The Imago Sequence

by Laird Barron

The motel ceiling jiggled, tapioca pudding with stars revolving in its depths. The blackened figure at Parallax Alpha's center seeped forth. I opened my mouth, but my mouth was already a rictus. The ceiling swallowed me, bones and all.

  —I squatted in a cavernous vault, chilled despite the rank, humid darkness pressing my flesh. Stench burrowed into my nose and throat. Maggots, green meat, rotten bone. Thick, sloppy noises, as wet rope smacking rock drew closer. A cow gave birth, an eruption. The calf mewled—blind, terrified. Old, old water dripped. An army of roaches began to march; a battalion of worms plowed into a mountain of offal; the frenetic drone of flies in glass; an embryonic bulk uncoiling in its cyst—

  I awakened, muscles twitching in metronome to the shuttering numbers of the radio clock. Since Christmas my longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep was three hours and change. I almost relished the notion of a grapeshot tumor gestating in my brain as the source of all that was evil. It didn't wash; too easy. So said my puckered balls, the bunched hackles of my neck. Paleontologists, anthropologists, ordained priests, or who-the-hell-ever could debate the authenticity of Ammon's handiwork until the cows came home. My clenched guts and arrhythmic heart harbored no doubt that he had snapped a photo of someone or something truly unpleasant. Worse, I couldn't shake the feeling that Mrs. Chin was correct: it had looked right back at me. It was looking for me now.

  I got on the road; left a red fantail of dust hanging.

  Midmorning crawled over the Frisco skyline, gin blossom clouds piling upon the bay. I drove to the address on the card, a homely warehouse across from a Mexican restaurant and a mortgage office that had been victimized by graffiti artists, and parked in the alley. Inside the warehouse were glass walls and blue shadows broken by giant ferns.

  I lifted a brochure from a kiosk in the foyer; a slick, multicolored pamphlet with headshots of the director and his chief cronies. I slipped it into my blazer pocket and forged ahead. The lady behind the front desk wore a prison-orange jumpsuit. Her hair was pulled back so tightly it forced her to smile when she shook my hand. I asked for Director Stanley Renfro and was informed that Mr. Renfro was on vacation.

  Could I please speak to the acting director? She motioned me beyond shadowbox panels to the rear of the gallery where a crew of Hispanic and Vietnamese day laborers sweated to dismantle an installation of a scale city park complete with fiberglass fruit trees, benches and a working gothic fountain. I picked my way across the mess of tarps, coax and sawdust. Motes hung in the too-bright wash of stage lights. A Teutonic symphony shrilled counterpoint to arc welders.

  Acting director Clarke was a lanky man with a spade-shaped face. A serious whitebread bastard with no interest in fielding questions about Thornton or his photograph. Clarke was sated with the power rush of his new executive position; I sensed I wouldn't be able to slip him a few bills to grease the rails and I'd already decided to save breaking his head as a last resort.

  I used charm, opening with a throwaway remark about the genius of Maurice Ammon.

  Clarke gave my haggard, sloppy self the once-over. "Ammon was a hack." His eyes slightly crossed and he talked like a man punching typewriter keys. "Topless native women suckling their babies; bone-through-the-nose savages leaning on spears. Tourist swill. His specialty."

  "Yeah? Don't tell me the Weston Gallery is in the business of showcasing hacks?"

  "We feature only the highest-caliber work." Clarke paused to drone pidgin Spanish at one of the laborers. When he looked up at me again his sneer hardened. "I dislike the Imago Sequence. But one cannot deny its . . .resonance. Ammon got lucky. Doesn't overcome a portfolio of mediocrity."

  No, he didn't like the series at all. I read that plainly from the brief bulge of his eyes similar to a horse getting a whiff of smoke for the first time. The reaction seemed reasonable. "A three-hit wonder." I tried to sound amiable.

  It was wasted. "Are you a cop, Mr. Cortez?"

  "What, I look like a cop to you?"

  "Most citizens don't have so many busted knuckles. A private eye, then."

  "I'm a tourist. Do you think Ammon actually photographed a fossilized cave man?"

  "That's absurd. The so-called figures are geological formations. Ask the experts."

  "Wish I had nothing else to do with my life. You don't buy it, eh?"

  "The hominid theory is titillation." He smirked. "It does sell tickets."

