by Anton Strout
“Pamphlet?” I offered, holding up a copy of Ask Not What Your Country Can Do for Ghoul.
The man shook his head. “Perhaps another time. We, like you, are fellow vendors.”
I wondered who this “we” he referred to was, as he was standing there alone. I looked down at his color-coded badge and saw it was the same jaundiced yellow as ours. I put the pamphlet down.
Short & Balding had an accent that hinted at Middle American mixed with something exotic. Whatever it was, it was enough to confuse me.
“I trust you are having a good show so far?” he asked, the model of politeness.
The Inspectre nodded, but didn’t say anything. I kept my mouth shut, taking his lead.
“Excellent, excellent,” he said, sounding a little like a pitchman. I suspected he was here to set up some kind of vendor exchange, which was popular among so many of the non-paranormal vendors here.
“I’m Marten Heron,” he continued with another, more formal bow. Was this guy for real? He looked like he’d be more at home chatting it up back at the Lovecraft Café than here. “Of the Brothers Heron, Booth 1601-A. Perhaps you’ve heard of us?”
There was a twinkle of expectancy in his eye.
“You’re one of the Heron Brothers?” I said. “Julius is your brother? We rented the Oubliette from you yesterday. You know, the Oubliette that tried to kill me?”
The twinkle burned out in his eyes, but was back in a flash. “Yes, unfortunately,” he said. He wrung his hands together. “Julius told me about that. Rest assured, we’re looking into what happened.” He paused, then lowered his voice. “You didn’t happen to notice anything particularly unusual around here today, did you?”
“Unusual how?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. “Nothing’s tried to kill me today, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”
Marten paused, his hands clenched together like he might burst into a choral number any second.
“Oh, nothing in particular, really,” he said. “Just wanted to make sure the show is going well for you, after the Oubliette and all.”
I went to speak, but I felt the Inspectre’s foot come to rest on mine and stopped. Instead, the Inspectre extended his hand and spoke up.
“Argyle Quimbley,” he said. “A pleasure. I’ve only met your brother.”
Marten Heron grabbed his hand and pumped it with great enthusiasm.
“Ah, yes, Julius. There is a third brother as well, Lanford, but he hasn’t had much time away from the booth. Not one for the socialization, you see.”
Marten continued shaking hands. This went on for several moments before the Inspectre broke it off.
“If I’m not mistaken,” the Inspectre said, “you’re one of the Romnichal, are you not?”
“Romni-what?” I said, unable to contain myself. This time the Inspectre slammed his heel down on my foot, and I stifled a cry of pain.
“Romnichal, actually,” Marten corrected, smiling. “We’re Romany, from Downers Grove. You have a good ear.”
“It was your last name that tipped me off, actually,” the Inspectre said. “Fairly common among the nomadic tribes in America.”
“I’ve never met any gypsies before,” I piped in. “Downers Grove sounds very exotic.”
Marten shrugged. “If you consider Illinois exotic, sure.”
I scrunched my face. “Illinois gypsies?”
“For part of the year anyway,” he said. “But as your friend so astutely points out, we are nomadic, so my brothers and I do get around.”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of business cards, and started sorting through them. Halfway through the pile, he stopped and pulled one free.
“If you hear of anything out of the ordinary happening at the show, please, give me a call,” he said, trying to hand it to me. I kept my hands at my side, not wanting to explain my gloves. The Inspectre reached for it instead.
I read the card over the Inspectre’s shoulder.
The Brothers Heron
Purveyors of Modern Miracles, Cure-Alls, and All Manner of Items Fantastical
Marten Heron
I noticed there was no address, but it did list a phone number.
As if he anticipated my thoughts, Marten pulled a cell phone from his pocket and waved it at me like it was doing a little dance.
“It makes being nomadic a little easier,” he said. He checked the clock on the face of his cell phone. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to be returning to my brothers now. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Come on by if you’re looking for anything special—charms, potions, whatnot.” He started to turn, then spun back around. “And again, sorry about the almost-killing-you thing.”
Marten Heron walked off into a sea of Wookiees, elves, and samurai, leaving the Inspectre and me alone once again.
“Tell me, boy,” the Inspectre said once he was gone. “Did anything seem suspicious about all that?”
A few young men drifted toward the table, picking through what we had to offer them.
“Other than him owning the device that tried to kill me?” I asked, trying to control my snark. “He seemed a little jumpy, like he was nervous about something. It makes me wonder what he’s trying to hide and if it might have anything to do with our problem at the dock yesterday. I mean, how much suspicious activity can go on in this neighborhood, right?”
I spied Connor hustling through the crowd, coming down the aisle in front of us.
“It certainly warrants a little bit of investigation,” the Inspectre said.
