The pair of winos have drifted off.
Elijah’s taken good care of the Vette, Frank notes.
He opens the door.
Climbs in.
Buckles up & harnesses himself.
Hits the ignition.
Depresses the clutch, shifting into REVERSE.
Backs up.
Throws the Stingray in a quick shift sequence from FIRST through THIRD, lurching forward into the traffic flow.
[ 28 ]
Moonlight glistens on her talonlike fingernails of stainless steel as Lucy Nation converses with Pynchon via cellular. The ember of her cigarette glows like a Hellcoal in the darkened room, as she takes a long, deep drag, French-inhales, & exhales the writhing blue smoke as she speaks. “You’re confident he told you everything?”
“Oh, he tried to withhold a little, but I got it out of the wormy bastard,” Pynchon replies. “What he didn’t want to tell me was that the killer carved a number on the belly of one of his victims, & that the number came from Professor’s mind.”
“But he said he had no control over the killer—” she says, taking another drag of potent custom Turkish blend laced with the slightest trace of Omen.
“No conscious control. He said the number carving must’ve come from his subconscious…”
“What was the significance of the number?”
“It’s the access code to his Mindlink program. Seven-seven-three-four.”
She stands in silhouette, & walks to the picture window of her plush penthouse, overlooking the Miami metropolis. She stares in silence at the nightscape, the undulating swells of moonlit ocean.
“It would seem,” she says, “that our Professor is too weak-willed for his own experiment. What we need is someone with an iron will.” She pauses for emphasis. “Someone like you—”
“I don’t fancy being anybody’s lab rat.”
“Widen your perspective. If you can control another person, a henchman, assassin, or whatever you want to call him, if you can control him with your mind, you could score any number of hits without ever leaving your armchair. You would run no risk of getting caught or killed. You would be the ultimate hit man. &, according to Professor, you would still get the thrill of the kill—”
In his favored lustmord lair in the deepest pit of Mermaid’s Inn, Pynchon nods. Smiling. “I’m beginning to see the big picture. If this thing can be perfected, wars of the future could be fought by armchair generals manipulating their zombie-like soldiers. The fat brass send out their troops & experience no-risk combat.”
“Yes. The ‘Henchman Effect.’ The military implications are almost limitless.”
“As would be the profits when you put this baby on the international market.”
“Are you game?”
“Providing two conditions, yes,” Pynchon answers. “I am your business partner, not your employee.”
“Fair enough. I’ll have my lawyers draw up the contract. Just don’t disappoint me… I might be forced to let you work it off the hard way—as the next lil’ Chicken-Lickin’ pullin’ punk-end down in the John Wayne Gacy Room… & that’s guaranteed short-term employment…”
“Condition Two: I want to fuck you.”
“Compromise, Mr. Badass Stud. Take it or leave it. You don’t fuck me. Nobody fucks with Lucy Nation. Call it semantics, if you like. I screw you, my style—nasty, real nasty…
“I’ll bring along some of my special Stayhard drug—”
The phone clicks & the line buzzes like a swarm of angry flies.
[ 29 ]
“Need a lift, Kid—?” Snuff asks. He is careful to conceal the eagerness that he feels at the sight of her young body.
The girl is petite, perhaps five feet tall. Five-one at most. Her build is slender yet provocative. Her small, jutting breasts beneath the taut fabric of her T-shirt are ripe, budding cones of firm, succulent flesh. Like hydroponic nectarines, their promise of rosy-pink & juicy-sweet delicacy begging to be tasted. The nubbins of her young nipples erect & thrusting, chafing against the tight-stretched jersey knit, stiffened by the crisp chill in the air caressing her warm, goose-prickled skin.
The hem of the T-shirt rides up as she moves, exposing a brief, tempting glimpse of the soft, supple flesh of her belly, the deep dimple of her navel, warm & dark & moist with the salt tang of perspiration, the faint hint of musky, natural perfumes:
These things Snuff senses, with the unfailing instincts of the predator...
