Carter & Lovecraft

by Jonathan L. Howard

  * * *

  Carter had driven up again to speak with the bank directly about Alfred Hill’s account, and dropped by at the store afterward. It started with general morning greetings and then, by means and diversions, Lovecraft turned the conversation as she wanted it to go and Carter fulfilled her hopes by—without explicitly being told—suddenly raising a cautioning hand to stop the talk, and said, “Am I understanding you properly? Are you telling me Kenneth Rothwell forced himself on you last night?”

  Lovecraft liked the olde worlde charm of “forced himself.” It was a phrase alive with the sound of ripping bodices.

  “Tried to,” she corrected him.

  Carter was stuck for the next adumbration. Giving up on diplomacy, he leaned closer over the counter and mouthed, Anally?

  She contented herself with just looking at him. Certain questions may be answered not by an affirmative, but by the absence of a negative.

  “The fuck,” said Carter with quiet venom.

  “So, I don’t know what to think. He’s never done anything like that. Always been the gentleman. Do I put this down to a one-off moment of freakiness that will never be repeated, or do I drop the bar on him right now before he gets out the gimp suit and tells me to put the lotion in the basket?”

  “When did I get to be your gay friend who helps you with your relationship problems?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You’re gay?”

  “No, but it’s usually part of the job description. You’re asking the wrong man, Emily. I didn’t like him on sight. I don’t like him, or his silver spoon, or his sense of entitlement. I’m bound to say you should dump him, because I think he’s the sort of man who deserves to die alone, hugging his money.”

  “Wow. Thank you, Dear Prudence.”

  Carter shrugged. “But if you want to know my professional opinion, it’s that there’s a fifty-fifty chance he’ll do it again. If it’s in him to do that once, then sometime he’s going to be drunk, angry, or both, and he’ll take it out on you. There you go. That’s my view.”

  Lovecraft was only half listening. “You know what? Him suddenly getting heavy like that wasn’t even the weirdest thing about his behavior. He was all kind of distracted and off and then, pretty much the last thing he said was ‘I’m going to win the election.’ He said it like a death sentence.”

  “It would be for Rhode Island if he got in.” Carter was still not in the mood for kindness. “He’s delusional. He’s not winning this election. It’s hardly a week away and he’s dying in the polls. Surprised his minders are letting him out of their sight, it being so close.”

  “He’s gotten good at shaking them off. I’m kind of surprised I’m still on his arm, to be honest. I know his people have been telling him to dump me since the campaign started. I always kind of thought this was a dry run for him anyway, just to put his face about. Like he needs to. Then he’d dump me, get some blond girl with nice teeth whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and do it for real the next time. Now he’s saying he’s going to win. Dan, I’ve got to tell you, that’s really out of character for him. He’s been going around in public saying he’s going to be a senator, but in private he’s never said a thing about what he’ll do when that happens. He’s just been talking as if he won’t win, and he expects not to win. What the hell changed?”

  Carter realized, way too late in the day for it to be any use, that perhaps he should have mentioned earlier that Colt had followed them that day when Rothwell came to pick her up. But now he told her, and she was predictably pissed with him.

  “Colt followed us?”

  “I tried to call you to warn you. I texted you.”

  “The fuck you did!” But she got out her phone and checked it. “There’s nothing here.”

  Carter checked his own phone. “Look at my call log. And…” He showed her the text telling her to watch her back because Colt was following them.

  She read the display, and looked at Carter. She seemed scared. “How can that happen?”

  “Just a glitch in the cell network. That kind of thing happens all the time.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” She shook her head. Her phone lay in her hand, a small traitor. “No, it doesn’t.”

  Chapter 22

  IN THE VAULT

  The next day Carter spent almost two hours aimlessly walking the streets, thinking through the possible consequences of what he was about to do. Finally convincing himself that it was impossible to predict and that he should brace himself for some bitter hindsight, he made the call.

  It rang three times before he was answered. “Hello,” said the male voice at the other end. “Who is this?”

