newnoirstories

[newnoirstories]

The Eye Never Forgets (AI Illustration Version)

(As always, the inclusion of religious or mystical themes in my works does not constitute an endorsement of them. The following story contains violence, death, references to torture, to self-harm, drugs, alcohol, implied sex, and to mental health problems, including depression.)

(The AI art contained in this work is intended only for concept art, hopefully inspiring human artists, such as those on Tumblr.)

"The Eye Never Forgets"

Chapter I

One Summer night in 1975, in Boston's Combat Zone, a woman sat on a littered sidewalk. Torn dress, one shoe on, a grin missing more than one tooth, she smoked something, something strong.

Just out of her line of sight, a lady of the night got in a beat-up old red car with a man, but just as he leaned back, his leg was cut, and off the lady made with his wallet.

Worlds away from this, Caldwell Rome strolled in Franklin Park, one overcast day in 2008, but saw a glum man, about his own age, named Nikólaos Panagos, though more often called "Diogenes" by the locals.

"Did you ever wonder why I am a cynic, alone and miserable? It is because of the woman who is after you." Diogenes said, somewhat cryptically.

"What do you know of someone after me?"

"I know everything about her. For thirty-three years, I have thought of little else. Look at me. Do you believe I was once wealthy?"

"If you say so, yes, I will take your word for it," replied Caldwell.

"It was in 1975. I curse the day. I sinned, but how I have paid for my sin! Her name was Ann Patterson, originally, I am told. Some say she was the daughter of Roger Patterson, the man who made the movie of the Bigfoot, but they say many things about Roger, true or not."

"I am not a priest. You needn't tell me any of this."

"I want to tell someone. I want someone to understand."

"Okay," replied Caldwell, sitting down on the bench next to the forlorn old man.

"She called herself Bella Lovelace, in imitation of some other woman, and she was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. Words cannot do justice to her beauty. She invited me to make, to m-make… a dirty movie with her. Yes, sir, that's what happened. I was paid $500 for my soul. I did it for desire, not the dollars. I later threw the money in the Charles River. But that wasn't the end of it: Back then, blackmail was her game. I was wealthy, but refused to pay, so she disgraced me before my family, who are ashamed of me to this day. I now wash dishes in a fast food place, live in public housing, might as well be homeless."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"What is there any man can do? What is this world? It is not one, but two, it is torn, so that every instinct we possess leads to evil. Whatever we are without, we are chaos within."

"I have felt that way. I find Confession- to a priest, I mean- helps."

"Maybe I will. What do I have to lose? But I have not told the whole story. Imagine my shock one day, 1983, I see this temptress's photo on the news. The British sought her, said she worked for the Irish, the INLA, had fled to America, back to America. Well, this woman now goes by 'Elle Kane', and she is back here in Boston. 'Elle Kane' comes up again and again in deaths in the papers. I hear of your family tragedies, and no one but her could be at the bottom of them."

"Being a private investigator, I have made many enemies, but what makes you think Elle, or whatever her name is, is one of them?"

"The strange feeling of an old man," replied Nikólaos.

Chapter II

Caldwell Rome refused to buy a television. He grew up with a radio, and felt overwhelmed by sight and sound at once.

"Ray Allen makes another three from the corner! Time out, Clippers…" said the old radio.

Caldwell went through old files. Some haunting failures, haunting the whole city. Filed year by year, worst of all, perhaps, was 1987. That year saw the terrible death of Cassandra Mullin.

In the winter of '87, someone deftly disabled the alarm of the library Mullin oversaw. Evidence suggested more than one person was involved. Mullin was found murdered, her eyes gone as if by vultures, the library ransacked.

But for what? Caldwell looked through the notes. The books stolen, which numbered over one hundred, included "Several Jane Austen novels, a copy of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War', titles on botany, medicine, American history, Canadian history, some genealogical records, old magazines". Caldwell, with his background in antiques, knew as well as anyone that none of these were of great economic value, so Cassandra's death, which had not been quick, seemed to be for nothing, yet the methodical nature of the crime suggested otherwise.

Boston's definition of mediocrity, Detective Louis Meath, pronounced it, in the papers, as the act of "random psychos", who were "probably high on something". Caldwell knew better, but what could he prove?

The next one, however, hit closer to home: Paul Knudsen, Caldwell's son-in-law, the papers claimed, had, one night in 2001, taken his own life. He had been found dangling from a rope, out his own second story window, yet no one, including Caldwell Rome, who knew Paul believed that he met such a fate of his own accord.

The two cases, Caldwell believed, were connected, through one man in particular, a man reported to have died in a 2002 motorcycle accident, one Birger Pedersen, Norwegian, called "Fenrir" on stage, part of Norway's terrible black metal scene in the nineties. Fenrir had gone after Caldwell one day in 1999, wielding a knife, but as Rome had considerable knowledge of Kyokushin Karate, having completed a 20-man Kumite, Pedersen, though the stronger of the two, had gotten the worst of it, a well-aimed kick to the knee, though Fenrir savagely bit a policeman who took him into custody.

Caldwell Rome's research indicated that Pedersen, a man of evident means whose wealth came mysteriously, who had a home in New York City, as well as another in Norway, but occasionally visited Boston, had been in Boston when both Mullin and Knudsen died, again in '99, of course, and finally, had died in Boston in 2002.

Chapter III

Early in 2002, a grieving Natalie Rome had herself come to the conclusion that Birger Pedersen, still in Boston at the time, was involved in her husband's demise. Teaching herself to throw antique knives, antique per her profession as an appraiser, Natalie was daring enough to venture to one of Fenrir's known haunts, the Handel Bar, which, despite the classical connotations of the name, was a biker bar that barely managed to keep its liquor license, so often were police called over its violence and mayhem.

However, Natalie made a miscalculation, being unfamiliar with such parts of Boston, and instead went to a bar known as The Handlebar. The Jackson 5's "Never Can Say Goodbye" was playing, and neither that nor the ambiance seemed anything like the Birger Pedersen she knew only by reputation.

"I haven't seen you here before," said an unfamiliar woman, smiling at Natalie.

"No, it's my first time."

"You go both ways?"

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind. I couldn't help but notice you're kinda cute," said the woman, flirtatiously.

"Thanks…" said Natalie, a bit uncomfortable.

"I'm Sally. A handshake? Okay."

"No dice, Sally, this femme's mine," intruded another voice. The new woman eyed Natalie rather audaciously.

"Mind your manners, Katie. It's not like we're men or something," quipped Sally.

Natalie looked around, and realized from even less subtle signs that The Handlebar, unlike the Handel Bar, was a bar for women drawn to other women.

Natalie's mother, Agatha Rome, in a most unlikely way, would have better luck. She approached Thomas Banerjee, Broadway performer and old friend of her son Philip, asking about disguises.

"Angie, this woman I know, could make us look like each other. There is practically no limit to what they can do now," asserted Thomas.

"Can they do what I asked?"

"Well, there's one thing… I love you like a mom, and I don't want to be insensitive, but to play a part like that, you would have to be very limber, and you're not as young…"

Agatha, smiling, responded by doing side splits with ease.

Chapter IV

As of 2010, Clyde Tomasini, producer, dancer and choreographer, was considered Boston musical theatre's most important and acclaimed person, and some would have expanded that to "America's most important" as well. Having explored many themes, it was in this year that Tomasini struck upon the idea of combining Broadway dance with Bollywood dance, though Thomas Banerjee dropped out of the production, considering the core of Tomasini's plot idea too derivative of Bollywood's "My Brother… Nikhil" (2005).

Philip Rome, however, a noted designer of musical theatre sets and costumes, was very active in the production, entitled "Closet to India". Inspecting the set, however, Philip nearly lost his life when a counterweight plunged toward him. The same instant, however, Tomasini, acting quickly, tackled Philip out of the way, both escaping with only minor injuries.

Meanwhile, in a bar across town, a random man recounted a story:

"It's true. This housewife type, Agatha Rome. This horrible man, Fenrir, somebody called him. He's playing 'Cape Fear' with the whole family, you know. He shot their pitbull. Agatha thinks he killed her son-in-law, so she gets this guy to let her disguise herself as this made up version of him, at a bike, you know, motorcycle repair shop, and up shows Fenrir."

"You've been drinking too much, Bobby."

"No, I swear: She's made up like this young man, wild red hair, contact lenses that make it look like she's on something. She fixes his bike, she fixes it so it doesn't work, and he dies in a crash."

Or so went "Bobby's" version of the story.

Chapter V

In 2015, not far from where Bobby told his tale, an abandoned old warehouse was supposed to be the lair of "Salty". Children, mingling fear and curiosity, claimed that a man, a man adults would describe as an occultist, did rituals in the prosaic ruins, rituals involving salt. They often dared each other to go to the warehouse, making bets about who would go there alone.

Philip Rome, veteran of more than one near-death experience, would soon have yet another. Whisked into a limousine against his will, he was taken to a building not unlike the old warehouse, but this one very much occupied.

A dim lamp's flickering light fell on Georg Faust, notorious racketeer and rumored agent of espionage (though for which nation, no one knew), who often introduced himself by adding that he was "no relation" to the Faust of legend. Most eerie of all, he was seated in what appeared to be an old electric chair.

"Philip, excuse the awkwardness of our introduction," said Faust, with a touch of a German accent, "I do wish, however, to let you know about some fine likenesses of yourself."

"Likenesses?"

"Yes. Also in the photograph is your good friend, Elire Dervishi, a rising Broadway star, I understand."

"What about her?"

"You two are 'just friends', as you Americans say?"

"Yes."

"Kindly explain this photograph. Is it customary in Albania [Elire's land of origin] to kiss friends on the lips?"

"Oh, that… it's none of your business, but we played tennis, which her father wanted her to do professionally, but this was just for fun. It was after she defeated me in straight sets, we went to kiss on the cheek, but I forgot she is left-handed, so it went wrong, that's all."

"Oh, Philip, I do believe you, but Sokol, her father, alleged Albanian mobster, feared almost as much as I am, will not. I understand he disapproves of her Broadway career, and considers that you turned her in that direction. Well, what would this hard man say if he saw a copy of this photograph?"

"In other words," asked Philip, "Blackmail?"

"Not precisely," explained Georg, "It is not money we want. I merely want you to tell your father, Caldwell Marion Rome, what you experienced today. It will give him the perspective not to talk too much."

Chapter VI

Little did anyone in this mysterious lair know that outside was a woman, a woman who went by the name Elle Kane, smiling as she manipulated some exterior electrical wiring.

Back inside, Philip asked Georg why he was seated in an electric chair.

"Oh, this, yes. I often forget," laughed Georg, "It is not operational. It was deactivated some three decades ago, but it gives me a flair for the dramatic, don't you think?"

Philip noticed that a wire to the electric chair had been cut. Puzzled, Georg said that he had not cut that wire, nor asked for it to be cut. The wire had been severed by Kitao Takashi, also Caldwell Rome's instructor in Kyokushin, for reasons the reader will later learn.

Georg, resuming the conversation, began to say, "But look me in the eye…"

At this moment, a sudden blast of electricity shook Georg Faust, violently shaking him. With the wire cut, how was this possible?

In the quiet of the Rome residence, Agatha being away visiting relatives, Caldwell Rome slumbered in strange dreams, unaware of his son's predicament.

Following the logic of a dream, Caldwell saw Cassandra Mullin as she had been in 1976, when readers of "Ars Oculus" first knew her. The dream knew her, however, not as Cassandra, but as "Rose Davies", burlesque dancer, by her side ghostly old men, the men with no eyes.

At the song's final lines, "The edge of the big reveal…", per Rose's tease, she revealed not herself, but the genealogy Caldwell had read that fateful day thirty-nine years ago.

Chapter VII

The next day, Caldwell Rome saw in the paper the meaning of his dream: A much lauded and discussed international charitable effort- or so it was promoted- Paint the Heart, touted as a charity to help impoverished children use art to earn money and express themselves, was the brainchild of United States Senator and former corporate mogul Montgomery Cross. Official biographies claimed that Montgomery's father was one "Michael Elliott Cross", in fact nonexistent, but the dream unearthed Caldwell's memory: Even as he looked for the name of the notorious Robert Cross, back in 1976, he had mentally noted that Boston's own Montgomery Cross's father was, in fact, David Cross.

This, then, was the secret for which Cassandra Mullin died, interrogated, no doubt, as to who had looked through these old family records. The assailants then ransacked and stole random books, Caldwell deduced, to disguise the particular importance of the genealogical records stolen.

The reader may understand the context if told a bit more about the late, hated David Cross, a eugenicist known mainly for the African Trepanations, experiments on innocents in Africa that horrified every civilized person, and the mere association with David Cross would end any public career, were it widely known.

More conversations with fellow old-timer Nikólaos Panagos were, for Diogenes, therapy of a sort, but for Caldwell, crucial to piecing together his failed cases, and turning them, even now, in his ninth decade, into successes.

If Nikólaos could still be relied upon for his memory, he told the story that Ann Patterson's crimes did not stop with the INLA dealings, but that she had been in the employ of spymaster Georg Faust, which tied her to the threats Philip relayed, per his instructions, to Caldwell.

"Look up old papers, old records," said Diogenes, "Everywhere Patterson went, death followed. Mr. Rome, she hunted teen campers for sport, for sport! The very Karate academy you used to attend: Well, Elle Kane would maim its students to sharpen her skills [this, if it is to be believed, could explain Kitao Takashi attempting to stop Ann Patterson's crimes]. No conscience, conscience…"

Nikólaos Panagos had fallen asleep on the familiar park bench.

Chapter VIII

Dreams know no time, and in 2002, Agatha Rome drifted off to timeless aeons. As a sleeping Agatha saw it in her mind's eye, a large female bodybuilder, in a red bikini, transformed, in an instant, into a powerful she-wolf. It was this dream, for reasons unclear, that inspired Agatha to discuss disguises with Thomas Banerjee, and if "Bobby" can be believed, take revenge on Birger Pedersen, a man so hated that no one claimed his remains.

Complicating matters, however, was the death of Carl Wozniacki in 2012, dangling, just like Paul Knudsen, from his own second story window. Wozniacki was allegedly a contract killer and MDMA dealer, called the "Love Killer" by the press, and a man with many enemies, though he was also going through a divorce at the time he passed. Among those to whom he allegedly sold ecstasy was Peter Knudsen, troubled son of Paul, trying to forget his father's senseless death.

"It's this way," explained Caldwell to a cop on the beat, "Either Wozniacki took his own life that way as an admission of guilt in Paul's death, or he was murdered by whoever killed Paul, but that could not be Birger Pedersen, who had himself been dead a decade."

As they walked, they approached Kneeland Street, in Boston's Chinatown.

Chapter IX

Boston, Massachusetts, a bleak, rainy day, 2022. Philip Rome, shaking the water off his umbrella, entered his theatrical place of work. Philip, dripping wet, noticed a framed portrait of Sir Alfred Hitchcock, a new addition to the venue.

"Our first scene back [from lockdown] is about birds, so I thought that appropriate," explained producer Clyde Tomasini.

"Speaking of that," began Philip, "I think the set idea is too expensive with our limited cash flow, so I have…"

"Is it difficult?" Clyde interrupted.

"Is what difficult?"

"Dealing with scarcity, the first law of economics?" asked Tomasini.

"It comes with being human."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong. Scarcity applies to those who earn, but not those who steal, like me, for instance."

Philip looked at Clyde, stunned.

"You steal? What did you steal?"

Clyde began to laugh oddly, "You must admit I am a genius. The way I 'saved' your life in 2010, but I rigged the counterweight to fall in the first place!"

Rome began to back away from Tomasini.

"Don't worry, Phil, my aim was never to hurt you, only gain your trust."

"Needless to say, now you've lost it."

"But what if I told you, Philip," began Tomasini, halting, as if for a dramatic pause, "That I am the new Shakespeare, and that you will be immortal even for having known me? So, so many playwrights, all in the shadow of the Bard, all broken by scarcity, the need to receive grants, donations, snivelling before patrons and bureaucrats. Well, no more!"

Rome had no response to this grandiosity.

"You, Philip, friend of horses, will be the next Franz Marc, the next Salvador Dalí, master of dreams. Where is this budget, you wonder? Why, from Paint the Heart, with over a trillion, by US dollars, in funding, some on the books, some off them. That was Georg Faust's angle: He was blackmailing Monty Cross over something, and he needed to keep it a secret or lose his percent of the money."

"That was why Faust kidnapped me?"

"Yes, but you should thank me. I killed him," proclaimed Tomasini, his pride evident, grinning.

"Why would you confess this to me?"

"I have the photo negatives of that kiss, accidental or not, as well, Philip, but I would rather we were partners."

"So you murdered Georg Faust?"

"Well," began the grandiloquent master criminal, "Strictly speaking, human law could do nothing about it."

To Clyde, it all seemed a light comedy.

"But I thought you said…" began Philip.

"I said I killed him. I did it by a hex. I, my dear Mr. Rome, am the legendary 'Salty'. It began simply enough. I am a charming man, as you know. Evidently, it seems Georg Faust's sister, Stefanie, lovely, golden-haired tigress, has an unfaithful husband. Rather unsatisfied with this cad, she turned to me, in Maithuna."

"Where?"

"Not where, what? Maithuna is intimacy of the Tantra. I captured her subtle body thereby, and she mine, but I knew it, and she did not. Now, the difficult part: How to transpose her essence with that of her elder brother? Fortunately, I am an Adept. After, I admit, some failed experiments, I found the perfect spell, if you will: A statue of Ardhanarishvara, androgynous Hindu god and goddess, but I wrote Stefanie's name, in Latin, on Shiva, and Georg's name on Parvati, with the Algiz rune between them, for my own safety, salted the ground for the Magnum Opus, and all was prepared."

"Prepared for what? A padded room?" sneered Philip.

"Ah, but Philip, you saw the result. I grounded myself, put an electric shock through my own subtle body, elementary sympathetic magic, and you witnessed the result."

Chapter X

Philip Rome now realized that any show of skepticism or of scruple would weaken his position.

"Why did we need to get Georg out of the way?" asked Philip, changing his manner to that of grasping cynicism.

"Because, my dear Phil, he was a philistine, no art in him. He wanted the money only to reinvest, to make more money, never dreaming what money could make immortal."

The lighting designer, none other than Peter Knudsen, a man of striking palor, was set to join them, but was rather delayed by the harrying of a large flock of greedy pigeons, seeking the free food to which they had become accustomed.

"There is a problem in our plans, however," said Philip, with a look of concern.

"What possible problem could there be?"

"You should pay more attention to the local news. Georg Faust, though in a coma, is expected to survive."

Tomasini showed fear for an instant, then gave Phil an odd smile.

"Marvelous humor, Mr. Rome… you had me for a moment! More of why I need you for comedies," laughed Clyde.

"No, it's true," interjected Peter, who had finally arrived, "This Faust, the racketeer, is expected to come to any day now."

Philip and Peter looked at Clyde, and Tomasini began to believe them, and turned ashen in color. For once, he seemed at a loss for words. Mr. Tomasini stepped on stage, beginning to open the curtains, standing precariously.

"Clyde, don't!" shouted Philip.

For an instant tearful, Clyde Tomasini's last words were from Hamlet, "Conscience doth make cowards of us all."

Philip and Peter winced as a heavy counterweight fell on the mad playwright. How much of his story could be believed? One matter was certain: Georg Faust was dead.

Chapter XI

Jeremiah Rome lacked the intellect or the good sense of his siblings, Philip and Natalie. Appropriately, he moved to the West Coast, and equally fitting, was in middle management in a multinational corporation, and as such, his stumbling ways were scarcely noticed. He occasionally, however, visited his Bostonian family, doing so in the Summer of 2023.

Louis Meath's heir to obliviousness, Jeremiah had not the scarcest notion of the trials his family had endured, but seemed to know every catchphrase and slogan ever used to market trendy technology. Neither, moreover, had the recklessness of his youth abated, but on this day, as he drove, rather over the speed limit, into Boston, it would work for the best.

Ann Patterson, or call her Bella or Elle, by any name, took a deep breath and rolled back her eyes in a parked vehicle, a common enough make and model. Like an addict feeling the fix, Ann would experience her fix of violence today, she believed, putting a silencer on an automatic handgun.

She began tailing Philip Rome through traffic, having timed it perfectly. As Philip did not know her by sight, let alone through a rear-view mirror, all Ann had to do was wait for an opportunity, or so she thought.

In barrelled Jeremiah, not recognizing Philip's vehicle, but fortunately for Phil, his younger brother instead struck Ann Patterson's car, which itself was over the speed limit, as Patterson, to avoid suspicion, would alternately pass and fall behind Philip's car.

In a grisly wreck, which Philip managed to avoid, Ann Elle Patterson (1949-2023) met her end. Jeremiah's corporate connections, meanwhile, prevented any but the lightest legal consequences.

Chapter XII

Indra's net shook: A rich young man in Back Bay met an irresistible woman on the World Wide Web, calling herself "ChinaDoll68U", but this woman did not exist, and when the baited fish went to meet her, he was bound and gagged by agents of Sokol Dervishi, aforementioned Albanian gangster, presumably for ransom.

The next day, splashy headlines read, "Wealthy Heir Missing", while elsewhere in the city, a sleepy old man, Nikólaos Panagos by name, was working a fast food grill, salting the hamburgers, as Agatha Rome did needlepoint meant to depict the Electron Cloud Model of the atom, but to the strictly artistic mind, perhaps abstract expressionism, to keep her mind off her husband's passing, the gravestone of Caldwell Marion Rome reading (January 6, 1933-April 12, 2023), and the same week in April, 2023, headlines glared "Senator Cross Family Horror"- in spite of all, he could not outrun his family.

On a stage, in an electric blue dress, Grace Martel, known to readers of "Jashi", was practicing a trick as a magician. Reaching into a fish tank full of water, she removed her hands from the water, and flames shot from them, then, with a circular motion of her hands, a ring of smoke rose into the air.

The end.

(All above illustrations are not to my credit, nor my work, nor my property, but the work of perchance.org, but this does not constitute an official endorsement of that website, with which I have no official connection.)

[newnoirstories]

Jashi (AI Illustration Version)

(As always, the inclusion of religious or mystical themes or practices in my works does not constitute an endorsement of them. The following story contains references to violence, kidnapping, death, drugs, alcohol, parental neglect and also some implied adult situations, to HIV/AIDS, as well as references to mental illness and catatonia.)

(The AI drawings are merely concept art for what I hope will be final illustrations, drawn by a human artist, such as someone on Tumblr.)

"Jashi"

Chapter I

On a Summer day in 1991, on a less than glamorous Boston street, Paul Knudsen saw a peculiar sight. A woman, who would turn out to be central to his professional life, was walking down a gritty sidewalk as if it were a runway, dressed perfectly, designer everything, every hair in place. She looked oddly familiar to him.

"Excuse me, ma'am… have I seen you somewhere before?"

"Are you into fashion?"

"Not particularly, why?"

"Grace Martel is my name, and I have been in Vogue twice already."

"Sorry to bother you, Ms. Martel. Maybe my wife left a magazine around somewhere…"

"Your wife? Don't fool yourself, friend. I know a gay man when I see one… not that there's anything wrong with that."

With this strangest of introductions, Grace Martel resumed her catwalk strut.

By this time, Natalie Rome, Paul's wife, had established herself as a noted appraiser of antiques, as well as an expert lecturer on the subject. She insisted, however, that she would never go into the criminal side of the antiques world, wishing to avoid the drama her father and brother experienced, but fate had other plans.

For his part, Paul Knudsen looked after their infant son, Peter Knudsen, and did any research, whether in books or on computers, that Natalie was too busy to do.

Chapter II

The maelstrom of spite and violence that would soon engulf Natalie and Paul came in the form, outwardly at least, of two families in a sort of feud, not of the direct, rural sort of popular history, but a battle of one wealthy family and one even wealthier, beginning with a common source of division, Mammon.

One wintery day in 1962, John Clemens Martel, of whom Grace Martel was a great-niece, owed money to a man even wealthier than himself, one Porter Heraldson, the first of that name. In Heraldson's splendid mansion, negotiations gave way to raised voices, which gave way to blows, and finally, in circumstances that were never fully resolved, John Martel stabbed Porter Heraldson (the First) to death with a letter opener.

The prosecution portrayed the matter as out and out murder, premeditated, saying that Martel simply wanted to escape his debts. The defense, by contrast, claimed it was self-defense, that Heraldson had attacked Martel. The jury decided that there was, at least, reasonable doubt regarding the perhaps overly ambitious charge of murder in the first degree, and so John Clemens Martel was acquitted, walking free in what the Heraldson family, and all of their friends and sympathizers, regarded as an outrage, a travesty of justice.

To darken the waters still more, shortly after his acquittal, John Martel was struck and killed by a locomotive, and the Martel family, and its friends and partisans, insisted that this was the real act of murder, but nothing was ever proven, and no arrests were made. The death could have been self-inflicted, or it could have been an accident, and Martel had been drinking, albeit not heavily.

From the 1963 trial on, the two families, each with an interest in the occult, albeit from very different perspectives, hated each other, the Heraldsons, the wealthier of the two (having earned their money in early locomotive transport, making John Martel's death the more ironic) viewing the Martels as common criminals, and common in every way, while the Martels regarded the Heraldsons as diabolical spawn who purchased their way out of justice.

No deeper hate was ever felt than that between these two prominent Bostonian families.

Chapter III

Another dark world, one that would impose itself on Natalie and Paul, was that of Philip "Catatonic Phil" Dandolos. While his nickname might have been a humorous, albeit darkly humorous, play on "Punxsutawney Phil", there was nothing humorous about Phil's early life, unless, perhaps, from the point of view of absurdism.

Dandolos was, like the Martel family's ultimate origins, from Pennsylvania, born in 1965 in a particularly rough part of South Philadelphia. His mother abandoned him at birth, and his father was a brutal alcoholic. Philip ran away from home at fourteen, becoming a thief on the streets, and eventually selling not only stolen goods, but himself as well.

Dandolos, wishing to escape the memory of Philadelphia, moved to Boston, where the homosexual set soon regarded him as the most handsome young man in the city, and his clients included many wealthy men, whom Philip was not above blackmailing, if they wished to conceal their trysts.

A heavy user of absinthe and hashish, and rumored to follow the infamous Thelemite cult, Philip's nickname came from his strange trances. Some said that they were a form of psychotic disorder, others that they were induced by hashish, and yet others that they were states of supernatural possession. Be that as it may, Philip Dandolos was either desired or feared by all who knew him, though he had never been known to be physically violent, instead relying on lies, larceny and blackmail.

That one of his clients was, by the early 1990's, Porter Heraldson III (who made no attempts to hide his homosexuality), grandson of the slain Porter Heraldson, would prove to have some bearing on events that followed.

Chapter IV

Returning to the fatal game of human chess of the Heraldsons and the Martels, to understand the actions of Grace Martel, and also of her older brother, Henry "Hank" Martel, one must understand the hatred of all of Heraldson blood instilled in them by George Martel, brother of John, of mysterious demise.

