2 A Haunting In Oregon (10 page)

 They drove through the city and
into the suburb of Ballard until they reached the docks. Here a mixture of
small personal boats were moored with larger commercial vessels. As they walked
to the pier, Steven noticed large yachts kept under covered slips, looking very
expensive.
I wonder if they ever take them out,
Steven thought,
or if
they’re just here as trophies.

An occasional overhead light
allowed them to keep their footing on the floating metal walkways that the
boats were moored to. He could smell the saltwater. Seagulls cawed and bickered
nearby. He noticed lights on in many of the smaller boats.

“Do people live in these?” he
asked Roy. “Permanently?”

“Dixon does,” Roy said. “His boat
is his home. When he gets tired of Seattle he takes it somewhere else until he
wants to come back.”

After snaking through several
turns, Roy led Steven down a dark floating gangway and they approached Dixon’s
boat. Roy stepped on board and knocked on the door.

No one answered. He knocked again.
Still no reply.

“This is odd,” Roy said. “Can I
use your phone?”

Steven handed his phone to Roy.
Roy dialed and placed it to his ear. They both heard it ringing from inside the
cabin.

“Dixon, is that you?” Roy said
into the phone. “We’re outside, let us in.”

They heard a rustling inside the
boat and after a few moments a face appeared at the window in the door. The man
was short, had a short grey beard that encircled the lower half of his face,
and was bald on top. His eyes went wide when he saw Roy, and he smiled. Then he
opened the door a little.

“I didn’t think you were coming
tonight!” Dixon said through the crack in the door. Steven could smell the
booze on his breath.

“I knew you’d be up,” Roy said.
“Let us in!”

“I can’t,” Dixon said. Steven
noticed that Dixon didn’t have a shirt on. “I’m…entertaining, if you get my
drift.”

Roy frowned at him as though he
did not know. Then he raised his eyebrows and smiled.

“You old dog,” Roy said. “Who is
she? This is Steven by the way.”

“Hi Steven!” Dixon said, sticking
his arm through the crack in the door to shake Steven’s hand.

They all heard giggling from
inside the boat.

“What?” Roy said. “How many have
you got in there?”

“Three,” Dixon said, smiling.
“Capitol Hill girls. All drunk. They’re suckers for houseboats.”

Roy was impressed. “You have got
to let me in on your secret, Dixon.”

“I will, I will,” he replied. “But
tomorrow, OK? I need to get back to the party. How about I come over to your
place? What time?”

“Make it nine,” Roy said, turning
to leave. “No, ten. And bring some doughnuts, it’s the least you can do for me
driving all the way out here.”

“I will,” Dixon said. “’Night,
boys.”

Steven and Roy turned and walked
back the way they came. They heard Dixon shutting the door behind them.

“I don’t understand how he does
it,” Roy said. “He’s nearly my age, but the girls flock to him like he was
forty years younger.”

“Maybe he’s not as crabby and
cantankerous as you,” Steven said. “Girls don’t like crabby.”

“I think he tilts things in his
favor,” Roy said, “with a little enhanced charm, if you know what I mean.”

-

When Steven arrived at Roy’s house
the next morning, Dixon was already there. It looked like Roy and Dixon had
gone through half the doughnuts.

“Steven!” Roy said as he walked
in. “Come on in! We were just catching up. Dixon, I introduced you last night,
but this is my son Steven. You can see him proper now.”

Dixon stood up from the kitchen
chair he had been seated in and shook Steven’s hand again. “Pleased to meet you,
Steven!” he said, smiling broadly. He was thin and short and seemed energetic.
He
has good cause to be,
Steven thought.

“Steven,” Roy said, pulling a
chair out from the table for him to join them, “grab a doughnut and we’ll get
started.”

Dixon watched him sit, then sat in
his own chair.

“Well,” started Roy, “I told you
on the phone, it’s Jurgen again. A whole different business this time. But you
know him better than me, and I thought it’d be smart to talk to you before we
try to deal with him.”

Dixon stirred his coffee with a
spoon, never touching the sides of the cup. Then he pulled the spoon out,
licked it, and placed it next to the cup. He took a sip. “Why don’t you start
at the beginning?” Dixon said. “I’d like to know the whole story, so I know why
we’ve got to deal with this asshole again.”

