Free Medusa by Timothy C. Phillips Page B

good his escape, and then reopened the door and walked down the hall to Tiller’s room. I knocked on the door.  
    The door opened presently. Tiller looked out and his eyebrows furrowed.  
    “Thought you were putting it down for the night—I just walked in here myself.”  
    I shook my head. “I had a visitor. The man in the powder blue suit. He says his name’s Corsack.”  
    I told Tiller of my encounter with the strange man. Tiller listened with deepening color and immediately began sputtering when I finished the story.  
    “Damn it, Roland, you should have come and got me immediately. We could have tailed the guy!”  
    “No dice, Tiller. By the time I walked down here and got you mobilized, he would have been long gone, anyway. Besides, the entire purpose of his little visit was to prime us for his next appearance. He’s going to call us, and I believe he will. He says he’s got information for us. I believe that, too. I also believe that he’s got some additional purpose, something personal. How we tie into it is the mystery. He got a call that told him I was here. Ten to one it’s the same phantom caller that tipped me about Fain.”  
    “So, somebody is playing us all. They were able to drag us here, and give all of our information to Corsack. He knows who we are, and he knows why we’re here. Great. Somebody out there has way too many details for me to sleep easy tonight.”  
    I grimaced and nodded. “If Fain’s here—and we know he is—it could be bad. Word might get to him that we’re looking for him. He could disappear again, before we can find him. But I think someone’s trying to get us all together to take him down, not to warn him.”  
    “So just what is this Corsack character’s reason for coming back? Did he say?”  
    “He did. Seems that he wants to meet us somewhere. He said something about ‘The Medusa.’ Does that mean anything to you?”  
    “No, aside from the mythological lady with snakes for a wig. Could mean anything, but this being New Orleans, I’ll just bet you it ends up being something damned peculiar. This case just gets weirder and weirder. Everything about this town is oddball, and I got a feeling the longer you hang around, the weirder things get. I just hope the weird doesn’t rub off.”  
    I thought about my encounter with Sister LuDivine, and decided that maybe Tiller had something there. I tried to smile as I told him, “One thing’s for sure, Tiller old friend, whatever this guy Corsack’s about, weird or not, we’re certainly going to find out.”

 
    Chapter 12
     
    I went back to my room and shut the door. I needed to sleep, but my mind was racing. Who was this Corsack? How did he fit into the picture with Fain? He seemed like just the sort of marginal character that might have happened onto a man in hiding. Most of all, the identity of the mystery caller ate at me.  
    Someone out there was drawing together an alliance against Fain, and I had no idea who it could be, or why they would do such a thing.  
    I grabbed the remote and turned on the television. After a few moments I realized that I was watching a local newscaster mouthing words, with the sound muted. I changed the channel. Madonna was nude. She was pouring hot wax all over Willem DeFoe, who was also nude. I changed the channel again. Two burly men were holding a young man down while Malcolm McDowell committed sodomy on him.  
    I sighed. I didn’t feel sufficiently intellectual at the moment to grapple with such sublime cinematic achievements. I pointed the remote at the TV set like someone might point a gun at an intruder, and pulled the trigger. The set went dark. I lay in the darkness and let my mind swirl, until sleep eventually found me.  
    * * *
    The next afternoon I received a call in my room. It was Corsack, who furtively whispered directions to a spot outside of New Orleans. I collected Tiller and the two of us drove out of town to the specified place. Once again,