Doghouse6,
BATouttaheck, et al.
CHAPTER 1: JOHN
"John C. Higginbottom is dead."
Not a particularly frightening news report, I'd suppose, for you and me--not at all. Doesn't journalism usually consist of saying "Lord Jones dead" to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive?
For Mr. John C. Higginbottom, however, it was horrifying.
Higginbottom sat at his deck, watching the news flash across the television screen. Obviously another John C. Higginbottom, he told himself, attempting to convince himself of his thought's validity. (Because, of course, "John C. Higginbottom" is such a common name.) When he saw his picture come on the screen--when he saw his poor dear mother, in tears, tell of his horrible death--he knew that something--"something"? What, John?--had happened, something very, very wrong. He wanted to rush right down to the television studio and scream that he was alive, that he was alive and well and safe and... But what could have happened? How could they have made that drastic mistake?
Here, now! John C. Higginbottom was a regular, decent, upstanding fellow--perhaps a bit goofy at times, even as you and I are, and perhaps a bit lazy, but a good guy all the same. He had an apartment in New York, a job at one of the big advertising companies, a good income. Why this? What had happened? Wait a moment: did it have anything to do with that letter...
It was then that he noticed the door to the apartment was ajar, and the silvery barrel of a gun pointed right at him through the opening...
CHAPTER 2: ALICE
A pro would have gotten it done.
But Alice was not a pro.
And a moment of hesitation was enough for 6458 to jump off the deck. By then it was too late even to take a few wild shots and hope that one might strike him. The only silver lining was that she didn't end up in an interrogation room, one stop before the padded room... which would have been OK if she had. Just. Gotten. It. Done.
Her father's dying request. Put in position with a clear shot. And she had cocked it up.
Only the fate of the universe hanging in the balance, Alice.
Chapter 3: ROBERT
"BANG"
It was the only sound that could be heard across the room.
Police chief, Robert S. Turner, had just slammed his office door. As much as he was boiling of rage, he was also feeling a great sense of desperation. Tinelli and McGraw, his two top inspectors for years, had just been found guilty of fabricating evidence in the Sevil murders case and now an investigation was open to find whether or not they did same thing before.
Turner just lost face and he knew he couldn't afford to lose it again or he could forget his career and status and might as well start selling used cars for a living.
With the crisis, failure wasn't an option anymore, so Turner had to think. And think fast.
CHAPTER 4: HARVEY
The faces. The places...the names. Who were they? Where were they? This was no dream. Where were they coming to him from, and why wouldn't they leave him alone and let him sleep?
Harvey Glenville pushed himself up to a sitting position in bed, dragging his legs around to hang over the side. His body felt twice its weight. The night was sweltering, but the sweat bathing him was a cold one, in clammy and uncomfortable contrast to the warm weariness that draped over him like a heavy shroud, pulling downward at his head, his shoulders, even each of his eyes. Slowly, so slowly, the kaleidoscopic swirl of images that invaded his mind and sent it racing began to abate...retreat...dissolve. Darkness. Quiet.
But there was again to be no sleep tonight, just as there had been none the night before and the one before that.
Coffee.
Harvey resolved that he'd at least try, if desperately, to achieve something resembling a state of alertness and acuity. The struggle to his feet rewarded their bare soles with the reassuring solidity of century-old wood floors beneath them, so smooth as those feet began their shuffle to the bedroom door, through the living room and toward the kitchen beyond it. There, the overhead fixture's glare assaulted his eyes as he flipped the wall switch. He squinted against gleaming white tile and the glossy sheen of vintage cabinets whose fresh coat of paint - equally white - concealed what must have been at least a dozen layers underneath. Fingers feeling thick and clumsy set about their task.
As his reliable old coffeemaker commenced its familiar gurgling and hissing, Harvey moved back into the living room, flicking on the floor lamp that was its one source of illumination and dropping limply onto the sofa, its lone article of furniture. The back of his damp t-shirt, and legs bare below his shorts, pressed against leather at first soothingly cool, but soon warming from contact with his body. Harvey took in his surroundings.
