Pulp Adventures #21: Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Quarantine

Pulp Adventures #21

Spring / Summer 2016

featuring Sherlock Holmes

Audrey Parente, editor

Published by Bold Venture Press

www.boldventurepress.com

Cover art: Norman Saunders

This book is available in print at most online retailers.

Copyright information

Pulp Adventures TM and Copyright 2016 Bold Venture Press. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express permission of the publisher and copyright holder. All persons, places and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places or events is purely coincidental.

The Hideout Copyright © 2016 Ron Fortier. All rights reserved.

Death of a Pulp Writer Copyright © 2016 Patti Boeckman. All rights reserved.

The Red-Headed League Copyright © 1891 Arthur Conan Doyle, originally published in August 1891 in The Strand Magazine. This work has entered the public domain.

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Quarantine Copyright © 2016 Adam Beau McFarlane. All rights reserved.

Flowers for Christina Copyright © 2016 Johnny Strike. All rights reserved.

Highway J Copyright © 1953 Charles Eric Maine. Originally published in Planet Stories Nov 1953. No record of copyright renewal.

Death Steps Down by C.K.M. Scanlon Copyright © 1946 Standard Magazines, Inc. Originally published in The Phantom Detective April 1946. No record of copyright renewal.

The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft. Copyright © 1921 H.P. Lovecraft. Originally published in The Tryout, October 1921. This work has entered the public domain.

The Doom That Came to Roanoke Copyright © 2016 John E. Petty. All rights reserved.

From the Ground Up by Leland S. Chester. Copyright © 1922 Frank A. Munsey Company. Originally published in Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 11, 1922. This work has entered the public domain.

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please purchase your own copy.

Contents

FICTION

Brother Bones: The Hideout by Ron Fortier

Death of a Pulp Writer by Patti Boeckman

The Red-Headed League by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Quarantine by Adam Beau McFarlane

Flowers for Christina by Johnny Strike

Highway J by Charles Eric Maine

Death Steps Down by C.K.M. Scanlon

The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft

The Doom That Came to Roanoke by John E. Petty

From the Ground Up by Leland S. Chester

FEATURES

Editorial by Audrey Parente

Pulp Notes: Brother Bones

Pulp Notes: Charles Eric Maine

Pulp Notes: C.K.M. Scanlon

Other Books by These Authors

Connect with Bold Venture Press

Credits

Audrey Parente, Editor

Rich Harvey, Designer & Publisher

Norman Saunders, Front Cover Illustration

Editorial

An unintentional but coincidental theme emerged this month at Bold Venture Press, all to do with evolving ideas.

Patti Boeckman, wife of late pulp author Charles Boeckman, is a writer herself. She sent us a short story to spice up this issue. No spoiler alert necessary but the story concerns a writer’s Idea Book. You’ll get a kick out of her take on how a writer gets ideas.

Another connection came from the English band Radiohead, popular since the 1990s. Fans were on their seat edges recently when mysteriously the band’s web site began evaporating, then went dark. The fans suspected a new album might be forthcoming.

Radiohead-producer Nigel Godrich hinted at the contents when he sent out a Twitter message with a cryptic image — a single page from The Plot Genie Index, Wycliffe A. Hill’s book designed to provide plots, characters and locations for screen and pulp fiction writers.

Admittedly it took a few days for Bold Venture Press to figure out why Plot Genie sales tripled, many paid in Great British Pounds.

Radiohead’s new music videos appeared on the web, followed by a landslide of critique. A New Yorker magazine article elaborated on "what appeared to be a yellowing page from The Plot Genie Index, a compendium, published in 1936, of disembodied plot points."

The article speculated on a line Godrich’s index finger hovered near: Obliged to risk fortune in an effort to put down a rebellion.

What it all means to Bold Venture Press is terrific entertainment, and an idea for our editorial column. Happy reading.

Audrey Parente,

May 25th, 2016

The Hideout

by Ron Fortier

The plan was simple — to catch Brother Bones, scourge of the underworld, off-guard.

IT WAS long after midnight and most of the patron’s in Old Town’s Gridiron saloon had long since packed it up and gone home; wherever in Cape Noire was home to each of them. Of course there were always the night owls who hung around till whenever owner Butch Hammer decided to lock up.

