Algernon Swafford Read online

  In any objective way, the man before me was handsome. Not quite good looking enough to be in the films, perhaps, but he would make an impression at most parties.

  His hair was brushed back and it was too dark in the bar for me to really examine his eyes, but almost certainly, the man before me was Jacob Ravens.

  “So,” I asked, keeping my tone polite, “what brings a young fellow like you all the way to Monterey?”

  He sighed, playing the part of a ridiculous young swain to perfection. “Oh, you know, love and heartbreak and all that jazz. I have a passionate and unruly nature and I never quite know where it will take me. But I find it best not to fight against it, no matter where I might end up.”

  As he spoke, the red-headed McGinity poured a glass of pale Californian beer (which I knew from previous experience was absolutely tasteless) and put it in front of Ravens. My new companion hadn’t placed any order, but clearly expected it. As if he had truly made this dank watering hole his second home. He raised his beverage in a toast and I clinked glasses with him. If anything, his smile got broader and more idiotic.

  “What about you, my dear chap?” he asked. “What could possibly bring you to the pretty west of the California coast? Is it a love story yourself, or are you simply seeing America while you have the chance?”

  “No.” I shook my head slowly, then – when McGinty turned away from to us – I clamped my hand tight around his wrist. “I’m here for you, Ravens.”

  Four

  His eyes went as wide and white as they possibly could, then he goggled at me. One can always tell a damned coward the instant you bruise their skin. Some men will instinctively fight, others will immediately crumble.

  He tried to squirm away, but my grip was too strong. Besides, the glare I fixed on him let him know it was hopeless. The only worry I possibly had was that he’d call to his barman chum for assistance. Not that I couldn’t have handled the Irish bastard, but it would have been an unneeded complication.

  Fortunately he kept his voice low. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

  “Come, Mr Ravens,” I sneered. “With the disgraceful life you’ve led, you must have suspected that someone like me would eventually come for you. Well, today is that day.”

  “What?”

  “The ruined marriages, the broken minds, the trail of uncaring destruction you’ve left in your wake. You must have known that a righteous comeuppance would smack you in the face eventually.”

  “Honestly, I really don’t know what you mean.”

  Still he tried to slip away off the bar stool. The consequence was that I twisted his skin hard enough to almost leave rope burns; I pulled him closer to me in the bar’s gloom. “Yes, you do. You well know why I am here.”

  I watched his face. His eyebrows practically at the top of that big forehead, his mouth opening and shutting. He must have realised though that he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  There was a wince of pain as my fingers tightened again, before a flash of annoyance and then his features settled into a semblance of calm. As if what we had now was acceptance. I continued to hurt him, but he was going to be something resembling a man about it.

  “Okay, okay.” The effort to hold back any vestige of pain was obviously leaving him breathless. “I know why you’re here. It’s no coincidence that we’ve met each other this evening. But really, you have to believe me, I’m not Jacob.”

  I squinted menacingly. “And yet you are so much like him.”

  He spoke quickly. Desperate to get out his story before I lost patience and snapped the joint within my grip. “That’s why he wants me, because I resemble him. As if we’re brothers. If you know anything about Jacob, then you’ll already understand that he’s vain. Horribly vain, fascinatingly vain. He’s with me because when we’re in bed, it’s like looking at himself. As if he’s doing it with himself.” Crimson rose to his cheeks. “He adores pretty women, but when it comes to men, the more they resemble him the better.”

  There was no way I could avoid giving a snarl of disgust.

  I let him go.

  In my experience, no man was going to make up something which made him appear so weak and pathetic. Even Ravens – if he knew why I was there – was surely not going to humiliate himself in this manner. Every man has a certain level of self-respect that they cannot and will not fall below. No matter if they’re in the face of certain death. And to tell a lie akin to that one about yourself, with a straight face and every ounce of earnestness, would have revolted pretty much any man who attempted it.

  No, this idiot had confessed to something which made my stomach crawl. But the sheer nature of the confession meant it had to be true.

  He massaged his wrist and whimpered a little. I suppose I was grateful that he hadn’t broken into full-blown womanly tears.

  A grimace on my face, I turned away and took another sip of my beer.

  I realised that while McGinity was all the way down the other end of the counter, he was watching us closely while wiping a shot glass. The fact he hadn’t intervened, offered a kind of confirmation that this wasn’t the real Ravens.

  “So, who the hell are you then?” I demanded.

  “What I told you remains correct. My name really is Paul Hollingshead. I am a friend of Jacob’s.”

  “Friend?”

  He stared with heavy eyes down at his glass. “I no longer apologise for what I am.”

  “And let me guess, Ravens has sent you here today to tell me to back off? He’s heard that I’m on his scent and he’s decided to play the tough guy and warn me away. Except he’s properly limp-wristed and he sent you to do it. Frankly,” I sniffed, “if you’re the best he can offer by way of intimidation, I’ll stay on my path.”

  “No, that’s not it. He didn’t send me.”

  The way my lips curled when I sneered, it always looked as if a knife wound had been opened. Almost like I’d once been made to wear a Glasgow smile. I could tell from the startled fluttering of his eyelids that he wasn’t enjoying the effect.

