Edward Lee - The Black Train

“Huh?”

The house. Sometimes I hate this HOUSE!

“I know, Sister. Like Ma told us a long time ago. Everyone has bad dreams here sometimes. Always been that way, since…back then.” The low mood in the room felt dense as the summer humidity outside. “But check this out.” Jiff tried to change the temper; he whipped out a check. “J.G. laid a hunnert on me. Kinkiest trick yet, but, shee-it.”

Lottie sat limp in a lotus position and shrugged.

“You seen Mr. Collier this mornin’?”

Lottie shook her head.

“ Still don’t know what to make’a him. Yesterday he’s drinkin’ it up in the Spike with half’a my tricks, and now Ma tells me he borrowed her truck to take Dominique on a date—”

Lottie smirked.

“Still don’t rightly know if he’s bi, queer, or straight.” Jiff chuckled. “A’course, he’s got another think comin’ with Dominique. Poor bastard’ll need knockout drops and a crowbar to get into her Holy Rollin’ panties.”

Lottie errantly diddled her fingertips through the bedsheets. It’s my day off, she mouthed. What are you doin’ today?

“Ma tolt me to weed the whole motherfuckin’ garden out back.” He popped a brow at her. “How’s about givin’ your brother a hand?”

Sit on a gerbil, she mouthed.

“Funny. Come on, I’ll give ya…ten bucks.”

Eat a pile of corny shit, you homo whore!

Jiff glared. “Yeah, yeah—hey, Lottie, don’t talk so loud. Someone might hear ya.” Jiff ripped out an uproarious laugh, slipped out of the room, and slammed the door in her face.

Fucker! Lottie thought. III

“Thanks very much for making the time, Mr. Sute. I’ll be over in a half hour,” Collier said and hung up. His eyes swept the bedroom for a reason he couldn’t identify, and he quickly felt chilled, but the chill magnified when he looked at the bed and recalled not only the noxious nightmares he’d had on it, but the obscene hallucination last night. Nergie, he recalled the detestable mutt’s name.

“Oh, hey there, Mr. Collier,” Jiff greeted the instant Collier stepped into the hall. “How’d that inline handle?” “Inline?” Collier asked, miffed.

“My ma’s inline 235—her old Chevy pickup. She tolt me ya borrowed it. Bet there’s a million miles on that baby. Like to see them Japs do that with one’a their Toyoters.”

“It ran great, Jiff.”

“Anything I can help ya with?”

“No, thanks. Right now I’m on my way to Mr. Sute’s—”

Jiff looked at him weird.

“—to look at one of his book manuscripts,” Collier finished. He’d mentioned Sute on purpose.

“Oh, you mean one’a his books about Hardwood Gast.”

“Right. Don’t really know why but I’m becoming intrigued by the whole town legend. I’ve even had a couple of nightmares about it.”

Another weird look. “That so? Well, funny as it might seem, I’ve had a few myself and so’s my sister. It’s mainly just ’cos this house seems a lot creepier once ya hear all them stories.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Collier said. “But I’m still really fascinated. What do you know about Harwood Gast’s children?”

“Aw, his kids? Nothin’.” But the question clearly knocked Jiff off center. “I don’t know that much about it. I gotta get started pullin’ weeds out back…but have a great day,” he finished and rushed off.

Collier smiled at the reaction he’d come to expect by now.

A leisurely walk took him back through town, which seemed to brim with more tourists than ever. Much spun through his head during the trek—the dreams, the mysteries of the Gast legend, his outrageous sexual ponderings—but most of the thoughts invariably returned to Dominique.

God. What I wouldn’t give.

She contradicted his most apparent motivation—lust, essentially—or could it be true that Sute’s cryptic impressions were more on the mark: that many folk who stayed at the inn experienced a rampant upsurge in libido? Can’t be true. Ridiculous, he thought, yet a few minutes later he found himself matching the address on the business card to the numbers on the transom of a handsome Federal-period row house right in the middle of Number 1 Street.

“Come in, please,” the globose man greeted with a handshake. Sute wore, of all things, a crimson smoking jacket and white slacks. “Don’t mind the mess. I’m not known for my tidiness.”

“Not many writers are,” Collier said, instantly looking around. “Fascinating place.” The living room was dusty and a bit unkempt but full of fine antiques, wall tapestries, and polished stone busts.

“Upstairs is a bit nicer, and that’s where my manuscripts and sundries are.”

Collier followed him up, wondering how many male prostitutes had done the same. Ahead of him, almost face-level, Sute’s backside left little play on either side of the stairwell.

The upstairs was mostly master bedroom, plushly carpeted and walled with books. More stone busts on pedestals adorned the large room, along with sumptuous old oil paintings.

“Would you care for a drink?” he asked, opening a wide liquor cabinet.

“No, thanks. I’ve been doing a little too much of that lately, but feel free.”

Sute poured himself something in a tiny snifter. “Mind if I smoke?”

Collier laughed. “Of course not, it’s your place.” He quickly regretted his answer when Sute whipped out a big pipe and began packing it up. “On the phone, you inquired about Gast’s daughters—I guess I neglected to mention them when we had lunch.” After a few gaseous puffs he handed Collier an opened box full of paper. “Here’s one of my unpublished books, which details the children. But like most of this tale, it’s a very unpleasant one, so be forewarned. Page thirty-three.”

“Are there any pictures of them, photo plates?” Collier asked, flipping through. “Didn’t you mention you had some old-style photos—ferrotypes, or whatever they were called?”

Sute sat down in an oversize reading chair, toking the nauseatingly sweet pipe. “No photographs of the daughters are extant, I’m afraid. Just some daguerreotypes of Mrs. Gast.”

“Isn’t that strange? Gast goes to that considerable expense to photograph his wife but not his children?”

“Normally that would seem strange. But Gast didn’t like his daughters. They were very much mama’s girls; they took after Penelope exclusively, and this I mean in some regrettable ways.” Before Collier could ask for elaboration, Sute continued, “And it must also be said that Harwood Gast was very suspect of them.”

“Suspect in what way?”

Sute pursed his lips. “Gast suspected that neither girl was necessarily sired by his loins.”

Collier nodded. “The element of promiscuity. I almost forgot.”

Sute leaned back, puffing. “If I may, why an interest in Gast’s daughters?”

Collier half laughed. “If I told you, Mr. Sute, you’d think that I was a California loony.”

“Please. I’ve indulged you, haven’t I?”

The man was right. I’m not gonna be here much longer anyway, so what difference does it make what he thinks? “All right. Since I’ve been staying at the inn I’ve been experiencing some…things…that I’m hard-pressed to explain.”

“But I told you at lunch, so have many of the inn’s guests.”

“Right, but, specifically? I’ll just go ahead and tell you. You can laugh me out of here, and I’d deserve it, but…”

The mass of flesh that was Sute’s face creased from a smile. “I’m listening.”

“There have been a few times when I swear I’ve heard children’s voices at the inn—two young girls.”