Arkham Detective Agency: A Lovecraftian-Noir Tribute to C. J. Henderson Read online

  ARKHAM DETECTIVE AGENCY © 2017

  Edited by Brian M. Sammons; cover artwork and design by Rob Stanley; cover and interior design by Michael Bailey

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, scanning, recording, broadcast or live performance, or duplication by any information storage or retrieval system without permission, except for the inclusion of brief quotations with attribution in a review or report. Requests for reproductions or related information should be addressed to the publisher. The following collection is a work of fiction. All characters, products, corporations, institutions, and/or entities of any kind in this book are either products of the author’s twisted imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without intent to describe actual characteristics.

  Dark Regions Press, LLC

  P.O. Box 31022

  Portland, OR 97231

  DarkRegions.com

  ISBN: 978-1-62641-255-2

  ARKHAM DETECTIVE AGENCY

  Edited by Brian M. Sammons

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ARKHAM DETECTIVE AGENCY

  DEDICATION

  IT’S OKAY TO MEET YOUR HEROES

  Brian M. Sammons

  THE IDEA OF FEAR

  C.J. Henderson

  CRUELTY

  C.J. Henderson

  THE NEST OF PAIN

  C.J. Henderson

  SLAVES FOR THE SLAUGHTER SECT

  Robert M. Price

  CALL AND RESPONSE

  William Meikle

  MISKATONIC CONTRADANCE

  Konstantine Paradias

  FAMILY TRADITION

  Edward Morris

  LIGHT A CANDLE, CURSE THE DARKNESS

  Paula R. Stiles

  IL SEGNO GIALLO

  David Dunwoody

  ECHO OF A DISTANT SCREAM

  Lee Clark Zumpe

  CLOSURE

  Glynn Owen Barrass

  WITCH FIRE

  Scott T. Goudsward

  BONANZA

  Sam Gafford

  REELING BACK

  Tom Lynch

  THOSE FOLK BELOW

  Josh Reynolds

  SHE WORE A TRENCH COAT

  Don Webb

  CLEAR THE AIR

  Brian M. Sammons

  A WALK IN THESHADOWS

  Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

  A PLEASURE INMADNESS

  C.J. Henderson

  IN MEMORIAM

  DEDICATION

  To the late, great, one-of-a-kind C.J. Henderson. You were colleague, a friend, and an inspiration. You were every bit the tough guy you wrote about, and you are missed.

  – Brian M. Sammons

  IT’S OKAY TO MEET YOUR HEROES

  Brian M. Sammons

  It is often said that you should never meet your heroes. I get how that could be true, but thankfully for me, it wasn’t.

  Like everyone that does what I do, I was a reader before anything else. I started with the Big Names™ that everyone, myself included, already knew before I ever read a single word from them. I still liked them—well, most of them—but there weren’t really any surprises there. Then came the authors I got to discover for myself, the ones I didn’t already have preconceived notions about. That’s where the real fun began, and one of the authors I had the most fun with, was C.J. Henderson.

  C.J. wrote a lot. A. Lot. Novels, short stories, nonfiction books, comic books, you name it. He had various types and styles of stories to tell, but the ones by him that I cut my teeth on, the ones I liked the most, were his tough guys vs. horror stories. And while he had more than one badass to tell tales about—he even did a few ace stories—it was his tough-as-nails P.I. whom would flip the bird to any eldritch horror that I first fell in love with, Teddy London. Teddy was a man’s man who wouldn’t take guff from anyone, not even from an abomination from beyond time and space. And while I loved H.P. Lovecraft and most of the authors who followed in his deep, deep footprints, it was refreshing to see a capable hero stand up to the forces of the Cthulhu Mythos. No, old Teddy didn’t get off unscathed; he often paid the price physically, mentally and emotionally for his little victories, but he didn’t faint away at the mere thought of something otherworldly. During a time when the Lovecraftian literary world was teeming with milquetoast academics and artists, it was a refreshing change of pace.

  Yeah, it is safe to say that I was a fan of the man. So when C.J. was coming to town to meet with a publisher and mutual friend, William Jones, that publisher made sure I was invited along to meet one of my heroes. And C.J. didn’t disappoint. He was loud, boisterous, full of life and twice as big as it. He was warm and interested in what little old nothing me had to say. He was fiercely feisty and didn’t back down from his opinions, a trait I shared, and I still remember the raucous debate we got into that first meeting over the merits and flaws of John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece (my opinion, not his) The Thing.

  In the years that followed that meeting, C.J. and I had many more debates. He would stop by when traveling through this area, and we would get some food, talk some shit, and watch some movies. C.J. was the first pro to ever give me a much-needed confidence boost when he read something that I had written for a now sadly dead and gone magazine and then called me out of the blue just to tell me how much he liked the story. Years later when I started coming up with ideas for anthologies and then started to make them, he was always honestly thankful every time I read anything by him for one of those books. And he was exceptionally gracious when I had to reject something he sent me. Honestly, that only happened once, and it was a good story, I don’t think C.J. knew how to write a bad story, but it was just not right for the book I was trying to put together. So I had to say no to my hero, my friend, and if you think that’s easy, you should try it sometime. But he made it easy for me, with a laugh and some silly joke. That’s the kind of man C.J. was, and he took it like a man.

