Rastus Reilly: Or Dashiell Hammett, Charles Dickens, H.P. Lovecraft, Stan Laurel, and Oliver Hardy on Bad Acid [Paperback]

Lucretia Faversham, eminent Boston dowager, is on her last legs. She knows there is a Secret of Eternal Youth, hidden from mankind for centuries, but very real. Private eye Jake Stalker may be just the man to find it for her, but the path to the Secret, is paved with terrible perils. Will Jake be able to seize the Secret from the fearsome Elder Gods? Or will he get drunk instead? Or maybe go to the pictures? Or just hang around someplace? Who the hell cares anyway? Just read the book. It's funny.

Tired of reading good books? Check out this ridiculous, politically incorrect, and remarkably pointless novel. It's a general cultural satire, in the guise of a 'hard-boiled detective' mystery spoof. The mystery has to do with the 'Secrets of the Elder Gods': fans of the Lovecraftian 'cosmic horror' corpus (which does lie in very ripe ground, after all) and everybody who enjoys irreverent humor, ought to read this one. Take off your fedora, pour yourself a glass of rye, light up a smoke, and laugh along with 'Rastus Reilly' as you develop esophageal lesions. You only live once, kid!

Steve Kelly is an unattractive and unpleasant man. He grew up around Boston but now lives in the Miami area. He is likely, therefore, eventually to die from skin cancers; this may, however, be preferable to the frostbiteand resultant gangrenewhich inevitably tortures the life out of all Bostonians.Does Mr. Kelly enjoy a plateful or cobful of corn? Indeed he does. Yet he never eats creamed corn. Go figure.

"I want you to find something for me, Mister Stalker. Something of infinite value. Something which I know exists and which I must have. Something for which many men have searched, and for which many men have murdered, over untold thousands of years. Something which might even cure your haemorrhoids," the lady asserted – transfixing me in rapt attention – whereupon she pronounced, "What I want you to find for me, Mister Stalker, is the Secret of Eternal Youth."

At that, my jaw dropped, like a lead weight, onto my crotch. The shock and pain in my bulging eyes were obvious as I jammed the drooling member back into my face. But Mrs. Faversham just looked at me coolly, as she placed a cigarette in a long black porcelain holder, and lit it by rubbing two sticks together vigorously.

In the pause that followed, I took a good gander at the old dame. Attired in a frilly dress out of the gay ‘nineties, she must have stood about five four, and was thin and frail, but with a disproportionately large, sagging bosom. The overwhelming effect of her presence was an impression of extreme old age. Her grey, parchment-like skin, barely held in the bones of her trembling old hands. Her face was a botched stucco of lumps and stretch marks, and with the cigarette smoke curling out from her lips, nostrils and, curiously enough, her ears, she was a vision of a burnt out old thing. Close inspection of that venerable face, however, told me she was genuine, and serious, about the assignment she wished me to take.

"That’s quite a long enough pause," she said, "and you needn’t have mentioned my big, droopy tits. Now, what do you say to the job, young man?"

People seem to think a detective can find anything. I’d had my share of successes, on some difficult assignments, over the years: finding lost pandas, lost looks, lost horizons, lost socks; finding the sunshine where others saw only rain; finding fault with Jeanette MacDonald (I found her at the racetrack, horsing around with a horse, and the pandas); but I wouldn’t know where to start with this job. "I don’t know, sweet buns," I said. "It sounds like a tough case. Where would I begin?"

"Don’t worry about that, young man. I don’t know just what or just where the Secret is, but I think I know who has it, and I can put you on their trail. Time is running out for me, Mister Stalker. I don’t care how ‘tough’ it may be to find the Secret. Spare no effort and spare no expense. Just bring the Secret back to me, and I shall share it — and my wealth — with you."

"It sounds like you’d do just about anything to have me find this Secret of Eternal Youth gizmo."

"Mister Stalker, I would even give you my body, if you’d just refrain from bathing for a couple of months beforehand."

"No, thanks," I said. "I’ll take the case, but you know I can’t guarantee results, on a crazy job like this. And it sounds like a hell of a lot of work. I’ll expect an initial retainer of two big ones: that’s two thousand dollars to you, grandma. Two grand. No less."

The old pervert rubbed her bony hands together in greedy satisfaction. "You live up to your reputation for boldness, Mister Stalker," she said, "and believe me, this job requires a man accustomed to bold adventure."

She gave me a close look then, and continued, "Oh, yes, I’ve asked around about you, and I liked what I heard, and I like what I see. You’re my man, Jake Stalker. You’re hired, and I said you’re to spare no expense: your initial retainer will be one million dollars — no less — and there’s plenty more where that comes from.

"Now sit back, Mister Stalker, and have a pork chop — try it with the bubblegum dip — and I’ll tell you a story that will pucker your butt, about how I learned of the Secret, and how you might suppose to find it."

And with that she began to tell a tale, electrifying even to a p.i.’s shock-worn ears. (I know this because I had to smother them with my cupped hands when they briefly, and embarrassingly, shot out blue flames.) Old Mrs. Faversham spoke for more than three hours, all the while smoking and sipping tea: a neat trick worthy of Edgar Bergen. Hers was an often gloomy tale and, as if on cue, the sky grew overcast while she spoke, making the small room dark.

Soon a steady raining rhythm, and thunderous punctuation, conspired portentously with the old girl’s eerily hushed and smoky voice. The beldame so enraptured me that, after a while, I saw I’d eaten all the pork chops — bones and all — and all of the bubblegum dip, without even realizing it. That’s how it is with finger foods: you just keep grabbing, and dipping, and shoving the things down your craw.

Just then, an amazonian maid, with fierce green eyes and a five o’clock shadow (curiously, the lady of the house called her "mistress"), lurched suddenly into the room, eyeing me with suspicion and distaste. This strange creature — whose appearance was not improved by a large greenish goiter of some sort which protruded alarmingly from her head — plopped some more of the same tasty victuals in front of me, and then purposely kicked me in the shin, before darting out of the room as quickly as she had appeared.

Not even the sharp pain in my shin, however, could divert my attention from the spellbinding Mrs. Faversham, so I kept munching, and listening raptly to her startling story. I could hardly believe what the old gal was telling me, but if even a fraction of it were true, I’d be earning my millions on this case.