The Imago Sequence,
a novella by Laird Barron
An excerpt from the online service Goliath
Publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Publication Date: 01-MAY-05
Author: Barron, Laird
Article Excerpt:
Imago. Imago. Imago.
--Wallace Stevens
Warning: those of you who favor our lighter and sweeter stories will
probably want to borrow someone else's eyes to read this one. Laird
Barron writes dark and often disturbing stories like "Old Virginia"
that are apt to make you check the locks on the doors several times.
This novella is one such saga, and an unrelenting one at that--a
tough-guy tale about how the hired muscle got a lesson in art. Perhaps
we should also issue a warning for them what likes tales from the dark
side: you'll want to check your schedule before starting this story,
because once you get started, it's not likely to let you go.
1.
LIKE THE SHROUD OF TURIN, the disfigured shape in the photograph was a
face waiting to be born. An inhuman face, in this instance--the Devil,
abstracted, or a black-mouthed sunflower arrested mid-bloom. Definitely
an object to be regarded with morbid appreciation, and then followed by
a double scotch to quash the heebie-jeebies.
I went to Jacob
Wilson's Christmas party to see his uncle's last acquisition, one that
old man Theodore hadn't stuck around to enjoy. A natural Rorschach,
Jacob said of the photo. It had been hanging in the Seattle Art Museum
for months, pending release at the end of its show. Jacob was feeling
enigmatic when he called about the invitation three days before
Christmas and would say no more. No need--the hook was set.
I
hadn't talked to Jacob since the funeral. I almost skipped his party
despite that guilt, aware of the kind of people who would attend.
Whip-thin socialites with quick, sharp tongues, iron-haired lawyers
from colonial families, and sardonic literati dredged from resident
theater groups. Sleek, wealthy, and voracious; they inhabited spheres
far removed from mine. As per custom, I would occupy the post of the
educated savage in Jacob's court. An orangutan dressed for a calendar
shoot, propped in the corner to brood artfully. Perhaps I could
entertain them with my rough charm, my lowbrow anecdotes. It wasn't
appealing. Nonetheless, I went because I always went, and because Carol
gave me her sweetest frown when I hesitated; the one that hinted of
typhoons and earthquakes.
The ride from my loft in downtown
Olympia served to prepare my game face. I took the 101 north, turned
onto Delphi Road and followed it through the deep, dark Capitol Forest
and up into the Black Hills. Carol chattered on her cell, ignoring me,
so I drove too fast. I always drove too fast these days.
The
party was at full steam as I rolled along the mansion's circle drive
and angled my rusty, four-door Chrysler into a slot among the acres of
Porsches, Jaguars, and Mercedes. Teddy Wilson might've only been a
couple of months in his grave, but Jacob was no neophyte host of galas.
He attracted the cream, all right.
Bing Crosby and a big band
were hitting their stride when the front doors gave way. A teenage hood
in a spiffy white suit grabbed our coats. I automatically kept one hand
over my wallet. The bluebloods congregated in a parlor dominated by a
fiery synthetic tree. A slew of the doorman's white-tuxedoed brethren
circulated with trays of champagne and hors d'oeuvres. The atmosphere
was that of a cast party on the set of Casablanca. Jarring the illusion
was Wayne Newton's body double slumped on the bench of the baby grand,
his pinky ring winking against the keys. I didn't think he was playing;
a haphazard pyramid of shot glasses teetered near his leg and he looked
more or less dead.
Guests milled, mixing gleeful ennui with
bad martinis. Many were sufficiently drunk to sand down the veneer of
civility and start getting nasty. Jacob presided, half seas over, as
the Cockney used to say, lolling before his subjects and sycophants in
Byzantine splendor. I thought, Good god, he's wearing a cape! His
attire was a silken clash of maroon and mustard, complete with ruffles,
a V-neck shirt ripped from the back of a Portuguese corsair, billowing
pantaloons, and wooden sandals that hooked at the toe. A white and gold
cape spread beneath his bulk, and he fanned himself with a tricorner
hat. Fortunately, he wasn't wearing the hat.
Carol glided off
to mingle, stranding me without a backward glance. I tried not to take
it personally. If not for a misfortune of birth, this could have been
her tribe.
Meanwhile, I spotted the poster-sized photograph
upon its easel, fixed in the center of the parlor. Heavy as a black
hole, the photograph dragged me forward on wires. Shot on black and
white, it detailed a slab of rock, which I assumed was subterranean.
