The Stein & Candle Detective Agency, Vol. 1: American Nightmares (The Stein & Candle Detective Agency #1)

by Michael Panush

  Selena straightened up. Her sobs ended. I felt a spark of admiration for her. She was an ordinary American student – worried about grades, and boys and clothes and all the mundane things that a college girl should be worried about. She hadn’t been through any war, hadn’t seen the scum that clings to the underside of the country. But here she was, ready to face it all for her baby brother.

  “Let’s go,” she said, and we ran to the docks. I picked out a snow white motorboat and stepped inside. The octopus’s tentacle had been rough on my skin, and I felt trickles of blood on my collar. My vision was still blurry, and I wanted to close my eyes and pass out. But I gunned the engine instead, while Selena sat in the prow, and set off after Tanya and Weatherby.

  The engine rumbled and started speeding forward. The water went white behind us as we shot out over the moonlit bay. I kept my eyes forward, on the cherry red speedboat Tanya had taken. Like I expected, she wasn’t good at managing the boat. I gained distance quickly. The shotgun rested in the middle of the speedboat, and I pulled out one of my automatics. She had Weatherby, and that gave her all the cards. I had nothing up my sleeve but a cold .45.

  We got close enough, and I could see them. Weatherby sat at the end of the boat, the luger held to his chin. Tanya was working the motor, but her boat was wiggling its nose back and forth, rocking in the waves. I swung our boat nearby.

  “Get Weatherby,” I told. “I’ll keep Tanya busy. Kill her if I have to. Don’t bother flapping your gums and telling me not to.”

  “No,” Selena said. “I understand the severity of the situation.”

  “Swell.” I gunned the motor for everything it had. The burst of speed sent us sliding alongside Tanya’s boat. I swung the pistol to reach her, but she fired first. I ducked low, hearing the shell whine over my head, and splash into the ocean behind me.

  While we exchanged gunfire, Selena crawled into Tanya’s boat, reaching out for Weatherby with a cautious hand. Tanya was glaring at me, a hellcat snarl on her fine features. She wasn’t paying any attention at all to Weatherby and Selena. The boy grabbed for his sister’s arm, his fingers inches away from her. For a few seconds, I thought everything would be okay.

  Then something massive erupted from the underside of Tanya’s boat. A gray snout broke through the wood, sending splinters flying through the air. The snout opened, revealing rows of curved teeth. It was a shark, bigger than I knew they could be, and it wasn’t alone.

  More shark fins cut through the water all around us. They started ramming the boats, rearing up to take massive chomping bites out of the air. I saw Selena and Weatherby go into the water, and struggled to find them in the white ocean. Tanya was still intent on killing me. She fired over my shoulder, and then stood up.

  “I’ll feed you to these fishes!” she cried, and took careful aim. I fired first, planting one in her shoulder and knocking her back. She looked up at me, the pistol falling from her hand and sinking in the water. Tanya slumped on the railing of her sinking motorboat.

  Then I spotted Weatherby and Selena. The Stein kids were in the water, Selena paddling swiftly towards our boat. A shark was coming up behind them, the large gray fin cutting through the water like a knife, then getting bigger as the head and jaws emerged.

  I grabbed Tanya’s arm and pulled her close. Her blood trickled into the water. That got the sharks interested. She realized what I was going to do and started to protest.

  “No!” she cried. “Morton! Come on – we had something, back in that bedroom! Please!”

  “Tell it to the sharks,” I replied, and tossed her in, right in front of the shark going after Weatherby and Selena. It opened its mouth and ploughed into her. The dark waters went scarlet. Tanya was thrashing around, the others sharks swimming in to get their fill.

  I turned away, and helped Selena and Weatherby aboard. They didn’t look behind them, too focused on swimming forward to safety. I was glad of that. I didn’t want them to see what I did. I got them aboard and then grabbed the engine, turning the boat around. A shark came after us, reaching out of the water with its mouth open. I grabbed the shotgun with one hand and fired, sending the shark back into the sea.

  Selena held tightly to Weatherby, wrapping her arms around his thin shoulders. They were both drenched to the bone, but alive and unharmed. “You guys okay?” I asked.

