Night Mayer: Legend of the Skinwalker

by Paul W Papa

  Mayer shrugged. He’d become dismissive of his parents once he entered high school—embarrassed by them. How do you explain that your parents are into the occult? Not as followers, he’d say, just studying. Yeah right. At some point, he had stopped having deep conversations with his mother, finding her opinions trivial and old fashioned. She had tried to continue them, but Mayer had resisted.

  His parents were simply strange. Sure, it was easy to chalk it up to just the angst of a teenager, but he had purposely tried to avoid them. In fact, on the day they left for Germany—on the day they left his life forever—where was he? Off with his friends, smoking, looking at a nudie magazine, teasing a girl, or doing some other silly, frivolous activity. Something that didn’t amount to a hill of beans.

  “Where’d you go?” Virginia asked.

  “Nowhere,” Mayer lied, but they both knew he had drifted off.

  “What’s this case about?” Virginia asked.

  “R. J. Hawthorne’s Dutch act,” Mayer said. “Though his partner doesn’t believe Hawthorne capable of putting a pill in his own temple.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I guess I’m suspicious as well. Especially after my visit to Vera Krupp’s place today.”

  Virginia looked taken aback. “You visited Vera Krupp?” she asked, though it seemed more like an accusation than a question.

  “I did,” Mayer confirmed.

  “Is she involved in this?”

  “It looks that way,” Mayer said. “Although how she’s involved, I don’t yet know.”

  Virginia’s eyes narrowed and somehow seemed to darken. Creases formed at their edges and her mouth tightened. “You mustn’t take this case,” she said forcefully.

  “Too late, I’ve already accepted the scratch.”

  “Then give it back,” she said quickly.

  “Hey, what’s going on here?” Mayer asked. He knew both the look Virginia was giving him, and the disapproval it represented.

  “Nothing,” Virginia said and turned away.

  Her reluctance to answer surprised Mayer. “It’s a little late for that,” he said. “If you know something . . .” He let the sentence trail off. And then it hit him. “Is this about my parents?” he asked.

  Virginia turned back to Mayer, her face solemn. She picked up the journal and turned the pages until she found what she was looking for. Then she placed the book in front of Mayer and pointed to a drawing on one of the pages. It was labeled The Seal of the Seven Archangels.

  “I don’t understand,” Mayer said. “What does this have to do with Vera Krupp?”

  “You know she was married to Alfried Krupp?”

  “That’s the rumor,” Mayer said.

  “Alfried Krupp of Hitler’s war machines?”

  “I’m aware of who Alfried Krupp is.”

  “Did you also know Krupp was a chief supporter of Hitler’s delusions with the occult?”

  “That I did not know,” Mayer admitted.

  “Your parents had a lead on the actual amulet that drawing represents, that’s why they went to Germany.”

  “And how do you know this?” Mayer asked.

  Virginia lowered her head and slowly began rubbing her hands together. Mayer had seen it before. It was what Virginia did when she was contemplating options. He should have given her time, but he didn’t. Instead he pressed her.

  “Tell me what you know,” he said.

  Virginia raised her head. Her large brown eyes were floating in a liquid of sadness, a redness beginning to overtake the whites. “Your mother wrote me letters regularly,” she confessed.

  The news hit Mayer like a fastball to the gut. “You have letters from my mother?” he asked. “And you never showed them to me?”

  She nodded quietly.

  As Mayer sat motionless, Virginia disappeared into the office, returning a short time later with a small bundle of envelopes tied together with twine. She laid the bundle on the bar next to Mayer.

  “Doris kept me updated on all they were doing,” she said. “She and Elias went to Germany because they had a lead on that amulet. They needed to find it before Hitler did. She wrote me when she could,” she paused. “Then suddenly the letters stopped.”

  “And you’re just telling me this now?” Mayer said a bit louder than he expected. Though there weren’t many patrons in the place at this time of day, the few present turned their attention to the bar. That is, until Mayer flashed them a warning look and they returned to their own glasses.

