The Endless Sleep

In which we attempt to solve a 70-year-old literary mystery.

How it goes is, you spend long enough chasing around after your employer’s crazy daughters and suddenly you’re everyone’s go-to guy when they’ve got problems with wild dames. That’s how I knew what Charlie was going to ask me, last night when he approached me out back of the Marshall’s place, even before he said a word. He didn’t need to say anything. I could guess what was on his mind from the way he was worrying away at his cap, turning it around and around in his hands like it was the wheel of that big old Lincoln he drives for the Professor.

So that’s how I ended up, first thing the next morning, standing in the middle of the Professor’s library. The walls were lined with dark oak and old books wrapped in about a herd and a half of the fanciest cow skin, titles branded into their hides in gold. The Professor’s sister and her husband sat in a couple of high-backed armchairs, looking like they weren’t enjoying the experience none too much. The last time I’d seen this pair, they’d been hung on the wall of a flophouse in Indiana, a little whitewashed farmhouse behind them. Only difference was that he’d had a pitchfork and the both of them had looked less desiccated and more lifelike.

‘Our daughter has fallen in with a bad crowd,’ said she, in a voice like a rusty hinge blowing in a dull breeze. She said it in a way to suggest that I was probably on first-name terms with the bad crowd in question. I said nothing, just let it hang in the air between us for a while.

‘A very bad crowd,’ added he.

‘Veronica -- ’

‘Our daughter.’ The interruption earned him a sharp sideways look.

‘Veronica was always very close to her uncle -- my brother. It was therefore only natural that, when she started at college here in Los Angeles, she would come to stay with him.’

I nodded, wondering whether they had a point stashed somewhere nearby and whether I shouldn’t offer to help them look for it. In the distance a clock chimed, reminding me I had better things to be doing.

‘Tell me about this bad crowd,’ I said.

‘They are -- um -- friends of my brother.’

‘Where is the Professor?’ I took another look around the room as I asked, in case I’d missed him among the bric-a-brac.

‘He has departed,’ she said, and we all gave this statement a few moments silence before she continued. ‘My brother had tenure at a university in Massachusetts. He taught advanced mathematics. He moved west, ostensibly for his health, but also so that he could pursue in seclusion certain areas of research with which he had become --if I may be perfectly frank, Mr Taylor -- somewhat obsessed. Those of his colleagues with whom he still corresponded -- none of whom were privy to the exact nature of his research -- noted a distinct deterioration in his mental faculties over the following years. They attributed this to the strain of overwork. They believed he had simple driven himself insane trying to resolve the Skeats-Beswick Conundrum.’

‘I hear that’s a particularly tough nut to crack,’ I said. Being surrounded by all these books was starting to make me feel a little dry and dusty. My eyes lingered on a large globe stood in one corner. It looked like just the kind of place people with too much money would hide the drinks, to stop the servants from getting crazy ideas.

When I looked back, the Professor’s sister and her husband were making expectant eyes at me, so I asked, ‘So what was the old bird really into?’ which seemed as good a question as any.

‘What had begun as a perfectly innocent academic interest in non-Euclidian geometry had taken a somewhat… esoteric turn.’ She wouldn’t be drawn any further, despite me shooting her some of my most encouraging looks.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So what about these friends of the Professor’s?’

‘They shared a common interest. It is probably fair to say that it was a friendship of convenience. He gave them money and access to certain books he owned, and in return they allowed him to participate in certain… activities.’

‘Sounds like a swell deal all round. So where does Veronica picture? She their friend, too? They let her participate?’

‘Certainly not!’ I must have hit a raw nerve. The sister’s face puckered up like a lemon in hot water.

‘They abducted her,’ said the husband. It came out in a rush. I’d almost forgotten that he could speak. His wife gave him another withering look but he wasn’t taking it this time. ‘Well it’s true, Ellen.’ He explained, ‘She disappeared three days ago --Charlie was so worried, he called us up straight away and we just had to come down --of course, we told the police, but they’ve done nothing -- nothing! -- and then two days ago the note arrived.’