A somewhat feminine, slender man, whose favorite hobby was embroidery, George was, by the early 90's, bedridden, but continued needlepoint, but all of his embroidered images were of Heraldsons meeting gruesome fates, which, with a background among the Pennsylvania Dutch (Germans), was part of a tradition of Hexerei, Pennsylvania German witchcraft, in the Martel family, despite the considerable (though still inferior to the Heraldsons) wealth made by the fashion designs of the late John Clemens Martel, still worn by some older women, such glamour contrasting with the family's rustic origins.

Grace Martel, apart from her love of fashion, was herself skilled in Hexerei, having owl feathers for curses on the Heraldson family, and also, in a more modern innovation, a hidden serpent tattoo that she regarded as having sinister mystical significance. Hank, by contrast, was an impulsive, cantankerous man of limited intelligence, without the cleverness for witchcraft, and lacking any understanding of crime, except for acts of the most crude, direct violence.

Grace Martel, in 1992, made an audacious move against Porter Heraldson III. As Heraldson was an avid collector of rare Japanese antiques, Grace read considerably on the topic, then had some fraudulent "Japanese" items, of no real antiquity, built, in an attempt to have them sold to Porter, not for the money, but to try to trick Porter into re-selling them to a buyer (actually an agent of the Martels), and Heraldson himself, though innocent, would be arrested in a serious case of fraud.

However, Porter took one look at the goods presented and scoffed, knowing instantly that they were fake. Now, of course, it was Grace Martel who was in potential legal peril, though she lied and claimed that she had been deceived about the authenticity of the goods. Porter was less offended by the attempt to frame him for a serious crime than by the "insult to my intellect" of such "crude forgeries".

Ironically, given her earlier claim to the married Paul Knudsen, Grace knew little of Porter Heraldson III's personal life, and so, when she called in person at his mansion, she was let in by a servant, and went straight to Porter's study, and attempted seduction, boldly revealing her tattoo.

Porter, however, laughed derisively, "Martel, if you had listened to any gossip, which I thought was a favorite pastime of plebs [Porter's name for anyone he regarded as common or crass], you would know that I am utterly and thoroughly homosexual, and make no attempt to hide it, so you can put the money back in the purse, as it is in a currency I cannot use."

Chapter V

Natalie Rome's involvement in all of this came, early in 1993, through Yamazaki Sota, an elderly, very traditional Japanese man living in Boston. Yamazaki had in his possession a Karakuri Ningyo, an automaton or puppet used in Edo Period theatre, and apart from its perfect craftsmanship, it was also rumored to be possessed by an Oni, Japanese folklore's equivalent of a demon, as the result, legend had it, of an Onmyōdō practitioner centuries earlier breaking taboos and summoning such a being.

Rather than deter buyers, this legend increased the value, and many of the rising goth subculture would have purchased it if they had the money, but few had such cash. It must be understood, however, that Yamazaki Sota was most reluctant to sell this Karakuri puppet to anyone who was not Japanese, due to its associations with Onmyōdō, traditionally seen as an exclusively Japanese form of magic.

However, Yamazaki had a granddaughter, in need of expensive treatments for the cancer that threatened her young life, and so he tentatively agreed to sell the automaton to none other than Porter Heraldson III. Heraldson, in turn, brought in Natalie Rome, accompanied by Paul Knudsen, to appraise the item, and she arrived at a then staggering sum, for such an item: $200,000.

Without a moment's hesitation, however, Porter agreed to the price. He did not mention at the time, however, his primary reason for buying it. The Oni by which the puppet was said to be possessed was Shuten-dōji, believed to attack women, and Porter, having read deeply on the Edo Period, wished to invoke it to attack Grace Martel.

His reasons for taking such a drastic action went beyond the "insult to my intellect" of her attempt to frame him for fraud, but included also Grace giving free cocaine to Porter's heir, June Heraldson, his naive young nice, age 16, as part of her ongoing attempts to destroy the Heraldson family.

Even as Grace used Hexerei against Porter, Porter planned to use Onmyōdō, which he considered "far more powerful than the superstitions of rubes", against Grace. This would quite literally recoil on Heraldson, however, in a very physical and palpable way.

Chapter VI

The sale of the Karakuri Ningyo was arranged, in its legal formalities, by attorney Ralph Case, at a price of $200,000, and Porter immediately began calling the antique item "Shuten-dōji". Also owner of a Dreamachine, Porter was fascinated by the eyes, and so, one rainy night, when a voice seeming to come from within the puppet said, "Look me in the eyes. Look!", an intrigued Porter, keeping "Shuten-dōji" locked in his study, did precisely this, and it was his last action on earth.

With the mechanical sound of a spring, a knife went into the right eye of Heraldson. Discovered in such a terrible state by servants, the case was put in the hands of Detective Lou Meath, a weary, clumsy man of 64, just waiting to retire.

After reading of the matter the next morning, Paul expressed a very direct opinion to Natalie.

"Do you see this, Natalie? A sale you oversaw… you have to solve it, you know."

"Now, Paul, I told you, I will never be a detective," replied Natalie Rome.

"So, do you really want to leave the case in the capable [this last word overwhelmed with sarcasm] hands of Detective Meath? Have you met him?"

The look of chagrin on Natalie's face showed that she had met him.

"Natalie, you are the smartest person I have ever met. You could give the case to your father, but remember how he told you to do things on your own, without his help?"

"He meant appraisals, not investigating murders."

"Yes, but here you are- you know, what, twelve languages, or have I lost count? Do you really think this case is beyond you?"

"Despite the elements of subjectivity in such assessments of intellectual performance, I have been tested as having an intelligence quotient of 172."

"Now there's the Natalie I know!"

Chapter VII

Even Detective Meath could find certain evidence, or rather, those working for him could, and the only fingerprints found on the deadly puppet, other than those of Heraldson himself, were those of Grace Martel.

The matter was rather complicated, however, by the fact that several of Heraldson's most economically valuable Japanese antiques were missing, evidently stolen. The Martel residence was searched, but no trace of the items found.

However, when a neighbor mentioned that Philip Dandolos, having been given a key by Heraldson, visited the mansion that very night, and his apartment was inspected, there were the incriminating old objects of larceny. Dandolos admitted to the theft, but said that he found Porter already dead.

"I can prove I didn't kill him. When did he die?"

"Between six and seven," replied a uniformed officer.

"Ha… I was with Kevin, Kevin Courtney, another alleged client of mine at the time. He likes to take photos as trophies, but I keep the negatives, so if he denies it…"

While Dandolos was convicted of felony larceny, the rather graphic alibi proved him innocent of the murder itself, and so police attention turned back to Grace Martel.

Meanwhile, however, Yamazaki Sota was in a state of the blackest depression, believing that the mysterious death resulted from selling the Karakuri puppet to someone not Japanese. Drinking heavily, he considered taking his own life, until an old acquaintance, Charity Kobashi, found him, barely conscious, on a park bench.

Charity, herself far from young, had been raised very traditionally as well, but after moving to Boston, had converted to the Evangelical sort of Christianity, changing her given name accordingly.

"I am dishonored. I broke every tradition. I sold Onmyōdō for a price… what good am I now?" Yamazaki cried pitifully.

"Please, Yamazaki, listen," said Charity, "No one is dishonored in Jesus Christ. He loved thieves, he loved prostitutes. He saved their very souls, Yamazaki-san. He will save you."

Though Yamazaki did not know what to make of Charity's new religion, her reassurances did, at least save his life.

Chapter VIII

When Gabriel Westinghouse, a lover of the late Porter Heraldson III, reluctantly came forward, his evidence strengthened the case, as pertained to motive, against Grace Martel.

"Please, officers, don't tell my wife. I married this old-fashioned, sexless woman- a nice lady, and she doesn't expect me in the bedroom, much to my relief, but she would divorce me and leave me alone to die," pleaded Westinghouse.

"To die?" asked Meath.

"I have HIV, gentlemen. What do you think is going to happen to me? I'll tell my wife it's cancer or whatever it is, just not why my immunity is down."

"What do you know about the case?"

"I know that Porter thought the puppet was supernatural, some kind of Japanese magic. He was going to use it to curse Grace Martel. I asked why, and he said it was this old feud or hatred between his family and hers."

With this, the fingerprints and the fact that her live-in boyfriend was Ralph Case, who brokered the sale of the Karakuri Ningyo, Grace Martel was arrested for murder in the first degree.

Grace insisted that, although she had seen the puppet, which Ralph brought home, she claimed, she did not know what it was, and that, in an amorous game she was playing with Ralph, in which she was blindfolded and attempting to find him, she left fingerprints on it, initially mistaking it for him. She now claimed that she had been set up by Ralph Case, and her new defense team strengthened her claim by unearthing papers, which Grace insisted she had been told to sign, by Ralph Case, under false pretexts, that made him her sole beneficiary.

The state's case against Grace Martel was weakening, unless they could try Grace Martel and Ralph Case as co-defendants. Case, however, had a backup plan in the form of Marge Schmidt.

Marge Schmidt was the tall, imposing, battle-scarred queen of the prison to which Grace had been sent, and was offered a re-opening of her case, by Ralph Case, with a likely reduced sentence, as well as untraceable money, laundered more than once, upon her release, in exchange for killing Grace in prison, then putting a shiv in the victim's hand, claiming self-defense.

Chapter IX

Meawhile, Natalie Rome realized that she needed legal counsel of her own, given her involvement with the deadly Karakuri Ningyo, so she brought in Stephen Martin, unaware of the potential conflict of interest that Martin was also assigned to manage the trust fund of June Heraldson. Paul Knudsen avoided Martin, saying that he did not "trust lawyers".

The following day, the day on which Schmidt was paid to attack Grace Martel, however, she had a change of heart, telling Ralph Case that she would not attack her new "girlfriend" for "anything". As such, Grace was now effectively second-in-command of all the prisoners, after Schmidt herself.

The same day, however, now in June, 1973, a most grotesque visitor boldly approached the front door of Natalie and Paul. Ciarán Brennan, who had come from Ireland some time in the fifties, was an escaped mental hospital patient, a heavy-set man suffering from the delusion that he was the great bareknuckle boxer John L. Sullivan.

Paul, rather half Ciarán's size, answered the front doorbell.

"Greetings, greetings, the great John L bids you a happy day."

"How can we help you?" replied a flustered, bewildered Paul Knudsen.

"You were wantin' to know about the Case case? The case of the man Case in the papers, the Case that they say killed a man with a robot?"

Vaguely discerning what Ciarán meant to say, and having gathered, from the man's shadow boxing, that he believed he was John L. Sullivan, Paul began addressing him as such.

"Yes, Mr. Sullivan, what do you know about Ralph Case?"

Just then, however, Paul realized that, despite Ciarán's bulk, he had sneaked past him into the home. Alarmed, he turned around to find "Sullivan" laughing jovially.

"You see how it's done when I go to knock out a man? Well, I laid eyes on this man, just like the picture in the paper, 'cept it's a mask, Mister, a mask."

"What is a mask?" chimed in Natalie, unafraid of their eccentric visitor.

"Why, Mr. Case's face is a mask! I saw him put it on in some bushes, but here's the rarest bit of all. I saw the face under the face at your front door!"

Chapter X

After a few telephone calls by Natalie Rome, including to the Boston Police Department, the case was complete: Ralph Case was an alias of Stephen Martin, and not only this, but Stephen Martin was a son of Samuel Matthews, alias Robert Cross, and thus an older half-brother of Paul Knudsen. Paul had suspected something of the sort, hence his discomfort around the attorney. As a taunt to his acquaintances, he chose the same initials his father had used, yet no one but Paul had ever suspected the truth.

Although Stephen Martin was arrested, without incident, for murder in the first degree, confident that his legal acumen would save him, news reached the Martel family that George Martel's condition was terminal. A recently released Grace Martel, though a bit tearful, said that she was not surprised, but Hank, by contrast, blamed the late Porter Heraldson's "Japanese magic", even from beyond the grave, and in a frenzy, ran out the door.

The tragedy of Hank Martel ran deeper than this one piece of sad medical news: His restless, rageful nature had led his wife to divorce him, and worse still, his daughter had been born without eyesight, which he likewise blamed on Onmyōdō, and on the Heraldson family. There was no telling what he might do now.

As a result of a faulty two-way radio and a narrow field of focus, meanwhile, Detective Louis Meath was still investigating the Heraldson mansion, unaware that the case had been solved. Natalie and Paul drove over to the mansion to tell Detective Meath that the matter was at an end.

However, a sudden thunderstorm seemed to proclaim that history would repeat itself, and that some form of madness would take a last stand against the Rome family, even as it had in such weather seventeen years before.

Chapter XI

Grace Martel had left a family heirloom at the Heraldson residence to place a curse on the house, but as it had sentimental value to George, and he was in his last days, she wished to retrieve it, even amidst the lightning. However, the bungling Detective Meath was still treating the spectral old place as a crime scene, unaware that the crime had been solved.

When Lou Meath confronted her, however, she simply, with customary audacity, showed her tattoo (and a lot of other skin), causing Lou to point, stutter and literally faint. Before she could recover the heirloom, however, her brother Hank showed up, knife in hand, ready to take "vengeance", believing it an injustice that the murderer of Porter Heraldson III had been arrested rather than rewarded.

Grace tried to reason with Hank, but he yelled at her, telling her not to "side with the enemy". To hold off the uniformed police, Hank threatened Detective Meath, who was just now beginning to stir, Lou muttering "I want you so bad", presumably about Grace.

This chaos thus greeted Natalie Rome and Paul Knudsen on their arrival, and, as Paul stepped up first, he was taken hostage, a knife against his throat, by a wild-eyed Henry Martel, who demanded that Stephen Martin be released from prison for his "good deed" of killing Porter.

Neither Natalie, Grace nor the uniformed cops could talk any sense into Hank, but by now, Detective Meath was conscious, or at least as aware as he ever had been, and bumped into a suit of antique Japanese armor, causing a loud crash that startled Hank. Given a moment to act, Paul elbowed his assailant in the ribs and escaped, and Henry was arrested by the uniformed (competent) officers.

"One more arrest, officers," said Natalie Rome, "Arrest Grace too."

"What! Ralph did the murder, not me!"

"Yes, but you distributed a controlled substance to a minor. This is June Heraldson's affidavit," said Natalie, handing one of the officers a document.

Grace Martel then did a curious thing, kissing Natalie on the cheek before allowing herself to be taken off by the officers.

On a calmer, happier day, Natalie Rome, wearing an old John Havlicek uniform that belonged to her father, strolled down the street to the Wang Theatre in Boston, to see a touring Broadway show, the star of which was her old friend Thomas Banerjee.

The end.

(All above illustrations are not to my credit, nor my work, nor my property, but the work of perchance.org, but this does not constitute an official endorsement of that website, with which I have no official connection.)

[newnoirstories]

Part Three, Noir Mystery/Dark Academia Trilogy

(As always, the inclusion of religious or mystical themes in my works does not constitute an endorsement of them. The following story contains violence, death, references to torture, to self-harm, drugs, alcohol, implied sex, and to mental health problems, including depression.)

"The Eye Never Forgets"

Chapter I

One Summer night in 1975, in Boston's Combat Zone, a woman sat on a littered sidewalk. Torn dress, one shoe on, a grin missing more than one tooth, she smoked something, something strong.

Just out of her line of sight, a lady of the night got in a beat-up old red car with a man, but just as he leaned back, his leg was cut, and off the lady made with his wallet.

Worlds away from this, Caldwell Rome strolled in Franklin Park, one overcast day in 2008, but saw a glum man, about his own age, named Nikólaos Panagos, though more often called "Diogenes" by the locals.

"Did you ever wonder why I am a cynic, alone and miserable? It is because of the woman who is after you." Diogenes said, somewhat cryptically.

"What do you know of someone after me?"

"I know everything about her. For thirty-three years, I have thought of little else. Look at me. Do you believe I was once wealthy?"

"If you say so, yes, I will take your word for it," replied Caldwell.

"It was in 1975. I curse the day. I sinned, but how I have paid for my sin! Her name was Ann Patterson, originally, I am told. Some say she was the daughter of Roger Patterson, the man who made the movie of the Bigfoot, but they say many things about Roger, true or not."

"I am not a priest. You needn't tell me any of this."

"I want to tell someone. I want someone to understand."

"Okay," replied Caldwell, sitting down on the bench next to the forlorn old man.

"She called herself Bella Lovelace, in imitation of some other woman, and she was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. Words cannot do justice to her beauty. She invited me to make, to m-make… a dirty movie with her. Yes, sir, that's what happened. I was paid $500 for my soul. I did it for desire, not the dollars. I later threw the money in the Charles River. But that wasn't the end of it: Back then, blackmail was her game. I was wealthy, but refused to pay, so she disgraced me before my family, who are ashamed of me to this day. I now wash dishes in a fast food place, live in public housing, might as well be homeless."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"What is there any man can do? What is this world? It is not one, but two, it is torn, so that every instinct we possess leads to evil. Whatever we are without, we are chaos within."

"I have felt that way. I find Confession- to a priest, I mean- helps."

"Maybe I will. What do I have to lose? But I have not told the whole story. Imagine my shock one day, 1983, I see this temptress's photo on the news. The British sought her, said she worked for the Irish, the INLA, had fled to America, back to America. Well, this woman now goes by 'Elle Kane', and she is back here in Boston. 'Elle Kane' comes up again and again in deaths in the papers. I hear of your family tragedies, and no one but her could be at the bottom of them."

"Being a private investigator, I have made many enemies, but what makes you think Elle, or whatever her name is, is one of them?"

"The strange feeling of an old man," replied Nikólaos.

Chapter II

Caldwell Rome refused to buy a television. He grew up with a radio, and felt overwhelmed by sight and sound at once.

"Ray Allen makes another three from the corner! Time out, Clippers…" said the old radio.

Caldwell went through old files. Some haunting failures, haunting the whole city. Filed year by year, worst of all, perhaps, was 1987. That year saw the terrible death of Cassandra Mullin.

In the winter of '87, someone deftly disabled the alarm of the library Mullin oversaw. Evidence suggested more than one person was involved. Mullin was found murdered, her eyes gone as if by vultures, the library ransacked.

But for what? Caldwell looked through the notes. The books stolen, which numbered over one hundred, included "Several Jane Austen novels, a copy of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War', titles on botany, medicine, American history, Canadian history, some genealogical records, old magazines". Caldwell, with his background in antiques, knew as well as anyone that none of these were of great economic value, so Cassandra's death, which had not been quick, seemed to be for nothing, yet the methodical nature of the crime suggested otherwise.

Boston's definition of mediocrity, Detective Louis Meath, pronounced it, in the papers, as the act of "random psychos", who were "probably high on something". Caldwell knew better, but what could he prove?

The next one, however, hit closer to home: Paul Knudsen, Caldwell's son-in-law, the papers claimed, had, one night in 2001, taken his own life. He had been found dangling from a rope, out his own second story window, yet no one, including Caldwell Rome, who knew Paul believed that he met such a fate of his own accord.

The two cases, Caldwell believed, were connected, through one man in particular, a man reported to have died in a 2002 motorcycle accident, one Birger Pedersen, Norwegian, called "Fenrir" on stage, part of Norway's terrible black metal scene in the nineties. Fenrir had gone after Caldwell one day in 1999, wielding a knife, but as Rome had considerable knowledge of Kyokushin Karate, having completed a 20-man Kumite, Pedersen, though the stronger of the two, had gotten the worst of it, a well-aimed kick to the knee, though Fenrir savagely bit a policeman who took him into custody.

Caldwell Rome's research indicated that Pedersen, a man of evident means whose wealth came mysteriously, who had a home in New York City, as well as another in Norway, but occasionally visited Boston, had been in Boston when both Mullin and Knudsen died, again in '99, of course, and finally, had died in Boston in 2002.

Chapter III

Early in 2002, a grieving Natalie Rome had herself come to the conclusion that Birger Pedersen, still in Boston at the time, was involved in her husband's demise. Teaching herself to throw antique knives, antique per her profession as an appraiser, Natalie was daring enough to venture to one of Fenrir's known haunts, the Handel Bar, which, despite the classical connotations of the name, was a biker bar that barely managed to keep its liquor license, so often were police called over its violence and mayhem.

However, Natalie made a miscalculation, being unfamiliar with such parts of Boston, and instead went to a bar known as The Handlebar. The Jackson 5's "Never Can Say Goodbye" was playing, and neither that nor the ambiance seemed anything like the Birger Pedersen she knew only by reputation.

"I haven't seen you here before," said an unfamiliar woman, smiling at Natalie.

"No, it's my first time."

"You go both ways?"

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind. I couldn't help but notice you're kinda cute," said the woman, flirtatiously.

"Thanks…" said Natalie, a bit uncomfortable.

"I'm Sally. A handshake? Okay."

"No dice, Sally, this femme's mine," intruded another voice. The new woman eyed Natalie rather audaciously.

"Mind your manners, Katie. It's not like we're men or something," quipped Sally.

Natalie looked around, and realized from even less subtle signs that The Handlebar, unlike the Handel Bar, was a bar for women drawn to other women.

Natalie's mother, Agatha Rome, in a most unlikely way, would have better luck. She approached Thomas Banerjee, Broadway performer and old friend of her son Philip, asking about disguises.

"Angie, this woman I know, could make us look like each other. There is practically no limit to what they can do now," asserted Thomas.

"Can they do what I asked?"

"Well, there's one thing… I love you like a mom, and I don't want to be insensitive, but to play a part like that, you would have to be very limber, and you're not as young…"

Agatha, smiling, responded by doing side splits with ease.

Chapter IV

As of 2010, Clyde Tomasini, producer, dancer and choreographer, was considered Boston musical theatre's most important and acclaimed person, and some would have expanded that to "America's most important" as well. Having explored many themes, it was in this year that Tomasini struck upon the idea of combining Broadway dance with Bollywood dance, though Thomas Banerjee dropped out of the production, considering the core of Tomasini's plot idea too derivative of Bollywood's "My Brother… Nikhil" (2005).

Philip Rome, however, a noted designer of musical theatre sets and costumes, was very active in the production, entitled "Closet to India". Inspecting the set, however, Philip nearly lost his life when a counterweight plunged toward him. The same instant, however, Tomasini, acting quickly, tackled Philip out of the way, both escaping with only minor injuries.

Meanwhile, in a bar across town, a random man recounted a story:

"It's true. This housewife type, Agatha Rome. This horrible man, Fenrir, somebody called him. He's playing 'Cape Fear' with the whole family, you know. He shot their pitbull. Agatha thinks he killed her son-in-law, so she gets this guy to let her disguise herself as this made up version of him, at a bike, you know, motorcycle repair shop, and up shows Fenrir."

"You've been drinking too much, Bobby."

"No, I swear: She's made up like this young man, wild red hair, contact lenses that make it look like she's on something. She fixes his bike, she fixes it so it doesn't work, and he dies in a crash."

Or so went "Bobby's" version of the story.

Chapter V

In 2015, not far from where Bobby told his tale, an abandoned old warehouse was supposed to be the lair of "Salty". Children, mingling fear and curiosity, claimed that a man, a man adults would describe as an occultist, did rituals in the prosaic ruins, rituals involving salt. They often dared each other to go to the warehouse, making bets about who would go there alone.

Philip Rome, veteran of more than one near-death experience, would soon have yet another. Whisked into a limousine against his will, he was taken to a building not unlike the old warehouse, but this one very much occupied.

A dim lamp's flickering light fell on Georg Faust, notorious racketeer and rumored agent of espionage (though for which nation, no one knew), who often introduced himself by adding that he was "no relation" to the Faust of legend. Most eerie of all, he was seated in what appeared to be an old electric chair.

"Philip, excuse the awkwardness of our introduction," said Faust, with a touch of a German accent, "I do wish, however, to let you know about some fine likenesses of yourself."

"Likenesses?"

"Yes. Also in the photograph is your good friend, Elire Dervishi, a rising Broadway star, I understand."

"What about her?"

"You two are 'just friends', as you Americans say?"

"Yes."

"Kindly explain this photograph. Is it customary in Albania [Elire's land of origin] to kiss friends on the lips?"

"Oh, that… it's none of your business, but we played tennis, which her father wanted her to do professionally, but this was just for fun. It was after she defeated me in straight sets, we went to kiss on the cheek, but I forgot she is left-handed, so it went wrong, that's all."

"Oh, Philip, I do believe you, but Sokol, her father, alleged Albanian mobster, feared almost as much as I am, will not. I understand he disapproves of her Broadway career, and considers that you turned her in that direction. Well, what would this hard man say if he saw a copy of this photograph?"

"In other words," asked Philip, "Blackmail?"

"Not precisely," explained Georg, "It is not money we want. I merely want you to tell your father, Caldwell Marion Rome, what you experienced today. It will give him the perspective not to talk too much."

Chapter VI

Little did anyone in this mysterious lair know that outside was a woman, a woman who went by the name Elle Kane, smiling as she manipulated some exterior electrical wiring.

Back inside, Philip asked Georg why he was seated in an electric chair.

"Oh, this, yes. I often forget," laughed Georg, "It is not operational. It was deactivated some three decades ago, but it gives me a flair for the dramatic, don't you think?"

Philip noticed that a wire to the electric chair had been cut. Puzzled, Georg said that he had not cut that wire, nor asked for it to be cut. The wire had been severed by Kitao Takashi, also Caldwell Rome's instructor in Kyokushin, for reasons the reader will later learn.

Georg, resuming the conversation, began to say, "But look me in the eye…"

At this moment, a sudden blast of electricity shook Georg Faust, violently shaking him. With the wire cut, how was this possible?

In the quiet of the Rome residence, Agatha being away visiting relatives, Caldwell Rome slumbered in strange dreams, unaware of his son's predicament.

Following the logic of a dream, Caldwell saw Cassandra Mullin as she had been in 1976, when readers of "Ars Oculus" first knew her. The dream knew her, however, not as Cassandra, but as "Rose Davies", burlesque dancer, by her side ghostly old men, the men with no eyes.

At the song's final lines, "The edge of the big reveal…", per Rose's tease, she revealed not herself, but the genealogy Caldwell had read that fateful day thirty-nine years ago.

Chapter VII

The next day, Caldwell Rome saw in the paper the meaning of his dream: A much lauded and discussed international charitable effort- or so it was promoted- Paint the Heart, touted as a charity to help impoverished children use art to earn money and express themselves, was the brainchild of United States Senator and former corporate mogul Montgomery Cross. Official biographies claimed that Montgomery's father was one "Michael Elliott Cross", in fact nonexistent, but the dream unearthed Caldwell's memory: Even as he looked for the name of the notorious Robert Cross, back in 1976, he had mentally noted that Boston's own Montgomery Cross's father was, in fact, David Cross.

This, then, was the secret for which Cassandra Mullin died, interrogated, no doubt, as to who had looked through these old family records. The assailants then ransacked and stole random books, Caldwell deduced, to disguise the particular importance of the genealogical records stolen.

The reader may understand the context if told a bit more about the late, hated David Cross, a eugenicist known mainly for the African Trepanations, experiments on innocents in Africa that horrified every civilized person, and the mere association with David Cross would end any public career, were it widely known.

More conversations with fellow old-timer Nikólaos Panagos were, for Diogenes, therapy of a sort, but for Caldwell, crucial to piecing together his failed cases, and turning them, even now, in his ninth decade, into successes.