Lacking a broader frame of reference, it was impossible to know. The
finer aspects of geology escaped me, but I was fascinated by the
surreal quality of this glazed wall, its calcified ridges, webbed
spirals and bubbles. The inkblot at its heart was humanoid, head
twisted to regard the viewer. The ambient light had created a blur not
unlike a halo, or horns, depending on the angle. This apish thing
possessed a broad mouth slackened as an unequal ellipse. A horrible
silhouette; lumpy, misshapen, and dead for epochs. Hopefully dead.
Other pockets of half-realized darkness orbited the formation;
fragments splintered from the core. More cavemen, devils, or dragons.
Hosts occurred to me.
A chunky kid in a turtleneck said it actually resembled a monstrous
jellyfish snared in flowstone, but was undoubtedly simple
discoloration. Certainly not any figure--human or otherwise. He asked
Jacob his opinion. Jacob squinted and declared he saw only the warp and
woof of amber shaved bare and burned by a pop flash. Supposedly another
guest had witnessed an image of Jesus on Golgotha. This might have been
a joke; Jacob had demolished the contents of his late uncle's liquor
cabinet and was acting surly.
I seldom drank at Jacob's
cocktail socials, preferring to undertake such solemn duty in the
privacy of my home. But I made a Christmas exception, and I paid.
Tumblers began clicking in my head. A queasy jolt nearly loosened my
grip on my drink, bringing sharper focus to the photograph and its
spectral face in stone. The crowd shrank, shivered as dying leaves,
became pictographs carved into a smoky cave wall.
A dung fire
sputtered against the encroaching well of night, and farther along the
cave wall, scored with its Paleolithic characters, a cleft sank into
the humid earth. Flies buzzed, roaches scuttled. A reed pipe wheedled
an almost familiar tune--
My gorge tasted alkaline; my knees buckled.
This moment of dislocation expanded and burst, revealing the parlor
still full of low lamplight and cigarette smog, its mob of sullen
revelers intact. Jacob sprawled on his leather sofa, regarding me. His
expression instantly subsided into a mask of flabby diffidence. It
happened so smoothly and I was so shaken I let it go. Carol didn't
notice; she was curled up by the fireplace laughing too loudly with a
guy in a Norwegian sweater. The roses in their cheeks were brick-red
and the sweater guy kept slopping liquor on the rug when he gestured.
Jacob waved. "You look shitty, Marvin. Come on, I've got medicine in the study."
"And you look like the Sun King."
He laughed. "Seriously, there's some grass left. Or some vicodin, if you prefer."
No way I was going to risk Jacob's weed if it had in any way influenced
his fashion sense. On the other hand, vicodin sounded too good to be
true. "Thanks. My bones are giving me hell." The dull ache in my spine
had sharpened to a railroad spike as it always did during the rainy
season. After we had retreated to the library and poured fresh drinks,
I leaned against a bookcase to support my back. "What's it called?"
He sloshed whiskey over yellow teeth. "Parallax Alpha. Part one of a trio entitled the Imago Sequence--if
I could lay my hands on Parallax Beta and Imago, I'd throw a real
party." His voice reverberated in the rich, slurred tones of a
professional speaker who'd shrugged off the worst body blows a bottle
of malt scotch could offer.
"There are two others!"
"You like."
"Nope, I'm repulsed." I had gathered my nerves into one jangling bundle; sufficient to emote a semblance of calm.
"Yet fascinated." His left eyelid drooped in a wink. "Me too. I'd kill
to see the rest. Each is a sister of this piece--subtle perspective
variances, different fields of depth, but quite approximate."
"Who's got them--anybody I know?"
"Parallax Beta is on loan to a San Francisco gallery by the munificence
of a collector named Anselm Thornton. A trust fund brat turned recluse.
It's presumed he has Imago. Nobody is sure about that one, though.
We'll get back to it in a minute."
"Jake--what do you see in that photo?"
"I'm not sure. A tech acquaintance of mine at UW analyzed it. 'Inconclusive,' she said. Something's there."
"Spill the tale."
"Heard of Maurice Ammon?"
I shook my head.
"He's obscure. The fellow was a photographer attached to the Royal
University of London back in the '40s and '50s. He served as chief
shutterbug for pissant expeditions in the West Indies and Africa.
Competent work, though not Sotheby material. The old boy was a
craftsman. He didn't pretend to be an artist."
"Except for the Imago series."
"Bingo. Parallax Alpha, for example, transcends journeyman photography,
which is why Uncle Teddy was so, dare I say, obsessed." Jacob chortled,
pressed the glass to his cheek. His giant, red-rimmed eye leered at me.
