Lovecraft raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. I’ve heard of it. Robert E. Howard, right?”
“Uh, no. Some German guy, I guess. Friedrich Wilhelm von Junzt, it says here.” He pronounced it with an English J rather than a Teutonic Y sound. “No mention of anyone called ‘Howard.’ Maybe he’s the translator? Sounds English.”
Lovecraft cradled the handset against her shoulder and typed into the proprietary book database the unfolded version of her had subscribed to. “Let me see, sir. Just checking if I can locate any copies for you. May I ask what the book is for? It’s kind of obscure.”
“For? Well … research. I’m reading comparative anthropology at MiskU and just came across a reference to it. It looked useful.”
Useful, thought Lovecraft. That’s one way of— She paused, staring at the screen. The search had brought up several copies across the world that were available for sale. Her eye settled on a flash alongside one of them.
“Hello?”
Lovecraft blinked and said, “Uh, sorry. The computer is acting up. Look, can I take your details? I’ll see what I can find and get back to you within a day. Is that okay?”
She scribbled down his name and number, finished the call, and put down the phone in a distracted way, the flash on the screen drawing her eye back to it with mesmeric power.
VENDOR: CARTER & LOVECRAFT, ARKHAM, RI, US
She looked at the safe. She hadn’t really had much cause to go through it since the unfolding except for the usual business of putting in and taking out the cash box. The bottom section behind its battered black steel door had been empty except for old accounts. She looked at the bulky, ancient safe for a long minute. Then, spurred by a desire to put the impossible back into abeyance, she quickly unlocked the safe and opened the lower section. There were ledgers there, but on their edges, not stacked. They were standing like books because most of the space was taken up by a stack of black file boxes. They looked more threatening than any file box had a right to.
She realized she’d put her hand over her mouth in an expression of horror, a deep foreboding of what she might find. First, however, she went and locked the door, turning the sign to Closed. Then she returned to her place behind the counter, took out the topmost box, and placed it on the surface. As cautiously as opening the case of an armed bomb, she lifted the lid.
Inside was a bulky book wrapped in bubble wrap with a few silica gel bags lying alongside it to keep down the humidity in the box. She removed the book from the box, placed it on the countertop, and stared at it. It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t be. Unaussprechlichen Kulten was a fictional book. Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan and Solomon Kane, invented it as a detail in a short story. Even if she accepted everything about the Unfolded World, about how Arkham and the Miskatonic were real, that didn’t mean everything else in H. P. Lovecraft’s stories and the others it inspired had to be real, too.
Lovecraft realized that she was trembling. Almost outside of her volition, she took up the paper-knife she kept under the counter and slit the lengths of tape holding the bubble wrap in place. Then, with a few short, nervous flicks of the knife’s tip, she exposed the book.
The knife fell from her hand and she sat down heavily on the stool.
The book was not Unaussprechlichen Kulten.
Instead, in battered silver leaf on the badly stained cover—its red leather darkened with age—she read the single word …
Necronomicon.
Chapter 3
THE LAWMAN
Dan Carter was in hot pursuit.
Just as the client had suggested, he had been in the right place at the right time and seen the transaction going down. It would have been nice to just stroll over and arrest the guys, but he was no longer a cop. Yes, he still had the power of citizen’s arrest, and they were clearly guilty as hell—he’d been taking pictures the whole time, after all—but he wasn’t being paid enough to take a risk with his personal safety.
The contact took off in a white van (Carter had already photographed it and made a written note of the license plate just to be on the safe side), leaving Kuzkin behind. Carter was just taking a beautiful picture of Kuzkin counting the damn money in the middle of the parking lot like an idiot when the idiot looked straight at him and freaked out.
If Kuzkin vanished into the city, he would be almost untraceable, the client would not be happy, and Carter’s payment would suffer. Carter grunted with displeasure as he set off in pursuit, hitting the still swinging door from the parking area back into the hotel.