  "He got bored with native titties and went for abstract art? Sure looks like a troglodyte to me."

  "Well, pardon my saying you don't know squat about photography and I think you're here on bad business. Did the toad send you?"

  I chuckled. "You've met Teddy."

  "Never had the pleasure. I saw him in September, sniffing around the photo, practically wetting his pants. Figured he was trying to collect the set. I'll tell you exactly what Renfro told him: Parallax Beta is not for sale and its owner is not interested in discussing the matter."

  "Renfro said that to Teddy, did he? Seems I'm chasing my tail then." He had said what I hoped to hear. "By the way, where did Mr. Renfro go for his vacation? Somewhere warm, I hope."

  Clarke's sneer broadened. "He's on sabbatical." From the pleasure in his tone he did not expect his former patron to return.

  "Well, thanks for your time."

  "Adios, Mr. Cortez. Since you came for a peek at Parallax Beta, stop by the Natural History display."

  "Blessings to you and your children, Herr Director." I went where he pointed, trying to act casual. The prospect of viewing the second photograph filled me with elation and dread. There it was, hanging between the Grand Tetons and the caldera of slumbering Mt. Saint Helens.

  Parallax Beta was the same photograph as Alpha, magnified tenfold. The amber background had acquired a coarser quality, its attendant clots and scars were more distinct, yet more distinctly ambiguous. They congealed to form asteroid belts, bell-shaped celestial gases, volcanic moons. The hominid's howling mouth encompassed the majority of the picture. It seemed capable of biting off my head, of blasting my eardrums with its guttural scream.

  My vision tunneled and I tore myself away with the convulsive reflex of a man awakened from a dream of falling. Panpipes, clashing cymbals, strobes of meteoric rain. Dogs snarling, a bleating goat. Buzzing flies, worms snuggling in musty soil. All faded as I lurched away, routed from the field.

  I made it to the lobby and drank from the water fountain, splashing my face until the floor stopped tilting. The lady in the jumpsuit perched behind her desk, vulture-talons poised near the phone. She extended another wintry smile as I retreated from the building into the hard white glare.

  Eleven a.m. and next to zero accomplished, which meant I was basically on schedule. I was an amateur kneecap man, not a PI. My local connections were limited to a bookie, a sports agent who might or might not be under indictment for money laundering, and the owner of a modest chain of gymnasiums. I adjourned to a biker grille called the Hog and downed several weak Bloody Marys with a basket of deep-fried oysters. The lunch crowd consisted of two leathery old timers sipping draft beer, their Harley Davidson knockoffs parked on the curb; a brutish man in a wife beater t-shirt at the bar doing his taxes on a short form; and the bartender who had so much pomade in his hair it gleamed like a steel helmet. The geriatric bikers were sniping over the big NFC championship game coming up between the Niners and the Cowboys.

  Between drinks, I borrowed the bartender's ratty phonebook. Half the pages were ripped out, but I found a listing for S. Renfro, which improved my mood for about three seconds. I tried ringing him from the payphone next to the men's room. A recorded message declared that the number was not in service, please try again. Following Hog tradition, I tore out the page and saved it for later.

  I called Jacob collect. After he accepted charges, I said, "Were you around Teddy before he disappeared?"

  "Eh? We've been over this."

  "Be nice, I'm slow."

  Several static-laden beats passed. Then, "Um, not so much. Teddy's alwa
ys been secretive, though."

  "Okay, was he more or less secretive those last few weeks?"

  He coughed in a phlegmy way that suggested I had prodded him from the slumber of the indolent rich. "I don't know, Marv. I got used to him sneaking around. What's going on?"

  "I haven't figured that out yet. Did his habits change? And I mean even an iota."

  "No—wait. He dressed oddly. Yeah. Well, more than usual, if you want to split hairs."

  "I'm listening."

  "Give me a sec . . ." Jacob cursed, knocked something off a shelf, cursed again. A metallic snick was followed by a scratchy drag into the receiver. "He wore winter clothes a lot at the end. Inside, too, the few times I saw him. You know—sock cap, mackinaw and boots. He looked like a Canadian longshoreman. Said he was cold. But, what's that? Teddy dressed for safari half the time. He was eccentric."

  "Thin blood. Too many years in the tropics," I said.

