Love In Still Water

A thick cloud of cigarette smoke fills the room of the quaint office space, casting a wavy shadow of a weary soul on the barren and distressed art-deco wallpaper, within which rot and mildew have piled up enough for it to flake and chip and tear at the seams. 

A series of rough coughs echo throughout the chamber, leading to a thick cylinder of ash falling from a stale Pall Mall onto the old oak floorboards beneath a seemingly older man. 

The man, dressed head to toe in a worn Italian trench coat that has seen the better part of two centuries, restlessly shakes his knee in a treading motion while sifting a rugged correspondence between his pointer and middle fingers, all the while whispering mumbles of an enamored disillusionment from a past all but forgotten. He looks at the words on the letter, then looks away. He then looks back to reread them, this time giving them a longer pause of thought, only to look away and ramble on again.

A knock shutters the flimsy curtain blinds of his office, and he gets up from his seat with a disgruntled squeal from its old screws and bearings. The man, beard damp from a mix of nap drool and warm whiskey, peeks through the blinds and knocks back.

“Can’t ya read?” he asks, with an awkwardly forced growl in his voice. “Sign says closed, try again tomorrow. Cases this late can wait a few more hours.”

Cases this late usually can’t wait another second, because who in their right mind would knock on the door of a Chicago P.I. at two in the morning if a tragic accident hadn’t just happened? But the man doesn’t care. There are better things to do at two in the morning, such as finishing his bottle of Kentucky Straight while sifting through a new adult magazine. A young drinking buddy of his, Hugh, fresh out of university with a sociology degree, had been collecting dirty photos, creating collages, and selling them at bars and diners. The fourth issue just landed on his desk yesterday. He’d be damned if he’d let someone ruin his night.

Only silence is heard from the other side of the door. A deafening tone of nothingness and void, as if God, or what He once was in the man’s eyes, is standing on the other side waiting for a conviction that will never be admitted. A letter is slid between the hardwood floor and the rubber stoppers of the door, followed by featherweight footsteps teetering off into the night. The man rests his arm on the door and his forehead on his shoulder, then he grasps a deep inhale of oxygen and smoke as he unknowingly has his breath held. He opens the door and a brisk wind knocks him off balance and slams the weak door with a whack perpendicular against the wall. He steps outside, being sure to block the frigid air from entering his eyes, and looks around for the phantom. 

Trash litters the edges of the alleyway to the right. A less than lively street corner to his left with the same blinking lamp post that holds a three-second pause in between each burst of flickers. Todd, the homeless man whose pitch-tent was blown down the other day, stands stonelike over a burning trash fire. A brief closure of the eyes and the wind enters his soul, carrying sounds of distant dog barks and breaking glass and faint laughter and the smell of wet pavement. A normal Tuesday night in uptown Chicago, aside from the ominous letter with a blue oil stamp which rests at the tips of his shoes, unmoving like a stone in a storm. He wants to laugh, but he’s worried it’ll kill his buzz.

“Tom!” he yells, startling the poor homeless man into the area of his pitch-tent which is now only a sad scene of trash bags and a weathered hospital cushion. Tom fights to his feet, spilling nonsensical ramblings from his mouth in the process. “You see anybody at my door?” the man continues.

“Nuh-uh, Mr. Detective, Sir. Nothin’.”

The detective’s eyes wander around the area once more, hoping to find the gleam of a set of eyes or the flailing of a night coat in the wind. “Just an empty and lifeless alleyway,” the man suggests to himself as if Tom were something less than life.

“Hey, Mr. Sir, do you have any scraps or som—”

FLACK.

The door shuts behind him, and he locks himself inside.

Scooping up the letter from between his feet, he walks over to his desk. With a huff of annoyance he drops the letter on the old wood and cuts a line across the oil stamp. This letter is much thicker than any he’d previously seen. He flicks open the flap and empties its contents onto the desk. Crisp twenty dollar bills, too many to count, landing with a thump on the desk as if they were still separated after printing. The freshest cash he’d ever seen, followed by a once-folded piece of canvas paper. He didn’t need to open it to know what the paper read.

“This is fuckin’ insane,” he says as he stuffs the cash back into the envelope. “I ain’t goin back to that place.”