  Virginia’s face softened and she lowered her voice. “What would you have done with this information, Prometheus?” she asked. “You needed to follow your own path in life, choose your own way.”

  “How’s that worked out for me?”

  Virginia took her time to answer, her words measured. “Vera Krupp recently moved into this valley. If you’re going to involve her in this, it’s better you know the whole story.”

  “It was Hawthorne who involved her, not me,” Mayer said, smartly.

  “Still, you’re both now involved.”

  “Are you saying Alfried Krupp had the amulet?”

  “Your mother thought so. Your father was a bit more skeptical.”

  Mayer remained quiet, letting the news bounce around his brain. Trying not to feel betrayed. “What else haven’t you told me?” he asked.

  Virginia walked around the bar and came over to Mayer. She reached out her arms, but Mayer’s mood had soured. He picked up the letters, took hold of the diary, and replaced his lid. “A secret is no better than a lie,” he said and stormed out.

  Virginia called for him, but Mayer didn’t turn back.

  Ten

  HE’D MADE IT about three steps out of the bar before he collided with Hank Greenspun’s cub reporter.

  “Watch where you’re going,” he barked.

  “Well howdy do to you too,” Cassi replied. She was dressed in the same high-waisted brown slacks and white, long-sleeve, button-down blouse she’d worn earlier, though now it seemed a bit disheveled. Her purse was flung over her right shoulder and the eraser end of a pencil stuck out above her ear. She was cradling a stack of mimeographed sheets of paper against her chest and she almost dropped them when the two collided.

  Mayer stopped. He sighed. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Looking for you,” Cassi admitted.

  “Look Miss Reyes, I’ve tried to tell you . . .”

  Cassi cut him off. “I’ve been doing some research,” she said. “Do you have any idea how many people have disappeared or have been found dead in the area where the resort was to be built?”

  Mayer had to admit that he did not.

  Cassi adjusted the bundle of papers in her arms. “I’ve been at the library and the sheriff’s department all afternoon. And you’ll be simply amazed at what I’ve found. If we can just go back inside for a moment.”

  “That’s no good,” Mayer said.

  Cassi screwed up her courage. “Look, Mr. Mayer, I’ve done a lot of work here and . . .”

  Mayer cut her off with his hand. “Follow me,” he said and took her to the back of Atomic Liquors where he had parked his Hornet. He motioned for her to lay the stack of papers on the hood. “Spill it,” he said. “You’ve got ten minutes.”

  Mayer watched as Cassi spread out the mimeographed sheets. “Since 1924 there have been no less than twenty-five deaths or disappearances in the area where the resort was to be built,” she said. “Some of them dismemberments.”

  “It’s the desert,” Mayer said. “People die out there all the time.”

  “Not like this,” Cassi continued. “Almost every one of them had plans to build or settle on that site.” She picked up one of the sheets, a duplication of a news clipping from the Las Vegas Age dated June 12, 1924.

  DEVELOPER FOUND DISMEMBERED

  Developer Ronald W. Spence was found dismembered yesterday in the Charleston Forest Reserve near the Sandstone Ranch. Spence was the main partner in a dev
elopment deal to build ranch estates in the region. His body, according to Sheriff Sam Guy, was found by two men hiking in the area. “Darndest thing I ever saw,” said Guy. “They was torn to shreds. Must have been coyotes or a mountain lion.” The project is to be discontinued in light of Spence’s untimely death.

  Cassi pulled out another sheet, this one from the Las Vegas Review Journal, dated December 16, 1937.

  LOCAL MAN DISAPPEARS

  Samuel Johnathan Boatman has been missing for several days. His whereabouts unknown, according to his wife, Janet. She reported her husband missing after he failed to return from a trip to the Charleston Forest Reserve near the Sandstone Ranch, according to Sheriff Gene Ward. Boatman went with his surveyor, Walter Shannon, to survey the area in anticipation of building a cattle ranch. The two men left early Monday morning and have not been seen since. “I just don’t know where he could have gone,” Janet Boatman said. Sheriff Ward would not say if foul play was suspected; however, a search of the area produced no clues into the disappearance.

