“Now, see here, oh sinful one…what I have to say is—“
“Baloney, like I said,” Lash hissed. He stepped forward, bringing himself right up close to the cultist. “If you’re from Atlantis, I’m from the moon,” he began. “The style of those robes is more East Indian than anything and those headpieces are a big hodge-podge of nothing. Your own accent is either Quebecois or somewhere in Canada thereabouts.”
The man stepped backwards once again, but the detective kept pace with him.
“You say our alleged monster’s name is Negus? That either means he’s from Ethiopian royalty – which I highly doubt – or he’s a beverage made from a combination of wine, sugar, hot water, nutmeg and lemon. I think that’s highly questionable, too.”
“But—but, the sigil…!” said the man, his eyes roving about, taking in his surroundings and the police therein as if for the first time.
Lash reached out and grabbed the metal disc. “This symbol on it is simply the Hebrew letter shin upside down.” He gave the disc a quick tug and broke the cord that held it to the staff. “And ancient? No, not by half. It’s been made to look old with—“ He held it closer to his face, sniffed. “—muriatic acid? Or perhaps even urine.”
Al Cord stifled a chuckle; the look on the leader’s face was priceless. His people looked about ready to bolt in all directions.
“You shall pay for this, Lynn Lash,” said the man through clenched teeth. Before he could say anything more, the detective suddenly moved in closer to him, to the point that their noses almost touched.
The two men stood there, staring at each other. Lash flared his nostrils and the leader grimaced all the more. A moment passed, then the robed man turned on his heel and with his cult, slunk off down the sidewalk.
“Whew!” said Al Cord, clapping Lash on the back. “You’re a walking, talking library, pal!”
*****
Twelve hours later, they were walking along the docks, bundled against the October night air with eyes riveted on the river.
“The commissioner wasn’t too happy with me,” explained Lynn Lash, “but I convinced him I could juggle both cases. Besides, we seem to be up against a brick wall with the disappearances…”
Al Cord considered that. He himself had long felt that a bit of fresh air did wonders for the old cognitive functions and, though he realized the seriousness of his friend’s consultations with the police, he was glad to have him along on the vigil. Maybe together, they’d scare up a monster.
“Pretty ham-fisted little play-acting back there at that brownstone, eh? I mean, what was that all about? What a waste of time.”
“No,” replied Lash, looking out over the Hudson. “No, it was valuable in its own right, Al.”
Cord stopped, stared at the detective. “What? Really? How?”
“You remember that I said there was an elusive scent at the scene of the young woman’s abduction? Something exotic, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on?”
This elicited a nod of assent from his friend.
“That man, that ‘cult leader,’ had it on him,” Lash continued. “At the very least, he’d been rubbing elbows with the kidnappers.”
The reporter whistled in appreciation of Lash’s abilities. “You’re having him tailed then, right?“
“Of course,” Lash replied, irritably.
“Okay, that’s great – but, again, what does it all mean?”
The detective turned to look at Cord, his eyes serious. “Someone wants me to investigate this—this monster. Badly. And somehow…somehow it’s connected with the girls.”
Cord nodded, his reporter’s blood beginning to heat up, a story forming in his brain. “Now all we have to do is find the monster…”
Lynn Lash was staring over his friend’s shoulder, seemingly distracted. Suddenly he jabbed out with a finger, pointing.
“You mean like that one right there?”
*****
To Al Cord, the story was everything, but he’d told more than a few people in his time that he wouldn’t put anything in the paper that didn’t belong there.
He was pretty sure the Hudson River Monster belonged there.
Jogging after Lynn Lash and fumbling with his camera bag, he began to dream of Pulitzers. And the smug look of being right he’d be able to show the scientific detective once they had the thing plastered all over the Times-Dispatch’s front page.
A black hump rose up out of the Hudson, breaking the water and moving slowly. It was a significant distance from the docks, roughly half way out into the river.
