The Longest Game is an Occult Pulp Noir serial. To begin at the begin, or find your way around, see the Table of Contents.
A rain-battered Calumn was bound for the scene of the crime he did not commit, hungry for vindication or at least lunch. He wasn’t quite twenty-four hours without food per se, but his stomach wasn’t one to get hung up with the details. Twelve hours, but factor in the vomit, carry the wine, maybe nineteen hours? Regardless.
Glimsvale was a strange city to him, its layout a mystery, but it had been a straight drive up the Boardwalk to the Port Authority. He would get back to Borja’s and test a theory. The camera footage had been cursed, he was sure about that. But perhaps there had been a second camera at Borja’s, and perhaps curses travel one camera at a time.
After all, Calumn had missed Borja’s sign. Perhaps he’d missed a discreet blinking red light in the window, too. A second angle of the crime might be free of tampering, technical or-- and he still count not believe he was considering this-- arcane.
Calumn made his way down the boardwalk on foot, reversing his morning ride with Officer Barnum. The docks were raucous as they approached noon despite the heavy rains. The fisherman didn’t seem to notice the weather; they were barely dressed for it. A fleet of men and women, all full of that bloodied vim that put Calumn to shame, packed tight into the carnage of a prematurely-aged body. Middle-aged sixty-somethings, the lot.
And then there were those pirate flags everywhere. Calumn wondered how literal the folks here took their jollies. He moved with the turbulent coast to his left, a labyrinth of houseboats and vessels he didn’t understand with names probably like “Scobbles” or “Skoofs.” To his right were cliffs, the occasional stairway or aggressively steep road leading to the south side of Glimsvale. Tourists were wise to stay clear of either in the downtorrent. Embedded in the cliff face was a great steel lift, buffeted by spray, where crates of fish would be brought up to civilization. Calumn paused to watch the lift slowly descend.
“Hoy,” shouted one local, a frizzy-haired woman in a green rubber jacket and matching bucket hat. “Helluva day to be hoofin’ it in that getup. Is that wool? You’ll catch your death if that suit don’t shrink an’ strangles you first.”
She was right about the suit. Sylvester’s fits were slim enough as it were, and the rain was doing Calumn no favors, regardless the material. At least the downpour had muted his awful cologne. “I’m just getting some pizza,” he shrugged.
“Need a lift?” The lady elbowed a rickety yellow bike cab, something resembling a rickshaw. With his horrid vision, it was just precarious mechanical whimsy.
Calumn squinted at the rates, a fading on the side of the contraption. “I don’t have any money, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, sure,” the woman rapidly lost interest, scanning the crowd for any other potential tourists among the dockfolk. “What, you kill someone for the suit then?”
Calumn tried not to scream, and choked it into a nervous mewl instead. He made a short dash toward some tents, a fishmonger who had remained open despite the weather. Catching his breath, he nearly fell over at the sound of a squad car siren behind him. Resisting the urge to sprint, Calumn feigned an intense interest in a barrel of Atlantic cod.
Barnum’s rickety blue vehicle slowly sputtered its way down the Boardwalk, the occasional paroxysm of the siren for crowd-dispersion. Calumn watched from the tent while pretending to weigh a slimy fish in his hands. An officer exited from the back seat, first cracking his back and then speaking to some of the locals. Informants, he ruefully thought. I’ll be undone by the local scuttlebutt1 if I don’t hoof it.
The officer showed a picture from his phone. A mug shot taken when he was being processed, informal as it was. A great big mustache-- Caterpillar, Sylvester called it?-- on his face. Calumn unconsciously touched his upper lip, smearing the smooth skin with fish slime. He was past caring-- this hungry, everything smelled delicious.
Not that he would have a free moment, if the Port Authority were dogging him so close already. He had to get to Borja’s, and the direct path was evidently patrolled.
Calumn left through the back of the tent, closing the distance to the rocky cliff wall. Some of the locals parked there against the rock, and one gangly fisherman was trying to get a grill started under the downpour. Above them was the lift, larger now that he was close, carrying boxes of fresh catch. What was it the old lady asked? Need a lift?
A graceless vault over a rusty guardrail and he was onto the platform. Its square footage was larger than his French Quarter apartment. The space was half-full of goods destined for the city above. Seawater trickled from the crates and through the faded maroon paint of the metal grate flooring. Calumn took stock of his surroundings one last time: Grill Guy was the closest living soul, and the rain was obscuring Calumn’s movements. Looking at the miserable vista before him full of officers in soggy pursuit, squabbling fisherfolk, and possibly a hurricane, Calumn never found it more ironic to decree: the coast was clear.
