Sunday Sept 3 - Franky

[Gaffer]

Sunday morning train to Boston that would reach a stop somewhere near Chepachet by about noon. It leaves Grand Central at about 7:30 a.m.

Franky wakes up late, glad that he didn’t have two bottles. He swallows two aspirin while brushing his teeth and shaves. With a wad of bloody toilet paper on his jaw he chokes down two more aspirin and hustles to the subway. He almost sleeps through his transfer at Fulton Street station, but makes it to Grand Central with time to send a telegram to Malone. He finds a railroad detective and badges his way aboard the early run to Boston.

About four hours later, the conductor shakes him awake: “We’re pulling into Chepachet now, detective. Not a regular stop.”

Franky’s the only passenger on the platform as the train starts to gather speed again. It's chilly outside, though the sky is clear and the sun bright overhead.

[Gaffer]

<bumping it up>

[FrankyEsposito]

I stumble across the platform, barely awake. The brisk air feels good, but I could still go for a drink. Best make it coffee, though. I'll give the station a quick once-over, looking for somewhere to get a cup of joe. If there's nothing there I'll look for a diner, maybe get some eggs to go with that.

Once that's done (or not done, depending on how accommodating Chepachet happens to be) I'll look for someone to drive me out to Harley's farm.

[Gaffer]

Franky is finishing the last of his coffee after a plate of ham and eggs in a cafe by the station, when he becomes aware of a large presence standing over him. It’s a tall, heavyset man in an overextended suit and a flat-brimmed fedora.

“You Esposito? My name’s Dave Harley. I’m chief cop here and Tom Malone’s landlord. I’m his friend too. I’ll drive you out to my place.” A somewhat battered sedan is parked at the curb.

[FrankyEsposito]

I stand up and shake the big man's hand. “"Thanks, Chief, that's mighty kind of you. Let me settle my tab here and we can head out."

I pay for my meal and head out with the big man. "Damn fine coffee they serve here. And hot!" When we get out to his car I'll ask if he remembers Pfister or Vinny, and make a little small talk about his time on the NYPD. (Assuming he's willing to talk about it. I won't pry if he isn't.)

[Gaffer]

As the sedan navigates the town’s main street and wanders down a country road for a while, Harley makes small talk. He remembers Vinny a little and Pfister well. He explains that his wife got increasingly nervous about his work in the big city. So he decided to come out to the sticks for her and the kids. It's been alright.

He turns in at a farm lane with a sign that reads “Harley Farm” and stops the car, turning in his seat to face you.

“Malone says he wants to speak to you about that Red Hook business. That’s fine, but take it easy on him. He’s been making some progress the past year or so and probably it’ll do him good to get the story out of his head and into the air. But don’t press him too much, okay?”

He drives up to a stone cottage with a slate roof. All around is nothing but fields and forest, cows grazing on the other side of a rail fence. The smells of composting manure and new-mown hay mingle pleasantly.

“When you’re done, come on up to the house and I’ll drive you back to town."

Malone opens his door with a brief “Good day to you”.

He shows you into a small sitting room with a peat fire in the grate and a covered tray on a low table. He's a great bear of a man, nearing 50, his thick shock of black hair heavily mingled with gray. He offers sandwiches and tea or coffee with the promise of a dollop of good Irish in it, as he sits in a large Morris chair beside a table cluttered with books and a pipe-smoker’s paraphernalia. There’s an armchair and a settee.

When Franky is settled, Malone begins to speak with the faint lilt of an Irish native in his voice, though his words are educated and well-chosen.

“Well, if you’ve found me, then I suppose you’ve read my report. If not, you should, for it’s the official story and shouldn’t tax your imagination or trouble your sleep. Everything in the files is true and correct, as far as it goes. It all happened just like it says. But since you’ve come all this way, I expect you want to hear what was left out. So here it is then.”