  “This has to stop.”

  There was a pause. Carter couldn’t tell if it was surprise, shock, realization, but there was a pause. Then the voice on the phone said, “Hello, Dan.” If he was surprised, he hid it well. “This is big of you to call me. Is this a man-to-man chat? Are you telling me to stop or you’ll stop me with your bare hands, or something?”

  “You’re in danger. We all are. Every time you do what you do, things get broken a little bit more.”

  The voice laughed. “That’s it? You’re calling because of your personal concern for me? That’s sweet. Thanks. Let me ask you something. It’s for my mental health, so you’ll be helping me if you tell me the answer. I know you’re all about helping people, Dan. I’m just a hotbed of anxiety over this, you’ll really be helping. Just tell me. How did you get out of my house?”

  Carter said nothing.

  Perhaps provoked by the silence, the voice said, “The place was as tight as a drum. Tighter. Not a fly could get out, not a microbe, not a molecule of air. You’re bigger than all of those, Dan. How did you do it?”

  “You can’t expect me to tell you,” said Carter, avoiding the truth of his own ignorance.

  “No. No, I can’t. I must admit, it’s nice to have an archenemy. You’re the hero, of course. I’m Moriarty. No Reichenbach Falls this time, though. The villain wins.”

  “You think of yourself as the villain?”

  “Yes. Oh, Dan, the things I have done, none of which I’ll discuss on an open phone line. The … options I have. I don’t think you’ll be able to pull a stunt next time like you did in my house. I won’t give you the opportunity.”

  “If I’m such a pain in your ass, why did you pull me into this?”

  Another pause. “Are you fishing, Dan? I’m not sure what you’re fishing for if you are.”

  “The call I got from Belasco’s phone. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “I don’t need to pretend. I was nowhere near.”

  “You arranged it.”

  “You’re delusional.”

  Carter laughed, a harsh, derisive bark. “I’m delusional? I’m not the one who thinks he’s some sort of criminal mastermind.”

  “Just a mastermind. The criminality is collateral, and soon to be moot.”

  “Moot. Listen to you, like the bad guy in a cheap James Bond knockoff. I’ll say it again. You have to stop. You’re not as in control as you think you are. You’re not even the first to be doing what you’re doing.”

  Abrupt, guardedly curious: “What do you mean?”

  “I’m saying what you’re doing—The Twist, the Perceptual Twist, is that what you call it?—has been done before, and not so long ago. It didn’t end well.”

  “You’re flailing, Dan. That’s pretty weak tea.”

  “Martin Suydam. You hear of him? The Child-Catcher, yeah? I saw it there on his wall, the same pattern mapped out.”

  “Suydam?”

  “He saw what you saw, and committed suicide by cop to get away from it.”

  “Suydam.” The voice turned the name over. “Impossible.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Is your uniqueness fraying? Yes, you and a child killer have a lot in common. That must make you feel really good in yourself.”

  “I don’t know what you saw, but it has nothing to
do with what I’m doing.”

  “Denial. That’s sweet. Tell you what, why don’t you tell me where you are, and I’ll arrange to have some cop friends of mine come around and help you with your suicide, because that’s where this is all heading.”

  “How’s your little friend in the bookstore?”

  “She’s fine. She’s also irrelevant to you and me. Keep her out of things.”

  “Oh, you’re a protective one, Dan. And her with such a big important boyfriend, too. Is he treating her well? I hope so. He seemed okay when I spoke to him. A very sensible guy. Typical politician. Cunning rather than intelligent.”

  Carter’s face tightened, but he kept any new emotion from his voice. “You spoke to him?”

  “Oh, yes. You’ll be shocked to hear this, Dan, but when I showed him what I could do for his campaign, he was very, very impressed. He thinks I’m working for him now, but he’s got that the wrong way around, hasn’t he? Who would have thought it? A corruptible politician? I don’t think that can ever have happened before in the long history of American politics, do you, Dan?”