‘Note?’

‘They said that if we wanted to see her again -- alive -- we’d better give them the book -- but we don’t have the book! -- and that impossible man is refusing to give an inch.’

‘What book? What man?’ We were starting to get somewhere. The excitement was making me a little giddy. Luckily the sister jumped in to slam on the brakes.

‘Over the years my brother accumulated a sizeable collection of texts dealing with various aspects of the -- um -- ’

‘Esoteric?’ I offered, making a note to look the word up some day.

‘Exactly, Mr. Taylor. The esoteric. And it is one of these titles -- apparently quite a rare specimen -- which these people are demanding in exchange for our daughter’s return.’

‘So do you have the book or not?’

‘My husband sold it.’

‘Well what was I supposed to do?’ He turned his appeal towards me. ‘When Everett left us there were bills to pay and no money left to pay them with. He wasn’t going to miss a couple of books, now was he? And we were offered such a good price for them.’

‘Too good, and you should have realised it. Five hundred dollars. Can you believe that, Mr. Taylor? And now he says he won’t sell it back to us, not even for five thousand.’

I looked from wife to husband and back again. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So you want me to talk to this guy. What’s his name?’

‘Geiger,’ the husband said. ‘He runs a rare book shop near Las Palmas.’

Small world, I thought. ‘You want me to talk to him and see if I can’t get you this book back?’

They nodded in unison. I guessed it was probably the only thing they’d agreed on since ‘I do’. I wondered if they’d end up regretting it as much. 

‘You’d better tell me what this book’s called.’

The sister went to the big desk in the corner and scratched the name into a sheet of paper and handed it to me. I took a look and decided not to embarrass myself by trying to pronounce it. I went to the door and gave the handle a shake, saying, ‘I’ll let Charlie know how I get on,’ as I waited for the footsteps outside to scurry away across the tiled hall. Then I told them both ‘goodbye’ and let myself out.

Charlie was waiting for me in the kitchen.

‘So what d’you think, Owen?’

I looked at the piece of paper with the name of the book on it and then folded it and put it away inside my jacket.

‘I think I’d better be getting back to my own work, Charlie.’

‘But you’re going to help get Miss Veronica back, aren’t you, Owen?’

I smiled at him. ‘You heard me say I would, didn’t you, Charlie?’

In answer he smiled me an uncomfortable smile. ‘You know I’d do it myself if I could, Owen, but I just can’t make these old bones of mine move like they used to.’

I liked Charlie. Always had. He was an easy guy to like. Veronica ran in the same circles as the General’s girls, so we’d often find ourselves killing time together, waiting out back at some society function or private party with the other chauffeurs, playing craps and drinking beer. He was always quick to pay up when he lost, and even quicker to spread his good luck around when he won, and unlike some guys I knew, the more he drunk the better he liked everyone.

That Veronica was a nice piece, too. Charlie certainly had it easier than I did with Carmen and Vivian. Odds were usually better than even that Charlie would be driving Veronica home at the end of the night, and not chasing about, trying to pry her loose from some playboy’s arms or drag her out of some seedy two-bit motel room.

In all it seemed like a pretty sweet setup for a ageing gentleman of colour like Charlie. I asked him about that one time. ‘Aw, hell,’ he said. ‘The Professor’s always so wrapped up in them books of his, he wouldn’t notice if you had two heads.’

Back in the kitchen that morning, Charlie wouldn’t look me in the eyes and I wondered what had changed. I asked him, ‘So what’s really happening, Charlie? Who are these guys who’ve taken Veronica? What’s so special about this book they’re after they’d take to kidnapping? And when did the Professor die?’

