A Mystery Story in Serial

In actual fact Sterling had no particular interest in investigating Evan Humblesley's curse, hypothetical or otherwise. Though he had written about paranormal events for most of his adult life, his interest was limited primarily to those who believed in them - in finge cults, obscure little churches, as well as individual, so-called psychics, occultists, magicians, and metaphysicians. If asked he would have explained that he was fascinated by the psychology of anyone who was able to resist the almost overwhelming pressure of mainstream culture - religious and dogmatic or scientific, rational, and reductionist - and managed not only to evolve his own personal beliefs system but to hold onto it despite the constant social pressures to agree with what 'everybody knew.' Something of an agnostic himself, uncertain of the certainties in life, he admired anyone who could really, deeply, totally believe. It didn't matter who they were or what they believed. It was the act itself he found fascinating.

Actually the more ridiculous the belief, the less it conformed to mainstream culture, the more he admired those who were able to hold it. The strength of will and stubbornness involved he found amazing. Amazing and impressive. He knew everyone else called those who believed in space brothers or communicating ghosts or socially active angels naive. Personally he considered them rugged individualists worthy of nothing but respect, not because he thought they were right but precisely because no one else did - and they knew it but still refused to knuckle in. That took a kind of courage Sterling could only admire from a distance but never share. Not share, but at least he could write about it.

So Evan Humblesley's skull didn't really interest him. It was mildly curious that someone of the young man's apparent education and background might actually believe in a curse, but it didn't seem to Sterling that he believed in it very much, and there was no organized thought behind that belief, just a vague impression that 'bad things' were happening. All in all, Sterling didn't feel that there was anything that he could really sink his journalistic teeth into.

Nevertheless there did seem to be a story there. What had happened to the Coms Center? Even a few years previously it would never have allowed him simply to walk up into one of the tenant's rooms without authorization. Not to mention all of the young people hanging out in the commons room downstairs. Sterling wasn't naive enough to believe that they all lived there. Not if they were still enforcing the rule of one body per room, as seemed to be the case. So what was going on? Had they dropped their standards? Did they even have any standards any longer? And if they didn't, what sort of nefarious adolescent activities were going on there? How did new tenants get accepted? Who checked them out? Was there any screening process at all? Who was in charge? What had happened to the small puritan churches who had been funding the place? Were they gone or did they simply not realize what was happening?

Sterling knew he could just walk in and start asking questions. He might even get some answers. But if there truly was anything even vaguely nefarious going on nobody would tell him anything with that approach. Anyway, he could always do that later. For now what better way to nose around in the Coms than to pretend to investigate a skull with a curse? He knew from experience that such an approach would work; most of those who knew what he was doing would view him as a bumbling, naive innocent but they wouldn't take him seriously. And more importantly, they wouldn't object to any questions he might ask. They'd just assume he was being stupid, as they tended to imagine those who investigated such things to be. He could get away with almost anything and nobody would care.

He considered several approaches but decided the most direct was the best. Well, the easiest, anyway, and Sterling tended to take the line of least resistance when and wherever possible. So the very next morning, bright and not unreasonably early, he pulled into the Coms parking lot (filled with far fewer cars than the night before, he noticed; presumably most of the tenants were out working at their various jobs) and made his way to the desk.

If it had been unattended he would have given up on the Coms altogether, but as it turned out such extreme despair wasn't necessary. An attendant indeed sat huddled there - a somewhat sour-faced old man who looked as though he hadn't smiled since Nixon had been impeached. His oversized, somewhat block-shaped head was almost totally bare except for a grey-black fringe that made him look unwashed rather than merely bald. His clothes hung loosely on his emaciated body, as if he had somehow shrunk from within not long after getting dressed that morning. His thin, skin-loose neck rattled loosely in his high-collar shirt and as he turned to glare questioningly at Sterling the reporter had the feeling that none of the clothes had even bothered to shift position to accomodate the movement.

"Can I help you?" the old man asked with a voice obviously ravaged from several decades of heavy smoking.

"Could I speak with the manager, please?" Sterling asked politely.

"What about?"

"I'd prefer to discuss it with the manager," Sterling replied cautiously.

"Is it about one of the punks?" the man asked aggressively. "Because we can't answer any questions about them. No matter what we think, no matter what we see. They're holy-holy don't-touch, see? The little punks." He turned and coughed nosily as if he were drowning on his own phglem.

Ah ha. Sterling's ears perked up. "You have a lot of problems with them, here, do you?"