Connor came into our booth and threw his trench coat and bag underneath the back table. Inspectre Quimbley pointedly checked his pocket watch.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “There was another zombie scare downtown, so traffic was a bitch. Small outbreak, it looks like, but they’re getting more and more frequent lately.”
The Inspectre nodded. He turned back to me. “Why don’t you take Connor with you and see what you can find out?” he said. The stone-serious look he gave me left no doubt he was giving me Fraternal Order-level orders, putting me in charge. “I’ll man the booth by myself for a while.”
“Sure,” I said, hoping Connor wasn’t really paying attention.
I grabbed Connor and headed out in search of the short man’s booth.
“What the hell was up with that, kid?” he asked. He sounded good and pissed.
“Up with what?” I said, feigning ignorance as I dodged a pack of Live-Action Role Players dressed in fairy costumes.
“Why’s the Inspectre giving you our orders instead of me?”
“Oh,” I said, pausing to think up something. “That. It’s nothing. You were late so we just started discussing one of the Illinois gypsies who stopped by the booth.”
Somehow this seemed to mollify Connor, and he relaxed. “What did I miss?”
As we searched for the Brothers Heron booth, I explained the conversation we had had with Marten Heron. By the time I was done, Connor had spotted the sign at their booth, and the two of us walked over.
The Brothers Heron booth looked like a movie-set medicine show. Their setup consisted of an actual gypsy wagon, the kind I’d seen either in cartoons or on television shows where snake-oil salesmen would try to pawn their wares off on unsuspecting townies.
“Well, color me Romany,” Connor said with a whistle. “A bit theatric, don’t you think?”
Unfortunately, the Brothers Heron themselves were nowhere to be seen. As we approached the wagon, however, the incoherent sounds of arguing in a language I didn’t understand were coming from behind the wagon curtain, making it apparent where they were. I turned to Connor.
“Stay here,” I said.
“Excuse me?” he said, with a little bite to it.
“I just need you to distract them for a few minutes while I take a look back behind the scenes of their wagon.”
“Whoa,” Connor said. “I think we’re going to have to clear that with Enchancellors.”
“We don’t have to clear shit,” I said, feeling a little bold with power. “We don’t have time to fill out a bunch of forms or make some calls. I’m doing this under the authority of the Fraternal Order of Goodness, and that’s that.”
“And that’s what you’ll say if we get called out on breaking with Departmental procedure?”
I nodded. Connor shrugged, but I could tell that he was only feigning indifference. “Good enough for me. I’ll defer to your F.O.G.gie authority . . . this time.”
“Thanks,” I said, uncomfortable with the strange power play that had just happened. “I’ll be right back. Shop their table. Pretend you’re interested in their wares.”
Connor looked down at the table. It was covered with stoppered bottles, vials, totems, and fetishes. “But I am interested in their wares.”
“Good,” I said, walking off. “Then it shouldn’t be such a stretch for you. I’ll be back.”
I disappeared around the corner of the booth without giving Connor a chance to speak again.
I had to see what the hell was going on. I inched my way along the blue-curtained section behind the wagon as I followed the sound of the voices. I found the nearest seam and pulled it aside slowly, praying to God that I didn’t find someone staring back out at me.
The area behind the Brothers Heron’s shop held the Oubliette and also a clutter of various-sized packing crates. Three men stood around a broken crate that reached chest height, and none of them looked happy. The balding one called Marten was there, and across from him stood two others: one was Julius, the dark-haired Penn Gillette look-alike, and the other was a man in his early twenties who looked just shy of being a total Ichabod, with the same dark hair. I thought Marten had said his name was Lanford.
Even though I might have been able to read their lips while they argued, the language they spoke was still impenetrable. My best guess was that it was probably some sort of gypsy Cant.
“Excuse me?” I heard Connor call from out in front of their wagon. “Hello?”
Marten spoke and the three of them acted as one, slipping a tarp over the broken crate before stepping into the wagon. I prayed that Connor could keep them distracted long enough, and then I darted inside the curtain toward the crates, carefully sidestepping the Oubliette. I had to see what they were so eager to hide.
As I approached the tarp, I reached in my pocket for a roll of Life Savers and began scarfing them down. I didn’t know what to expect when I read the crate, but I didn’t want to pass out only to have the gypsies find me sprawled on the floor of their booth later. I wasn’t sure how threatening Illinois gypsies could be, but Julius had looked pretty imposing, so why take chances with a guy who could probably crush my head like a rotten pumpkin?