New apartment, one of three carved from a fine old Victorian house, his a third-floor aerie whose spaciousness belied its compactness. Still-sealed moving boxes, in stacks that were neat but haphazardly placed around the room. Outside, beyond its tall windows, a new city. An old one, rather, but new to him. Three days ago, it...had it really been only three days?
It had all seemed so welcoming, so full of promise. New apartment, new city, new life. Flush with a recent inheritance which, carefully managed, could sustain him for years, Harvey was free of the burden of wage earning. Free, finally, to pursue unfettered his passion for - his dream of - writing. At any hour of the day or night, and for as many as he liked. To think, to wonder, to explore, to create...and perhaps to share something with a world as yet unaware it was waiting for his words.
And then they had begun.
Visions was too spiritual and noble a name. What to call them? Incursions. Into his brain had come the sights of people he'd never met, places he'd never been. Another apartment...a man at a desk, his alarmed gaze fixed upon a television. An office...a police station? Another man, angry and frustrated. A woman, trying to...to...fulfill a promise? A tubular, metallic object...a gun barrel? A death. And the names which meant nothing to him: Taylor...Alice...John. Just ordinary names. But they belonged to those faces, he knew. And an ordinary number, 6458, rendered mysterious by its persistence.
Over and over. Night after night. Flashes. Fragments. Disjointed yet somehow connected.
Harvey had tried to get it all down in writing, to make some sense of it, even to take inspiration from it. Were these merely creative impulses, bursting unbidden from the subconscious? Did stories actually write themselves, needing only hands to put them into print? But Harvey's fatigue-addled brain had been unable to command those hands to transmit thoughts into keystrokes, and he'd only stared into the unfilled screen of his laptop.
He fought a nearly overwhelming desire to close his eyes and drift off, but that was when they always came, those incursions, at their most vivid and relentless...plaguing him...confusing him...making sleep impossible. Difficult as it was, the effort to remain awake was proving less torturous than the cruel thwarting of seductive slumber every time he felt himself blissfully surrendering to it. The coffeemaker's beep signaled the completion of its duty.
And instantly after it, another sound, startling him to his feet: four deliberate and forceful knocks on his apartment's front door. Harvey made ten tentative steps to it. He counted them. He didn't know why. He listened. Silence.
"Yes?"
From outside the door, "Harvey Glenville?"
One of his two neighbors? They and his landlord were the only people in town who knew his name. "Who is it?"
"You don't know me, but we need to talk."
Harvey remembered glancing at the coffeemaker's clock. 2:45AM. "Do you know what time it is?"
"Yes, and I'm terribly sorry to bother you at this hour, but I've come a long way, and I need help. I think you do too, and I believe we can help each other."
"Well, who are you, dammit?"
The answer came like a powerful grip at Harvey's throat.
"My name is Higginbottom. John C. Higginbottom."
Harvey now watched as those hands, so clumsy in the kitchen moments ago and uncooperative at the keyboard yesterday, moved as though controlled by an unseen, unfelt mechanism. Turning the deadbolt. Twisting the knob. Pulling the door. Open.
He gazed into a face upon which his eyes had never fallen, but which he knew well. And in that instant, Harvey knew also that the words this man had spoken seconds earlier were the truth. It was a kind face, displaying a glint of recognition and the faintest hint of a grin...things that had never presented themselves when that face had been observed only in his mind.
Still clutching the knob, Harvey stepped aside, pulling the door with him in unspoken invitation. John C. Higginbottom walked carefully to the center of the room and surveyed its bareness before looking back to where Harvey still stood, now motionless. The voice he'd heard only through the door and the face he'd seen only in his mind were now joined as his visitor spoke, gently...ingratiatingly.
"I...could you...would you close the door please?"
Harvey did as asked, flipping the deadbolt back to locked position. Why? Habit...instinct...something else? Becoming aware of his attire of only shorts and sweat-dampened t-shirt, Harvey felt suddenly awkward.
"Uhhh...coffee?"
Not waiting for an answer, he started for the kitchen. The next words John C. Higginbottom spoke stopped Harvey cold in his tracks halfway there.
"Has there been a recent death in your family?"