If Nikólaos could still be relied upon for his memory, he told the story that Ann Patterson's crimes did not stop with the INLA dealings, but that she had been in the employ of spymaster Georg Faust, which tied her to the threats Philip relayed, per his instructions, to Caldwell.

"Look up old papers, old records," said Diogenes, "Everywhere Patterson went, death followed. Mr. Rome, she hunted teen campers for sport, for sport! The very Karate academy you used to attend: Well, Elle Kane would maim its students to sharpen her skills [this, if it is to be believed, could explain Kitao Takashi attempting to stop Ann Patterson's crimes]. No conscience, conscience…"

Nikólaos Panagos had fallen asleep on the familiar park bench.

Chapter VIII

Dreams know no time, and in 2002, Agatha Rome drifted off to timeless aeons. As a sleeping Agatha saw it in her mind's eye, a large female bodybuilder, in a red bikini, transformed, in an instant, into a powerful she-wolf. It was this dream, for reasons unclear, that inspired Agatha to discuss disguises with Thomas Banerjee, and if "Bobby" can be believed, take revenge on Birger Pedersen, a man so hated that no one claimed his remains.

Complicating matters, however, was the death of Carl Wozniacki in 2012, dangling, just like Paul Knudsen, from his own second story window. Wozniacki was allegedly a contract killer and MDMA dealer, called the "Love Killer" by the press, and a man with many enemies, though he was also going through a divorce at the time he passed. Among those to whom he allegedly sold ecstasy was Peter Knudsen, troubled son of Paul, trying to forget his father's senseless death.

"It's this way," explained Caldwell to a cop on the beat, "Either Wozniacki took his own life that way as an admission of guilt in Paul's death, or he was murdered by whoever killed Paul, but that could not be Birger Pedersen, who had himself been dead a decade."

As they walked, they approached Kneeland Street, in Boston's Chinatown.

Chapter IX

Boston, Massachusetts, a bleak, rainy day, 2022. Philip Rome, shaking the water off his umbrella, entered his theatrical place of work. Philip, dripping wet, noticed a framed portrait of Sir Alfred Hitchcock, a new addition to the venue.

"Our first scene back [from lockdown] is about birds, so I thought that appropriate," explained producer Clyde Tomasini.

"Speaking of that," began Philip, "I think the set idea is too expensive with our limited cash flow, so I have…"

"Is it difficult?" Clyde interrupted.

"Is what difficult?"

"Dealing with scarcity, the first law of economics?" asked Tomasini.

"It comes with being human."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong. Scarcity applies to those who earn, but not those who steal, like me, for instance."

Philip looked at Clyde, stunned.

"You steal? What did you steal?"

Clyde began to laugh oddly, "You must admit I am a genius. The way I 'saved' your life in 2010, but I rigged the counterweight to fall in the first place!"

Rome began to back away from Tomasini.

"Don't worry, Phil, my aim was never to hurt you, only gain your trust."

"Needless to say, now you've lost it."

"But what if I told you, Philip," began Tomasini, halting, as if for a dramatic pause, "That I am the new Shakespeare, and that you will be immortal even for having known me? So, so many playwrights, all in the shadow of the Bard, all broken by scarcity, the need to receive grants, donations, snivelling before patrons and bureaucrats. Well, no more!"

Rome had no response to this grandiosity.

"You, Philip, friend of horses, will be the next Franz Marc, the next Salvador Dalí, master of dreams. Where is this budget, you wonder? Why, from Paint the Heart, with over a trillion, by US dollars, in funding, some on the books, some off them. That was Georg Faust's angle: He was blackmailing Monty Cross over something, and he needed to keep it a secret or lose his percent of the money."

"That was why Faust kidnapped me?"

"Yes, but you should thank me. I killed him," proclaimed Tomasini, his pride evident, grinning.

"Why would you confess this to me?"

"I have the photo negatives of that kiss, accidental or not, as well, Philip, but I would rather we were partners."

"So you murdered Georg Faust?"

"Well," began the grandiloquent master criminal, "Strictly speaking, human law could do nothing about it."

To Clyde, it all seemed a light comedy.

"But I thought you said…" began Philip.

"I said I killed him. I did it by a hex. I, my dear Mr. Rome, am the legendary 'Salty'. It began simply enough. I am a charming man, as you know. Evidently, it seems Georg Faust's sister, Stefanie, lovely, golden-haired tigress, has an unfaithful husband. Rather unsatisfied with this cad, she turned to me, in Maithuna."

"Where?"

"Not where, what? Maithuna is intimacy of the Tantra. I captured her subtle body thereby, and she mine, but I knew it, and she did not. Now, the difficult part: How to transpose her essence with that of her elder brother? Fortunately, I am an Adept. After, I admit, some failed experiments, I found the perfect spell, if you will: A statue of Ardhanarishvara, androgynous Hindu god and goddess, but I wrote Stefanie's name, in Latin, on Shiva, and Georg's name on Parvati, with the Algiz rune between them, for my own safety, salted the ground for the Magnum Opus, and all was prepared."

"Prepared for what? A padded room?" sneered Philip.

"Ah, but Philip, you saw the result. I grounded myself, put an electric shock through my own subtle body, elementary sympathetic magic, and you witnessed the result."

Chapter X

Philip Rome now realized that any show of skepticism or of scruple would weaken his position.

"Why did we need to get Georg out of the way?" asked Philip, changing his manner to that of grasping cynicism.

"Because, my dear Phil, he was a philistine, no art in him. He wanted the money only to reinvest, to make more money, never dreaming what money could make immortal."

The lighting designer, none other than Peter Knudsen, a man of striking palor, was set to join them, but was rather delayed by the harrying of a large flock of greedy pigeons, seeking the free food to which they had become accustomed.

"There is a problem in our plans, however," said Philip, with a look of concern.

"What possible problem could there be?"

"You should pay more attention to the local news. Georg Faust, though in a coma, is expected to survive."

Tomasini showed fear for an instant, then gave Phil an odd smile.

"Marvelous humor, Mr. Rome… you had me for a moment! More of why I need you for comedies," laughed Clyde.

"No, it's true," interjected Peter, who had finally arrived, "This Faust, the racketeer, is expected to come to any day now."

Philip and Peter looked at Clyde, and Tomasini began to believe them, and turned ashen in color. For once, he seemed at a loss for words. Mr. Tomasini stepped on stage, beginning to open the curtains, standing precariously.

"Clyde, don't!" shouted Philip.

For an instant tearful, Clyde Tomasini's last words were from Hamlet, "Conscience doth make cowards of us all."

Philip and Peter winced as a heavy counterweight fell on the mad playwright. How much of his story could be believed? One matter was certain: Georg Faust was dead.

Chapter XI

Jeremiah Rome lacked the intellect or the good sense of his siblings, Philip and Natalie. Appropriately, he moved to the West Coast, and equally fitting, was in middle management in a multinational corporation, and as such, his stumbling ways were scarcely noticed. He occasionally, however, visited his Bostonian family, doing so in the Summer of 2023.

Louis Meath's heir to obliviousness, Jeremiah had not the scarcest notion of the trials his family had endured, but seemed to know every catchphrase and slogan ever used to market trendy technology. Neither, moreover, had the recklessness of his youth abated, but on this day, as he drove, rather over the speed limit, into Boston, it would work for the best.

Ann Patterson, or call her Bella or Elle, by any name, took a deep breath and rolled back her eyes in a parked vehicle, a common enough make and model. Like an addict feeling the fix, Ann would experience her fix of violence today, she believed, putting a silencer on an automatic handgun.

She began tailing Philip Rome through traffic, having timed it perfectly. As Philip did not know her by sight, let alone through a rear-view mirror, all Ann had to do was wait for an opportunity, or so she thought.

In barrelled Jeremiah, not recognizing Philip's vehicle, but fortunately for Phil, his younger brother instead struck Ann Patterson's car, which itself was over the speed limit, as Patterson, to avoid suspicion, would alternately pass and fall behind Philip's car.

In a grisly wreck, which Philip managed to avoid, Ann Elle Patterson (1949-2023) met her end. Jeremiah's corporate connections, meanwhile, prevented any but the lightest legal consequences.

Chapter XII

Indra's net shook: A rich young man in Back Bay met an irresistible woman on the World Wide Web, calling herself "ChinaDoll68U", but this woman did not exist, and when the baited fish went to meet her, he was bound and gagged by agents of Sokol Dervishi, aforementioned Albanian gangster, presumably for ransom.

The next day, splashy headlines read, "Wealthy Heir Missing", while elsewhere in the city, a sleepy old man, Nikólaos Panagos by name, was working a fast food grill, salting the hamburgers, as Agatha Rome did needlepoint meant to depict the Electron Cloud Model of the atom, but to the strictly artistic mind, perhaps abstract expressionism, to keep her mind off her husband's passing, the gravestone of Caldwell Marion Rome reading (January 6, 1933-April 12, 2023), and the same week in April, 2023, headlines glared "Senator Cross Family Horror"- in spite of all, he could not outrun his family.

On a stage, in an electric blue dress, Grace Martel, known to readers of "Jashi", was practicing a trick as a magician. Reaching into a fish tank full of water, she removed her hands from the water, and flames shot from them, then, with a circular motion of her hands, a ring of smoke rose into the air.

The end.

[newnoirstories]

Mysterious Family Feud (Sequel)

(As always, the inclusion of religious or mystical themes or practices in my works does not constitute an endorsement of them. The following story contains references to violence, kidnapping, death, drugs, alcohol, parental neglect and also some implied adult situations, to HIV/AIDS, as well as references to mental illness and catatonia.)

"Jashi"

Chapter I

On a Summer day in 1991, on a less than glamorous Boston street, Paul Knudsen saw a peculiar sight. A woman, who would turn out to be central to his professional life, was walking down a gritty sidewalk as if it were a runway, dressed perfectly, designer everything, every hair in place. She looked oddly familiar to him.

"Excuse me, ma'am… have I seen you somewhere before?"

"Are you into fashion?"

"Not particularly, why?"

"Grace Martel is my name, and I have been in Vogue twice already."

"Sorry to bother you, Ms. Martel. Maybe my wife left a magazine around somewhere…"

"Your wife? Don't fool yourself, friend. I know a gay man when I see one… not that there's anything wrong with that."

With this strangest of introductions, Grace Martel resumed her catwalk strut.

By this time, Natalie Rome, Paul's wife, had established herself as a noted appraiser of antiques, as well as an expert lecturer on the subject. She insisted, however, that she would never go into the criminal side of the antiques world, wishing to avoid the drama her father and brother experienced, but fate had other plans.

For his part, Paul Knudsen looked after their infant son, Peter Knudsen, and did any research, whether in books or on computers, that Natalie was too busy to do.

Chapter II

The maelstrom of spite and violence that would soon engulf Natalie and Paul came in the form, outwardly at least, of two families in a sort of feud, not of the direct, rural sort of popular history, but a battle of one wealthy family and one even wealthier, beginning with a common source of division, Mammon.

One wintery day in 1962, John Clemens Martel, of whom Grace Martel was a great-niece, owed money to a man even wealthier than himself, one Porter Heraldson, the first of that name. In Heraldson's splendid mansion, negotiations gave way to raised voices, which gave way to blows, and finally, in circumstances that were never fully resolved, John Martel stabbed Porter Heraldson (the First) to death with a letter opener.

The prosecution portrayed the matter as out and out murder, premeditated, saying that Martel simply wanted to escape his debts. The defense, by contrast, claimed it was self-defense, that Heraldson had attacked Martel. The jury decided that there was, at least, reasonable doubt regarding the perhaps overly ambitious charge of murder in the first degree, and so John Clemens Martel was acquitted, walking free in what the Heraldson family, and all of their friends and sympathizers, regarded as an outrage, a travesty of justice.

To darken the waters still more, shortly after his acquittal, John Martel was struck and killed by a locomotive, and the Martel family, and its friends and partisans, insisted that this was the real act of murder, but nothing was ever proven, and no arrests were made. The death could have been self-inflicted, or it could have been an accident, and Martel had been drinking, albeit not heavily.

From the 1963 trial on, the two families, each with an interest in the occult, albeit from very different perspectives, hated each other, the Heraldsons, the wealthier of the two (having earned their money in early locomotive transport, making John Martel's death the more ironic) viewing the Martels as common criminals, and common in every way, while the Martels regarded the Heraldsons as diabolical spawn who purchased their way out of justice.

No deeper hate was ever felt than that between these two prominent Bostonian families.

Chapter III

Another dark world, one that would impose itself on Natalie and Paul, was that of Philip "Catatonic Phil" Dandolos. While his nickname might have been a humorous, albeit darkly humorous, play on "Punxsutawney Phil", there was nothing humorous about Phil's early life, unless, perhaps, from the point of view of absurdism.

Dandolos was, like the Martel family's ultimate origins, from Pennsylvania, born in 1965 in a particularly rough part of South Philadelphia. His mother abandoned him at birth, and his father was a brutal alcoholic. Philip ran away from home at fourteen, becoming a thief on the streets, and eventually selling not only stolen goods, but himself as well.

Dandolos, wishing to escape the memory of Philadelphia, moved to Boston, where the homosexual set soon regarded him as the most handsome young man in the city, and his clients included many wealthy men, whom Philip was not above blackmailing, if they wished to conceal their trysts.

A heavy user of absinthe and hashish, and rumored to follow the infamous Thelemite cult, Philip's nickname came from his strange trances. Some said that they were a form of psychotic disorder, others that they were induced by hashish, and yet others that they were states of supernatural possession. Be that as it may, Philip Dandolos was either desired or feared by all who knew him, though he had never been known to be physically violent, instead relying on lies, larceny and blackmail.

That one of his clients was, by the early 1990's, Porter Heraldson III (who made no attempts to hide his homosexuality), grandson of the slain Porter Heraldson, would prove to have some bearing on events that followed.

Chapter IV

Returning to the fatal game of human chess of the Heraldsons and the Martels, to understand the actions of Grace Martel, and also of her older brother, Henry "Hank" Martel, one must understand the hatred of all of Heraldson blood instilled in them by George Martel, brother of John, of mysterious demise.

A somewhat feminine, slender man, whose favorite hobby was embroidery, George was, by the early 90's, bedridden, but continued needlepoint, but all of his embroidered images were of Heraldsons meeting gruesome fates, which, with a background among the Pennsylvania Dutch (Germans), was part of a tradition of Hexerei, Pennsylvania German witchcraft, in the Martel family, despite the considerable (though still inferior to the Heraldsons) wealth made by the fashion designs of the late John Clemens Martel, still worn by some older women, such glamour contrasting with the family's rustic origins.

Grace Martel, apart from her love of fashion, was herself skilled in Hexerei, having owl feathers for curses on the Heraldson family, and also, in a more modern innovation, a hidden serpent tattoo that she regarded as having sinister mystical significance. Hank, by contrast, was an impulsive, cantankerous man of limited intelligence, without the cleverness for witchcraft, and lacking any understanding of crime, except for acts of the most crude, direct violence.

Grace Martel, in 1992, made an audacious move against Porter Heraldson III. As Heraldson was an avid collector of rare Japanese antiques, Grace read considerably on the topic, then had some fraudulent "Japanese" items, of no real antiquity, built, in an attempt to have them sold to Porter, not for the money, but to try to trick Porter into re-selling them to a buyer (actually an agent of the Martels), and Heraldson himself, though innocent, would be arrested in a serious case of fraud.

However, Porter took one look at the goods presented and scoffed, knowing instantly that they were fake. Now, of course, it was Grace Martel who was in potential legal peril, though she lied and claimed that she had been deceived about the authenticity of the goods. Porter was less offended by the attempt to frame him for a serious crime than by the "insult to my intellect" of such "crude forgeries".

Ironically, given her earlier claim to the married Paul Knudsen, Grace knew little of Porter Heraldson III's personal life, and so, when she called in person at his mansion, she was let in by a servant, and went straight to Porter's study, and attempted seduction, boldly revealing her tattoo.

Porter, however, laughed derisively, "Martel, if you had listened to any gossip, which I thought was a favorite pastime of plebs [Porter's name for anyone he regarded as common or crass], you would know that I am utterly and thoroughly homosexual, and make no attempt to hide it, so you can put the money back in the purse, as it is in a currency I cannot use."

Chapter V

Natalie Rome's involvement in all of this came, early in 1993, through Yamazaki Sota, an elderly, very traditional Japanese man living in Boston. Yamazaki had in his possession a Karakuri Ningyo, an automaton or puppet used in Edo Period theatre, and apart from its perfect craftsmanship, it was also rumored to be possessed by an Oni, Japanese folklore's equivalent of a demon, as the result, legend had it, of an Onmyōdō practitioner centuries earlier breaking taboos and summoning such a being.

Rather than deter buyers, this legend increased the value, and many of the rising goth subculture would have purchased it if they had the money, but few had such cash. It must be understood, however, that Yamazaki Sota was most reluctant to sell this Karakuri puppet to anyone who was not Japanese, due to its associations with Onmyōdō, traditionally seen as an exclusively Japanese form of magic.

However, Yamazaki had a granddaughter, in need of expensive treatments for the cancer that threatened her young life, and so he tentatively agreed to sell the automaton to none other than Porter Heraldson III. Heraldson, in turn, brought in Natalie Rome, accompanied by Paul Knudsen, to appraise the item, and she arrived at a then staggering sum, for such an item: $200,000.

Without a moment's hesitation, however, Porter agreed to the price. He did not mention at the time, however, his primary reason for buying it. The Oni by which the puppet was said to be possessed was Shuten-dōji, believed to attack women, and Porter, having read deeply on the Edo Period, wished to invoke it to attack Grace Martel.

His reasons for taking such a drastic action went beyond the "insult to my intellect" of her attempt to frame him for fraud, but included also Grace giving free cocaine to Porter's heir, June Heraldson, his naive young nice, age 16, as part of her ongoing attempts to destroy the Heraldson family.

Even as Grace used Hexerei against Porter, Porter planned to use Onmyōdō, which he considered "far more powerful than the superstitions of rubes", against Grace. This would quite literally recoil on Heraldson, however, in a very physical and palpable way.

Chapter VI

The sale of the Karakuri Ningyo was arranged, in its legal formalities, by attorney Ralph Case, at a price of $200,000, and Porter immediately began calling the antique item "Shuten-dōji". Also owner of a Dreamachine, Porter was fascinated by the eyes, and so, one rainy night, when a voice seeming to come from within the puppet said, "Look me in the eyes. Look!", an intrigued Porter, keeping "Shuten-dōji" locked in his study, did precisely this, and it was his last action on earth.

With the mechanical sound of a spring, a knife went into the right eye of Heraldson. Discovered in such a terrible state by servants, the case was put in the hands of Detective Lou Meath, a weary, clumsy man of 64, just waiting to retire.

After reading of the matter the next morning, Paul expressed a very direct opinion to Natalie.

"Do you see this, Natalie? A sale you oversaw… you have to solve it, you know."

"Now, Paul, I told you, I will never be a detective," replied Natalie Rome.

"So, do you really want to leave the case in the capable [this last word overwhelmed with sarcasm] hands of Detective Meath? Have you met him?"

The look of chagrin on Natalie's face showed that she had met him.

"Natalie, you are the smartest person I have ever met. You could give the case to your father, but remember how he told you to do things on your own, without his help?"

"He meant appraisals, not investigating murders."

"Yes, but here you are- you know, what, twelve languages, or have I lost count? Do you really think this case is beyond you?"

"Despite the elements of subjectivity in such assessments of intellectual performance, I have been tested as having an intelligence quotient of 172."

"Now there's the Natalie I know!"

Chapter VII

Even Detective Meath could find certain evidence, or rather, those working for him could, and the only fingerprints found on the deadly puppet, other than those of Heraldson himself, were those of Grace Martel.

The matter was rather complicated, however, by the fact that several of Heraldson's most economically valuable Japanese antiques were missing, evidently stolen. The Martel residence was searched, but no trace of the items found.

However, when a neighbor mentioned that Philip Dandolos, having been given a key by Heraldson, visited the mansion that very night, and his apartment was inspected, there were the incriminating old objects of larceny. Dandolos admitted to the theft, but said that he found Porter already dead.

"I can prove I didn't kill him. When did he die?"

"Between six and seven," replied a uniformed officer.

"Ha… I was with Kevin, Kevin Courtney, another alleged client of mine at the time. He likes to take photos as trophies, but I keep the negatives, so if he denies it…"

While Dandolos was convicted of felony larceny, the rather graphic alibi proved him innocent of the murder itself, and so police attention turned back to Grace Martel.

Meanwhile, however, Yamazaki Sota was in a state of the blackest depression, believing that the mysterious death resulted from selling the Karakuri puppet to someone not Japanese. Drinking heavily, he considered taking his own life, until an old acquaintance, Charity Kobashi, found him, barely conscious, on a park bench.

Charity, herself far from young, had been raised very traditionally as well, but after moving to Boston, had converted to the Evangelical sort of Christianity, changing her given name accordingly.

"I am dishonored. I broke every tradition. I sold Onmyōdō for a price… what good am I now?" Yamazaki cried pitifully.

"Please, Yamazaki, listen," said Charity, "No one is dishonored in Jesus Christ. He loved thieves, he loved prostitutes. He saved their very souls, Yamazaki-san. He will save you."

Though Yamazaki did not know what to make of Charity's new religion, her reassurances did, at least save his life.

Chapter VIII

When Gabriel Westinghouse, a lover of the late Porter Heraldson III, reluctantly came forward, his evidence strengthened the case, as pertained to motive, against Grace Martel.

"Please, officers, don't tell my wife. I married this old-fashioned, sexless woman- a nice lady, and she doesn't expect me in the bedroom, much to my relief, but she would divorce me and leave me alone to die," pleaded Westinghouse.

"To die?" asked Meath.

"I have HIV, gentlemen. What do you think is going to happen to me? I'll tell my wife it's cancer or whatever it is, just not why my immunity is down."

"What do you know about the case?"

"I know that Porter thought the puppet was supernatural, some kind of Japanese magic. He was going to use it to curse Grace Martel. I asked why, and he said it was this old feud or hatred between his family and hers."

With this, the fingerprints and the fact that her live-in boyfriend was Ralph Case, who brokered the sale of the Karakuri Ningyo, Grace Martel was arrested for murder in the first degree.

Grace insisted that, although she had seen the puppet, which Ralph brought home, she claimed, she did not know what it was, and that, in an amorous game she was playing with Ralph, in which she was blindfolded and attempting to find him, she left fingerprints on it, initially mistaking it for him. She now claimed that she had been set up by Ralph Case, and her new defense team strengthened her claim by unearthing papers, which Grace insisted she had been told to sign, by Ralph Case, under false pretexts, that made him her sole beneficiary.

The state's case against Grace Martel was weakening, unless they could try Grace Martel and Ralph Case as co-defendants. Case, however, had a backup plan in the form of Marge Schmidt.

Marge Schmidt was the tall, imposing, battle-scarred queen of the prison to which Grace had been sent, and was offered a re-opening of her case, by Ralph Case, with a likely reduced sentence, as well as untraceable money, laundered more than once, upon her release, in exchange for killing Grace in prison, then putting a shiv in the victim's hand, claiming self-defense.

Chapter IX

Meawhile, Natalie Rome realized that she needed legal counsel of her own, given her involvement with the deadly Karakuri Ningyo, so she brought in Stephen Martin, unaware of the potential conflict of interest that Martin was also assigned to manage the trust fund of June Heraldson. Paul Knudsen avoided Martin, saying that he did not "trust lawyers".

The following day, the day on which Schmidt was paid to attack Grace Martel, however, she had a change of heart, telling Ralph Case that she would not attack her new "girlfriend" for "anything". As such, Grace was now effectively second-in-command of all the prisoners, after Schmidt herself.

The same day, however, now in June, 1973, a most grotesque visitor boldly approached the front door of Natalie and Paul. Ciarán Brennan, who had come from Ireland some time in the fifties, was an escaped mental hospital patient, a heavy-set man suffering from the delusion that he was the great bareknuckle boxer John L. Sullivan.

Paul, rather half Ciarán's size, answered the front doorbell.

"Greetings, greetings, the great John L bids you a happy day."

"How can we help you?" replied a flustered, bewildered Paul Knudsen.

"You were wantin' to know about the Case case? The case of the man Case in the papers, the Case that they say killed a man with a robot?"

Vaguely discerning what Ciarán meant to say, and having gathered, from the man's shadow boxing, that he believed he was John L. Sullivan, Paul began addressing him as such.

"Yes, Mr. Sullivan, what do you know about Ralph Case?"

Just then, however, Paul realized that, despite Ciarán's bulk, he had sneaked past him into the home. Alarmed, he turned around to find "Sullivan" laughing jovially.

"You see how it's done when I go to knock out a man? Well, I laid eyes on this man, just like the picture in the paper, 'cept it's a mask, Mister, a mask."

"What is a mask?" chimed in Natalie, unafraid of their eccentric visitor.

"Why, Mr. Case's face is a mask! I saw him put it on in some bushes, but here's the rarest bit of all. I saw the face under the face at your front door!"

Chapter X

After a few telephone calls by Natalie Rome, including to the Boston Police Department, the case was complete: Ralph Case was an alias of Stephen Martin, and not only this, but Stephen Martin was a son of Samuel Matthews, alias Robert Cross, and thus an older half-brother of Paul Knudsen. Paul had suspected something of the sort, hence his discomfort around the attorney. As a taunt to his acquaintances, he chose the same initials his father had used, yet no one but Paul had ever suspected the truth.

Although Stephen Martin was arrested, without incident, for murder in the first degree, confident that his legal acumen would save him, news reached the Martel family that George Martel's condition was terminal. A recently released Grace Martel, though a bit tearful, said that she was not surprised, but Hank, by contrast, blamed the late Porter Heraldson's "Japanese magic", even from beyond the grave, and in a frenzy, ran out the door.

The tragedy of Hank Martel ran deeper than this one piece of sad medical news: His restless, rageful nature had led his wife to divorce him, and worse still, his daughter had been born without eyesight, which he likewise blamed on Onmyōdō, and on the Heraldson family. There was no telling what he might do now.

As a result of a faulty two-way radio and a narrow field of focus, meanwhile, Detective Louis Meath was still investigating the Heraldson mansion, unaware that the case had been solved. Natalie and Paul drove over to the mansion to tell Detective Meath that the matter was at an end.

However, a sudden thunderstorm seemed to proclaim that history would repeat itself, and that some form of madness would take a last stand against the Rome family, even as it had in such weather seventeen years before.

Chapter XI

Grace Martel had left a family heirloom at the Heraldson residence to place a curse on the house, but as it had sentimental value to George, and he was in his last days, she wished to retrieve it, even amidst the lightning. However, the bungling Detective Meath was still treating the spectral old place as a crime scene, unaware that the crime had been solved.

When Lou Meath confronted her, however, she simply, with customary audacity, showed her tattoo (and a lot of other skin), causing Lou to point, stutter and literally faint. Before she could recover the heirloom, however, her brother Hank showed up, knife in hand, ready to take "vengeance", believing it an injustice that the murderer of Porter Heraldson III had been arrested rather than rewarded.

