Dog Days’ Nights – Part II

Monday lost to weekend residue, I arrived Tuesday afternoon just in time for happy hour at the Thirsty Serpent. I settled in at the bar hoping to nurse a few whiskeys and read the paper. My hopes were promptly dashed when Tracey the bartender brought me a line of trouble with my rye.

“You got a gentleman caller Swingshift.” She pointed down the far end of the bar to a tall brutish looking guy in a cheap gray suit.

“Whashewant?”

“Couldn’t glean much, but he’s definitely on someone else’s dime. He’s been sipping at that bitters and soda for nearly two hours. You know if I aspired to be some dick’s steno girl, I wouldn’t be here every afternoon putting up with you drunks.”

“My dear that would be an absolute tragedy.”

I wanted to ignore the guy, at least for a few drinks’ time. But he was radiating this crazy hired man’s zen that made it clear I would never wait him out. I threw back half the drink, folded up my unread paper and walked to the end of the bar.

“I’m Dick, heard you’ve been asking after me.”

“I work for Mr. Ewan MacEndroe; he has a problem of a discreet nature that you may be able to assist him with. If you would come with me…”

“Let me put the brakes on right there.” I stepped on his well-rehearsed lines. “Firstly, I’m a busy man and my assistance doesn’t come cheap. Second, I’ve seen enough old movies to know never to go anywhere with strange geeks lying in wait for me at my local.”

“Listen Swingshift, my employer will make it worth your while, so cut the Sam Spade routine and come for a ride.”

“I don’t like cars, friend. I’m trying to lighten my carbon footprint. I’m going to take a seat in that booth far in the back, out of earshot of all three of the rotting livers in the joint. Your employer can talk to me there or he can blow for all I care.”

You could see the wheels turning below the guy’s thick skull. Just as he opened his mouth to argue the point further, I showed him my back, retrieved my drink and paper and beelined it for the back room. He was on the phone to his boss before I settled in. I left him to his employer relations and turned my attention to the news of the day.

“HELL HOUNDS OF BUSHWICK” read the 80-point headline over a gruesome photo of a half devoured corpse. It was good to see The Daily Banner living up to its reputation for restraint and human decency. This was the fifth such attack in as many weeks and fear stokers in the press were starting to ratchet up the rhetoric. The reference to Hades smelled to like a warning shot. They were plotting to graft the tragedy to their ongoing moralist obsessions.

A few minutes later the geek came over, sat a neat scotch and a glass of ice on the table across from me, and went to leave.

“If I knew you were taking drink orders…”

I taunted him with a raised glass. The hired suit shot me a sour stare and stormed off the way he came. A few minutes later, a well-dressed man around fifty sat down across from me and dropped a cube of ice in the Scotch.

“Making my life difficult before we have even begun doing business will not endear you to me Mr. Swingshift.”

He was tall; broad shouldered and distinguished enough. His refined speech bore the slightest hint of an old school highland accent. I liked him more than I expected to, which still wasn’t all that much.

“I would disagree Mr. MacEndroe, but all the same I don’t appreciate the strong arm from the hired muscle”

“My apologies. When you become a man of means, you find that you need the services of someone who can get things done with few questions. As you would assume, I do not frequent hipster dive bars.”

“Well as you may assume, I don’t frequent the back seats of Bentleys, so I appreciate you coming to my office. Now what do you say we skip the niceties and you tell me what I can do for you.”

There was a long pause as the guy dug deep for a touch of sincerity.

“It’s my youngest daughter, Liahna, she’s gone missing and I need you to track her down and bring her home.”

“Not to toss aside easy money Mac, but that sounds like a police matter.”

“Cut the crap Swingshift.” His tone switched without warning. “I’m a public figure. I need this handled discreetly and with care. I have it on authority you have connections to certain local subculture elements…”

“You’re going to have to get a little more specific there.”

“We are pretty sure Liahna has joined a cult of some kind, one of those damned black magic communes the tabloids are always shouting about.”

“Why do you think that?”

“She talked to her sister about it just before she disappeared. No details unfortunately, but she tried to get Mary, that is our eldest, to attend some manner of black mass. Rolf Starkings suggested that you were a straight shooter with spooky connections who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.”

Word of mouth is my bread and butter. This was becoming a common line of work for me. After Wall Street tanked, Upper East Side fathers with a little less money and lot more free time suddenly became interested in where their children were and how they were spending their trust funds. Easy work if you know the neighborhood. I figured the cult angle was some new symptom of the media’s occult panic drum beating.

“I’m not looking to waste your money MacEndroe. It’s 100 bucks an hour plus expenses for me to do some digging and a bit of legwork. If your daughter turns out to be in real trouble and things start to get sticky, then the rate doubles. “

“Henderson will give you a retainer, some photos and background information. If you excuse me I will be on my way.”

With that, he left as he had come. Henderson sauntered over after his boss had split. He scribbled a phone number on a large manila envelope and dropped it in front of me. Inside was some handwritten information on Liahna and a photograph. I could tell on sight it was too stale and sanitized to be of any use. There was also a fifteen hundred dollar retainer in cash. That I could put to good use.

“That’s my cell number. I want to be kept apprised of any developments. If I need to talk to you, I’ll find you.” Henderson let the threat hang in the air as he made for the exit.

I finished the rest of MacEndroes’ top shelf Scotch, picked up the envelope and my paper and made my way back up to the bar to jaw it out with Tracey.