OOC,You can have Malone's story (it's fairly long) in one giant post or in smaller chunks. The others are posting kind of slowly just now and I don't know how long it'll take to get their Sundays done.

[FrankyEsposito]

OOC,I'm pretty busy with work the next couple weeks (or months, or...) so I may be slow as well. Just give me the whole thing and I'll run with it.

[Gaffer]

“Robert Suydam was a pestilential old fool. He’d about enough fortune to barely maintain the mansion his grandfather had built on Martense Street in Flatbush. He was a querulous, corpulent old fellow with stubbly beard, unkempt white hair, and old-fashioned garb. Before I ever was assigned the case, I’d heard of him as an authority on mediaeval superstition and I once browsed a pamphlet of his about the Kabbalah and the Faustus legend. I was something of a Mediaevalist, you see, in my mis-spent youth among the cloisters of Dublin University, thirty-odd years ago.

“Suydam became a ‘case’ when his relatives tried to have him committed based on odd changes in his speech and habits: wild references to impending wonders and unaccountable hauntings of disreputable Brooklyn neighborhoods. He grew shabbier with the years and prowled about like a very beggar. He was seen loitering with groups of swarthy, evil-looking strangers in Red Hook. He babbled of unlimited powers almost within his grasp. The court papers revealed that he was using up his income and wasting his principal in the purchase of curious tomes imported from London and Paris, and in the maintenance of a squalid basement flat in the Red Hook district where he spent nearly every night receiving odd delegations of mixed rowdies and foreigners and apparently conducting some kind of ceremonies behind the green blinds of his windows.

“When the matter came before the judge, Suydam managed to preserve his liberty. His manner grew urbane and reasonable. He freely admitted the queer demeanor and extravagant language into which he had fallen. He was investigating certain traditions which required close contact with foreign groups and their folk songs and dances. The notion that any low secret society was preying upon him was obviously absurd and showed sadly limited understanding of him and his work. Triumphing with his calm explanations, he departed unhindered."


Malone leans back in his armchair, lighting his pipe and taking a deep drink from his teacup. His voice is low and measured as he recounts his memories.


“That’s when I got assigned to the matter along with other police detectives and various federal officers looking into smuggling and illegal immigrants along the Brooklyn waterfront. My report covers all this ground, including the information I winkled out about the movement that had become so menacing. The newcomers were Kurds indeed, but of a dialect obscure and puzzling. Most of them, to be sure, had no visible means of support and were obviously connected with underworld pursuits, of which smuggling and “bootlegging” were the least. They’d come in tramp freighters unloaded on moonless nights in rowboats which stole under a certain wharf and followed a hidden canal to a subterranean pool beneath some house. This wharf, canal, and house I couldn’t locate. Nor could I gain any real data on their reasons for coming. They were reticent about exactly whence they had come and never sufficiently off guard to reveal who had brought them. Indeed, they developed something like acute fright when asked their reasons and the most that could be gathered was that some strange god or great hierarchy promised them unheard-of powers and rulerships in a strange land.

“As I wound up my long canvass of Red Hook, I felt poised on the brink of nameless terrors, with the shabby, unkempt figure of Robert Suydam as arch-fiend and adversary. I twice interviewed the man – once in his library and once at the stationhouse. He said he thought the rituals were some remnant of Nestorian Christianity tinctured with the Shamanism of Thibet – pure malarkey, I reckoned. Most of the people, he conjectured, originated somewhere in or near Kurdistan—and I couldn’t help recalling that Kurdistan is the land of the Yezidis, last survivors of the Persian devil-worshippers. But he knew nothing, Suydam said, of any mysterious plots or movements; and had no idea how the Kurds could have entered or what they wanted. His business was simply to study undisturbed the folklore of all the immigrants of the district; a business with which policemen had no legitimate concern. I ventured my admiration for his old brochure on the Kabbalah, but the old man sensed an intrusion, and rebuffed me in no uncertain way.

