The Dark Easy: The Dark Easy Series, #1

By Michael Crame

Martin and The Hat are gun toting ex-cons retrieving overdue books and exacting painful fines for a New Orleans occult library. They're sent to Chicago to roust an abracadabbler who's skipped town with borrowed books. But the job goes sideways and the guy ends up under Lake Michigan. Worse yet, Martin's being used to find an infamous book that jeopardizes the Library's true purpose: keep magic and the supernatural contained before they destroy the world. Enter a hustling gangster, a cannibal occultist, and the Head Librarian's matricidal daughter, all looking to run the Library for themselves as ancient tensions between Hell's biggest cities threaten humanity. At the risk of losing his soul, Martin must rely on hardboiled instincts honed in a violent past and survive the schemes of lethal magicians, bad tempered angels, and spell binding demons to save New Orleans from an infernal future. Because in The Dark Easy, when a library book is overdue, there's hell to pay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RAW HEAD BOOKS
• Release date: Dec 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223934547

Michael Crame

Michael writes novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays of differing genres. The Dark Easy is his award-winning novel and the beginning of his urban fantasy series.

Book preview

Part One

Chicago: The Big Chill

Chapter One

Roman has always been a pain in the ass when it comes to returning books. You’d have an easier job pulling a diamond out of his butt with tweezers than get him to return a book.

But the Librarian has had it this time.

It’s why The Hat is sitting next to me, his eyes not moving from the entrance to Roman’s hotel.

I hate Chicago, The Hat says without the slightest move of his head. The Hat a/k/a Fedora a/k/a Fyodor Morozkov, grew up here, at least for a couple of years after his family moved from Russia. He was barely ten years old and when he heard he was moving to America he imagined the warm, sun bleached climes of a place like Los Angeles, Hollywood, or Miami; his only reference being movies and Miami Vice reruns. He didn’t expect to end up in a place where the winters were equal to or arguably worse than Mother Russia. He didn’t end up in the city either but some flat joyless suburb west of Chicago where the overcast sky has no depth to it and the land looks a constant mustard dull for most of the year.

I hate Chicago, he says again.

I heard you the first time. And I heard you all the way up here from New Orleans, I say.

Me and Hat are in the Fines & Overdue Books department for the Library. It takes a special breed to collect on delinquent accounts. Oftentimes the delinquents apologize, pay the fine, and pray to whatever god or gods they believe in that a guy like The Hat doesn’t come looking for them.

If you’re a habitual offender like Roman, then someone is looking out for you to keep The Hat out of your life until they’re not.

When I was told he was coming with me to Chicago I knew Roman had pissed off the wrong people.

I’m here just to make sure things don’t get out of hand.

But The Hat has been stewing ever since he left the lush, subtropical greenery of his small vegetable garden in the Treme to trek up North and freeze his ass at a dive bar in Chicago on a fourteen-degree night. He’s going to take all the pent up rage packed into his six-foot-seven frame and unleash it on Roman as a matter of business and as a personal pleasure for making him come here in February, easily the worst time of year in this town.

Bad times in store for Roman.

Duke Carlyle drops off a glass of bourbon for me and a beer for himself. He pulls up a bar stool. The Hat isn’t drinking.

What do you think he’s doing up there? Carlyle asks. Our guy said he hasn’t left the hotel in two days. Duke works for the Midwest branch of the Library. His people were the ones who spotted Roman in their jurisdiction once the delinquent notice went out. Casting? he says.

I don’t know, I say. He has books with him but as far as I know he’s a poser. But that’s what makes it a problem. It’s that old saying. I take a deep sip of my drink. The first few snowflakes of the evening start to cover the ground. Christ. I thought it was too cold to snow. Isn’t there something about it not being able to snow at a certain temperature? I swear I read that somewhere.

The Hat makes a dismissive grunt.

What’s the saying? Duke asks.

The ‘saying’?

Roman and the books?

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, The Hat says.

What he said, I say and drink.

Roman is three weeks overdue on the stack he borrowed. He's been as late as eight weeks without any problems. He pays the fine, schmoozes the Librarian, and checks out more books without shame. So I knew something was seriously fucked up this time.

Ten days ago the APB was put out on him and six days ago alarms went off in Chicago when the branch, monitoring unusual purchases, saw something at an occult shop in Logan Square that got everyone freaked out. Two days ago they figured out it was Roman.

I’d ask but it’s above my pay grade and sometimes it’s better not to really know what crazy ass shit the Librarian is telling you to do. You might talk yourself out of your job or worse. You’re told as much as you need to know. Just do your part and move on to the next collection. If the retrieval goes sideways and expectations change, step back, reassess, report, re-evaluate with counsel, then come up with a direct course of action.