Kuzkin had seen too many movies where people get chased through hotels, obviously; the corridor came out into the building’s third story and almost the first thing he did was push over a maid’s cart and the maid with it. In the wide corridor it presented no sort of barrier at all. Kuzkin disappeared around the corner as Carter ran past the cart and the maid, who was swearing with great venom and imagination at the fugitive. “Kick his ass!” she shouted at Carter as he sped by. “Kick that punk’s teeth in!”
Before the chase began, that would have seemed disproportionate to Carter, but that was before Kuzkin decided he was going to be an idiot. Now a few well-placed kicks when he caught up with the moron were starting to look pretty good in a cathartic kind of way.
The hotel was not one of New York’s grand old ladies, but a nineties build intended more for business and conventions. The reception area was reasonably large, but bland, and having a pursuit across it was probably the most action it had seen in months. Kuzkin, living up to expectations, did not head for the foyer door and out into the street to lose himself in the crowd like an intelligent human being. No. Kuzkin headed for the restaurant.
“You have to be kidding me,” Carter muttered under his breath. As he followed the target into the room, empty but for a couple of staff at that time of day, he saw Kuzkin half-hurdle the bar, butt surf it for a couple of yards, drop onto the other side, and run through the Staff Only door behind it. Carter did not bother following him, but headed for the double doors that led directly into the kitchen.
Kuzkin was halfway to the rear exit, pushing trolleys over behind him in a cacophony of clanging metal and crashing plates, blissfully sure that Carter was as foolish as him and following directly on his tail. When Carter suddenly appeared in his path and tackled him to the floor, the look of astonishment on his face was a joy to behold.
“What the fuck is this?” demanded a sous chef, seeing Carter roll Kuzkin on his face and put a flex cuff on him.
“Get the duty manager down here,” said Carter.
“It was just sheets, man!” whined Kuzkin, his voice blurred from the floor tiles hard against his face. “Sheets and towels! Fuck! Those cuffs hurt!”
Carter sat on him, panting with exertion. “Yeah, crime of the century. Why’d you have to run? Idiot.”
“Fuck you!”
“Yeah, and fuck you, too, Moriarty.” Carter settled down to await the arrival of management and the police.
* * *
It all went pretty much as expected after that. The duty manager turned up and blamed Carter for Kuzkin’s running and the damage he’d caused without actually saying as much. Then the police arrived and found the whole scenario mildly amusing, especially the sight of a decorated former NYPD detective foiling a clandestine bedding theft conspiracy of the most desperate kind. He accompanied Kuzkin to the precinct, but nobody seemed really keen to take his statement, and he was sitting around for forty minutes before they remembered he was there. Then the statement, then another twenty minutes when Kuzkin said he wanted Carter charged with assault, but then Carter said, fine, maybe we should ask the maid he pushed over whether she wants to press charges as well, at which point Kuzkin went off the idea.
Two hours later, and all the more irritated since he’d discovered that a seam had torn in his jacket when he’d tackled Kuzkin, Carter returned to his office in Red Hook. Just for once he really wanted to do the PI thing: drag a bottle of bourbon out of his filing
cabinet, pour himself a stiff shot, and drink it while he looked out on the naked city from his office window. Alas, his filing cabinet contained files and stationery, and all he could muster was a can of Sprite from the little cooler in the corner. He consoled himself that at least he could drink it while looking out at the naked city from his office window.
In reality, three things went through his mind as he stood there. Firstly, he made a mental note to go to the old-school tailor a block over and see about getting the seam fixed. The world seemed to have a lot more old-school businesses than it used to, so that was a plus. The second thing was he toyed with the idea of getting a bottle of bourbon for the office, but then decided not to because it would be pretentious and, anyway, he wasn’t that big a fan of bourbon. He’d drink it, but he preferred Scotch. Thirdly, and not for the first time since things had changed, he marveled that the sun now shone into his office directly.