He slapped the solitary red button and hid between a blue tarp and a silvery pallet. Utility klaxons whined, unheard and unnoticed despite their cacophony as the platform began to rise.
***
Effie bounded down the Boardwalk, her feet pumping against the slippery white planks beneath her. She could see red and blue light-bars of the police cruiser ahead, slowly rolling their way through the morning fish market. The saturated colors reflected off the omnipresent salty gloss, dancing under the rain. Thankfully, Miss Saltwater Taffy wears practical shoes! Her steps were percussive, each stride blunt-force trauma to earth’s head. Euphoria spread from somewhere deep inside Effie’s brain, as her equestrian-dressed inner child took the reins of her consciousness and galloped her adult form down teh salty wooden planks. A few pedestrians dove out of the way.
Effie’s graceless footfalls were warning enough for the first dockside folk to stand clear, but she hit the same throng of city bustle that brought the patrol cars ahead to reach a standstill. And she didn’t even have sirens.
“Make way!” Effie cried, using her elbows to take up more space.
“Hey, fuck you too!” someone shoved right back, before shouting to someone else about halibut.
This could take some time; foot traffic was harder to navigate in Glimsvale than the streets up top. Perhaps her dad could put in a word about a Boardwalk streetcar. Enviously, she saw the closest thing, a utility platform, already half-way up the cliff-side toward the navigable urban sprawl.
“Hoy,” came the voice of a smoker. “Need a lift?”
An old lady was leaning against a light pole, trying to smoke a waterlogged cigarette. Her fuchsia lipstick and green rain-rubbers reminded Effie of watermelons and flamingos, and this established a firm baseline trust. “Hoy. I really do.”
The lady revved her gig, a yellow city relic that fused a vespa with a rickshaw and bled diesel. Affixed in front was an overlarge headlight and a plastic shield, displaying the rates for “Boardmobile!” as well as the number to a nice Indian restaurant. “Jesus, Mary, and haddock-- you pick today of all days to go streakin’ across town, dressed like a calendar?”
Effie vaulted into the cramped seating in the back of the gig. “It’s Port Authority business,” she urged in her most authoritative voice.
The old lady stuck the wet cigarette, closer now to a brownish nicotine wad, behind her ear. She side-eyed Effie, top to bottom. “Port Authority! Sure, and the men with eyepatches sellin’ snowcones is legit buccaneers. Your badge come with any authority, or just the ones stuffed into the elastic of your-- Christ, are those rockin’ pockets?”
“My father--” No. She would stand on tall on her own merit, with pride. “Today, I’m Miss Saltwater Taffy.”
“That so? I’m cartin’ royalty?”
“It means I’m detective for a day,” Effie insisted, as the cabbie turned a key. The engine began to zealously bark, and the gig began to move. “Sorry, I’m trying to find my cash.”
“The only thing you’re detectin’ is which way the wind is blowin’ in that getup.” The cabbie laughed to herself, as smoky as her cigarette, while the Boardmobile rattled over the boards. The dockworkers were clearing a path for the sputtering machine. The gig moved as a part of the waterfront’s bustling harmony. The ornery driver continued working on her material. “A pig in packaging as tight as yours, guess that makes you sausage. And here I thought you were headin’ to a bachelor party in international waters!”
“You’ve got a real tight five.” Effie grit her teeth, acutely aware that from her position, she could twist the old woman’s head clean off. They were making progress down the Boardwalk, at least. The little yellow bike rattled and wheeled its way in and out of the street, behind stalls and finally approaching Barnum’s slowly inching vehicle.
“Pull up here, beside the squad car.” Effie had realized at some point mid-run she had no idea where she was headed. Barnum might be more pliable, now that they were away from her father’s watchful eye.
“No can do, sweetie. This gas-guzzling relic is older than the pirate queen’s ceasefire, and its rapsheet is longer than the Jackrabbit’s.2 If I get another ticket, I’ll be banned from drivin’ in this life an’ the next.”
“Just trust me! They’re not gonna give you a ticket,” Effie pleaded. Bigger sharks to fry. They were about to pass Barnum right by. The rundown vehicle was flanked by two officers in ponchos, trying to clear the crowd and show pictures of the perp on rain-smeared screens.
“No tickets? I didn’t realize those scraps of cloth was a meter maid costume! Why didn’t ya say so?” The driver guffawed, a wet, jubilant sound. They wove around another gig (a red one), launching a puddle’s-worth of rain back to the sky from whence it came. “Now you got some cash stuffed in your standard-issue garters, or--”
“I said pull up, you old bag!” Effie punched her metal knuckles into the tin roof of the rickshaw, the sound a personal-sized thunderclap.