Lash said nothing. He wasn’t prone to ejaculations of wonderment or surprise; his mind was struggling with the science of it.
“You see it, right?” yelled Al Cord. “Tell me you see it, Lash!”
The two stopped at the outer edge of a dock, the farthest they could go without trying to walk on the water itself. The detective stared, his face a stony mask – but his eyes whirled back and forth along the length of the thing.
Then, another hump broke the surface.
“Pictures, Al. Pictures!”
“Oh, oh, right! Right!”
Lash whipped out a pair of binoculars and raised them to his face. It was dark, but there was enough light from the city to discern the shapes in the water. The humps were a sooty dark grey, not exactly black like he’d first guessed. The water beaded off of them.
He wanted to believe it was a prehistoric creature, somehow revived and exploring the modern world, but the rational part of his brain told him it was just too fantastic. There had to be another explanation for it. Such explanations began to filter through his thoughts as flashbulbs went off both inside him and beside him.
Whales? Porpoises? A piece of wreckage from a ship? There were many things it could be.
All of them flew right out the window when a head and neck broke the surface in front of the two humps.
“Pictures, Al,” directed Lash, soberly. “Pictures…”
*****
The first glimmers of the sun broke through the clouds as the two men sipped at coffee in a small, grimy dockside diner. They had said very little to each other after the encounter.
The thing had disappeared back under the water shortly after it had shown its head and neck. Lash had been looking around for a rowboat or a dinghy to get himself out onto the river for a closer look when it fell to Al Cord to inform the living Sherlock Holmes that his monster had gone as silently as it had appeared.
“Morning edition should be out any minute now,” said the reporter as he drained his cup of the last few gulps of coffee, black. “I had the boys rush those pictures through.”
“I wonder if that was wise, now,” Lynn Lash pondered. “Maybe this is something that needs to be investigated more thoroughly, sans outside interference. The whole city will be down here every night once they see those pictures. It will cause quite a stir…”
Cord smiled. “You’re sold, aren’t you? That thing has its hooks in you, right?”
The detective wouldn’t look at him. He was fixated on what sky could be seen outside the streaked and dirty window of the diner. He waved off the suggestion.
“Too many variables,” he explained. “Not enough controls. There’s no basis, no real foundation for experimentation. Science has—“
“You’re hooked,” said Al Cord with another grin. “Listen, Lynn,” he continued. “This might be the biggest story of my career – it might also be the biggest of yours. We’ll share it, see? We’ll be equal partners in it, I promise. “Nothing’s as big as this. Nothing, brother…”
A young street lad popped in through the door of the diner just then, toting a big bundle of papers. He strutted over to their table and flopped the brand new morning edition down between the two men. Cups and saucers jumped up, crashed down.
“Here ya go, Mister Cord,” grunted the boy. “Hot off de presses.”
The reporter flipped him a coin and told him to beat it. Al then picked up his cup and
raised it to his lips, sitting back and enjoying his triumph.
“How’s the picture look? Pretty good, huh?”
At first, Lynn Lash said nothing. This didn’t surprise Cord, seeing as how the man had been less than jocular since seeing the monster. But then he saw his friend holding the paper, looking at it and shaking his head.
“Oh, no. No, no, no…”
“What?” asked the reporter, sitting up straight. “What is it?”
Lynn Lash, sober as a judge, turned the newspaper around so Cord could read the blaring headline:
TENTH GIRL ABDUCTED!
Chapter Three
TWO PATHS
Al Cord looked up from his bench to see Lynn Lash come through the door to the Police Commissioner’s office and quietly shut it behind him. The man’s face was subdued, reflecting little to no emotion. Cord could, though, see the oppressive weight on the man’s shoulders.
“Let me guess,” offered Cord. “You got chewed out same as me, huh?”
Lash waved the comment off, along with its significance. “The Commissioner has every right to be unhappy with my progress on the abductions case – I’m not exactly setting the place on fire with brilliant deductions, I’m afraid. So, I’ve been asked to concentrate on the girls and stop chasing monsters.”