Roy began the tale, starting with
their trip to Pete and Sarah in Oregon, all the way through to their last
breakfast with them yesterday morning. Roy turned to Steven. “Did you hear from
Pete today?” he asked him. “Was it just as bad last night?”

“Yes, he called me around seven
this morning,” Steven replied. “He said it was the same as the night before. He
didn’t sound as stressed – I think he knew what to expect, that made it easier
to handle. But I’m sure they won’t be able to put up guests until it stops.”

“Based on what you’ve told me,”
Dixon said, “Jurgen is bound to give up after a while. He’s an asshole but he’s
pragmatic.” He picked up his spoon again and stirred his coffee in the same
manner, replacing the spoon exactly the same way.

Steven looked at Roy. He knew Roy
read his facial expression, which said: I expect support on this.

“Well,” said Roy, “I had
considered that. The problem is Pete and Sarah. They can’t ride it out. It’ll
destroy them financially. And,” he hesitated, “I’m afraid I sort of
over-promised and under-delivered on this one. I told them it’d be over when we
shut down the portal.”

“Counting your chickens before
they hatched!” said Dixon. “That’s a bad habit, Roy.”

“I know,” Roy said, “so I sort of
owe it to them to figure this out. If we can get Jurgen to stop tormenting
them, that’s my goal.”

“He might direct that anger at
us,” Dixon said. “He’s petty, he’d do it just to get back at us for the
incident we had with him years ago.”

“I know,” Roy said. “That’s why I wanted
your advice on this. What do you think we should do?”

Dixon thought. “I don’t know. I
really don’t.”

“Where is he, exactly?” Steven
asked. “You said he had a warehouse. Is it here in Seattle?”

“Yes,” Roy replied, “down by the
Duwamish in the industrial district. It’s a front where they transfer food from
one container into another and resell it. His real operation is hidden and
spread out all over the West Coast.”

“Is he at that warehouse?” asked
Steven. “Are his offices there? Can we go meet him there?”

“I suppose so,” said Roy. “That’s
where we dealt with him before.”

“Then I propose we do that,” said
Steven. “We go down there, ask to see him. Tell him why we shut down the
portal, find out what he wants to stop the attacks on the manor. If he’s as
pragmatic as you say, he’ll want something out of it.”

Roy turned to Dixon. “See, he
doesn’t realize who he’s dealing with.”

“You keep saying that, Dad,”
Steven said, “but I don’t see what the big deal is. He’s going to find out
sooner or later. Better to have it play out on our terms.”

“He’s got a point, Roy,” Dixon
said, raising his cup to take another sip of coffee. “For this to go anywhere,
we need to know what it’s going to take to get him to stop. Going in forcefully
might work; it worked for us before. Jurgen seems to respect that.” He set his
cup down in the same place, and arranged the handle to point in the same
direction it had been before he picked it up. “Then again,” he added, “it might
get us killed.”

“Do we go in with protection?” Roy
asked.

“He’ll take that as a threat,”
Dixon said. “But he’ll know we’re serious.”

“By protection,” Steven asked, “do
you mean the potion, or guns?”

“Both!” Roy and Dixon answered
simultaneously.

“OK,” Steven replied. “Let’s do it
then. When do we leave?”

Roy and Dixon looked at each
other. “You ready?” Roy asked him.

“Sure,” Dixon said, stirring his
coffee again.

“Steven,” Roy said, “just remember
to stay focused on what we’re trying to do. He has a way of confusing people,
twisting them to what he wants. If you get off your game he’ll use that against
you.”

“I’m ready,” Steven said.

-

Steven drove them to the
warehouse. It was about fifteen minutes from Roy’s. Dixon sat in the back seat
behind Roy. He kept raising and lowering the window.

“Dixon,” Steven said, “are you
hot? Should I turn on the air?”

“It won’t matter,” Roy said.
“He’ll keep doing it.”

“Really?” Steven asked. “The whole
way there?”

“Yes, the whole way,” Roy replied.

Steven followed Roy’s directions
and pulled his car into a parking space next to a cement structure with no
sign. White paint peeled from the walls and the windows, which had been painted
over.