On this particular, muggy summer night three of Hammer’s regulars were seated around one of the dozen of round tables that filled the small bar. Similarly dressed in worn, dark suits and fedoras, the three sat drinking bottle after bottle of Wyld Ale, the new beer recently bought from Alexis Wyld’s new brewery acquisition on the outskirts of the city. Not that any of the trio were connoisseurs, they had decided on the new drink because it was being sold cheaper than most of the other labels in town. It was a promotional gimmick and by the number of empty soldiers scattered amongst the butt-filled ashtrays on the table’s surface, was a mild success.

Fifty thousands dollars to anyone who brings her the head of Brother Bones! Michael Brown said and then made a fist, hit his chest and burped. Can you believe that? Fifty thousand smackers for taking out one guy!

He ain’t just one guy, corrected Mark Kalita who sat to Brown’s right. You know damn well Brother Bones is some kind of spook. She’s been trying to bump him off for a couple of years now and come up snake-eyes every time. He grabbed his empty bottle and drained it in one swallow.

How do you even know that’s true? asked the youngest of the three, long haired Gerald Kuster. I mean, why the hell would a dame like Alexis Wyld put a bounty on a character like Bones? Don’t make no sense at all. He lifted his hat and scratched his hair. His dandruff always made his scalp itch.

What? Brown, the older of the three snapped. Where da hell you been hiding these past three years, Gerald? No one called Kuster Jerry. He hated that nickname. It was Brother Bones who murdered her father, you know…the old crime boss of Cape Noire, Topper Wyld.

Ah, I thought that was just a bullshit story some of the guys made up.

Well, it ain’t, pal. Brown twisted in his chair and held up one of the empties. Hey, Butch, how about another round.

The bartender/owner nodded and went to the cooler as Kuster continued their discussion. So where’d you hear she’d put out a bounty on him?

Ran into one of her top guns, Reed Vengel.

You mean that rat-face little guy who likes to use knives instead guns? Kuster, like most of the criminal element in the port city, was all too familiar with the hood in question.

The one and the same, Gerald, Brown concluded. Ran into him while getting a haircut downtown. He and his crew are spreading the word all over town. Miss Wylde wants Bones’ head on a platter and is willing to shell out fifty thousand gees to make it happen.

Shit, Kuster nodded, dropping his fedora on the empty chair beside him. That’s a lot of freaking money.

Agreed, Kalita chimed in. With straight black hair, he was the charmer of the group; a real lady’s man. Fishing into his fancy suit jacket, he pulled out a pack of smokes and lit one up with his Zippo. But you know what bugs the shit out of me, guys?

Nah, the older Brown played along. What has your shorts in a twist, pally?

Simply this, Kalita blew out a puff of gray smoke. "For almost three years this skull faced wacko has been running around all over this damn town putting the bloody fear of God in our criminal fellowship and not only has he gotten away with it but no one still has a goddamn clue as to who he really is…and now…where the hell is his hideout!

Now does that make any sense to you guys? Kalita slammed an open hand on the table rattling the empty bottles.

Well, gee, Kuster said. Maybe his hideout is in that airship thingee he’s always flying around in.

Kalita looked at his friend and tried to make sense of his statement. Huh? What the hell are you talking about now, kid?

You know…the bone-ship or some such…that they talk about on his radio show every week.

Kalita couldn’t believe his ears. Brown started laughing.

What? Kuster was confused. You guys never heard his radio show?

God save me, Brown managed to get out between loud chuckles. He thinks the freaking radio show is for real!

Kuster looked at Brown with a hurt expression. Huh?

Jezzuz, you moron, Kalita couldn’t help himself. And I suppose you think the Lone Ranger and Captain Midnight are real too.

For a second Kuster looked like he was about to either cry or get up and hit somebody. Before he could choose either reaction, Butch arrived with three fresh brews on a tray. He set it down, removed the bottles; passing one to each of this customers and then began setting the empties on it.

Couldn’t help over hearing your conversation, Hammer said, his mouth wrapped around a half-smoked, foul smelling cigar. You wanta know where that Brother Bones is hiding out, you oughta ask Old Otto over there in the corner.

Brown, Kalita and Kuster all swiveled about in their chairs to look at the old man slumped over the table in the far back corner. Old Otto Reinerman was an established fixture in the Gridiron. During his youth he’d been a seaman who, according to his tall tales, had sailed around the world a dozen of times. When he lost his leg to a great white shark off the Philippines, he’d come home to Cape Noire to settle down. Hammer hired him as a janitor and let him sleep in the storage room located in the back of the bar.

