The Miskatonic Manuscript (Case Files of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens Book 2) (9 page)

“I’ve been thinking about going in to get the pills.”

“To keep your strength up.”

“To keep something up.”

“You should.”

“I should?”

“You still haven’t told me whether you want to break it off with her.”

“God, no. I think it’ll kill me, but I guess it’s worth it. She just
enjoys
it so much. Sometimes she … giggles.”

“And do you enjoy being with her?”

“God help me, yes.”

“Not just in bed, I mean. You can talk? You don’t fight all the time? She’s a good companion?”

“She reads books. She actually knows what I’m talking about. You know how rare that is? How many people know what Bram Stoker did for a living?”

“Ran the Lyceum Theatre for Henry Irving.”

“OK that’s three of us. But I don’t find you all that attractive, Matthew. Sorry.”

“Yes, go get some of the pills they advertise on TV, having a few as a backup won’t hurt. But you know they just borrow bloodflow from one place and put it somewhere else. And unless you’re real lucky the guy who writes that prescription won’t tackle the bigger problem, since it’s a longer conversation.”

“Which is?”

“You need to go into training.”

“What?”

“Like you were getting ready to run a race, fight a championship fight, climb a mountain. You’re not 25 anymore, Les, neither of us are. You need to change the way you eat and sleep. You especially need to start eating.”

“I eat all the time.”

“Beer and corn chips are not the two major food groups, Les.”

“Oh my God, you’re going to say the same thing she says, aren’t you? About the strange foods, all these … leaves. She buys these plastic bags full of hedge clippings and then she calls them all by different names, as though she can actually tell them apart. Then she
eats
them.”

“I’m going to send you to a couple. He’s a physical trainer, she handles diet. This is not about making you look like the body-builder on the back of the comic books. They’re going to size you up. It helps that you’re not fat, but you’ll need to set aside an hour a day in the gym, at least every other day, building up specific muscle groups. Maybe 90 minutes; they’ll know”

“They’ve got a humping machine at the gym?”

“Not exactly. But even building up the arms and shoulders and abs can help. And they’ll probably put you on protein shakes, lots of fiber, raw fruits and vegetables, salads.”

“Aaah!”

“Stop that.”

“She eats all these things that haven’t even been cooked. Then she expects me to eat them, too. I don’t even know what half of them are. Did you know there’s a type of mustard that’s, like, leaves? She
actually likes yogurt! I’m surprised she doesn’t mix it with mare’s blood for fortitude like the Mongol hordes. Maybe she does. Who eats yogurt but some octogenarian beekeeper living in a dung heap somewhere deep in the Caucasus? And what the hell is ‘pita bread’?”

“These are the sacrifices we have to make, Les. You want to go out like H.P. Lovecraft, at 47? Look up ‘anti-oxidants’; look up ‘long-chain fatty acids.’ You have to build up your strength for what’s to come.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We’ll discuss that another time. Let’s get you through the current crisis.”

“You clearly implied something worse is coming.”

“Les, we’re getting into some pretty personal stuff. It’s really not my business whether you’re doing anything about birth control.”

“Well, she never mentioned it, so I naturally assumed … oh my God.”

“You assumed what?”

“You don’t think …?”

“Whether she’s thought it all out or not, it’s pretty clear Marian’s body has decided it’s time to get to work on a kind of built-in biological mandate.”

“It’s like a nightmare.”

* * *

“Marian, how are things?” Matthew asked after he’d recommended Les go lie down for awhile. Skeezix had hauled the mail up the hill from the post office and she was opening some book-sized boxes that had come in.

“Good, as far as I know. Better, actually. That
Phantom Tollbooth
arrived.”

“Advertised as 1961? You e-mailed him, right?”

“I e-mailed the seller to specify we were ordering only because he listed as ‘1961.’ He wrote back that it was on its way.”

“And?”

“I was puzzled for a minute, because it’s clipped to the bottom of the front flap, see?” Buyers giving a book as a gift would often clip off the price, meant to be interpreted as “I’m not bragging about how much I spent on you,” which was silly, since everyone knew pretty much what a new book cost, anyway. But on American books, as opposed to British, the price was usually printed at the
top
of the front flap. If someone clipped off the
bottom
of the front flap, they were usually clipping off not a price but the words “Book Club Edition,” three words which could cut the value by a ton.