The last question hit Charlie like a slap in the face. ‘Oh, no,’ he said, shaking his head fit to work it loose. ‘The Professor ain’t dead. He’s just gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Uh-huh. Went out one night and didn’t never come back. Wouldn’t let me drive him or nothing. Said he was meeting up with some friends who would take care of that. Well, I recon they done taken care of him alright.’

‘These the same friends who swiped Veronica?’

‘I recon so.’

‘Tell me about them.’

‘I ain’t trying to scare you off, Owen, but them’s a weird bunch -- and you can believe me when I tell you I knows weird. My Papa, he used to preach the Lord’s word every Sunday to the most God-fearing folks you’re ever likely to meet, and my Ma, well she could sew you up a wicked hex bag such as would keep you right as rain even if Baron Samedi hisself came a knocking at your door… But these friends of the Professor’s, well, I tell you, they gave me the creeps. They get together around the harbour down Dana Point way, and, well, they worship. Oh, yeah. They’re fervent in their worship, alright. But I wouldn’t like to say what it is they worship.’

Charlie wiped his brow and refused to say another word. Somewhere close by a clock struck again, telling me it was time to leave.

I spent the rest of that day thinking over how I was going to convince Geiger to give me the book. Luckily my job didn’t otherwise require much in the way of thinking --and I didn’t really have that many options to choose from, anyway -- so by mid-morning I’d already made up my mind. The rest of the day trickled by like cold molasses down a nun’s back. The shortest tall guy I’ve ever seen turned up wearing a powder blue suit while I was out back cleaning the girls’ cars. Carmen had a little play with him before Norris took him over to see the General in the orchid house. He came out about a half hour later, looking soaked through but a few hundred dollars better off.

Nothing else of note happened. By six night was just about finished chasing dusk out of the sky and I was itching to move. I took the only car left in the garage, Vivian’s black and chrome Buick, and pointed it out into the night. I knew Geiger had a place in the canyons and I figured that I’d be more likely to catch him there at this time of day. It was a secluded place where the two of us could talk the kind of secluded business we had to talk. 

A little after seven I parked up in the street which ran parallel down below Geiger’s and started up the flight of rickety wooden steps to the back porch of his little house. He had neglected to be so kind as to leave a door open, so I popped the lock with a tire iron I just happened to have with me and stepped inside.

The kitchen was dark but light spilled in from under the door to the front room. With it came the sound of a voice, so I stopped there for a while and listened. Either Geiger was talking to himself or whoever he was talking to wasn’t too interested in the conversation -- which seemed to be about Egyptian goddesses -- and was keeping quiet. After a few minutes of listening I couldn’t say I blamed them. I pushed the door open.

The room was cluttered, with a low beamed ceiling, low bookshelves, cushions scattered around, the walls hung with Chinese silk and oriental prints. Geiger was there, and so was Carmen. She sat on an orange shawl in a high-backed chair. I wasn’t surprised to find her there. I wasn’t surprised to find her naked, either. She held her slim body erect, her firm little breast stood at attention, her lips slightly parted. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen a dozen times before, but I gave her a quick once-over for old time’s sake before turning my attention to the Geiger. He was short and fat and I already missed looking at Carmen.

‘Who -- ’ he began.

‘Can it,’ I said. It was something I’d heard a tough guy say in a movie, but it seemed to work. Geiger shut his mouth and looked about ready to cry.

I moved further into the room and closed the door behind me.

‘You know why I’m here?’ I asked.

Geiger shook his head, then gestured to Carmen. It was a good guess, but wrong this time.

‘I’m here for a book,’ I said.

He looked more surprised than a man in the book-selling business ought to.

‘A book?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. A book. But not your usual type.’

‘No?’

‘No. This one’s old. Real old. Written be some crazy old-time Arab.’ I tried to remember how the Professor’s sister had described it to me. ‘About so big. Thick parchment pages. All bound in old leather. You conned it from some friends of mine and wouldn’t give it back even though they asked real nice.’

‘I don’t know anything about any book,’ Geiger said. His good eye flicked to the big black desk. On it sat a book. It was about so big, thick parchment pages, all bound in old leather.

