In Deep - 1: Doreen

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...