Roman has always seemed more academic than practitioner and that’s being generous. The stuff he’s checked out has no rhyme or reason to it. It’s like he starts out with an idea one week and then days later he’s dropped his interest in theurgy and wants to read everything on the history of medieval herbology.

We sit and wait.

One a.m. Hours later and the bar is empty. Most normal people are hunkered down at home trying to ride this blizzard out. I’ve never been in a blizzard but the snow is relentless, piling up, drifting from one corner of the street to the next, and the bartender looks ready to close our tab. I don’t want to have to sit in the car watching that hotel front door, hoping for Roman to peek his head out while my balls turn to ice cubes.

Carlyle might be able to put up with it, being from here, but no way in hell is The Hat going to sit in that car. What do you want to do? Carlyle says.

The Hat says nothing. His eyes haven’t blinked or moved from the hotel in an eternity. He won’t do anything unless I give him the okay.

I ask Carlyle, You think it’s going to stop snowing anytime soon?

He looks at his watch and says April without a hint of sarcasm.

The bartender is shutting off lights around the bar.

We know what room he’s in? I ask.

He’s in 218, Carlyle says. Can’t see it from here. It faces the alley.

Fuck it, I say. My call. Let’s settle up, go around the building to see if his light is on.

The snow in the alley is worse. Carlyle says that’s normal. Streets and Sanitation plows clear the main streets first and alleys and side streets last and not on the same day.

Nobody is out and in a way it’s a whole lot of beautiful, the night sky ablaze in swirling oranges and purples from all the city lights reflecting off the snow in the air.

A flash of white light breaks the night in half and a low rumble of thunder makes its way across the city from Lake Michigan.

Holy fuck, I say.

Thunder-snow-storm.

The hell you say.

The Hat grunts.

Alright, I say. This whole scenario is putting out a bad vibe. Which window is it?

Carlyle pulls his cell phone out for a picture. He compares the photo to the side of the hotel. He starts counting off left to right: One...two...three...four...five...six. He squints an eye, holding the phone up to the second floor and looks back at me. Six. He’s number six.

A tight ball of humanity bursts out the window and lands on a closed dumpster thick with snow. It sends a puff into the air but doesn’t make much of a sound. It rolls off into a snowbank then gets up.

Roman you dumb fuck, I say. The front door is on the other side of the building.

He looks surprised to see us standing in the alley.

Martin? he says, then sees The Hat behind me. Aw shit, he says, and takes off running.

The Hat goes after Roman before I can stop him, bounding through snowbanks like a starved polar bear chasing a baby seal.

Fyodor! Goddamnit! We need the goddamn books!

What do you want me to do? Carlyle says.

I look at the busted out window, horizontal blinds bent out of shape and sticking out of Roman’s room like the hotel was throwing up.

Books, I say. We gotta get the books.

Your guy looks like he’s gonna kill Roman.

I can’t worry about that. Let’s get the books and get out of here.

At this point there’s no time for stealth and subtlety. I take a fire extinguisher from a glass case on the second floor and bash room 218’s door open while Carlyle watches the hallway for the nosey.

Three books. That’s the list. Find the list and get the hell out of town tonight.

The room is trashed. Roman has been holed up by the weather and probably by the surveillance otherwise he wouldn’t have been feeding himself from the vending machines in the hotel for two days.

He doesn’t have much to show for in his duffel bag, hardly any clothes, and not the kind of clothes for a well thought out trip to Chicago. There’s a bag of long underwear, three pairs in a Walgreens bag.

He didn’t take his coat when he jumped out the window.

Carlyle steps into the room. You find the list?

Still looking.

He left his coat?

Yeah.

The cold air from the outside is blowing like a jet engine into the room from the broken window and the heater is on full blast. I turn it off to quiet the room so I can think.

Carlyle is on the floor lighting the underside of the bed with his cell phone. This guys a real health nut. Nothing but Cheetos and M&M’s and Diet Coke bottles here.

Check the closet, I say and head to the bathroom.

The door is locked.

I press an ear to it.

Closets empty, Carlyle says. Is there someone in there?

No. I try the knob again. He’s locked the door. It’s probably in here.

My turn, Carlyle says and grabs the fire extinguisher. Stand back.

Be my guest, I say and step aside to get behind him.

Carlyle works himself into a fury, charges, and cracks the frame. He puts a hole in the door and bashes it a few times to make the hole bigger so he can reach in to unlock it.

