Haggopian and Other Stories

Slater didn’t know why, but for some peculiar reason that last made his skin crawl. It had sounded so fluent, very weird and alien. The midnight shapes continued to slither and grope in the darkness, and Slater (again for some reason he couldn’t pin down) pictured them closing in on Blacker. “Jesus!” he whispered to himself. His imagination was in full flight. He pictured alien things with huge, shiny hooks, thrusting them through Blacker’s flesh, at the same time gagging him, dragging him choking and dripping blood through a hole in the darkness into an even darker dark…

Then the lights came back on. Like a camera, Slater froze the film—the scene—on his mind’s eye. Blacker wasn’t there. The reporter-lady stood over his empty seat, her eyes huge and astonished. But Blacker definitely wasn’t there. Jesus!

Slater had almost forgotten Ferd standing beside him. But now Ferd said, “A fuse.” That simple statement saved Slater from what might have caused him a lot of acute embarrassment. For at that moment:

“Did you see that?” came Blacker’s hoarse cry of triumph and terror from the doorway to the toilets. He stuck his head out, glanced all about the room. He was pale now, and trembling. “They have their ways—but they don’t get me that easily! They’re near, I tell you. No—they’re here!” He made for the exit, rushed out into the night and the rain.

“A real nutter,” Karl Ferd commented, neatly threading his way through customers at the bar, heading after Blacker. “But he’s got style.” And over his shoulder to Slater: “I’ll be right back.”

Slater started to follow on, then changed his mind. He settled back against the bar, felt his excitement ebb away. He took a deep breath and wondered if maybe he was getting a bit old for this sort of stuff…

The reporter-lady had spotted Slater at the bar. He caught her glance, the silent appraisal, and thought: she’s thinking, he’s not much but he’s the best this place has to offer. At least he’s a guaranteed free drink. Maybe even two. “Hi,” he rumbled as she came over.

“Are you here for the convention?” she asked.

“In a way. I’m looking for someone, that’s all. But no, I don’t play games.”

“Don’t you?” She cocked her head a little on one side. “That’s a pity.”

Ah, well—that’s the preliminaries over and done. “Would you like a drink?”

“Why not? May I have a gin and tonic?”

Slater ordered. Ten minutes patter and she’ll drift away. “And you?” he said. “An article on the convention?”

“That’s part of it.” She pressed up against him to let people squeeze by. “Sort of two birds with one stone, really.”

“Oh?”

She sipped her drink, grinned at him. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” she said.

Slater did his Robert Mitchum double-take. “Hussy!”

“You know what I mean,” she grinned. And she was at once serious again. “I’m looking for Antonio Minatelli.”

Why not? Slater thought. I’m looking for him; the police are looking for him; why shouldn’t she be? “I’ve a feeling he won’t show.”

“You’re Old Bill!” she accused.

He shook his head. “No, just an interested party. What difference does it make?”

“What, him not showing or you being…whatever you are? Never mind. It makes no difference.”

“Good,” said Slater.

“Minatelli was top of my list, but…when one story dies on you, you look for another. I’ll rearrange my priorities, that’s all.”

Slater ordered more drinks. He’d had two beers, three brandies, nothing to eat. If he was going to carry on drinking he really ought to eat. “What are your priorities?” he inquired.

“The next in line after Minatelli just ran out on me,” she answered, ruefully. “The one with the beard and the mouth.”

“Kevin Blacker? If he’s not careful he’ll frighten himself to death! I believe he really does believe. The guy’s a nut. I mean, it’s one thing to ‘believe’ in Hilda Ogden, but Cthulhu’s something else.”

“Hlu-hlu,” she said, without smiling.

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“I’m Belinda Laine,” she introduced herself, glanced at her watch. “And I just went off-duty.”

It was 10:15. “Slater,” he answered. “Jim Slater, and I’m hungry.”

The bar was filling up; people jostled; Karl Ferd came twining through the crush. “The next on my list,” said Belinda Laine, as Ferd joined them. Ferd looked at Slater with eyes that said, you don’t waste any time, do you?

Slater said: “Do you two know each other?”

“Er, no.” Ferd appeared a little shy. “I’m Karl Ferd.”

“I know,” she said. “You’re Dugong, right? Britain’s answer to Bob Prout’s Shoggoth Pit?”

Ferd tried not to preen. “Dugong is OK,” he shrugged.