  Noise on the line.

  “What?” said Carter.

  “I said, there’s corruption, and then there’s corruption, of course.”

  A click, and the call ended.

  * * *

  Harrelson entered the not-cop bar, went to the rear, and paused when he saw Carter was not alone. He sat down beside Lovecraft, regarding her with open suspicion.

  “You didn’t say anything about any third parties,” he said to Carter.

  “Detective Harrelson, this is Emily Lovecraft, my business partner.”

  Harrelson frowned. “What? Like the writer guy?”

  Lovecraft nodded. “Just like the writer guy. You didn’t get me mixed up with Linda Lovelace, so kudos to you, Detective.”

  “I saw that Re-Animator movie. That was crazy.”

  “I didn’t write it.”

  “But you’ve seen it?”

  “Yes.”

  Harrelson nodded judgmentally. “That was crazy.”

  Carter had had enough of the impromptu film critics’ evening. “We know who killed Belasco.”

  “Yeah, the guy you told me about, William Colt. I know. The name kept turning up when I was interviewing. I checked his bank records and he was in Atlantic City not long before the pit boss died. What’s his name? Hayesman. Had a run-in with a guy who sounds a lot like Colt. So, yeah, if Belasco and Hayesman had been shot or poisoned or something a judge might recognize as murder, I’d be all over Colt like a rash. But they died like something out of a story a tabloid editor would blue pencil. Hard to make a case when no law’s been broken.”

  “The law’s been broken, Harrelson, believe me,” said Carter. “Just in new ways. And it’s going to get worse. Colt’s making a move into politics.”

  Harrelson looked askance at Carter. “He’s what?”

  “He has a Senate hopeful in his pocket.”

  “Ken Rothwell,” said Lovecraft with some reluctance.

  Harrelson laughed. “You got to be kidding? Rothwell won’t get within a mile of the Senate. ‘Hopeful’ is all he’s ever going to be.”

  “Yeah, I’d have agreed, until Colt got involved,” said Carter. “But him, I wouldn’t bet against anything Colt wants to influence. He has a way of rigging the game.”

  Harrelson grunted, thinking about what one of the floor staff at the Oceanic had said about the slot machines in their statement. “Holy fuck. Yeah, I see what you mean.”

  “There’s no point in using any phrase that includes the words ‘there’s no chance’ where Colt is involved. This is a man who, pretty much the first thing he did when he got this…”

  “Power?” offered Harrelson.

  “Ability. Pretty much the first thing he did was kill his professor for pissing him off a bit. He’s already raising his sights. I don’t want to know what the upper limit of what he will do is. I don’t even want to give him the chance to find out. I think…” He looked at Lovecraft, then Harrelson. “… we’re going to have to deal with this ourselves.”

  “Whoa.” Harrelson raised his hands as if to shield himself from the implication. “No, no, no. I ain’t going off the reservation for something like this.”

  “For something like this?” Carter was incredulous. “Then what—”

  “No, the man has a point,” said Lovecraft. She was looking unhappily at her empty glass. “It’s just a guy who can do real magic, and he wants to control the country, and he kills people for next to no reason. It’s not like it’s a big deal. Can I get a drink? That went too quickly.”

  “No such thing as magic,” said Harrelson.

  “Like fuck, there isn’t. The guy’s breaking mathematical laws, the very laws that govern creation. If that isn’t magic … Well, it is. It’s magic. That’s what magic is. And Voldemort in a button-down collar is going to get his way unless we stop him now, while he’s still an amateur.”

  Harrelson looked at her coldly. “You say ‘stop,’ but that ain’t what you mean.”

  “He’s killed twice, he tried to kill Dan—”

  “He what?”

  “—he isn’t suddenly going to grow some morals. Yeah, so by ‘stop,’ I mean ‘kill.’”

  “Maybe not,” Carter said quietly.

  “Dan,” said Lovecraft, “there’s no alternative. The man’s a sociopath. There’s something wrong in his head. You can’t fix him.”