Grace tried to reason with Hank, but he yelled at her, telling her not to "side with the enemy". To hold off the uniformed police, Hank threatened Detective Meath, who was just now beginning to stir, Lou muttering "I want you so bad", presumably about Grace.

This chaos thus greeted Natalie Rome and Paul Knudsen on their arrival, and, as Paul stepped up first, he was taken hostage, a knife against his throat, by a wild-eyed Henry Martel, who demanded that Stephen Martin be released from prison for his "good deed" of killing Porter.

Neither Natalie, Grace nor the uniformed cops could talk any sense into Hank, but by now, Detective Meath was conscious, or at least as aware as he ever had been, and bumped into a suit of antique Japanese armor, causing a loud crash that startled Hank. Given a moment to act, Paul elbowed his assailant in the ribs and escaped, and Henry was arrested by the uniformed (competent) officers.

"One more arrest, officers," said Natalie Rome, "Arrest Grace too."

"What! Ralph did the murder, not me!"

"Yes, but you distributed a controlled substance to a minor. This is June Heraldson's affidavit," said Natalie, handing one of the officers a document.

Grace Martel then did a curious thing, kissing Natalie on the cheek before allowing herself to be taken off by the officers.

On a calmer, happier day, Natalie Rome, wearing an old John Havlicek uniform that belonged to her father, strolled down the street to the Wang Theatre in Boston, to see a touring Broadway show, the star of which was her old friend Thomas Banerjee.

The end.

[newnoirstories]

Illustrators Very Much Wanted

[Illustrators wanted. Generous terms outlined in pinned post: @scholarofgloom on Tumblr]

[As always, the inclusion of religious and mystical themes in my stories does not constitute an endorsement of them. The following story contains intense, horror themes, kidnapping, references to drugs and alcohol, and also a reference to parental neglect.]

"Ars Oculus"

Chapter I

When, amidst the festivities of June, 1976 in Boston, with the Boston Celtics basketball team having won its 13th NBA championship, certain tall men, household names in Boston, made out autographs to a 43-year-old man, one Caldwell Marion Rome, they could little have imagined how remarkable, perhaps even miraculous it was, and reflecting the determination of this man, that Mr. Rome was engaged in any activity reckoned so "normal" by society.

Yet this Boston Celtics fan, father of three at the time, had lived, at the beginning of the same year, what appeared, still waters running deep, to be the essence of every traditional American norm.

Caldwell Rome was a private detective by trade, but prior to this fateful year, had always laughed at fictional depictions of his profession, assuring those who knew him that it seldom had the "blood and grit" such stories would have one believe. In a quiet, middle-class neighborhood of Boston, Caldwell specialized in detecting forgeries and thefts of antiques, subjects on which he was an expert of no small renown.

Rome was the junior partner of the private detective agency Cross & Rome, occasionally mistaken for a Catholic organization, with Robert Cross, 62, his senior partner, working out the fencing and money laundering aspects of the same crimes Rome investigated. Cross was hardly less remarkable than Caldwell, being a man of the finest tailoring, physically fit, tall and elegant, mentally sharp with a quick wit, with a carefully coiffed silver streak in his hair that made him, sometimes likened to classic leading man Cary Grant in this respect, appear no more than forty, even as he entered his seventh decade.

With occasional assistants who came and went, these men earned a stream of income that moved them gradually into upper-middle class status.

On the home front, Agatha Rome (née Fisher), 38, was a sunny woman, known in her neighborhood as someone of the highest character, a responsible mother, with no one to say a word against her. More trivially, she was also known for her very floral wardrobe, and even as 1950's nostalgia became prominent in the seventies, to Agatha, it was not nostalgia, but simply the same life she had lived from the start.

One could not have imagined, or so it seemed, a lighter and brighter setting, yet the light would meet the most horrifying darkness, a darkness that would seek the light, no matter how the light wished to hide from it.

Chapter II

One horror that was undeniable was the death of Agatha's mother, Judith Fisher, in 1964, by homicide. Due to the brutality of the crime and its timing, the press generally attributed the crime to the Boston Strangler. Even this, however, served to turn Agatha into more a pillar of her community as, seeing the necessity of law and order even more clearly, she donated and raised money for the families of slain or otherwise deceased police officers.

Agatha had, in high school, been classmates with a deeply disturbed girl named Delilah Knudsen, nicknamed "Devil" by some, and while Agatha had long forgotten about "Devil" Delilah, Delilah remembered her very well, and there is the dark heart of the matter.

While the neighborhood in which the Rome family lived had little crime, in 1975, one incident did occur that broke the peace of the suburban setting.

In the summer of '75, on a balmy night, a 17-year-old boy named Andy Coran sneaked into the Rome family's yard, apparently to watch, through a window, Agatha disrobe. The family bulldog, however, Marmon by name, after a series of tanks, knew of his presence while the humans did not, and mauled the boy, nearly to death.

Even more seriously, as laws were then written, Andy had in his right sock a small plastic bag of cocaine, which may have explained why he seemed to feel little pain from Marmon's attack, at least initially.

"The boy is lucky Marmon got him before Caldwell did," remarked Agatha, "He won't even allow alcohol in the house."

Chapter III

No one in the neighborhood imagined that far worse awaited them, and to understand why, one must understand a materially wealthy woman of the darkest madness, Delilah Knudsen.

Materially wealthy, of old money, Delilah was poor in support in her developing years. Her paternal great-grandfather had earned the family fortune, but her father lived to squander it, and self-destruct in the process. He disappeared into the opium dens of New York City before little Delilah really knew him at all.

Living in one of Boston's oldest homes with her mother, a home some claimed was haunted, may have done neither Delilah nor her mother any favors, as by the time Delilah was 14, her mother, Christina Knudsen (née Nilsen) was in a mental hospital, and would never be released from institutional care.

Already a strange, shy girl, Delilah changed at this time into something frightening, becoming particularly obsessed with her classmate, Agatha, then Agatha Fisher. In one unnerving incident, though still not the most grotesque of Delilah's youth, a wide-eyed Delilah, alone in a classroom with Agatha, caressed Agatha's arm, and in a monotone voice said, "Your skin is supple. I must have it."

As an adult, wealthy enough to isolate herself from the world, with a revolving door of servants who either resigned in fear or were let go if they found out a little too much about their employer, Delilah Knudsen became obsessed with acquiring yet more wealth, convinced that if she could acquire enough gold, in her personal mythology, she could transmute, in alchemical terms, into someone or something immortal. To this end, she worshipped the Goetic demon Bune, said to grant wealth, but also took a deep interest in the dark side of Indo-Iranian beliefs, worshipping Angra Mainyu, the Zoroastrian father of evil, believing that she "belonged to him" and that he was responsible for her being, in her own mind, reincarnated from serial killer Countess Elizabeth Báthory.

Most ghoulish of all, she had in her possession, unknown to any of her servants, the fifth digit of the right upper extremity of none other than Judith Fisher. This terrible fact can be explained only by knowledge of what Delilah herself claimed: None of what she did was of her own accord, but answering to "the eyes in the painting".

In an old family portrait of her great-grandfather, the original breadwinner, Delilah, who by the late sixties was calling herself "Alexandra Medusa", insisted that eyes watched her, and a voice spoke to her, commanding her to do all that she had done. Indeed, a former maid claimed to have seen eyes in the painting fixed on "Alexandra", and a "croaking" voice giving instructions, a voice that could have come only from the painting.

Chapter IV

As Alexandra Medusa, now so-called legally, lived in an opulent chamber of horrors, Caldwell and Agatha Rome had quite different matters on their minds.

Since 1972, when it went missing from Yale University, Caldwell Rome had been more than a little obsessed with finding an evidently stolen Persian zarf, a container for spices, one in legend said to have been owned by the Three Magi from the Book of Matthew, though other stories claimed not only that it was a fraud, as far as such a holy origin, but instead was constructed by medieval German warlocks, and hexed accordingly.

Seemingly fantastical stories aside, it was an item of immense artistic and monetary value, and for this reason, Caldwell had been consulted by many on its disappearance, and one cold day in January, 1976, was chewing on a pencil as he typed notes on possible leads in the case.

"C'mon, beaver man, can't you think of anything but work?" asked Agatha.

Chewing on a pencil, like a beaver chewing wood, Caldwell answered, in a somewhat limited range of vocalizations, "Like what?"

"How about we work on making a fourth child? You know I've wanted one so long."

Finally dropping the pencil from his teeth, Caldwell explained, "I have long felt, Agatha, that this is something more than professional. Call it fanciful, but this zarf, this chalice, it is connected to us in some way. I gave a guest lecture at Yale two weeks before it disappeared. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. Besides, the financial rewards offered for any solid leads would help us provide complete security for three or four kids."

Little did Caldwell Rome know, however, that the zarf was at that moment in the possession of Alexandra Medusa, now used for her strange theories on alchemy, as she believed the cup had magickal powers.

"What makes this old cup so expensive, Caldwell?" asked Agatha.

"Legends claim it has mystical import. Chimerical or no, many believe them, or have believed them."

"How did the legend start?"

"Well, technically, the volumes in which it is first mentioned begin with a prologue claiming that if the reader speaks the name of the books to anyone else, he hexes that unfortunate other. No, I don't believe it either, Aggie, but in your case, I'm not taking chances. Find me the zarf and I'll find you a fourth kid."

"Okay, I'll look in the kitchen cabinets," joked Aggie.

Chapter V

The parallel worlds interconnected as they are, the reader will learn that the three Rome children are all very much connected to the light and the dark of it.

The eldest child, Philip Rome, a bright if impressionable boy of seventeen, well-behaved but unpopular, outstanding in mathematics and planning to be an accountant, had befriended Thomas Banerjee, a boy whose parents were immigrants from India, but who had become distinctly American very quickly.

Thomas was what today we would call a "theatre kid", obsessed with Broadway and swearing that he would star on it one day, and soon began sharing his knowledge of musicals, as well as his often magenta wardrobe, with Philip.

"Thomas has an odd influence over Philip, don't you think?" asked a concerned Agatha of her husband.

"I think that we should, by all means, encourage Thomas's Broadway career," replied Caldwell.

"But you know he's…?"

"Of course, but people have to work things like that out for themselves sometimes."

Thomas was also friendly with the second Rome child, Natalie, 15, who spoke five languages already, but exaggerated all of Philip's tendencies. Philip was academically proficient, Natalie even more so. Philip was socially less than adept, but Natalie would, were it not for Thomas, have been an utter recluse.

It was not that Natalie did not long for human company. On the contrary, she had her eye on a shy, bookish boy from one of her classes, but her conversations tended to be awkward and circular, her understanding of every conversation and jest literal, such that the other kids were generally confused by her, and she by them.

Thomas, though, with his eye for fashion, helped Natalie blend in a bit more, as she, under his tutelage on the subject, ceased wearing wildly mismatching and clashing outfits.

This brings us to the potential black sheep of the family, Jeremiah Rome, just eight. For seven years, he had seemed like every other boy, but as he approached his eighth birthday, he became suddenly belligerent, a bully to smaller children, and wantonly destructive of property.

The family's priest, of the Roman Catholic Church, Father Callum Donegal, was of the opinion that supernatural forces were affecting the young boy, which, no doubt, makes the reader consider Ms. Medusa's influence.

Chapter VI

"I'm so lonely I'd do anything to make you like me," blurted out Natalie, speaking to a boy at the high school library. The boy, Paul Knudsen was, unbeknownst to Natalie, the estranged son of Delilah "Alexandra Medusa" Knudsen, his father's identity unknown.

Paul ran away from his grotesque home at just twelve, then was placed in foster care.

"Would you still like me if my mom was a killer?"

Paul had been feared by association before, and now felt that others would shun him if they knew about his mother, whom he termed "a killer" because of her claim of being reincarnated from one.

"Sure, Paul. Statistics indicate that criminal tendencies in a parent by no means genetically predispose a child to repeat any pattern of behavior," replied Natalie, in her ultra-academic way of speaking.

"Maybe not, but a lot of people get scared as soon as they know about my freak mom."

"My parents say I can start dating when I'm 16. That's next month, Paul, and your 16th is the same month. Do you at least think I'm cute? I'm not a glamour girl, but can I still be cute?"

Paul smiled, "Yeah, you really are."

In the midst of this budding romance, however, Caldwell Rome had finally found a lead on the Magi Zarf, or Magi Cup, as many called it. A retired fence of stolen goods came forward to say that a friend of his had sold something similar to the item's description to Alexandra Medusa.

Posing as a wealthy but unscrupulous collector, with fine apparel and a shifty eye, Caldwell went up to the front door of Medusa, striking a knocker that, appropriately, depicted Medusa. Rather than letting a servant answer, Alexandra answered the door personally, but said only, in the monotone sound for which she was known, "I hexed Jeremiah, you Papist", before closing the door in Rome's face.

Chapter VII

Now believing Father Donegal's supernatural theory about his youngest child, Caldwell's next step was to go to Confession, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, confessing any venial (minor) sins of his, reasoning that, if the devil were involved, this would fortify him.

In the confessional, however, Fr. Callum Donegal stated, "There is a storm coming, Mr. Rome, not of air or water, nor quaking of the earth, but of purest hellfire. Your son's behavior results from the world's growing wickedness, and a generation from today, it will be worse still. Worst of all, even the Church, or the appearance of it, is filled with atheists and the most contemptibly abusive. Soon, the world will be sheep with no shepherd, so you are quite right to put on Christ's armor now, as there will not be another opportunity."

At the Rome household, meanwhile, Magnus Fisher, 62, World War II veteran and widower, father of Agatha, was delivering a similarly grim message.

"If you want a fourth child, Agatha, the decision is yours to make, but I fought in the thick of combat against trained German killing machines, and even that is more comforting a thought than the future of today's children."

"Why? What is happening in the future?"

"I don't know specifics of the future, but it's like watching a building slowly collapse. If you have a fourth child, one conversation with a glib atheist and the child might become one, and you know what the Psalms say. Still, if you want to another kid…"

Chapter VIII

"You need to pose as a repairman," suggested Robert Cross to his junior partner, "But you might want to do a bit of legal research on what you can get away with in that regard."

"The lady seems to know me by sight," replied Rome.

"Oh, there are ways around that. If you know the right people, and the right techniques, you can look like anything. Disguises aside, we both know Alexandra has to be involved. It has to be someone who knows about The Tomes, and spooky Medusa is just the type to know all about that."

Given an idea by Robert's words, Caldwell went to the nearest library to research it, this being long before widespread Internet availability. Unfortunately for Caldwell, the librarian at this locale was Cassandra Mullin.

"Not only are you criminals for stealing this book an extra two days, but your loud pickup vehicle is destroying Mother Earth, and is an emblem of your cave-dwelling, reactionary, neo-Confederate ways! Never come back!"

Mullin's tirade was all over a man with a South Carolina license plate returning a book two days late. Her ordinarily sallow, gaunt face had turned a bright red in her rage, but then she saw Caldwell Rome.

"Oh, oh! Hello, Caldwell. How can I do you? I mean… what can I do for you?" asked Cassandra, fixing her hair and acting like a schoolgirl, which she had not been for thirty years. Caldwell's wry face showed his thoughts, utter disbelief that anyone put such a person in charge of any library, or of anything.

"I need your genealogical records, section B through D."

Picking it up with effort, her eyes still fixated on Rome, Cassandra put a large, dusty volume before him. As Caldwell reached for it, however, Mullin suddenly grabbed his face and kissed him.

"What's that June Cleaver wife of yours got that I haven't?" she exclaimed.

More than a little nauseated, Caldwell continued his research, needing several other books from Cassandra, who was now hiding her face in embarrassment at her own impulsive actions.

Chapter IX

"Why don't you give this zarf case to Mr. Cross?" suggested Agatha.

"Exactly what I can't do. Cross is not blunt enough to say it, but if I don't solve this one soon, without him, he will consider me expendable," Caldwell replied.

"I thought you were partners."

"Yes, I'm his junior partner. To put it another way, it's 1965, I'm John Havlicek, and I have to steal the ball or else!"

"If that's a sports reference, who won the Battle of Versailles [a 1973 Franco-American fashion contest]?"

"The what?"

"Exactly my point," snarked Agatha.

That night, eager and excited, Alexandra Medusa crept on to the Rome family's property. Bribing Marmon the bulldog with sweet words and a sirloin steak, Alexandra crept to the same window as Andrew "Andy" Coran had, to watch Agatha Rome.

"Oh, she's perfect…" muttered Medusa, nearly fainting from her interest.

While on the property, however, her hands gloved, Alexandra also slipped a message in a mailbox. Thomas Banerjee had, in fact, finally pursued his Broadway dreams, and merely took an early flight to New York, but a letter, addressed not to Caldwell or to Agatha, but to Philip, claimed that Thomas had been kidnapped, and instructed Philip to go to Medusa's address.

Chapter X

Natalie brought home Paul Knudsen, essentially for her parents' approval of him as her soon-to-be boyfriend. Nothing about Knudsen was objectionable to any sane parent, unless it were the identity of his mother. Paul got that out of the way first thing.

"Just so you know, Mr. and Mrs. Rome, I'm nothing like my mom. You may have heard stories about her. Well, I ran away to foster care now. I don't do any of those dark things."

When they were alone, Caldwell and Agatha discussed the boy.

"He seems like a good kid. I trust Natalie with him," said Agatha.

"So do I. He's being entirely honest, but he has another secret, one even he doesn't know."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I just solved the case of the Magi Cup, and I have Paul to thank."

Just then, however, Jeremiah, for all of his bad behavior, rushed into the room, very upset that his big brother, Philip, was missing, having left a note saying only, "Got to save Tom, Philip."

With a grim face, Caldwell went to the attic to load an old pistol.

"We should get the police immediately!" exclaimed Agatha.

"I know where Philip is, and if the police raid that place… no, I have to go in alone."

Chapter XI

Bareheaded in a driving rain, Caldwell Rome rushed to his car, a Ford Falcon from the sixties, and drove as quickly as its ailing motor would take him, going directly to the address of Alexandra Medusa.

Medusa was so audacious as to leave her front gate open, and her front door likewise, holding Philip Rome at the point of a knife, saying cryptically, as lightning punctuated her words, "Fate brings lovers together."

With pistol drawn, Caldwell replied, "No riddles, witch. Let go of my son! You can't possibly win now. If you hurt him, you die."

"Calm down, Mr. Rome, there is no need for anyone to die. I don't want Philip, or you. I need your wife. I need Agatha Fisher, who is Suvannamaccha."

"Who is what?"

"Suvannamaccha, the mermaid. Her maiden name, Fisher, and if you know the Kabbalah, the left kidney, Hod, corresponds to Hanuman. My left kidney was removed when I was 18. That was when I knew why I dreamt of the dear girl Agatha, for Mr. Rome, I am becoming a god. But I need a night… a ritual with Agatha to make it happen. Then I will be immortal."

"You need a psychiatrist. Just let my son go. They'll find you insane anyway."

"They will find a god. I swear by Ahriman, whose property my mortal form is, that if you give me one night, one ritual with your wife, not only will I release her and Philip unharmed, but I will lift the hex on Jeremiah… (lightning strike)… I will let you watch the ritual if you do not believe me!"

Philip Rome had been taught by Caldwell, in the strictest terms, never to hit a girl, but as he heard Alexandra's plans, he finally broke that rule and stomped firmly on her instep. In an instant, he was free, and Medusa was at Caldwell's mercy.

"Go ahead and shoot. If you will not let me be a god, sacrifice me and become one yourself…" said Delilah, tearfully.

"No, I will follow Jesus Christ as my God, and you will be safely in a hospital. I will even pray for you," replied Caldwell Rome, holding back his anger.

Chapter XII

Locking Delilah in one of her own closets, and warning Philip to stay outside, Caldwell Rome rushed into the old house feared by so many, an intentional labyrinth of dead ends and secret passages. Eventually, however, he found what he was seeking, the old painting of Delilah's great-grandfather, the one said to instruct her every move.

In an indication of Caldwell's uncompromising directness, he ripped most of the canvas, with his bare hands, from its frame, and there, too stunned to respond or even move, was Robert Theodore Cross, his eyes where the portrait's eyes had been.

The dreadful story of the Robert T. Cross, the mind of the evil if Delilah was its heart, is one that the author has kept from the reader for purposes of cynical emotional manipulation, as a literary ploy, but in this year of reckoning, all was revealed.

Robert T. Cross was born Samuel Matthews, but changed his name, in 1955, to Robert Cross, to make his initials R.C., standing, to him, for Rosy Cross. Still, in his black heart, he was more opportunist than occultist, and when the Second World War first involved the USA, eagerly took German money to act as a spy for the Third Reich.

From there, if it were possible to sink lower, he did. Not so much a womanizer as a fortune hunter, Matthews/Cross used his good looks and considerable superficial charm to court and obtain wealth from rich women, such as Delilah Knudsen, and it was seeing in Paul Knudsen the image of a younger Robert Cross that made Caldwell Rome's case complete, as he realized that Robert was Paul's father.

However, before Delilah, he had leeched the considerable financial means of Judith Fisher, Agatha's mother, then thrown her over for Cassandra Mullin, an eccentric woman from a wealthy family, a family that later disowned her. Bitter over this, Judith, also known as Judy, tried to blackmail Cross over his Nazi past, but such was a fatal game to play. Robert murdered Judy, and, taking advantage of hysteria over the Boston Strangler, made it appear to be one of his crimes.

From here, his greed knew no bounds. He took full advantage of Delilah's psychiatric weaknesses, and cunningly devised the oracle portrait, while in his other, seemingly respectable life as a private detective, Robert arranged the theft of antiques, then betrayed the thieves and so made money from both sides of the law, all without even Caldwell suspecting a thing.

At the trial for his many crimes, still looking like a leading man, Samuel Matthews had the nerve to refer to Caldwell Rome as "ungrateful", on the grounds that "I made him most of his money."

Samuel "Robert Cross" Matthews was sentenced to life in prison, Alexandra Medusa was committed to a secure psychiatric facility, and, in 1981, Natalie Rome, by this time with three siblings, married Paul Knudsen.

The end.

[newnoirstories]

Dark Comedy Docufiction

[All illustrations are the work of perchance.org, not me, but this is not an official endorsement of that website, with which I have no official affiliation. The following story contains drug references and themes of addiction, as well as references to parental neglect.]

"Unreliable Perspectives on Sammy Drayson" (Interquel to "Arjuna's Bow")

The following is compiled and edited by retired NYPD Lieutenant David Brown and by George Clay.

A special note from Mr. Clay: I want to thank the Lieutenant for letting me co-edit this. I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger, but now I am old enough to see my grandson, Kamran (also called Cameron), still just a teen, start to go down the same path, and if we can sell enough copies of this, it will be honest money I can send Kamran, to keep him away from temptation.

David Brown's interview of Gabriel McLaughlin, retired Catholic deacon.

GM: Samuel Drayson was born in 1947, in Brooklyn, to parents who did not love him. He never met his father, and his mother was addicted to opium. As much as this affected Samuel, two relatives of his, whom I will not name, were just as bad, as influences on his life. They would dress little Sammy up as a beggar, then take whatever money he was given. That is, I believe, where Samuel developed his deep hatred of crime, and why he became a policeman.

DB: For context, you ran an orphanage of the Roman Catholic Church, am I correct?

GM: I did not actually run it. I was among the younger staff who variously worked and volunteered there. I am very old, as you see, and most of the other staff have met their Maker by now.

(End of interview)

David Brown's interview of retired Captain Philip Marsh. (Brown's note: This was originally meant to be Mr. Clay's interview, but Marsh refused, saying that it would be "bad press" for a former criminal to interview him.)

PM: Mr. Drayson never understood what being NYPD meant. If he got the criminal, that was all he cared. He never presented the image to the press we needed. He thought he was some hard-boiled fiction detective. That was why he never rose up the ranks, because he gave the press all the wrong answers.

DB: He would probably say that he was telling the truth?

PM: That's just it. You can't tell the whole truth to the newspaper guys.

(End of interview)

George Clay's interview of Marky "Disaster" Astor, described by Detective Drayson as "a reliable informant":

MA: Glad to see you again, George. I've been straight for twenty-two years now. Can you believe it? Anyway, you wanted to know about Detective Drayson?

GC: Yes, how did you meet him?

MA: I witnessed a homicide, a routine knife fight, back when I was addicted and living where that happened it seemed like every day. I was hauled in as a witness.

GC: The 53rd and 3rd years?

MA: Exactly. That's how I met Drayson. I heard he was the hardest, roughest cop, but I saw a different side of him.

GC: Different like how?

MA: He takes me aside. I don't know what he's gonna do. I was edgy, coming down off the stuff, you know, but Drayson, he doesn't want to look soft in front of the other cops.

GC: What did he do?

MA: He told me about this guy in Paris, France. This guy was better at fixing people like me than anybody in the States. He even gave me some cash to get there, and Paris cleaned me up.

GC: But you came back to New York?

MA: Yeah, I owed Sammy. I still dressed like a junkie, played the part, but I started giving Sammy the real story from the streets, though over time, he referred me more to the Narcotics people.

GC: Some of the dealers saw you as a snitch, I'll bet?

MA: Of course, and I was, but not for money or to keep out of prison. I'd been to prison, and it was no worse than the streets I was on. I wanted to save some foolish kid from those serpent tongue dealers, you know, the way I got fooled.

(End of interview)

George Clay's interview of Prisoner 612:

GC: So that readers know, what is your story?

612: I used to be NYPD, but I took bribes, big ones.

GC: But they had you for more than that?

612: Much more. To cover up the bribes, I killed a man. Drayson got me for that, but I felt desperate, thought about going down shooting.

GC: What'd the Detective do?

612: He got me in the shoulder. I think he missed killing me on purpose, but anyway, I was on the ground. I could have reached for the gun.

GC: But you didn't?

612: Well, Drayson, whom I knew a little from before, back when I was honest, told me straight, that I would be hated in prison, for all the guys I put away, and that I would probably have to be in solitary for my own protection. He said I could reach for the revolver, and take the quick way out, since it would have been the last thing I did, of course. He said it was my choice.

GC: You decided against it, I see?

612: Yeah, and the funny thing is, at first I thought my lawyers could get me out of a long sentence, and when they couldn't, at first I regretted not reaching for the gun. Being a cop in prison is like Hell… at first. Now, though, I'm an institution man. If they paroled me, I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

(End of interview)

David Brown's interview of Courtney Randall Cline, living under an alias that will not be revealed here:

DB: "Are you feeling well enough for an interview?"

CC: "I'm not insane anymore, so yeah."

DB: "You remember Detective Sammy Drayson?"

CC: "Yes, when I went crazy, he was one of the homicide detectives."

DB: "What do you remember of that encounter?"

CC: "I said I was crazy at the time. It was all a blur."

DB: "Did you know him later?"

CC: "Yes, he handled my case, so when they let me out of the psych ward, he knew my alias, and checked up on me, undercover, every so often."

DB: "What was he like then?"

CC: "All business, as far as I could tell. I remember you too: The sleepy one."

(End of interview)

George Clay's interview of Billy "Gadda" Getty, described by Detective Drayson as "an unreliable informant":

GC: You knew Detective Sammy Drayson?

