Haggopian and Other Stories (65 page)

Paynter nodded, and quietly, resignedly said, “OK.” And he started to read the contents of the envelope. At first it didn’t make much sense, but then it began to sink in. “Well,” he eventually commented, “at least it’s not a sneak-and-peek job!”

“It’s not any sort of job that l can see!” Slater snorted. “It’s a kid’s job, a get-paid-for-nothing job, something you’d give to a keen, bright-eyed, oh-gee-this-is-my-first-assignment-snot!”

“Money for old rope,” Paynter shrugged. “And you’re on twenty five per cent of the take. And the cheque is a big one! So what are you making all the fuss about? Hey, if you don’t want this, give it to me!”

Slater scowled but made no immediate reply. After a little while he said, “Did you get the gist of it?”

Paynter was reading through it again. “Eh?” he briefly looked up, continued his reading. “Yes, I think so. A nutter, obviously.
Phew!
Somebody is a real fruitcake!”

Slater nodded. “Quite apart from the fact that it’s what Dexter said it was—namely, a way of getting me the hell out of it for a while—it’s weird, too. I mean, it isn’t that I don’t know how to go about it, but while I’m doing it I’ll feel about as balmy as the old girl who’s paying for it!”

Paynter had to agree that it was weird, but the cheque that accompanied it was
very
real. He frowned. “I’m trying to work it out.”

“Here.” Slater slid him a sheet of A-4. “This is how I broke it down.” Paynter peered at the beer-stained, minutely scrawled page:

(1) Role-Playing Game Conventions: Milan, Berne, Rheims.

(2) Signora Minatelli’s son, Antonio, eighteen years old, attends a weekend convention in Milano (Milan, Italy) and comes home with some story that the German Guest of Honour, Hans Guttmeier, disappeared from his room on the Saturday evening (17 or 18 July). Antonio is disgusted; Guttmeier had a big game the next day against an Italian challenge team for his world title. The Italian fans reckon he chickened out and did a moonlight flit back to Germany.

(3) Antonio, who can’t get enough of this gaming stuff, attends the Berne (Switzerland) convention two weeks later. Signora Minatelli expects him home late Sunday night or in the early hours of Monday. But he doesn’t show. Finally she telephones the hotel in Berne; they tell her his bill is unpaid and his car is still in the hotel car park—but no sign of Antonio.

(4) Meanwhile, news has broken that Hans Guttmeier didn’t make it back home to Frankfurt. And now it becomes clear that when he disappeared from the hotel in Milan he left all his gear in his room—including his Deutsche Marks and return rail ticket! Spurred on by interested parties, (top of the list being S. Minatelli) German, Italian and Swiss police get together on the job but there doesn’t appear to be any connection. So a couple of young blokes disappear in foreign parts—so what? It happens all the time. Tourists, especially in France and Italy, go missing regular as clockwork. Routine police work, that’s all; and the investigations grind slowly on…

(5) S. Minatelli—a real Italian Momma who loves her son dearly—gets in touch with the Surete about an upcoming French convention in Rheims, all set for the end of the third week in August. She has it all figured out: a wandering lunatic is doing the rounds of the gaming conventions, killing off attendees. Nice theory, but there are big holes in it. Like, no bodies? Anyway, the Surete thank her for the tip and assure her they’ll do what they can—which, as it turns out, amounts to nothing. No one goes missing from the convention in Rheims. But…S. Minatelli isn’t satisfied, and still her son hasn’t shown up. She gets a list of attendees at the French con., tracks them down, discovers that several were hippy-types of no fixed abode. So one or more of them could have gone missing after all…

(6) By now, though, S. Minatelli has come up with a second theory: her son has perhaps fallen in love with a young lady of similar bent (“bent” seeming very appropriate) with whom he is now doing the round of the cons. Apparently he’d mentioned in passing this girl he met at the Milan bash. Having remembered this much, Tony’s mother simply ignores the fact that his name isn’t on the Rheims list, and the coincidence of Hans Guttmeier’s disappearance. In short, she’s now clutching at straws.

(7) She contacts Interpol, the CID, Scotland Yard—you name it—and passes on all information, cuttings connected with the disappearances, photographs of her son, etc., etc. Will someone please look for him at the con coming up in London in mid-September? Which is to say, next weekend. We can only imagine what Interpol, CID, Scotland Yard think of all this; but…they say OK, they’ll have someone drop in at regular intervals over the weekend and case the crowd for Antonio Minatelli.

