Duet for the Devil
Page 14
“Or if His name began with ‘Z’—?” Clarence adds.
“You’ve got the program! But there’s another rather quirky thing that ties in with all of this, I think…”
“Yeah?”
“The doubling of postage. Generally He doubled the amount required to actually mail His taunting letters to the press—”
“That’s pretty weird!”
“Well, the most popular theory on that was He was consciously or subconsciously trying to rush His mail to us. Prioritize it, if you will. Particularly since He often wrote “RUSH” on the face of the envelopes—”
“Sounds like a pretty decent hypothesis,” Clarence says.
“Yeah. I know, but, Zodiac was too analytical, too controlled, too ‘rational’—if that makes any sense within the context—”
So. What’s your scan on it?”
“Aha! Double: twins: Gemini
“I think He was born at the very cusp of Taurus & Gemini, sometime so close to midnight as to blur the differentiation, perhaps even the official records may be at odds on it—I’ve seen far stranger things happen…”
“Not bad, Frank. Not bad!”
“Hence, His fixation, His obsession with the astrological, that is if someone—mother, father, grandparent, whatever—brought it to His attention very early on—”
“Identity confusion? A man perceiving Himself to have ‘two faces’? Interesting. Very interesting?” Clarence muses.
“Now, the rub is this: if we could somehow access a list of all males of approximate age with birthdates of May 20th or 21st, living in the ’Frisco area & outlying counties during that crucial timespan, say, through DMV records, Social Security, whatever…”
“WHOA! Tall order, Frank! I’m not even sure if those records would still exist—?”
“I said if—”
“But, wait, perhaps we could start by cross-ref’ing known Zodiac suspects, sex offenders—sadists & rapos & babyrapers; & the whole bit—yeah, & felons with forcible abduction priors…”
“The trail’s gonna be stone cold, C.C., we’re talkin’ over thirty years, here. But, Hell! With the level of technology available to NCIC & all of its sister spinoffs…”
“Heh. I’ll give it my best shot, partner.”
“G’night, Clarence, & God bless ya. Just don’t get your butt in a wringer the way that—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep my profile low. Take it easy—”
The phone clicks. The connection goes dead on the Ocala end.
[ 61 ]
Mal looks down at His left wrist, checking the time on His watch. Heather notices that it’s a ZODIAC brand. It looks old but carefully maintained. There isn’t the hint of a scratch on the blue-glinting crystal…
“Snuff. Juliette has been gone far too long. My vibes are very very bad about this—”
The man addressed gazes dazedly up at his boss. Snuff feels lust-drunk, giddy with his sense of POWER, ripped on the coke he’s ingested by benefit of his last good whiff, the lines he’d drawn along the smooth ridgeline of the girl’s shaved vulva, not to mention the quantity he’s assimilated via the mucus membranes of his penis, during his sexual contact with her…
“YEAH! whiff O’ quiff,” he giggles aloud, blitzed by the rush of stoned euphoria…
Mal grabs His henchman in that powerful, viselike grip He has previously exhibited, grasping him under the armpits, lifting him bodily & dropping him down onto his wildly dangling feet.
THHHHhhhwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaPPPPPPPP!
Mal swings an open-handed slap to Snuff’s face—a quick bus fare back from ZONK CITY…
“Get. Dressed. Fast. Something. Is. Wrong. Very. Wrong.”
Mal flings His henchman’s crumpled Levi’s & T-shirt & windbreaker to him. “& do not forget your COBRA & your daughter’s switchblade, Yes. & be sure you take a silencer with you. I know you love to hear it chatter, but stealth is the keyword at tactical level when the situation suggests—Urban. Street-level. Confrontation.”
He hands Snuff the gathered weapons.
“Yes. Praise the Lord—” Mal says, grinning Evilly, “—for that survivalist/preacher fellow from Tucson, Mr. New Hope or whatever, the one who specialized in ‘do-it-yourself-kits’ for piece & quiet…
“Excellent. Really excellent. Silencers,” Mal says with unrestrained enthusiasm.
Snuff has dressed. Albeit hastily.
He takes the weapons, carefully secreting them.