You’re kidding, right? Kalita said scrutinizing the barkeep to see if he was joking with them.

Nope. You know how Old Otto rants and raves all the time and spins his stories to get a free drink from the regulars. Well, a few nights ago while he was cleaning up the place, he told me he’d seen that Brother Bones guy come out of some nice brownstone somewhere here in the city.

Hammer picked up the now full tray balancing it with one hand and started to go back to the bar. I didn’t pay it no mind, but hearing you guys talk about that reward and all got me remembering it.

You think he was telling the truth? Brown asked Hammer’s back.

How the hell would I know? the big Irishman said over his shoulder. Talk to him or not. It’s no skin off my nose.

Brown looked at his mates. Neither said word but eyed each other in silence. Aw hell, he finally uttered grabbing his new beer. What we got to lose?

He pushed back from the table, got out of his chair and Kalita and Kuster did the same. Together then sauntered over to the table in the back shadows.

Hey, Otto, Brown called loudly. Wake up, we wanta talk to you.

***

An hour later a fancy black sedan pulled up to the curb in the middle of a nice, well kept block. Streetlamps gave off a soft glow painting the brownstones and other apartment buildings a muted gray color. The expensive car, less than two months old, belonged to Michael Brown and he loved driving it. The few other parked sedans in this neighborhood were mostly rundown, second hand vehicles. As this was a blue-collar part of town, they were all the locals could afford.

You sure this is the right place? Mark Kalita inquired from the front passenger seat. He was looking up at the six story tenement building they had parked in front of.

That’s the number Old Otto said, Brown shut off the headlights and killed the engine. The place he saw Brother Bones go into.

The old sailor, once they had shaken him awake, had related the story of how months earlier, while on a drinking toot with several of his old sea mates, he’d gotten lost and wandered through this part of town drunk as a skunk. He’d collapsed on the stoops of the building across the street nursing a bottle of rum and then fallen asleep. Later that night he’d been awaken by the sound of a car pulling up in front of this very building and from it had emerged the Undead Avenger accompanied by a young man. Old Otto had seen them go into the building and a few seconds later spied the lights flash up on the third floor. After they were extinguished, he had passed out again.

Come the next morning he’d walked to the nearest bus stop and caught a ride back to Old Town and the Gridiron. It wasn’t until weeks later when he’d seen a sketch of Brother Bones in the newspaper that he had remembered both the incident and, more importantly, the address of the place itself. He had told this to Hammer and some of the other Gridiron crew but all of them just ignored his claim as just another of his alcoholic induced fabrications.

Until now.

I don’t see no roadster, Kalita pointed out as he opened the door and exited.

Getting out of his own door, Brown looked up and down the street. Of the three autos on it, none was a roadster. Hell, that don’t mean nothing. Could be parked out in a back alley somewhere. If there’s a chance this Bones spook is living here, then I’m gonna find out and then we can talk how we’re gonna split that fifty gees.

At the same time Gerald Kuster had come out of the back seat and gone around to the rear to pull open the trunk. Brown came over to flank his left side while Kalita his right. The trio looked down at the weapons stored there; two Thompson submachine guns and one double-barrel shotgun. Brown and Kalita hoisted the machine guns while Kuster hefted the big shotgun and then quietly lowered the hood. As the three moved away from the sedan, Kuster broke open the shotgun. He took two shells from his jacket pocket and slid them into the twin breaches before closing the chamber again.

Brown led the way up the cement stairs and jerked back one of the two doors and entered the small vestibule. Kalita caught the open door and followed him inside. Kuster held the door wide with the tip of his weapon and gave the deserted street a final look before doing the same.

Minutes later they were climbing the hallways stairs.

***

In the oldwater flat, the man who doesn’t sleep sat in his chair looking out the window at Cape Noire. His black, lifeless eyes never stopped gazing out at the tall high rise towers beyond the bucolic park only a few blocks away. Because he didn’t sleep he also did not dream but rather was himself the living embodiment of a nightmare.

He was Brother Bones, the Undead Avenger, and he simply sat and waited.

He waited for the candle on the bureau behind him to flicker with light which meant he was needed to bring vengeance to those who spread evil throughout his city.

And just as it had done so many times before,