  “What do you mean?” I snapped. “Did you take it upon yourself to come here to find me? Is your devotion to this man such that you would do that for him?”

  Again his jaw opened and closed, trying to form words that his brain hadn’t yet provided.

  I gave him the nod and let him have his drink; hopefully it would be enough to calm him somewhat.

  His hand shook as he raised the glass for one long swallow, then the words blurted out. “Jacob knows you’re coming for him, that you’re hunting him. He heard you’ve been asking questions and were on your way. He also knows” – the young man swallowed hard again – “you have a certain reputation with the right people. He guesses that means you’re going to harm him. Or worse. It doesn’t worry him though, as he thinks he has ways to deal with you. No, I know for a fact he does have ways to deal with you. But I don’t want that to happen. Despite the fact I’ve not met you before, I want my conscience clean. So, I came here tonight to try and talk you into going away. To persuade you it’s really in your best interests to turn around and forget all about Jacob Ravens and anything to do with him.”

  I chuckled loudly. It’s so rare I laugh and the result always feels surprisingly good.

  The first time someone tried to bully me, it was in my prep school in Richmond, London. An older boy whose name completely escapes me. I broke his nose then and I’ve been breaking noses ever since.

  “Go on, illuminate me – what ways does this Ravens have to deal with me?”

  “He…” The man who called himself Hollingshead stumbled to a halt. Staring at me, no doubt trying to determine if I was as credulous a nincompoop as he was. “Look, what Jacob writes and what Jacob lives are the same thing. The dark realms his words speak of, the other dimensions, the creatures who exist beyond both space and time. His books are about men who summon these entities and destroy themselves. But the thing is, Jacob genuinely can call them and he uses that power to destroy others. It
’s all real through and through. Jacob in his books and all those short stories isn’t conjuring up fantasy for adolescents, he is writing his autobiographical confessions.”

  “Fairy stories!” I growled. I was so irritated that this was all the idiot could concoct by way of threat, I nearly knocked him right off his bar stool.

  “In these weeks you’ve been hunting him, have you never read any of his works?”

  “No, of course I haven’t. I don’t need to read ledgers to hunt an accountant. Just as I don’t need to read nonsense to hunt a writer of nonsense.”

  If anything he looked a little hurt. “Don’t you see you’ve put yourself at a major disadvantage coming here without knowing him? You may have your gun, but effectively you’ve arrived unarmed. What Jacob can do, no man should have the power to do. He has made himself into a force beyond nature, a force beyond science. You may think you’re a big man, the private eye strutting around with his British accent, but you are never going to be a match for Jacob. He can unleash powers which will suck all the breath from your body and leave you a wizened cadaver before you’ve realised what’s happening. If he wants, he can kill you in seconds. But even with a death that swift, you will feel a thousand torments and go completely insane before the sweet release of nothingness.”

  Once again, I couldn’t help myself – I actually laughed. Jack Benny, Groucho Marx and all those other radio comedians had nothing on this young man. The fact he said it all with a straight face, believing every nonsense word, just made it funnier.

  I clamped my hand around his wrist again, not wanting my little joke machine to go anywhere without me.

  He winced, but again didn’t cry out.

  “And that’s what I’ll face if I go against Jacob Ravens, is it?”

  “Yes! You have to listen to me!”

  I tapped the trusty Remington tucked under my breast. “And this is what you go against when you face me, do you understand? I’d wager on myself, any occasion.”

  “You’re a fool!” he spluttered

  “No, you are, Mr Hollingshead, a worthless fool. Do you know where Ravens is now?”

  “A damn fool.”

  I was one twist from actually breaking his wrist. “Where is he?”

  With a gasp, he buckled slightly on the stool. “A stupid, stubborn old fool!”

  “Where is Ravens?” I yelled. Getting McGinity’s full attention now, but after staring in our direction for a fleeting moment, he clearly determined I wasn’t a man to be messed with.

  This Hollingshead’s body was all right angles, pain coursing from his wrist through every part of him. Becoming horribly aware, as they always did, that if he didn’t give me what I wanted in the next ten seconds or so, he was going to have to improvise a whole other system to tie his shoelaces.

  “O-o-okay,” he stammered finally. “I’ll take you to him. You’re making a mistake, I tell you – however, I’ll take you to him.”

  I loosened my grip, but didn’t let go. “Good. You’re finally making sense.”

  Five

  The night-time streets of Monterey had a raucous feel to them. A few hundred feet from us, the Pacific stretched out seemingly to eternity: the country of America had come to an end. There was no more road for this great nation, so the populace was going to enjoy their freedom while they could.

  That cannery plant had closed for the night (although I noticed that the big chimney continued to pump out black smoke, maybe it never stopped), but such was the infectious gaiety all around us, I could only assume it was payday. Everywhere I peered there were people having what they’d term ‘fun’. A mix of blacks, whites and Latinos, who had hit the cheap liquor and were determined to treat each other to the best time possible. Yelling about how much they were enjoying themselves, in a fashion which sounded somewhat forced to my ears.

