Haggopian and Other Stories

“You’re too modest, Karl,” she said. “But you’ve done some deep stuff lately: like the tongue-in-cheek issue where every article offered ‘proof’ that the whole Mythos thing is real. The only ‘name’ that was missing from your contents page was Kevin Blacker.”

Again Ferd’s shrug, and his sour grin. “That’s ’cos it was tongue-in-cheek!”

“But very well done,” she complimented him. “A lot of your readers—close to a thousand of them?—might get the idea that you believe in this stuff, too. I mean, you present some damning ‘evidence’.”

“I got some clever writers, that’s all.”

Her serious look slowly evaporated, and she smiled. Which was worth seeing. Slater had been thinking: she knows her stuff. She’s talking to him on his own level. She’s researched this better than I have! “I’m hungry,” he said again. “Do you want to eat, you two?”

“Not me,” Ferd answered. “I’m off home. I’ve a pal down at the Hall who has offered me a lift.”

“Before you go,” said Slater, “tell me: why did you go running after Blacker like that?”

“I wanted to check if he’d be around tomorrow to mess up the games,” Ferd answered at once. “He makes people uncomfortable.”

“And will he be around?” Belinda Laine was interested.

Ferd shook his head. “No. He says he’s delivered his warning and now it’s up to us. He’s on his way back home to Oxford.”

She seemed disappointed. “But you’ll be here, right?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Maybe we’ll get a few minutes to talk in private.”

Down, boy! Slater thought, seeing Ferd’s eager expression. “Great!” the young man answered. “Long as you like.” He turned to Slater, said: “Cheers, then.”

“Cheers.” They watched him leave.

“Where will we eat?” She smiled.

They took a taxi to a steak house and had a small meal. She hardly touched her food. Slater got through his, and through a bottle of house white which tasted dreadful. She had a gin and tonic but only drank half of it. While she toyed with her food and drink, he asked, “How did you get onto this? What’s your angle?”

“Not fair,” she answered. “You already know about me. Ace reporter and all that. Assignment: check out the games convention, look for missing kids; get some sort of a story, anyway. Possibilities. Why are so many young people so deeply into this thing? What’s the attraction? Etc, etc. You know all that, but I only know your name. “

True, he thought. “I’m a PI,” he said, breaking Rule Number One. “Tony Minatelli’s Mum wants her son back. But I don’t think she’ll ever see him again. Young guys don’t run off and leave their cars behind. He’s a goner. Oh, and you did say you were looking for missing kids. Plural. My opinion: Hans Guttmeier’s a goner, too.”

She opened her eyes wide. “You’re well informed,” she said. “How about Jean Daniel de Marigny?”

“Eh?”

“Young Frenchman.” She stared hard at Slater. “Disappeared in Rheims.”

I’m well informed! he thought. “Maybe we should team up,” he suggested. “Also, you’re in the wrong business. Give the newspaper job the elbow, Belinda, and open up a detective agency! You’re well ahead of me.”

She laughed, then went serious again. “Are you a believer, Jim?”

“Only in Santa Claus. You mean this ‘they’re here, walking among us’ business? Naw! Oh, someone is walking among us, all right: a crazy man, a psycho. Maybe Kevin Blacker. But aliens? Elder Gods? Invaders from the spaces between the spaces?”

She sat back.

“Now Andrew Paynter,” he went on, “—a pal of mine back at the agency in Croydon—he’s just gullible enough to make something big of all this.”

“He is?”

The wine was getting to Slater. “Universes sliding together,” he mumbled. “Fishers through fissures. Him and Kevin Blacker could have a really heavy session together.” He looked at the empty bottle and her eyes followed his.

“Will the bar be open back at your hotel?”

He shrugged. “Dunno—but I’ve a half-bottle of Martell in my room.”

“Strictly business,” she said, but she was smiling.

“Of course,” said Slater, thinking: you stupid bastard! Meaning himself, naturally.

• • •

In the taxi she snuggled up to him, said: “What if it was all real? I mean, why would they be taking out these people? Guttmeier, Minatelli, de Marigny…”

“Guttmeier was the world’s No. 1. Maybe it was more than just a game to him. Maybe he’d seen through the curtain. Minatelli? Perhaps he knew or guessed something. I don’t know. But it isn’t real. If it were…surely there’d be bigger targets? Like this Moribund outfit.”

“No.” She snuggled closer. “Moribund only produces the games—they’re in it for the dollars. They don’t believe. They’re Blacker’s unconscious cultists. And they’re doing a great job, spreading the word—but without believing a word of it.”

“If it were real,” Slater mused, aware of her beside him, “Blacker would have to go. He’d be high on their list.”

He felt her nod in the darkness of the back seat. “Maybe Karl Ferd, too.”