  “Oh yes,” Weatherby agreed, smiling at Selena. “Everything is just fine.”

  I sped back to shore. Fancy Freddy Flynn and his gang, Carla Pepperdine, a couple of cops, and a few others – including Big Joe Lono – were there waiting for us. Mrs. Pepperdine waited until I helped Selena and Weatherby into the sand and they got themselves some warm beach blankets before asking her questions.

  “Tanya’s the killer,” I said. “Though murder by tiki isn’t exactly a punishable crime. Still, I think she found a little justice.” I looked straight at Big Joe Lono. “You know anything about it, pal?”

  He shrugged, fingering the pearl necklace on his wrist. “We had our disagreements. She stole some of my charms. I stole her necklace, letting me set my spells on her. The sharks did the rest.” He pulled off the necklace and tossed it into the ocean. “Sleep well, pretty haole!” he called. “I hope the sharks found you tasty!”

  Fancy Freddy Flynn faced me. “And the dough?” he asked.

  “Under the water – or in a shark’s belly,” I said. I shrugged. “Nothing I could do about it.”

  “You cost me a lot of dough, and a lot of pain,” Flynn muttered. His nose was bleeding again, and I had given his black eye a brother.

  “Gee, I’m sorry,” I muttered. “You want to do something about it?” He backed down, soon as I balled my hands into fists.

  Mrs. Pepperdine approached me as Fancy Freddy Flynn stormed off. “I’m not quite sure what happened out there,” she said. “But I’m satisfied. My husband’s killer met justice. I’ll have your payment in the morning.” She looked at Weatherby’s Hawaiian shirt. It was drenched in sea water, and even a little blood. “Don’t worry, son,” she said. “Those clean up nicely.”

  She headed back to her office. I joined Selena and Weatherby as we walked down the beach. “So, would you fellows like to spend more time with me?” Selena asked. “You can stay with me in my place in the city. It’s very small, but we’ll manage. I’ll go over my per diem from the university, but I can find a way around it, and when my studies are over, Weatherby can come back to me, and live in my dorm and…” she trailed off. “I’ll find some way. I could get another job…”

  “No.” Weatherby’s voice was quiet and had a slight tremor to it. He shivered as he took her hand. “I’m the man of the house. The patriarch of the Stein family. And I couldn’t stand to burden you, not now. I’ll keep sending you money from our cases. I’ll take care of you. I won’t have it any other way.”

  I kind of suspected Weatherby sent away good portions of the cash he made, but this was the first time I fully realized that it was going to his sister. The events of the war had changed him for good. He couldn’t go back to being a child, even if wanted to.

  Selena knew this, and I saw tears suddenly appear in her eyes. She knew he couldn’t stand to live with her, and his childhood was long gone. I reached out and took her hand. “I’ll take care of him,” I said. “I swear on my soul, I’ll take care of him. And no matter what, you’ll always be his big sister.”

  “And he’ll always be my baby brother,” Selena repeated, blinking away her tears. She held Weatherby close to her as we walked back up the beach.

  awaits, with more chills, thrills, and zombie noir action!

  Rats were underfoot on Van Wessel Street. Clayton Cane saw them scurrying under the pushcarts and market stalls which crowded the narrow main street of the poor New York neighborhood. The rats darted from cover to cover, moving like squeaking black shadows into gutters, alleys and the open doors of towering steel gray tenements. They ran under the hooves of horses pulling along carriages and wagons and the feet of pe
destrians in the packed street. Cane saw a pair of rats racing over the sleeping form of ragged homeless man curled up in a stone corner, their claws pattering across his frayed trousers and worn coat. The vagrant slept on, remaining motionless as a corpse even when the rats passed over his face on their way to some rodent destination.

  Cane stood out in Van Wessel Street. He was a man of the high plains, a gunslinger, bounty hunter and mercenary of the harsh Western territories. In the cluttered neighborhoods and warren-like alleys of New York City, he was as out of place as a donkey in church. But even in the West, he still would be an odd sight. He was a broad-shouldered, bulky man, standing a head taller than most. A worn duster and broad-brimmed hat rested comfortably on him, just like the twin revolvers on his waist and the shotgun and lever-action rifle crossed on slings over his shoulders.

