After the End of the World (Carter & Lovecraft)

by Jonathan L. Howard

  Hoskin was silent for several seconds and Harrelson thought he was probably just going to curl up mentally and that would be that. But then Hoskin leaned forward and said in a harsh whisper, “It looked like a man. Fruits.”

  Harrelson blinked. “Fruit? What, the guy propositioned you? I dunno what you mean.”

  “Fruits,” said Hoskin again in the same whisper, then slowly started to tell Harrelson things, some of which were relevant, and some of which were true. By the time the psych arrived, Harrelson was happy to leave the room.

  He sought out one of the officers who’d brought Hoskin in. “Yo, Torres. A word.” He took the uniform to one side. “The doc’s in with Billy Hoskin now, but I gotta tell you, I know Billy a little, and he ain’t never seemed to have enough of a mind to lose, if you see what I mean. What went down?”

  The policewoman shrugged. “I wasn’t the first on the scene, Detective. Got there and found Basker, Hunt, and Albers trying to get him out of traffic. First we thought he was on meth, but then Hunt says he knows him and he’s no tweaker. Hoskin kept talking about a man with a full empty head and some stuff about fruit. Some kind of breakdown, maybe? Oh, one weird thing. He had a wad of bills in his hand, nineteen hundred dollars in fifties. They all looked brand new, but they were nonsequential. Numbers not even close to each other. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

  Harrelson nodded. “Yeah, that’s weird.”

  Torres nodded back. “Yeah, it’s weird. Captain’s saying they might be counterfeit, that we should pass the buck to the Treasury and let them deal with Hoskin.”

  Harrelson grimaced. “For fuck’s sake, Hoskin can’t even spell ‘counterfeit.’ Had to get the money from someplace though, so…” He thought for a moment. “Where’d this piece of street theater happen?”

  “Havilland, right outside the sporting goods, outdoor gear place. You know the one? Carson’s?”

  “Just down from the antique bookstore on the corner,” said Harrelson, the sense of a lot of shit flying toward a really big fan growing in him. “Yeah, I know the one.”

  Chapter 13

  PROPERTY RETURNED

  Torsten Lukas made a small jump of surprise when he realized there was a car following him as he walked the sidewalk. The atmosphere at the laboratory the previous day had been strange, and he had found himself becoming unaccountably anxious.

  He was momentarily relieved, then angered to see it was being driven by Dan Carter. He looked quickly around, then bent to the lowering driver’s window as Carter pulled up alongside him.

  “What are you doing? We can’t be seen together! If Giehl sees—”

  Carter glowered back. “We work together, Doctor. Remember? I’m just giving you a friendly lift. Get in.” The tone in which he said “friendly” was not even close to friendly and Lukas walked around to the passenger door with misgivings.

  Once he was inside and before he’d had a chance to fasten his seat belt, Carter was already out in traffic. “Two nights ago, I broke into that”—he swallowed the desire to add “fucking”—“detector at two in the morning.”

  Torsten’s antipathy evaporated. “You did it, Mr. Carter?” He looked around for a manila envelope stuffed with incriminating pictures. Unfortunately, it didn’t exist. “You took pictures of the boards?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Lukas started to say something, but Carter talked over him. “Two reasons, both doozies.” Lukas frowned at the unfamiliar term, but Carter wasn’t in the mood to explain it. “Reason one. Your pal Dr. Giehl just happened to turn up a few minutes after the detector was opened. I had to bullshit her a little bit.” Lukas was frowning again, and this time Carter did explain. “I lied to her. She thinks I’m a U.S. agent for a suboffice within the OSS made up of deniable assets. Long story short, she thinks I’m OSS, okay?”

  “She went into the laboratory? At 2:00 a.m.?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s … Did she say why?”

  “Some stuff about having left some work there that she needed. That was bullshit, too. I don’t know how, but she knew I’d opened the case. Which kind of leads me to the second reason why I didn’t get any pictures when I opened the detector.” He paused long enough for Lukas to glance inquiringly at him. “There was a bomb inside it.”

  He returned Lukas’s glance at that moment, and saw something he’d been kind of hoping not to see. Utter confusion. Either Lukas was a brilliant actor, or he truly knew nothing about it.