I thanked him and took a step towards the desk. Geiger put his fat little self between me and it. He pulled a fat little hand out of the pocket his silk coat. In it was a fat little pistol.

‘Oh, no, not so fast you don’t.’

We both looked at each other, neither quite sure what to do next. Then the door behind me burst open and in came a guy carrying a gun. He had a hat pulled down over his eyes and the collar of his coat turned up high and between the two he wore a halloween mask shaped like the face of an angry fish. He stank of angry fish, too, which I thought was taking the dressing-up a bit too far.

He said, ‘Gugugoterell,’ and waved his gun around a bit.

Geiger made a shocked, strangled noise in answer and pointed his gun at the fish man. The fish man pointed his gun at Geiger. He wore gloves which made his hands look green and scaly and webbed between the fingers. You had to give him marks for going all-in on the costume.

He said, ‘Gugugoterell,’ again, this time making it sound like a question.

I was feeling left out, not having a gun to point at anyone, so I thought I’d leave those fellas to pointing theirs at each other and began to back away. I backed into this thing like a totem pole with a carved wooden eagle head on top of it which someone had left standing in the middle of the floor. I must have brushed something I shouldn’t of had, because suddenly a burst of white light filled the room.

When I could see again I looked down at the totem and saw where there was a blown flashbulb sticking out from the side of it, and when I looked up again Carmen was screaming and Geiger and the fish man were both just starting to react.

There was the sound of running feet outside the front door.

Fish man moved first, squeezing his trigger once, twice, three times, the reports loud as thunder in the small room, the stench of burning powder just about masking the stench of fish. I watched Geiger go over backwards, the world slowing to let me appreciate every detail as he landed on his back, arms splayed, the red stain spreading across his chest.

My ears rang from the shots. I looked round. Fish man was gone but he’d left the kitchen door open behind him. He’d also left his gun lying on the floor and the old book over on the black desk. I grabbed both of them and then stopped by the totem pole. I tore the back off the eagle head and grabbed the film plate from behind it. At least I’d have something to remember tonight by.

I blew Carmen a kiss and headed out the back door, taking the wooden steps a few at a time, trying not to slip on the wet boards. At the bottom I looked back and saw a shadow lean out over the railing at the top of the stairs. I don’t think they saw me, and whoever they were I didn’t get a good look at them. I slid behind the wheel of the Buick and with the book on the seat besides me I drove off into the night.

I headed south, out of the canyons, and then west on Sunset. The ringing in my ears quietened down and was replaced with a rushing noise which sounded like the ocean but was probably just blood and fear. I got to thinking about more blood, blood staining a fat man’s silk coat, and about men who wore fish masks and carried guns and were far too eager to use them, and about how everything had so quickly gotten out of hand, and somewhere just beyond Beverly Hills I must have stopped thinking as much as I should have about driving because the next thing I know I was skidding off the road.

I fought with the wheel and won, bring the Buick to a halt. Headlights pulled in behind me. They stayed on as I heard a door open and then close and the sound of footsteps crunching on gravel and getting closer. I swept the book off of the seat and into the footwell and was just straightening up again when the figure came up level with the window.

‘Okay, buddy,’ said the voice attached to the figure who was just a shadow in the dazzle of the headlights. ‘Let’s see some identification.’

‘You first,’ I said. ‘What are you meant to be? Some kind of cop? Let’s see a badge.’

The guy must have been shy about his badge, because he reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece and before I got a good look at what he was doing he sapped me hard across the side of the head.

I wasn’t out for long. Maybe a minute. Two, tops. The guy was around the other side of the car now, leaning in through the passenger window. He found the photographic plate I’d taken from the totem at Geiger’s place. I watched from beneath heavy lids as he slide it into a pocket, then watched as he leant in further through the window. He found the gun where it had fallen in the footwell but left it lying on the seat while he reached back down there again.

