CHAPTER 8
HENRY
Henry Jenkins’ place was clear across town, but fifty bucks a day is fifty bucks a day. Margie had given me the ex-bank teller’s address and described the place to me. He lived in a nice little old house at the end of a quiet street. Margie had seen the Jenkins house once years earlier, when she had to pick him up because his car wouldn't start. She described to me a neat little white Cape-Cod home surrounded by nifty trees and flower gardens.
When I parked the Ford in front of his house things looked anything but nifty. The man must have gone totally bonkers after being canned at the bank I figured, and destroyed his own property. It looked as though a tornado had struck his place and his place only. The trees and bushes were all smashed down with leaves shredded off. The flowers were crashed and rotting brown. Worst of all, the plants and lawn and walkways and house were covered over in thousands of thick clods of brown mud.
Stunned by the destruction, I got out of the car and walked as far as the walkway that led to the house. Just a few steps ahead the mud started. The wind shifted and I almost barfed when I caught a brief whiff of putrid air. It for sure wasn't mud covering everything; it was shit, tons of it. Cow manure, maybe. Sure, Jersey is the Garden State and all, but this was ridiculous.
Just then a couple of brown softball-sized clods plopped down out of the clear blue sky to land a few feet from me, splashing bits of gooey crap in all directions, but somehow sparing me.
I wondered how and why Henry was doing this. I eye-balled the house and surrounding area for some kind of crap launching mechanism, but saw nothing that looked like a poop gun or catapult or whatever a guy would fling big wads of manure with. More fell here and there all over the yard and I finally realized that it was simply raining the stuff. Even in Jersey, that’s unusual.
"Shit," I observed astutely. But fifty bucks a day is fifty bucks a day, so I ran back to the car and put my precious white fedora in it. I wasn't about to risk my hat with this shit. Then I started towards the house again, planning some fancy footwork to dodge airborne poop bombs and the patties on the ground as necessary. Not for the first time, I wished I had another set of eyes, so I could look up and down at the same time, as I figured that I would have to step over and around the stuff as well as watch for the incoming airborne stuff.
As I started working my way through the field of goo I got some more surprises. Good ones. The nasty looking clods of crap actually disappeared when I was within a couple feet of them, like they weren't really real! Also, they hardly smelled at all. I relaxed a little.
It all had to be some kind of optical delusion, I figured. Sure, poop seemed to plop down all around the yard, but the airborne stuff also disappeared whenever I got close to any of it. My reflexes still had me dodging a few of the airborne bundles of goo, but they popped out of existence before they could hit me anyway. No big deal. After a while I completely ignored both the airborne and the on the ground stuff, and I was fine.
Soon I was at the front door ringing the bell. A gawking little old bald guy answered it; it had to be Jenkins. "Mr. Henry Jenkins? I'm Jake Simon, private detective. I'm working for Margie Wainwright to figure out what's going on at the bank. Can we talk?"
"How the duce did you get here?" he asked, glancing skyward. Then he looked me over carefully. "Why aren't you covered in manure?"
"I don't know; I just walked in through all that smoke and mirrors."
His eyes went even wider. “Smoke and mirrors? Is that what you call it? Extraordinary! Well, come in then,” he said grudgingly, motioning me through the door, which he hastily closed behind me.
“Nice place you got here,” I remarked.
He winced and his eyes flashed anger, but he didn’t quite try to slug me. "It was nice until yesterday. I don't suppose you would care to explain my little precipitation problem?"
"Didn't seem so bad to me. But no, I came to you to try to find some answers."
"Answers? So, you claim to be a fellow seeker of knowledge. Well then, why don't we make ourselves more comfortable in my knowledge room?"
Soon we were in a snug little book-lined study, sitting in soft chairs. The walls were lined with hundreds of books, most of them even older looking than Jenkins, with spooky titles like Dwellers in The Mists, Spells to Conjure Ghosts and Mysteries of the Ancient Aztecs. Many were in foreign languages, and some just had goofy markings on them that didn’t hardly look like writing at all. The air was full of flower smells, probably from at least a dozen cans of air freshener, I guessed; almost enough to gag on.
