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My name is Evritts... Mike Evritts. My business card says I'm a P.I. I'm beginning to wonder if that's private investigator or paranormal investigator. I'm back in the States now, but it started a few years back. In the U.K. Tryin' to git my investigation business started near Bonnyrig I'd taken on a case involving some kid named Penny. Family hired me to figure out what was going on. Things were strange. First she's dead. Then she ain't. Her family noticed something dif'rent after they realized she wasn't as dead as they thought. So they hired me... solving this case was harder than Chinese Arithmetic. I'd got mixed up with that guy Paxton. He was playin' both sides of the coin with the British E-Branch. I didn't know what E-branch was then... now I know members of their little organization have powers. In California these people have hot lines and for a buck a minute they'll tell "you your future". Down south the say these people "gots the shine", other parts of the U.S. says it's second sight, or a sixth sense. I just say it's creepy. Anyway Paxton was my link to E-Branch, and they were my link to Penny. Paxton was scum. He was slicker than two eels in a bucket of snot! I didn't trust him! I shouldn't trust him! On top of screwing with E-branch he'd tell me anything about the people that hired him to keep an eye on E-Branch... for the right price! I hated him. When he was around my flesh would crawl... crawl like a tree full of cicadas at night. Now I know now he was pickin' at my thoughts...kinda disgusting, now that I think about it. It gives me that feelin', you know... like when you finish your glass and find a hair in the bottom. Yeah, that kinda feelin'. The whole time he was in my head and I didn't know it. But that Keogh fella fixed him... If you can call him a fella. He seemed alright at first. Near the end (Of course Keogh was the end for me... at least in England) he was about as far from being a fella as hamburger is from being a vegetable. Oh, and I guess he had some of them powers E-Branch possessed... probably more! He had a way of comin' and goin'... bein' there and not... all in a matter of seconds. But last time I saw him was at his place in Bonnyrig. I was outta sight watchin' E-Branch close in on him. Paxton was there too... like a tick on a dog. E-Branch was fixin' to ice this Keogh fella, when all Hell broke loose. Keogh changed... oh, he'd been changin' all along, but now... now he'd undergone some metamorphosis and he was bigger, meaner, less human... more monster than anything else. Then he was gone. Then he was there in a way that gives me the chills... right behind Paxton. He snatched Paxton into that place that he goes when he is no longer there, and brought him back. That fast! Only Paxton wasn't that eerie Paxton he had been... now he wasn't much more than a gibberin' idiot. Neither side of the British spying organizations wanted him now, so he spilled his guts to me. He sang like a choir boy on Sunday, but I tried no to listen. Of course I was packin' my things. I wanted as far away from that mess in England as possible. Figured I'd try my hand as a P.I. back here in the States. But like I said, private or paranormal investigator. See, comin' back from England I brought some demons with me. One of them demons is a weakness for my Old Kentucky Early Times Whiskey. So when I got back here first thing I did was burn my passport, second thing was get me a big flask, third thing was to get an even bigger gun. I keep 'em both filled most of the time. But giving in to my demon gets me talkin'. I start tellin' people 'bout what I seen. Call it talkin' in my cups, but I gotta tell someone. Well, who woulda thought unloadin' in some gin joint to a few drunks lookin' through the bottom of a shot glass would lead to so much business. I suppose that's where my paranormal clients come from. Funny, most of them drunkards can't remember where they live; but they remember my name, and my business. Most of what I do is trackin' lost dogs and cheatin' husbands, but what pays the bills are the cases that give me the creeps. The paranormal, the vampires, the things that go bump in the night. The cases like the one she brought me. She said her name was Rhea... Rhea Frenzig. Yeah, my business ain't much, just two rooms over a garage, and one of thems a toilet. But, yeah this girl walks in smellin' like White Diamonds and lookin' like a million bucks. She had legs that would make a Bishop gnaw a hole in a church pew. That black shoulder length hair that bounced just right, and that natural tan; with looks like hers in this part of the country I would thought she was Native American, but when she spoke I knew she was what we Americans call a Gypsy. She had a Romanian accent thick as sap from a Maple tree. She wanted me to find out what was up with her brother. She filled me in and I said I'd see. She wrinkled her nose, shifted her hips and handed me a check. Truth is when she wrinkled her nose I'da crawled through glass for her, when she shifted her hips I'da done it naked, so handing me that check was the icing on the cake. I hadn't seen that many zeroes in a line since the last Leonard Nimoy book signing. I smiled and said I'd see about it. Told her I was kinda busy with lost dogs and cheatin' husbands, but she knew I'd be in touch. So I grabbed my flask, my gun and my fedora and walked her to her car. She drove off and I took a swig of my Early Times. Frenzig... that name has a familiar ring to it. Do I want to find out why? |