“Chasing trust fund brats and relieving rich daddies of their pocket money again?”

Tracey was getting a real sense of my business model.

“Ah, but this time it has a juicy satanic cult angle.”

“The devil and a cult leader neither can resist a well moneyed piece of jailbait.”

“Truth. Thing is there was a time when a satanic cult meant actual cloven-hoofed blood rituals. These days that could be the case or could be daddy’s girl just met some nice Wiccans with a spare room.”

“Ah, to the good old days.” Tracey declared. We raised a pair of shots of something warm and brown in salute. A few more of those and I would be primed for P.I. work

***

As MacEndroe insinuated, I do have connections in New York’s occult underground. In fact, if we were, as paranoids would claim, a highly organized cabal, I would probably be middle management. The problem was with the influx of hipster converts and other hangers on, what had always been a handful of old heads had become a thriving social scene. I needed someone enmeshed in the intricate daily minutia of the scene. I needed a man on the inside. Ironically, my man for the job rarely ventured outdoors.

He currently trades under the ridiculous handle Rubric but changes his name every eighteen months or so. He lives in the lone demo apartment in an otherwise unfinished building of luxury condos along the waterfront. Since the bottom fell out of real estate, Brooklyn is littered with these monolithic phantoms of developers’ fantasies. Their ownerships are lost in labyrinthine complexes of exotic island P.O. Boxes and phantom shell companies. For urban development, it is a disaster. For squatters it is a dream.

Rubric’s building was designed for 40 units but his is the only one with proper walls, fixtures and a human inhabitant. To get in you have to slither through the gap in the dilapidated construction fence, wind your way through all manner of construction hazards and up a few flights of stairs that are certainly not up to code. The entire building is alive with feral felines chasing corpulent rats across filth covered Pergo flooring. It reeks of urine and worse. It is a striking symbol of modern man’s impermanence. We could all up and vanish tomorrow and our beloved pets would waste no time taking over our homes and pissing all over our stuff.

I had the sense to phone ahead. Rube was waiting to quickly spirit me into his sanctum before the beasts had time to decide whether the taste of my flesh was worth the effort. The apartment looks as if a white trash magus’ mobile home exploded inside a Chelsea design showroom. The fixtures are all state of the art and classic faux-Scandinavian minimalist. All other furnishings have been rescued from the trash heap.

Ancient books, grimoire and scrolls are stacked on every flat surface. Every inch of the sub-zero fridge is covered in magnets holding scraps of newspaper, post-its covered in obscure symbols and torn bits of parchment. Pentacles and other intricate symbols are carved into exquisite marble counter tops whose once glossy surfaces are now speckled with melted wax. The entire place is sealed tight and climate controlled, with power running from an overworked portable generator out on the balcony. This keeps all Rube’s priceless ancient paper from deteriorating and keeps the savage ammonia reek outside.

“So what’s the what?” I asked. I had been in the place for twenty solid minutes before he managed to look up from frantically thumbing a Blackberry.

“So, another poor little rich girl has wandered down the left hand path and into the grasp of demonic forces!?” Rube ran the last bit out in a sinister baritone.

“That or baby girl is living the life, can’t be bothered to call home and mom has a Daily Banner subscription.”

I handed him the photo that was in the envelope.

“My goddess, what is this, her yearbook photo? I thought you said she was well in her twenties?”

“She is. I have a feeling she’s no longer sporting the fresh look nor the Our Lady of Perpetual Chastity blazer.”

Rube dropped down at a desk and slapped the picture on a scanner, then busied himself on a laptop. The place fell into an uneasy silence as he worked. The only sounds were the distant hum of the generator and the unnerving scratch of curious cats at the door. He was discretely releasing Liana’s information into his vast web of social connections to see if anyone recognized her. If she had so much as purchased a love spell from a gypsy woman in Harlem we would know in time. Meanwhile I tried to fill the silence with topical conversation.

“You make anything of this dog pack business? You think it could be connected to the scene in some way?”

“Well if you ask me, I think a bunch of fighting dogs turned on their sickfuck tormentors, devoured their pathetic corpses and hit the streets in search of vengeance.” He did not bother to look up from the keyboard.

“My fear is that it will be pinned on the scene anyway”

“Well if it is somehow magical in nature, it would have to be something old, cold and certainly pre-Crowleyite… Bingo! Five in a row!”

Rube threw his hands in the air in victory upsetting several precarious towers of paper around the room.

“Really? That is some nice work my friend. What’s the skinny?”

“Well, Rex recognizes her from around, which is not a good sign for her.”

Rex, oh so cleverly spelled Rx, is the drug provider of choice for the esoterically inclined of the greater King’s county area. He deals in some rather exotic wares and is a nice enough bloke but at the end of the day, sketchy drug dealers are the same whether it is ayahuasca or dime bags of Charlie.

“Secondly he thinks she has been flopping at Jimmy the Pop Magus’ loft of wonders.”

Rube made a face as if witnessing a guy slam his nuts on a railing. I returned the look, though unfortunately it was my metaphorical nuts up against the rail.

“Rex says he can get you in to an after-hours thing over on Marcy where Jimmy will be, hopefully with your lost lamb in tow.”

“Sounds like the last thing on the planet I want to do tonight. Tell him to shoot me a text with the when/where.”

My phone vibrated before Rube even finished typing.

“Midnight at the Chesterfield – wear something pretty ”

I needed of a steady regiment of whiskey and change of clothes. The night was already stretching out ahead of me.