He opens a lockbox hidden next to a pile of take-out boxes and crumpled cigarette butts, grasping desperately at a handful of opened letters, each with the same exact blue-oil seal stamp. Uneager to organize or separate them, he tosses the light stack into the blazing fire and pierces them diligently with a fire iron, then falls back lazily onto his seat to watch his work commence. The whiskey burns his throat as the letters sizzle and shrink against the orange flames. He closes his eyes, this time letting out a drunken chuckle at the irony of the same correspondence appearing yet again on the one night he decided to sift through the other duplicates. He finishes off his cigarette, flicks the butt into the orange waves, and drifts off to sleep, only to be startled a moment later by the sound of water stoking a brazen fire causing him to jump up in his seat. 

The same letter he had just received rests peacefully atop a hill of ash, untouched like a stone in a storm. Its blue oil stamp and perfectly creased corners are still intact as if every thought of nature were scared to go near the thing.

“How in the hell?” he ponders as he scoops the letter out of the ash that is surprisingly not wet. The paper is cool to the touch as if it were still in the brisk outside air.

The next morning he embraces the harsh eastern sunrise and locks the door behind him. Tom lies in his trash pile, his chest rising slightly with an irregular pattern. With a puff of an exhale and a firm grip around a cheap leather briefcase, he walks towards the street to the nearest train station. He walks without grace like a man on a mission, ignoring the odd looks and preppy questions of passersby, uncaring of questions of affirmation or wishes for the new day. Helen, his neighbor from across the street, asks him what he could be doing at this hour, when the evil men only lurk at night

Unaware that she herself is talking to an evil man. 

The train ride from Chicago to Flagstaff, Arizona is a road trip that he is no stranger to, and he enjoys the time when he gets to have a sober mind, but boredom often leads him to unwarranted but most wanted decisions. The moment he enters his private train car, he calls for a train attendant and orders a bounty’s worth of drinks in preparation for the two-day ride. His generosity leaves her with a $10 tip, a crisp bill that still feels hot from the printer. Whoever has been delivering him these correspondences sure made himself known with the last and most generous job offer, as he went from a poor P.I. living job to job to a rich man with good taste and honest values. 

Well, that’s what the waitress thinks at least.

…

My work often takes me out west. Where the biggest and brightest stars find themselves in the darkest and dullest corners of the world. At least the comforts of first-class aboard the Golden State Train can turn even the longest of trips into a joyride for the ages. Crispy bread thins and caviar, stuffed olives, ginger ale, Sidecar’s, and Old Fashioneds, enough for any man to blush after a double dose. Gins, tonics, Irish whiskey - the fancy stuff from overseas, only found hidden deep in wooden barrels of train cars that luckily made it through US customs and into the hands of yours truly, to be the luckiest man alive, if only for the next 48 hours. A younger lady named Susie came to sit on my lap to whisper sweet nothings and exchange pleasantries. Even if her time costs a penny or two, a few more chance encounters could land her with a ring worth a penny or three.

I rest my head on the warm glass of the train car and daydream over the serene landscapes of the Great Salt Lake. Most would say it’s pretty out here. I hate it. Takes me back to Cantigny, which takes me back to the camp, which takes me back to the whole of the Western Front, where I spent the most miserable three months of my life. With that, I take a swig of some strange gin from Denmark to keep those thoughts at bay. 

It’s already been a day aboard the Golden State Train. Last night in Denver ended me with a bloody nose courtesy of some drunk at the bar across from the station. The bastard didn’t take kindly to the declaration of a rich man trying to buy a bed with one of the waitresses. I didn’t know they weren’t for sale; shouldn’t have been wearing such floozy dresses. That boy, fresh off his sixth beer and high on his horse, thought that since he was a D-Day vet, he should have a say in what I can and can’t do with my money. D-Day vets tend to forget they aren’t the only ones who fought for their country once upon a time. Lousy asshole snuck me in the nose without my knowledge. He landed himself in a ditch without his. Figured I’d sleep in the train car before the cops showed up. I invited Susie, the attendant, to have some coffee with me this morning, to help with the hangover and all.

…

Susie, getting a bit more comfortable with the curiosity of her fingers, happens upon the correspondence neatly tucked away in his belt loop. He dutifully swats her hand away, letting out a slur not meant for audible ears.