Before, there had been a row of tenements across the way that stopped the sun from ever shining upon the small building that contained several rental offices including his own. The only time he had ever seen the sun enter had been during a brief fugue, a waking dream, while talking to a client. In the Folded World, the client wanted evidence of her husband’s adultery so she could divorce him. In the fugue, she had wanted Carter to kill him. Carter remembered he didn’t seem to have a problem with that in the dream. He could deal with that thought because the sun was shining into the office in a way it never could, so it was all a phantasm and nothing to do with reality. Yet now it shone into the office exactly as it had done in the vision. Did that mean that, in the Unfolded World, he’d calmly taken the pistol in the plastic bag she’d given him and used it to commit murder? Maybe the truth was in his files. So far he’d avoided looking.
He realized the can was empty, turned away from the window, and froze. He was no longer alone.
* * *
Carter had not heard the door open or close, had not heard the chair creak as it was occupied, but now there was somebody sitting there, smiling pleasantly at him.
“Mr. Weston,” said Carter slowly. “You startled me.”
Mr. Henry Weston, attorney at law, senior partner and sole owner of the law firm of Weston Edmunds, seemed unperturbed that he had done so. “Your door was unlocked,” he said, unnecessarily.
He looked very nearly identical to how he had first appeared to Carter some months before, five six, 120 pounds, neat dark hair that was almost unnervingly perfect without the slightest change since that last meeting. The only element that was different was the three-piece suit he wore, and even this was still obviously bespoke and expensive despite its unadventurous color and cut. Then he had appeared in Carter’s office in much the same way, like a genie from a very quiet lamp, and told Carter that he had inherited a property in Providence.
“So nice to see you again, Mr. Carter. How interesting that our paths should cross again.”
Carter walked back to his desk and shook Weston’s hand, though Weston did not rise to do so. Once again it felt to Carter that he was shaking the hand of a showroom dummy. Weston’s grip was warm, dry, but felt too firm. When one shakes a hand, there is always the intimation of bone within the flesh, the skeleton within the skin. That intimation was missing with Weston.
Carter sat down behind his desk, mentally noting yet again that he really wanted to change the chair for one with wheels. This one didn’t have them, and it irritated him for a reason that he couldn’t quite isolate.
Weston looked at Carter brightly across the desktop, like a man waiting for a chess opponent to make a move. The silence endured for several seconds until Carter realized that it was only bothering him, so he broke it.
“I wasn’t expecting to ever see you again, Mr. Weston. Is anything the matter?”
“Yes. Something is the matter, and that is why I am here.” Weston’s smile didn’t waver. If anything, it brightened, as if he were teaching an ungifted child to play that game of chess and they had made a legitimate move rather than chewing on a bishop. His expression changed to one of concerned curiosity. “But first I must ask, how are you enjoying your inheritance? I’m afraid I was consumed with curiosity—that’s only human, after all—and did a little investigating of my own after I parted from you last time. The property is a bookstore, I understand? How wonderful! I am a great admirer of books. I have several. Perhaps I shall visit sometime and buy another.”
He leaned forward. “It was kind of you to share the bequest with Miss Lovecraft. That was generous and, I think, sensible. After all, she knows the business. Rare and antiquarian books are hardly the sort of thing a tyro can walk into, are they?”
Carter knew Weston was lying; he’d checked the store’s ownership soon after the unfolding and knew it had been put into the names of both Lovecraft and himself only a couple of weeks after the execution of the will that gave it to him. It was not possible that Weston had looked up the transfer just after their last meeting. Then again, it was only a small lie. The worst of it was Carter was sure Weston knew full well that Carter would spot it.
“No,” he said, “I don’t read too much, and I don’t know the people she does. It just made sense to share the business.”
“Yes.” Weston would not stop smiling. It was as if this was the best news the world had ever known. “Very sensible.” He suddenly looked at the window. “Doesn’t it bother you, the sun coming in like that? You might consider investing in some blinds.”
Carter glanced at the window, then at Weston. Weston was looking into the sun and he wasn’t even squinting. “Does it bother you?”