That’s when the screaming starts and the hole in the door sucks Carlyle into it not slow and clean like, but like the meat in a sausage getting squeezed out until all is left is the casing.

What was Duke Carlyle is his skin and a fine red mist settling over the walls, carpet, door, and me.

The bathroom door creaks open on its own and the fluorescent lights inside above the mirror flicker on.

Something is written backwards in the mirror. I take a closer look and realize it’s the reflection of words in Latin written on the bathroom wall:

Illa Dies Irae Solvet Mundum In Cinerem

That Day of Wrath Will Dissolve The World In Ashes.

Whatever this is, isn’t something Roman is capable of.

My cell phone rings. It’s The Hat. Damnit Fyodor, please tell me you got him.

The Hat is breathing heavy. Tell me you got the list.

No, I say and start taking pictures of the room to cover my ass if anyone questions what went down. There’s nothing here. I take another scan of everything and everywhere I looked before leaving for the stairwell.

Uh...Martin—

Where’s Roman?

Somewhere under Lake Michigan, The Hat says.

Are you fucking kidding me, Hat?

I didn’t kill him, he says. He sort of gave up the will to live.

No list. No Roman. And Carlyle is meat dust.

This isn’t a book retrieval anymore, it’s a fucking fiasco.

Chapter Two

Teresa LeFleur is a hard one to pin down. There’s a coldness below the surface of her smoldering looks. It’s a separateness or indifference to the plight of man which makes me and The Hat feel even more pathetic standing here in the atrium of the Midwest branch at three o’clock in the morning.

Vaporized, she says as if I’m making this all up.

That’s the only way I can describe it.

The Hat is behind me, silent, and wanting to be any other place than the Orchard Hall Library at this very moment. I’m not looking at him but I can feel him doing his best to avoid eye contact with Teresa LeFleur because he hasn’t even said hello or hi. The Hat would rather be underneath the ice in Lake Michigan holding Roman’s hand. He’s afraid of her, and once a woman like that knows it, you’re about as safe as a turtle on its back in the middle of a Louisiana highway waiting for a car to run you over. The Hat is afraid of her, and The Hat isn’t afraid of most people.

This guy, she says. This guy who bought all that crap in Logan Square?

Yeah, I say, but none of it was there and the list was gone. I took pictures. I hand her my phone.

What am I looking at?

That’s Carlyle.

Teresa looks me over, covered in a fine red mist, and snow. It’s melting and the runoff from my coat is leaving a puddle of pink around my shoes. That’s Carlyle too, I say.

Why didn’t you tell me he was this dangerous?

He’s not.

She gives me a dead stare at the obvious stupidity of what I just said.

What I mean is, the guy isn’t a caster. He’s an academic. He doesn’t have the knowledge or skill to set a booby trap like that.

But why the trap? she asks. You said the books weren’t there. Why was the door locked?

She lets out an angry sigh which is the most emotion I’ve seen her slip without hurting someone. You and that Russian really fucked this one up. Does New Orleans know?

The Hat clears his throat quietly as a signal for me to lie to her and say: Yes, New Orleans knows and the Librarian is totally cool with it. But what The Hat doesn’t know is that Teresa is going to tell them either way because she can’t lie to her mother about this. The best she can do is buy us time to figure out where the list is and manage the fallout. She’s not going to stick her neck out for us but she’s not going to throw us under the bus either.

No, I say. We need to figure some of this out before I tell the Librarian.

Teresa is searching the glass dome above our heads. Snow blankets the building. I know what she’s thinking. She’s considering whether she should just tell New Orleans right now so we don’t complicate her life anymore than it needs to be, but she also understands that if this is some sort of off the books wacko shit we’ve never seen before happening under her jurisdiction, New Orleans might come to Chicago to handle it. Then we’re all fucked.

Let’s go talk to The Head, she says.

Hat gets weak in the knees and all queasy-footed-nervous at the prospect of talking to The Head. He finally says something. I don’t like this at all.

I didn’t know The Head was here, I say.

You’re not supposed to know, she says. It’s better that way.

Martin— Hat says, his voice full of worry.

Hey, Teresa says. You don’t have a choice. I need to see what you saw. You want my help to get the list or do you want to go back to New Orleans with just your dick in your hand?

Hat knows if he goes back to New Orleans with no answers and a story about the way things went down, his dick wouldn’t be in his hand for long, or on his body. That’s the kind of deal you get when you run with the devils we work for.

A tall, thin man whose head looks more skull than face appears at the far end of the library’s first floor. He walks towards us like Death floating through a cemetery. He’s got a long black overcoat, gloves, and is holding a large brimmed hat.

Luis doesn’t talk. He’s got no tongue, Teresa says.