(8) She still isn’t satisfied: she contacts a PI—Dexter, of course—and he gives the job to me…

• • •

“Questions,” said Paynter, returning the notes to Slater. “What is a role-playing game?”

“The players act out roles under the guidance of an umpire. Where there are decisions to be made or alternate routes which may be taken a dice-throw decides what’s what. Or maybe it’s left to the umpire, the ‘gamesmaster’, to decide. See, there are lots of alternatives. Obviously, experience counts. You have to know the theory of the game: the books the game is based on, the skills you require to win, the scenario.” Slater studied Paynter’s blank expression. “Are you getting any of this?”

Paynter nodded. “I think so. It’s something like war-gaming, right?”

“Sure. In
Star Trek
scenarios it usually
is
war-gaming—but set in space. But I can’t be too dogmatic about it because I’m a little out of my depth myself.”

Paynter thought about it for a moment. “Of course, remove the background picture and you’re left with simple missing persons cases—or a missing persons case, if we’re just talking about your job: Antonio Minatelli.”

“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.

Slater had been in the office Monday, mumbling something about a court appearance Tuesday, had disappeared midday and didn’t show up again until Wednesday when he looked in his pigeonhole and found nothing. Thursday he successfully “warned off” a blackmailer (a loathsome creature who had demanded sex for silence) with a threat, turned the thing over to the police, and delivered his report to Dexter who seemed well satisfied. Friday, payday, and Slater was in again and his nose looked less puffy; less blooming, so that Paynter guessed he’d been keeping clear of the booze.

That lunchtime, however, they did have a beer and a sandwich together. “Been doing some reading,” Paynter opened, having decided that his interest wouldn’t be misconstrued.

“Wonderful!” said Slater, in that dull, booming Bob Mitchum way of his. “Never knew you had it in you. It’ll be ’riting and ’rithmatic next.”

“No,” Paynter grinned, “I mean seriously. In connection with your missing person.”

“Eh?” Slater was at once suspicious.

Paynter held up a hand. “Not
on
the job—just background stuff. You did say that background was all-important. Stuff on H. P. Lovecraft, the Mythos Circle writers. Stuff about Cthulhu…”

“Old Tootle-tootle?”

“Do it how you like,” said Paynter. “Cthulhu’s good enough for me.”

“Cthul who?”

“Also some Charles Fort stuff,” Paynter ignored him. “Really weird.”

“And Von Daniken?” Slater raised a natural-born sceptic’s eyebrow. “UFO’s? How about Lobsam Rampa and Rambling Sid Rumbold?”

“I said I’m being serious,” Paynter insisted.

Slater nodded. “I can see you are. And how about me? Have I been wasting my time or something?”

“You’ve been reading the same stuff?” Paynter was surprised. “I mean, I only started because I found it interesting, and because—” He paused.

“Because you wanted to help? Because you thought people had been down on me and you were my friend? Well, thanks for the fact that you’re my friend, but no thanks for the sympathy. We all get what we ask for in life. As for your research: I skimmed all that stuff you mentioned, but when I discovered that Lovecraft himself derided it…anyway, I got the overall picture. And that’s what I wanted: to discover what it is about this stuff that switches the kids on. So why did they like Dracula or Frankenstein? Same story: when you’re young you need something that grips the imagination. A pity they have to grow up. As soon as the sap starts rising, to hell with the imagination! That’s when they start looking to get the other bits gripped! So much for the background, but the job itself is more basic. I’ve looked at things like recent Interpol missing persons lists, tried to come up with possible motives, doublechecked lists of attendees at the various conventions, made or tried to make a couple of connections—”

“Connections?”

“Sure,” said Slater. “Like—how these disappearances are connected. Or are they entirely coincidental? And where does the common factor of RPG Conventions come into it? And if there really is a crazed kidnapper or murderer on the loose, well…obviously he or she connects in both Milan and Berne. So I might find his or her name on both of those lists. See what I mean? A jigsaw isn’t a picture until all the bits connect up. The bits are there, it’s putting them together that gives the thing perspective.”

“And do like names appear on both lists?” Paynter was fascinated.

Slater nodded. “You know some of them do. Hans Guttmeier for one. He was scheduled to appear in Berne after the Milan con. Strike Guttmeier, for of course he’s a victim. Likewise, obviously, Antonio Minatelli. But then there’s a couple of others…”