Weston’s head slowly turned to regard Carter. It looked as organic a movement as a tank’s turret coming to bear on its target. “Not at all, Mr. Carter. I am more resilient than I might appear. Very little bothers me.” His eyebrows raised as if he’d just remembered a wonderful joke. “To business!” He picked up the same old battered briefcase Carter remembered from Weston’s last visit and took from it a file. Carter had the sense that the file was the only thing in the case.
“A client of the company is in a sticky situation.” The phrase displeased him. “A ticklish circumstance. A difficult scenario. He requires help of a certain type that we are not equipped to provide.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning? Ah. Meaning an investigation carried out with the utmost discretion. Your name came immediately to mind.”
“Why would that be?”
Weston seemed nonplussed by this.
Carter said, “Why would you think of me? I haven’t done work for you in the past. I’m an unknown quantity.”
“Well, I know you, and my own modest investigation at the time of our first meeting gave every indication that you were an exemplary police officer.”
“I’m not a police officer anymore.”
“A technicality. I am a good judge of character, Mr. Carter. I won’t deny that we may have asked around a little, too, before I came here. You come highly recommended. Mr. Stamford, Miss Van Schloss, Mr. Mendelssohn, all spoke well of you.”
Carter regarded Weston with cold eyes. “Can I get you something to drink?”
Weston smiled. “No, thank you.”
“You’ve certainly done your due diligence.”
“The firm of Weston Edmunds is well known for it.”
“So, okay. What’s the job?”
“Of course.” Weston started to open the file, but paused before doing so. “I must emphasize that this is a matter of some considerable confidentiality, Mr. Carter. Whether you accept it or not, I must have your assurance that you will not discuss it with anyone else.”
“Only with my business partner.”
“Miss Lovecraft? She is not a partner in this business, surely?”
“She’s smart and she knows people.” Weston looked at him blankly. Carter decided this was a point he was going to fight whether it was sensible to or not. “I reserve the right to discuss cases with her. That’s part of my workin
g practice.”
Weston’s eyebrows raised, and his smile returned. “Then by all means, discuss the matter with the estimable Miss Lovecraft, but only on the basis that the information goes no further. You will vouch for her?”
“I will. I do.”
“That’s fine, then.” As Weston returned his attention to the file, his glanced up for a moment at Carter and seemed amused. Carter wondered if Weston had known all along he’d want to bring Lovecraft in on anything Weston might say, and that was what he wanted. Weston took a sheet from the manila folder, glanced at it, and said, “Miskatonic University. Do you have any contacts there?”
Carter made the effort to look thoughtful; internally he was trying to reconcile two sets of memories. Back in the Folded World he’d asked around at Clave College. That no longer existed, nor had it ever existed, but some of the people he’d met who would have gone there had ended up at MU. “A few. Why?”
“Currently there is an experiment in progress in the high energy physics section of the science department. It is an expensive sort of experiment, and it is being carried out as an interuniversity project in an effort to spread the cost. A client of my firm is one of the scientists involved. While we were discussing more obviously legal matters, he happened to mention that he is having some misgivings about how the experiment is proceeding. Specifically, he thinks that some of the data may have been manipulated to give a better result than is actually the case.”
Carter snorted. “That kind of thing must go on all the time. They must have ways of dealing with it.”
Weston nodded. “In the normal run of things, you would no doubt be quite correct, Mr. Carter. But … there is a political dimension to all this that makes it a little sensitive to claims of fakery. The other university is the Reichsuniversität, Berlin.”
Carter barely had to examine his new memories to know that the Reichsuniversität was Hitler’s very own pet project in the years following the end of the Second World War in 1941. It was an internationally renowned place of learning, and the beating heart of German claims to leading the field in arts and, particularly, sciences. It was Caltech, Cambridge, and MIT all rolled up into a single center of excellence.
After the End of the World (Carter & Lovecraft) Page 3