As if on cue like they’ve practiced this creepy introduction on little children, Luis opens his black maw up nice and wide to show me and The Hat its emptiness.

She says to Hat, You are going to go out on that lake and show Luis where this body is. And you need to get it out of the water before daylight.

What? The Hat begs me.

If you don’t get it out now we’ll have to wait until tomorrow night to get it and who knows where the current will take it.

Hat looks like a lost child. But how—

Luis, she says, get moving.

Luis walks behind me and takes Hat by the arm. They’re soon beyond the library entrance and out the door.

Where the hell are we going to get a live octopus at three a.m.? I say. The Shedd Aquarium?

Teresa’s demeanor and mind seem to shift gears. How do you feel about Chinese food for breakfast?

On the drive to Chinatown the insulation of the snow on the streets and the snow in the air makes for an uncomfortable silence in the car. Teresa doesn’t bother to turn the heat on because her fancy ride has the latest innovations in seat warming.

Why’s Hat so scared of you? I say.

I killed Zero Lamotta, she says. But you already knew that.

I want to tell her I didn’t know anything about it but the amount of time it’s taking me to think about how to react betrays me. That’s not the official record so I don’t want to know details. The guy was a thief. Can’t have someone like that running a branch. Examples have to be made. Rules and traditions upheld. Order and respect... Now I’m babbling and I can hear myself talking nonsense so we don’t have to get into the politics of how she got Orchard Hall. I make a soft but assured nod of my head and shrug, trying to look like it’s no big deal that Teresa LeFleur admitted she was the one who put her hand to Mr. Zero and sent him to some dark place in hell. What’s done is done, I say. None of my business. I just collect delinquencies.

The books and things the library collects are dangerous. You won’t find any of these books on the internet. The republishing of such volatile works and the information they contain is punishable by death. Technology being what it is, there’s no getting back what gets leaked.

Mr. Zero was fingered for a leak. He denied it and went on the run with his driver who just started working at Orchard Hall; a stout Russian born kid from outside Chicago who Zero nicknamed The Hat because for the longest time he thought the kid’s name was Fedora not Fyodor.

Lamotta was an old school librarian and the idea of Mr. Zero being able to do something as sophisticated as broker the sale of these books online without anyone helping him was hard to fathom. The guy was nicknamed Mr. Zero for a reason: he was nothing. He was a bibliophile somewhere in his eighties—quiet, plain, and unambitious. I don’t think he had an opinion or a thought about the Library’s politics. He just wanted to read books all day and night.

Zero’s problem was he loved his job too much and didn’t want to retire to some quiet book nook out in bumfuck. So he was moved.

I don’t think it was a coincidence Teresa LeFleur got Chicago after Zero was zeroed out. No way her mother was going to quit New Orleans. I don’t know if Maman LeFleur had a hand in it, let it happen with her blessing, was totally surprised at her daughter’s ruthlessness, or really believed Zero Lamotta broke the faith, but Teresa set him up. And when the retrieval department was sidelined in favor of a special crew of librarians to find him, I knew Zero would be better off killing himself before they got hands on him. With these people there are worse things than death.

The Hat was just a dumb, impressionable kid who was so awestruck by the Library and the job he had that he didn’t question what Zero told him. So he was done a mercy and spared; sent to New Orleans when Teresa put her people in Chicago and employed to our goon squad of delinquent accounts.

No doubt Mr. Zero shared his suspicions with The Hat about the betrayal and who was fucking him from inside the system while they were on the run. And that someone was Teresa.

When word came down that Zero was not of this world anymore it was like Osama Bin Laden getting whacked. All you knew was the crew of librarians got him and the one person who did Zero in was to remain anonymous for the record. But the Library doesn’t send you to the afterlife with a kill shot to the head. They do it with malice. Cruelty and suffering is the point, and the LeFleurs can be cruel.

That was ten years ago and The Hat hasn’t been to Chicago since then, not even to see his mama. He just flies her down to New Orleans as much as he can but she can’t stand the heat for too long and migrates back north. He didn’t even let her know we were in town because this was supposed to be a midnight run.

But here I am sitting across from the youngest librarian in the Library’s history at a sticky wood table that probably hasn’t been cleaned since The Eight Dragons Cantonese Restaurant and Bar first opened. I hope she doesn’t tell me more about how Zero Lamotta ate it.

Nobody else but us, the cook, a server, and the cashier at this place. Teresa says they never close and that’s why she comes here because of the hours she keeps.

Nothing like it in New Orleans, she says, digging into the order number 54 she tried to convince me to get off the menu board behind the cashier counter.