The cabbie flinched hard enough to take her eyes off the foot-traffic and slammed on the horn before she hit a drowned soul walking their dog. “Stop crumblin’ the infrastructure, kid-- this gig’s survived a gunfight and a nor'easter tagteamin’, and you’re the first to leave a mark! I’ll pull up, just don’t knock off the barnacles. Sheesh.”
The yellow gig sputtered to a stop beside Barnum’s slowly-inching car. Effie leaned out of the rickshaw and knocked on a window. “Hey, Barnum!”
The irate giant rolled down his window. “Hey, get lost, Effie! Your pops said to go home.”
Effie gave the squad car a playful slap on the hood, and the vehicle suffered. “You’re holding out on me, you big lug? How’s this different from the last dozen ride-alongs?”
The beleaguered officer offered a meager glance at the two other lawmen hovering nearby. “Look kid, I know you wanna help. It’s just, this is a little different than a tourist bar fight, ya know?”
Effie’s cabbie had taken a suspicious lack of interest in the conversation, looking every other which-way. The two vehicles remained at a stand-still among the briny townsfolk and waterlogged seagulls. Effie’s conversation with Barnum had similarly stalled.
Effie was hoping to avoid misdirection, but there was no other play. They always return to the scene of the crime, that was all she had to go on. “Suit yourself Barnum, but I’m not fourteen anymore. I’ve doubled that, old-timer. Anyways, Dad sent me to shoot you a message off the scanner.”
“Oh! Yeah? One sec-- Hey, beat it!,” he barked to his subordinates. They obliged, disappearing into their crowd with their malfunctioning devices. “What’s he got?”
“Some witness called the station, confessed to co-conspiracy? From the bowling alley?”
“Not a bowling alley, a pizza place. Nothing good ever happens at Borja’s,” he sighed and rubbed his beard. “The shotgun lady, Christ. I’ll bring her in myself.”
Effie’s face flushed with panic. No way would she abide an innocent civilian get in trouble on her account. “No, whoever it was they’re at the station! You need to work your magic.”
Barnum’s face brightened, an animal toothy grin. “The Harbormaster wanted me specifically?”
Effie gave a treacherous thumbs-up. “Go get ‘em, big guy!”
Barnum ordered his officers with loud, clumsy coordination. In the enthusiastic pandemonium that ensued, her cabbie turned with conspiratorial glee. “Next stop, Borja’s?”
“Fast as you can,” Effie plead.
“Your funeral,” the old lady shrugged, revving the gig into a gear that rattled its bolts. “But if I die, I’m haunting your ghost!”
Chapter 6B is now available, Battle! at Borja’s. You can always navigate the Table of Contents, or peruse the latest newsletter at time of publishing, //GET.GHOULEY//6.25
Scuttlebutt was an experimental game in 1993, staged between Nantucket, MA and Galway, Ireland. Billed as a “penpal” game, Scuttlebutt was an evolution of the childhood classic “Telephone Game,” handled at the two host pubs. Five storylines-- a love story, a ghost story, a political thriller, a treasure hunt, and a murder-- would arrive at the pub by mail. The bartender would summarize the latest developments on each story to patrons before players arrived, in the form of rumors. Participants would then visit the pub on game night, plying those already at the pub for clues, before telling the barkeep in a few lines how the story should progress. The barkeep would then jot down the progress and send the letter to their sister-tavern across the ocean, for the process to repeat.
The game came to an abrupt end when the locals became concerned with the murder storyline, absent the context of the underlying game. They reported to the police the ‘scuttlebutt,’ and following an investigation, a body was found. The barkeep was ultimately arrested, and later convicted with corroborating forensic evidence. Which side of the pond did the crime occur? That is the strangest part; a body was found in Nantucket, and a body was found in Galway. To this very day the game continues in its own fashion, with the ghost and treasure storylines fusing as they so often do, two local legends persisting devoid of their original context. Now, it’s simply scuttlebutt.
John Jack Babbit, a/k/a the Jackrabbit: Glimsvale’s own mascot serial killer. Like all the best, he was a cobble-and-fog nineteenth century slasher. Gentleman and grave robber, Jackrabbit is best remembered for his penned series chronicling the paranormal mysteries of his benefactor, Dr. Sean Tinney Shrike. The majority of discourse on him pertains to whether he actually existed. The victims certainly were, as was the doctor. As the vampires and ghouls contained between the pages were certainly a flight of romantic fancy, historians consider the novels to be Babbit (or Shrike) venting their guild in a roundabout way. Certainly, the books are in poor taste. They remain a local bestseller.
“Today, I’m Miss Saltwater Taffy.”
Effie, you absolute character. May the sash grant immunity from shotguns. 🖤