BG: I knew him like a snowflake, you know, like a special wind on a bird.

(David Brown's note: Like many of our interviews, this was recorded on audio. The majority of the audio in this interview is Mr. Clay trying and failing to suppress laughter, and having read the unedited transcript, I understand why.)

GC: Like a high bird?

BG: No, you don't get high in front of Drayson. He's like that guy from Cape Fear.

GC: Which guy?

BG: (DB's note: This reply is a free association description of several motion pictures, including Drugstore Cowboy, The Panic in Needle Park and Requiem for a Dream)

GC: About Drayson… you told him what happened on the street?

BG: On the street and in the astral planes, man.

(End of interview)

George Clay's interview of Esther North:

EN: Sammy Drayson is one tough, smoky, old school cop. Stop laughing at me, Georgy Boy. Okay, so that was an over-the-top description, even for me, but I love old movies.

GC: You met Sammy through Lillian, right?

EN: Yeah, I'm not a killer, and Sammy's too sensible to know someone like me otherwise. (Laughter)

GC: Off the subject, but they told me you're 61 now, same age I am. You look a lot younger.

EN: I exercise. (Esther went to her library, and gave Clay a book, entitled, "Quick Guide to Alternative Workouts", written by none other than Esther North.) Keep it. I have many copies.

GC: What are alternative workouts?

EN: Just a fancy way of saying exercise that's fun. The "runner's high", you know. I researched it in the seventies. Because of that, I still fit in my high school prom dress, I'm proud to say… but anyway, we're having too much fun. Back to journalism, reporter! (Esther said this in a mock scolding tone, laughing)

GC: Oh yes… what was your first impression of Sammy Drayson?

EN: That he was like Humphrey Bogart.

GC: How so?

EN: Rough, tough, authority figure, but sensitive deep down, like Bogart in Casablanca. I never asked, but I think he had a tough childhood.

GC: If I may ask, what was your childhood like?

EN: Conventional and a bit boring, but that's better than trauma.

GC: Sammy saved Lillian from being wrongly accused, if I read right?

EN: Yes, poor Lillian, but Sammy's brains saved her. The worst part was that the other police were gaslighting Lillian, like she must be crazy because she used to be into real magick and such. Well, then I'm crazy too. I wrote a booklet on runes. But if it weren't for Sammy, they would have convinced Lillian that she lost her sanity and really did it.

GC: Yeah, I've seen tactics like that. There was a time when I didn't like cops. Of course, now I'm working with one, your husband.

EN: Oh, between you and me and everyone who reads this- best luck on your sales- David is not too fond of most of his old coworkers either. Sammy, though, they would needle each other, but deep down, there was deep respect, especially after the Mesmer Blanc case.

GC: And when Sammy and Lillian got married, were you surprised?

EN: No, because they were a perfect balance, total opposites, and that works most of the time. Over the years, they have grown more alike.

GC: Sammy worked with you on Broadway, right?

EN: Yes, there I'm Helen Troy, and Sammy was technical advisor on two plays I produced. I would love to stay and chat longer, but speaking of Broadway, I've got a one-woman show with lots of costume changes, except in one scene. I'd rehearse the au naturel scene for you, but I'm married now. Ciao.

(End of interview)

David Brown's interview of Lillian Morgan:

LM: "Yes, David, as you know, we met under terrible circumstances, but I would rather tell you a funny story about Sammy that even you don't know."

DB: "All ears, figuratively."

LM: "As you probably know, I quit the occult before I even met Sammy, but Sam, well, he has the most plebeian taste in food, and now I'm the same way, but in October of '91, he took me to a drive-through, at a Purple Eater restaurant, fast food."

DB: "Ah yes, named after that old novelty song."

LM: "Yes, we're old enough to know that. Well, this one Purple Eater place was run by a crooked man named Ismail, or Izzy. Whether you believe it or not, he believed he was using the evil eye to make customers pay him double, then pocket half the cash."

DB: "Was Sammy going there to investigate?"

LM: "No, he was off-duty, and this wasn't homicide. I knew about Ismail from my occult days, though."

DB: "A most prosaic way of using occult powers, I must say."

LM: "Exactly, but even though I quit that world, I still had a tattoo on my right palm, a hamsa."

DB: "Apotropaic? Warding off the evil eye?"

LM: "Yes, so here we are, these two weirdos, Ismail staring at me, trying to make me pay double. Maybe it was just hypnosis, but whatever it was, I went on old instinct and held up my hand. It kind of went to a stalemate, and all the cars behind us were honking their horns. Sammy is rolling his eyes, embarrassed. He finally drives off. He summed it up by saying, 'Lillian, I learned something about the occult today.'"

DB: "And the punch line?"

LM: "I asked what and he said, 'It wastes time, and food. I'm still hungry!'"

(End of interview)

George Clay's interview of Detective Sammy Drayson:

SD: If you want an unreliable perspective on me, I'm as good a source as any. You kept to the straight and narrow, George?

GC: Yes, and I want my grandson to do the same.

SD: I'll check up on him personally if you like. Without saying too much, thanks for the help last year.

GC: Yeah, the streets know things even you don't.

SD: What unreliable information did you want for your documentary, or whatever it is?

GC: David is curious about the cases you've done since he retired.

SD: My most recent case was an interesting one. Some maniac set fire to a Purple Eater, and the worst part is I like their food. Nobody hurt, though.

GC: Surprised they sent you. You're mostly Homicide.

SD: Yes, a slow day, but what made it stick in my memory was not the fire. Some nut thought he was overcharged for a meal, so he set it, but the firemen had no real trouble with it. But as I was looking around for any potential clues, you know, anything the perp might have dropped at the scene, along comes this middle-aged guy with an old-fashioned boom box, playing some rock song, punk I think. He had nothing to do with the fire. They caught that guy miles away, but this guy watches the whole thing like it's a show or something, and the firemen have to hold him back.

GC: But I'll bet it was the boom box that really got your attention?

SD: Right! You and I are about the only people who would think of that. What a strange world.

(End of interview)

David Brown: When she heard of it, my wife, Esther North, was inspired to make her directorial debut in cinema, a short film, made on the West Coast, based on the New York Purple Eater fire, and surrounding events in the city.

With a modest budget, it was the most popular short film of 2010, at least in the USA, with the highest return on investment of any movie released that year.

Esther had the sweet thought to bring me to the set on my 86th birthday. I will leave the reader with a sort of parting epilogue of the filming process, itself most entertaining:

Esther: Love ya, Davey. (A greeting kiss) Sammy's the technical advisor, so you just watch and enjoy. You can have the director's chair for today.

Sammy: The fire was mostly on the right side of the restaurant, from this angle.

Esther: Okay, get that, guys? We have to recast the fireman. Sorry, honey, you're pretty, but he's gotta look like a man burnt in fires, not models like us. No time for a formal audition… (Spotting a large, rough-looking sightseer). Hey, mister, wanna be an actor? Just get into the fireman costume! $2,000 for one scene sound good? Kevin, draw up the legal stuff. You said the song was punk, Sammy?

Sammy: I think so. Might have been the Ramones.

Saul (Sound designer): I have an old tape of the Ramones live, from a show.

Esther: Great! We'll use it. Everybody ready? Action!

To paint the scene, the bystander was now a most masculine fireman, Sammy watched attentively as technical advisor, I tapped my toes (yes, even at 86, I can still do that) to the song chosen, a rendition of "Animal Boy", and Lillian, my wife's "good luck charm", in Hollywood's typical liberties with the truth, played the arsonist, digging deep into her old goth wardrobe, I understand, for the role. A "surreal dark comedy" that became a "cult classic", critics said, but no more surreal than the truth.

The biggest surprise was who carried the boom box, himself celebrating a birthday, his 19th, two days prior, Kamran (Cameron) Clay, who, it turned out, found an honest living another way.

[newnoirstories]

Urban Gothic Memoir Fiction

[The inclusion of religious or mystical practices in my fictional stories does not constitute an endorsement of them. All illustrations contained herein are the work of perchance.org, not of me, but this is not an official endorsement of that website, with which I have no official affiliation. Finally, the reader is warned that the following short story contains violence, death and themes of trauma.]

"The Autobiography of Adam L" (Interquel to "Arjuna's Bow")

Chapter I

My name is Lillian Jennifer Morgan. You may call me Adam L if you like, but that experiment, one of learning and grief both, is over now.

An author wrote a story in which he mentioned that one Tom Carew, a Cornish man, even as I am a Cornish woman, or at least my mother was, blamed me for the deaths of those unfortunate people caught up in the schemes of Dr. Karl Steele, a loathsome man whose story has been retold more than enough by the press.

Whether or not my experiments in magick caused an imbalance, or harmed someone by mistake, I do not know, but it was never my intention to harm innocents. I feel the need to tell my entire story, as Lillian Morgan. I believe, now in my later years, in a just Providence, and He will judge me for whatever I have done, but I want a voice to my people in East Village, to let them know who Adam L really is.

Before I knew of magick, or knew anything, I was born in the year 1940, in Cornwall, or so I am told. Before my first birthday, I was in Manhattan. Some connection exists, in ways difficult to explain, between me and any other Cornish person, and somehow, Mr. Carew knew things about me, and I about him, that we could not have known within the so-called settled order of nature.

My mother, sadly, did not survive for long after my birth, and my father, Ives Morgan, moved to New York and threw himself into work, I believe, to distract himself from grief. He would speak of nothing but work and money, money and work.

I rebelled against my father, though in hindsight, I regret this, but as youth, we are so energetic yet so foolish. If the material world obsessed my dad, I was determined to know only of unseen realms. I became an avid reader, and developed what I now recognize as perhaps an unhealthy obsession with death, such that I was, by my teenage years, a goth before anyone knew us as such. My hero was Maila "Vampira" Nurmi, whom I took quite seriously at the time, failing to see the humor in her performance.

Before the end of the 1950's, I was a member of a coven, which I took an oath never to name. I no longer practice their ways, yet these women were the sisters I never had, and I will not break my word to them. All I will say is that they hid in plain sight in New York City.

Chapter II

Before I continue, I want to make it clear that I am not a gossip. While this memoir will touch on sensitive topics, to some, I suppose, I have obtained permission from both my husband and my best friend to write as frankly about them as about myself.

Before my friends, however, I must recount an enemy, a boy I knew in high school, an ambitious, outwardly clean-cut young man named Jeremy Thomas. My memory now serves me better: I remember now that he looked at me with ridicule until I mentioned that spells could bring money, and when someone expressed skepticism of this, I said a spell that resulted in $1 appearing in the skeptical girl's shoe. Then and only then, I realize, did Jeremy take an interest in me, or rather, in the money (principal with interest) he hoped I could make for him.

I married Jeremy Thomas, much to my regret, in 1964. He was a scavenging investor, I will say, finding struggling companies, removing the old ownership and turning a profit with marketing gimmicks, and he believed, and I believed also, that my spells, some of which I kept secret, by vows of the sisterhood, even from him, were making him a wealthy man.

Life with Jeremy was much like life with my father, except for the two crucial traits I still admire in my dad, which Jeremy lacked utterly: Honesty and loyalty.

The author of a tale of crime in East Village makes mention of Jeremy's unfaithfulness with his secretary. As, in truth, I had no passion of that sort for Jeremy anyhow, I scarcely cared about this, especially after meeting the secretary, Esther North. Even as I idolized Vampira, so she was fascinated by the memory of the recently departed Jayne Mansfield, and looked the part, yet like Mansfield herself, was a far more intelligent and complex person than the image might have suggested.

I invited Esther home one evening, while my husband was on one of his investment scouting trips, three thousand or so miles away. The reader might ask why Esther would accept such an invitation, given that I could have resented her, but you do not know Esther "Jayne Mansfield" North (to this day, she calls me "Vampira" and "Vampy"): She has no fear of any situation, but only curiosity. The fact that everyone whispered about my macabre lair did, I believe, make "Jayne" all the more eager to see it for herself.

That first night, she went straight for the library, and when she began reading the Sanskrit fluently, I knew I had found a soulmate. What though she loved attention (I could never cure her habit of golfing in, shall we say, a naturist way), what though the hair I loved to brush and comb for her was bleached, she was light to my darkness, and was always there for me. I love Esther, no matter how that sounds.

Chapter III

It was Esther who warned me of Jeremy's intentions in the longer term.

"Neither of us fits the bland, blend into the furniture sort that men in the public eye marry. In a way, I hope Jeremy is never too successful, for if he is, I fear he might leave you," she said.

Never were truer words spoken. Indeed, Jeremy Thomas had the audacity, one day in 1971, to approach me and say that he wanted a divorce, because his fortune was growing and he needed a more "presentable" wife, "not Morticia Addams", as he put it. In those days, ironic as it may seem, the only shoulder on which I had to cry was Esther's. In the proceedings the next year, however, she actually asked me to put her down as the co-respondent in the divorce, to strengthen my case, and also because she thought it would give her publicity for an acting career.

I rushed over to her place trying to hold back the tears, then broke down, just holding her and sobbing.

By the middle of that decade, I was very bitter and I began to call myself "Adam L", after the legend of Adam and Lilith, for those who know it. My income would have consisted only of what I could make by reading palms, were it not for my dear Miss North.

She pursued her acting dreams, with my encouragement, in southern California, but found that her ability at golf was greater than her skill at acting. Although she won only a few minor tournaments, her beauty resulted in numerous endorsements, and her head for mathematics multiplied that money as efficiently as Jeremy ever had. Math was my weak subject, but I do know that she got a return on investment more than tripling annually, and while the world knows "The Blonde Whiz", as an investment magazine called her, what they did not know is that, more than once, she sent the money home to me, saving me from public housing or homelessness.

Chapter IV

The author of "Arjuna's Bow" does accurately describe my actions regarding the old treasure chest (the provenance of which I do not know, except that my father gave it to me) and a portrait, specifically a photograph of my ex-husband, in 1986. I knew- and it was from Esther and her knowledge of the world of investment that I knew it- that Jeremy Thomas started a charity, called United Governments, as a front for money sent to coca growing in Colombia, and my spell was intended to result in his arrest, which, indirectly, it may have.

Although they do love each other, Lieutenant David Brown and Esther North, who married that same year, were also allies in an investigation into Jeremy Thomas's money laundering schemes, both to and from Colombia, and Esther, by this time herself into runes, even devising new theories as to their origins, believed back then, as I did, that her Marriage to Brown was part of fate, a fate sealing Thomas in a prison cell, after his 1989 arrest for money laundering and tax evasion.

By that time, however, I had abandoned the esoteric arts, and I had a new husband. A new chapter or more will be needed for an explanation of each.

Chapter V

I will name one and only one fellow member of the sisterhood, and that is because I later discovered that she was also a member of the Reformed Order of Red Mendes, which, from what I heard, and what was later revealed in a court of law, was what remained of a group of British occultists alleged to be involved in terror, having fled the United Kingdom to avoid prosecution. Her name is, or was, as she is no longer with us, Jessica Bell, though she preferred to be called "Jezebel".

Jessica always wanted the rest of us to practice the Goetia. I refused. Back then, what did I worship? So many have asked, and the answer is puerile and disappointing: Thor, from Norse mythology, but only because I was caught in a lightning storm in my teens, and at the time, I thought that he rescued me from it. A sorry way to pick a religion, I now admit, though I also used to see Esther as an embodiment of Venus (Roman mythology).

The mere presence of this reckless, provocative woman (even by my standards), Jezebel, in the coven was something I gave little thought, until the Summer of 1987, when Manhattan officials wanted to cut down an old oak tree, in Riverside Park, which, admittedly, in retrospect, may have been an aesthetic problem, and possibly even a danger as far as falling limbs, but at the time, I associated oaks with Donar (Thor), as did the rest of the sisterhood.

Strangely, however, on the day the oak was to be felled, while we all prayed at the Park in our heathen ways, wishing harm on no living being, but only the preservation of the old oak, Jessica was absent from our circle.

Amidst the protest, one John Marsden was determined to do his job regardless, until in a flash, he caught fire. I still see him, and hear his screams too, in my nightmares. It took what seemed like ages before I realized that Jezebel had thrown a carefully prepared weapon, incendiary, at the poor man. Two policemen were on the scene to keep order amidst public opposition to cutting down the oak, and they gave chase, but out of some bushes emerged a man with a pistol, and while Marsden survived, badly disfigured, the policemen did not.

In the soil near the bushes was found a marker with the number "99", in red letters, so although the male attacker wore a ski mask, I knew who was responsible, at least by reputation: "99" was the title given to the leader, rumored to be one and the same as Chomolungma Iscariot (born Robert Pike), metaphorically "Highest Traitor", of the Reformed Order of Red Mendes, known as the Red Goat in Britain. Before the British began arresting the Red Goat, such deeds were entrusted to underlings, but after fleeing, now smaller in number and weaker in power, to the USA, every source I heard said that Chomolungma would trust no one but himself to have been the gunman in the park, and signed the deed accordingly.

Broken by what I had seen, several of us left the sisterhood. We knew, of course, that no one but Jezebel, still on the run from authorities, condoned such a deed, but the mere association was enough. That was the day I became, once again, Lillian Morgan.

Chapter VI

I felt that I had to apologize to Marsden personally, though I did not expect the hospital to let me see him, but to my surprise, the good Mr. Marsden said he had been expecting me, and insisted on seeing me. I begged his forgiveness, which he gave without even hesitating, adding that he forgave even Jessica Bell.

"I lead a Bible study group," John said, looking at me through the only eye that still saw light, "and I believe that if I did not forgive everyone, including this Jessica, or Jezebel, Jesus would not forgive me of my sins."

Further words would cheapen what this meant, but I will say that this was the first time in my life I considered monotheism of any kind.

As for Jessica Morris Bell, she was found, in March, 1988, deceased, lightning the cause. I could scarcely believe it, and thought it must be what we would now call an urban legend, but one reputable source after another confirmed it. By this time, I prayed to one I called Sky Father, and reckoned this must be His justice.

That year, however, saw another curse, as it seemed, but brought me the husband I love with all my heart.

Chapter VII

Having left the occult, I no longer read palms, losing my only independent source of income. Likewise, while Esther insisted that she, now quite wealthy from golf, modeling and acting, but mainly her wise investments, was happy to support me, joking that I was her "wife", I felt that she deserved the money a lot more than I did, but my reputation preceded me.

As a macabre woman of mystery and darkness, as the world considered me, what employment could I find? I could think of only one thing: Go from actual magick to the illusions of stage magic, and I sought employment as a magician's assistant. Esther was such a doll: She was unofficially my costume designer, even sewing my old outfits into stage costumes. I had no money to pay her, of course, but she did it because she loves me.

My employer was Gerald Harper, stage name Mesmer Blanc, a meticulously crafted persona, and he sought me because of, not in spite of my reputation, saying that my mysterious past would bring audiences by itself. Gaunt and charismatic, I found Harper more than a little appealing, but while he kept it a secret, he preferred other men.

A fresh start, I thought, and a fine gentleman who said that one day, he would teach me to be a stage magician myself. I became then, not only his assistant on stage, but his professional protégé.

One evening, he attempted to teach me both his most popular and his most dangerous trick. He insisted that he would, in the privacy of his home, a grand, gothic mansion, demonstrate it first on himself, that I was not to assume the risk until he had taught me with the utmost care.

Harper had in his possession an actual guillotine used by notorious French revolutionaries, and he was eager to allow anyone, including experts, to examine it, to prove that it was not a trick device. He had many times placed his own head in this device, and somehow lived to tell of it, and he would now demonstrate this to me, though he locked us in a room, not trusting even his servants with the secret of how it was done.

Some strange sense of foreboding came over me. I saw an old portrait on the wall. It was as if the eyes stared at me. The glint of light from a suit of armor startled me.

"Now, now, Lillian, don't be nervous. This fine home you see: This trick bought it for me. I know what I'm doing."

Yet in demonstrating the device, he met with a very real end. I was too shocked to speak or cry out, but just stood there. I barely remember what happened next, but I vaguely recall a policewoman helping me to a chair.

The initial assumption was that it was a horrible accident, but close examination of the deadly device revealed that it had been subtly altered by someone- and I became the prime suspect- in an act of cold-blooded murder. As the guillotine was stored in the room of Harper's death, and no one but Harper himself was known to have a key to the room, I would have been arrested for a crime of which I was innocent but for the doubts of one man: Detective Sammy Drayson.

Chapter VIII

"I doubt you're the killer, but you know who the killer is," said Drayson, looking keenly at me.

I did, actually, have a suspicion. I did not want to tell the world Harper's secret life as a gay man, especially not in those days, the way things were, but here I was, facing a potential charge of murder, murder of a man I deeply respected.

"A man named Bob has a key to that room," I reluctantly told Sammy.

"Who is Bob?"

"I don't know, but I know that he is, or was, well, Mr. Harper's lover, and Harper mentioned him more than once, even mentioning entrusting him with a duplicate key."

Sammy, Detective Drayson, knows better than I do what investigative measures took place next, but he discovered that "Bob" was actually Robert Pike, Chomolungma Iscariot, revealed in court proceedings to be the leader of Red Mendes. His crime, so far as the District Attorney knew, was intended primarily to frame me, though why Pike would do such a thing remains a mystery.

Sammy would visit me from time to time. He knew of the trauma at Riverside Park, and little by little, he opened up about his childhood as an orphan. The men at the station thought him to have no feelings, but the lovely man cried in my arms, the sweetest, gentlest lamb, yet a bold tiger confronting the likes of Bob Pike. We married in April of 1989, and grow more in love each day.

Esther North moved back to New York, saying she missed me. I hugged her so hard she nearly passed out, as I forgot the strength of my grip. Born for show business, she became a Broadway and Off-Broadway producer, though under the contrived name "Helen Troy".

[newnoirstories]

Dark, Occult Noir Comedy (Illustrated Version)

[The inclusion of religious or mystical practices in my stories does not constitute an endorsement of any of them. All images are the work of perchance.org, not me, but this is not an official endorsement of that website, as I have no affiliation with it. Finally, I warn the reader that the following story contains violence, addiction and implied sex.]

"Arjuna's Bow"

Chapter I

Detective Sammy Drayson, NYPD, dealt mainly with crime in the East Village. Art, drugs and the occasional homicide, Drayson thought. Drayson specialized in the homicides.

1986 was the year, the hipsters of the new kind were rising, the kind Broadway would immortalize, the kind that would be cliché in two or three decades, but at the time, they were the new hippies, and being one meant something, whether you liked them or not.

But then, there was the other side of it: The addiction, the AIDS epidemic, both so common among the artists, and wherever there were narcotics, some would fight to the death over them, others to the death over who sold them, and then there were those who killed for reasons no one understood.

But while Drayson, who believed in nothing he could not see, pored over the tedious red tape at his desk, in an apartment in East Village, Apartment 61 on 13th Street, a woman known to her neighbors only as "Adam L", no context or explanation, was trying to invoke powers at which the cynical Sammy would have laughed, but soon he would believe.

Taking an ebony wand, hardly a traditional wand of the old Druids, given where ebony trees grow, Adam L touched it to the portrait of a man, then to a treasure chest of sorts, and back and forth, chanting in the old Enochian language of Dee and Kelley, until finally, with a yell, she exclaimed, very much in English, "Puppet!"

Chapter II

On a rainy day about a week later, the first of several unsolved homicides occurred. No robbery, no apparent motive: A 52-year-old man out walking his dog was the victim, taken by surprise with a knife. Though his faithful canine friend obviously put up a fight, and likely left some mark on the assailant, the dog, mixed in breed, was too small to prevent the crime.

Drayson heard of the case, but it seemed like the random act of a junkie, and no leads could be found… until four days later, when similar injuries were found on the remains of woman, 27, on the same street, then, just over a week later, an elderly couple, octogenarians at that, all the same: Probably the same weapon, the same lack of motive, and within a radius of less than a quarter of a mile.

Even as Sammy was on the scene of the poor elderly man and woman, in came a call that a young man of 19 died in identical circumstances in a parking lot, perhaps two hundred yards from where Drayson stood, but by now, the killer had gotten away, and Drayson was hearing no end of it from the Captain, though Captain Marsh was concerned more with bad press than with lives.

This time, though, there was a witness, but not one that a district attorney would covet. An old Cornish man, Tom Carew, a painter of some local repute, claimed to get a fleeting glimpse of the killer, but having a limp, he said, it was no use giving chase. In his Cornish dialect, he insisted that the killer was a woman wearing the mask of a man, but also rambled something that Drayson took to be about a man carrying a boom box playing music.

Nine times out of ten, Drayson would have put one word in his notes, that being "gibberish", over such a story, but his job had been threatened, and he was desperate enough to take dilligent notes, in so far as he could understand Cornish:

"Flick o' the wan' o' the cunning wom'n, 'tis what took the souls. Street 13 an' oak, proper fit for her, pale and wan wi' a wan', she is. Looks a maid, 'tis old in deed. Cunning maid pilfered the ol' swag chest 'o Blood Barq."

Such was Carew's explanation of who he thought responsible for the crime he had witnessed.

Chapter III

"I am so desperate," remarked Drayson at headquarters, "That I'm going to Sleepy Brown."

David "Sleepy" Brown was a Lieutenant in the force, 62 years of age, whose greatest asset to the force was as a historian and linguist. He had solved many an antiques caper and fraud, spoke and wrote perfect Greek, Latin, Spanish and Hebrew, as well as English and every Celtic language, and though not from Cornwall, but from Devon, originally, before his parents moved him, as a child, to New York, it was for this last bit of expertise that Drayson needed him.

With typical lack of protocol, finding an unlocked door, Drayson simply let himself in to Brown's office, where the old man seemed to be nodding off, fitting his nickname. Drayson sneered.

"Lovely sneer, Detective. By the way, the sole of your right shoe needs mending," remarked the Lieutenant, revealing that, as was so often the case, his drowsy appearance was an act, "You are here about the Cornish witness, I presume?"

Analyzing Drayson's jumbled notes, Brown opined, "Look for an Apartment 61 on 13th Street, and if you find a woman fond of Druid wands and treasure chests, you will find someone relevant to your investigation."

"How on earth do you know what apartment to look for?"

"This… shall we say, eccentric old fellow was speaking in a sort of mystical code. 61 is the gematria- that's a kind of esoteric code- for 'oak'."

"What about Blood Bark?"

"Blood Barq, with a 'q', Detective, though there are several theories as to the etymology. It's a legend of a British pirate with a lost treasure. No one knows his real name, or even whether he existed with certainty, so they call him Blood Barq."

"You are seriously proposing that a dead pirate has something to do with this case?"

"No, I am proposing that a delusional person might believe he did, however."

With that, Brown closed his eyes and returned to what was either slumber or meant to give that impression.

Chapter IV

Detective Drayson found an Apartment 61 on 13th Street, not far from where the murders occurred, but while a woman's voice answered, all she would say is that, if he had no search warrant, he was not welcome, and that she would answer no questions. It was Adam L's apartment, and Drayson scrambled off to try to find her birth name, but before this, another unexpected witness, as it seemed, came forward.

A man was at the station claiming to be the man with the boom box seen by Carew, saying that his conscience was bothering him. His name was George Clay.

