The Fairfax Hotel, a tottering relic of the nineteen-twenties, offered the cheapest room anywhere in Ichor Falls. This distinction led Turpin, a notorious penny-pincher, to rent a fifth-floor "deluxe suite" for two weeks, paying just under five-hundred dollars in small, crumpled bills. And Turpin's presence led me to rent the corner suite, little more than a broom closet, directly adjacent to his.

Being paid five hundred a day to follow Turpin and record where he went and who he met, I could have afforded the nicest room in the Fairfax - could probably have convinced the owner, shuffling, palsied Mr. Twick, to set me up in his own living room - but that wasn't the point. Ten years as a private eye gives you a certain appreciation for the art of eavesdropping.

Four days with my ear pressed against the rough wooden boards of the slanting wall between my room and Turpin's taught me something else about the Fairfax: the hulking, ruined chemical plants that lined the river hadn't always been just for show. A sharp unpleasant odour wafted from the planks decades after they'd originally been treated, and ten minutes of listening in on my quarry left my nostrils stinging for hours. But a little discomfort comes with the job.

The first night, all Turpin did was call his mother. I heard him try to get a word in edgewise for sixty minutes, and he never mentioned what he was doing in Ichor Falls or what was in the battered steamer trunk he'd hauled all the way from Waukegan. By the time he wished his ma goodnight he sounded as tired as I felt. The narrow bed creaked every time I moved a muscle and the blanket was itchier than my three-day stubble, so I slipped in and out of sleep all night long.

My head was pounding when I woke up the next morning, a combo of fumes from the walls and lying stuffed in the too-small cot, and when I pulled back the dusty curtains I squinted, sneezing into noon. Knowing Turpin was an early riser, I crept back to the wall we shared. Five minutes of careful listening told me he was out, and I wondered if I could risk a forced entry to check out that trunk. My mysterious employer had promised a hefty bonus for a hint of its contents.

The fabulous broom-closet suite wasn't big enough to have its own bathroom - there was a communal john across the hall - but it did have a cracked, leaky sink next to the bed, complete with a mirror in desperate need of re-silvering. I washed face and brushed teeth, and swallowed two aspirin for the headache. As I inspected my pasty, unimpressive mug, I noticed the itch in my right ear and shamelessly dug around the cavity. My finger came back crusted with an unusual amount of wax, and as I tried to clean it out I wished my standard traveling kit included Q-Tips.

It was maddening, but it felt like no matter how much wax piled up beside the sink the uncomfortable feeling of obstruction remained. At last, at the sound of a footstep in the hallway, I reminded myself I couldn't spend all day grooming. Leaving the waxy tissue draped over the side of the sink, I entered the hall. No one to be seen. I checked the washroom and found it empty as well. Putting my ear up against Turpin's door, I confirmed no sound in his suite, decided I'd have to gamble that he was out.

Picking locks isn't hard, especially when the lock in question predates World War Two. Picks are easy to come by and, once you've got a half-decent pair, it's nothing but patience and a good sense of hearing. With my head to the door next to the antique keyhole, I could hardly even smell the insidious pollution I knew was leaching out of the wood. I grumbled at how quickly I'd gotten used to it, wondered when Twick had noticed it last, wondered what it would eventually do to him. Ironically, the thought of little Mr. Twick distracted me enough not to hear his tread on the stairs.

"What do you think you're doing?"

A credit to my reflexes: I turned, rose, pocketed the picks and had a hand on the butt of the snub-nose under my coat in one smooth motion. The proprietor's filmy eyes were fixed on me with an unexpected spark of intelligence, and I knew I couldn't bluff my way out of this one. I'd been caught red-handed: there's no legitimate reason to be kneeling at someone else's door, fiddling with the lock. Unless you're a lock repairman, and I guessed he was a local.

I clutched the wooden grip of my revolver with a sweaty palm. Couldn't snuff the old man, too much mess and noise, too tough to cover up. And this wasn't the kind of high-profile gig that was worth killing for just to hold onto my cover. I reached down from the gun to the pocket containing my billfold. With the rate Twick charged for rooms in this sad little town, half a day's wage could probably buy his buttoned lip.

Turns out I was right. Twick agreed to forget that little incident, but I didn't have a free pass to Turpin's room, and I could feel the little man's eyes on me every time I climbed up the stairs - no doubt thinking he'd get more of the scratch if he caught me in the act again. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Sitting against the wall of my room, waiting for Turpin's return, I paged through a battered pulp collection and read about dark gods and the polite university professors that were devoured horribly for tampering with them. I'm not much of a reader, though, especially during a stakeout. I'm too tense, and when my mind wanders it takes me back to all the other walls I've leaned against, a lifetime of eavesdropping, hearing big shots and nobodies yell on the phone, beg for their lives, and do the horizontal mambo.

The other thing was, my ear was bugging the hell out of me again. Not wanting to move too far away from the wall, I picked at it incessantly with my finger, shuddering at the odd satisfaction I got when a chunk of wax tumbled out on the floor.