"Cecil Eaton was the first to recognize what Ammon had accomplished.
Eaton was a Texas oil baron and devoted chum of Ammon's. Like a few
others, he suspected the photos were of a hominid. He purchased the
series in '55. Apparently, misfortune befell him and his estate was
auctioned. Since then the series has changed hands several times and
gotten scattered from Hades to breakfast. Teddy located this piece last
year at an exhibit in Seattle. The owner got committed to Grable and
the family was eager to sell. Teddy caught it on the hop."
"Define obsession for me." I must've sounded hurt, being kept in the
dark about one of Teddy's eccentric passions, of which he'd possessed
legion, because Jacob looked slightly abashed.
"Sorry, Marvo.
It wasn't a big deal--I never thought it was important, anyway. But ...
Teddy was on the hunt since 1987. He blew maybe a quarter mill
traveling around following rumors and whatnot. The pieces moved way too
often. He said it was like trying to grab water."
"Anybody ever try to buy the whole enchilada?"
"The series has been fragmented since Ammon originally sold two to
Eaton and kept the last for himself--incidentally, no one knows much
about the final photograph, Imago. Ammon never showed it around and it
didn't turn up in his effects."
"Where'd they come from?"
"There's the weird part. Ammon kept the photos' origin a secret. He
refused to say where he took them, or what they represented."
"Okay. Maybe he was pumping up interest by working the element of
mystery." I'd watched enough artists in action to harbor my share of
cynicism.
Jacob let it go. "Our man Maurice was an odd duck.
Consorted with shady folks, had peculiar habits. There's no telling
where his mind was."
"Peculiar habits? Do tell."
"I don't know the details. He was smitten with primitive culture,
especially obscure primitive religions--and most especially the holy
pharmaceuticals that accompany certain rites." He feigned taking a deep
drag from a nonexistent pipe.
"Sounds like a funky dude. He lived happily ever after?"
"Alas, he died in a plane crash in '57. Well, his plane disappeared
over Nairobi. Same difference. Bigwigs from the University examined his
journals, but the journals didn't shed any light." Jacob knocked back
his drink and lowered his voice for dramatic effect. "Indeed, some of
those scholars hinted that the journals were extremely cryptic. Gave
them the willies, as the campfire tales go. I gather Ammon was doubtful
of humanity's long-term survival; didn't believe we were equipped to
adapt with technological and sociological changes looming on the
horizon. He admired reptiles and insects--had a real fixation on them.
"The series went into private-collector limbo before it was subjected
to much scrutiny. Experts debunked the hominid notion. Ammon's
contemporaries suggested he was a misanthropic kook, that he created
the illusion to perpetrate an intricate hoax."
Something in
the way Jacob said this last part caused my ears to prick up. "The
experts only satisfy four out of five customers," I said.
He
studied his drink, smiled his dark smile. "Doubtless. However, several
reputable anthropologists gave credence to its possible authenticity.
They maintained official silence for fear of being ostracized by their
peers, of being labeled crackpots. But if someone proved them
correct...."
"The photos' value would soar. Their owner would be a celebrity, too, I suppose." Finally, Jacob's motives crystallized.
"Good god, yes! Imagine the scavenger hunt. Every swinging dick with a
passport and a shovel would descend upon all the remote sites where
Ammon ever set foot. And let me say, he got around."
I sat
back, calculating the angles through a thickening alcoholic haze. "Are
the anthropologists alive; the guys who bought this theory?"
"I can beat that. Ammon kept an assistant, an American grad student.
After Ammon died, the student faded into the woodwork. Guess who it
turns out to be?--The hermit art collector in California. Anselm
Thornton ditched the graduate program, jumped the counterculture wave
in Cali--drove his upper-crust, Dixie-loving family nuts, too. If
anybody knows the truth about the series, I'm betting it's him."
"Thornton's a southern gentleman."
"He's of southern stock, anyhow. Texas Panhandle. His daddy was a cattle rancher."
"Longhorns'"
"Charbray."
"Ooh, classy." I crunched ice to distract myself from mounting tension
in my back. "Think papa Thornton was thick with that Eaton guy? An oil
baron and a cattle baron--real live American royalty. The wildcatter, a
pal to the mysterious British photographer; the Duke, with a son as the
photographer's protege. Next we'll discover they're all Masons
conspiring to hide the missing link. They aren't Masons, are they?"
"Money loves money. Maybe it's relevant, maybe not. The relevant thing is Thornton Jr. may have information I desire."