  It reminded me of my time in the London police after The Great War. Occasionally we’d head into the West End and break heads in a brothel. Some of them had a greater reputation for salaciousness than others, so much so that stories were spreading which were certain to alarm the custodians of polite society. That meant they had to be dealt with, no matter how much in bribes they’d paid. The entire town of Monterey had the feel right then of one of those brothels – as if everything was on offer and you simply had to make your preference known.

  On another night, this Hollingshead character would undoubtedly have revelled in it. Now he shuffled through the cries and raucous laughter with all the forward momentum of a man shuffling to the gallows. He’d slipped onto his heels as we left the bar, maybe intent on making me think twice just through childish stubbornness. The Remington soon put a stop to any nonsense. I shoved it to his belly and told him that I could find other ways to get to Ravens if I had to. After all, I was a patient man who had come this far alone. If he knew what was good for him, he’d understand that he was utterly expendable.

  The damned idiot put his hands up as if being robbed – trying to play the damsel in distress, no doubt – but I spun him around and made him walk. My gun hanging as unobtrusively as possible at my side, Hollingshead was kept a stride or so in front of me. I made it clear that if I started to suspect we were going in the wrong direction, or that he was leading me around in circles, I’d put a bullet in his ankle. Then I’d haul him close to upright and make him hobble me to the right location.

  He swallowed loudly, knowing I was a man of my word. But as we walked, although I’d have preferred quiet acquiescence, he couldn’t resist pleading.

  “You don’t want to do this, you know?” He glanced over his shoulder at me, a fringe of hair having flopped down so he was peering out from beneath it. “This isn’t going to end well for you.”

  “Ha! Because Ravens can commune with the demon fairies? I think not, my friend, I really think not. A degenerate gambler I met in Cincinnati tried to persuade me that he had a guardian angel, who not only let him win at cards, but would smite me dead if I hurt a hair on his precious balding head. However, he was a well-known card cheat and he was buried in a plywood coffin after I blew his worthless brains out. Administering death doesn’t bother me, Mr Hollingshead. And I won’t feel any compulsion if I have to bring it to you. So maybe you should feel a tad more scared of me than you do of Ravens.”

  Incredibly, he actually spun around on his heels and confronted me. Across the road, in a darkened doorway, a black couple actually stopped what they were doing and regarded us. I knew their interest wouldn’t last long, his ravings were surely far less interesting than any cannoodling.

  “Why don’t you listen to me?” There was fire in his eyes and his voice was as shrill and hysterical as any woman’s.

  I shot a glare over to the couple. Making it clear that they better mind their own business or else. The same went for the fat, drunk, white man who’d stopped his staggering down the street. Gawping at us with his belly poking from his stained shirt.

  Damn this pathetic queer!

  It was final warning time. I raised my gun, expecting him to quiver, to duck down and wave his hands again in surrender.

  However – almost impressively – he stood unbowed. He held his ground, didn’t blink as I pointed the business end right at his forehead.

  “You don’t understand, you stupid old man, I am trying to save your life! You are going to die in pain beyond imagining, don’t you comprehend that? He will destroy all sense you have of yourself, toy with your fractured mind and then kill you. Don’t you have loved ones? Or friends you care about? If you continue down this path, you will never see any of them again. You are doomed!”

  My jaw tense, I rested the finger on the trigger. So close to blowing this twist away. “I know how to look after myself.”

  “Yes, you’re a big, hard man, of course you are. But when you were in the trenches, did you actually race towards the machine guns? Did you? Of course not. Or you wouldn’t be here today. Running into no man’s land is exactly what I’m trying to stop you doing. Jacob Ra
vens is not a man to be messed with. Not a man you can simply walk up to and challenge. Listen to me, I’m trying to stop you being cut into pieces by machine guns!”

  “Speaking of guns…” I told him. With half a step forward, I pushed the barrel right into his forehead.

  Tears ran from the corners of his eyes, he winced and cowered. There was a fraction of a second when I actually considered doing it. Say bugger to that couple and the drunk man – who were the police going to believe, a couple of humping blacks, or an inebriate, or me? I once met Winston Churchill and so could easily have any flatfoot eating from my hand in less time than it takes to boil an egg.

  But as his spirit crumbled away before me, it didn’t seem all that sporting – so I took a step back and gave him my Glasgow smile.

  “Walk.” I told him, softly.

  His legs clearly wobbling, he turned and led me to the dockside. The moon had risen high in the sky and the docks were much quieter than the streets behind.

  Part of that was because the town had all the bars and places of decadence; part of it was the smell of day-old fish which pervaded the town was unavoidable this close to the flotilla; and part of it was that with the moon so high, the opportunities for drunken fornication at the dockside were less obvious. A faint silver light illuminated everything. The buildings stood too far apart to provide the deep wells of shadow.

  Despite the shakiness of his limbs, he’d got about five feet ahead of me. I thought he was shaping to run and was about to put one into his shoulder to remind him what a stupid idea it would be, when suddenly he stopped and swung around to stare at me.