  “A bomb? A bomb like—”

  “In like boom. Yeah. Nothing to do with you?”

  “No!”

  Carter was glad he’d caught Lukas’s expression when he thought he wasn’t observed, because the denial was the kind of bluster both the innocent and the guilty roll out.

  “Well, I’m pretty sure Giehl didn’t put it there, although she was pretty handy at defusing it. I’m also pretty sure she’s Abwehr.”

  Lukas was quiet for a moment, trying to take it all in. “Abwehr,” he said finally. He followed it with a few heartfelt words of muttered German. “Those stupid bastards. We’re just tripping over one another. You’re sure?”

  “Well, she didn’t have a spy badge or a decoder ring or anything like that, but I’m making a guess. She’s had field training from somewhere.” He didn’t need to add that this was unlike Lukas, who’d been let loose by the Gestapo after a cup of coffee and a pep talk. His abrupt look away showed he was already thinking that himself.

  “You’re sure she didn’t plant the bomb?” said Lukas. “To protect that damned machine?”

  “It wasn’t an antitamper device, Doctor. It was wired to the power unit. It was meant to kill Dr. Giehl. Maybe even all of you; it was a good-sized bundle of dynamite. With all the shrapnel from the detector’s case, anyone in the lab would’ve been lucky to get out alive.”

  Lukas shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense. I didn’t do it, you didn’t do it, she didn’t do it. So who did? Who would want to close the project down that much?”

  Carter had no idea. “Scientists don’t try to blow up rival scientists, do they?”

  Lukas shook his head. “No. Scientists carry out their assassinations in scientific journals. The worst thing you can do to a scientist is destroy his credibility. Blowing him up is … inelegant. And dynamite, you say? Using commercial explosives would just be unprofessional. Anyone with laboratory training, and access, and any sense at all would make their own explosives. Why risk discovery by getting them from elsewhere? I will say it again, Mr. Carter. This does not make sense.”

  * * *

  Harrelson felt like a turd in a ballroom. The reception foyer was gleaming with polished marble and art deco glass and steel, and there he was, waiting on a chair that was better than him and knew it. He had a feeling the woman at the front desk with whom he’d spoken took home a bigger paycheck than him, too. Occasionally she would glance over at him and smile, but it was the kind of smile reserved for waifs and strays. Harrelson had rarely felt more out of place, sitting there in his cheap suit with a plastic store bag on his lap.

  It was a relief when he was finally told he could go up and was directed to an elevator. The relief evaporated when he discovered it contained an elderly man in a bellboy uniform who operated the controls.

  “Uh, top floor, please,” said Harrelson, suddenly realizing how much he liked pressing elevator buttons.

  “Top office floor, sir,” said the man with a genial cackle of laughter underpinning his words. Harrelson feared the guy might give him candy and tell him about the old days. “The shaft doesn’t go all the way to the top of the building, you see.”

  “Oh?” Harrelson watched the floor indicator progress too slowly for his liking.

  “No, sir. The top floor is a penthouse suite. The elevator doesn’t go there for security reasons.”

  The emphasis on “security” was as if Harrelson might think of several others and the elevator guy just wanted to nip those kinds of silly ideas right in the bud. Harrels
on realized he was supposed to say something.

  “Penthouse, huh? The boss’s?”

  “Indeed so, and his father’s before him, and his father’s before him. A true family company. So rare these days.”

  The elevator finally arrived and Harrelson had to fight not to say, “So long, Pops,” as he exited, making do with “Thanks.” A young man was waiting for him and took him through the busy office down a long corridor to a dark wooden door set in a dark wooden frame. The whole place felt like some sort of throwback, as if the nineteen twenties had got its hands on computers and assimilated them somehow.

  The corridor opened out into a small desk area before the doors, and at it sat a middle-aged woman with a view clean down the corridor. She had the air of a guardian rather than a personal assistant, but she accepted the nod the man with Harrelson gave when they were still thirty feet away, spoke briefly and quietly on the intercom, then rose to be at the door by the time Harrelson arrived. She swung the door open and ushered him through. “Ten minutes, Detective,” she said in a low voice as he went by, and he realized she was the woman he’d spoken to when he’d called ahead. She’d been very specific about how long her busy employer could spare.