  But it was his face that received the most attention. It was a mass of scars and crisscrossing lines, surrounding two cold eyes of different colors. The patches of skin on his face had varying shades, giving his face the look of a patchwork quilt. It was this face that had earned him a feared nickname in the bloody border country where he plied his grim trade. They called him El Mosaico.

  The residents of Van Wessel Street stared at Cane as he walked to the end of the block. Street vendors ended their loud, multi-lingual calls. A couple of children playing before one of the tenement stoops stopped their game and looked up at him. Cane glared right back and kept on trudging across the battered cobblestones. He had somewhere to be.

  He reached his destination at the end of the block – the ornate, palatial political club known as Algonquin Hall. It seemed more like a Greek temple than an American building, complete with marble pillars and a screeching brass eagle poised above the door. Two armed guards, policemen in blue double-breasted coats and peaked caps stood guard near the stairwell. There were no rats on the marble steps.

  “I’m Clayton Cane.” Cane nodded to the policemen. “I was sent for.”

  They exchanged a glance. One of the cops, a fellow with a walrus moustache growing gray, nodded to him and led him inside. There were more policemen on the other side of the doors and then a long marble hallway. Cane walked along, looking at the big oil paintings of past Algonquin Hall leaders. They all sneered down at him from their places along the wall, like they were pleased to be hanging up while he walked alone through the world.

  The office was at the end of the hall. The policeman opened the door, and let Cane slip inside. Cane stared around in surprise. It looked like a drawing room from some old money mansion, complete with a red velvet carpet and cushioned couches set evenly around the room. A suit of armor rested in one corner, while a fully stocked liquor cabinet sat in the other. There was a mounted bear’s head snarling down from the far wall.

  Three men stood in the room, all richly dressed. The plumpest of them walked over to Cane, cigar smoldering in his hand. “Clayton Cane!” he cried. “My Stars, it can be no other! It is grand to see you, Mr. Cane – simply grand!” He held out his hand. “The name’s Claudius Varrick. I’m Honorable Chief of the Algonquin Hall. I’m the fellow who sent the telegram – and I’m awfully glad you answered it.”

  Claudius Varrick was comfortably fat and his face nestled in the folds of his neck like a pampered dog in a carefully prepared cushion. He had thinning gray hair and a thick moustache and goatee, his fashionably checkered suit, striped tie and gilded waistcoat marking him as a moneyed man. “Now, I’d like to introduce you to some of the other leading citizens of the humble Van Wessel Street community.” He extended his hand to a tall, hawk-faced man in a somber black suit. “This is Barnabas Talbot, a local businessman.”

  Barnabas Talbot had very dark hair, coated in pomade. His lacy cravat was knotted around his throat in a garish bow. “I own all the boarding establishments on the street,” he explained, his voice a low growl. “And several factories and garment shops, which employ the local population.” Talbot tucked his hands into the pockets of his morning coat. “And I am very glad that you have arrived.”

  Cane could imagine the kind of businesses Talbot ran — sweatshops, doubtlessly, where the poor immigrants slaved away in miserable conditions for a pittance that would all go into rent at his tenement buildings. He nodded back to Talbot and said nothing.

  Varrick continued his introductions. “And this gentleman is Lionel McCall.” He pointed to a rough sort of fellow, with a bruiser’s red face below curled chestnut hair. McCall wore a garish canary yellow suit, a tall top hat tucked under his arm, and a diamond stickpin on his coat. He seemed like a bulldog, tricked into fine clothes. He had a long carving knife thrust through his sash.

  “It is a rare pleasure, sir!” McCall had a harsh Irishman’s accent. “A rare pleasure indeed!”

  “And what’s your job?” Cane asked, as he shook McCall’s hand.

  McCall grinned. “Ah, I’m a regular pillar of the community, sir. I do all manner of fine things for the good people here. Arbitrate disputes. Pursue various ventures. Run a few gambling games here and there – which Mr. Varrick is good enough to overlook, in return for a fair cut of the profits.”

  So McCall ran the gangs on Van Wessel Street. With Varrick serving a political boss and Talbot managing the businesses, the three of them controlled just about everything. They were powerful men, with the law and the gangs on their side. Why had they asked Cane for help?

