As Evan's thoughts ran wild, his eyes swept the ground.
Unfortunately, there were no discarded needles lying around.
The United States of this era was nowhere near as "open" and "free" as it would be a century later.
The moral values of its Puritan settlers were still mainstream, and church steeples rose everywhere.
Finding no needles, Evan turned his gaze toward the street corner.
Heavily made-up prostitutes were everywhere, wearing cheap tops cut down to their collarbones, chewing gum, and leaning against gas lamp posts as they made eyes at passing men.
But male prostitutes were almost nowhere to be seen.
This was not their territory.
More importantly, sodomy was still a crime in this era.
If you were caught, a fine of several hundred U.S. dollars would be getting off lightly.
In serious cases, you could be castrated or sent to a psychiatric hospital, branded "morally depraved" and locked up until you died.
"Damn it. Is there really something wrong with my head? What am I thinking about?"
Evan muttered to himself, shook his head, and turned onto Gooding Street.
A dozen or so minutes later, the sun sank completely behind the buildings.
Dim streetlights flickered on one after another, their warm yellow halos spreading through the night mist. The street was still lively.
An out-of-tune accordion drifted from a tavern. A drunk staggered out, collided with a fire hydrant on the corner, and burst out laughing.
Evan had planned to drop his things at home before going out to find something to eat.
But just as he reached the second-floor landing, the keen senses that had come with his Physique rising past two, together with the hearing enhanced by Aspirin's reversal effect, picked up something wrong.
Someone was in the shadows above the stairwell.
The breathing was faint, but its deliberately suppressed rhythm made it easier to notice.
A trace of tobacco and cheap whiskey drifted down from above.
There was more than one person.
Evan kept walking, his mind racing.
Not the Gus Gang. They're bad, not stupid. Nock gave me his word. He won't go back on it.
Red King Laboratory? No. They only just kicked me out. There's no reason to grab me now.
The Church? Even less likely. I haven't had any conflict with them.
As if he had suddenly remembered something, he turned and called downstairs.
"Old Tom! Save me a spot for that shoe repair tomorrow!"
Using the turn to conceal his movement, he quickly pulled the small glass vial from his jacket's inner pocket, broke the wax seal, and tipped the thick, dark-red liquid into his mouth.
[You have consumed Night Demon Potion. Duration: 12 hours.] [Effect: While the potion is active and it is nighttime, Perception increases by 30% and night vision increases by 200%.]
In an instant, the outlines in the unlit stairwell became as clear as if it were Daylight.
Every crack in the wall, every speck of dust on the floor, and the shapes of three pairs of shoes around the bend above stood exposed to his eyes.
The men upstairs seemed to realize Evan was deliberately staying away, and decided to make the first move.
Three charged down from above, while a tall man circled behind him from the shadows of the second-floor landing. With three in front and one behind, they trapped Evan midway up the stairs.
Their leader was a middle-aged man in a flat cap and a faded brown tweed jacket. A cherrywood pipe hung from his mouth, its ember brightening and dimming in the darkness.
His handlebar mustache was neatly trimmed, and he carried himself with a calm, gentlemanly air.
At the sight of him, Evan felt a little relieved.
No one too dangerous. A private detective.
"Mr. Arkham?"
The middle-aged man took the pipe from his mouth, his tone as polite as if he had run into an old friend on the street.
Evan stopped. "Who are you?"
The man smiled faintly and drew a small card from his jacket pocket, though he did not hand it over.
"You don't need to know. Someone wants to see you."
He paused and lowered his voice.
"If you don't want to get hurt, I suggest you come with us quietly."
Evan took a step forward.
"Oh? Is that so?"
At that moment, he heard a rush of air behind him.
A fist was cutting through the air.
An instant later—
"Ow!"
"Ah!"
"That hurts..."
A string of pained screams rang through the stairwell.
In less than ten seconds, three burly men went tumbling down the stairs, wailing.
One clutched his ribs, another his thigh. The last, whose leather shoe had been stepped on, cradled his foot and howled at the bend in the stairs.
Down by the Shoemaker's Shop, Old Tom slowly poked his head out of the door. He adjusted his reading glasses and addressed the man rolling on the floor with his foot in his hands.
