Nick Errant

Here’s a little something. One of the ideas I’ve been toying with is a novel involving a classic pulp fiction team-up. This is the introduction of Nick Errant, inspired by detectives and weird menace fiction. I don’t know if it’ll go anywhere else, but thought I’d share this bit. Enjoy.

Prospero punched Nick Errant in the gut. A lot of your less respectable hired muscle might smack you in the face to make a stronger impression, but the risk was that you might break a jaw. Guys with broken jaws couldn’t talk.

Prospero worked him over for a bit until Nick couldn’t breath. Then the two guys holding him dropped Nick in a folding chair.

He gasped. Something might be broken. He couldn’t always tell.

Prospero offered Nick a cigarette, but he waved it off.

“Never picked up the habit.” He nodded to a bottle of scotch on his desk in the darkened office. “Wouldn’t mind a drink though.”

Some guys liked stones on their marks. Some didn’t. You could never tell, but Nick had always considered himself an optimist.

Prospero poured a small glass of scotch, handed it to Nick.

He sat back in the chair. The lighting in the office was lousy. He couldn’t see the faces of Prospero’s muscle, but he knew their type. Bruisers who made their nickel roughing up any poor sucker their boss pointed them at. They probably had their reasons, but Nick made it a point to avoid humanizing them. It only seemed fair since they returned the favor.

Prospero was a mid-sized fish in the piranha tank of crime. Big enough to be dangerous, but small enough to be twitchy about the bigger fish. He sat directly under the office light. He was bald and had a scar under his right eye. Fat, but still with plenty of muscle of his own. A couple of years ago, he’d be one of the goons standing beside Nick, and like any up-and-comer, he had a lot to prove, even if only to himself.

“Now, are you going to open the safe or do the boys need to do some more convincing?”

Nick swirled the scotch, knocked it back before handing the glass to Prospero.

Prospero said, “Funny. Thought you’d try something with that.”

“What kind of host would that make me?”

Prospero chuckled. “You’re a flippant guy.”

“Blame my folks. Mom was Ms. Levity Connecticut, third runner up.”

Prospero nodded to one of his goons, who planted a punch across Nick’s jaw, professionalism be damned.

“The way I see it,” said Prospero. “Either you open that wall safe for me and you end up in the dumpster out back. Or I waste my precious time ripping out the cheap thing, getting someone to crack it open, and you end up in the dumpster out back.”

“You’re a lousy negotiator,” said Nick.

Prospero poured himself a drink. “Either way, you’re in the dumpster. Up to you if you’re breathing or not while you’re in there.”

“Corpse in a dumpster might get the cops asking unpleasant questions.”

“Maybe, but you won’t be around to appreciate those questions.”

Nick rubbed his jaw. “Mom always said when a man has a point it’s best to listen to him. But before I open that safe, I should warn you. What you’re looking for in there . . . it’s cursed. Everyone who has laid eyes on it has died or ended up in a mental institution.”

“I know you’re the superstitious type, Errant, but you’ll have to do better than that.”

“It’s not superstition,” said Nick. “Superstition is lucky pennies and unwashed socks and not stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. But there are things out there: Forces beyond mortal ken. And that thing in that safe is one of those things. I’m just trying to do you a favor.”

A thug lifted Nick by the shirt and shoved him toward the wall safe.

“If you’re so convinced this thing is cursed, why do you have it?” asked Prospero.

“Same reason you want it. I’ve got bills to pay. I’m immune to curses. This curse anyway.”

Prosper glanced around the broken down office. “Must be why you live such a blessed and glamorous lifestyle.”

“Didn’t say I wasn’t a fuck up,” replied Nick. “But that’s my own doing. But the idol in this safe, you don’t want to mess with it.”

Prospero reached into his jacket and pulled a gun. “Just open the safe.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Nick under his breath. He dialed in the combination and withdrew a small package wrapped in brown paper and twine.

“Open it,” said Prospero.

“You don’t want to do that.” Nick held it out. “Just take it and deliver it to whoever is paying you.”

Prospero pointed his gun, cocked the hammer.

Nick used his nails to tear at the paper, exposing a bit of the emerald statue beneath. It wasn’t much, but the idol stared out with is one ruby eye. The lights flickered in the office. Outside, a car crash happened, and it sounded like a doozy. Perhaps a coincidence.

“Now you’re dead,” he said.

“Not before you.”

Prospero fired. The bullet ricocheted off the idol, striking one of goon’s in the neck. The muscle clutched disbelieving at his throat as blood poured down his shirt.

“Goddamn it,” said Nick. “I warned you.”

The idol’s ruby eye burned bright red at the offering. He dropped it as it heated up. The paper burned away, revealing the misshapen thing in all its profane glory.

Nick covered his eyes. Immune or not, he didn’t take chances. He heard Prospero’s maddening screams, joined by an invisible hellish chorus. Something smashed through the window. Nick blindly grabbed his trench coat off the rack and tossed it over the idol. Eyes still closed, he wrapped the thing up and threw it into his safe, slamming it shut.

The heat died down down. The invisible choir silenced. Nick sat in the corner, eyes closed, for a couple of minutes just to be on the safe side. When he did finally dare take a look, he saw Prospero laying twitching in a pile of his own vomit on the cheap carpet.

Nick checked on the poor guy. He was still alive, but his face said he’d seen things no mortal should see, and he had not come out the other side in tact. His bloodshot eyes and chattering teeth and ashen flesh spoke of madness. And it would’ve been merciful to just shoot him, but Nick didn’t have the stomach for that. The curse would take Prospero soon enough. Well, perhaps not soon enough, but soon.

Nick went to his broken window where Prospero’s second goon had thrown himself out in a bid to escape. He lay broken on the street below. Maybe dead, maybe only dying.

And then there was the guy bleeding out on his floor.

Nick poured himself a second drink. It was one of those nights.