Deep Waters - Disco Debriefing

We were at the outside bar at the Boathouse on the waterfront below the Gilman Hotel. Inside, the music was pumping along to flashing lights and the twinkling constellation of the giant glitter ball, all of which explains why we were outside. The bar was a semi-circular affair, backed by windows that allowed patrons to see what was going on inside, and looked out onto the wide Atlantic, with the phosphorescent blur of Devil Reef in the middle distance. I was sitting with Winston and getting outside of a tumbler of bourbon; Charlene Masters had confronted me as I’d walked in – hysterical and mascara-smeared – and had smacked me hard across the face, before vanishing to the ladies powder room. All of her friends had closed ranks and now there was a constant to-ing and fro-ing from that location that was fuelled by a growing and palpable animus. I took a swig and winced: she’d scratched me up pretty good, and when an Innsmouth gal scratches something, if it’s not good at healing, it tends to stay that way. Fortunately for me, that’s a talent I have in spades.

‘Maybe you should splash some of this hooch on that,’ said Winston, ‘could get infected.’

I shook my head. ‘Naw. I’ve got better uses for it.’

Sherman Sargent, manning the bar, gave me a wry smile and leaned forward to give me a re-fill. He mooched away to the far end of the bar to polish glasses, and I turned to Winston:

‘Why did you do it, Gilman?’ I said. ‘Why’d you try to shoot that guy?’

Winston shrugged and swirled his drink. ‘Just wanted to see what would happen,’ he replied. ‘Not every day you get to shoot phantom bullets.’

‘I dunno,’ I said, ‘I think it was a bad move...’

Winston put his glass down on the bartop. ‘I was speaking to Ephraim in California the other day,’ he said, ‘and he was telling me about this Russkie cat who wrote plays, called Chekov – just like the Star Trek guy. According to him, if you put a gun on the table in the first scene, you have to shoot it before the end of the third act, or the audience gets disappointed.’

‘So, you figured, since you’d brought it along, you may as well use it?’

He smirked at me and signalled Sherm’ for another round. ‘I’m my own audience,’ he grinned.

I shook my head and gulped my drink. Through the windows behind the bar, I could see Boothe dancing with a couple of sophomore chicks. I say “dancing with”, it was more like “dancing near”, but he seemed content to be doing the Bat-tusi in their general vicinity and their giggles were at least some sort of attention.

The door to the bar deck opened and a tide of heat and sound rolled out carrying Ned Pierce with it. Sherm’ hurried to make sure the door shut fast behind him. Ned was dressed in a white suit, his shirt opened to the waist, his amber-coloured afro sparkling with some kind of twinkling gel. He struck a dance pose which was becoming very familiar at the time and began singing in a falsetto voice, hoarse from overuse:

‘Well you can tell by the way I usually work, I’m a wanted man, no tiny fork...!’

Then he ran out of lyrics and began humming and thrusting his hips to an imagined beat, punctuated by occasional high-pitched ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’.

‘You sure those are the right words, Ned?’ I asked.

‘Oh! Hey guys!’ He broke out of his dance fugue. ‘Sure I’m sure: I’m hip. You guys are missing out on some hot disco action.’

‘Dunno about the action,’ I said, noting the sweat that was drenching Ned, ‘I’ll take your word about the temperature though.’

Ned clambered onto the barstool next to mine, radiating a warmth that made me lean sideways. ‘Hey, Sherm’,’ he said, ‘grab us a brewski will you, my good man?’

‘I ain’t your man,’ grumbled Sherman, ‘and I ain’t good.’ Even the addition of a “Disco Fever” bowler hat to Sherm’s barman’s outfit didn’t lift his lugubrious spirits an iota. He smacked a beer bottle down on the bar and unclipped the cap with a deft claw movement. It rattled tinnily on the Formica as he moved off to stir the ice cubes.

‘Thanks dude!’ Ned inhaled his beer.

Winston leaned across me to grab Ned’s attention. ‘Hey Ned,’ he purred, ‘you want action, howzabout you gather the gang together and let’s go party? Leave all this high school stuff behind?’

‘Sounds good,’ said Ned, ‘whereabouts?’

‘I’ve got one of the suites upstairs reserved,’ outlined Winston, ‘you get the guys together and we’ll meet you up there.’ He tossed a Gilman House room key over to Ned, who dropped his beer bottle in order to catch it.

‘Are you sure though?’ he said. ‘I mean, this is a pretty cool scene right here...’

Winston plonked the briefcase down on the bartop and drummed his fingers on the leather.

‘What I got in here,’ he said, ‘is gonna make this shindig look like a kindergarten playgroup. Whaddaya say?’

Ned’s eyes boggled; well, they boggled more. ‘Okay,’ he said and waved the key, ‘we’ll see you there.’ He slid off the barstool and scurried damply back into the disco inferno.

Beside me, Winston finished his drink and tucked the briefcase under his arm. ‘You comin’?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ I replied, ‘I’m just gonna sit here for a bit first though, finish my drink.’

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but don’t mope around for too long. Or you’ll miss out on your share.’ He hefted the bag and got up to go.

‘Winston,’ I said as he put his hand on the door, ‘for the record, I think it was a bad move to shoot at that guy. I mean, he’s plenty pissed as it is; it never helps to put the boot in without good cause.’

‘Pfft!’ he dismissed my comment. ‘He’s that upset, he can come here and try to talk about it. I think he’ll find that he gets nowhere real fast!’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, man – I’ve got a bad feeling about that dude...’

‘Let it go, B.,’ Winston threw wide the door and the music and steam rolled out once more, ‘you worry too much about stuff!’ Then he was gone.

I sat around for awhile, finishing my bourbon and wondering vaguely what Doreen was up to, seeing as she wasn’t here at the dance. I noticed that Charlene’s friends seemed to be forming an embassy of some kind to bring their concerns over to me, so I decided to slip out and avoid the confrontation...

I was crossing the lobby of the Gilman House foyer, heading to the elevators, when a voice broke the mouldy hush.

‘Benson Waite! You come along here, young man!’

I stopped and turned slowly on my heel. Standing near the entrance was a gathering of black-coated figures, foremost among them Abner Gilman, scrimshaw-handled walking-stick in hand and boot-blacked hair shining in the dim light. I took a tentative step forward and realised that I was approaching a delegation of the Esoteric Order of Dagon temple elders. I was suddenly rueing my decision to leave: facing Charlene’s mob of girlfriends was far better than fronting the Pelagic Knights of Y’ha-nthlei with no preparation.

‘Um, yes sir,’ I said slowly approaching, ‘how can I help, Mr Gilman sir?’

‘You can stand right there and wait for me to put you to work,’ he said, peering into the gloomy corners of the foyer through his grotesquely-thick lenses, ‘we got trouble a-comin’ boy and it’s gonna take all hands to be rid of it!’

To Be Continued...