The old man shrugged. "None of my business. I sign 'em in, I sign 'em out. What they do in the meantime ain't any of my concern." He held up an old-style hotel leger. "See? Lists of names. That's all they are to me. Names on a list. Ink and paper. Don't make me no never-mind anyhow. Drink, fornicate, burn out their brains on drugs - useless punks. Kill themselves at twenty, they will, most of 'em, and good riddance to the whole bunch."

"I suppose it must be a challenge trying to keep track of so many young people," he said sympathetically. "And at that age they do tend to be somewhat high-spirited."

The old man gave him a one-eyed contemptuous sneer, reminding Sterling vaguely of how Popeye might look on a bad day. "Spirit ain't got nothing to do with it," he said flatly. "If you'd seen some of the things I've seen here you'd be down on your knees praying to God to save you from the memory of it." Then he shrugged. "But like I say, none of my business. Sign them in, sign them out, keep my nose clean and my mouth shut. That's what they tell me, that's what I do."

"But there has to be some sort of set-up here to keep them in line," Stering prodded. "I mean, so many young people shut up together like this, and a lot of them from troubled backgrounds. There's bound to be trouble if there isn't any structure."

"Oh sure, there's rules," the old man agreed. "Plenty of rules. Some of them enforced, some of them, well, forget it. They do keep the little lechers apart, I'll grant 'em that. No copulating here - well not in public, anyway." He looked so disgusted that Stering wondered a bit at the old man's private life, if any. "Sneaking around in the corners, I expect, doing what they shouldn't where nobody's looking. But here in the Center - no. Never caught them at that, personally, and I know most of what's going on here, believe you me."

"I imagine you do," Sterling muttered. The old man gave him another of his suspicious Popeye looks.

"Can't help it, can I?" he demanded. "Gotta sit here all afternoon, nothing to do but watch the door and make the little weasels sign in and out. Bound to see a few things."

"I wasn't doubting it," Sterling assured him. "I stayed here myself, some time ago."

"Did you?" As the old man frowned even more deeply Sterling relaized that he had made a tactical mistake. Obviously he hadn't done anything to improve his standing in the old man's eyes, considering his opinion of the tenants.

"Of course the rules were entirely different back then," he hastened to add. "They seem to have been, anyway."

"Different how?"

"Well, things seem much more - casual, now," Sterling hazarded. "Of course you'd know better than myself, I expect."

"Don't know nothing," the old man grunted, suddenly very engrossed in shuffling loose papers on his desk. He looked up into Sterling's eyes and sniffed. "You was saying you wanted to talk to somebody?"

Sterling realized the old man had withdrawn behind his inner shields and shrugged to himself. Well, so much for that source of information.

"Is the manager around anywhere?" he asked.

"Suppose so. If she's not out on one of her three-a-day, two-hour-apiece lunch breaks."

"I'd resent that more if I didn't see you sleeping at your desk half the afternoon, Harry," a rather pleasant woman's voice spoke up with obvious humor. The old man started so violently with surprise that a stack of loose papers on the counter in front of him slid to the floor. As he bent over to pick them up, muttering obscenities under his breath, Sterling looked into an open doorway behind the desk to find a well-dressed, slim young woman standing there smiling at him. Her hair was dark and trimmed close to her head, her complexion he guessed to be of vaguely Southern European ancestry. Her clothes had clearly been chosen to create the image of a busy but well-groomed professional woman who cares just enough about her looks but puts her career before all. She was small, the top of her head barely reaching to Sterling's shoulder (and he was far from a tall man) but she seemed competent, relaxed, fully in control of herself and whatever situation she might find herself in. She smiled at Sterling as equal to equal, not quite in mockery of Harry the deskkeeper but encouraging him to recognize that he wasn't on the same intellectual or social level as themselves.

"Hello," she said, advancing with hand outstretched. "I'm Trish Collins, day manager here. I don't think we've been introduced?"

"Joseph Sterling," he told her, accepting her firm, professional handshake. "I'm here about some troubles one of your tenants has been having."

The woman's face clouded over with concern. "Nothing legal, I hope? We do try to keep them on the straight and narrow, here, but obvioulsy with so many tenants, we aren't always able to -"

"Nothing like that," he assured her. He glanced meaningfully toward Harry, who was listening to their conversation with no attempt even to appear to be busy elsewhere. "Is there someplace where we can speak in confidence?" he asked.

"Certainly. If you'll come with me."

Ignoring Harry's glower, Stering stepped around the end of the desk and followed the woman into the recesses of the Center's inner offices.

Read Chapter Five of The Cult of Skulls

Copyright © 2005 by Gary Raab

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    A Joseph Sterling Mystery by G. Lester
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