  The inner office felt like even more of a throwback than what he’d already seen. Paneled walls, a large desk that couldn’t be less than a century old, and—tellingly—no computer on it, just a big old-fashioned blotter, a neat stack of papers off to one side, and an inkstand that looked as old as the desk. Standing beside the desk, as if posing for a picture, was its owner. The man smiled and held out his hand.

  “Detective Harrelson. A pleasure to meet you.”

  Harrelson approached, aware of the door clicking shut behind him, and shook the man’s hand. It was a firm handshake. Almost too firm, like shaking the hand of a waxwork.

  “Mutual, Mr. Weston,” said Harrelson.

  Henry Weston ushered Harrelson into the chair before the desk, and started to walk back around to his own. “I would offer you a drink, Detective, but as you can see, I’m presently very busy indeed.” Harrelson looked at the neat stack of papers set out on the desk like a museum exhibit, and didn’t trust himself to reply.

  Weston suddenly stopped. “No, I shan’t sit there. It will look like some sort of job interview, won’t it, with this great piece of wood in the way?” Then, to Harrelson’s distinct and ineffable horror, Weston perched on the corner of the desk like a school counselor. He guessed that he managed to keep that sensation off his face, because Weston smiled as happily as if he’d just conquered Everest.

  “Now, Detective,” he said, smiling sweetly down from on high, “how can I help you? Your telephone call was vague.”

  Harrelson wondered how he knew that. It was true—he had deliberately steered around his reason for coming by talking about ongoing police investigations and Weston maybe being able to help out in some kind of peripheral way. Had his assistant reported it to him like that, or had she recorded the call? Had Weston listened in on the call? Maybe he had; the request for an interview had been okayed there and then. That hadn’t bothered him too much at the time, but now, having seen what kind of operation Weston Edmunds was, it nagged at him. As if having the richest man he’d ever met sitting on the edge of a desk an arm’s length away, grinning at him, wasn’t awkward enough.

  “I was wondering if you could look at something for me, sir.” Harrelson opened the plastic bag and took out its contents. He held it up for Weston to see. “Do you recognize this hat?”

  If he was expecting Weston to act suspiciously or evasively, he was disappointed. In fact, Weston did the thing that was at the bottom of his list of expectations. “Why, yes!” He took the hat from Harrelson without asking, and examined it with obvious delight. “Wherever did you find it?”

  “It was recovered from a crime scene, sir.” That was only true if you really stretched the definition of “crime,” but Harrelson didn’t mind that. “I was wondering if you might have any idea how it got there.”

  Anyone else might have been put on their guard by a line like that, but Weston continued to toy with the hat, a slightly whimsical smile on his face as he looked inside the crown as if expecting to find Narnia in there. “Not much of a crime if you’re returning this to me, Detective. And that”—he nodded at the plastic shopping bag—“doesn’t look like an evidence bag to me.” He turned the smile upon Harrelson. “I am a lawyer, you know.”

  Harrelson knew better than to argue the point. “Yeah, but we still have to collate evidence before it gets kicked over to the Feds.”

  He was almost surprised when his words had the first palpable effect he’d yet seen with Weston. The smile dialed down a little on the attorney’s face, maybe by 10 percent, and he canted his head around to look at his visitor. “The Feds?” The term should have sounded comical coming from a man like Weston, but it did not.

  “Yeah, the Treasury might be getting involved. We collared a guy who’d mugged somebody and got a wad of interesting money off him.”

  “Not forged.” The way Weston said it, Harrelson couldn’t make out if it was a question or a statement.

  “I can’t comment on that, sir, but something fishy’s going on. We’ll be glad to hand it off to the Treasury, to be honest. We’re busy enough. But, we have to put together a full file before their agents turn up. So”—he pointed at the hat—“your hat was found near to where this mugging took place. It’s an expensive piece of head wear, sir, made to measure. I went to the makers, and they gave me your name.”

  “Did they?” Another 10 percent flickered out.