Roy passed around a thermos.
Inside was a clear mixture that tasted like vodka. Each of the men took a
couple of gulps and handed the thermos back to Roy, who capped it and placed it
on the floor of the car. Steven had tasted this mixture before, when he and Roy
had confronted the creatures that were haunting his house. At first Steven
didn’t want to have anything to do with Roy’s concoction, but after he tried
it, he was hooked.

They walked to the door and opened
it. Inside was a large open space. There were a dozen people seated at small
tables. Plastic bottles of all sizes were stacked in racks against the walls.
All of the workers appeared to be Asian women; they had their hair pulled back
into nets and many of them were wearing white face masks over their nose and
mouth.

Roy pointed to several built-out
offices in the back of the room. They walked through the work area. None of the
Asian women turned or noticed them. Steven saw one of them pour liquid from a
large bottle into a smaller one, cap it, and affix a label. Then she placed the
small bottle into a cardboard crate on the floor.

As they walked to the offices in
the back Steven felt the potion spread throughout his body, creating a sense of
euphoria. He remembered what Roy had told him when he’d first tasted it, months
ago:
You’re not stronger, so don’t get cocky. You’re just protected from a
mental attack.

When they reached the offices in
the back, Roy knocked on the door.

“What?” came from inside.

Roy turned to look at Steven and
Dixon, then he opened the door and they all walked in.

The room was unlike any kind of
managerial office Steven had ever seen. There were mounted animal heads on the
walls and piles of skins on tables. There were multi-colored lights in the
overhead fixtures and in lamps. There were a couple of red leather sofas. What
surprised Steven the most were the velvet paintings on the walls, lit by black lights.
One in particular stood out; it was surrounded by an ornate gold frame and was
raised to be the most prominent item in the room. Steven stared at it. It was a
painting of a tall, muscular, naked man, partially obscured on the bottom half
by two women and a tiger. One of the women was making love to the tiger.

“I see you like my portrait,” came
the high-pitched voice of a much smaller man seated behind a desk at the far
end of the room. He stood and walked over to where Steven was standing, gazing
at the painting. He was an inch shorter than Steven, but heavier. His clothing
was all dark; his shoes looked very expensive. He had a mustache and a constant
sneer on his upper lip. The first half of a double chin could be detected under
his face. He had jet black hair, which was cut short and perfect. He walked
slowly and deliberately. Dixon and Roy stood a few feet away, not saying
anything, waiting to see what Jurgen was up to.

“I think the artist captured my
true essence,” Jurgen said to Steven with a slight German accent. “That’s why I
had him killed just after he finished it, so he could never make anything more
magnificent. I was thinking he should have shown my cock, but I suppose that
would be too much for some people.”

Steven looked at him. “I think
it’s over the top,” he said. He saw Jurgen’s black eyes flash. He had the same
feeling he’d had when meeting Albert – that this guy was much older than he
appeared.

“Well,” Jurgen said, “there you
go. There’s no accounting for your taste if you came here with these two
pricks.” Jurgen turned from Steven and walked back to his desk, then he turned
to Roy and Dixon. “I thought you two hacks were never going to darken my door
again, remember?”

“Yes,” Roy said. “I remember.
We’re here on another matter.”

“Of course you are,” Jurgen said.
“You are truly gifted when it comes to stating the obvious.” He turned to
Steven. “Your father is a moron, you know that, don’t you?” He sat in his chair
behind his desk and put his feet up on it. “What do you three stooges want?”

Steven felt anger rising. The fact
that Jurgen had detected Steven and Roy’s familiar relationship without an
introduction did not deter him. He stepped forward. “We put a stop to your
harvesting of blood and ghost matter. In Oregon. Now we want you to stop the
attacks there.”

Jurgen took his feet off his desk
and looked at Steven. “You did that?”

“Me and Roy, yes.”

“How?”

“Never mind how we did it,” Steven
said, “we want you to stop what you’re doing to the manor.”

“Fuck what you want,” Jurgen said,
walking around his desk to approach Steven again. “Do you know how much you’ve
cost me? Tell me how you did it, or take your old man and get out.”

“We talked with the contractor of
the portal,” Roy said calmly. “He shut it down.”