“Who’re you calling a whore, you sick old man! You old codger! I’m a dancer, not a worker! You dirty old crab!” She leaves the train car with a slam, knocking his mason jar of Irish whiskey onto the floor. He curses and yells and screams and lets out more than a few unkind words to whoever would hear them. He gets onto his knees and grips the mason jar while struggling to get every last drop into his flask, which already has an odd mixture of choice liquors in it. Every drop counts.

After getting the important matter in order, he collects the letter from the ground, opening it to wipe the brown stains from its interior. It's the third time he’s seen the contents of this letter. The first was when it was left at his office two days ago. The second was when he took out a wad of dough to pay for the traveling expenses; but both of those are a lie. 

He’s seen this letter before. Not this specific letter with its specific pen writing and date of February 14th, 1951, but the same contents of the letter he has seen time and time again over the past several months. The same eerie tone. The same ominous inquiry. The same three words that have been seared into his brain for nights on end.

‘Find My Astrid.’

Followed by a set of grid coordinates and addressed by one ‘E.F.’

“The fuck am I doing,” he huffs to himself. 

Typically, this inquiry, however written as more of a statement to be obeyed, is followed by a dollar amount for payment upon completion; sometimes an extra satisfactory amount for a job well done. 

…

The first three letters were all stamped with five thousand dollar offers. A good haul, more than I’d normally charge, but this ‘Find My Astrid’ seemed too surface level, unwarranted, mocking, as if it were hooligans playing a prank. Then the fourth correspondence came. Christmas Eve. Ten thousand. I realized it may have not been a prank. Still too dumb an inquiry to take seriously. I can’t just go prancing around wherever these coordinates lead, searching for clues based on nothing. I have a reputation to uphold.

The fifth letter arrived exactly five days later. Fifteen thousand. I figured I may as well wait, see if they offer more; to find out whoever this mysterious deliverer was or even if they were affiliated with the client. Worst case scenario I end up with an unsolvable case and I demand 10% from them for my efforts. But then I researched the destination.

Still-fuckin’-water. 

A place I buried along with my past life.

The place is an enigma. Filled with horror stories and conspiracies and immutable fallacies. I’ve never even stepped foot there, and I was met with its deathly grip. Even if I did want to visit that place, I couldn’t. It collapsed along with the mine twenty-odd years ago, came back, magically returned from the rubble years later as a ‘Mega City Lost to Time, but Back Forever’, so the slogan goes. It became the talk of the world,  infamous for all time, but then it collapsed again shortly after, killing hundreds of nosy journalists and dumb adventurers alike along with it. Good riddance, I say.

Can’t imagine nothin’ there but rubble. Whoever sent this must think I’m an illiterate imbecile who can’t read headlines. I crumpled all the letters and threw ‘em in my trash box. Left ‘em to rot. 

That is until two days ago. Letter six came. Ten thousand in cold hard cash with another hundred thousand up for grabs upon completion. This is serious. Too serious. Too daunting a task not to be either some joke or a job meant for a secret government agency and not for an old P.I. like me. Why else would they pester me if they didn’t know I had a past with the place, if you can even call it that. I had to refuse. I can’t trust none of that. Who the hell would offer such a price, throw away ten grand, and hope for a job from a man who turned you down five times prior? I burned all the letters. All of ‘em. But guess what didn’t fuckin’ burn. The God-fearing correspondence. Ten thousand in cash still intact as if it were immune to the fuckin’ fire.

…

The train landed soundly in Flagstaff. A bustling town high in the Arizona mountains, overgrown with greenery, mines, and deer; ripe for those who want to make a hard-earned living but none too eager to see a detective walk off the train asking for a ride into Coconino. Coconino was down the mountain range, laid out in a thick desert full of rocks and mesquite. A place nobody in the picture-perfect town of Flagstaff would ever want to spend their time. 

Fellow travelers were happy to lend a hand, though the spouting off from an angry Susie may have made them regret their eagerness. The young couple, Tim and Jamie, were fresh off a honeymoon. Originally from some place in Nevada, they came here to hike and explore nature. The drive was filled with a lot of boring and monotonous chatter from the two, to the point where the detective stopped paying attention after the first twenty minutes.

“Isn’t that right, Mr. Morrigan?”

The sound of his name makes the detective perk his ears, but his eyes stay closed nonetheless. “Hmph?” he mumbles in return.

“I said the world is flatter out East,” Tim mammers. “All the plains and flatlands are the reason why time zones were established to separate the nation. That’s where you came from, right Mr. Morrigan?”