I slipped off my gloves and lifted the tarp along one side, exposing the shattered section of the wooden crate. It looked empty, but it was too hard to tell for sure from the shadows inside of it. I moved my head closer, but all that did was block the light and make it darker inside. There was a definite odd and unpleasant smell coming from it, though. I covered my mouth and nose, and stepped back. Maybe more light getting into the box might help before I dared take a reading off it. That was when I heard the gentle scratching of claws against wood coming from somewhere behind me.
I turned to find a stack of smaller crates. The one nearest the top rocked slightly and had air holes in it. I moved my face closer, hoping to catch a glimpse through one of the holes, but I jumped back as a wild chittering rose from the crate. The rest of the crates beneath it also sprang to life, producing unique noises that bordered on sounds that I could only imagine would be found in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos.
“No, wait,” Connor shouted from out in front of the booth, no doubt for my benefit. “I’m very interested in these exorcism ear candles.”
“Dammit,” I hissed.
There was no time to take a reading from the crate. The Brothers Heron would be steamrolling back through their wagon any second. I threw the tarp over the broken crate and dove for the seam of the curtain I had come through. I darted back around the corner and down along the blind side of the gypsies’ booth before slowing down to turn the next corner in my approach to where I had left Connor.
Connor stood there with Julius while the other two brothers had disappeared, no doubt to check out the commotion from the back of their booth. Connor clutched two long, hollow candles in one of his hands, reminding me a little bit of the Statue of Liberty. His eyes bored into me questioningly, and I gave the slightest shake of my head no in response.
“Look,” Connor said, feigning enthusiasm, “I found those exorcism ear candles you were looking for.”
“Oh,” I said, throwing my gloves back on. “Great.”
I took one from Connor and pretended to examine it, turning it this way and that. I wasn’t even sure what an exorcism ear candle was. It looked like a red corncob made out of wax with a wick sticking out of the end of it.
“Oh, no,” I said. I realized that we probably had to get out of there, and fast. “These are all wrong.” I smiled up at Julius. “Thanks, anyway.”
I put the candle down on the table and hurried off. Connor followed in my wake.
“Find anything, kid?” Connor asked.
I shook my head.
“Just a broken packing crate that smelled like an animal,” I said. “Well, more like an animal that had eaten another animal and then threw it back up. There were also a bunch more crates that contained some other creatures, but I didn’t get a chance to check out what any of them were.”
Connor sighed.
“If any of those animals can be proven to be of paranormal origin, we could get them shut down for trafficking,” Connor said, “but until we know for sure, there’s nothing we can do. We’d better talk to the Inspectre. And we need to get back down to the docks and go over them again. There’s got to be something there.”
When we approached the booth, however, and saw the grim expression on the Inspectre’s face, all thoughts of talking about the Brothers Heron or the docks left us.
“Sir?” I said as we entered the area behind the booth. “Are you okay?”
He turned to face us, his cell phone still clutched open in his hand.
“That was Dave Davidson just now,” he said, slowly folding it shut. “I need you two to check something out in Central Park.”
“Not the park,” Connor muttered, more to himself than either of us.
“What is it?” I asked.
“He didn’t want to discuss it over the phone,” the Inspectre said, “but he did ask for you two specifically.”
A sense of dread started to build in me, and I tried to push it aside. I had always wanted to be one of the popular kids. Just not in this way.
12
As we traversed Central Park’s Great Lawn, I prayed we weren’t headed for another crime scene. Connor looked unusually nervous. Whenever my mentor started looking a bit mental around the edges, I started to worry. But maybe he was just pissy about me ordering him around back at the gypsy booth. He was generally the calm, cool, and collected one, thanks to all those Bogart movies he loved. Right now he looked more Peter Lorre than Bogie.
“You okay?” I asked.
Connor’s head twitched in my direction for a second, but he kept walking, his eyes darting around.
“I’m fine, kid,” he said. “This place just gives me the creeps.”
I looked around. It was a gorgeous, sunshiny day. Young couples were lying out on blankets, kids were throwing Frisbees, and the more health conscious were busy biking or Rollerblading.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s, umm . . . terrifying.”
Connor scoffed. “Didn’t the Inspectre make you read Trail of Breadcrumbs: Into the Woods and Beyond yet?”
I shook my head.
Connor looked cheesed off. “Probably the budget cuts . . . Anyway, Central Park is ranked as one of the most dangerous places in our line of work.”
“Really
?”
“This place is old,” Connor said, “though not as old as you’d expect. We’re talking only back to the 1850s. Most of this was landscaped, but a lot of the area was residential. There was a lot of life and humanity here before it became a wilderness, and now it’s been taken over by nature. That type of change just invites all types of Extraordinary Affairs. Man-made or not, these woods call out to all manner of creatures.”
It was odd to think of Central Park having been fabricated like that. I had always assumed that it had been an untamed part of the city that had been set aside as some sort of nature preserve.