I didn't need to ask where he had gathered this data. Chuck Shepherd
was the Wilson clan's pet investigator. He worked from an office in
Seattle. Sober as a mortician, meticulous and smooth on the phone. I
said, "Hermits aren't chatty folk."
"Enter Marvin Cortez, my
favorite ambassador." Jacob leaned close enough to club me with his
whiskey breath and squeezed my shoulder. "Two things. ! want the
location of this hominid, if there is a hominid. There probably isn't,
but you know what I mean. Then, figure out if Thornton is connected to
... the business with my uncle."
I raised my brows. "Does Shep think so?"
"I don't know what Shep thinks. I do know Teddy contacted Thornton.
They briefly corresponded. A few weeks later, Teddy's gone."
"Damn, Jake, that's a stretch--never mind. How'd they make contact?"
Jacob shrugged. "Teddy mentioned it in passing. I wasn't taking notes."
"Ever call Thornton yourself, do any follow-up?"
"We searched Teddy's papers, pulled his phone records. No number for
Thornton, no physical address, except for this card--the Weston
Gallery, which is the one that has Parallax Beta. The director blew me
off--some chump named Renfro. Sounded like a nut job, actually. I wrote
Thornton a letter around Thanksgiving, sent it care of the gallery. He
hasn't replied. I wanted the police to shake a few answers out of the
gallery, but they gave me the runaround. Case closed, let's get some
doughnuts, boys!"
"Turn Shep loose. A pro like him will do this a lot faster."
"Faster? I don't give a damn about faster. I want answers. The kind of
answers you get by asking questions with a lead pipe. That isn't up
Shep's alley."
I envisioned the investigator's soft, pink
hands. Banker's hands. My own were broad and heavy, and hard as marble.
Butcher's hands.
Jacob said, "I'll cover expenses. And that issue with King...."
"It'll dry up and blow away?" Rudolph King was a contractor on the West
Side; he moonlighted as a loan shark, ran a pool hall and several neat
little rackets from the local hippie college. I occasionally collected
for him. A job went sour; he reneged on our arrangement, so I shut his
fingers in a filing cabinet--a bit rough, but there were proprietary
interests at stake. Jacob crossed certain palms with silver, saved me
from making a return appearance at Walla Walla. Previously, I did nine
months there on a vehicular assault charge for running over a
wise-mouth pimp named Leon Berens. Berens had been muscling in on the
wrong territory--a deputy sheriff's, in fact, which was the main reason
I only did a short hitch. The kicker was, after he recovered, Berens
landed the head bartender gig at the Happy Tiger, a prestigious lounge
in the basement of the Sheraton. He was ecstatic because the Happy
Tiger was in a prime spot three blocks from the Capitol Dome. Hustling
a string of five hundred-dollar-a-night-call-gifts for the stuffed
shirts was definitely a vertical career move. He fixed me up with
dinner and drinks whenever I wandered in.
"Poof."
Silence stretched between us. Jacob pretended to stare at his glass and
I pretended to consider his proposal. We knew there was no escape
clause in our contract. I owed him and the marker was on the table. I
said, "I'll make some calls, see if I can track him down. You still
want me to visit him ... well, we'll talk again. All right?"
"Thanks, Marvin."
"Also, I want to look at Teddy's papers myself. I'll swing by in a day or two."
"No problem."
We ambled back to the party. A five-piece band from the Capitol Theatre
was gearing up for a set. I went to locate more scotch. When I
returned, Jacob was surrounded by a school of liberal arts piranhas,
the lot of them swimming in a pool of smoke from clove cigarettes.
I melted into the scenery and spent three hours nursing a bottle of
mineral water, avoiding eye contact with anyone who looked ready for
conversation. I tried not to sneak too many glances at the photograph.
No need to have worried on that score; by then, everyone else had lost
complete interest.
Around midnight Carol keeled over beside
the artificial tree. The guy in the Norwegian sweater moved on to a
blonde in a shiny dress. I packed Carol in the car and drove home,
grateful to escape another Jacob Wilson Christmas party without
rearranging somebody's face.
2.
NOBODY KNEW if
Theodore Wilson was dead, it was simply the safe way to bet. One
knife-bright October morning the coastguard had received a truncated
distress signal from his yacht, Pandora, north of the San Juans. He'd
been on a day trip to his lover's island home. Divers combed the area
for two weeks before calling it quits. They found no wreckage, no body.
The odds of a man surviving more than forty minutes in that frigid
water were minimal,...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.
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