“Just at the time when a wave of kidnappings and disappearances spread its excitement over New York, old Robert Suydam embarked on a metamorphosis as startling as it was absurd. One day he was seen with clean-shaved face and on every day thereafter some obscure improvement was noticed in him – well-trimmed hair or a tasteful improvement to his now immaculate attire. He maintained his new fastidiousness without interruption, adding an unwonted sparkle of eye and crispness of speech, and began little by little to shed the corpulence which had so long deformed him. Now he was frequently taken for less than his age with an elasticity of step and buoyancy of demeanor. And his hair commenced a curious darkening which somehow did not suggest dye.

“Finally, he astonished his friends by renovating and redecorating his Flatbush mansion, which he threw open in a series of receptions, summoning all the acquaintances he could remember, and his fully forgiven relatives. He asserted that he’d accomplished most of his work; and having inherited some property from a European friend, was about to spend his remaining years in a brighter ‘second youth.’ Less and less was he seen at Red Hook, and more and more he moved in the society to which he was born. Policemen noted a tendency of the gangsters to congregate at an old stone church and dance-hall in Pioneer Street, instead of at the basement flat in Parker Place, though the latter and its recent annexes still overflowed with noxious life."


Malone pours a good measure from the bottle into his near-empty cup, sucking on his pipe, not noticing that it has gone out. His voice grows tighter and higher in pitch and he speaks rapidly.


“Then we did the raid on the dance-hall church, after a report that the face of a kidnapped child had been seen at one of the basement windows. I studied the place with much care when I got inside. Nothing criminal was found, but I was disturbed by many things I saw. There were crudely painted panels I didn’t like—panels which depicted sacred faces with peculiarly worldly and sardonic expressions, and which occasionally took liberties that any sense of decorum could scarcely countenance. And I didn’t like at all the Greek inscription on the wall above the pulpit; an ancient incantation which I had once stumbled on in college days: ‘O friend and companion of night, thou who rejoicest in the baying of dogs and spilt blood, who wanderest in the midst of shades among the tombs, who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals, Gorgo, Mormo, Thousand-faced Moon, look favorably on our sacrifices!’

“When I read that, I shuddered. I shuddered again at the rust around the rim of a metal basin which stood on the altar and at a curious and ghastly stench from somewhere in the place. The place was very hateful to me; but after all, were the blasphemous panels and inscriptions more than mere crudities perpetrated by the ignorant?

“By the time of Suydam’s wedding to Cornelia Gerritsen, the kidnapping epidemic had become a popular newspaper scandal. Most of the victims were young children of the lowest classes, but the number of disappearances had worked up the strongest fury. Journals clamored for action from the police, and once more the Butler Street station sent its men over Red Hook for clues, discoveries, and criminals. I took pride in a raid on one of Suydam’s Parker Place houses. Indeed, no stolen child was found, despite the tales of screams and the red sash picked up in the areaway; but the paintings and rough inscriptions on the peeling walls of most of the rooms convinced me that I was on the track of something tremendous.

“The paintings were appalling—hideous monsters of every shape and size, and parodies on human outlines which cannot be described. The writing was in red, and varied from Arabic to Greek, Roman, and Hebrew letters. I couldn’t read much of it, but what I did decipher was portentous and cabbalistic enough. Circles and pentagrams loomed on every hand, and told indubitably of the strange beliefs and aspirations of those who dwelt so squalidly here. During the raid we encountered only a passive resistance. Finding nothing relevant, we had to leave all as it was; but the precinct captain wrote Suydam advising him to look closely to the character of his tenants in view of the growing public clamor.

“I won’t speak about Suydam’s wedding or what may have transpired on the RMS Laconia, for I wasn’t there, was I? But that same June evening, a sudden stir permeated Red Hook, and the denizens clustered expectantly around the dance-hall church and the houses in Parker Place. Three children had just disappeared from Gowanus and there were rumors of a mob forming. That unrest and menace was the deciding factor, and just about midnight a raiding party recruited from three stations descended on Parker Place and its environs."