“Actually, I think on
Phantom Tollbooth
—” Matthew started.

“So I found out. The price on the firsts was printed at the bottom of the flap. Besides, it’s a full eight-vo in a full cloth blinding, no deboss, so it’s not a book club. And the jacket has only the author and illustrator blurbs on the back, no reviews.”

“No later printings mentioned?”

“No,” she smiled.

“Congratulations! First printing in a first-state jacket.”

“Yes,” Marian chortled a little.

“For which you paid?”

“Thirteen dollars.” They both observed a moment of respectful silence. Truly the world could be a wonderful place, inhabited as it was by such supposedly mythical creatures as gryphons, unicorns, and Internet sellers happily selling thousand-dollar books for thirteen dollars.

“And it’s worth …?” asked Chantal, who’d stuck her head out from between a couple of the stacks, where she was putting books back in order by topic.

“We’ll start it at twelve-fifty,” said Marian, all business again.

“We bought it at thirteen and we’ll start it at … ?” Chantal looked puzzled. Then her face began to clear. “Oh.”

“Yes,” Marian replied. “Book was a runaway success, in part thanks to the Feiffer illustrations, Feiffer’s first book, it immediately went into repeat printings. Only one comparable true first online, at
fifteen hundred, so we’ll start this one at twelve hundred fifty. By the way, Matthew, that big box from Florida is for you.”

“Really?”

“That’s what it says.”

It was a good-sized box, from the small college town of DeLand. Matthew sliced it open carefully. It appeared to be a jumble of slightly musty leftovers, starting on the top with some issues of “Weird Tales” from the 1930s, with those wonderfully kitsch and garish covers torn or dampstained or mildewed badly enough that they wouldn’t sell for much — if anything — except as placeholders while a collector waited for a better copy. He could see why they’d been left in a box in the back room. Nobody wanted to get a reputation for displaying unsightly mildewed junk.

The cover note from the lady at the bookstore in DeLand was very gracious, apologizing for the motley lot and telling him she wouldn’t hold him to the price he’d offered, she’d settle for postage plus twenty bucks for her trouble, unless he happened to find something worthwhile.

The rest of the box held old menus, charter boat schedules, fliers advertising various events around the small college town in the 1930s, some yellowed newspaper clippings — the kind of stuff that was fun to browse, but not likely to be worth much.

Then, near the bottom, some browning pages of composition paper, covered in script in a male hand, actually a couple male hands. They seemed to be from letters but they sat in a jumble, at first glance none appeared to be addressed to Robert or Bob or RHB, though one was signed “REH.” Matthew stopped. Robert E. Howard, a suicide in 1936 at the age of 30, had written the Conan the Barbarian stories, and had been known to correspond with Barlow in Deland.

Finally, at the bottom, a yellowed copy of the St. Augustine Evening Record from July of 1934, local and Florida state news dominating the front page, though in Washington they were reportedly organizing a “Federal Communications Commission” to replace the
old Federal Radio Commission, and in Austria the National Socialists seem to have had a hand in assassinating the chancellor.

Since the old newspaper had been used to line the box, it was folded up at the corners, to fit. But as the acidic newsprint had long since turned yellow-brown and brittle, there was an obvious risk the pages would crumble if you tried to pry them out.

Grabbing a letter opener from the desk, Matthew proceeded to do just that, as gently as he could. Finally he was lifting the newspaper away from the bottom of the pasteboard box, attempting to keep it as intact as possible.

But it weighed more than it should have. It shifted in his hands, and out of the folds fell a small, nearly square, schoolchild’s composition notebook in black-and-white glossy boards with a matte black cloth spine. Inside, hastily scribbled notes in a cramped handwriting covered the first few pages, illustrated with some freehand sketches and drawings of what appeared to be a large electrical machine.

