The Innswich Horror by Edward Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

Phillips
Lovecraft?”
    For the first time Zalen actually smiled.
The couch creaked when he sat down and crossed his thin, white
legs. “I remember him, all right. Had a voice like a kazoo, and all
the guy ever ate were ginger snaps.” He jumped up quickly, and
slipped something from the bookcase. He showed it to me behind his
gap-toothed smile.
    It was a copy of the
Visionary Publications edition of The
Shadow Over Innsmouth.
    I removed mine from my jacket pocket and
showed him likewise.
    “I didn’t think anybody
even read that
guy, but I’ll tell you, after this came out, a lot of folks did, and they weren’t
too happy with what he had to say about our town. Most of Olmstead
back then was moved down to Innswich Point, so the guy changes the
name to Innsmouth. Christ. Changed all the names but only a little, you know?
Like he wanted us
to know what he was really writing about.”
    “For God’s sake, Mr. Zalen,” I countered.
“He merely used his topical impressions of this town as a setting
for a fantasy story. You’re practically accusing him of libel. All
writers do things like that.” I cleared my throat. “Now. Do you
have the photograph?”
    “Yeah, I got it, but only the negative. I
can have it developed for you tomorrow.” His smile turned
slatternly. “But I’ll take the hundred up front.”
    I am not a man given to
confrontation or brusqueness, but this I would not stand for.
“You’ll take five dollars for processing fees, and the remaining ninety-five
when I have what I want,” I told him and thrust him another
five.
    He took it all too eagerly. “Deal. Tomorrow,
say four.” His eyes turned to cunning slits. “Who told you I had
the picture?”
    “A friend of mine,” I snapped. “A woman
named Mary Simpson—”
    An abruptitude pushed him
back in his seat; he nearly howled. “Oh, now I get it! She’s
a friend of
yours, huh? I guess you’re not the goodie-two-shoes I pegged you
as.”
    I winced at the remark. “What on earth do
you mean?”
    “Mary Simpson used to be
the town slut. Now, this town was full of sluts but Mary took the
cake. She was a whore , Mr. Morley, a whore of the first water, as my grandfather
used to say.”
    “You’re lying,” I replied with immediacy.
“You’re merely trying to incense me because you’re resentful of
people with means. I see your frowsy smile, Mr. Zalen, but I’ve a
mind to wipe it right off your face by canceling any further
business with you and seeing my way out of this den of drugs and
iniquity you call your home.”
    “But you won’t do
that, Mr. Morley,
because guys like you always get what they want. You’ll be back
tomorrow, and you’ll have the rest of the money. You just don’t
want to know the truth.”
    “And what truth is that?”
    “Not too many years ago? Mary Simpson was
the top dog dockside whore in all of Innswich. Christ, she’s had,
like, eight or ten trick babies, man. She made a lot of money for
me.”
    Now it was my turn to smile at the bombast.
“I’m supposed to believe you’re her panderer? Er, what do they call
them now? Pimps?”
    “Not is, was. About five years ago the bitch
got all high-falutin’ on me.”
    “I still don’t believe you. She enlightened
me of her plight, regarding her husband who abandoned her.
Certainly, the man was of less repute even than you.”
    “Husband, Jesus.” He shook
his head with the same grin. “If you believe that, you probably
believed that War of the Worlds broadcast last October.”
    Of course, I hadn’t
believed a word of it; I’d read the book! But for what Zalen was
inferring now? It’s just more of his
loser’s game, I knew. “And now I suppose
you’re going to tell me she was a drug addict, like
you.”
    “Naw, she never rode the horse, she was just
crazy for cock.” He raised a brow. “Well, cock and money.”
    “And this I’m supposed to take on the
authority of a drug addict who would stoop so low as to sell
pictures of innocent young