Haggopian and Other Stories

“You can’t ignore the background,” said Slater. “You know that. The background is the case.” He grinned. “You know, I’d passed this place downtown a thousand times and thought I’d never noticed it until I got this brief. Then I at once remembered it. Powers of observation! After I left the office this morning I went down to this specialist dealer and picked up some stuff.”

He produced a much larger envelope from his briefcase, tipped out its contents. “These kids publish their own magazines, worship their own idols, live in their own weird worlds—from what I can see. Look at these titles, will you? Vaults and Vampires, and…Cerebellum? And what about Judge Druid, and all this other stuff? Everything from the Dark Ages to James Bond! This one,” he indicated a slim pamphlet with a horror comics cover, “is an amateur magazine: a ‘fanzine’. But get the title, will you? They go for strange, strange titles!”

“Dugong?”

Slater shrugged. “A sea beast. Like an overstuffed walrus. Old-time sailors thought they were mermaids. But a sea creature, anyway. You see, Dugong’s for the aficionados of, er, this guy.” He slapped down a garish magazine on the top of the bar. “See, all the things that live in the sea worship the Great Sea God, pictured there.”

Paynter looked at the magazine’s cover. A sentient, leprous squid-thing seemed to look back at him, leering out from under an almost unpronounceable title. “The Call of—?”

They both squinted at the magazine, pulled faces.

“Er, Cuth-lu?” Paynter ventured again.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Slater shrugged. “Hell, the guy in the shop whistled it at me!”

“Eh?”

Slater nodded. “Future shock,” he said, shrugging. “Maybe I’m getting too old to keep up anymore. But when I bought this stuff, the guy checked the titles, got to this one and said: ‘Oh, yeah, The Call of Tootle-tootle?’ I’m not kidding! Here’s another: The Shoggoth Pit! Dedicated to this same Tootle-tootle. Do you believe this stuff? Hey, have I lost you?”

“Only slightly,” said Paynter, sarcasm dripping.

“Snap!” said Slater. “But I’ll keep at it. At least I’ll earn my twenty-five percent.”

Paynter laughed. “You’re a strange one, Jim. Fifteen minutes ago you were complaining about this job. But to tell the truth, I actually think you’re looking forward to it!”

Slater’s expression changed on the instant. “I was complaining about being got shot of,” he growled. “Like a kid sent to bed early without his supper.”

“Not just a kid,” Paynter corrected him. “A bad kid! And anyway, that was just part of it. Your main beef was that this was a job for a snotnose, that it was demeaning to send a supersnoop like you out on this sort of job.”

“And you don’t think it is, eh?” Slater raised an eyebrow.

“Like I said: if you don’t want it, give it to me.”

“Yeah,” said Slater, finishing his pint. “Snow job.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Paynter insisted. “And just suppose you do find out what happened to Antonio Minatelli, eh? Or better still if you find the kid himself! Wouldn’t that be something: to walk into Dexter’s office with the goods, and shove them right up his nose?”

Slater considered that and grinned. “It gets me away from the sleaze-beat, anyway,” and his face at once turned sour again. “Monday I have another divorce to process, and Thursday I’m to ‘talk’ to a guy about a little sexual harassment he’s been engaging in. Jesus!”

“Just remember to keep your paws off him,” Paynter warned. And then, to change the subject, “But think: Saturday you go up to the Smoke, all expenses paid, for some fun and frolics with the weird set! Great!”

Slater scowled. “Are you sure you’re not just taking the Old Peculiar?”

“No way!” Paynter denied. “And to prove it, I’ll have another half with you. It’s your round anyway…”

• • •

The following week came and went. The other investigators in the office seemed to have their hands full, but Paynter was pretty much at loose ends. When he wasn’t gophering for Dexter he did a little reading, stuff connected with Slater’s upcoming weekend jaunt to London. Not that London was anything special—the offices of DPI (Dexter’s Private Investigations) were in Croydon, and the Smoke was just up the road but it was a different sort of job. And Paynter was glad that Jim Slater had pulled it.

On the other hand, Slater hadn’t asked him to research anything for him; he probably wouldn’t appreciate it if he knew; but again, it was sufficiently removed from the actual case that Paynter had gone ahead anyway. And his conscience was clear: the fact was that he would like to help Slater out if he could, but unobtrusively, so as not to put his back up.