"Okay, officers, I'm taking the chance. You know I got a record and I don't want no trouble, but I swear to you, I didn't know anything about a murder."

"What did you know?" asked Drayson, in his sternest voice.

"Look, all I know is this man, sunglasses and a beard, maybe a fake beard, I don't know. Sunglasses and it was rainin'. Anyhow, he shows me this freaky person, not sure if it was a guy or a girl, but anyway, he says he'll pay me $500 just to follow him, or her, or whatever around and play my boom box for a few blocks, as long as I play the song he wants."

"What song?"

"'Tragedy', a Bee Gees song. Now I'm more a funk man, and that ain't…"

"Get to the point!"

"Anyhow, this crazy person freaks hearin' the song, pulls a knife and attacks the nearest person, as far as I could see, some skinny white kid."

"And you did nothing?"

"Look, man, I got a record. I panicked, okay? But I'm here now, right, and I didn't have to tell you anything, or even let you know I was there!"

Chapter V

Kenny "Dum Dum" Wallace Jr. was the bassist for a struggling glam metal act calling itself "Long Live the Buzz Flies". On his way to a poorly-built recording studio aptly named "The Leaky Roof", he was approached by a man with a beard and sunglasses, again on an overcast day, offered $500 for the simple act of carrying a boom box playing "Tragedy" by the Bee Gees and following someone, someone with the face of a man, but a feminine walk.

Wallace shrugged, and did as instructed, but as in Clay's story, the strange person flew into a frenzy, pulled a knife, and for a moment, Dum Dum thought he was the intended target, but instead, the victim was a 39-year-old accountant, Anderson Tall. This time, though, there was a witness to the entire sequence of events, and not only the killing, Marjorie "Meddler" Davison, a 67-year-old woman feared as much as any man on the streets, in her own way, as a notorious gossip rumored to leverage information for blackmail, someone who knew everything about everybody, it seemed.

She considered blackmailing the band, until attending one of their concerts and seeing the small crowd. Instead, Davison went to the police, but tried to insist on being paid for her information.

"In the first place, Meddler," said Drayson sharply, "If we paid you, it would set a precedent where every lowlife like you could shake us down. Second, it would destroy the credibility of what you saw, to the DA. How about you tell us what happened and we won't go after you for about, maybe, six or seven blackmail operations you have going on at this moment?"

With that, Davison described what she had seen, and the pattern was undeniable, if grotesque. Drayson was planning on looking into whether anyone known to be unstable, like an escaped hospital patient, might be involved, when Lieutenant Brown casually strolled into the room with a dossier on just such a person, Courtney Randall Cline, noted as "paranoid schizophrenic", "homicidal ideations", yet for some reason given permission, just two days before the killings began, "to visit family".

Chapter VI

Uniformed police and street gossip had it that Courtney Cline was living out of a van, an old hippie one, but painted over a silvery gray. Police approached her, and she was wearing a mask in the detailed likeness of a man, though which man was unclear.

"I don't care if you're cops. You play that disco song, you die."

The officers, with great difficulty, cuffed her as a dangerous suspect, but she calmed down when promised that no disco music would be played, and after that, blandly and indifferently recounted committing all six murders, explaining that strange men kept following her with "that horrid song", and "made me do it". When asked about the mask, which she removed only with reluctance, she said that she found it in her room at the mental hospital, and it was a likeness of William "Wolf" Woolley, soon verified as an actual patient in the same wing of the same hospital, and a known murderer himself, albeit found insane. Woolley, however, had been in the hospital during all six killings, and so could not have been directly involved.

Courtney R. Cline was arrested on six counts of second-degree murder, though it was suspected that she would, like Wolf, be acquitted by an insanity defense.

"You think you have solved the case, eh, Drayson?" said Brown, ambling out of nowhere with his customary quiet ease.

"Of course, and you don't?"

"We know who physically carried out the crimes, but why this same song, and this mysterious man I hear of, the false beard and the $500 offers to random men?"

"I admit that is odd, but how can I ever prove any of that?"

The Lieutenant shook his head and smiled, "If you would only use a bit of imagination, Detective. None of Cline's notes say anything about a fixation regarding music, as one might reasonably expect if said music drove her into homidical fits."

"And what does that suggest, Sherlock Holmes?" asked Drayson insolently.

"Sherlock is suggesting that someone at the hospital conditioned Miss Cline as a sort of post-hypnotic suggestion. Follow that lead to the ends of the earth, Detective. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to earning the nickname 'Sleepy'."

Chapter VII

Again reluctantly following Sleepy's advice, Drayson found, rather to his surprise, that Wolf Woolley's notes did indeed include the warning, "Violent reaction to disco". There could also be no question that Cline's mask was a perfect likeness of Woolley.

Dr. Karl Steele gave the NYPD full access to both records and to the premises. One thing struck Drayson, however: All of the staff agreed that, at least in Cline's absence, there could be no question that Woolley was their most dangerous patient, yet Wolf was not in the "isolation room", a sort of equivalent of solitary confinement.

"That's Dr. Steele's idea," explained a nurse, "He said that Mr. Woolley is incurable, nothing changes him, but that the isolation room might change the behavior of some of the other patients."

Detective Drayson was permitted to look into the isolation room, and could scarcely believe the surreal horror within: A man in a straitjacket wore also a mask of William Woolley's likeness, as faintly, the song "Tragedy" could be heard playing, interspersed with the voice of Wolf ranting his hatred of the disco genre, and back and forth, causing the patient to writhe in torment.

The nurses and orderlies seemed to think nothing of this, calling it "an experimental therapy" and "Dr. Steele's idea". An even greater shock: Detective Drayson was suddenly face to face with the gaunt yet imposing figure of Dr. Karl Steele, his deeply recessed eyes glistening cold malevolence, a tight-lipped smile seeming to speak death.

Chapter VIII

Even Drayson's hardened nerves got a terrible start, but suddenly, Steele's demeanor seemed to relax, and he laughed, albeit with a cynical ring.

"Detective, Detective, we mustn't have anxiety. I let you see that. I knew that you would deduce it sooner or later- either you or that old Lieutenant."

"You're the killer!" exclaimed Drayson.

"The killer? I never touched a soul, never gave any instructions to anyone so much as to jaywalk, Detective."

"Conditioning… you hypnotized them!"

"Welcome to the future. The quaint moral laws of Abrahamic times are dying slowly, Detective. There are chessmasters and there are pawns. I have demonstrated that I am a chessmaster. Mr. Woolley… well, he has the will to power, but not the clarity. I have both. You have the potential for both too, Detective. I read in your eyes a deep distrust for the lies of the old ways, and a potential for the new."

"Maybe so," replied Drayson, recovering his nerve, "But what you fail to read is that I would rather die than break my oath to uphold the law. You won't touch me, will you, Doctor? You want others to do the dirty work."

"That is what you call it," shrugged Steele, "But return as you like, you have nothing on me."

The next day, Detective Samuel Drayson, instructing his uniformed help to wait outside the building, returned to the hospital, barging directly into Steele's private office.

"I've been expecting you, but to what avail?" smugly cooed the Doctor.

"That's right. You never said a word. Never told them to do a thing."

"Exactly…"

"Neither did I…" Drayson retorted, his eyes set cold as the Doctor's. Into the room, unrestrained and feral, lurched William Woolley himself, a sight that shook even Dr. Steele.

With a theatrical air, Drayson took out a tape recorder, then stepped back, so that Wolf was closest to the Doctor.

"Tragedy, when the feeling's gone, and you can't go on, it's tragedy…"

In the frenzy of a rabid beast, Wolf attacked, fists and teeth, as Dr. Steele screamed, the last sounds he would ever make, as Drayson locked the door behind the two, escaping as hospital staff desperately rushed to respond.

Chapter IX

"Wolf will be trying to escape, likely out the front way, and if not, I have men at the back," said Drayson.

Indeed, Wolf, covered in evidence of his savage attack on the late Dr. Steele, helped himself to the front exit, only to be captured by nine policemen, one of them Drayson, though not before biting one of them.

Wolf looked up at one of the cops, who in spite of the struggle, still had a cigarette in his mouth. For the first time, Woolley spoke, laughing and saying to the smoker, "You're crazy too."

Meanwhile, somewhere in the United States of America, the quality control inspector of the very cigarette this policeman smoked lived a life in turmoil, his wife having an affair as he tried to drown his sorrow. As the factory man threw a bottle of whiskey at a photograph of his wedding, Jeremy Thomas met with the flashes of cameras. Thomas was founder, chairman and CEO of Jeremy Thomas Holdings, which held a controlling share in the liquor company profiting from the broken man's sorrow, but he was announcing giving a portion of his billions to United Governments, a philanthropic organization dedicated to world peace.

The flash of the cameras gave way to the flash of lightning, however, as the money Thomas "donated" was being illicitly invested in the Medellín Cartel of Colombia, as haggard Colombian workers picked coca leaves in a storm of rain and thunder, the lightning giving way to neon lights in the middle of the night, somewhere in an American city, a man slumped over, a man broken by cocaine.

Jeremy Thomas, as it turned out, had not always been wealthy, though he had always been unscrupulous. Prior to his wealth, he was briefly married to Lillian Morgan, now calling herself "Adam L", bitter over never having touched Jeremy's later fortune. If the Fates were not capricious enough, the very secretary named as co-respondent by Morgan in her divorce from Thomas had, in turn, just married none other than Lieutenant David Brown, twenty-four years her senior, as if an aging Sherlock Holmes wed a surviving Jayne Mansfield, though Mansfield, of course, was more clever than the public knew.

Brown's loud sounds on the wedding night, in somewhat of a British accent, annoyed the neighbors. Meanwhile, Detective Sammy Drayson, ever the contrarian, was a basketball fan, but not a fan of the New York Knicks, but of the Boston Celtics, and on a rare vacation, was in Boston, watching the most successful playoff run of the 1985-86 Boston Celtics, for once forgetting the wretched world around him.

The end.

[newnoirstories]

Dark, Surreal Noir Comedy

[Once again, the inclusion of a religious or mystical practice in any of my stories does not constitute an endorsement of it.]

"Arjuna's Bow"

Chapter I

Detective Sammy Drayson, NYPD, dealt mainly with crime in the East Village. Art, drugs and the occasional homicide, Drayson thought. Drayson specialized in the homicides.

1986 was the year, the hipsters of the new kind were rising, the kind Broadway would immortalize, the kind that would be cliché in two or three decades, but at the time, they were the new hippies, and being one meant something, whether you liked them or not.

But then, there was the other side of it: The addiction, the AIDS epidemic, both so common among the artists, and wherever there were narcotics, some would fight to the death over them, others to the death over who sold them, and then there were those who killed for reasons no one understood.

But while Drayson, who believed in nothing he could not see, pored over the tedious red tape at his desk, in an apartment in East Village, Apartment 61 on 13th Street, a woman known to her neighbors only as "Adam L", no context or explanation, was trying to invoke powers at which the cynical Sammy would have laughed, but soon he would believe.

Taking an ebony wand, hardly a traditional wand of the old Druids, given where ebony trees grow, Adam L touched it to the portrait of a man, then to a treasure chest of sorts, and back and forth, chanting in the old Enochian language of Dee and Kelley, until finally, with a yell, she exclaimed, very much in English, "Puppet!"

Chapter II

On a rainy day about a week later, the first of several unsolved homicides occurred. No robbery, no apparent motive: A 52-year-old man out walking his dog was the victim, taken by surprise with a knife. Though his faithful canine friend obviously put up a fight, and likely left some mark on the assailant, the dog, mixed in breed, was too small to prevent the crime.

Drayson heard of the case, but it seemed like the random act of a junkie, and no leads could be found… until four days later, when similar injuries were found on the remains of woman, 27, on the same street, then, just over a week later, an elderly couple, octogenarians at that, all the same: Probably the same weapon, the same lack of motive, and within a radius of less than a quarter of a mile.

Even as Sammy was on the scene of the poor elderly man and woman, in came a call that a young man of 19 died in identical circumstances in a parking lot, perhaps two hundred yards from where Drayson stood, but by now, the killer had gotten away, and Drayson was hearing no end of it from the Captain, though Captain Marsh was concerned more with bad press than with lives.

This time, though, there was a witness, but not one that a district attorney would covet. An old Cornish man, Tom Carew, a painter of some local repute, claimed to get a fleeting glimpse of the killer, but having a limp, he said, it was no use giving chase. In his Cornish dialect, he insisted that the killer was a woman wearing the mask of a man, but also rambled something that Drayson took to be about a man carrying a boom box playing music.

Nine times out of ten, Drayson would have put one word in his notes, that being "gibberish", over such a story, but his job had been threatened, and he was desperate enough to take dilligent notes, in so far as he could understand Cornish:

"Flick o' the wan' o' the cunning wom'n, 'tis what took the souls. Street 13 an' oak, proper fit for her, pale and wan wi' a wan', she is. Looks a maid, 'tis old in deed. Cunning maid pilfered the ol' swag chest 'o Blood Barq."

Such was Carew's explanation of who he thought responsible for the crime he had witnessed.

Chapter III

"I am so desperate," remarked Drayson at headquarters, "That I'm going to Sleepy Brown."

David "Sleepy" Brown was a Lieutenant in the force, 62 years of age, whose greatest asset to the force was as a historian and linguist. He had solved many an antiques caper and fraud, spoke and wrote perfect Greek, Latin, Spanish and Hebrew, as well as English and every Celtic language, and though not from Cornwall, but from Devon, originally, before his parents moved him, as a child, to New York, it was for this last bit of expertise that Drayson needed him.

With typical lack of protocol, finding an unlocked door, Drayson simply let himself in to Brown's office, where the old man seemed to be nodding off, fitting his nickname. Drayson sneered.

"Lovely sneer, Detective. By the way, the sole of your right shoe needs mending," remarked the Lieutenant, revealing that, as was so often the case, his drowsy appearance was an act, "You are here about the Cornish witness, I presume?"

Analyzing Drayson's jumbled notes, Brown opined, "Look for an Apartment 61 on 13th Street, and if you find a woman fond of Druid wands and treasure chests, you will find someone relevant to your investigation."

"How on earth do you know what apartment to look for?"

"This… shall we say, eccentric old fellow was speaking in a sort of mystical code. 61 is the gematria- that's a kind of esoteric code- for 'oak'."

"What about Blood Bark?"

"Blood Barq, with a 'q', Detective, though there are several theories as to the etymology. It's a legend of a British pirate with a lost treasure. No one knows his real name, or even whether he existed with certainty, so they call him Blood Barq."

"You are seriously proposing that a dead pirate has something to do with this case?"

"No, I am proposing that a delusional person might believe he did, however."

With that, Brown closed his eyes and returned to what was either slumber or meant to give that impression.

Chapter IV

Detective Drayson found an Apartment 61 on 13th Street, not far from where the murders occurred, but while a woman's voice answered, all she would say is that, if he had no search warrant, he was not welcome, and that she would answer no questions. It was Adam L's apartment, and Drayson scrambled off to try to find her birth name, but before this, another unexpected witness, as it seemed, came forward.

A man was at the station claiming to be the man with the boom box seen by Carew, saying that his conscience was bothering him. His name was George Clay.

"Okay, officers, I'm taking the chance. You know I got a record and I don't want no trouble, but I swear to you, I didn't know anything about a murder."

"What did you know?" asked Drayson, in his sternest voice.

"Look, all I know is this man, sunglasses and a beard, maybe a fake beard, I don't know. Sunglasses and it was rainin'. Anyhow, he shows me this freaky person, not sure if it was a guy or a girl, but anyway, he says he'll pay me $500 just to follow him, or her, or whatever around and play my boom box for a few blocks, as long as I play the song he wants."

"What song?"

"'Tragedy', a Bee Gees song. Now I'm more a funk man, and that ain't…"

"Get to the point!"

"Anyhow, this crazy person freaks hearin' the song, pulls a knife and attacks the nearest person, as far as I could see, some skinny white kid."

"And you did nothing?"

"Look, man, I got a record. I panicked, okay? But I'm here now, right, and I didn't have to tell you anything, or even let you know I was there!"

Chapter V

Kenny "Dum Dum" Wallace Jr. was the bassist for a struggling glam metal act calling itself "Long Live the Buzz Flies". On his way to a poorly-built recording studio aptly named "The Leaky Roof", he was approached by a man with a beard and sunglasses, again on an overcast day, offered $500 for the simple act of carrying a boom box playing "Tragedy" by the Bee Gees and following someone, someone with the face of a man, but a feminine walk.

Wallace shrugged, and did as instructed, but as in Clay's story, the strange person flew into a frenzy, pulled a knife, and for a moment, Dum Dum thought he was the intended target, but instead, the victim was a 39-year-old accountant, Anderson Tall. This time, though, there was a witness to the entire sequence of events, and not only the killing, Marjorie "Meddler" Davison, a 67-year-old woman feared as much as any man on the streets, in her own way, as a notorious gossip rumored to leverage information for blackmail, someone who knew everything about everybody, it seemed.

She considered blackmailing the band, until attending one of their concerts and seeing the small crowd. Instead, Davison went to the police, but tried to insist on being paid for her information.

"In the first place, Meddler," said Drayson sharply, "If we paid you, it would set a precedent where every lowlife like you could shake us down. Second, it would destroy the credibility of what you saw, to the DA. How about you tell us what happened and we won't go after you for about, maybe, six or seven blackmail operations you have going on at this moment?"

With that, Davison described what she had seen, and the pattern was undeniable, if grotesque. Drayson was planning on looking into whether anyone known to be unstable, like an escaped hospital patient, might be involved, when Lieutenant Brown casually strolled into the room with a dossier on just such a person, Courtney Randall Cline, noted as "paranoid schizophrenic", "homicidal ideations", yet for some reason given permission, just two days before the killings began, "to visit family".

Chapter VI

Uniformed police and street gossip had it that Courtney Cline was living out of a van, an old hippie one, but painted over a silvery gray. Police approached her, and she was wearing a mask in the detailed likeness of a man, though which man was unclear.

"I don't care if you're cops. You play that disco song, you die."

The officers, with great difficulty, cuffed her as a dangerous suspect, but she calmed down when promised that no disco music would be played, and after that, blandly and indifferently recounted committing all six murders, explaining that strange men kept following her with "that horrid song", and "made me do it". When asked about the mask, which she removed only with reluctance, she said that she found it in her room at the mental hospital, and it was a likeness of William "Wolf" Woolley, soon verified as an actual patient in the same wing of the same hospital, and a known murderer himself, albeit found insane. Woolley, however, had been in the hospital during all six killings, and so could not have been directly involved.

Courtney R. Cline was arrested on six counts of second-degree murder, though it was suspected that she would, like Wolf, be acquitted by an insanity defense.

"You think you have solved the case, eh, Drayson?" said Brown, ambling out of nowhere with his customary quiet ease.

"Of course, and you don't?"

"We know who physically carried out the crimes, but why this same song, and this mysterious man I hear of, the false beard and the $500 offers to random men?"

"I admit that is odd, but how can I ever prove any of that?"

The Lieutenant shook his head and smiled, "If you would only use a bit of imagination, Detective. None of Cline's notes say anything about a fixation regarding music, as one might reasonably expect if said music drove her into homidical fits."

"And what does that suggest, Sherlock Holmes?" asked Drayson insolently.

"Sherlock is suggesting that someone at the hospital conditioned Miss Cline as a sort of post-hypnotic suggestion. Follow that lead to the ends of the earth, Detective. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to earning the nickname 'Sleepy'."

Chapter VII

Again reluctantly following Sleepy's advice, Drayson found, rather to his surprise, that Wolf Woolley's notes did indeed include the warning, "Violent reaction to disco". There could also be no question that Cline's mask was a perfect likeness of Woolley.

Dr. Karl Steele gave the NYPD full access to both records and to the premises. One thing struck Drayson, however: All of the staff agreed that, at least in Cline's absence, there could be no question that Woolley was their most dangerous patient, yet Wolf was not in the "isolation room", a sort of equivalent of solitary confinement.

"That's Dr. Steele's idea," explained a nurse, "He said that Mr. Woolley is incurable, nothing changes him, but that the isolation room might change the behavior of some of the other patients."

Detective Drayson was permitted to look into the isolation room, and could scarcely believe the surreal horror within: A man in a straitjacket wore also a mask of William Woolley's likeness, as faintly, the song "Tragedy" could be heard playing, interspersed with the voice of Wolf ranting his hatred of the disco genre, and back and forth, causing the patient to writhe in torment.

The nurses and orderlies seemed to think nothing of this, calling it "an experimental therapy" and "Dr. Steele's idea". An even greater shock: Detective Drayson was suddenly face to face with the gaunt yet imposing figure of Dr. Karl Steele, his deeply recessed eyes glistening cold malevolence, a tight-lipped smile seeming to speak death.

Chapter VIII

Even Drayson's hardened nerves got a terrible start, but suddenly, Steele's demeanor seemed to relax, and he laughed, albeit with a cynical ring.

"Detective, Detective, we mustn't have anxiety. I let you see that. I knew that you would deduce it sooner or later- either you or that old Lieutenant."

"You're the killer!" exclaimed Drayson.

"The killer? I never touched a soul, never gave any instructions to anyone so much as to jaywalk, Detective."

"Conditioning… you hypnotized them!"

"Welcome to the future. The quaint moral laws of Abrahamic times are dying slowly, Detective. There are chessmasters and there are pawns. I have demonstrated that I am a chessmaster. Mr. Woolley… well, he has the will to power, but not the clarity. I have both. You have the potential for both too, Detective. I read in your eyes a deep distrust for the lies of the old ways, and a potential for the new."

"Maybe so," replied Drayson, recovering his nerve, "But what you fail to read is that I would rather die than break my oath to uphold the law. You won't touch me, will you, Doctor? You want others to do the dirty work."

"That is what you call it," shrugged Steele, "But return as you like, you have nothing on me."

The next day, Detective Samuel Drayson, instructing his uniformed help to wait outside the building, returned to the hospital, barging directly into Steele's private office.

"I've been expecting you, but to what avail?" smugly cooed the Doctor.

"That's right. You never said a word. Never told them to do a thing."

"Exactly…"

"Neither did I…" Drayson retorted, his eyes set cold as the Doctor's. Into the room, unrestrained and feral, lurched William Woolley himself, a sight that shook even Dr. Steele.

With a theatrical air, Drayson took out a tape recorder, then stepped back, so that Wolf was closest to the Doctor.

"Tragedy, when the feeling's gone, and you can't go on, it's tragedy…"

In the frenzy of a rabid beast, Wolf attacked, fists and teeth, as Dr. Steele screamed, the last sounds he would ever make, as Drayson locked the door behind the two, escaping as hospital staff desperately rushed to respond.

Chapter IX

"Wolf will be trying to escape, likely out the front way, and if not, I have men at the back," said Drayson.

Indeed, Wolf, covered in evidence of his savage attack on the late Dr. Steele, helped himself to the front exit, only to be captured by nine policemen, one of them Drayson, though not before biting one of them.

Wolf looked up at one of the cops, who in spite of the struggle, still had a cigarette in his mouth. For the first time, Woolley spoke, laughing and saying to the smoker, "You're crazy too."

Meanwhile, somewhere in the United States of America, the quality control inspector of the very cigarette this policeman smoked lived a life in turmoil, his wife having an affair as he tried to drown his sorrow. As the factory man threw a bottle of whiskey at a photograph of his wedding, Jeremy Thomas met with the flashes of cameras. Thomas was founder, chairman and CEO of Jeremy Thomas Holdings, which held a controlling share in the liquor company profiting from the broken man's sorrow, but he was announcing giving a portion of his billions to United Governments, a philanthropic organization dedicated to world peace.

The flash of the cameras gave way to the flash of lightning, however, as the money Thomas "donated" was being illicitly invested in the Medellín Cartel of Colombia, as haggard Colombian workers picked coca leaves in a storm of rain and thunder, the lightning giving way to neon lights in the middle of the night, somewhere in an American city, a man slumped over, a man broken by cocaine.

Jeremy Thomas, as it turned out, had not always been wealthy, though he had always been unscrupulous. Prior to his wealth, he was briefly married to Lillian Morgan, now calling herself "Adam L", bitter over never having touched Jeremy's later fortune. If the Fates were not capricious enough, the very secretary named as co-respondent by Morgan in her divorce from Thomas had, in turn, just married none other than Lieutenant David Brown, twenty-four years her senior, as if an aging Sherlock Holmes wed a surviving Jayne Mansfield, though Mansfield, of course, was more clever than the public knew.

Brown's loud sounds on the wedding night, in somewhat of a British accent, annoyed the neighbors. Meanwhile, Detective Sammy Drayson, ever the contrarian, was a basketball fan, but not a fan of the New York Knicks, but of the Boston Celtics, and on a rare vacation, was in Boston, watching the most successful playoff run of the 1985-86 Boston Celtics, for once forgetting the wretched world around him.

The end.

[newnoirstories]

"Losing the Dragon" (AI art, done by Perchance.org)

(Disclaimer: None of the following is in any way to my credit, and is simply to demonstrate the general concept of how I picture key characters, situations and settings in the neo-noir story beneath these works of AI art, nor is this intended as an official endorsement of any website.)

Pak Wai-Lam (as faculty at Oxford)

Wilhelm Euler

Inspector Daniel Graves

Cassandra "Lonely" Nolan

"Gloomy" Gorman Knowles (at the Low Crow pub)

[newnoirstories]

Neo-Noir Sequel

(I encourage fan fiction based on these characters, to give fresh perspectives on them.)

"Losing the Dragon"

Chapter I

London, 1967, Sally Orton, known to most just as "Wailing Sally" for her frequent weeping, had died of an overdose. Her unnatural posture in the grimy alley was too much for one of the policemen on the scene.

"We know who sold her the horse, Reggie," said the policeman with stronger nerves, "It's that b*stard Smack Boy. Any excuse to take him in."

However, before the bobbies could bring in Smack Boy, an addict of the substance that was his entire identity, as well as a dealer, someone else, someone outside the law, got at him first.

Smack Boy, sensing that the police would be looking for him, cut through an alley in the seediest part of London, only to see a woman on the other side of fifty, a bit haggard, toying with a switchblade and strutting like the roughest of men in these parts.

"Where do you think you're going, Smack Boy?" asked the woman.

"What's it to you?"

"Let's get this straight, Smack Boy. I've got a better supply. You're not buying from 'enry no more, but from me. You'll be taken care of so long as you understand this."

"You say it's better?" inquired a twitching, sniffling Smack Boy.

"Much stronger stuff. Follow me, but remember, I'll shiv you soon as look at you, so mind your manners."

Smack Boy followed the brazen new queen of the neighborhood into a dark area behind an abandoned store. Paraphernalia, one could say, and the woman reached for a needle.

"Let me give you a free sample," said the woman, her eyes suddenly glowing in a fury, as she lunged at his arm.

Poisoned, Lee "Smack Boy" Carter's death was almost instantaneous. Looming, seething over him, the woman removed bits of a mask, slowly erasing the haggard Caucasian face, revealing a beautiful woman, Chinese by heritage, as we shall see, closer to forty but looking thirty, if even that, still glowering at the remains of Smack Boy.

