Ch.149Act 2: Ch.10 – Long Live the King (1)

# July 18, 1929, 9:57 AM

Crayfield’s Office

Gorde 22nd Street, Pollard Island

There’s a burning sensation near my solar plexus. It’s different from heartburn. If heartburn feels like being repeatedly jabbed with a needle, this pain feels like something trying to tear through my flesh to escape.

I rub it with my fingers out of habit, but it doesn’t help much. Instead, an unpleasant memory surfaces—the incident in that black and white city, where a being in a yellow cloth and silver mask placed its hand on my chest.

I massage the area with my fist. It subsides a little.

‘When did this pain start?’

While trying to recall, I drum my fingers on the sofa armrest as if playing piano keys. Crayfield picked up this sofa from somewhere—it has a permanent stain on the back and releases a musty smell whenever someone sits on it, but it’s comfortable. Comfortable enough to endure the burdensome silence and occasional chest pain like a teddy bear would.

‘When did the silence begin?’

Neither Crayfield nor I have said much.

Crayfield is flipping through a scrapbook and smoking. Chain-smoking, actually. The ashtray that was clean this morning is already half full. Today’s smoking seems somewhat mechanical, like a runner who continues past the finish line by inertia.

Normally, we would be reading newspapers and making scrapbooks. Classifying incidents and accidents, examining contexts, and interpreting the flow of the world. By this time, we would have finished organizing, cleaning up the trash, and exchanging awkward jokes.

Occasionally there were variations—when someone visited. Friends. Enemies. Clients. Landlords… But those were minor events, interesting little episodes.

A morning like today, where no one visits and there’s not even a newspaper, leaving us adrift, is quite unfamiliar to Crayfield and me. How confused would an audience be if a performance suddenly stopped?

“What the hell is all this?”

I finally burst out in complaint. Like an audience member would.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what’s happening on this island right now.”

I couldn’t help but stand up. I walked to the window and yanked open the blinds. Even with the barrier removed, nothing was visible.

It’s because of the fog.

Sea fog has occupied the eastern coast of Massachusetts and the islands for days. Before the government issued advisories, ships had already added extra searchlights and warning lights, sounding their horns periodically. All lighthouses went into 24-hour operation, and Mayor Arthur Black invoked emergency powers.

According to his order, all regular ships, ferries, cargo vessels, and passenger ships can only enter or leave port between 11 AM and 4 PM. During those hours, the midday sun and easterly winds clear away the fog. But outside those hours, the fog rushes in faster than anticipated.

It’s gotten worse since yesterday. On Pollard Island, visibility is less than 10 meters. Car accidents are occurring everywhere. The newspaper office has notified us they can only deliver papers at lunchtime.

Yet people are out on the streets more than usual. Many are lined up in front of banks, trying to withdraw their deposits before the banks collapse—even though ordinary citizens know such actions only hasten a bank’s demise.

Others have stormed brokers’ offices. The clever ones fled, but the fog at the harbor often led to their capture. The more cunning ones escaped to secluded parts of the island.

Those who couldn’t escape had to face confrontations with their neighbors. “How could you do this to me, brother?” “It’s your fault! You’ve ruined my family, you devil!”

Fistfights and shouting have become commonplace. Of course, we can only hear the sounds. All we can do is imagine what’s happening behind the curtain of fog.

Even if I wanted to cover my ears, I couldn’t. From everywhere—literally everywhere—came lamentations, groans, and wails. From upstairs, next door, the hallway, the radio.

Sometimes people screamed when someone threw themselves from a building. After such screams and the sound of sirens, gunshots inevitably followed. Always at least two shots, but never more than four. Instead of funeral dirges, we heard radio news.

“Suicides, assaults, and gun accidents continue unabated… The impact on financial markets has spread like wildfire from the real economy to international markets. As banks that have seized businesses by the ankles plunge into hell, the Treasury Secretary has proposed efficiency through strong restructuring. Amid growing discontent over attempting to solve financial market problems with real economy approaches, the Dow Jones has reached record lows day after day…”

I look out the window. It’s not just stock prices and people that are falling. Birds, disoriented by the thick fog and crashing into walls, plummet to the ground.

Each time, chaos erupts below. People walk with umbrellas and wear long boots. No one wants to step on dead birds while walking through the fog in dress shoes.

Even the Doomsday Clock still points to 12. The drugstore hasn’t arrived yet.

