Her infinite variety;

  "It wasn't enough the cunt sacked me. 'E bloody spit in my face, the bloody wanker—"<
br />
  "—stones to kill a man—"

  "Ah, I could do the job real nice—"

  Where most she satisfies; for vilest

  things—

  "—I mean, look at 'im. He's a facking mechanical—"

  "So, I says, lookee here, bitch, I'll cut your—"

  Become themselves in her

  "—suck my cock or die! Whoopie! I'm on a hellbender, fellas!"

  "—don't care. Murtaugh should string his ass from the welcome sign—"

  "I met your Hicks. He was nothing really special." Piers blew a cloud of pungent clove exhaust, watched it eddy in the currents. "Thees circus freak of yours. He had a beeg mouth."

  My head wobbled. "Always pegged him for the strong silent type. Ha, ha."

  "No." Piers waved impatiently. "He had a beeg mouth. Drooled, how do you say?—Like an eediot. A fuck-ing eediot."

  "Where?" I wheezed.

  "Where? How do I know where? Ask the fuck-ing Professor. Maybe he knows where. The Professor knows everyone."

  "There you are, darling," crooned Madame Octavia as if I had suddenly re-materialized. Her ponderous breasts pressed against my ribs. Her choice of scent brought tears to my eyes. "This gig is drying up, baby. It's a tourist trap. Ooh, Chi-Town is where the action is. Isn't Little Egypt a pistol? Hoochie-koochie baby!"

  Red lights. White faces. Shadows spreading cracks.

  I dropped the snifter from disconnected fingers. Thank goodness Octavia was there with a perfumed cloth to blot the splash. I was thinking, yes, indeed, a tragedy about Robert Louis; a step above the penny dreadfuls, but my hero nonetheless.

  Where was Violet? Coupled to a banker? A sodbuster? Hoochie-koochie all night long.

  "Excuse, me, Mr. Koenig." An unfamiliar voice, a visage in silhouette.

  "Ah, Frankie, he's just laying about waiting for one of my girls—"

  "Sheriff's business, Miss Octavia. Please, sir. We've been sent to escort you to the office. Levi, he's dead weight, get his other arm. You too, Dalton. There's a lad." The sheriff's boys each grabbed a limb and hoisted me up as if on angels' wings.