  “I’m not talking about fixing him. I’m taking about stopping him without killing him. There’s a common factor here in everything he’s done. Maybe that’s his weakness.”

  Lovecraft frowned, then understood. “Waite Road.”

  “Waite Road?” said Harrelson. “The place out on that spit of land? What do you know about Waite Road?”

  Carter briefly described Colt’s visits, but didn’t mention his own experiences there, or how he had woken up on Waite’s Bill when he should have been dying in Colt’s house. He wasn’t even close to understanding that himself; he didn’t want to put it out there so others could scratch their heads and treat it as a curiosity.

  Harrelson sighed and said “Fuck” under his breath. He ordered more drinks and, when the bartender had gone, said, “Waite Road doesn’t have a great rep. When I was a rookie, the precinct used to haze us by sending us on a fool’s errand out there, just to freak us out. The Waites … Jesus, have you met any of them?”

  “One of the men,” said Carter. “I think there was something wrong with him.”

  “There’s something wrong with all of them, and not necessarily the same thing, either. The men are kind of dead behind the eyes, and the women … they’re way too alive behind the eyes. Few years ago I was passing the courthouse and one of the Waites was getting married. I recognized the groom, too. Petty crook, bad guy. There he was in a cheap suit looking like he was brain-damaged. Not smiling, hardly looking around, like he was dreaming it all. He falls clean off the radar after that. Rap sheet that kicked off in juvie, couldn’t keep out of trouble if it meant his life. And then, boom, he’s a solid citizen. Wish I could say it was the love of a good woman, but the bride scared me more than he did, and he’s six-three. She’s some little thing, maybe five-four, hardly more than a teenager. Good-looking, too. But, Jesus, I finish shaking the guy’s hand, trying to give him some bullshit speech about having responsibilities now, and he’s just looking at me like he doesn’t understand English anymore, and I turn around and she’s there, grinning at me, and it’s like a great white shark has snuck up on me, because, man, there was something scary about her. I forget all about how good-looking she was at a distance because, close up? My balls pretty much sucked up into my body.”

  “I like your friend, Dan,” said Lovecraft. “He’s graphic.”

  Harrelson ignored her. “You know how some guys just sweat trouble? You know they like hurting people, because you smell violence on them? Like, they stink of it? She did that, too, in spades. I wa
lked away. Straightaway, and I could hear her and the other Waite women laughing. The men? Not a peep. They just stood around like zombies.” He flinched at an unpleasant thought. “Hey … you don’t think—”

  “No,” said Carter. “Just because Colt and probably the Waites deal in weird shit doesn’t mean we start treating Famous Monsters of Filmland as a mug book. The Waite men are, I don’t know, wrong somehow, but they’re alive.”

  “Okay. Brass tacks. What exactly are we talking about doing? What is this hypothetical lawbreaking that I am absolutely not going to be involved in?”

  “We just need to know what it is about Waite Road that’s so important to whatever Colt’s doing.” Carter looked at Lovecraft. “Is it just because Randolph and H. P. L. did whatever they did there? Is that why it’s important?” Even as he said it, he knew he was being optimistic. That would have meant the site was reproducible, and they might be able to do whatever the fuck needed to be done wherever. But life rarely makes things easier.

  Lovecraft shook her head. “No. The place was important. The Waites owned it then, too, remember. It’s been their land before there was even a Providence to speak of. The record’s patchy. If H. P. L. wrote about it in detail—and if he didn’t, that’s not like him—whatever he wrote is long lost. Whatever Randolph did there, he did because it had to be done there. There’s something off about that spit of land. Probably why the Waite family claimed it in the first place.”

  “Okay. Back to Plan A, then.”

  Harrelson frowned. “I musta missed something. What Plan A? Hypothetical Plan A.”

  “The one where we go in like gangbusters and generally fuck the Waites up. Find whatever’s so important to Colt and take it or wreck it.”