Al Cord shook his head knowingly. “Yeah, pretty much the same spiel I got from my editor. They have me on the disappearances now, with a clear warning to stay away from the Hudson River…”
“My friend,” said Lash, placing one hand on the reporter’s shoulder and looking him in the eye, “there’s a connection there. You know it and I know it. While it’s true that the evidence is mostly circumstantial, I’m willing to risk my position as consulting expert to the New York Police Department to prove my theories.”
Cord brightened, a surge of energy racing through his frame at Lash’s words. He glanced up and down the hallway and at the Commissioner’s door, then back to his friend. He leaned into him, conspiratorially.
“Wow, and you a hard science guy and all!” he whispered. “I thought it’d take a lot more than that for you to take a leap of faith.”
Lash motioned for Cord to follow him down the hallway. “Let’s lay out what we have, Al,” he said plainly, eyeballing every cop and plainclothesman they passed.
“Firstly, it’s obvious for me to consider that the girls’ disappearances correspond – for the most part – with the monster’s appearances. Let’s give that an, oh, say, eighty five percent accuracy rating.
“Then, there’s that unique scent – which I have not yet been able to categorize – found to be at the scene of some of the disappearances, on that screwball of a cult leader, and…”
Cord held the door for Lash as they exited Police Headquarters. “Yeah? And?”
The detective paused, turned to Cord. “I didn’t say it before because I wasn’t absolutely sure, but I’m certain I caught a whiff of it down at the docks. Same stuff. Label that one, at the very least, with a tag of seventy five percent accuracy.”
The stocky reporter stared at Lash, his mouth working but nothing coming out. Then, finally, “How can that be? I mean, I’ve known some strong stinks in my day, but…”
Lynn Lash indicated his black roadster parked at the curb directly in front of the bustling building. A special privilege from the NYPD, he tried not to take advantage of the coveted spot too often.
“Hop in, Al – unless you just can’t be seen with me anymore.”
“Nothin’ doin’, pal,” said Cord, hustling over to the passenger side of the sleek car. “My brain’s got an itch and I need to scratch it. Start with the explanations!”
*****
Lynn Lash threw the automobile into gear and slipped away from the curb and into traffic. Within seconds they were speeding on their way to the detective’s lab on 5th Avenue.
“What bothers me is that I can’t seem to identify the scent on a conscious level,” noted Lash. “It’s almost as if it’s impacting me on a subconscious or subliminal level…”
Cord could see that his companion was clearly not happy with the puzzle laid out before him. “Come again? Smelling is smelling, isn’t it?”
Turning a corner, the scientific genius shook his head. “Not exactly. We have two separate olfactory systems, the main olfactory system for everyday odorants and the accessory olfactory system, which is a kind of ‘under-the-radar’ set-up, through which we receive pheromones and the like. Whatever the odorant is that seems to be at the center of our mysteries is evoking a memory in me, one that, for some reason, isn’t ringing any bells – at least not on a conscious level.”
Al Cord whistled low and long as Lash took another corner, this time mostly on two wheels.
“That’s troubling to me because my olfactory epithelium,” continued the detective, “is more akin to, say, a canine’s, which is more densely innervated. Quite possibly, I possess more receptors than the average person.”
“Huh? So, you’re saying you smell stuff like a dog, Lash?”
The man ignored that, setting his mouth in a hard, thin line as he scanned the curb outside the lab building for a spot to park.
“Well,” said the reporter, ready to hop out, “all I know is that for you to have sniffed up anything down at the docks is a wonder – all I smelled was fish and more fish. Hey, do fish smell? I mean, do they smell smells?”
Lynn Lash set his brake after whipping into an open spot and threw open his door. “Well, they…wait, what did you say?”
Cord slammed his door shut and looked across the roof of the black roadster to squint at Lash.