  "You have anything yet?"

  "Nope. I'm just trying to cover all the bases." I wondered if dear, departed Theodore had suffered night sweats, if he had ever lain in bed staring at a maw of darkness that grinned toothless as a sphincter. I wondered if Jacob did.

  Jacob said, "You don't think he was mixing with a rough element, right?"

  "Probably not. He was going batty, fell into the drink. Stuff like this happens to seniors. They find them wandering around race tracks or shopping malls. Happens every day."

  "Keep digging anyway."

  "I'll hit you back when I find more. Bye, bye." I broke the connection, rubbed sweat from my cheek. I needed a shave.

  The last call was to my bookie friend. I took the Cowboys and the points because I hoped to counter the growing sense of inevitability hanging over my head like Damocles' least favorite pig sticker. Come Sunday night I owed the bookie fifteen hundred bucks.

  5.

  Stanley Renfro's house drank the late afternoon glow. Far from imposing; simply one of many brick and timber colonials bunkered in the surrounding hills. It was painted in conservative tones and set back from the street, windows blank. A blue sedan was parked in the drive, splattered with enough seagull shit to make me suspect it hadn't moved lately. Half a dozen rolled newspapers decomposed on the shaggy lawn. The grass was shin-high and climbing.

  I did not want to walk up the block and enter that house.

  My belly churned with indigestion. A scream had recently interrupted my fitful doze. This scream devolved into the dwindling complaints of a bus horn. Minutes later when the sodium lamps caught fire and Renfro's house remained black, I decided he was dead.

  This leap of intuition could not be proved by yellow papers or flourishing weeds. Nah, the illustrious director might be taking a nap. No need to turn the lights on. Maybe he's not even inside. Maybe he's in Borneo stealing objets d'art from the natives. He left his car because a crony gave him a lift to the airport. He forgot to cancel the newspaper. Somebody else forgot to cut the grass. Sure. The house reminded me of a corpse that hadn't quite begun to fester. I retrieved a flashlight from the glove compartment. Thick, and made of steel, like cops use. It felt nice in my hand.

  I climbed from the Chrysler, leaned against the frame until my neck loosened and I could rotate my head without catching a fireworks show. No one appeared to notice when I hiked through Renfro's yard, although a small dog barked nearby. The alarm system was cake—being predicated on pressure, all I needed to do was smash a kitchen window and climb through without disturbing the frame. This turned out to be unnecessary. The power was down and the alarm's emergency battery had died.

  The kitchen smelled foul despite its antiseptic appearance. Street light spread my shadow into monstrous proportions. Water drooled around the base of the refrigerator. Distant traffic vibrated china in its cabinet. Everything reeked of mildew and decaying fruit.

  I clicked on the flashlight as I proceeded deeper into the house. The ceilings were low. I determined within a few steps that the man was a bachelor. That relieved me. Beyond the kitchen, a narrow hall of dusky paneling absorbed my light beam. The décor was not extraordinary considering it belonged to the director of an art gallery—obscure oil paintings, antique vases and ceramic sculptures. Undoubtedly the truly expensive bric-a-brac was stashed in a safe or strong room. I didn't care about that; I was hunting for a name, a name certain to be scribbled in Renfro's personal files.

  The shipwrecked living room was a blow to my composure. However, even before I entered that demolished area, my wind was up. I felt as a man tiptoeing through a diorama blown to life-size. As if the outer reaches of the house were a façade that had not quite encompassed the yard.

  Mr. Renfro had been on a working vacation, by the evidence. Mounds of wet dirt were heaped around a crater. Uprooted boards lay in haphazard stacks. Sawed joists gleamed like exposed ribs. The pit was deep and ugly—a cavity. I turned away and released a sluice of vodka, tomato juice and oyster chunks. Purged, I felt better than I had in days.

  I skirted the destruction, mounted the stairs to the second floor. Naked footprints scarred the carpet, merging into a muddy path—the trail a beast might pound with its blundering mass. If Renfro made the prints, I figured him for around 6', 240. Not quite in my league, but hefty enough that I was happy to grip the sturdy flashlight. A metal bucket was discarded on the landing. Inside the upper bathroom, the clawfoot tub had cracked, overflowing dirt and nails. The sink was shattered. Symbols had been scrawled above the toilet with mud, but the flowery paper hung in shreds. I deciphered the letters MAG and MMON. A cockroach clambered up the wall, fell, started again. Its giant, horned silhouette crossed mine. I didn't linger.

