by Nick Mamatas
He said it again. “Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the bookman’s term for the practice of man-skin book-binding.”
“Human skin,” R.G. said.
“There are three volumes here in town, at Brown Unversity,” Hiram continued. “An anatomy textbook from the sixteenth century—two copies of Danse Macabre, though German not French, so perhaps I should just say The Dance of Death—”
“Like in that Swedish movie?” the hotel employee called out.
“Yes!” Hiram said brightly. “Wer war der Tor, wer der Weise, Wer der Bettler oder Kaiser? Ob arm, ob reich, im Tode gleich.” He twisted his neck to look around Norman, at Colleen, nearly knocking over his book display in the process. “Are you familiar with your mother tongue, Ms. Danzig?”
“Let’s pretend that I’m not,” Colleen said.
“Who was the fool, who was the wise, who was the beggar and who was the Kaiser? Rich or poor, both equal in death,” Hiram said.
“And that brings us back to the topic of women in the Lovecraftian scene,” R.G. said. She grabbed the mic from its stand and stood up with it. “This panel is, or should be, about equality.”
“Hey, don’t hog the mic!” Norman shouted. “Equality should mean equal time for men and for women, right?”
“How about some time for me!” Chloe leaned over to speak into the other mic on the table, nudging Colleen out of the way. “I’m the moderator!”
“Well, you don’t seem very moderate,” Chandler said.
A police officer in the back stood up and raised her hand. When the panelists ignored her, she shouted in a gym-teacher tenor, “Question!”
Everyone stopped. Colleen nodded and pointed and said, “Go ahead, so long as it is a question and not one of those more-of-a-comment-than-a-question questions.” The other panelists giggled at that.
“Would you say this, uh…behavior,” the officer asked, “is typical of how these roundtable panels operate at this convention?” She was serious enough to remove a pad and pencil from her belt, flip it open dramatically, and hold the pencil aloft, ready to record the answer.
“It’s typical of how this panel operates,” R.G. said.
“It’s basically the only panel I’m on every year,” Chloe said.
“I’m new,” Colleen said.
Norman threw up his hands. “We let them talk! This is supposed to be a debate.”
“No it’s not!” said all three women on the panel, as one.
Hiram Chandler moved one of his books out of the way and snaked his hand over to the mic before Norman. “We should apologize. There was a horrific crime here last night—an acquaintance to many of us was murdered—” Norman jabbed Hiram with his apple-sized elbow. The larger man in the audience grabbed his slim partner by the wrist and nearly pulled her out of her chair. They hustled down the aisle and out the door of the conference room as the police officer spoke again:
“Acquaintance. Not friend?”
R.G. and Chloe just shrugged. “I’m new,” Colleen said.
“I’m not talking about Panossian without a lawyer present,” Norman said, and with that he stood up and walked off to the conference room’s side entrance, avoiding the police officer. Hiram gathered up his books as best he could and waddled after Norman, muttering to himself.
The police officer walked to the front row, sat down, folded her arms, and said, “Okay, ladies. Women in the…mythic times, was it?”
“Mythos,” R.G. said, as Chloe’s mouth opened just a moment too late.
After the panel R.G. and Colleen headed over to the hotel bar, which had changed somehow. All the lights had been turned on, as if 4 p.m. was last call, and the blinds had been opened, affording a view of the hotel parking lot. It was less crowded than usual for the Tentacular, and much of the floor was dominated by one large man, a baby-faced fellow in a suit, peering at his phone. He smelled like a cop to Colleen. R.G. and Colleen quickly found a table and sat themselves.
“More police rules,” R.G. said. “They don’t want people congregating in dark corners.”
“Is this how murders in hotels usually work?” Colleen asked.
“Feels more like a psychological experiment than anything else, don’t you think? Are they going to keep us here past Sunday night? The hotel people wouldn’t like that, and half the nerds here are doubling and tripling up in the rooms—they can’t afford to stay. I can’t afford to stay! It’ll be a huge slumber party at Phantasia’s house, or Cob’s, if they don’t find the perp.”
“The perp,” Colleen repeated.