  One day, quite in passing, C.J. told me he was ill. He didn’t elaborate on it, said it was no big deal. It was only later I did find out that it was a big deal. Again, he took it like a man. Like the tough guys he wrote about so often, he didn’t whine, didn’t complain, he dealt with it the best he could and moved on. And yeah, he didn’t get off unscathed.

  The last time I ever spoke to C.J. was by phone. He kept it brief, he said he wasn’t feeling too good that day. He told me how bad things really were, how little time the doctors said he had left. And I remember how impressed I was by him. Me, I would have been a mess. I would have been full of anger at the world for the injustice of it all. C.J. just dealt with it, quietly, with strength and dignity I didn’t know existed in the real world. C.J. was every bit the tough guy he loved to write about, all the way to the end.

  A few days later, he was gone.

  I miss my friend, the unexpected phone calls, the heated debates, the laughs. And yes, I miss his wonderful stories. This anthology is as much a tribute to the man as it is to his amazing imagination, specifically his last memorable tough guy: Frank Nardi. Frank is a no-nonsense New Yorker (hmmm, I wonder where C.J. came up with that) and retired cop. He moves to the quiet college town of Arkham, Massachusetts, sets up a private-investigation shop, and soon learns that quiet does not equal dead. In Arkham’s case, even death does not always equal dead. C.J. wrote four Nardi stories before he was gone and, right before the end, pitched the idea of having me do a book to invite other authors to play in h
is sandbox with his toys. I thought it sounded like a great idea, and now, with the finished book in my hands, I know that it was. I only wish that the publishing world didn’t move so slowly and that C.J. could have seen this book, but I take some solace in knowing that his wife and daughter will be able to do so and see at least some fraction of what C.J. meant to his fellow authors, as well as the influence he had, and still has, in the world of weird fiction and horror. I love every one of the books I put out, but this one is extra special for me, because C.J. Henderson was an extra special kind of guy.

  I hope these humble efforts do your literary legacy some amount of justice, my friend. You can tell me if they did or not when I see you on the other side. I can’t wait to remind you just how wrong you were about The Thing.

  Brian M. Sammons

  10/20/2016

  THE IDEA OF FEAR

  C.J. Henderson

  He looked the house over from the street. Dark and old and tall and musty, like every other dilapidated dump in town, he knew. They were all the same, all creaking, all spongy—alive with mosses and spores and gas leaks—all filled with a thousand crinkling noises. The man stared out the window of his car and despaired of dragging himself out onto the sidewalk.

  Some detective, he thought. You sure aren’t going to give Phil Marlowe a run for his money anytime soon in this town.

  Franklin Nardi had left New York City after its police force had used up his strongest, bravest days. Many envied the life—work a job for a mere twenty years and retire with benefits beyond the dreams of most. With only the slightest of salaries on top of such a retirement package, it was said, a man could support a family in style.

  Yeah, he thought, taking another long drag on his cigarette, and all it takes to earn those fine benefits is walking out the door with a target on your back. Every day. Every stinking, miserable day. For twenty goddamned years.

  Frankie Nardi had no family. He did not lose them tragically, except in the sense that it was tragic they had never existed at all. Nardi did not by nature enjoy the company of women. He had witnessed the eternal grinding down of his father and his uncles, all men to be proud of, except when they ventured into the presence of women and their guts turned to cheese. He listened to them complain, watched them live their lives afraid to speak, afraid to contradict, afraid of what they might do to these women they loved if they ever stopped reining themselves in.

  The detective was not afraid of women. He went out with them and played their games to the extent that those rounds gave him what he wanted—flesh and momentary contact free from the rock-heavy drag of commitment.

  “Ahhh, fuck,” he snorted. He took another long look at his assignment for the night and then crushed his smoke out on the roof of his car, adding, “no one ever said life was easy.”

  Window up, bags grabbed from the back seat, car locked, up to the front door. Nardi assessed the ring of keys he had been given and with his usual skill picked the correct one on the first try. Throwing open the old door, he threw his bags inside and surveyed his home for the evening. With a crunch of muscles he stretched his arms out, flexing his back and shoulders unconsciously. Even though he expected nothing more than a night’s sleep, he was still a man who did his job.

  After twenty years of not blinking, of watching over his shoulder, behind his back, of sizing up each and every human being that came near him, figuring their angle, investigating their souls in the split second before contact, moving to Arkham was supposed to have been a breeze. The town was known for importing New York’s finest. One supposed the New England hamlet would have preferred Bostonian coppers, but as the mayor of Arkham had put it to Nardi when he asked:

  “This town has enough drunks with their hands out. We need real men. Manhattan is the attitude that goes over well here when people want protection.”

