The Second Synn: Bayou Sinistre

THE SECOND SYNN:

BAYOU SINISTRE

A Gideon Synn Mystery

by Teel James Glenn

Published by Pro Se Press

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the permission in writing of the publisher.

The Second Synn: Bayou Sinistre

Copyright © 2015 Teel James Glenn

Table of Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Prologue: Death in the Nightmare

Chapter One: Blood in the Rain

Chapter Two: Chasing a Nightmare

Chapter Three: Shadows on the Wall

Chapter Four: Exploring a Nightmare

Chapter Five: Night Dreams in the Daylight

Chapter Six: Into the Past

Chapter Seven: To the Bayou

Chapter Eight: All Things Sinistre

Chapter Nine: Come to Life…

Chapter Ten: In the Darkness of a Dream

Chapter Eleven: Revelations

Chapter Twelve: Points of Honor

Epilogue: Painted with Broad Strokes

Welcome to the Universe of Gideon Synn and Company

About the Author

Dedication

Once more this one is for Robert Lee, who has been unfailing in his belief I am worth it…I will continue to try to be.

Foreword

I would not have been introduced to so much of the pulp world and the amazing works of writers like Robert E. Howard, Dashiell Hammet or Lester Dent without my friend and brother David Burton who has gone on ahead of me to the pulp library in the sky. All I write will always owe so very much to him…He will not be forgotten…

Prologue: Death in the Nightmare

It began with a nightmare and ended with a dream.

A nightmare jolted Gideon Synn awake with a gasp, covered in a pool of sweat not wrought by the humid air of the February New Orleans night in 1938.

Gideon Synn had thought it a better idea to rent a small apartment than stay in a hotel while in New Orleans. He got a small place on the second floor at Royal Street and St. Ann in the Old French Quarter. He thought it would let him get the local feel of the town rather than staying in a hotel. He was there for a month conducting seminars for the New Orleans Police Department in restraint and riot control.

His techniques were based on his experiences in the Far East working with the Shanghai Police Department and in the French Foreign Legion. He was in the Big Easy on the recommendation of the head of the two-year-old New York Transit Police Department and Matt Trax, an old childhood friend from New York who was now a detective on the local force.

Major Gideon Synn was a tall man, fit and muscular with angular features and cool green eyes that, when he was on a case, missed nothing. He was fair almost to the extreme with bright red hair that made his pallor all the more noticeable.

His coloring and healthy physique were hand-me-down from his Highland Scots and English ancestry but the long scar on his left cheek was earned by a hard life. Rather than detract from his handsome features, it gave him the swashbuckling air of a corsair of old. It was not far from the truth. It was because of his pale skin and the unusual events in his past life that the press had dubbed him the ivory adventurer, among other things.

Synn seemed jammed in the single bed, too big for the tiny apartment, as he hurled himself awake from the nightmare. His eyes snapped open, the dark images of the nightmare still vividly etched in his emerald pupils. He was cocooned in bedclothes and shaking. His breathing was shallow and he felt, despite the heat, a chill up his spine.

He had the eerie feeling that death had come to the French Quarter that night in a way it had not for many years. The lingering impression from the nightmare was of cold sharp death pierced the very heart of Major Synn’s sanity and brought him to the edge of the abyss.

He recalled vividly the nightmare; he found himself watching the grounds of the Duelling Oaks, which had been a favorite setting for many affaires d'honneur, with pistol, saber, or colichemarde blade.

In the darkness of a moonless night—in his dream—he saw his friend Matt Trax standing in the shadow of the Old Oaks, as they had been when more duels were fought in New Orleans than any other American city. Creole honor was a thing of intricate delicacy, to be offended by a word or glance in those days. Matt was dressed in old style clothes, not his 1938 police uniform, and he held a pistol in his hand, but it was a long silvered flintlock, not his .38 police special.

Beyond his friend, Synn saw movement in the darkness. It was indistinct at first, as if made of smoke, then it solidified into a female form, into The Woman.

Then Synn saw the face of The Woman. She was dark haired and dark eyed with thick sensual lips that parted in a scream. She ran to Matt’s side but the oddly dressed policeman pushed her aside and tried to level his gun off into the darkness. From the midnight black of the dream night, from amongst the tangled branches of the trees, there was a terrible laugh, an inhuman sound that was primal and mad all at once.

In the nightmare, Matt was calling Gideon! Gideon! and firing the gun repeatedly (which even in the dream Synn knew was impossible) at some unseen opponent. While Gideon watched, the fancily dressed Trax was suddenly covered in blood and in an awful, unreal slow motion, fell. He hit the ground beneath the ancient tree and screamed in pain.

A stain of crimson oozed out from Traxx’s chest and was soon a deep pool that the dreamtime Gideon Synn felt himself being sucked into. The maelstrom pulled him down with impossible slowness so that he had time to look over and see The Woman clearly. There was a horrified look on her beautiful face, her eyes wide with terror. She extended a hand to Synn as if to pull him from the swirling pool of blood, but no matter how far he reached, her delicate fingers were just beyond his grasp.

The Woman screamed again and Gideon Synn was swallowed by the inky darkness of the pool. As the liquid life rushed around him and filled his eyes, nose, and mouth, he gulped one last breath and came suddenly awake.

Gideon Synn shot upright in his bed with a gasping inhalation of air. He still felt as if there was a weight on his chest and he gulped air like a runner at the end of marathon. He shook his head to clear it.

He could see Jean Lafitte’s Absinthe House on the corner from the window to the balcony, stark white against the darkness of the midnight street. Suddenly, on the street a figure shifted out of the shadows, a strange man-animal figure like a satyr of old Greek myth, yet somehow different. The features of this strange apparition were clearly visible on the long thin face. The man-thing had wide staring eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a mouth full of crooked teeth. The mythical strangeness pointed at Major Synn’s window and gave a hideous evil grin and then opened its mouth to scream.

The scream became the ringing of a telephone and Gideon Synn exploded awake. It took him a long slice of time, breathing hard to realize that he had been having a dream within a dream. He stared at the jangling receiver for a few breaths then lifted it.

Synn here, he said into the receiver, thankful for the hardness of the device in the palm of his hand. He realized he was breathing as if he had run a race and it rattled him. The ginger-haired giant was usually the calm one in the room, the one who couldn’t be spooked, and here he was shaking like a schoolgirl after a Bela Lugosi movie. He worked to regulate his breath and center himself.

The voice on the other end of the phone gave no indication that he noticed anything different in Synn’s tone. It was Captain Benoit of the detective squad. It me, Gideon, Jock Benoit.

What’s wrong, Cap? the shaking man asked. He stared out the window to confirm that he really was awake, noting the donkey drawn carriage moving down St. Ann’s street. There were two lovers in it, entwined in an embrace.

Seems real enough, he thought cynically. They look too fat for me to have dreamed them up.

It’s Matt, Gideon, the old detective said with a death house whisper. He’s dead.

Suddenly the reality and the nightmare collided and ivory-skinned Synn felt as if the room were going to spin him down into the maelstrom again.

Dead? How? he