I kicked at him. He jumped back and fell over, away from the window and the car. I had the Buick started and in gear and was moving again by the time he’d recovered and gotten back up on his feet. I put my foot down hard and left it that way until the headlights were far behind me and I was sure they weren’t coming back.

I stopped at a gas station somewhere around Newport Beach and dialled the Professor’s residence.

‘Owen?’

‘I got it, Charlie. Now listen, here’s what we’re going to do.’

I sketched out the plan for him -- I left out anything about fish men and dead fat men covered in blood -- and then hung up and dialled the other number the Professor's sister had given me. The guy who answered sounded kinda croaky on the bad line.

‘Yes? What is it?’

‘Is that lost and found?’

‘What?’

‘I hear you’ve lost a book. Well, maybe I’ve found it. And maybe you’ve found something of mine.’

‘Yeah? And what would that be?’

‘A blonde. About five-two, well educated, kinda classy.’

There was a pause filled with line-crackles, and then, ‘Okay, mister. Here’s how it’s going to go down … ’

I listened for a while and then hung up and got back in the car and followed the directions the voice on the phone had given me. I drove south on the Highway until I was past Monarch Beach and then found the little road just where he said it would be and turned down it and bumped along until I ran out of road at the cliff’s edge. There were a couple of other cars and some people there waiting for me in a circle of headlights.

I got out of the Buick. It was windy up there on the cliff top. The wind rippled the long grass and made the low scrubby trees shake and tugged at the dark hooded robes the figures were wearing. It began raining again.

One of the robed figures walked closer until he was standing just a few yards away from me. ‘Where’s the book?’ he said. The wind whipped the words away as soon as he spoke them but I recognised him as the voice on the phone. The croak hadn’t been caused by the bad line.

I nodded towards the car, then held up a hand to stop another of the robes as he started to make for it.

‘Not so fast. Where’s the girl?’

The guy from the phone waved a hand and Veronica was lead into the light. Her eyes were wide with fear and red from crying but otherwise she looked unharmed. I nodded to her and she gave me a look that said maybe she recognised me and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.

‘Okay,’ I told the guy from the phone. ‘I’m going to give you your book, then me and the lady are going to drive outta here and then we’re all going to pretend like none of this ever happened. Sound good to you?’

The guy from the phone opened his mouth to say something, but instead somebody else yelled ‘No!’ We looked at each other and then at Veronica, who was struggling with the robe holding her and doing the shouting.

‘You can’t give them the book! Don’t do it! Don’t you know what they’ll do if they get hold of it? You can’t let them!’

The guy from the phone looked annoyed at this. He took a couple of steps towards Veronica, raising a hand to strike her, then fell flat on his face in the muddy grass. The wind stretched the gunshot out across the cliff top until it was as thin as a twig snapping.

A shadow lurched out of the darkness, firing at the robed figures who scattered in every direction. I socked the one who was trying to keep a hold on Veronica and took her by the arm and pulled her down behind the nearest car. I’d gotten a good look at the shadow with the gun and I didn’t like the look of what I saw. The wind had torn off its hat and blown back the collar of its coat and now the fish mask was looking less like a mask than ever. Where he’d got another gun from was less of a question than how he’d scaled the sheer rock face from the ocean below.

I took Veronica by the hand and we began making our way around the outside of the circle of cars, keeping down low the whole time and working our way back towards the Buick. The silences between gunshots grew longer. I thought it might be safe to try breathing again. We reached the back of the Buick and started around the driver’s side. The fish man was stood next to the driver’s door, waiting for us.

I straightened up slowly, pulling Veronica up besides me. I raised my hands to show they were empty.

‘It’s okay,’ I told him. ‘You want the book? Help yourself. It’s on the seat, on the passenger side.’

The fish man opened his mouth to say something. I could see the gills all along either side of his neck flapping. The wind stole the words before they got to me but I’d have put money on them being ‘Guguoterell’.