And then, the handwritten manuscript of a story, covering perhaps 25 pages, with the working title “The Resonator”:

“I had not seen my good friend, Henry …” hard to read, but could that be “Annesley”? “… since that day several months before when he had told me where his …” several words unintelligible, “… researches were leading; when he had answered my almost frightened queries by driving me from his laboratory and his house in a burst of rage. I knew that he now remained mostly shut in the attic” another hard-to-read scribble — “laboratory,” maybe? “with that accursed electrical machine …”

“Are you still around, Les?” Matthew raised his voice a little.

“Not sure what you guys were talking about, but Les went out to the side yard,” Marian said, pretending to be unconcerned. “Everything OK?”

“Everything is going to be fine, Marian. We’re just going to work together to help Les with his nutrition and his sleep schedule, that’s all. You’ve been very good for him. Right now, though, you could tell him there’s something I need him to look at.”

Les arrived quickly, took the notebook without a word, carried it over to the better light of one of the bay windows.

“Notes for a story about the Annesley resonator,” he said, “and then an early draft of ‘From Beyond,’ with a different title. The Lovecraft biographers will go nuts, not to mention the Cthulhians. And as I’m sure you also saw, there’s a sketch. Several.”

“But the handwriting?”

“Oh, Lovecraft’s, no question. Practically illegible, as usual, but it’s his.”

“Marian, we’ll be writing a check to the lady at the bookstore in Deland, Florida. A little more than I originally told her. Talk to me about settling on a finder’s fee after Worthy’s check has cleared; maybe we can help keep another struggling local store in business for a few more months. And Les, there are letters here, one of them signed R.E.H. Handle gingerly. Get them sandwiched into some 5-mil mylar, then we’ll play mix-and-match, see what we can put together. If anything relates to old man Annesley and his resonator it’ll go to Worthy as part of his deal, if not we’ll set them aside and look ’em over later.”

Matthew dialed Worthy Annesley. He got Bucky the bodyguard, personal assistant, whatever he was.

“Yes, Bucky, you can give him a message. Tell him we have his ‘Miskatonic Manuscript,’ any time he’d like to drop by and pick it up.”

When he looked up, Les and Marian and Skeezix were smiling, everyone was smiling except Chantal, whose expression was hard to read. “Marian, it’s only a few pages, see if you can get us a few good photocopies for the file. Then this one had better go in the safe until Worthy stops by. This has to go directly into his hands. He knows the price, we’ll take his check.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Matthew, I need a few moments.” Chantal looked flushed, now, like she’d just run up the hill.

“Sure, Babe, what’s up?”

“Upstairs. I need to see you for a few minutes upstairs.”

“Sure.” He followed Chantal out through the bookstore kitchen and up the back stairs, till they were safely on the second floor.

“What is it, babe?”

“What do you think it is, Matthew?” she asked, pressing against him, unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt and grabbing the back of his head. She curled her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and pulled his head down till she could use her tongue to check the fillings in his teeth.

“Oh,” he tried to say.

“Yes, oh.”

“OK, babe.”

“Not OK. Taking too long. In the bedroom.”

“Yes, I agree, the bedroom would be … whoa.”

Despite the fact she was at least five inches shorter, she managed to route-march him backward down the hall and six or eight steps into the bedroom before something hit the back of his knees. Fortunately he managed to land on the bed. She’d been desperately unfastening his belt, now set to work pulling off his trousers.

“Don’t you think we should close the door?” he asked.

“Sure, let’s close the door. Then we can brush our teeth and change into our nighties and you can read me a bedtime story. Ah, there’s my big man.”

Somehow she’d gotten out of her own pleated wool plaid skirt. Presumably she’d been wearing underwear beneath that, though there was no sign of them, now. In their place she instead displayed what were arguably the best ass and thighs in Christendom. At least in his opinion. She crawled up onto the bed with him. It didn’t take him long to find himself in the mood, especially when she cupped one hand to help him, the one that wasn’t finishing the job of removing his shirt, then going to work in the hair of his chest.

“You smell fantastic,” he said, sliding his own hands up to find her breasts. “New perfume?”

“You know very well I’m not wearing any perfume. What you think is perfume is your olfactory sense telling your hormonal system
how much I want you. Pheromones, whatever they are.” Judging him almost ready, she threw a knee over and began to straddle him. He was always amazed at how flexible she was, given those well-muscled mountain-climber thighs.