CHAPTER 5: JOHN
A shot. A scream. A futile attempt to keep calm in the chaos.
The first thing Higginbottom saw after the shot went wild and the smoke cleared was a mop of long hair: was the shooter--could it be--a girl? It was. She was young, maybe twenty, twenty-three, and she hadn't moved after she fired the shot. She simply stood there, silent, staring at the gun as if she'd never seen it before.
He finally snapped, "Damn it all, what did you do that for?"
She leaped at him; he quickly parried and grabbed the gun from her hand. She looked at him for a moment and then crumpled into the sofa. Well! What do you say, John? Do you comfort her? Aye, man, there's your chivalry, but--dear God--she just tried to kill you, put a bullet in your brain.
"Well?"
Nothing.
"I don't think you understand, miss," John murmured, putting the gun behind him on the table. "You..."
"I know what I did." A soft voice, a voice not used to mouthing cruel words. "If anyone deserves it, it's you."
"And why is that?"
She laughed, with no mirth in that laugh. "You know what you did."
"Believe it or not, I don't. What?"
Silence again, then, "My father... You--you killed him..."
Child, are you grieving, over goldengrove unleaving? The tears came in a torrent, and John--despite his better judgment--sat down beside her.
"I--I never met your father. Who--do you know who told you that..."
"But Harvey said..."
Quick, there! Hold it. John snapped, "Harvey? Not Harvey Glenville by any chance?"
"Yes, but..."
"My God," muttered John C. Higginbottom. "My God. In that case..."
CHAPTER 6: HARVEY AND CURTIS
Alice's expression and tone conveyed both confirmation and accusation. "Then you do know Harvey."
John spoke as though to himself rather than to her. "Oh, yes, I know Harvey Glen..." Stopping himself, he turned to Alice. "I know of him. I know about him. I've never actually met him."
Alice bore a few seconds of silence before prompting, "And...?"
Unpleasant memories and the outrageous absurdity of the situation fueled John's ire. He glanced down at the gun he held in his hand, rose and stalked to the desk, carefully placed the weapon upon it and whirled to face Alice, folding his arms and challenging, "Before you start cross examining me, how about a little more information from you? How do you know him?"
Although the disadvantage of her position was clear to her, Alice tightened her jaw and narrowed her eyes, considering just how much she wanted to share with this man she, moments ago, had tried to kill.
John turned back toward the desk. "Or, I could simply call the police."
Abruptly, Alice blurted, "He..." John turned again to face her as she continued. "He and my father...were...business associates."
"Go on."
"They were partners, more or less," Alice explained. "They founded and built up ALCO Chemical together."
ALCO Chemical. A name John knew, and was unsurprised to hear mentioned.
"Dad...my father was CEO and Mr. Glenville...Harvey was his exec VP." Alice's eyes drifted downward. "It was named after me...I was only an infant."
How well John remembered that account. Damn near cost him his career, and did cost his job at the last ad agency at which he'd worked. As those bitter recollections simmered, John noticed that Alice herself now seemed lost in reverie.
"Harvey thought it was nice and didn't object. He never married and had no surviving family of his own, really. Just a nephew." Alice issued another mirthless, single-syllable laugh. "I heard he was named after Harvey."
John sought to bring Alice back to the present. "So your father is Curtis Morley. Honestly, I never met him either."
Alice's eyes fixed upon John with renewed fury. "WAS Curtis Morley."
And now they were back to Topic A as Alice's fists clenched. Attempting to counter her anger, John reviewed with skeptical sarcasm, "And this Harvey Glenville accuses me...told you I killed Cur...your father."
"They both blamed you," she barked and, with elbows on her knees, lowered her face into now unclenched hands.
John barked back, "Well, I think the three of us, you, Harvey Glenville and I, should have a talk together."
Tears had again begun welling in Alice's eyes as she raised her face and wailed, "I don't know where he is! He's disappeared."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"That's a hell of a story." Harvey was now seated at the opposite end of the sofa from his visitor. "And I'm not sure I want to hear the end of it. This all happened two weeks ago, you say? But my uncle's been dead for almost two months. And what's all this got to do with me?"