There was a crack and the fish man threw back his head and arched his back and sank to his knees. A robed figure stood behind him, a gun in his outstretched hand. I threw Veronica to the ground and scooped up the fish man’s gun and emptied the magazine into the robed figure. He went down and stayed there, the robe still fluttering madly but the man inside dead still.

The fish man lay on the ground on his side, gills flapping, one arm stretching out towards where Veronica lay facing him a few feet away. She made as if to scream. I knelt down next to her and put a hand on her arm.

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘He’s not going to hurt you.’ I turned to the fish man. ‘Are you, Professor?’

The fish man turned his sad featureless black eyes up to me. A milky white membrane flicked across them. He turned them back towards Veronica.

‘Uncle?’ She reached out and took his webbed hand.

‘Guguoterell,’ he said, which under the circumstances I found really moving and almost had me in tears. Then the fish man let go of Veronica’s hand and slowly got to his feet. I helped Veronica to hers.

‘I guess it’s not just the smell that’s strong about you,’ I said. This made Veronica smile, and I like to think the Professor got a kick out of it, too.

He gestured towards the car and then out into the darkness, towards the direction of the ocean.

‘You want to take the book and swim off into the sunset?’ I guessed.

He nodded, which was no mean feat for someone without a neck.

‘It’s for the best,’ said Veronica. ‘It’ll be safer that way. It won’t fall into the wrong hands.’ She sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

I got the book out of the Buick and handed it to the Professor. He hugged it to his chest and looked from me to Veronica and then turned and hobbled off into the darkness beyond the ring of headlights, towards the cliff edge. Veronica called ‘Goodbye! Good luck!’ after him, but the wind grabbed the words and threw them away in the opposite direction.

We drove back north in silence, Veronica clinging tight against me the whole way. She only spoke once.

‘They’re -- they’re all dead?’

‘Uh-huh,’ I said. After I’d put her in the Buick I’d taken a minute to walk around and count bodies. ‘The whole lot of them. They won’t be bothering you no more.’

She hadn’t said anything else after that, just held on to me tighter.

I’d arranged to meet Charlie in New Beach, down by the water front. He was stood there waiting, leaning against the Professor’s old Lincoln, parked near the stucco arch which marked the entrance to a fishing pier which lead out into the darkness over the ocean. When we stopped the car and got out we found that the wind had dropped and you could hear the sound of the waves lapping against the shore.

‘Hell, Owen,’ began Charlie. ‘I didn’t think you was ever going to show.’ Then he saw Veronica and a smile split his face. ‘Miss Veronica. Sure is good to see you again.’

‘You too, Charlie,’ she said.

Charlie shook my hand like he was trying to pump oil from a well. ‘I owe you one, Owen,’ he said. ‘I really do.’

‘You bet you do,’ I told him.

Charlie pulled the Lincoln’s door open and held if for Veronica and she was just about to climb in when she turned and ran back to where I was standing. She threw her arms around my neck and smushed her lips against mine. She had the makings of a great kisser but she wasn’t quite there yet. She whispered ‘Thank you’ into my ear and then walked back and got into the Lincoln.

Charlie touched the peak of his cap at me and slid in behind the wheel. I stood and watched them drive off until I couldn’t see their lights any more and then turned to get back into the Buick for the drive back into Los Angeles. And that’s the last thing I remember. They tell me that someone socked me from behind and put me in behind the wheel; that they pointed the car down the pier and opened up the throttle; that I ended up sleeping the endless sleep beneath dirty oily waves. It’s all news to me.

So you can blow out the black candles and unlink your hands and put away the ouija board and you can please, please, stop bothering me with your questions. Because you see, I haven’t spoken recently with Valentino or your Uncle Bobby; I don’t know where your grandpappy hid the deeds to the farm before he passed or what numbers will come up in the lotto next week; and, no, no matter how often you ask, I’m sorry, but I just don’t know who the hell it was that killed me.