His eyes scan the tight, faded fabric of her denim cutoffs, detaiIing the way her flesh seems poured into their confines, the way the material gathers in the outlined furrow at her thighs’ junction, the bulging thread of the seams, the fleetingly exposed glimpse of creamy bottom-cheeks, an inch or more of the lush, melon-like globes bare & jiggling as she sways closer to the waiting Olds & its passengers. The swinging rhythm of her hips accentuated by the three-inch cork wedges of her sandals.
Her hair is golden blonde. Long & slightly permed. Flowing from her shoulders in a cascade of cornsilk-soft wisps, brushing across the curve of her shoulders & upper back in the gust of September evening.
Snuff ogles her. Undresses her mentally. But his lust is a secret concealed beneath the quicksilver flash of mirrorshades.
& his body language is a studied scam of projected mild, decidedly unthreatening mannerisms. He leans casually from the opened window, palm upturned in the ancient gesture assuring that it holds no weapons. For the moment, he has stripped off the surgical glove from his left hand.
Julie punches the control lowering her window on the rear of the passengers’ side. The glass hums slowly downward, sheathing itself in the chrome-trimmed frame.
She pops her head out.
Motions with her right hand, also temporarily bared of latex.
“C’mon, Silly! You must be freezin’ your buns off out there! & after all, I could use some company—it’s such a bummer riding all the way cross-country with just your Dad & Uncle—”
“Gee! Thanks! I thought I’d never get a ride! The only ones that keep pulling over are old salesmen & freaks & geeks & leches—uuugghhh! You can tell just by looking at them they just want to get you inside their cars so they can paw you & everything…y’ know—?”
The young blonde hitchhiker is relieved to find the warmth & safety offered by the girl & her relatives—the dusk is thickening, growing ever darker & more foreboding to a teenage girl alone on this infrequently traveled road…
Snuff swings the passenger door open.
Julie slides over behind Mal.
& Heather Rylie crawls into the big white anonymous car, into the waiting entry to her own very special gate to Hell.
[ 30 ]
Frank cruises the streets of northwest Ocala, getting the “lay of the land,” reacquainting himself with this seemier side of a truly pretty city:
In the failing light, he notices a sign at a car wash: it begins with “PLEASE UNDERSTAND,” but he doesn’t catch the rest, some warning about loitering or the like… He chuckles at the seeming paradox.
“Now, I’ve seen some weird signs in my time, Elijah, but that sure strikes me as about the goddamn looniest ever—how many of those loiterers they’re tryin’ to chase off would be able to read that high-falutin’ sign?
“For that matter,” he adds, “I wonder how many of ’em would be able to fathom what ‘UNDERSTAND’ means—even if they cared?”
They pass rows of unhealthy-looking, splotchy yards, crammed with battered pickup trucks, broken recliners & trash cans spilled or simply overflowing, & what trees there are seem to grow away from the houses they surround, as if in disgust.
Rap music & salsa rhythms throb in the gloaming air, pulsing all around them like blood fevered with the taint of heroin & PCP & crack & the seething microbes of a thousand festering venereal diseases.
The bluish cathode light of TV screens seems to leak through the windows or opened doorways of every house he passes, from the mostly unseen somewhere at the r
ear of front rooms, bombarding the inhabitants with a meaningless jumble of game shows & sitcoms & cop shows & commercials. Even through the thunder of the ghetto blasters & car radios an occasional shriek or scream is heard, voodoo viragos layin’ down heavy vibes on some poor bastard for his vices, or just bitchin’ out the yardapes & anklebiters…
Frank twists the cap off a Bud. Chugs a big gulp. Tears the cello-wrap off his RB on White. He wolfs it & kills the brew.
Local hardguys hang out on every corner. The white punks flip him off. The bad bloods just mouth him in a jittering of jivetalk that sounds like Martian or Swahili for all the sense it makes to Frank.
Money & baggies pass hands in open view.