Chapter II

About a fortnight later, a similar incident occurred in the same part of town. The Low Crow pub was much like any other gutter pub, except for its barman, a haggard, wretched, dejected philosopher, at least in his own mind.

"Gloomy" Gorman Knowles, rather than saying a greeting or trying to sell you a drink, would greet every customer with a saying such as "Science proves we are decaying already, but the heart of every poet knew it already."

Many came to the pub just to laugh at Knowles, or to prove to a friend that the stories about him were not an exaggeration. On this day, however, the focus of the deadly assassin who took Smack Boy was not on Gloomy, but rather on the bouncer, William "Billy Bouncer" Smith Jr.

Billy's great weakness was not drink, as so many of the patrons, but women, and evidently, the fair lady knew it, for, locking eyes with Billy from the first instant, she arrived as herself, catching more eyes than just Billy's. Her outfit was a gaudy mismatch of colors, as if an awkward attempt to be up to date and fashionable.

Within a minute or two, Billy was boasting that he was the toughest bouncer in London, "harder than Lenny" (likely a reference to Lenny McLean), and telling the mysterious woman, batting her eyes at him, that he was "the most man even a woman like you ever 'ad".

Using much the same wording as before, the beautiful woman said, "Well, give me a free sample in the alley. Work can wait…"

The bobbies, this time with Inspector Daniel Graves on the scene, a rather more formidable intellect than most police in the area, found Billy dead, a knife evidently thrown at him, based on the forensics, the deduction of Graves.

"Also," said Graves wrily, "I believe the assailant was kneeling when she- perhaps he, but more likely she- threw the knife, from the angle of the injury."

Chapter III

So it continued, three weeks on from Billy's death, with another target of the mysterious assassin in London's lowest areas, and this time, the target was a fence of any and every sort of illicit or stolen good, Judy "Nixer" Nixon.

The Chinese woman, this time dressed more normally, posed as someone trying to get rid of stolen goods, and negotiations began over a price. When the assassin demanded rather more than Nixer thought the items were worth, however, the conversation became heated, and Nixer grabbed the other lady by the blouse.

The assassin, however, had intentionally provoked just such a moment, and did the least expected thing, kissing Nixer on the lips.

"Have you gone mad? You're a…"

Judy Nixon fell over, dead from poison, to which her killer had taken a partial antidote.

Once again, Inspector Graves was on the scene, though a driving rain was washing away any evidence that might have been found.

"Unless there is a man wearing lipstick, this killer is a woman, the same as the first two murders. She must also be an expert on poisons. A literal kiss of death, gentlemen," said Graves.

"What motive is there? I don't see any robbery," inquired a Sergeant.

"The first two victims were both associated in some way with the Red Goats, the men responsible for the Mollyside Bridge explosion, about three years back. I was at the scene of that. If we find that this woman had the same connections, we have a motive."

"Family of a victim?"

"Most likely, but that means 32 families."

On inquiring, Inspector Graves found that indeed, Judy "Nixer" Nixon had, for a price, helped transport explosives for the Red Goats.

Chapter IV

About a month after this, during a particularly rainy November, the killer from London appeared at none other than Oxford University, seeking employment lecturing in language, as she, Pak Wai-Lam, spoke English, Cantonese, Greek and Latin.

After a few lectures as a guest, Pak was placed on staff, and as part of her research, often went to a library on campus, where she developed a close bond with the normally taciturn librarian, Wilhelm "William" Euler, one that quickly blossomed into romance. Euler was not conventionally handsome, but he had another trait Pak loved far more in men: Genius, so much so, however, that he deduced her secret.

On a bit of leave, Euler invited Pak to his home. She began to undress, but Wilhelm stopped her, explaining that was not the purpose of their visit.

"I needed to tell you two things I could not on campus: First, I know your secret. I know about those three killings in London. Second, I sympathize with you entirely."

Pak looked at him with a concern far deeper than apprehension of capture, to which she had resigned herself as a possiblity, but a fear of losing the first man for whom she had allowed herself any true feelings in years. Her eyes welled up with tears.

"No, Pak. Don't cry. I'm on your side. I know why you came to Oxford. The Political Science Professor, he is a member of the Red Goat lodge, and not only that, I know one or two other things about him that make me hate him with a passion of which I did not think myself capable."

Pak looked Euler hard in the eyes, but saw truth there, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Chapter V

A visibly haunted Wilhelm Euler explained the situation.

"It was seven years ago that I learned what Charles Whale was. Everyone heard rumors about the Red Goat, that Whale was a member. This was before Mollyside, so that did not bother me. Then Whale carried on with a student of his, Bobby Chaucer, and the Bursar made Robert's education here free to keep him quiet. Even then, Pak, I still went out drinking with Whale. That was in 1960, but as he drank, he began to tell me things, not only boasting about Chaucer. Everyone knew that. He told me he was a Red Goat. Everyone knew that as well, but after enough pints he told me… he told me about what he did on a playground, and he laughed, he laughed, Pak. I was sick for weeks. I went to Dean Clarke, but the Dean said many men make up stories when they are drinking. True enough, Pak, but I saw what he was, and I will not forget the ring of that laughter. Something of the sort happened to me as a lad. I made up my mind that Charles Whale would die, and I would have something to do with it. Patiently, I have waited seven years for an opportunity, and now you're here."

"So… are we simply partners in what the law calls crime, or more than that?"

"Believe me, Pak, I love you. I never said that to anyone before, as I never felt it until now. But we cannot have peace together until we carry on with this. Since that day with Whale, I have kept an eye not only on him, but on the Red Goat. When everyone with a brain knew they were behind Mollyside, I recall your name as the widow of one of those… one of the ones that day."

"Colin McShane, my late husband, killed by those demons. He was the only man I loved until I met you, Wilhelm."

"I know," said Euler, wiping away a tear on Pak's cheek, "And that's why we have to finish this matter, no matter what the law thinks."

Chapter VI

Back on campus, neither Pak nor Euler showed any signs of the emotions of their painful conversation, both returning to being intellectual machines.

Pak made the acquaintance of a Comparative Religion Professor, Charlotte Norris, a prim, elderly lady. Pak soon discovered that Norris would give a chapter and verse from the Bible- not a quote, but only the book and the numbers- and said nothing else to fellow faculty.

"She is actually quite eloquent in her lectures," explained Euler, "I have myself attended them, but the rest of the time, she gives only chapter and verse."

Later that day, without saying a word, Pak went up to Euler's desk and pointed, in a book, to the name of a poison. Little by little, without anyone suspecting, by pointing at words and passages in various books, some on utterly random subjects, they constructed a plan to rid Oxford of Professor Charles Whale.

A startling interruption in their plans, however, came in the person of Inspector Daniel Graves, visiting that very college, and that very library, though technically off-duty. A friend of his, also off-duty, Special Constable Harry Higgs, accompanied him.

Higgs, however, blushed hotly at the mere sight of Pak, and Graves looked at Higgs, saying cryptically, "Oh, she was the one, was she?"

Pak knew that Higgs was a policeman, and explained this to Euler, as Graves appeared to be a mere bibliophile.

"Why did he react that way?" asked Euler.

"Two years ago, I was driving too fast. I made the Special Constable feel a little more special, and I paid no fine. I told myself it was to save the money, but really, it was for me. I was lonely. I would have done anyone in pants, honestly."

"A familiar feeling to me, except for the pants part… kind of amusing about the Constable, there. I never saw a man turn quite that shade of red."

Little concerned with Higgs, the duo were visibly shaken, however, when Inspector Daniel Graves introduced himself, by that title.

Chapter VII

One look at Graves and the conspiring duo knew that he was more formidable and clever than Higgs. He took them to a secluded parkland. Obviously, not being on duty, he could not be arresting them, but the Inspector's stern face still made even the strongest nerves tremble.

"Sorry to give you a fright. I cannot say this in front of the less than brilliant Higgs- don't misunderstand, he is a friend, but, well, you know, madam, that his judgment is not always the best, but I digress. When Mollyside Bridge was destroyed, I was the first Inspector on the scene. I will not describe what I saw, especially not in front of Miss Pak, but it made me sympathize entirely with the murderer in those London cases. However, regarding Charles Whale, I think that I know a better way to ruin the Red Goat lodge once and for all."

"What would that be?" inquired Euler.

"On what does the Red Goat depend? Some measure of secrecy. Since Mollyside, I have compiled a list of names. I know everyone affiliated with the Red Goat lodge, I am sure of it. As a prominent man at the British Broadcasting Corporation is actually on that list, they will not touch it, but a sensational tabloid man, both the best and the worst in England, he will be very eager to sell his papers that way. This is his business card."

"Handy Andy the Dandy, Sensation for the British Nation", it read, along with a telephone number and address.

"Andrew Powers is his full name," explained Graves, "He will seem a buffoon at first, but he is extremely clever, albeit unscrupulous, but also unaffiliated with the Red Goat, as he would think them superstitious for their occult practices."

"How do we know this isn't all a trap for us?" Pak was bold enough to ask.

"As one cannot prove a negation, madam, technically you do not, but if you look at press clippings, you will find that I was at Mollyside. If you decide not to pursue the tabloid option, and to take more drastic measures against Graves, I have been transferred to Oxford by my own request, and shall, of course, have to make an official investigation, but I will do my best not to implicate either of you."

Pak, who felt certain of her ability to read the soul through the eyes, turned to Euler saying, "He is telling the truth."

Chapter VIII

Pak and Euler decided to take the Inspector's advice, and ruin the Red Goat by means of the press, but their plans again shifted when Euler heard word that Whale had been with another of his male students, who was threatening to expose him.

"Between this and Whale's increased drinking of late, I fear for the young man's life," explained Euler.

Later that day, Professor Norris approached Pak, saying only, "Genesis 4:8", then leaving as quietly as she approached. Pak looked up the passage in one of the college libraries, and it described Cain slaying Abel, said to be the first act of murder.

Even amidst the horrors of their lives, Pak had not lost a certain impish sense of humor, however. Euler questioned her utter confidence that she could sneak up on Whale without the latter noticing, and in response, Euler found his trousers around his ankles.

"You did not hear me sneak, neither will he."

While reading a book on criminology, Pak was herself approached quietly, the same day, by a student, Cassandra Nolan, nicknamed "Lonely" by the other students.

"I study criminology too…" said Nolan, in a crackling voice, stammering a bit as she told Pak her name.

"Hello, Cassandra, can I help you with something?"

"M-maybe… you're very beautiful, so beautiful…"

"Thank you, Cassandra. You're pretty too."

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes. I love your hair."

Stammering nervously, Cassandra finally got up the courage to ask, "Do you, d-do you like girls?"

"Technically, I kissed one," said Pak, with an ironical face, remembering Nixer, "But no, not in that way."

"Oh, okay. I'm used to that…"

Pak took Cassandra by the hand, encouraging her to smile.

"I wish I could love you that way, Cassandra, but you know how it is. Is there anything else I can do?"

"You could let me paint you. I paint women. I want to be a great painter."

"Okay, I promise you can paint me. Good day, Cassandra, and show people that pretty smile."

Chapter IX

Charles Whale, drinking heavily, had a knife in his right hand. He may have planned to use it to silence a student of his, but that would never be known with certainty, as like a cat, Pak Wai-Lam approached, and twisting Graves's own hand, made the wound, a mortal one, appear self-inflicted.

Inspector Graves, by now advanced in years and status, had indeed arranged his own transfer to Oxford, and so was assigned the case. Performing a perfunctory investigation, he kept his word to Pak and Euler by commenting only, "Probably self-inflicted", to the Sergeants and Constables.

Pak and Euler also, however, took up the Inspector's offer to send the list of names to "Handy Andy the Dandy".

"One thing baffles me, Inspector," said Euler, "Why did you not give the names to Andy yourself?"

"Because if a Yard Inspector released such information, which would be deemed irresponsible rumor by official sources anyhow, to the press, his career would be finished, a price I would gladly have paid to ruin the Red Goat, yet I wished to remain on the force to arrest them also."

With their names released, the Red Goat's leadership dissolved, membership having already declined for fear of their mysterious hunter.

Pak Wai-Lam and Wilhelm Euler were married in April, 1968, and true to Pak's word, at their wedding was Cassandra Nolan, painting both bride and groom.

The end.

[newnoirstories]

73 (Dark Academic Mysticism)

(To be clear, the inclusion of a mystical, religious or esoteric belief or idea in a fictional story does NOT constitute an endorsement of it on my part.)

"LXXIII"

Chapter I

Raphael Wright was a dying man. An odd religious hermit living in the Cotswolds in England, he occasionally entered a small village, not for food, but to preach, but being a Catholic, the mostly Protestant community ignored him.

In 1942, rather over sixty than under it, after many years out in the elements, living even as Neolithic man had, he became ill, and though taken to the village, all the best medical men and women, even from the Cotswolds, were attending to soldiers fighting the German menace, and so it was that, while Mr. Wright might have survived in another time, this year would be his last.

As he was carried on a stretcher, or a makeshift strecher of sorts, to the one man in the little town who passed for a physician, a retired one himself rather feeble, Raphael, his hands in prayer, happened to pass by a family that included little Susanna Meek, and with his last gasp of strength, Raphael lifted his head, pointed at the child, and spoke, "You, Susanna, must walk in my shoes…", then gave up the ghost.

Young Susanna, only seven years of age, was less frightened than puzzled by this, as, with a child's literal mind, she believed this man meant walking in his actual shoes, which, she reckoned, would be too large for her.

Chapter II

By victory in the Second World War, Susanna was proving herself a mathematical prodigy such that she had, even from her quiet village of no more than eighty people, already been heard of in London, and also in Cambridge and in Oxford, and by age sixteen, was attending Cambridge University.

Susanna understood more about mathematics generally, and geometry especially, than most of the Professors, and before her 17th birthday, she was in demand as an engineer also, as this relies heavily on mathematics.

Susanna Joseph Meek celebrated her 21st birthday by becoming an associate mathematics Professor, a full Professor before her 22nd. In addition to her sheer prowess, she had a simple way of explaining any concept that could be related to any age, once famously explaining the Pythagorean theorem to a 4-year-old boy, a grandson of another Professor, in such a way that the boy understood the concept.

By the end of the 1950's, she was likely Britain's second most famous woman, trailing only the Queen herself. About this time, she took Carl Wolf, a physics Professor, as her husband, and he was known to turn to her when he was out of his depths in any question of number.

When she wrote "Mystical Proclivities of Pythagoras", she proved herself learned regarding Ancient Greek history as well, and all seemed bright in her life and her future. Little did even her brilliant mind know the dark storm that awaited her.

Chapter III

The hinge on which the darkness turned was one bridge of Susanna's structural design, her only design in London itself. She had noticed that it had not been built to her specifications, but had made no objections. What she did not know was that, stored in the added part of the bridge, the portion not of her design, there were high explosives, placed there by a group of revolutionaries known as the Red Goats. The very man who had commissioned her, the outwardly affable Seamus Cameron, going by the name Mitchell Lawrence, was one of the Red Goats, a secret society the ideas of which were variously rumored to be communist, anarchist, or of the occult, or some combination of these, but no one outside the society itself, so far as anyone knew, could say with certainty.

Cameron was determined to eliminate anyone with knowledge of how the explosives might have gotten there, and to do so before they were detonated, so his first item of deadly business, nothing new to him, was to end the life of Susanna Meek.

Meek took a vacation to be with her parents for the first extended stay in years, her father, Joseph Meek, a tailor by trade, his mother, Elizabeth, a seamstress. Cameron, again going by the alias Mitchell Lawrence, took this to be his opportunity, not wanting the many witnesses at Cambridge, and reckoning the village folk simpletons.

A skillfully constructed façade, however, "Lawrence" was so ingratiating that, while a stranger in the village, still no more than ninety-five in population, within a week he was treated as if he had been there his entire life. He even had the audacity to commission a custom suit of clothes from the semi-retired Joseph Meek, but his aim, of course, was to do away with the man's own daughter.

Chapter IV

Nostalgic for her childhood, one fine Spring morning, Susanna thought she would pick some flowers on the old familiar ground, little knowing of the wily serpent of a man waiting behind the large oak less than fifty paces from her cottage.

Mitch Lawrence, as he was known, was concerned lest her parents might witness the deed, and so determined to eliminate them also. Wrapping a gun in cloth to deaden the sound of it, walked directly up to Susanna, who at first smiled, recognizing him as the man who commissioned the bridge, but her smile fell as she saw the dead look in his eyes, so unlike the man everyone imagined they knew. He took direct aim, but the shot that rang out was not his, and Seamus Cameron, or Mitchell Lawrence, fell dead, a bullet in his black heart.

At first, Susanna, strong nerves as always, rationally assessed that perhaps her father, whom she knew had a rifle, had saved her life, but neither of her parents knew anything of the matter, and were as shocked as she was by Mitchell's attempted deed, Elizabeth exclaiming, "He must have gone mad!"

Who, then, had saved her life?

Chapter V

The next day, someone knocked on the door of the Meek household. They were rather wary after the previous day's events, the more so as the man at the door was a stranger, of rather somber aspect, so Joseph answered the door.

"I am a dying man, sir. I must speak with your daughter. You can stand guard if you do not trust me."

"I have seen men die twice," interjected Susanna, who was eavesdropping, "What can I do for you in your last days?"

"I am the man who saved you yesterday. The man who tried to end your life was not Mitchell Lawrence, but Seamus Cameron, of the Red Goats, I a former member myself, before Christ rescued me from its clutches. The proof of his identity is in my left coat pocket, the gun I used, recently fired, as you can tell, is in my right. Take them out, sir," said the man, addressing Joseph, "I will keep my hands where you can see them."

Joseph removed both a gun, clearly recently fired, and a wallet containing documents identifying "Mitchell Lawrence" as Seamus J. Cameron.

"Well, sir, thank you for saving my daughter's life. You will be in my prayers."

"Thank you, kind sir, but it is not thanks I want. Do you, Miss Meek, remember the last words of Raphael Wright? He said you were to follow in his shoes, did he not?"

"Yes, I remember," replied Susanna, "But how do you know of this?"

"How do any of us know anything? Only Providence speaks truth. You write of numbers, and very well at that, so your number, madam, is 73, and it was of that number, in a sense, that Mr. Wright spoke."

"A twin prime, mirror prime and binary representative, but why that number in particular?"

"It stands for the Vision of God Face to Face. The rest you must find by faith."

"What ails you, sir? Are you sure it can't be treated by our physician?" asked Joseph.

"Thank you, Mr. Meek, but it is not of this world. By saving your daughter, I broke the profane oaths of the Red Goats, and I am cursed to die within seven days of saving her life."

"What is your name?" asked Susanna, "If we may at least attend your funeral?"

"I would be honored, madam. My name is George Wolpe."

As he predicted, George Wolpe died three days after this meeting, within the seven days of saving Susanna's life, and the very physician whom Joseph Meek had mentioned examined him, and could find no cause of death.

Chapter VI

Back at Cambridge, Susanna said nothing of what had happened, and her once friendly demeanor turned quiet, introspective and oddly distracted. She visited a library often, but not seeking the mathematics books, but instead books on religion.

As far as she could tell, Wolpe must have been referring to 73 being the gematria, in Hebrew numerical values, of Chokmah (Wisdom), in its original form. She thought of Raphael's dying message. Was she supposed to be a hermit like him? What of her husband?

Two events, however, rather simplified matters for Susanna Meek, technically Susanna Wolf, though not for much longer. In the first place, when Susanna explained the situation to Carl, he considered that she had become "a madwoman", and began drawing up papers for a divorce.

Even more dramatic, a less than clever operative of the Red Goats attempted to wire Susanna's vehicle, in a Cambridge parking lot, with explosives, but succeeded only in doing in himself, detonating the explosives while tinkering with them.

This was too much, and an ever more withdrawn Susanna retired, at just 28 years of age, from Cambridge, moving back to the Cotswolds, and when she reached her old village, the sign mysteriously said "Population: 73". She knew that the population was well over that, and remembered seeing the sign read "95" when last she visited.

Little by little, therefore, while visiting her parents now and then, and finally, after their passing, keeping no company with anyone, Susanna Joseph Meek disappeared into the hills, living by some means, spotted on the rarest of occasions, a legend and mystery, doing little but praying the Rosary and gathering whatever was edible.

When she passed away, in the Summer of 2012, her final message was one that was revisited as prophetic after the events of 2020: "They will shut down the churches…"

A nurse rolled her eyes, believing Susanna was delirious.

"You, nurse, retire from medicine while you can. Corruption (here a fit of coughing made several words unintelligible) in 2020."

Those were Susanna Meek's last words, though in a way, not quite her last, for on her headstone was placed a quote, simply, "World, you are dead."

The end.

[newnoirstories]

Mia Larkin, Sci-Fi Detective (Sequel)

"Savate"

Chapter I

Mia Larkin awoke in the back of her sedan, as usual, to find that she was wearing red high heels, fancy ones too. With no idea how she got them, and finding shoes generally uncomfortable, she decided to give them to the first homeless woman she could find, which, given the crisis, did not take very long.

Just after giving the shoes to a rather bewildered homeless woman, she was met by Shoegaze, who said he must speak to her urgently.

Returning to her sedan, Mia, having known Shoegaze for years, invited him inside.

"What do you need, Shoegaze?"

"It's about the scotch you gave me. It's no ordinary scotch."

"Doesn't matter. I didn't drink any of it."

"That's not it, it's the bottle that's the problem. Been homeless for eight years because of it."

"You mean because you drink?"

"No, I drank when I was young too. I was homeless just one day, the first day after I got kicked out by the landlady. Well, I met this other homeless guy. Paul was his name, second name I don't know, but anyways, he gives me that very bottle of scotch, then laughs. 'The bottle's a curse, Shoe. I gotcha.' He says I was gonna stay homeless, 'cause anyone with that bottle had to do the same thing forever. I laughed then, but I ain't laughin' now, so whatever you was doin' when you give me the bottle, you gotta keep doin' a long time, maybe forever."

"Well, I was actually solvin' a murder case, I guess."

"Solve it right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, then you're gonna keep doin' that who knows how long?"

"But c'mon, Old Shoe, if this bottle curses you, why didn't you throw it away eight years ago?"

"I tried, Mia. Lots of times, but the thing finds me over and over. Don't ask me how, but I know it's the same one. You look close at it, part of the label is written backward, the part where it says the alcohol content, right here."

Sure enough, Mia saw the backward writing on the label, but she still was not sure what to make of this odd tale.

"I warned ya. Take care of yourself now."

On ambled old Shoegaze, to another alley or junkyard, most likely. But then again, Mia thought to herself, maybe he was right. Who was she to call anyone else crazy, since they were always saying that about her too?

Chapter II

The next day brought rain, so a contented look was on Mia's face. She was lucky, she thought: She could make art with just a phone. There was a time, she knew, when nobody could record sound at all, let alone so easily.

In her Johnny Thunders t-shirt, with pants from a men's clothing store, true to form, with boxers on the outside of them, Larkin drifted in and out of sleep, letting her cellular telephone do the work. Somewhere in her dreams, high school came to mind. She awoke reaching for the bleach blonde Marilyn Monroe hair she had back then, but laughed: She had forgotten that, on a whim the other day, she had given herself a buzz cut, just to get the hair out of her eyes for a while.

Still, she thought of school. That was her retro time. Everything was from the fifties for her. That was just back from lockdown, so maybe that was why, but thinking of those days made Mia sad, in a way. She liked the library, but it was too crowded, never time alone. But then, she wanted a friend, just one friend who "got" her, and none of those kids ever did.

"Can I get in your car? My books are getting all wet," said an unfamiliar voice.

Glancing over to the sidewalk, she saw a young woman about her age, who would have looked preppy except that her clothes, though on the fancy side, were crisscross, mismatched, missing buttons. Mia wasn't sure, but she thought the girl's shirt might be inside out.

But as the young woman said, she was carrying some books, not unlike those from the very library of which Mia had been thinking, and she seemed to have some kind of tablet computer too, and the rain had become torrential.

Letting the bookish woman into her sedan, Mia watched her curiously. The woman, who introduced herself as Paula Newell, treated her books, and her tablet computer too, as if they were her pets or her babies, even talking to them.

"You didn't get too wet, did you?" Paula asked of one book.

Mia made up her mind that instant: Paula was her kind of people.

Chapter III

"That computer thing. Can't you just use a phone?" asked Mia.

"Oh, a phone isn't big enough. This isn't an ordinary computer. It's the meta-unifier."

"That a brand?"

"No, it's like a physics unifying theory, but it's a bit stranger than that. I try to join bookclubs but they all think I'm a witch or something. I use lines that I make with this digital pen, and they correspond with numbers, which correspond with words, which correspond with locations. There are no spells or anything, but it's kind of like divination, except it can, at least in theory, change the past too."

"Show me."

"You haven't told me your name, right?"

"It's…"

"No! Don't tell me! I can find it."

Paula made a series of straight lines in different directions, then switched to an onscreen keyboard of numbers, some of which were Roman numerals.

"You are Mia Larkin."

"How the…"

"Space, time, words… they're all interconnected. My uncle Joey really started the work on all of this. It's not like heredity or anything. He was an uncle by Marriage, but anyway, back then, they said he was insane, and put him in halfway houses and similar places, where they wouldn't let him do his experiments, so he left the knowledge to me, and I finally made it work about a year ago. It hasn't been wrong yet."

A sudden thought occurred to Mia, "Could it find murderers?"

Chapter IV

"Find them? Like, they're location?"

"Yeah. What do you want to know?"

"Who is the nearest murderer who hasn't been caught yet?"

"Geographically nearest?"

"Yes."

Typing what Mia had said in Latin, then making combinations of straight lines, followed by numerical codes, Paula obtained a result.

"That's him: Adam Klein."

"I don't suppose it knows addresses?"

Mia had underestimated the peculiar tablet: Within fifteen seconds, Paula was reading Klein's address, complete with a zip code.

"Oh, just one thing," Paula added, "Whatever you do, don't tell the government about the meta-unifier."

"Oh, honey, trust me that I don't trust any government. I'm not political or anything. To be that I would have to trust the government, or be an anarchist, but then I'd have to trust the anarchists!"

The two oddballs chuckled.

Paula slept in the front seats of the brown sedan that night, while, still with her one-eyed teddy bear, Mia slept in the back. When Mia awoke, Paula was gone. Had it all been a dream? But no, here came Paula, books and tablet and all.

"Sorry to run out on you, but I wanted to fix myself up a little."

"Wow. You look great, even if your shirt is inside out again."

Paula's hair reminded Mia of some of the fifties movie stars she loved, and with her usual lack of inhibitions, Mia very openly inhaled its aroma, to which Paula did not bat an eye.

"What shampoo do you use? Smells great," commented Mia.

"I don't know. Just something generic. Saves money."

Chapter V

Though the rainy weather seemed appropriate for confronting a murderer, especially with Shoegaze's prophecy, it seemed, fulfilled, once again, Mia regretted that she had to interrupt her ambient rain art.

Paula, at Mia's insistence, stayed in the car as a lookout.

"I've done this before, plus I always lived kind of a dangerous life," explained Mia, "I don't want you getting hurt. Keep your head down too."