  “There’s more just like these,” Cassi said. “All unsolved. Sometimes the men were simply missing and at other times they were found, ripped apart as if by animals, but almost all of them were connected by plans to develop in the area. And every single time the development plans ended with the death of the developer.”

  “What do you mean almost all of them?”

  “There was one strange report of a set of twins that were missing from a family who lived in Blue Diamond. But they were toddlers, far too young to have development ties to the area, and their father wasn’t a developer. He worked in the gypsum mine.”

  Mayer placed his foot on the bumper and leaned in. He studied the reports Cassi had found. She was right, one after the other, to a man, there was a tie to development in the area. Many of the men were never found, some committed suicide, while others were horribly dismembered. Each time the death marked the end of the development.

  “It doesn’t fit,” Mayer said aloud.

  “What doesn’t fit?”

  “The deaths, they’re all different. There seems to be no consistency. Sometimes the bodies are found, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they’re torn apart, sometimes they’re just missing.”

  “That’s why I did some cross checking,” Cassi said. “I found no incidences of people being mauled by animals in the surrounding area. At least none that weren’t related to development near Sandstone Ranch, or whatever it was called at the time. There’s no way this is a coincidence. Somebody doesn’t want development in that area.”

  Mayer agreed, but he didn’t let her know he’d stopped believing in coincidences long ago. “If somebody was killing these people,” he said, “what message were they trying to send?”

  “That’s what I wondered.”

  Mayer remembered the hairs he found on the trailer floor. “The maulings make me wonder if we aren’t dealing with...”

  “Please don’t say werewolf,” Cassi said.

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t be silly. Werewolves don’t really exist.”

  Mayer let out a soft snort. “Every legend has some element of truth,” he said.

  Cassi scoffed. "Are you trying to tell me werewolves are real?"

  "Werewolves, werecats, werehyenas. They may not be running wild, but, yes, they do exist,” Mayer assured her. “Just not in the way you think. Though I haven't heard of one in Las Vegas for quite some time."

  Cassi's eyes widened. “We’ve had werewolves in Las Vegas?”

  “Sure,” Mayer said. “I used to drink out of the same bottle with one of them. Until, well, you know.”

  Cassi didn’t seem to know what to say. Mayer turned back to the sheets laid out on his hood. “But it doesn’t work out,” he said. “It doesn’t explain Hawthorne killing himself.”

  “Maybe he shot himself before the, um, werewolf could get him,” Cassi offered.

  “Could be, but that doesn’t explain the suicide note,” Mayer said.

  “What’s your next move?” Cassi asked.

  Mayer placed his loafer back on the ground and began stacking the sheets again, one on top of the other. “That, my dear, is none of your business. Thank you for this research, but how can I say this nicely?” he paused, then stepped closer to the newshawk. “Stay out of my way.”

  After Mayer finished stacking the sheets, he took them to the rear of the car and popped the trunk.

  Cassi followed, determined. “I have no intention of staying out of this. And I’ll thank you to give me back my papers,” she said with an outstretched arm.

  Mayer ignored her.

  “I’m going to be involved, Mr. Mayer, one way or the other, so you can accept that and let me work with you, or . . .”

  Mayer dropped the sheets in the trunk. He put the diary back in its spot—added the letters—and slammed the trunk. “Or what?” he demanded.

  “Or . . .”

  Cassi probably said some other things as well, but Mayer had stopped listening. Theodosia’s words were ringing in his ears: In order to succeed, you must do something you do not enjoy. Work as a team.

  He looked at the reporter intently. “Get in,” he said.

  The surprise showed on her face. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  Eleven

  FIVE MINUTES LATER the pair was being shown to a booth in Christie’s Dining Room at the Hotel El Cortez by a blonde doll all smiles in a red pin-waist dress with a black point collar and armbands. Matching buttons marched in a line down her front. Cassi slipped herself into the booth as the waitress came up behind her and dealt out menus before scurrying away.