  I peeked in the master bedroom to be thorough. It too was victim of hurricane savagery. The bed was stripped, sheets wadded on the floor amid drifts of clothes. A set of designer luggage had barely survived; buckles and zippers sprung, meticulously packed articles disgorged like intestines. I got the distinct impression Renfro had planned a trip before whatever happened, happened.

  Renfro had converted the spare bedroom to an office. Here were toppled oak file cabinets, contents strewn and stomped. My prize was a semi-collapsed desk, buried in a landslide of paper. Its sides bore gouges and impact marks. Thankfully Renfro hadn't filled this room with dirt. I searched for his Rolodex amid the chaos, keeping an eye on the door. The house was empty, obviously the house was empty. Renfro wasn't likely to be lurking in a closet. He wasn't likely to come shambling into the office, caked with mud and blood and fondling a hatchet. I still kept an eye on the door.

  A drawer contained more file hangers. Inside the R-T folder was an index card with A. THORNTON (Imago Colony) written in precise block letters, a Purdon address which was probably a drop box, a list of names that meant nothing to me, and an unmarked cassette tape. Actually the label had been smudged. I stuck the card and the tape in my pocket. On impulse I checked the Ws and found a listing for T.WILSON. Parallax Alpha was penned in the margin. Below that, in fresher ink—Provender?

  Mission accomplished, I was eager to saddle up and get the hell out of Tombstone. Then my light illuminated the edge of a wrinkled photograph of Stanford lacrosse players assembled on a field. A dated shot, but I recognized a younger Renfro from the brochure in my pocket. He knelt front and center, sporting a permed Afro and a butterfly collar. His eyes and mouth were holes. They reminded me of how Teddy's mouth looked in his war pictures. They also reminded me of the pit Renfro had excavated in his living room. Behind the team, where campus buildings should logically be, reared the basalt ridge of a mountain. A flinty spine wreathed by primordial steam.

  This was Teddy's photo collection redux. And there were more delights. I considered vomiting again.

  I stared for a bit, turning the photo this way and that. Concentration was difficult, because my fingers shook. I sorted the papers again, including the pile on the floor, examining the various photographs and postcards that were salted through the general mess. Some framed, some not. Wallet-sized, to the kind
grandma hangs above the mantle. This time I actually looked and beheld a pattern that my subconscious had recognized already. Each picture was warped, each was distorted. Each was a fake, a fabrication designed to unnerve the viewer. What other purpose could they serve?

  I checked for splice marks, hints of computer grafting, as if my untrained eye could've helped. Nothing to explain the mechanics of the hoax. The terrain was wrong in all of these. Very wrong. The sky was not quite the same sky we walked around under every day. No, the sky in the more peculiar photos appeared somewhat viscous with bubbles and spot discoloration—the sky was a solid. As a matter of fact, it kind of resembled amber. Shapes that might've been blimps hovered at the periphery, pressed against the fabric of the sky.

  This was enough spooky bullshit for me. I beat feet.

  Downstairs, I hesitated at the pit. I shined my lonely beam into the gloom. It was about twelve feet deep; the sides crumbled and seeped groundwater. A nasty thought had been ticking in my brain. Where is Renfro? In the hole, of course.

  Which suggested he was hiding—or lying in wait. I didn't actually want to find him either way. Thornton's information was in my pocket. Assuming it panned out, there were many hours of driving ahead. But the nasty thought was ticking louder, getting closer. Why is Renfro digging a hole under his very nice house? Wow, I wonder if it's related to his screwed up picture collection? And, oh, do you think it has anything to do with a certain photograph on loan to his precious gallery? Do you suppose he spent long, long hours in front of that picture, fixated, neglecting his duties until his people sent him on a little vacation? Don't call us, we'll call you.

  There was a lot of debris at the bottom of that hole. A lot of debris and the light was dimming as its batteries gave up the ghost and I couldn't be one hundred percent sure, but I glimpsed an earthen lump down there, right where the darkness thickened. A man-sized lump. At its head was a damp depression in which a small object glinted. When I hit it with the light, it flickered. Blinked, blinked.