His voice rising in volume, Malone leans forward on the edge of his chair, like an old veteran re-fighting his greatest battle, his cold pipe stabbing the air for emphasis, his eyes wide and shifting.


“Doors were battered in, stragglers arrested, and candle-lighted rooms forced to disgorge unbelievable throngs of foreigners in figured robes, mitres, and other inexplicable devices. Much was lost in the melee, for objects were thrown down unexpected shafts, and betraying odors were deadened by the sudden kindling of pungent incense. But spattered blood was everywhere, and I shuddered when I saw smoke still rising from a brazier or altar.

“I wanted to be in several places at once, but settled on Suydam’s basement flat, which I thought must hold some clue to the cult of which the occult scholar had become the centre and leader. I ransacked the musty rooms, noted their charnel odor, and examined the curious books, instruments, and glass-stoppered bottles scattered carelessly here and there. A lean, black-and-white cat edged between my feet and tripped me, overturning a beaker half full of a red liquid. To this day I’m not certain, but in dreams I still picture that cat with monstrous alterations and peculiarities. Then I found the locked cellar door. A heavy stool was more than enough for the antique panels. A crack formed and the whole door gave way—bursting into the room! A howling tumult poured forth of ice-cold wind with all the stenches of the bottomless pit, and a sucking force not of earth nor heaven coiled about me. It dragged me through the aperture and down unmeasured spaces filled with whispers and wails, and gusts of mocking laughter."


Closing his eyes, the detective sinks back in his chair. His voice loses its energy and volume.


“All the specialists have explained that my unconscious brain fabricated the next bit. I only wish I believed them as firmly as I said I did to avoid commitment to Bellevue. But nothing can efface the memory of those nighted crypts, those titan arcades, and those half-formed shapes of hell that strode gigantically in silence, holding half-eaten things whose still surviving portions screamed for mercy or laughed with madness. Somewhere dark sticky water lapped at onyx piers, and once the shivery tinkle of raucous little bells pealed out to greet the insane titter of a naked phosphorescent Thing which swam into sight, scrambled ashore, and climbed up to squat on a carved golden pedestal.

“Avenues of limitless night radiated in every direction, till you might fancy that here lay the root of contagion destined to sicken and swallow cities, for it seemed the bounds of consciousness were let down, and man’s fancy lay open to vistas of every realm of horror and every forbidden dimension that evil had power to mould. The world and Nature were helpless against such assaults from unsealed wells of night, nor could any sign or prayer check the Walpurgis-riot of horror."


His voice is just a whisper now, the words sometimes hard to catch, but the far-away dread in his eyes forestalls any interruption.


“Then a ray of light shot through these phantasms and I heard the sound of oars. A boat with a lantern in its prow darted into sight, made fast to an iron ring in the slimy stone pier, and issued forth dark men bearing a long burden swathed in bedding. They took it to the Thing on the carved golden pedestal, and it tittered and pawed at the bedding. They unswathed it, and propped upright before the pedestal the naked and gangrenous corpse of a corpulent old man with stubbly beard and unkempt white hair. The Thing tittered again, and the men produced bottles from their pockets and anointed its feet with red, whilst they afterward gave the bottles to the thing to drink from.

“From an arcaded avenue leading endlessly away, came the daemoniac rattle and wheeze of a blasphemous organ, choking and rumbling out the mockeries of hell. In an instant every moving entity was electrified, forming into a ceremonial procession led by the abominable naked phosphorescent thing that had squatted on the carved golden throne, and that now strode insolently bearing in its arms the glassy-eyed corpse of the corpulent old man. The strange dark men danced in the rear, and the whole column skipped and leaped with Dionysiac fury. I staggered after them a few steps, delirious and hazy, but faltered, and sank down on the cold damp stone, gasping and shivering as the daemon organ croaked on, and the howling and drumming and tinkling of the mad procession grew fainter and fainter.