"The smell doesn't bother you, Mr. Simon?"
I shrugged. "Flower smell beats cigar smoke, anyway. But what gives with the special effects in the yard? You got a plague of Avon ladies or Jehovah Witnesses you're trying to scare away?"
"Flower smell and special effects? Please, no more games Mr. Simon," said Jenkins. "You win. Margie wins, if she had you do this. Whatever you want, you've got it. I give up. You obviously have me far outgunned. I surrender. What exactly do you want?"
"Just some information," I said.
"Of course. Knowledge. First, I'm sorry about what I said to Margie at the bank after she fired me; I was in shock, that's all. I had never been fired before. But she has always been fair to me; I shouldn't have blamed her personally. My firing had to be direction from the front office of course. I take back my curse on her and the bank.”
“You do?” Would slashed tires fix themselves and so-forth, I wondered?
"Certainly, for what it's worth; that is to say, absolutely nothing. My curse wasn't completed and I have no powers anyway. But you would know that, wouldn’t you."
It wasn’t a question. "I would?"
"If course. Anyone that can do what you've just done in getting through my yard would know that. What degree warlock are you?"
"Warlock? Me? What the hell are you talking about?"
He studied my face and shook his head. "I’ll be damned! You really don't know what I'm talking about, do you, Mr. Simon?"
"No. And call me Jake."
He looked a little relived, but still on his guard. "Call me Henry then, Jake, but this doesn't make any sense. I watched your approach from the window, expecting you to be pelted the way I've been and the poor paperboy was. And contrary to their extravagant claims, the mail didn’t get through. That rain and snow and sleet guarantee business evidently doesn’t extend to crap. I’ll be lucky if the mail service doesn’t sue me. But you simply walked through the stinking slime outside like it wasn't there, and without even an umbrella or gasmask. Also, you remark that you smell flowers in here instead of the overpowering crap stink that for me no amount of air-freshener can overcome."
"So you didn't create that little side show out there?"
"Of course not."
"Then who did?" I asked.
"If it wasn’t you, I'm not sure."
"Got any guesses?"
He shook his head. "Perhaps. But my guesses could just get me into more trouble."
"Not from me, Henry. I'm just a seeker of knowledge, like you say."
"Then you're in far more trouble than you know. You don’t even know what you are. Then again, I’m not too sure about myself either. Look around you, Jake. I've altruistically devoted my life to the pursuit of wisdom, and what has it gotten me? Tons of magic poop, that’s what!"
“What do you know about what’s happening at the bank?”
“I heard about the tire destruction. Nasty, that. Attacking the American automobile is serious business. The car is a sacred icon in this country. But as you can see, I have my own crappy little problems.”
“The bad stuff happened at the bank right after you left it.”
“You mean right after I got fired for no cause.”
“That’s the breaks. That really pissed you off, did it?”
“Of course it did. But I got over it. I have had more serious matters to concern myself with; more serious than even noxious poop.”
I glanced aro
und the room at all the old books. “Your hobby?”
“My life. My passion. Something I pursue with every minute and meager dollar that I have.”
“Did getting fired at the bank keep you from pursuing it?”
He sighed and seemed to be looking at some far off place. “Possibly. I’m not sure what happened. I was perhaps on the verge of achieving my lifetime goal, only to have it slip away.”
“Because you were fired?”
“I didn’t think so at the time. But when I looked for it before I started for home on that last day at the bank and it was gone. I had it with me at the bank that day, and I’m absolutely positive that I had put it in my lunch box. But when I looked for it, it was gone.”
“What was gone?”
“The artifact that I had worked for over thirty years to track down.”
"Out West?"
"Correct. Got it from an old Navajo shaman. I didn’t dare leave it alone so I brought it to the bank with me. But at the bank, or here, or somewhere in-between, it disappeared."
"What kind of artifact?"
"One with real magic, if you believe in those kinds of things."
I managed to keep a straight face. "And you say it disappeared. What does it look like?"
"It took me decades to figure that out. Why should I tell you?"
"OK, well then, tell me this: what do you know about trolls?"