“I really do watch too much television,” R.G. said.
“We should…”
The idea hung in the air for a moment, unarticulated.
“…find the perp?” R.G. said.
Colleen nodded once, and R.G. laughed.
“Geez, Nancy Drew! How are we supposed to do that?”
“Make a list of Panossian’s enemies, narrow down who might have wanted his book—”
R.G. waved a hand. “Panossian didn’t have any enemies.” Then she stopped, peered at Colleen, and asked, “What book?”
“He didn’t have enemies? Nobody liked him; he was a fucking jerk. Nobody even seems sad that he’s dead. Hell, nobody seems surprised that he’s dead. And it wasn’t just some kind of mugging gone wrong. Muggers don’t tear off someone’s face.”
“Face?”
Colleen froze. Of course the police hadn’t made a general announcement. Some things were likely kept secret in the hope of tripping up the murderer. But they hadn’t told her not to tell anyone what she had seen in the morgue. Maybe the police secretly wanted her to spill the beans, and somehow that would flush out the killer.
“Panossian’s face was sliced off. I identified him by his clothes and stuff,” Colleen said. “The…underneath looked pretty much like you’d expect. It was weird. The eyes, it would be wrong to say that his eyes were ‘open’ because there was no closing them. They were…on display, I guess.”
“Jesus,” R.G. said. She made the sign of the cross, like a Catholic might. “I haven’t done that in years, but Jesus.” There was another silence, then she said, “Maybe it’s not him.”
“Well then, he’s the killer, right, and wearing his victim’s clothes. So where is he? But c’mon, R.G., it was him. Really. You can volunteer to corroborate his identity if you want. They haven’t buried him yet.”
“I know,” R.G. said. “It’s just so incomprehensible. So…” She licked her lips. “You mentioned a book.”
“Arkham.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you see it?”
“I didn’t want to look…” Colleen said. Then she realized that she had ended up seeing much worse. She shuddered. Worse would be coming. She could feel it in her spine, where the marrow just froze. She looked across the table at R.G. A stranger, friendlier than most, but wouldn’t that be the kind of person who could lure Panossian down a hallway and into a stairwell? A friendly face?
Not that R.G. would be able to get Arkham over the border.
“Who would want Arkham? That would be the way to find the killer.”
R.G. gestured widely, pointing to everyone. “Who wouldn’t?”
“Me! It’s gross,” Colleen said.
“Not to everyone,” R.G. said. She was talking quickly now, growing agitated. “Clearly not to someone who could also slice someone’s face off their skull. Can you fucking imagine? Did it happen after Panossian was dead, or when he was still alive—”
Colleen raised a hand, and had to fight to keep herself from clamping it over R.G.’s mouth. “Take it easy. I want to be able to think this through.”
“Tell the cops.”
“I did.”
“So why aren’t they searching the rooms?”
“Would you keep a prize like Arkham in your room after killing someone to get it?” Colleen asked.
“They should be CSI-ing this place like crazy!” R.G. said.
&nb
sp; Colleen shrugged. “It likely doesn’t work like it does on TV.”
“Wait,” R.G. said. “You said that someone killed Panossian to get the book—how do you know?”
“Well, I guess I was presuming,” Colleen said.
“Maybe the book was just a way to get Panossian alone, so he could be murdered. Panossian’s face was the prize, and the book not important at all. It could be in the bushes in the rear parking lot. Just because it’s valuable to most of the weirdoes here doesn’t mean it was valuable to the murderer.”
“But the killer could sell it, so wouldn’t he keep it for a while?”
“Who would he sell it to? A book collector who doesn’t mind framing himself for murder?”
“Or it could be a local,” Colleen said. “Just go home and hide the book there, or put it in a storage unit, or...”
“It’s a book. Even in a state as small and dumpy as Rhode Island, it’s easy to hide something the size of a book. Forget the book. If you want to figure out who did it, and God knows why you would, focus on the motive,” R.G. said.
Drinks came and they drank in silence. Then R.G. broke the silence. “Why?”