“Vaguely I was conscious of chanted horrors and shocking croakings afar off. Now and then a wail or whine of ceremonial devotion would float to me through the black arcade. Eventually there rose the dreadful Greek incantation I had read above the pulpit of that dance-hall church: ‘O friend and companion of night, thou who rejoicest in the baying of dogs (here a hideous howl burst forth) and spilt blood (here nameless sounds vied with morbid shriekings), who wanderest in the midst of shades among the tombs (here a whistling sigh occurred), who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals (short, sharp cries from myriad throats), Gorgo (repeated as response), Mormo (repeated with ecstasy), Thousand-faced Moon (sighs and flute notes), look favorably on our sacrifices!’

“As the chant closed, a general shout went up, and hissing sounds nearly drowned the croaking of the cracked bass organ. Then a gasp as from many throats, and a babel of barked and bleated words—‘Lilith, Great Lilith, behold the Bridegroom!’ More cries, a clamor of rioting, and the footfalls of a running figure approached.

“There appeared the fleeing form of that glassy-eyed, gangrenous corpse, now animated by some infernal sorcery of the rite just closed. After it raced the naked, tittering, phosphorescent thing that belonged on the carven pedestal, and still farther behind panted the dark men, and all the dread crew of sentient loathsomenesses. The corpse was gaining on its pursuers, and seemed bent on a definite object, straining with every rotting muscle toward the carved golden pedestal, whose necromantic importance was evidently so great. Another moment and it had reached its goal, whilst the trailing throng labored on with more frantic speed. But in one final spurt of strength which ripped tendon from tendon and sent its noisome bulk floundering to the floor in a state of jellyish dissolution, the staring corpse which had been Robert Suydam achieved its object and its triumph. And as he collapsed to a muddy blotch of corruption, the pedestal he had pushed tottered, tipped, and finally careened from its onyx base into the thick waters below, sending up a parting gleam of carven gold as it sank heavily to undreamable gulfs of lower Tartarus. In that instant, too, the whole scene of horror faded to nothingness before me eyes; and I fainted amidst a thunderous crash which seemed to blot out all that evil universe."


A shudder courses over Malone’s body and he puts his hand over his eyes, as if to blot out those old visions. Then he rouses and goes about cleaning and re-filling his pipe, his voice matter-of-fact, almost as if making a report.


“The three old houses in Parker Place, doubtless long rotten with decay, collapsed without visible cause while half the raiders and most of the prisoners were inside and the greater number were instantly killed. Only in the basements and cellars was there much saving of life. I was lucky to have been deep below the house of Robert Suydam. They found me unconscious by the edge of a night-black pool, with a grotesquely horrible jumble of decay and bone, identified later only by his dental work as the body of Suydam, a few feet away. The case was plain, for it was hither that the smugglers’ underground canal led; and the men who took Suydam from the ship had brought him home.

“The canal to his house was just one of several subterranean channels and tunnels in the neighborhood. There was a tunnel from this house to a crypt beneath the dance-hall church; a crypt accessible from the church only through a narrow secret passage in the north wall, and in whose chambers some singular and terrible things were discovered, as well as a vast arched chapel with wooden benches and a strangely figured altar. The walls were lined with small cells, in seventeen of which solitary prisoners in a state of complete idiocy were found chained, including four mothers with infants of disturbingly strange appearance. These infants died soon after exposure to the light; a circumstance which the doctors thought rather merciful.

“I’m told that Parker Place was emptied of inhabitants and razed to the ground. Before the canals were filled up they were thoroughly dredged, and yielded a sensational array of sawed and split bones of all sizes. The kidnapping epidemic, very clearly, had been traced home; though only two of the surviving prisoners could by any legal thread be connected with it. These men went to prison, since the D.A. failed to convict them of accessory to the actual murders. The carved golden pedestal or throne was never brought to light, though at one place under the Suydam house the canal sank into a well too deep for dredging. The tunnel was choked up at the mouth and cemented over when the cellars of the new houses were made."