It didn't seem to matter how much I picked, though: I was still cleaning house when Turpin's door slammed, and I heard him trudge across the room and flop on the bed. I was excited for anything to break the monotony, but after the creaking of his bedsprings faded into silence, there was nothing. I checked my watch: seven PM. Sighing, I fished a couple granola bars out of my bag. I sat in the room's one rickety chair and chewed, taking frequent, almost-unconscious breaks to pick at my ear.

I must have fallen asleep listening that night because I woke up sprawled against the wall, with my head pounding and the biggest crick in the neck you could imagine. Around eleven I'd heard Turpin bustling around in his room and, re-taking my post at the wall, heard the snap of the trunk's fasteners being thrown back. I listened to what sounded like glasses clinking together and an unintelligible muttering as Turpin worked, and sometime long after midnight I must have drifted off.

Stretching my neck until it cracked like firewood, I dragged myself to the sink and doused my face. And I noticed something very strange about the tissue I'd left there the morning before: the crumbled bits of wax I'd left behind had glommed together during the night, melding into a dark streak that looked a bit like a starfish. After a moment's hesitation, I scrunched the tissue up and threw it in the trash. Returning to where I'd knelt the night before, I noticed something similar on the floor. Again, the wax I'd picked out had, overnight, become fluid and run together. There seemed to be more than I remembered dropping there, and scratching the stuff with a fingernail showed that it had solidified into an almost coral-like crust.

A stabbing pain between my eyes distracted me from the strange wax. Fingertip moving involuntarily to my ear, I brought away another yellowish hunk, but it didn't help. Choking back two Aspirin with a mouthful of the ruddy water from my sink, I forced myself back to the wall and listened. When twenty minutes failed to produce a single sound I staggered into the hall, intent on breaching Turpin's door. Though my pounding headache and the blockage in my ear made it difficult to focus - in fact, my vision was swimming - I worried at the archaic lock like a man possessed.

Relief washed over me as the door clicked and gave way, and I stumbled into my quarry's chamber for the first time.

The room was much larger than mine, but similarly shabby. The bed was larger but looked no more comfortable, and the walls were unpainted, the chemical smell even stronger in here than in my room. It was no wonder to me that Turpin spent as little time in here as possible.

Two things about the room caught my eye: the first was a pistol. Higher-caliber than mine and dark with oil, it lay carelessly on a waist-high dresser adjacent to the door. I meant to slip it into my coat, but the wall across the room distracted me. One of the boards was almost scraped away, as though Turpin had spent his every waking moment chiseling at the ancient wood. Becoming aware of my finger clawing at my ear, I wondered at the compulsion this place created to pick and tear. Seeing that one of the steamer trunk's fasteners was undone, I battered the other with the butt of my revolver. When it fell apart, I popped the lid open and looked in on the mystery that would make this whole trip worthwhile.

Filling the trunk to the brim were Turpin's shabby but carefully-folded clothes. Tossing them on the floor, I reached the bottom of the trunk before I expected to - looking at the outside of the box, I confirmed that the "bottom" was several inches above the point where the container met the floor. I managed to pry up the rough piece of wood and, peering into the secret compartment, saw a dozen small glass jars, each containing a curled scrap of the hotel's dry, chemically-treated wall.

As my headache surged once again, I struggled to comprehend Turpin's motives. But dizzines overwhelmed me and I stumbled to the bathroom, lurching into the splintery wooden counter. I almost shouted at the sight of the haggard wraith in the mirror. Finger still boring into my ear, pulling away wax from a blockage that never seemed to lessen, I began to panic. Finding a nail file and compact mirror on the counter, I turned and held the mirror at such an angle that the orifice of my ear was visible.

It was shocking to see that hole - round and black - in the side of my head. A yellowish tip was visible within and, taking up the nail file in my free hand, I guided it unsteadily into the opening. It sank into a soft mass, and I pushed the file firmly as far as I dared. Twisting the blade back out, I retched at the sensation - and the vision - of a bolus of orangey wax sliding from the snug confines of my ear canal. Throwing the file and mirror aside, now able to see the mass clearly protruding from the side of my head, I grasped the wax with trembling fingers and pulled.

There was a moment of total dizziness as the pain in my head increased by an order of magnitude, but somehow I didn't pass out. The feeling of obstruction was gone, and already the feeling that my skull was about to burst like an overripe melon was dwindling away. But as my eyes focused on the mirror, my stomach spasmed in horror. Between my thumb and forefinger was a squirming tentacle, pale and tapered at the tip - the tip that must have been burrowing hungrily into my brain.

At the stomp of heavy feet behind me, I dropped the wriggling thing and looked up into the mirror. Turpin had entered the room, finding the door left open, swept his gun off the counter, and was now puffing in the doorway, his fat face contorted in anger. He brought his weapon up slowly, training it on my spine as the barrel made its way to the back of my head. My own revolver was lying forgotten near the battered trunk that held his secret cargo, but my helplessness didn't matter. Feeling the nameless growth seeking and squirming around my toes, my lips moved fecklessly, begging for the offered bullet.

Thank the gods, Turpin was only too happy to oblige.