“Mmph.”

“Tim, dear,” starts Jamie. “The time zones weren’t made because of the differences in landscape. It helped with the trade routes for trains so records would be kept more securely. It’s all political.”

“Yes, but Sir Fleming proposed those lines for the time zone changes because of the landscape. It’s why they’re split where the mountain ranges peak. Because everywhere in the central zone is relatively flat, right, Mr. Morrigan?”

“Timothy, what does any of this have to do with penicillin? Sir Fleming wasn’t even American.”

“Different Fleming, Jamie, and time zones exist in Europe too.” 

“I know that, dear, we both took geography in University.”

“Do you remember that cafe where Professor Zari was with that girl?”

“The one with the peach cobbler? It was just divine, wasn’t it?”

“It wasn’t peach, Jamie, it was blueberry.”

Sometime later, they arrive at a small depot in the heart of Cococino, stuffed in a ravine between a shrubbed mountain and some sprawling stone cliffs. Happy Jack Stagecoach was written in cheap red paint on its facade and a dusty old Ford sat perched outside of a garage like a champion on a pedestal. Tim and Jamie left him there, telling him they were gonna go camping someplace close by, but he couldn’t care to listen at this point after his most exhausting journey thus far, so with a half-baked smirk and a flick of a finger off his temple, he sees them off. 

The front door to the stagecoach is wide open. He hears a still draft inside from the various seams in the sheetmetal its outer coating is made from. Near-empty urns of old tea and spices clutter the ground around the door, one of which is filled with old coins, presumably tips from grateful travelers, and another is filled with some sort of oily solution with a thick film of various degraded insects floating on top. He enters the stagecoach, a spacious yet humble arena of unorganized car parts, magazines, sports memorabilia, and an uncomfortable-looking couch and table combo that reminds him of the lobby of a Las Vegas hostel he used to frequent. The place’s countertop, equipped with a cash register and logbook, sits erect between two doors as if it were a guard for the secrets behind them. The counter is empty, save for a few cigar butts that must have been there for months. Both of the doors are closed, one most likely leading to the garage, yet no noise comes from the depths of either of them. 

The coachman must be gone with a client. 

He sits on the lumpy and hard sofa and closes his eyes, resting his feet on a table as dust mists the air from the cushions adjusting to his weight. He opens his eyes to darkness all around him, save for a dim lantern behind the countertop; hours must have passed since his last conscious breath. Then he realized many hours had passed since his last drunken breath. He opens his briefcase and sifts through it for his emergency flask, causing a scramble of its contents. He takes a quick yet savory sip, insisting he leaves most of the melting pot of liquor for another time. As he always says, ‘a drunken mind leaves the world behind’, allowing for a different perspective on a case.

He stands from the couch and walks outside to an eerie sight. Sitting quietly in the sand of the dirt road like a shadow in the burning light of Arizona’s sunset is a horse, a wagon, and a stranger with a tophat as tall as a magician’s prized possession. The stranger stares at him from a distance, unwavering like a stone in a storm.

“Mr. Morrigan,” the man assumes with a soft tone as if they were right next to each other and not six yards apart, “I’ve been waiting for you.” His voice is deep and impactful; trusting and suave.

“How’d you know who I am?” the detective asks with urgency, moving inches closer to the wagon.

“I like to keep tabs on my future clients. Can’t be too safe out here all alone.” The man motions for Morrigan to get closer, to get friendly, but Morrigan continues his line of questioning.

“And how’d you know I’m a future client?”

“Climb in, and we’ll talk.”

“Not before you answer my question,” he demands but only gets silence as an answer. He taps his foot in frustration before stepping a few feet closer. “You know Astrid?”

“I am unfamiliar with that name, but I do know this person is the reason why you are here. I am familiar with the one who hired you. I know the reason for your visit here. For the money. Though I am not able to discuss this matter due to my own ignorance of the subject, I can take you to where the answers are. Climb in, and I’ll tell you what I do know.”

Morrigan reluctantly plants his foot on the wooden side door and lifts himself up onto the stagecoach, next to the odd figure who claims it. Empty glass bottles full of dusty residue are scattered around his feet. The cabin of the stagecoach is empty, save for a couple of tattered cloths used for cold nights and a lock box on the floor eerily similar to the one in his office. Everything about the stagecoach seems right in the ordinary, except for a hint of formaldehyde in the air. 