Malone pauses and lights his pipe, his eyes turning from one of you to another with an intense glare. Once the pipe is going, he points at you with its stub and his voice hardens.


“Those devil-worshippers are older and stronger than good Christians, and the world’ll be theirs one day. I can recommend a bookshop in Brooklyn, near the Pratt Institute, called Kaynak Bilginin. The owner, Saljuk Yilmaz, was of great use during the earlier investigation and a source of honest information. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll run from this thing. But if you won’t, there’s one thing you must remember.

“Red Hook never changes.”


Malone sits smoking, seeming a decade older than when you arrived. There’s a pained expression about his mouth and his eyes glitter with moisture. He draws a long ragged breath.

[FrankyEsposito]

I listen, intent on the old man's words. I struggle not to flinch every time he says "Red Hook." By the time he gets to "unlimited power" it's as if no other sound exists in the universe. The whole of my attention is drawn to his mouth and his voice. When he stops to tamp his pipe or mop his brow it is jarring, almost painful to me.

Beads of sweat drip from my forehead and splatter my notes. I write on, oblivious, barely conscious of turning pages.

By the time he gets to the raid -- the parts not in his official report -- I'm no longer listening precisely. I'm reliving the night as if I were there. I can feel the loathsome darkness closing around me, smell the musty, dank stench of the place. I can see Suydam's dead, moldering corpse racing from its pursuers, watch the splash as the pedestal tumbles in the stygian depths of the ink-black pool below.

When he's done I feel a decade older and wish that I could believe the lies half as firmly as he'd claimed to. I sit for a moment, saying nothing. There's nothing to say, is there? What words could possibly convey the fear and loathing that I feel, the knowledge that what's to come will be dangerous both physically and otherwise? What could I shed light on that this man hasn't already seen?

I rise, finally, slipping my notebook and pencil into my pocket. "If there's one thing I know, Detective, it's that."

OOC,My intention is to just thank him and leave the old man in peace. If he wants to talk more, I'm willing.

[Gaffer]

Malone sits with his hands on his knees, his eyes focused on something miles and years away.

"You'll let yourself out then?"

As you pass through the front door and breathe in fresh air and the scents of new-mown hay and manure, you understand why Malone is here. On the front porch of the main house, Chief Harley is waiting in a rocking chair.

"Ready to go back to the station? I expect you can make the four-thirty back to New York."

[FrankyEsposito]

Ready to go back? I don't think I'll ever be ready. A man could get used to a place like this. A place where he could put down roots, be part of a community. Or just be let alone in peace. A place that's about as far from Red Hook as you can run. I can only nod quietly and follow him to his car.

As we pull up at the station I fish around in my pocket. I pull out a fin and hand it to Harley. "Get him some good Irish, would you Chief?"

[Gaffer]

"Thanks, Esposito, He'll need it. You take care of yourself," says Haley, "Come back anytime."

The stationmaster flags down the train. The ride back goes by in a haze as you sort through everything Malone told you. You notice the nearly-full moon rise over an open field sometime after sunset.

By the time you get on the subway, it's nine o'clock. You realize tomorrow's Monday and not a holiday for you. You're due at the station for eight o'clock roll call.

[FrankyEsposito]

What a weekend. I think about a good stiff drink before bed, but decide against it; the entire bottle wouldn't stop the nightmares I know await. Sleep is a long time coming -- I keep replaying Malone's fantastic tale in my mind. Over and over I see the moldering Suydam-thing fleeing from things even more terrible. When sleep finally does overtake me it's shallow and fitful. The line between waking and sleeping blurs until I can't tell which is which. It doesn't seem to matter: both are filled with disturbing visions of things best left unseen.

[Gaffer]

OOC,Some of the others have been a bit slow and thrown me some late curves. So the Monday threads will be a bit delayed. Watch for them to open up.