One
thing’s for certain in this life: if something’s gonna come up out of the Deep
Blue and bite you on the ass, you won’t see it coming. This includes death and
taxes – unless you’ve got a really good accountant. But that’s the thing about
sucker punches: they catch you unawares. I know this from long experience, and
the guy who was throwing this one had a wide net.
I
was sitting and minding my own business during Bingo Nite at the Esoteric Order
of Dagon Community Hall, eating seaweed crackers and taking the odd sly pull
from my flask. Around me, the regular players – Pelagic Knights of Y’ha-nthlei,
all – were smacking their cards with their bingo dabbers and croaking dire
portents about the state of the world today. I wasn’t really playing Bingo; I
was eyeing off Doreen Hepplethwaite’s muffin top, wobbling at the top of her
sarong dress as she spun the wire cage with the balls in it. She doesn’t know
her own strength, so it takes ages for the cage to stop rolling; but every time
she dives in for the coloured ball with her meaty hands, and manages to extract
it delicately with her needle claws, it makes my heart leap up into my throat.
It
was Fruit Night. On Fruit Night, every player got a free serve of fruit cup and
Doreen was in her Carmen Miranda outfit, the sarong dress and cropped bolero
top, with a pineapple on her turbaned head. Noodle Nights she wore the cheong-sam and the tall black wig with
chopsticks; the mini-dress and blonde beehive was for 60s Night. Over the past
few years, her wigs had begun to get taller and taller, to accommodate the
dorsal fin sprouting from her crown. She’d been a scrawny little thing when we
left high school; since then she’d bloomed into a century’s worth of man
dreams.
I
splashed some hooch into my fruit cup and tuned in to what old Abner Gilman was
saying at the table nearby. He had a head like a Nagasaki explosion, like he
was wearing a tall, glass collar that forced his jowls up under his ears. His
bulbous eyes were exaggerated by his beer-bottle-bottom glasses and the whole
effect was crowned by his lodge fez with its twitching tassel. Abner was one of
the first returnees after 1928 and the horror that had descended upon the town;
the Change was a long time coming with him, but it would be only a few years
before he took the plunge and left us. As far as Innsmouth was concerned, Abner
was as close to royalty as it gets.
‘We
can’t have strangers runnin’ about the place,’ he was saying; ‘it leads ter
trouble.’
A
round of croaky agreements from his colleagues met this statement, wall-eyes
unblinking, flabby lips pouting and ill-functioning paws groping for dessert
spoons. Barney Marsh, who was ready to disappear any day now, uttered several
uncontrolled yawps before descending once more into a sullen heap.
Stan
Eliot, he of the negative forehead and absent chin, was the only dissenting
voice. ‘Aw, he’s just some kinda turrist, fer shure. No need to git all antsy
about ‘im...’
Abner
looked just about to choke on his diced peaches. ‘Mebbe you’ve fergotten the
havoc that that Olmstead sprat caused back in ‘27’, he rattled, ‘but I haven’t
– I was in the camps, fer chrissakes!’ For emphasis, he pulled up his sleeve to display the
watery blue tattoo on his forearm.
‘Easy,
Abner,’ said Stanley, lifting his rubbery hands, ‘I ain’t sayin’ we should
ignore him. I’m jist sayin’ that we don’t wanna go off half-wound up. Could be
sumpin; could be not, ‘sall I’m sayin’...’
‘Well!’
huffed Abner, and stomped his walking stick on the floor.
At
that point the door opened and a black shadow shambled in from the dark and
stormy night outside. He shook his umbrella and folded it up, then dragged his
hand through his wet locks: his rheumy, pale blue popeyes blinked in the sudden
light. There was only one guy in town who had those suave, Peter Lorre looks: Winston
Gilman.
I
popped a seaweed cracker in my mouth and chomped down hard. Winston! In high
school I may have been the quarterback but he was captain of the Swim Team. He
had dames hanging off his arm everywhere he went: his grampaw was pure Innsmouth
gold; his family owned the Gilman House. He had a silver fishhook in his mouth
when he was spawned and he let everyone know about it. For awhile we were
enemies: Doreen, back in the day, could’ve given that Farrah-Fawcett chick in
the poster a run for her money, and Winston thought he was entitled to have her
in his stable. But then he became manager of the Gilman House, started the
lounge acts and left high school behind. He upgraded to a shark pool of a
grander stature.
‘That
you Benson?’ I tried to ignore the comment, hunching into my trenchcoat. A
heavy hand dropped onto my shoulder.
‘Sure
it is,’ Winston smarmed. ‘You entertaining old memories? Imagining what
might’ve been?’
‘Just
trying to snag me a 10-pound turkey, Winston’ I answered turning to look at
him, ‘what brings you to this shindig?’
He
stood there picking his gloves off his webbed fingers and ogling Doreen’s
curves. ‘Just here to take Grampaw home, Benson,’ he said; ‘man, she’s a hunk
o’ woman...’
‘I
wouldn’t know,’ I said; ‘I’m just here for the fruit cup...’
‘Say,’
he went on, ‘I could use your help – if you’re not otherwise engaged?’
‘I’m
not working at the moment, if that’s what you’re asking...’
‘Excellent!’
Winston dragged out a chair and sat down slapping his gloves on his thigh. ‘You
heard there’s a stranger in town?’
‘I
heard...’
‘He’s
staying at the Hotel. I need to know why. ‘Think you can dig up some
information about him?’
I
pulled out my flask and slowly unscrewed the top. ‘That depends,’ I said, ‘on
who he is, where he’s come from, and what he’s done.’
Winston
narrowed his china blue eyes. ‘He’s registered at the front desk. Says he’s
gonna be here a few days. I don’t wanna ‘nother anthropologist sniffin’ around
for potential thesis material, you understand?’
‘Sure,’
I said, ‘you want him rode out of town on a rail if he is?’
‘No,’
said Winston, ‘you leave that kind of thing to me. I just want to know who he
is for now.’ He stood up and patted my shoulder.
‘She
used to call you her “Big Palooka”, yes?’
I
chugged hard at my flask. ‘There was a time...’ I said.
His
flappy hand patted my shoulder. ‘She could always spot quality,’ he said, then
he was all “hey Grampaw! What you doin’ out so late...?” and I tuned out.
I
stood up and checked my Bingo form: I was so far from winning that I couldn’t
see the advertising. I watched as Doreen swatted the cage of ping-pong balls, then
made my exit...
To
Be Continued...
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