“So…” After sighing softly a couple of times, I finally spoke. Not knowing how to organize my thoughts, I pulled out everything I’d been storing inside—more like a spring cleaning than a conversation.

“So, Crayfield, we’ve fought against beings we couldn’t even imagine. We’ve nearly died and seen terrible things, but we survived. Right?”

“Sorry. I died yesterday.”

Startled, I looked at Crayfield. He laughed, then seeing my face, became visibly embarrassed.

“No, my friend. Why so serious? How awkward. You were speaking so earnestly that I just made a little joke. A joke, that’s all. Yes, we did. What’s the problem?”

“That’s better.”

Crayfield burst out laughing. Shaking his head a couple of times, he took out a small silver-plated flask from the bottom drawer and two glasses from the cabinet. When he opened the flask, a pleasant brandy aroma wafted out. With practiced skill, he filled the glasses halfway with water and poured in the brandy.

“Let’s have a drink. It’s morning, but who cares?”

Crayfield took a sip and rolled it around in his mouth, treating the watered-down liquor as if it were a premium wine. Not intending to fully imitate him, I just took a couple of small sips. The taste was diluted, but the aroma remained, and the pleasant woody scent filling my mouth helped calm me down a bit.

“What I mean is, the things we’ve experienced were beyond imagination. Not all detectives and their assistants live like this, but for us… Well, I don’t know about you with all your experience, but for me, it’s become almost routine. But what’s happening on this island now is different.”

“I understand what you’re saying. It feels alien, right?” Crayfield finished his remaining drink. I liked that word.

Yes, it was alien. Cthulhu, Hastur, Hyperborea… those were mythical. They may have arrived in our time 3,000 years too early, but they’re beings beyond imagination. They exist outside the realm of ordinary consideration, so to speak.

Of course, I remember Emma. I remember her end and Catherine’s wailing. I remember the confusion of the Innsmouth people and the people staring hopelessly at the sky in the destroyed streets of Pollard Island. Those emotions can’t be dismissed. I witnessed them up close.

Cowardly as it may be, I can distance myself by saying it’s “not my business.” The yellow-clothed silver mask? I was “entranced” then. I’ve learned to give reasons for everything and confine it all within the framework of common sense. Like categorizing books on a shelf. So I can say, “Oh, that? That’s just that,” and move on.

The strange. The alien. I placed them on the shelf labeled “beyond imagination.” That was classification enough. Garbage repositories filled with horrific collections. Things you can enter but don’t want to pull out…

But what’s happening now is too real, too heavy, too familiar. The shelves are full, but there are too many books that need to be crammed in somehow. All this death and fog, stock market crashes and irreversible losses, unemployment and ruin and the shadow of poverty.

What are these things? What are they really? I can’t distance myself from them. I can’t escape them. I try to close my eyes and look away, but before I can close my eyes, the fog obscures my view first. I’ve been deprived even of my right to look away.

“Assistant.” Crayfield put a cigarette in his mouth. But he didn’t light it. His lighter seemed uncooperative. Click. Click.

“Yes. What we’ve been fighting and what’s happening now are different. At least, the fact that Innsmouth sank into the sea, that Hydra’s whale completely destroyed the collapsed lighthouse on the cliff—at least those things didn’t touch our daily lives. Isn’t that right? But what’s happening now is poking at our daily lives before suddenly pouncing and taking everything away.”

Click. Finally, the flame caught. Crayfield took a deep, satisfied drag on his cigarette.

“Daily life. Ordinary daily life. Not being able to clip the morning newspaper is almost endearing in comparison. What’s happening now? I don’t know either. I don’t have the skill to explain it to you. But I think I know what I’m seeing. Ordinary daily life is gone now.”

It wasn’t a declaration. It wasn’t a prophecy, a sentence, or a ruling. It was just a calm statement. Roses are red. The weather is cold. Happy days ended yesterday.

“Even housekeepers had a stock or two, or some insurance. Everyone wanted happiness, or at least to avoid potential future misfortune. But the investments they made with the best intentions have turned into terrible disasters that are devouring us.

It wasn’t even grand dreams or hopes, you know. Just small, trivial, insignificant desires like wanting to eat a bit more meat tomorrow than today, or wanting to treat hardworking parents and family to a warm meal. But those desires have returned as curses.”

Someone screamed. Not too far away. There was a gunshot, followed by more whispers and footsteps.