  It was true. New Yorkers took charge. Taking charge of his life, Nardi had left the city he simply could not stand anymore and turned his back on it for trees and fields and runaway dogs. His idea was to open his own detective/security agency in Arkham with three other New York cops—one that had retired a year earlier, Tony Balnco, and two others, Sammy Galtoni and Mark Berkenwald, who were right behind him on the escape track. They had all agreed instantly—the one already retired fastest of all. In three months they were the fastest-growing business in the city of Arkham, Massachusetts.

  And why not? People cheated on their spouses in New England same as anywhere else. They stole from their bosses, needed background checks, wanted to find lost property or people from their pasts, required security like everyone else. Nardi had seen Bloods selling crack behind the playground at Allan Halsey Memorial High School the same way he had behind the playground at Thomas Jefferson High in Brooklyn, and every other high school throughout the five boroughs. There was no “safe” America anymore. The green was going to hell in all the same ways as the concrete—just a little slower, that was all.

  That is what had made Arkham perfect for Nardi and his pals. For five years they had built their business and life was good for them. They held the security contracts for nearly three-fifths of the businesses in town. They were the first contact point on the speed dial list of four-fifths of the town’s lawyers. They had all the work they needed, which was what angered Nardi when Berkenwald took a job like the one he was stuck with that night.

  “So?” he asked the house absently. “Let’s make with the spooky noises. Let’s get this over with.”

  In New York Nardi had found plenty of opportunities to placate the wealthy. Those with money were always finding some new way to waste it. Years ago the slugs bleeding cash could not move into a new property without calling in a feng shui master to make certain it was properly positioned in the universe. Now, in Arkham, the chic move was to have your home desensitized by a supernatural security team.

  “What a crock of shit,” muttered Nardi.

  Berkenwald, getting wind of the new chump rage, had let it be known to only a few, close personal friends, mind you, that the agency had been called in to clear a few major hauntings back in New York. He hinted at terrible moments, let it be known they simply did not do that sort of work anymore. Too stressful. The hideous terrors that awaited the uninitiated …

  The suckers had begun throwing money at the agency immediately. Any new bride or social matron who heard a noise she did not like, felt a draft that seemed a little too frigid, awoke in a cold sweat, et cetera, knew what to do—buy some peace of mind.

  But Berkenwald had booked more work for them that week than they could cover. And thus Frankie Nardi, himself, the owner of the company, who should have been working on his model railroad setup in his basement at that very moment, and dreaming of a date with his hammock for the next day, was instead stuck doing a point-by-point sweep of some ancient rathole for ghosts.

  Ghosts, for Christ’s sake.

  “Does it get any stupider than this? I don’t think I want to know if it does.”

  “Don’t tell me you want the world to smarten up, Nardi,” a voice said from behind the detective. “That would lose you a lot of business.”

  “I’m retired, remember?” He threw the line over his shoulder to the woman coming in the doorway. “The more business I have the less I like it.”

  “I think you’re just afraid to run into the Headless Horseman or one of his pals. Something like that would be hard work,” she said with a bite in her voice as she dropped her bags heavily on the floor, “and we all know you’re afraid of that.”

  “Yeah, nothin’ with tits is a feminist when there’s heavy liftin’ to do.”

  The woman was Madame Renee; her profession, medium. Born Brenda Goff, she had cultivated her overwhelmingly Middle Eastern looks until a nose too big and brows too bushy had begun to work in her favor. As her love of all things covered in, filled with, or simply made from sugar had stolen her figure, she had made her shape a badge and transformed herself once more. Dancers had a short shelf-life, she had told hers
elf when she had traded her tights for a beaded curtain and a crystal ball. Fortune-tellers could work from a wheelchair.

  “Sweet as ever, ain’t ya?”

  “Oh, don’t crawl up my ass; I’ve got all the shit I can handle today, and this job is half of it.”

  “You’re not a happy man, are you, Frank?”

  Madame Renee reached out to touch the detective on the cheek but he ducked the contact, his glower showing open hostility. ”Look,” he told her curtly, “we’re here to de-ghost this dump, and as stupid as I feel about this nonsense, a job is still a job. Mark told me you’ve got the checklist, so if you do, then let’s get to it. The faster we prove the Ghostly Trio isn’t hiding up the chimney, the faster we get to go home.”

  With a shrug, the madame sighed and pulled out the official Nardi Security Occult Clearance Form from the large carpetbag she seemed to always keep with her. Without trying again to lighten the mood, she simply started calling off routines and posing questions while Nardi poked, prodded and peeled back this and that part of the old house. Between them they searched every room for cold spots, listened carefully to each wall with their stethoscopes, made certain a mirror would reflect light in every room, and tested the air on every floor to make certain no unwanted chemicals, smells, gases, or aromas were present.

  They set up motion detectors in every passageway and sound-trigger tape recorders in every room. Powder was sprinkled around doorways and across table tops and mantelpieces to record the motion of any invisible forces. Hairs were secured across the doors of cupboards and the drawers of dressers with nothing more than a finger smear of saliva. If anything with the slightest physical presence moved within the old house outside the living room where Madame Renee and Nardi would be camped out for the night, it would be known.