John Higginbottom's face again displayed the kindness Harvey had at first detected. "As I just told you, Alice mentioned you only in passing. After I tracked you...tracked down who I thought was your uncle...well, as soon as you opened the door, I realized."
Harvey shook his head. He would never have had the shameless nerve to spin such a tale in his own writings. Who would? "But now that you know my uncle's dead, I still don't understand what any of this has to do with me. He died, I was his executor and only relative, his estate was sold quickly and that's all. I'm out of anything having to do with Mr. Morley or their business...or this Alice."
John downed the last sip of coffee in his mug, lowered it and leveled his gaze at Harvey. "That's just it: I don't think your uncle is dead."
Harvey returned John's gaze for a long moment. "What? But..."
John interrupted, "And I haven't told you the most, ummm, interesting part. At least to me. Supposedly, I am."
CHAPTER 7: HARVEY AND JOHN
Higginbottom's eyes stayed level and utterly honest in spite of Harvey's obvious confusion. "Oh, yes," he muttered; "in fact, I'm surprised you hadn't heard before."
"Wait a moment." Harvey Glenville rose and picked up the newspaper on the kitchen counter. "John Higginbottom--that person whose body was found drowned in the East River. He..."
John cut in, "Found in the East River, yes, but not drowned. I've been studying this case in detail since I--er--died. This fellow had been stabbed twelve times before his body was thrown in. Whoever did it..."
By this point the sun had started to come up, its rays streaming through the window, but there was still precious little illumination in what was being said. God! A man lives his life, goes through his day-to-day routine, and all of a sudden... All of a sudden the universe decides to play a perverse joke on him, set him adrift on a sea of confusion, with characters he'd never met and no knowledge of where it might lead... But--but!--wasn't that what you wanted, John C. Higginbottom? Weren't you a bit too set in your ways, bored of the tedium of existence, longing like mad for adventure? And that's what this was, after all...
"This is our situation," John said quickly: "we have a girl who tried to take a potshot at me who claims that you told her that her father was dead. You still say you never did that, correct?"
"Correct," said Glenville. "Honestly, I don't even work for ALCO Chemicals anymore. I'm a writer."
"I know." John grinned. "I've read your books--thrillers, right? They're pretty good, too."
"Ehh, you're too kind. Potboilers, really. But go on."
"Well! Alice Morley tried to kill me because someone told her that I had killed her father. I had previously been informed--via the 5:00 news, a
fine way for it to happen--that I was floating, literally belly-up, in the East River with stab wounds in my chest. It's been hell just to get to talk to the police. Apparently desk sergeants don't take kindly to a guy who calls them up and tells them he's the real person they think they're got on the mortuary slab, and anyway my time has been spent with Alice, tracking down these other leads, as much as possible.
You worked for ALCO Chemicals--I worked on an account for ALCO Chemicals--a whole mess, but let's not get into
that--Alice's father was the CEO of ALCO--so the connection is pretty obviously..."
"ALCO."
"Exactly."
John rose, checked his watch, and crossed over to the door. "Alice said she'd be over soon..."
"Oh?"
"It'd be best if we all sat down face-to-face and hammered out what the facts of this thing are... Oh, I think that's her."
It was, and Harvey smiled at her as she entered--anyone would. She was young and pretty, with soft blonde hair, and effortlessly charming. You found yourself taking a liking to her immediately.
"John," she murmured, "is...? Oh, hello"--as she saw Harvey. "I'm Alice Morley," she said, and held out her hand.
"Wait a moment." John realized the implication immediately. "Alice, do you mean you've never seen this man before?"
"I certainly don't think so." She smiled softly. "Why, am I supposed to?"
"This is Harvey Grenville."
Now she was completely confused. "But... but..."
"Alice, you're saying you've never talked to him, never..."
"The Harvey Grenville I know is short and stocky, with a moustache. I've always known him as Harvey--he..."
Harvey spoke for the first time since she entered. "Another wrinkle in our problem, Higginbottom. Miss Morley, I'm me--Harvey Grenville--I've always been me, and only me. But God only knows who
you spoke to."