Colleen peered up at R.G., eyes focused, though the rest of her face gave way to confusion. “I...” She hesitated.
Then she began again. “Pulp fiction, baby,” Colleen said. She swallowed the rest of her gin and tonic in a gulp and slammed the glass down against the table. “If the Necronomicon were real, would you peek inside?”
“Oh come on, you didn’t even want to look at Arkham!”
“I know, and I regret it. I should have looked. I should have gone with Panossian. Maybe I could have saved him, or run away after seeing the killer’s face, or talked him out of it. Who knows what Panossian said to the guy. It’s just, you know, it’s strange,” Colleen said.
“I just want to know; that’s what it boils down to. I’ve been talking to these people for years, practically living with all of them in one big nerdy frat house for a day and a half, and someone here is a killer. I want to figure out who it is, because I want this to be meaningful somehow,” Colleen said. “It’s not some monster, it’s not some mad cultist under the influence of the Great Old Ones, it’s just a psychopath, right here, in this hotel. Hell, maybe right here in this bar. I can’t go on, pretending that this is a normal situation and attend panels and talk about how racist Lovecraft was, or how awful Clark Ashton Smith’s poetry was, or if the Internet means that photocopied fanzines are dead.”
Colleen folded her hands on her lap and then looked down at them. A moment later, she jerked up her chin and said, “Of course they’re dead!”
“Okay,” R.G. said. “And what will you do if you find yourself in some hallway, surrounded by murderers looking to take your face off?”
“I’m not like Panossian. I can take care of myself. The guy was a wreck; he couldn’t even pay his rent. He was easy pickins.”
“Now you sound like a predator,” R.G. said.
“Not a predator, but not prey either.”
R.G. asked, “So now what?”
Colleen wanted to confide in R.G., to tell her about the man in the shadows she had seen, but it wouldn’t be persuasive. She’d sound like a ninny, or a lunatic inserting herself in somebody else’s tragedy.
“Now,” Colleen said. “I’m going to lean on Chloe.” She stood up, turned on her heel, and started walking. Before R.G. could say anything, Colleen looked back over her shoulder and said, “I’ll pay you back for the drink!”
Cob and Phantasia were locals. R.G. had said so. It was a good enough place to start as any. Locals could hide the book at home, and then be back at the hotel in minutes. They were both also a head taller than Colleen, but Chloe, she was a bundle of twigs wrapped in a velour cape and just over five feet tall. She checked the program guide, and saw that Ms. Phantasia was on a panel called “Lovecraft: Queer or Just Weird?” Surely Chloe would be there as well.
Of course, so would some police officers, perhaps including the female officer that had intervened at the previous panel. Being a bully was harder than it looked. How did junior high school boys do it, how did they always manage to be in the right place to knock the book out of someone’s hands or to snap a bra strap? They’d just swoop in.
So Colleen waited. The carpeted hallways leading to the various conference rooms were largely empty except for a few loiterers looking at their cell phones, or sitting on the floor, backs to the wall, reading a book. If people had been keen to approach Colleen yesterday because she was new, and a woman, they gave her a wide berth now. Panossian’s murder was like a fog bank, obscuring her presence. These strangers didn’t dare make eye contact.
Of course, they never made much eye contact anyway.
If Chloe came out by herself, Colleen would sidle up and whisper in her ear, then lead her away. If Chloe came out trailing Ms. Phantasia, Colleen would have to act effusive and interested, and lure Chloe away for some “girl talk,” though Phantasia might still decide to tag along.
The panel hadn’t been that well-attended, and when it ended only a few people trickled out into the hallway. Chloe was among them, and she turned and trotted down the hall toward the restrooms. Colleen slid in behind her and matched Chloe footstep for footstep.
The women’s room was a great place for an ambush, as it was almost certainly going to be empty save for the two of them. Colleen smiled at the thought of surprising Chloe, of looming over the smaller woman in the mirror as she looked up from washing her face, but that didn’t happen. Chloe got to the door, opened it, turned around, and smiled as she held it open for Colleen. “Hey there,” she offered.