“Do you like sports, Assistant?”

“No. Do you?”

I answered reflexively, but I was a bit surprised. I don’t remember seeing Crayfield watch sports broadcasts. I didn’t even know he was interested in such things.

“I used to like them.” Crayfield took a deep drag on his cigarette.

“It wasn’t sabermetrics that turned me off. I just lost interest when I realized that drugs, lies, and fraud were rampant everywhere. After hearing about someone kicking a trash can to send signals, I lost all enthusiasm. Still, I went to see Babe Ruth play when I came here. In New York.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about… Before coming here, when I was still watching baseball, I read a column by a sports psychologist. It was about which players overcome slumps well.”

I could see police officers running with whistles. People were stomping their feet. All of it disappeared into the fog. Crayfield’s words remained unhurried.

“The psychologist used a can as a metaphor. A full can resists outside pressure well. An empty can doesn’t. Players who recover well had other things in their lives. They didn’t place all their life’s value on one game or one ball.”

“For example?”

“Well. It varied from player to player, but some had favorite foods. Others had hobbies outside of sports. If they didn’t have other hobbies, they had their own philosophy about the sport. Some players engaged in orgies every night, while others were devoted to their overweight spouses for life.

In other words, they had values they cherished regardless of winning or losing. People who filled themselves with small values didn’t collapse easily. That was the difference, according to the conclusion.”

I saw a stretcher. It was covered with cloth up to the head. As police and firefighters cleaned up, someone followed behind, wailing. The cigarette smoke dispersed.

“What’s being shattered now is that kind of daily life. Daily life that approaches in a destructive, ruinous form. Things we cherished turn their backs on us, and things we revered become mere shards of garbage. The world was solid because of those small daily routines. But now that daily life is broken. The defense is breached, casualties are mounting, and the audience is furious, but the curtain won’t rise until this evening.”

“Is it the drugstore’s doing?”

“Well… I don’t think so. He couldn’t set up all the variables by himself. But he certainly picked his timing well. Maybe he’s been waiting for this period.”

Crayfield rubbed his brow.

“Speak of the devil—I think someone’s coming.”

Listening carefully, there was indeed a creaking sound from the landing. But it wasn’t just one or two people.

“The drugstore wouldn’t bring friends.”

Crayfield muttered, checking the Doomsday Clock. It still showed 12. A suspicion that some trick was being played crossed my mind, but I forgot about it when I saw the people who opened the office door and entered.

Two sturdy men came in. Black suits, navy overcoats, and fedoras. Their right hands were tucked into their coat flaps, with bulges suggesting they were flaunting their guns. Their left hands were both exposed, as if by agreement, wearing white gloves.

Between them appeared a small, elderly man leaning on a cane. A slightly hunched back, head thrust forward. His eyes were black but surrounded by a reddish aura. Similar to Aurora’s eyes, but different. The old man’s eyes were like dying coals—the kind that make you burn your hand when you assume they’ve cooled off.

“It’s been a long time.”

A hoarse, murky voice. Crayfield silently observed the new guest. The two men twitched their eyebrows.

“It has been a long time.”

Crayfield placed his cigarette on the ashtray. Positioned as if he might resume smoking at any moment.

“You’re still smoking Camels, I see.”

“You’re still alive, I see.”

The old man laughed with his phlegmy voice. Surprisingly, the men didn’t move. Their eyes were full of displeasure, but they were no ordinary men. They were like well-trained shepherds. The dogs stay still until the owner signals, but once unleashed, they’ll bite until death. After laughing for a while, the old man wiped his eyes.

“Yes. I’m still alive. That’s why I’ve come to see you like this. Being alive is a good thing, isn’t it, John Crayfield?”

The old man looked at Crayfield. Even just standing there with his cane, he resembled an eagle. An experienced eagle that could snatch its prey and carry it off to the sky in an instant. Finally, Crayfield sighed.

“Assistant. You sit down first. You two beanpoles—stand or sit on the floor, whatever you prefer. And Mr. Giovanni Savio, that sofa is comfortable but smells of mold, just so you know.”

The old eagle, Giovanni Savio, sat on the moldy sofa. Sure enough, a musty smell rose, and he coughed a couple of times, but the old man seemed quite satisfied as he leaned back. The mafia boss who controlled eastern Massachusetts. Aurora Savio’s father. His gaze soon turned to me.