Curtis was uncomfortable in his uniform. There were dark patches where the rain had soaked. He’d been drinking like W.C. Fields on a bender but he wasn’t getting tight. Whatever was troubling him was too much even for Jack Daniel’s.
I thought of the Laird of the Monty. And I thought of the painting of Capt. Marsh’s clipper, with that out-of-proportion squid surfacing near it.
“He’s on the boat, isn’t he?”
Curtis didn’t say anything.
“Alone,” I thought aloud. “He’s out there alone.”
I pushed my hat to the back of my head and tried to shake booze out of my mind. It was crazy. Nobody bobs up and down in the water with a sign round their neck saying “Hey Tojo, Torpedo Me!” The Monty was a floating target.
“No,” Curtis said, grabbing my arm, jarring drink out of my glass.
“He’s not out there?”
He shook his head.
“No, cheapie. He’s not out there alone.”
All the water taxis were in dock, securely moored and covered until the storms settled. I’d never find a boatman to take me out to the Montecito tonight. Why, everyone knew the waters were infested with Japanese subs. But I knew someone who wouldn’t care any more whether or not his boats were being treated properly. He was even past bothering if they were borrowed without his permission.
The Seaview Inn was still deserted, although there were police notices warning people away from the scene of the crime. It was dark, cold and wet, and nobody bothered me as I broke into the boathouse to find a ring of keys.
I took my pick of the taxis moored to the Seaview’s jetty and gassed her up for a short voyage. I also got my .38 Colt Super Match out from the glove compartment of the Chrysler and slung it under my armpit. During all this, I got a thorough soaking and picked up the beginnings of influenza. I hoped Jungle Jillian would appreciate the effort.
The sea was swelling under the launch and making a lot of noise. I was grateful for the noise when it came to shooting the padlock off the mooring chain but the swell soon had my stomach sloshing about in my lower abdomen. I am not an especially competent seaman.
The Monty was out there on the horizon, still visible whenever the lightning lanced. It was hardly difficult to keep the small boat aimed at the bigger one.
Getting out on the water makes you feel small. Especially when the lights of Bay City are just a scatter in the dark behind you. I got the impression of large things moving just beyond my field of perception. The chill soaked through my clothes. My hat was a felt sponge, dripping down my neck. As the launch cut towards the Monty, rain and spray needled my face. I saw my hands white and bath-wrinkled on the wheel and wished I’d brought a bottle. Come to that, I wished I was at home in bed with a mug of cocoa and Claudette Colbert. Some things in life don’t turn out the way you plan.
Three miles out, I felt the law change in my stomach. Gambling was legal and I emptied my belly over the side into the water. I stared at the remains of my toasted cheese sandwich as they floated off. I thought I saw the moon reflected greenly in the depths, but there was no moon that night.
I killed the engine and let waves wash the taxi against the side of the Monty. The small boat scraped along the hull of the gambling ship and I caught hold of a weed-furred rope ladder as it passed. I tethered the taxi and took a deep breath.
The ship sat low in the water, as if its lower cabins were flooded. Too much seaweed climbed up towards the decks. It’d never reopen for business, even if the War were over tomorrow.
I climbed the ladder, fighting the water-weight in my clothes, and heaved myself up on deck. It was good to have something more solid than a tiny boat under me but the deck pitched like an airplane wing. I grabbed a rail and hoped my internal organs would arrange themselves back into their familiar grouping.
“Brunette,” I shouted, my voice lost in the wind.
There was nothing. I’d have to go belowdecks.
A sheet flying flags of all nations had come loose, and was whipped around with the storm. Japan, Italy and Germany were still tactlessly represented, along with several European states that weren’t really nations any more. The deck was covered in familiar slime.
I made my way around towards the ballroom doors. They’d blown in and rain splattered against the polished wood floors. I got inside and pulled the .38. It felt better in my hand than digging into my ribs.
Lightning struck nearby and I got a flash image of the abandoned ballroom, orchestra stands at one end painted with the name of a disbanded combo.
The casino was one deck down. It should be dark but I saw a glow under a walkway door. I pushed through and cautiously descended. It wasn’t wet here but it was cold. The fish smell was strong.
“Brunette,” I shouted again.
I imagined something heavy shuffling nearby and slipped a few steps, banging my hip and arm against a bolted-down table. I kept hold of my gun, but only through superhuman strength.
The ship wasn’t deserted. That much was obvious.
I could hear music. It wasn’t Cab Calloway or Benny Goodman. There was a Hawaiian guitar in there but mainly it was a crazy choir of keening voices. I wasn’t convinced the performers were human and wondered whether Brunette was working up some kind of act with singing seals. I couldn’t make out the words but the familiar hawk-and-spit syllables of “Cthulhu” cropped up a couple of times.
I wanted to get out and go back to nasty Bay City and forget all about this. But Jungle Jillian was counting on me.
I made my way along the passage, working towards the music. A hand fell on my shoulder and my heart banged against the backsides of my eyeballs.
A twisted face stared at me out of the gloom, thickly-bearded, crater-cheeked. Laird Brunette was made up as Ben Gunn, skin shrunk onto his skull, eyes large as hen’s eggs.
His hand went over my mouth.
“Do Not Disturb,” he said, voice high and cracked.
This wasn’t the suave criminal I knew, the man with tartan cummerbunds and patent leather hair. This was some other Brunette, in the grips of a tough bout with dope or madness.
“The Deep Ones,” he said.
He let me go and I backed away.
“It is the time of the Surfacing.”
My case was over. I knew where the Laird was. All I had to do was tell Janey Wilde and give her her refund.
“There’s very little time.”
The music was louder. I heard a great number of bodies shuffling around in the casino. They couldn’t have been very agile, because they kept clumping into things and each other.
“They must be stopped. Dynamite, depth charges, torpedoes…”
“Who?” I asked. “The Japs?”
“The Deep Ones. The Dwellers in the Sister City.”
He had lost me.
A nasty thought occurred to me. As a detective, I can’t avoid making deductions. There were obviously a lot of people aboard the Monty, but mine was the only small boat in evidence. How had everyone else got out here? Surely they couldn’t have swam?
“It’s a war,” Brunette ranted, “us and them. It’s always been a war.”
I made a decision. I’d get the Laird off his boat and turn him over to Jungle Jillian. She could sort things out with the Panther Princess and her Esoteric Order. In his current state, Brunette would hand over any baby if you gave him a blanket.
I took Brunette’s thin wrist and tugged him towards the staircase. But a hatch clanged down and I knew we were stuck.
A door opened and perfume drifted through the fish stink.
“Mr. Lovecraft, wasn’t it?” a silk-scaled voice said.
Janice Marsh was wearing pendant squid earrings and a lady-sized gun. And nothing else.