  “They did after I showed them the warrant, Mr. Weston.” This was a lie; he’d given them some soft bullshit about returning the hat to its rightful owner. He’d wandered in, told them he happened to be in the neighborhood, and he just wanted to give the thing back as it was obviously an expensive chapeau. If they hadn’t, he’d have chased a warrant, although he had doubts he’d have gotten it. “After all, there’s potential currency crime here. It’s serious stuff.”

  He looked at Weston and found it strange that the man had so little body language. Apart from that smile, which seemed attached to a rheostat, he gave nothing away. Harrelson decided he would just have to gauge when to throw the man a rope by gut feeling, and his gut said the moment was now. “I was wondering if maybe you saw something.”

  That’s right, bub. I’m not after you. Cheer up and let your mouth run off.

  Weston didn’t react for almost two seconds, then the smile recovered 10 percent of its luminescence. “I don’t see how, Detective. The hat wasn’t taken from me. I simply forgot I had taken it out with me and left it in a coffee shop. Cappella, two blocks from here.” He pointed eastward and slightly downward. Harrelson wondered how accurately he was pointing at the coffee shop, invisible from the desk. “It must be three days ago now.”

  “You weren’t mugged?”

  “I think I would have remembered that, and reported it.”

  “This joker got nineteen hundred bucks from somewhere, and it wasn’t through hard work, sir.”

  “Have you tried asking him where he got it from?”

  Harrelson decided not to tell Weston that Billy Hoskin wasn’t being very coherent at the moment, raving about monsters, men with empty heads, and a weird obsession with fruit. “The suspect is being uncooperative.”

  “Ah, the criminal mind. Its first instinct is to deny everything. Perhaps when he passes through this state of denial and understands his situation properly, he will be more forthcoming.”

  Harrelson knew a brick wall when he saw one. He rose from his chair. “Maybe so. Sorry to have wasted your time, Mr. Weston.”

  Weston slipped easily from the edge of the desk back to his feet. “Oh, not at all. It has been an interesting moment in an otherwise humdrum day. And I got my hat back.” He looked pensively at it. “Do you want it back for evidence?”

  After he had found it in the alley Hoskin had been seen running from, t
he hat had made the trip back to the precinct in an evidence bag, where a friendly CSU had used tape to lift hairs and potential DNA evidence from inside the crown. There was no case, exactly, and Harrelson had decided to run fast and loose with things after he’d realized how close the incident had occurred to the Carter & Lovecraft bookstore. His captain would’ve laughed in his face if he’d tried to explain, so he didn’t try. This would all have to be his hobby for the time being. So, he’d transferred the hat from the evidence bag to a plastic shopping bag in the hope of not spooking Weston, and here he was.

  “No, sir. Looks like it has nothing to do with the mugging.”

  After Harrelson had gone, Weston looked at the hat in silence for a long moment. In a sudden movement he brought it to his face and slowly inhaled the lower inside edge of the crown, where the hat met scalp. There were enough molecules to detect, but he only needed a few. There was something he identified as a hydrophilic molecule, already bonded to atmospheric water, and there was a stray molecule of ethylene oxide which, among other uses, was a denaturant used to scour materials of stray DNA contamination during manufacture. Putting the two together suggested the sort of tape used for lifting forensic evidence. Weston walked to the hat stand by the door and placed the hat carefully upon a hook. Already, he was thinking far, far ahead.

  Chapter 14

  LOST COUNTRIES

  The good news as far as Carter was concerned was that Lukas wanted to know what was going on more than ever and was prepared to pay a bonus on top of his usual retainer to keep Carter on the job. The bad news was exactly the same. He was of two minds whether he wanted to walk away or not. Defusing bombs and playing Piggy-in-the-Middle between arms of Nazi intelligence and security seemed like a potentially dangerous place to be. Weighing against that was the money, his curiosity, and the growing conviction that the weirdness about the case that didn’t involve bundles of dynamite instead somehow involved the Fold. He hadn’t forgotten the ghost he’d seen—he’d have given good money to be able to—and he wanted to, needed to know what significance it had, if any. He had seen it, it had seen him, it had challenged him. Carter couldn’t ever remember a campfire ghost story finishing with the teller—flashlight under chin—saying, “And the ghost said, ‘Who the fuck are you?’”