  “Your telegram didn’t say why you was hiring me on,” Cane replied, settling uneasily into one of the cushioned couches. “I’m mighty curious.”

  “Of course.” Varrick stabbed his cigar back into his mouth. “Mr. Cane, we have hired you to deal with a great infestation of rats, which has swept across Van Wessel Street and do not seem to have any sign of abating. These rats have ruined local merchants, devoured untended food and will certainly spread disease and filth if left unchecked.” He removed his cigar and let out a long puff of smoke. “And I do care deeply for the well-being of my constituents.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cane replied. “Rats.”

  “The rodents have gnawed through the mechanisms of my factories,” Talbot muttered. “The cost for repairs – and the slow in business – is quite the concern.”

  “Not to mention what they done to my dice games,” McCall added. “I like a good rat baiting as much as the next fellow, and the betting there is a wonderful thing to behold, but you can only hold so many of the events before the market is glutted. And Mr. Cane, the market is thoroughly glutted, with no sign of the rats going away or being killed off. All in all, these rats are ruining our business. We need them—”

  “I don’t kill rats,” Cane interrupted McCall. “I kill men.”

  “Well, that matter is open to discussion.” Varrick’s puffy face split in a knowing grin. “You see, the United States government has quite the large amount of information about you, Mr. Cane – and your past. You are a creature of the supernatural, who was not built, but made.” He leaned back in his seat. “It was during the Civil War, was it not? A mad Confederate plantation owner decided to end his country’s lack of manpower by building new men from the remains of corpses, then animating them with dark magic. A little Voodoo from his slaves, a little insane science and some European black magic – and you were the result. Luckily, you escaped his clutches before he could turn you into a loyal servant of Jefferson Davis. Is that not correct?”

  Cane glared at Varrick. His eyes went narrow and cold. “Yeah.” His voice was half groan and half breath. “It’s correct.”

  “You understand the supernatural – and that’s what is behind these swarms of rats,” Varrick explained. “We are utterly certain of that fact.”

  “Indeed!” McCall snapped his knee. “We’ve hired every earthly means of dealing with the pests – exterminators, rat catchers, scientists with chemicals and strange weapons that make my alehouses stink to high heaven – and none of them have worked. And there’s something else too. The wretched rats only bother businesses, properties and
establishments owned by us. They’ll never bother the sleeping greasers in their tenements, or munch on fruit from some Greek fool’s stall.” He sighed. “We’re at our wit’s end, sir. We truly are.”

  “I figured as much.” Cane came to his feet. “And the sum you mentioned in the telegram is still what I’ll be paid?”

  “The proper payment,” Varrick answered. “For a proper job.” He looked back at the iron safe in the corner. “And rest assured, we do have the funds.”

  “I didn’t doubt it,” Cane agreed. He looked out one of the glass window, back at the filthy streets and alleys. “There any place where I can find the rats?”

  “The sewers,” Talbot replied. “That’s how they get around. They scurry about in the filth and refuse in which the people of this street reside, darting away to avoid our every effort to destroy them. Go in there, find out what kind of ghost or ghoul is behind this plague, and destroy it with impunity. Talk to the officer outside. He will see you are directed properly and provisioned.” He folded his arms. “And do it quickly, Mr. Cane. Money is wasting.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t want that.” Cane touched the brim of his hat. “Let me go and survey the situation. I’ll see what I find.” His eyes darted back to the safe. “And y’all keep that money safe now until I come to claim it.”

  Varrick smiled. “Don’t worry, sir,” he called, as Cane pushed his way through the door. “We fully intend to!”

  A quick questioning of the policeman outside pointed Cane in the direction of the nearest manhole cover, which would lead into the sewers. The cop also gave him a few supplies, which Cane was grateful for. Sewers weren’t his usual surroundings.

  He entered the street once again, forcing his way through the crowd. His eyes lingered on the neighborhood’s residents and their ragged clothes, thin frames and dark hair, as foreign languages mixed with English filtered into his ears. Some of them lived in the street, others in the crowded tenements. All of them cleared out of Cane’s way.