Mia Larkin did not feel subtle that day, but she still had a plan. Pretending to be after blackmail money, Mia went right up to Adam Klein's front door, rang the doorbell, and suggested, with a sly smile, that they discuss "recent violence" inside rather than where passersby might overhear them.

Mia knew she was taking a risk, and having trained in Karate in the past, she fully expected to have to use it, but to her surprise, Adam, the picture of somber respectability, looking, to Mia, like a depressed Mr. Rogers, slowly and sorrowfully explained what had happened.

The name of the victim was already known to Mia, again with credit to Paula's meta-unifier, but Larkin knew nothing of the motive or background of the case.

"Yes, young lady, I am guilty, if that is guilt. I shot Oran Hall to death, and I would do it again. My wife and I cannot afford blackmail, but she is innocent. Let the police take me."

Klein seemed sincere. Larkin looked hard in his eyes, and she knew he was telling the truth. Mia then revealed that she had never wanted money, but simply had no other way to broach the subject of Hall's death.

"Hall and I went to college together. That's where I met Marian, my wife. Well, Oran Hall wanted her too, but she chose me, and for fifteen years, he stalked us, especially Marian. You might wonder why I didn't go to the police. Hall was too smart for that. He would follow her around for just long enough to scare us, then stop before I could get a restraining order or anything of the kind. Here, look at this. Open the drawer yourself if you don't trust me."

In a kitchen drawer were a series of photographs of a woman, some of the back of her head, possibly as a threat.

"That's my wife. Hall sent me those, but not all at once. Maybe one a year. He said he would never stop until Marian was his. Finally, a week ago, I decided to put an end to it. If the police want to know, the weapon is in the drawer just beneath these photos."

Mia opened that drawer and, putting on gloves, picked up the gun.

"Careful with that…" warned Adam.

"Don't worry. My uncle, the hunting and fishing type, taught me these things," Mia replied.

"I told Marian to leave town for a while, afraid the police would blame her too. Can you imagine if you had a loved one, or even that friend of yours in the car, and some nut threatened her that way?" said Adam, pointing out a window at Paula, who, much against Mia's instructions, was watching them quite conspicuously. Mia rolled her eyes at this.

"Paula. She's some nut, but yeah, if anyone threatened her sweet head I would kill them too. Adam, we'll just say Oran Hall died by accident."

Without another word, Mia walked out of Adam Klein's home and into the rain, got in the back seat of her sedan, and off Paula drove to parts unknown.

[newnoirstories]

Gen Z Detective

"Sedative"

Chapter I

Mia Larkin, 18, had heard it all before: She was, so they said, clinically depressed, possibly schizoid or on the autism spectrum, wasting her life, another Generation Z lockdown case.

To look at her, one might have thought her critics were right: Matted, grungy hair, with the pink dye fading, makeup caked on for a week, her preppy older brother's vest, "borrowed" without permission, as innerwear, with a brassière as outerwear, ripped black jeans and barefoot, lying in the back seat of an old brown sedan, her only company a teddy bear (missing an eye) and a box of tissues, Mia seemed to be on the dark side of melancholy.

The 2020's, however, pick unlikely heroes, and even more unlikely entrepreneurs. Since she was 15, Mia had spent a great deal of time in the back of this sedan, a spot which, she found, had the acoustics for recording rain, a common type of weather in her city. The typically inert Larkin would stir if rain stopped, drive to a place where her phone told her it was raining if it was within driving distance, and if no such location could be found, Mia would simply do nothing.

Countless ambient rain sound clips are on the Internet, but Larkin's were intentionally organic, and each new one unique, allowed to mix with any and all other background noises, and her millions of online followers made this more lucrative than what her parents did, and, Mia suspected, more lucrative than whatever her brother might end up doing, if one factored in his student debt, debt Mia would never owe, having ended her formal education three months earlier, approximately, on her 18th birthday.

School had nothing to offer, Mia thought. The only old person who understood her, as far as she could tell, would be someone like John Cage, who gave her the idea for her recordings, but just her luck, the guy was dead.

Chapter II

Sniffling and stirring one morning, still in the back of her sedan, Mia was pleased to see that it was still raining from the night before, but on reviewing the previous night's recordings, she found, at about a quarter past two ante meridiem, the sound of three gunshots, distant but unmistakable, two in rapid succession, then, about ten seconds later, a third.

She would have thought nothing of it, as she had become quite accustomed to crime, had she not chanced, on the same phone, on a local news story, a story about the wife of a city councilman, a councilman Mia knew lived just a few houses from where she was parked, who had supposedly ended it all, shortly after two AM that very morning, by firearm. Mia put the pieces together and realized the wife's death was a homicide, probably by the city councilman.

But as this councilman was close with the Mayor, who effectively controlled the police, and her parents, with whom she had (until just now) spoken only in monosyllables for about three years, did not believe that "dear Councilperson Clarke", as they called him, was capable of such an act, and put it down to Mia's imagination, Larkin had to do what she always did: Go rogue.

Chapter III

Lucky for Mia, nothing on her social media gave away her location. The 2020's being overrun with crime, it was no uncommon thing in any major city to hear gunshots, day or night, so it was only the dots Mia herself had connected that incriminated Councilman Clarke.

The sky was pouring, but Mia had to continue her amateur investigation. What a waste of good rain, and good sound, she thought. Having put on a winter coat, her brother's "borrowed" gloves and some shoes, though forgetful as ever, no socks, Larkin wondered if the Councilman had been dumb enough to leave incriminating evidence in his ordinary garbage.

If so, she had to act fast, before it was picked up, and sure enough, there was a gold mine of evidence, though she had no time to do anything but stuff it in her coat pockets, but as lightning flashed in the sky, she saw an ominous sight: Councilman Clarke, with the eyes of a devil, had spotted her out one of his front windows, and if looks could kill…

Mia understood what this meant. She could easily dodge and dive in the alleys she knew so much better than this old "suit", as she called all the business and politics types, but Clarke's connections would mean city police trying to seize her to destroy the evidence against their boss, the suit.

Where to stash it, just for a short while? Then, Providentially, she almost tripped over a passed out Shoegaze.

Chapter IV

Shoegaze was a homeless man in the neighborhood. No one knew his real name, and right now, Mia did not care. He had a small box of belongings, which she had seen many times, and while the drenched hobo was still sleeping off the previous night's adventures, with a steady snore, she put the bits of evidence from the Councilman's trash into Shoegaze's little box of treasures, replacing what he had, which was nothing but a bottle of scotch.

As Mia meandered through every little alley and shortcut, she was about to take a sip of the scotch, but then remembered this would give the city police an excuse to hold her, as she was not yet twenty-one. Then she thought of throwing the bottle away, but felt this would be unfair to Shoegaze. She would find a chance to return it, she thought.

She was a block from her sedan, when suddenly, a large, scruffy dog, appearing to be of mixed breed, jumped out at her aggressively, as she was evidently on his turf. All Mia could think to do was sing an old Breton lullaby her late grandmother, one of the last truly Celtic Bretons, had taught her, cooing and crooning in the most soothing voice imaginable. The dog shook his head and circled about, in evident emotional confusion between feelings of comfort and aggression, and this moment of indecision was enough for Larkin to get past him.

In the familiar backseat of her sedan, Mia knew she was not quite out of the woods yet.

Chapter V

Given police response times, Mia gave it twenty minutes until someone from the police, actually looking to dispose evidence, would approach her sedan. Twenty one minutes later, a policewoman of about forty, slightly heavy-set, with an asymmetrical bob cut of hair and gloves, evidently all ready to search someone, in this case Mia, instructed Mia to lean against her own sedan.

"It's not an open container, and it belongs to someone else," Mia said in reply to the suspicious look given over the bottle of scotch. Mia knew her rights.

After taking rather longer with the search than Mia thought was necessary, the officer had to report finding nothing of consequence.

As soon as the policewoman, who had a young male partner, probably a rookie cop, waiting in the car, drove away, Larkin quickly went over to Shoegaze's stash, now really her stash of evidence.

"Old Shoe", as Mia called him, was just starting to stir, but she handed him his bottle and he barely noticed her after that.

Mia Larkin had recovered evidence that, in an honest city, would have meant an easy conviction: Two spent shell casings, meant to make it appear as if only one shot had been fired, a rough draft of the note of despair supposedly written by Clarke's wife, but looking more like his handwriting, as well as a ripped up photograph of someone who turned out to be the "other woman", and hence the motive for the deadly quarrel that night.

Yet for all of this, Mia and everyone else with a brain knew that the city police were under the Mayor's thumb, but then a sudden thought occurred to her: The County Sheriff was not under city control.

Mia, more haggard than ever after her adventure, drove to his office, and at first Sheriff Wellman looked a bit askance at what he took to be a drenched homeless woman demanding to see him, but curious as to what she might want, he was glad that he heard her out: No district attorney could have asked for better evidence.

Chapter VI

The scandal to the city was so severe, with a Councilman convicted of murder, the Mayor convicted of obstruction of justice, that the other major party took power for the first time in decades, though Mia neither knew nor cared about politics. She could have parlayed her bit of sleuthing into fame and fortune, but that would make her an influencer, or worse, she thought, one of the suits.

Thus it was that "Sedative987", as Mia Larkin was known on the Internet, simply returned to her rain chasing and postmodern sound compositions, as well as to the old brown sedan. For the time being, she left city limits, as her phone told her rain had gone a bit eastward, and sure enough, the windshield wipers confirmed this. She kept a second, barely functioning phone just for such drives, solely to play Marianne Faithfull's "As Tears Go By", the same Breton grandma's favorite song.

[newnoirstories]

Sports Thriller

(If you happen to read any of my works, and are an illustrator, I would be honored to have your illustrations in my short stories.)

"Stepping on the Line"

Chapter I

It was Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, and Zoltán "Sultan" László, billed as soon to be the player of the 1980's, was in his first NBA playoffs. László was just a rookie, and his home crowd expected a lot of him, but he was used to pressure, having hit the NCAA tournament winner from better than thirty feet. Renowned above all else for his dazzling passing, drawing comparisons to Bob Cousy, Sultan felt that, if he could get twelve assists per game for the upcoming series, his team would win, and with a stoic face, he laced up and prepared to do just this.

The son of Hungarian immigrants to the USA, László long preceded the wave of European players so prevalent in today's game. He dominated high school and college, and his first regular season as a pro only raised the expectations. Even Bob Cousy, by this time an announcer, agreed with the comparisons, remarking, "Sultan is the closest thing I've seen to me playing ball."

At a speedy 6 foot 1, Sultan was small by the sport's professional standards, but the tall redwoods seemed like stiff trees when this rookie weaved around them.

Opening tip… Kelsey, the team's center, tipped the ball directly to László, who flew like a greyhound past a frustrated defender for two easy points. If Sultan was nervous, he didn't show it.

By the end of the first quarter, his team led 29-20, and Zoltán already had 4 assists, to go with 6 points and 2 steals. Play resumed, but a deadlier game was being played in the crowd. High on a perch, a stocky little man was cheering fervently for Zoltán, calling him "old buddy".

Applauding a made free throw by a teammate of the Sultan, the man's hands suddenly fell, his eyes went blank. Someone in a mask of the Sultan's own likeness, wearing black gloves, had slipped a knife into this "old buddy" of Zoltán László, but adjoining fans were too distracted to notice.

The dead man leaned against a barricade. The killer stepped back to an exit to a stairway, and then, taking out a long stick, a pole of some sort, from the stairwell, pushed the victim over into the crowd below, a horror haunting many fans to this day, but none of them, evidently, was the target of this macabre message.

When play stopped, police guarding the building found, pinned to the back of the dead man's shirt, a note reading simply: "Sultan, you're next."

Chapter II

The deceased was identified as Robert Elliott Caldwell, a friend of Zoltán from school, back to age 12, and Zoltán remembered Robert being one of the few kids who didn't tease him for his accent.

The game was stopped. Though his team was ahead by five, that was hardly the first thing on László's mind. Police told him of the threat pinned to Caldwell's shirt.

What enemies did he have? The only one he could think of as anything like an enemy was a mysterious man named Adam, an almost otherwordly, grinning con man of some sort, who had approached Zoltán during several practices, Adam offering a substantial sum of money if the Sultan would play poorly. Some gambling sort, thought Zoltán.

Police knew exactly who he was describing, Adam "Shapeshifter" Shane, a notorious sports gambler, racketeer and money launderer, a man with an extensive criminal record and multiple stints in prison. They detained him, and as they thought, the wily, experienced criminal refused to say anything other than that he wanted his lawyer.

The National Basketball Association now had to decide: Would they let the playoffs continue? They had never had a dilemma like this one, but the Sultan himself demanded that play resume right where it left off, saying, "The show must go on."

Chapter III

Zoltán's wife, Judy Cantwell, on the other hand, begged her husband not to play. Such was the contrarian nature of Zoltán, however, that the more she begged, the more he convinced himself to keep going.

"The game's not worth your life, Zoli."

"But Judy, that would be giving this creep, whoever he is, what he wants. It is the nature of some degree of fame, which I guess I now have, that some lunatics will hate you, but do you want to be married to a coward?"

"It's not cowardice to value your life over shooting hoops."

"It's not about basketball, dear. It's about sending a message back to the man who killed Bob. We all knew each other in school. Let's decide to win it for him."

That settled the matter. Judith "Judy" Cantwell was no stranger to pain, having a limp, and being a prominent advocate against drunk driving, describing being struck by an intoxicated driver. Perhaps experience had made her more cautious. She shrugged, realizing the Sultan could not be talked out of anything.

Chapter IV

Detective Joe Lawrence had Adam Shane in custody regarding his attempts to bribe the Sultan, but he had to pursue alternative explanations. A group of fanatics for the other team, known as "Dime a Dozen", twelve in number, had to be considered as suspects, especially as some of them had themselves placed bets, possibly even with Shane brokering them.

A stranger but also more promising lead, Lawrence thought, was the escape from a mental institution of Elvin Cooper, a man with the delusion that he was a professional basketball player, who had, perhaps imprudently, the Detective thought, been placed under minimum security. Though not known to be violent, Cooper had left a note at the asylum, explaining that he "had to go to the big game".

"He won't be hard to find, at any rate," remarked another officer.

"Why is that?" asked Lawrence.

"Look at his file. It says he 'compulsively announces his presence with the words "Loopy-loopy, here comes Coopy"'."

"That will make it hard for him to blend in…"

Meanwhile, Lawrence sent Lieutenant Rick Hardaway to interview the Dime a Dozen fanatics, whose leader, their "president", was Mike B. Strange.

Strange, however, contended, "We don't want to see the Sultan dead. We want to see him choke, you know, panic under pressure."

Meanwhile, in another part of town, alley cats scattered as they heard the sound, "Loopy-loopy, here comes Coopy…"

Chapter V

With Shane in custody, and Dime a Dozen under police surveillance, the NBA decided to finish the game, which László's team won. The game itself passed without further incident, but that night, a statue, a team monument, was blown to fragments with dynamite, an incident neither Joe Lawrence nor any other police officer imagined was a coincidence.

"It can't be Shane or those Dime a Dozen guys. It has to be someone else, someone whose whereabouts we don't know, which leaves us with Cooper," was Lawrence's opinion.

For Game 2, in the same stadium, the arena was surrounded by a sea of blue, uniformed cops, and as he always did, the Sultan arrived many hours early for practice, never one for the late night party scene, more than could be said for some of his teammates.

Still, Zoltán was not blind to the danger, and instructions were given that, other than police and the teams themselves, only Zoltán's own wife was to be permitted in the arena during practice. The Sultan's parents did not approve of their son's profession, wanting him to do something "serious", and were rather out of the picture.

Yet somehow, in some way, the same ominous figure, with a mask of Zoltán László's own face, and putting on the same black gloves, approached, fearlessly heading towards the home team's locker room.

Chapter VI

The masked killer had keys to every entrance and exit, and managed to skirt around police, as numerous as they were, and entered the locker room with Zoltán by the same means, pulling a small pistol at the same instant.

Face to face, in a sense, with himself, seated alone, the Sultan saw the killer unmask: It was his own wife, Judy Cantwell.

"You still don't remember, do you, oh mighty Sultan?"

Zoltán was too stunned to reply.

"Remember when we were in school, Zoli. We were 13, you, me and your best friend Bob. Remember that day I fell asleep in class?"

Whatever Zoltán was feeling, his face still showed nothing.

Judy continued, "You thought it would be a funny little prank to put lipstick on me when I was sleeping. Maybe that was your way of showing your crush on me, eh, Zoli? But remember how I never came back to school? I didn't know I had the lipstick on, and when I went home, mom, this crazy religious woman she was, goes nuts on me, says I'm Jezebel. I swear I don't know how the lipstick got on me, but mom says makeup's of the devil and sends me to Bible camp."

"So you killed Bob because you went to Bible camp?" asked the Sultan, stirring for the first time.

"No, you idiot. How do you think I got this limp? Oh, you poor fool. You really bought the drunk driver story, didn't you? A bobcat clawed me up in Bible camp, did nerve damage, but I was smart, you see, because I married you anyway, all to get sweet, sweet revenge."

"You can kill me, Judy, but the cops will get you anyway."

"Kill you? No, Zoli, that would be too easy. You need to suffer as I do, every day, knowing that all the potential you could have had is wasted. One to the knee and I end your…"

"Loopy-loopy, here comes Coopy…" echoed faintly in the distance.

Looking concerned for a moment, Judy resumed her speech, "You won't be able to go on as a cripple. Not without your adoring public and…"

"Loopy-loopy, here comes Coopy…" now louder, over and over.

Someone picked the lock, and Judith spun round and shot Elvin Cooper.

"Lady, you're a good shot," were Elvin's last words, but in that instant, Zoltán took the gun away from his wife, and police, having heard the shot, arrested her.

True to his complete focus, Zoltán "Sultan" László scored 52 points that game, "for Bob", and his team won.

The end.

[newnoirstories]

"Six Diaries and a Murder"

(YOU decide who did it.)

Chapter I: Diary of Cornelius Egret

(July 10, 1934)

Woke up from too much drink… what was it? I forget. Whole ship is buzzing about the Creeper. Philo Mel, the second best architect in the Midwest, strangled, I guess. That's what they say.

Quiet cruise not so quiet. Had hoped to find some of my kind of man among the passengers, but luck is not with me. Lady Luck wants the fellows for herself, I guess. Mel himself was a fine older man, but with a wife, maybe a mistress too, back in Cleveland. The way they are raiding the lavender boys in the cities, maybe they will raid us on the ship too.

(July 11, 1934)

Ship crew found my hashish, say they want me arrested at port. They don't have me for murder, though.

Who killed Mel? As much as I hate the Captain, and I know he has the keys to our cabins, he is too stupid. The Ohio Creeper, when I was back in Cleveland, could enter homes, so the papers said, without breaking locks or windows. Captain Paisley, why he could scarcely use a key.

Trying to get my mind off all this to write a novel, a real novel.

(July 12, 1934)

Stormy weather. Hoosier, the stowaway, dull of wit, but still a pace above the Captain, is out running in the rain, laughing. Odd man.

Judith Breslin is from Chicago, like me, fancies herself a literary mind, but she writes for the Mammon on Broadway. I think she boarded the ship because, though I will bet she's older than I, she always had an eye for the younger women, like Daisy, Philo's daughter.

Judith used to work with Abigail Smith, though Smith I would place several levels above Breslin. Smith was, when I first went to a theater, the best there was, then the motion pictures stole her career. Judith and Abby hate each other now, probably something Abby said about Judith liking the girls.

I think the killer is supernatural. Fine, put it down to me being a mad writer who tried everything from opium to scotch, but explain those unopened doors in Cleveland.

(July 13, 1934)

Storm is worse. Rocking the boat. I need a drink.

The killer: I think it's Adam Bardo, a man I knew from my Chicago days. I sell him the resin, the stuff from the Near East. He thinks it unlocks chakras, as he says. He may be right. I dabbled in the eastern stuff back then. I left my body a bit, too close for comfort to the Grim Reaper's scythe.

Adam, though- what is real name is, I never knew- always was obsessed with skulls and some kind of theurgy from Tibet. Lost an arm in a climbing accident there.

(July 14, 1934)

I had it out with Judy. How could a man with one arm be the Creeper, she said? I told her it was beyond the ordinary, the natural. That is how the Creeper does this and escapes justice. She laughed, but she won't be if the Creeper gets her.

(July 15, 1934)

Arriving at port. May be arrested for the drugs, maybe not. Don't really care. Never found out who the Ohio Creeper was.

Chapter II: Diary of Abigail Smith

(July 10, 1934)

Dreadful business. The Ohio Creeper killed a good man, an architect I knew a bit, Philo Mel. Such a grieving daughter too. I am sure that Judith, who never misses an opportunity, will take advantage of the situation to console the girl.

(July 11, 1934)

How came I to be in Ohio? I was once the top stage actress in New York, even London and Paris, and now, even Ohio scarcely wants me. I could blame age, the withered skin, but no, it's the pictures. They took my career.

Judith Breslin is the Ohio Creeper. I feel sure of it. If she's not the Creeper, at least she killed Philo Mel. Philo would never have approved of Judith spying on her daughter. I saw Judith peeping in a porthole at Daisy, more than one time.

(July 12, 1934)

I thought of Judith and the Creeper. Someone said women cannot commit such crimes, or do not. Not ordinary women, no doubt, but Judith is not ordinary.

She dresses, talks, walks and acts like a man, in every way, more so than any woman I met in 55 years, and she is five foot eight, I would say, and not at all slender, so she could have done it.

Poor Egret will be drinking like mad after this. Hoosier is so noisy, but Paisley is too slow of wit and foot to catch him.

(July 13, 1934)

Ship stay still. Ship stay still. I'm on a stage. I'm on a stage.

(July 14, 1934)

I want back on the stage. I would do anything to be on stage in New York again. I wish I could convince Cornelius to write plays. He thinks it beneath him, unless it were on Shakespeare's level.

(July 15, 1934)

Here we are at port. I still suspect Judith, and always will.

Chapter III: Journal of Judith Breslin

(July 10, 1934)

It's the Ohio Creeper. It's his work. No rhyme nor reason to it. I suppose everyone would say Frank Lloyd Wright was the best, but Philo Mel was not such an insufferable man as Frank, whom I had the misfortune of once meeting.

Now, the Creeper took Philo wherever men go when they die. I think it's nowhere at all.

(July 11, 1934)

I want to collaborate with young Daisy, personally and professionally. She would be so perfect, so prim and innocent, so delightful for a role in my next comedy, maybe even the lead, if she makes the right impression.

(July 12, 1934)

Captain Mordecai Paisley hassled me over "wearing men's clothing" on deck. What an old fashioned fool.

I think Paisley is the Creeper. He has the keys, after all. It amuses me to see Hoosier laughing at his expense. Perhaps I will go out in the storm and join him.

(July 13, 1934)

Tilt, rock and swoosh… nature is unhappy today.

What would Captain Paisley's motive be for being the Creeper, he asked me himself? Simple: Every man is Narcissus, at the core, drawn a bit to himself, and by extension to other males. Harmless in itself, but if he denies it to himself, too proud or too antiquated in his views, his libido turns to madness, sometimes even violence. My theory is that most criminals are repressed souls.

(July 14, 1934)

A smart guy, at times, Egret can be, but so superstitious. Hashish is a bit strong for me, and maybe it is affecting him badly.

(July 15, 1934)

Journey's end. They may arrest Cornelius. They ought to arrest the Captain.

Chapter IV: Spiritual Journey of Adam Bardo

(July 10, 1934)

The Ohio Creeper struck again, as I knew he would. The cards marked poor Philo as the next one to go.

(July 11, 1934)

Meditating. On this ship, Cornelius Egret has the greatest potential for the rainbow, if only he stopped fearing things of the East.

When I see Judith Breslin, I see Shiva.

(July 12, 1934)

Hoosier is water in form, water laughing. I shall meditate on his laughter, not resist it.

The crew will never prove I have hashish. Beside, my purposes are of the spirit.

(July 13, 1934)

The storm speaks to me. I shall enter milam and find the killer, or see his face.

An aeon appeared to me, a wave of flight: Three days ago, Mordecai Paisley, whose face I see, killed Philo Mel.

(July 14, 1934)

I am invisible, unseen by Paisley, watching him. By yoga I can do this. Something he does will prove his guilt.

Trying tarot. Paisley is the Death card.

(July 15, 1934)

Narrow minds arrested Egret. What concern is it of theirs?

I will continue to seek Paisley in dreams.

Chapter V: Journal of Captain Mordecai Paisley (Unofficial- not the ship's log)

(July 10, 1934)

Outrage! A murder on my ship, on my very ship! With arts and madmen and drink about, it is no wonder. Egret has every manner of unspeakable vice. Now he has added murder to the list.

(July 11, 1934)

Our cities are likely better off without the ugly, utilitarian buildings, or whatever some call them, of Philo Mel the architect, but I'll not have this nonsense on my ship. I'll prove it's Egret yet!

(July 12, 1934)

The Hoosier stowaway showed his face. Mad creature runs quickly, and in the rain too.

What are regulations on execution of stowaways? Just wondering.

Miss Breslin scandalizes us all.

(July 13, 1934)

Tell these fools to get inside their cabins. This is a real storm. Why must I manage such puerile, useless people?

If Shakespeare made writing popular, then a mob with pitchforks and torches should have driven him out of England. I earn my living. These reprobates mooch off society. No decent men and women here, other than I myself.

(July 14, 1934)

That bard or bardo or whatever he is, the lunatic, should be in an asylum. My task is to run a ship, not an asylum.

(July 15, 1934)

At last, the miserable voyage ends. I am happy to see Egret arrested, and I hope they know he's a killer too.

Chapter VI: Journal and Last Words of Philo Mel

(July 8, 1934) Boarded the SS Coventina. Know Ohio Creeper is after me. Got three in my city, and now wants me. Sheer madness.

Who can enter homes the way he did- if this even is a man? All I know is the Creeper is on the Coventina. Where did the ship get that name?

(July 9, 1934)

Caught someone peering in my porthole, but could not get a good look at the face.

Will try to draw some blueprints. I signed up to be an architect, not a dime novel detective.

(July 10, 1934)

New evidence in the Creeper case. If it is the Captain, he is very good at hiding his intelligence.

The stowaway [Here the writing trails into a line, indicating time of death.]

[newnoirstories]

You May Know Me

You may know me as @scholarofgloom on Tumblr, or maybe as @principiumindividuationis777 on Tumblr.

I have a hobby, which someday I may monetize, of writing short stories, but even the "gloom" user name should warn you that these stories may have dark or controversial subject matter.

While not explicit, I again warn you, that if dark, surreal, disorienting, implicitly violent (though I will post trigger warnings as applicable) content is not for you, neither is this blog, but either way, I wish you well.

Also, themes of addiction are common, and some may find passages of some of my works erotic, though I do not write with the intention of having that effect on readers.

Also, these characters are purely fictional, and nothing done by any character in them is to be imitated, nor taken as an endorsement by me of the behavior.

With the boring stuff out of the way...

All of my stories will be short stories, in length, unless, perhaps, I reach a point at which I get requests, in which case I would write in any format within reason.