Several times when he stops for a red light young skinny girls lean toward him from the curb asking if he’d like a “straight date” or “Greek action” or a “trip around the world” — AIDS CITY, man! he can almost see those monkeys ridin’ on their backs…
Pit bulls & flea-bitten, vicious mongrels snarl or bark threateningly from the gathering shadows of nearly every yard. Tough “show” for the players & the wheeler-dealers. Or just bargain-basement burglar alarms for the poor-but-honest folks.
“Don’t think they like you, Boy,” Frank tells Elijah. “But I’ll bet you could kick ‘A’ on most any of ’em—what d’ya say…?”
The redbone hound growls & bares his teeth as if in answer to his master’s question.
“Atta boy!” Frank says, “You tell ’em, Trooper—”
They loop down a side street, just off the main drag.
“& I thought the ‘PLEASE UNDERSTAND’ sign was weird?” Frank says. “Just look at that one—”
He points to a nearby tavern. It’s made of block & painted (of all colors!) lilac blue… The name of the place is “PINK…” something, either “GARDENIA”(?). or “CARNATION”(?). But a Mayflower moving truck passes by in the other direction, obscuring his view before he can catch more than a fleeting glimpse of the second word.
“Good thing the cash was in the mail before we left—” Frank says. “We’re rollin’ in the dough again. I think we should both eat steak tonight, Elijah—huh…?”
[ 31 ]
He sits at the compact computer keyboard, turns on the juice & keys in the seven-digit command code: “SERIALK.”
This time Prof. Punk is not plugged into the slow drip-feed of Li Di 9, the “Blue Devil” IV interface. This time Prof. Punk is bathed in the cold sweat of fear. The visit from Pynchon had set the ice of cold steel paranoia in his veins. The tentative agreement they seem to have reached does little to alleviate his apprehensions. Who can predict the whims of Erebos? Or fathom the web of delusions, deceits & devious seductions woven by the infamous Lucy Nation?
& he knows with the divinations of gut logic, reading the systolic spasmings of his own coiled rope of intestines, his inner eye tracing the twenty-two-odd feet of duodenum, the ten-foot stretch of jejunum, the four yards of ileum connecting with the cecum, the ascending colon, the transverse & descending colons, taking the hairpin “S” curve of the sigmoid flexure down down & dirty to the business end of all this gut—the rectum & the anus…
He knows that the hardwired, Blue-tripping psycho known as “Slice” is out to spill his self-same innards…
& he feels his bowels twitch & threaten to betray him with incontinence with the fear of that knowledge.
But Prof. Punk has always considered himself a survivor. Perverse as that may seem in light of certain past actions…
His fingers tap a staccato symphony on the keyboard as he accesses this decidedly ersatz program, entering passwords, keying in the correct sequences of proscribed responses & blowing past the killer ICE that is tripwired into the system to perma-frost the unauthorized & unwary:
Skimming the filenames scrolling upward in alpha sequence:
“David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam”
“Kenneth Bianchi, The Hillside Strangler”
“Jerome Henry Brudos”
“Theodore Bundy”
“Angelo Buono, The Hillside Strangler”
“Alton Coleman”
“Juan Corona”
“Dean Arnold Corll”
“Antone Costa”
“Jeffrey Dahmer, The Milwaukee Cannibal”
“Albert DeSalvo, The Boston Strangler”
“Mark Essex”
“Donald Leroy Evans”
“Larry Eyler”
“Albert Fish”
“John Wayne Gacy, The Killer Clown”
“Gerald Gallego”
“Ed Gein”
“Gary Michael Heidnik”
“Kevin & Reginald Haley, The Demon Brothers Of L.A.”
“Charles Hatcher”
“Green River Killer”
“Charles Manson”
“Earle Leonard Nelson”
“Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker”
“Arthur Shawcross”
“Christopher Wilder”
“Wichita’s B(ind).T(orture).K(ill).S(layer).”
“Wayne Bertram Williams”
“Zodiac”
SUBFILE
“Warren Franklin (“Frank”) Hawkes.”
D.O.B.: 42/06/22
PLACE OF BIRTH: WICHITA, KANSAS
HEIGHT: 6’ 2 1/2”.
WEIGHT: 195.