His eyebrows popped up. "Now why would that interest you?"
"I've run into one lately. Hell, a troll was in my office just this morning."
Jenkins sort of fell into his chair like somebody had slugged him, but then a smile formed on his face then disappeared before he shook his head in denial. "That's not possible, Mr. Simon. First of all a troll wouldn't even fit into your office. Trolls are huge, aren’t they?"
"According to an elf I was talking to the other day, this troll has shrunk himself down by using magic. He was only about your height."
He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. "So, that small, was he? And you also spoke with an elf? Now I know that you're teasing me, Jake. Trust me on this: trolls, elves, and their ilk, if they exist at all, inhabit a parallel universe, not this one. I've made it my life's work to study what little is known of this entire business. I have found legends about them but they haven’t actually visited Earth for hundreds of years."
I shrugged. "Personally I think this magic business is all a bunch of hooey, but I got to admit I've seen some weird shit myself these last couple of weeks, and I don’t mean just the stuff in your yard. If you're the expert, what do you make of all this elf and dwarf stuff they talk about in the news?"
"I'm afraid I don't pay much attention to current affairs, and my paperboy couldn't get near the house today because of a little yard problem I’m having. What elf and dwarf news are you referring to?"
"You know; the stuff that broke out near Phoenix a couple weeks ago. Say, you were out there just before then, weren't you?"
He turned a couple shades whiter. "Phoenix? Elves and dwarves in Phoenix? In the news?"
"That's the story. Someone even reported seeing a dragon. The weird stuff at the bank started soon after that, and shrinking of people and a troll right here in Jersey happened a few days after that. I was less than three feet tall myself for a while last week. What do you make of that, as an expert?"
He looked shaken. "I'd say that things have been seriously thrown out of kilter, Jake. I'd even venture to guess that my finding the artifact may have had something to do with it, as suggested by the timing of events in Arizona shortly after I was there, and what is happening to my yard and at the bank.”
Suddenly energized, he stood up and started pacing around the room, smiling and nodding. "Yes, these are very interesting developments, Jake, very interesting indeed. Thank you for making me aware of them. This suggests entirely new directions for my research. I am greatly indebted to you for bringing all of this to my attention."
"And the weird stuff at the bank?"
"I can assure you that I have no direct connection with whatever happened at the bank.”
“Did you mention the bank when you were on your trip out west, to your shaman friend for instance?”
“Perhaps, but I don’t see the relevance. If there are really trolls and elves in this area, almost anything is possible. You seem to be the one with the suspicious connections. What, may I ask, did the so-called troll want of you?"
"He wanted my detective services to help him find himself, he said. I told the guy he needed a shrink, and he said he didn’t need any more of that. I figure he escaped from a loony-bin."
Jenkins seemed to fight back laughter, and smiled even more. "Find himself! Find a troll! A shrink! Of course!” He pulled himself together, but was clearly very excited about something. “Well! How very, very strange. I'd keep my distance from the affairs of trolls if I were you, Jake. Even in this universe a troll would wield considerable power. The trouble at the bank may have just been in response to some sort of petty banking problem that this troll had. He lost his ATM card maybe." Jenkins laughed. "Whatever it was, it's over and done with now. My advice to you and to Margie is to leave it all alone. Did the troll happen to mention his name, by any chance?"
“No, but it might be Mickahl Al Calger.”
Jenkins eyes went wide and his jaw dropped for a moment, then he fought it back. “Odd name.”
“Familiar name?”
“I can’t say it is.”
Bull shit. "Can’t or won’t?”
“I can’t help you further Jake. Not with anything you’d understand. Just stay away from this troll, if you can.”
“Any advice on elves, Henry?"
"Same advice as with trolls. These are creatures of great power. Stay out of their way and they'll soon be going back to their own world, if history is any guide. And now, if that is all, I'd like to return to my research."
He stood, and I got up myself and started towards the door. "Mind if I hit you up again sometime for more info on this stuff? There probably aren't too many experts on it around here."
"Certainly. But I hope it won't even be necessary."
I left with the feeling that he had learned far more than I had.
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