Morrigan places his faded suitcase onto his lab and unclasps its hinges enough to loosen the side pocket, where he pulls out his Model 10 revolver and places it onto his right leg with an antagonizing stare. “Don’t try nothin’. I can smell bullshit from a mile out.” 

The stranger rests his uncomfortably long arm on the seat behind the two of them and looks at Morrigan with shadowy eyes, blind by the looks of it, but still piercing Morrigan’s soul. Thin white hairs wisp down from the edges of the tophat, which is embroidered with a golden pattern in an odd mix of French and American design. His lips are pursed and crusty like a corpse who died of dehydration, and his skin shines a pale white. Wrinkles cover the entirety of his jawline, but his smile is like a child’s: innocent and welcoming. Morrigan notices the distinct difference between where his knees end compared to the stranger’s. The man must be a solid three heads taller than him, which is an odd sight for Morrigan who has always considered himself to be fairly tall. The man continues to look through him with his blank canvas eyes as if he were psychoanalyzing his soul, looking for the dividing line between his faith-driven youth and the pessimistic attitude of his old age.

“So, which way to Stillwater?”

“Oh, Mister Morrigan, I’m not taking you to Stillwater. I will show you the way, sure, but you must reach your destination of your own accord.”

“Fuck you, then,” Morrigan threatens. He climbs out of the stage coach after placing the revolver into his coat pocket. “The fuck is the point in a stagecoach if you won’t even take me there. I’ll just head into town and find someone who can.”

“Cococino isn’t what it used to be, James. Barely a soul on that road nowadays. A lot has changed since your last trip here.”

Morrigan turns around and points his finger at the coachman as if he weren’t a blind old scrooge. “Do not talk to me like you know me! Have a terrible night, Mister Happy Jack,” he snarls with sarcasm. “I’m gonna go borrow one of your tourist brochures. See ya in hell.” He walks up to the door of the shop and slams through it without a second thought, but is confused when his feet land on soft ground. He looks up to see the horse and stagecoach just sitting there in the road he had just left. He slowly backs up and into the entryway of the shop, but then he trips over a heavy object and hits the ground with his wind knocked out of his chest. He groans and leans upwards to find he is still in the front of the shop, with the stranger on the stagecoach continuing to look at him with an eerie yet comfortable stare.

“Climb aboard, and we’ll be off,” he says.

“Fine, whatever,” Morrigan states as he approaches the stagecoach once again. He climbs onto the seat he had previously used and leans close to the man’s ear. “I swear, the second you try somethin’ or lead me into a trap, it’ll be the end of you.

“J.W. Morrigan - Personal Detective Bureau. 921 Belmont Avenue. Chicago, Illinois. Born in Augusta, Maine,” the stranger says as if reading from an article. “Served four years in the Army infantry during the 1st War. Discharged due to the loss of a hand, no mention as to how. Did you ever study abroad?”

Morrigan looks at him with a stern look, hiding his anxiety behind his brow. “No, never went to college. How you know all that?” He clenches his left hand around the handle of the revolver.

“Previously married to one Ruth Hollister,” the stranger continues. “Father of two sons, one of which died as an infant to polio, such a terrible sickness, and the other, Howard, estranged and currently living in Florida. I wonder how his wife, Patricia, is doing.”

“That’s enough!” Morrigan demands, attacking the coachman with a tight grip on the gun, stabbing its barrel into the coachman’s ribcage with all the strength he can muster. “Somebody hire you? Hmph? Somebody I put away trying to get payback? That it?”

The stranger grimaces at the stench of liquor on Morrigan’s breath. 

“You’re not gonna find any solace in murdering me, bastard! My soul died long ago, you’d just be doing me a favo-.”

Suddenly, Morrigan’s reality warps before his eyes and his head begins spiraling. He realizes he is gripping a broken wooden handle. He releases it with contempt and is left in a state of disarray. An intense dizziness overtakes the back of his mind, and he can feel unconsciousness creeping up to the base of his eyes. Anxiety fills his abdomen with a forcefulness he hasn’t felt since France. His heart flutters, his toes go numb, and cold sweat shivers his spine.

But then he feels fine. 

Suddenly filled with a sense of joy and relief. 

“It’s nice to see you alive and well again, Mister Morrigan.”