  “Order me a rum on the rocks and whatever you want,” Mayer said without taking a seat. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?” Cassi asked.

  “Always the newshawk,” Mayer said. “Well, if you must know, I’ve gotta make a call to finalize the evening’s entertainment.”

  Mayer walked out of the restaurant and into the casino. The sounds of coins dropping and machines dinging and donging assaulted his senses. Casinos were noisy places, filled with people desperate to make an easy buck. Yelling with excitement after winning twenty-five cents on a penny machine, having put in fifty cents to get it. He didn’t care much for casinos or the people in them, but he wasn’t about to take Cassi to his favorite diner, so Christie’s would have to do. Besides, it was just up the street, easy to get to.

  Mayer headed to the concierge desk. “You got a blower I can borrow for a bit?” he asked.

  A dusty, gray-haired relic from the Civil War with a long chin and a thin, angled mustache looked down his nose at Mayer. “Are you a guest here, sir?” he asked.

  “No, but you can use the thing before I do to call Mr. Smith and tell him P. M. Mayer wants to use his phone, if you’re keen on seeing what that gets you.”

  The relic gave Mayer the eye. Mayer gave it right back.

  “Follow me,” the man finally said and took Mayer to a quiet room, just off the main check-in desk. Mayer didn’t like to drop names—unless he needed to—but he didn’t mind using Jack Smith’s name. The general manager of the El Cortez was a good friend of Virginia’s and often came to Atomic Liquors after hours to relax. The fact that the two businesses were in walking distance from one another didn’t hurt.

  It was Jack’s idea to rid the place of the pirate theme it suffered under Bill Moore, eliminating such notable hotspots as the Buccaneer Bar and Pirate’s Den—the latter of which was decorated with elaborate depictions of female picaroons painted by Denny Stephenson. Mayer wasn’t the only one who thought it a bit much. Not that he had anything against pirates, or picaroons for that matter, it just seemed like a strange theme for a hotel and gambling joint in the middle of the desert.

  Mayer pulled the paper Theodosia had given him out of his pocket and picked up the business end of the blower. He dialed the number and waited. When the male voice came on the o
ther end, Mayer introduced himself and quickly added that he’d been given the shaman’s number by Theodosia.

  “Yes, she is a good friend,” the shaman said.

  “I was wondering if you had some time this evening for a chat. I have something I’d like to run by you.”

  “Is it important?”

  “Deadly,” Mayer said.

  “Got a pen and paper?”

  The two men set a time, after which the shaman gave detailed directions to his home. Mayer put down the receiver and headed back to the café, tipping his hat to the relic as he passed. He slid into the booth, removed his lid, and took a sip of the rum Cassi had ordered for him. The pink squirrel she’d ordered for herself was already halfway gone.

  “All set?” she asked.

  “All set,” Mayer assured her.

  When the waitress returned, Cassi ordered the shrimp salad the menu assured her was “fresh.” Mayer ordered the grilled pork chops and applesauce, with a rum chaser.

  Cassi wrinkled her nose.

  Mayer had been trying so hard to avoid the cub reporter that he never really got a good look at her. She was striking, in a girl-next-door sort of way. She had a button nose, a thin upper lip, and just enough gumption to get the job done. Her brown eyes sparkled above her high, round cheeks and her lips were painted a light shade of coral. She didn’t wear rouge the way some women do, slapping it on like war paint. No, hers was very light over the upper cheekbone, and her arching eyebrows gave her a very natural look.

  “What made you change your mind?” she asked.

  “Who said that I have?”

  She crinkled her nose again. It was probably meant to be dismissive, but it didn’t come off that way. “So what does P. M. really stand for?” she asked.

  “Portly man,” Mayer responded.

  Cassi twisted her mouth. “Cute,” she said.

  “How’d you find out about the will?”

  Cassi stiffened. She pulled a pack of ivory-tipped Marlboros from her purse, slipped one in her mouth, and lit the end. She inhaled deeply, then let the smoke out the side of her mouth, like the French ladies do. “I didn’t know there was a will,” she said curtly.