So he must still have some clients for his photography business, I reckoned. Which meant he had some money coming in. He invited me inside to a living room in worse repair than the exterior: a legless couch, the sparsest furniture, and one of those large wooden cable spools on end, to serve as a table. A chemical scent in the air suggested the solutions of photo development. Before he closed and bolted the door, he peeked both ways outside, as if suspicious of something. He oddly reached behind a bookcase whose shelves dipped at their centers, and withdrew a simple folder.
“Fifty cents each, Mr. Morley,” he told me, and handed me the folder. “I can tell by the way you dress you’re not on the outs like a lot of folks these days. You want to buy, not sell.”
I couldn’t imagine what he meant but I could tell by viewing the folder’s side what it contained: a hefty stack of photographs. An instantaneous thrill made my nerves buzz at the prospect. Mary, even in her disapproval of the man, must’ve called ahead to tell him what it was I sought. I nervously took a seat, and flung open the folder…
What a horror the times have turned this world into. I could’ve gagged at the repellent images that leapt up at my eyes from the glossy surfaces of the photographs. These were neither pictures of Lovecraft nor of Olmstead in days past. It was, instead, outright pornography.
The scenes depicted in the few sheets I looked at need not be described. I can only say that the photography itself was strikingly vivid and every bit of expert.
“But the ones with the white girl making it with the colored fellas are a buck each,” he continued. He skimmed off the tattered raincoat and hung it up on a nail in the wall. “If you’re into kids, they’re two bucks each.”
I thrust the evil folder back to him. “This is… not… what I came for.”
“Oh, so you’re a seller? Well, you gotta pay me up front for the film and developer, and I get half of what I can sell ‘em for. But keep in mind, if they ain’t pretty enough, I won’t bother ‘cos I can’t sell the pictures. And the more you can talk ‘em into doing, the more I can sell ‘em for.”
Through a dazedness of incomprehension, I merely replied, “What?”
He shot me a glare sharp as a dagger. “It’s the business, man! You got a couple cute daughters and you want me to snap ‘em nude or fuckin’ guys, right?”
I stared. “No,” I croaked. “I have no children.”
“Then what do you want, Morley?” he suddenly yelled. “I need money, and you’re wasting my time! Get out of here!”
Bleary-eyed, I gave him a ten-dollar bill.
“What’s the sawbuck for?” his rant continued after snapping the bill from my fingers. “I don’t turn tricks, man! I’m no swish! You want to fuck a girl, fine, I got one here, but don’t bullshit around! You’re starting to scare the shit out of me—” and then he yelled at what was presumably the door to the bedroom. “Candace! Come out here!”
Before I could object, the door opened, and out stepped a timid and very naked woman in her twenties. One hand covered her bare pubis; her other arm attempted to cover two very swollen breasts. What she couldn’t cover at all, however, was the belly stretched out tight and huge from a state of pregnancy that had to be close to the end of its term. Obliquely, I made out a radio tune from the other room, “Heaven Can Wait,” I believe, by Glen Gray.
The girl smiled crookedly at me through a gap in the hair falling over her face. “Hi. We-we could have a nice time together, sir…”
More of the real world I didn’t care for at all. By now I’d managed the shock of this horrendous miscalculation, and produced a frown of my own which I directed immediately to Zalen. “I gave you the money so you needn’t feel your valuable time is wasted. I’m not interested in prostitution nor pornography.”
Zalen chuckled. “Come on, Mr. Morley. You ever had your tallywhacker in a pregnant girl? Bet’cha haven’t.”
“You’re a profane vagabond!” I yelled at him.
“—and it’s not like you can knock her up.”
I wished that looks could kill at that moment, for my look of utter loathing would surely have shorn him in half. “I’m interested in a particular photograph I’m told you’re in possession of, and if this is the case, I’ll pay you one hundred more dollars for it.”
Zalen looked agape at my words, then flicked a hand at the girl, to shoo her back into the bedroom. “A hundred dollars, you say?”
“One hundred dollars.” Now I noticed what first appeared to be splotches of pepper inside the man’s elbows but my naivety wore off in a moment and told me they were needle scars. “My patience is growing thin, Mr. Zalen. Do you or do you not have a photograph of a writer by the name of Howard Phillips Lovecraft?”
For the first time Zalen actually smiled. The couch creaked when he sat down and crossed his thin, white legs. “I remember him, all right. Had a voice like a kazoo, and all the guy ever ate were ginger snaps.” He jumped up quickly, and slipped something from the bookcase. He showed it to me behind his gap-toothed smile.
It was a copy of the Visionary Publications edition of The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
I removed mine from my jacket pocket and showed him likewise.
“I didn’t think anybody even read that guy, but I’ll tell you, after this came out, a lot of folks did, and they weren’t too happy with what he had to say about our town. Most of Olmstead back then was moved down to Innswich Point, so the guy changes the name to Innsmouth. Christ. Changed all the names but only a little, you know? Like he wanted us to know what he was really writing about.”
“For God’s sake, Mr. Zalen,” I countered. “He merely used his topical impressions of this town as a setting for a fantasy story. You’re practically accusing him of libel. All writers do things like that.” I cleared my throat. “Now. Do you have the photograph?”
“Yeah, I got it, but only the negative. I can have it developed for you tomorrow.” His smile turned slatternly. “But I’ll take the hundred up front.”
I am not a man given to confrontation or brusqueness, but this I would not stand for. “You’ll take five dollars for processing fees, and the remaining ninety-five when I have what I want,” I told him and thrust him another five.
He took it all too eagerly. “Deal. Tomorrow, say four.” His eyes turned to cunning slits. “Who told you I had the picture?”
“A friend of mine,” I snapped. “A woman named Mary Simpson—”
An abruptitude pushed him back in his seat; he nearly howled. “Oh, now I get it! She’s a friend of yours, huh? I guess you’re not the goodie-two-shoes I pegged you as.”
I winced at the remark. “What on earth do you mean?”
“Mary Simpson used to be the town slut. Now, this town was full of sluts but Mary took the cake. She was a whore, Mr. Morley, a whore of the first water, as my grandfather used to say.”
“You’re lying,” I replied with immediacy. “You’re merely trying to incense me because you’re resentful of people with means. I see your frowsy smile, Mr. Zalen, but I’ve a mind to wipe it right off your face by canceling any further business with you and seeing my way out of this den of drugs and iniquity you call your home.”
“But you won’t do that, Mr. Morley, because guys like you always get what they want. You’ll be back tomorrow, and you’ll have the rest of the money. You just don’t want to know the truth.”