“Hey,” Colleen said. “Uhm, I’m just going to wash my hands.”
“Good…” Chloe was equally confused.
Colleen ran the water but didn’t wash her hands. She didn’t want slippery fingers. When Chloe opened the door to her stall, Colleen pivoted on the ball of her left foot and with the right slammed the door shut. She took a moment to admire her purple Doc Martens. “Hey!”
“What do you know about Panossian?” Colleen braced herself with both hands pressed against the sink shelf. Both arms behind her and one leg extended was not the best position in the world, but she didn’t think she’d have to hold it for very long.
“What? Let me out!” Chloe threw herself against the stall door but bounced right off.
“He was killed yesterday! What do you know? What have you heard?”
“I heard he was killed; we all did! They questioned everyone.”
“Tell me what you didn’t tell the police!”
“I didn’t tell the police anything!” Chloe said.
“Exactly!”
Chloe dropped to her knees, and slid under the stall to the next, and then the next. Colleen brought her leg down and rushed to meet Chloe. She managed to wiggle out from under the stall and onto the floor as Colleen met her. Chloe grabbed Colleen’s ankles, then wrapped her legs around Colleen’s legs. Colleen tried to kick, but lost her balance and fell backward. Chloe slithered atop Colleen, her tiny fists clenched.
“I’m gonna fuck you up,” Chloe said. Then she unclenched her right hand and showed off her long nails. Her own palm was bleeding. Colleen bucked hard, got a leg up, slammed her right calf into Chloe’s face, and sent her tumbling to the floor. Colleen went to grab Chloe’s wrists, but jerked back when Chloe swiped at her eyes.
“You crazy bitch,” Chloe shouted. “This place is crawling with cops! You killed Panossian!” She laughed, then sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils. Colleen jammed a thumb at her throat before she could scream for help, then sat on Chloe, using all her weight to pin the smaller woman.
“Where is the book?” Colleen whispered in Chloe’s ear. “Don’t try to fucking talk, just blink. Is the book in the hotel? Two blinks for yes, three blinks for no.”
Chloe’s face was bright red, and wet with sweat and tears. She blinked twice, then twice more, then sniffled and bli
nked again, squeezing her eyes shut hard and fluttering her eyelids.
“I’m just cryin’…” Chloe managed to choke out.
“Oh fuck,” Colleen said. She sat up, taking the pressure off Chloe’s neck and letting her inhale. “What the hell is wrong with me? I’m sorry. I just…”
Chloe eased her torso out from under Colleen and wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, leaving a black domino mask of runny mascara across her eyes. “Did you love him too?” she asked. “I mean, ever. I was over him. I’m over him.” She grabbed Colleen’s arms, squeezing her biceps, but it wasn’t an attack, it was an appeal.
Colleen thought to say Yes. Chloe would open up to her, confide her fears, spill the beans. Or was Yes the poison word that would turn Chloe’s blood black and send it boiling? She shifted her weight back onto Chloe’s shins.
“I…” Colleen started. The door opened. It was the police officer from the panel.
“Pick yourselves up, girls.”
They gingerly unwound their limbs from one another, like a pair of chastened lovers, and stood up. Chloe sniffled. Colleen looked at herself in the mirror. She was a fucking wreck. It was like looking at someone else entirely, something without a name.
“Let’s take a ride.”
9. He
Dying is like breaking a tooth and holding the white shards of it in your hand. It’s a done thing; the tooth will not grow back, you cannot glue it together yourself and squeeze it back into your gums. Everything that was going to happen with the tooth has already happened, and it carries all your errors—nighttime grinding, daytime Coca-Cola, cigarettes all day every day—right on its surface.
The difference is that sometimes you can die with a full set of teeth like my old Dede did. He always credited his fine dental and physical health to hard work and soft cheese, and swore by both pillars of his existence till the day he died of a stroke, instantly and painlessly (we were told) at the age of 102, in his own home, on his own couch, in front of The Price is Right, back when Bob Barker had dark hair. That’s as good as dying gets. Death, unlike bad teeth, cannot be avoided, but goddamn I didn’t want to die like this.