EDUCATION: KANSAS STATE (1960-1965): B.A.: ECONOMICS. 2 SEMESTERS TOWARD MASTERS. ROTC. SCHOLARSHIP: FOOTBALL.
MILITARY SERVICE: 1965-1969: U.S. ARMY RANGERS. 3 TOURS-OF-DUTY VIETNAM.
DISCHARGE: HONORABLE: AWARDED SILVER STAR & PURPLE HEART (SHRAPNEL WOUNDS: ABDOMEN & LEFT ARM & ELBOW). MUSTERED OUT with RANK of CAPTAIN.
MARITAL STATUS: DIVORCED (1990): EX-WIFE: JUDITH LYNN (47/02/13). CHILDREN: WARREN FRANKLIN, JR. (83/10/23). MELISSA LYNN (87/12/21).
OCCUPATION (CURREXT): FREELANCE JOURNALIST. PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR. SERIAL CRIMES INVESTIGATOR: STATUS: UNOFFICIAL.
OCCUPATION (FORMER): FBI AGENT: STATUS: TERMINATED (1983): CHARGES: GROSS INSUBORDINATION & DERELICTION of DUTY.
AUTHOR: definitive textbooks:
—Pattern Violence, Mass Murder, and Serial Killings in Contemporary American Society: an Assessment of Current Problems and Historic Perspective
—A Profile of Anarchic and Psychotic Terrorism in Urban and Rural North America
AUTHOR: popular texts: BEST SELLER (over 2,200,000 copies):
—Satan and Serial Violence, an occult conspiracy
[ 32 ]
INTRODUCTION to Satan and Serial Violence:
From the political upheaval & burgeoning occult movements of the ’60s, a new breed of terrorist emerged.
Every war has its beachheads, its forays, its skirmishes, its trench warfare…
& there are, also, the secret agents, the subversives, the guerrillas…
Even when the Hell-legions of Chaos, the minions of Darkness, battle for dominion over Earth.
In His November 9, 1969, missive to the San Francisco Chronicle, the mysterious serial killer known as “The Zodiac” warned the world:
“So I shall change the way the/ collecting of slaves. I shall/ no longer announce to anyone./ when I comitt (sic) My murders,/ they shall look like routine/ robberies, killings of anger, &/ a few fake accidents, etc./ The police shall never catch Me,/ because I have been too clever/ for them.”
[ 33 ]
Snuff uses the several spare seconds while Heather slides into the backseat to tug the surgical glove back onto his bared left hand, then thrusts both hands into the pockets of his windbreaker.
Julie, conversely, does nothing to disguise or secret her gloved hands. Instead, she has slid seamlessly into her hype, her well-drilled scam with the precision of a cardshark or shortchange artist, flowing with the moves that require no conscious concentration, but have become an auto pilot program triggering her every word & nuance of body language, like a Stepford Kid gone street punk…
The pale-green plastic squeeze-bottle of Extra Moisturizing Soft Se
nse Skin Lotion with Vitamin E has materialized from suitcase-to-hand with the fluid sleight of hand of a Three Card Monte dealer.
“’Scuse the gloves—” Julie spiels, “But I’ve like got this really bad thing with chapped hands & all—” She pauses momentarily to squirt a squelching dollop of vaguely almond-scented lotion into her bared left palm, rubbing it briskly into the skin while she adds: “& so the doctor like said I had’ta wear these dweebie gloves & I feel like such a freak—”
The glove is flexed over her fingers, slithering into place, masking the identifying ridges & whorls of her hands like a synthetic epi-epidermal layer marked “GENERIC.” …Orchestrated so coolly with disarming little wriggles of pert nose & butterfly-fluttering of eyelids over squinching seablues & a giggle-eliciting facial grimace…
All as Heather plops her shapely bottom down onto the soft, comfy backseat cushion. Slides into place. Grasps the door handle, slamming it securely shut. & turns her pretty face to greet her newfound benefactor.
On cue, Julie’s antics break her up into a softly stifled, blushing bout of giggles.
“I just can’t thank you all enough—” the blonde gushes.
Duet for the Devil Page 8