“I said, do fish—“
“Never mind that, Al,” cut in Lash. “You’ve given me an idea. Let’s get up to my lab, quick!”
As the two men rushed to the doors of the building, they failed to notice the four sets of eyes that followed their progress from the opposite side of the street.
*****
Exiting an elevator that had stopped on the twentieth floor, Lynn Lash barely saw his surroundings, so focused was he on the theories that were forming in his brain. Al Cord, always excited to visit the man’s amazing 5th Avenue laboratory, took in everything, including the four men who exited the other elevator and swarmed toward them.
Lash, fumbling for his keys and mentally ticking off possibilities, noticed them a fraction too late.
The men sported masks that covered their heads and faces, leaving only their eyes, noses and mouths exposed. They also gripped gats, steely Smith & Wessons that they pointed in Cord and Lash’s direction.
“Inside!” barked the lead man with guttural eloquence, motioning with his pistol to reinforce the verbal command.
Lash nodded, turning the key in the lock and swinging the door open.
“After you,” he said, smiling slightly and mock bowing.
“Don’t be a wisenheimer! Inside, both of you!”
Cord raised his hands and stepped into the lab on the heels of his friend. He swallowed nervously, unsure of his immediate future. He prayed Lash had a plan.
When the last masked man had filed into the outer room of the laboratory and shut the door behind him, Lash swung around to face the intruders.
“Now, what’s this all about? Why the rods?”
The leader took a step toward him, jabbing his revolver at Lash’s midsection. “It helps when you have to put a good scare into someone, Mr. Special Police Consultant. You’ve made some people very angry – and they want you to stick your nose somewhere else.”
Lash’s face grew serious as he leaned back on a table filled with scientific apparatus. He glanced once over at Al Cord, caught his eye and held it for a double second.
“From where I’m standing, it doesn’t seem to be my nose that’s the problem, boys.”
A cloud of fine powder suddenly appeared in the air in front of the four men. Cord barely saw his friend’s arms move.
Then, it was as if the men’s faces had exploded. Violent seiz
ures wracked their bodies as they coughed and sputtered, leaking mucus from their eyes, noses and mouths like sieves.
Lash grabbed the reporter’s arm and pulled him toward the door, steamrolling like linebackers through the incapacitated gunsels and knocking them from their path. When they reached the door, the detective flung it open, urged Cord through and then slammed it behind them.
“What was that?” yelped Cord.
“Dianisidine chlorosulphonate.”
“Huh?”
“Sneezing powder,” offered Lynn Lash as he leapt into a waiting elevator and motioned his thick built companion to follow. “They’ll be in bad shape for a while; time enough for us to make our ‘getaway.’ And, as a bonus, I was also able to push the panic button.”
“Cops on the way?” asked Cord, now distinctly enthused.
“In theory,” replied Lash, dryly.
*****
Officers in blue were entering the building as Lash and the reporter exited the elevator into the lobby. Lash suggested to their sergeant that they might find a pack of ne’er-do-wells on the twentieth floor or thereabouts - and they would be armed and potentially insensate with rage.
“Oh,” added the scientific genius to the sergeant, “and I think you’ll also find that our friends up there might know a thing or two about the, ahem, ‘Cult of Negus.’”
“Wait!” interjected Al Cord, smoothing down his wild hair and hooking one thumb in a lower vest pocket. “Let me guess – there was that smell again?”
“Yes, Al. The leader was our robe wearing Canadian. He’s a man of many talents, obviously…but master of none.”
Almost one half hour later, the policemen returned to the lobby and approached Lash with morose faces and shaking heads.
“No sign of ‘em, Mr. Lash,” said the sergeant. “Lots of equipment and the like smashed in your lab up there, but they’ve made themselves scarce. Sorry.”
Lynn Lash gave the man a pat on the shoulder and his thanks, then sent him and his men on their way.
The New Adventures of Lynn Lash Page 9