"Need your shoe repaired, sir? Ten cents a job."
The middle-aged detective stood frozen.
Evan turned back to face his suddenly bloodless face. Smiling, he repeated the man's words.
"If you don't want to get hurt, I suggest you come inside with me quietly."
"Wh-what just happened? That was too fast."
The detective's pipe slipped from his mouth and struck the concrete floor with a sharp clack.
He was a veteran and a police academy graduate. He considered his fighting skills decent.
But just now...
He had not seen a thing.
A scrawny college student who looked like he weighed no more than 130 pounds had beaten three 180-pound men as easily as if they were seven-year-old children.
His mind was still struggling to process it when Evan walked past him and opened the apartment door.
"S-sir, there must be some misunderstanding..."
The detective's voice was tight with nerves.
He had a gun, but he did not dare draw it.
He was afraid Evan would take it from him in an instant.
Evan stood in the doorway and gestured for him to enter, smiling.
"Whether it's a misunderstanding isn't for you to decide."
He paused and tapped his chest with one finger.
"Understand?"
The detective nodded obediently, then turned and called shakily to his companions, who were still rolling around downstairs.
"Wait for me! I'll cover your medical bills!"
He needed his companions to give him courage, even if those three good-for-nothings could barely get up.
Inside the old apartment's living room, the detective sat on a canvas sofa covered in patches.
His back was ramrod straight and his hands rested neatly on his knees, like a student waiting to be lectured by the principal.
Evan crossed the creaking floor to the kitchen, filled a glass halfway with cold water, and handed it to him.
There was no black tea in this poor household, no sugar cubes, and certainly no milk.
Then Evan sat on the coffee table and looked down at him.
"Who sent you to investigate me?"
The detective had intended to put his decade-plus of experience to work, talking in circles until he steered the conversation elsewhere.
But when he met Evan's eyes, amused like a cat watching a mouse, every clever line he had prepared collapsed.
"Mr. Lebon."
He gave the answer honestly.
"Lebon." Evan frowned slightly.
"The younger Lebon, or his father?"
The detective paused, his eyes shifting as he asked with tentative confusion.
"Jimmy Lebon is dead. You didn't know?"
Evan blinked.
"What? Dead?"
The surprise on his face was utterly convincing.
"He was perfectly fine when I saw him on Friday!"
As soon as he said it, the pieces of that night came together in his mind.
Hill's silver hair beneath the moonlight, her words "Pay Back Double," and the Bad Luck Curse she had lifted from him.
The curse backfired.
The realization formed clearly in his mind.
The curse had been forcibly reflected, leaving the caster to bear its full cost.
It now seemed Lebon was the one who had hired that Financier to curse him.
The detective watched Evan's expression.
More than ten years as a detective told him the young man was not lying.
His shock and surprise were completely natural, without a trace of performance.
"After investigating, Mr. Lebon concluded that you killed his son through some sort of mysterious curse."
"So he sent us to bring you in for questioning."
At that, Evan's mouth twisted into a cold smile.
"His son bullied me, then died, and now he says I cursed him?"
There was genuine anger in his voice.
"Why doesn't he say those Brotherhood people killed his son to shut him up after I scared him into wetting his pants and made them lose face?"
The detective's mind raced as he pieced this new information together with the incomplete file Mr. Lebon had given him.
So that's it.
Mr. Lebon had deliberately withheld crucial information.
Damn it. Never again am I taking a well-paid job with this many missing details!
He cursed inwardly, then considered the medical bills for his three companions downstairs.
Judging by the state they were in after tumbling down the stairs, five dollars probably would not cover it.
He cleared his throat. A smile returned to his face, this time sincere and a little ingratiating.
"Then it seems this really is a misunderstanding."
He drew a respectable-looking brown business card from his jacket's inner pocket and offered it with both hands.
"I'm Tom MacRae, director and chief detective of the MacRae Detective Agency."
"I can see Jimmy Lebon's death has nothing to do with you. I'll go back and explain the situation to Mr. Lebon."
He paused, looked around the shabby living room, then returned his gaze to Evan.
"By the way, you're quite a fighter. Would you be interested in some part-time work with me during your holidays?"