“Now go find Miss Juliette. I sense she has gotten herself into some heavy problems.” Mal motions to the spread-eagled body of the naked teenager. “Heather & I can surely find some interesting way to entertain ourselves while you are on Search & Rescue duty…”
[ 62 ]
Frank hangs up the phone, then undresses for a hot shower.
His nerves are jagged again. Rushing. Every cell of his body sizzling with an adrenaline high of epic intensity.
He needs sleep if he is to carry his mission on to Miami tomorrow. He digs into his overnight bag. Finds the emergency vial his doctor has supplied him with. He hates using this shit. Legal, yeah, but he still feels like a goddamn pill-poppin’ hophead every time he must resort to them. More & more frequently of late. His personal prescription stash of downers: Noctec: Chloral Hydrate 500 mgs.: little orange “bullets” to put him down when the insomnia wires him past the edge of sleep…
Frank fumbles the lid off. Grabs a couple & chugs them with a swig from the bottle that he takes from his suitcase
Ol’ Jack Daniels, Good Ol’ Boy, Ol’ Jack—
Mickey’s gotta help me down. Mickey Mouse? Shit, no! M.I.C.K.E.Y., becaush we LOVE you!
F.I.Nnnnnn.N.
The shower does little to relax him. He is confused & disturbed by his dream of attacking Judy Lynn in the shower. The chook chook chook of the knife biting into her flesh is an echo trapped in his mind. He turns the water hotter, so hot that it burns his skin, turning it red. Closing his eyes, he sticks his face under the spray of steaming water & sees Judy Lynn’s blood mixing with soap suds, swirlin’ red & white, down the drain…
[ 63 ]
Snuff traces the path that he & Mal expected Julie would follow—through the alley behind the motel, taking a ninety-degree turn westward, then exiting in the gap between BILL’S ARMY SURPLUS & SUTTERS AUTO PARTS EXCHANGE.
No sign of his daughter.
He walks to the corner across from the RX.
Enters the drug store.
Waits until the three giggling, pimple-faced teenage boys finish deciding on their purchase. A pack of RIBBED TINGLERS in “A Rainbow of Exotic Passionate Colors.”
“I’m looking for a girl—she’s young”
“Hehhh. Sorry! We don’t carry those. But. Hehhh. Maybe those boys that just left could fix you up with something juicy—” The wired-out pharmacist quips.
“Yeah. Asssshole. & I’m a fuckin’ plastic surgeon! So, cut th’ fuckin’ crap—she’s about yeah tall. Long black hair. White halter top & short shorts…”
“OOOooohhh! That one! Sure. She was here but left. Maybe twenty-five. Thirty minutes ago. Bought her stuff & left. Little young for you isn’t she—?” the druggist cocks his right eyebrow suggestively & winks.
Snuff would love to shove this dickhead’s brain up his ass like a suppository. But he’s got to keep a lid on it. Cool his impulse to blow a hole through the dipshit’s head with a 9mm slug.
He spins on his heel, & strides post haste to the exit.
[ 64 ]
After showering, Frank wraps one of the dingy, threadbare towels from the motel’s bathroom around his waist, & retrieves his bottle of Jack Daniels from the rickety, varnish-chipped nightstand. He walks over to the equally beat-up but mismatched dresser, & fills the plastic cup by the water pitcher with an amber nightcap.
He shakes noticeably as he raises the cup to his lips. The knot in his gut is twisting, tightening. He knows what comes next…
No! I just need some
sleep! Gotta get some sleep—
Frank fumbles another couple of Noctecs out of the bottle. He gulps one down with the contents of his nightcap. The other slips from between his fingers, drops like a miniature bomb, falling slowly slowly towards the hardpacked plane of barren concrete below, hits, bounces, & rolls across the dust-grimed floor, rolls out of sight beneath the bed…
Frank crouches. Kneels. Crawls after it, eager to recover his precious little 500 mg. payload.
His fingers just won’t cooperate. He grovels helplessly for several moments. Then tries to stand. Collapses on the bed.
The knot in his gut is never wrong, he can hear them—
Ghosts scratching at the door, tapping at the window, whispering in that ugly sing-song gook language…
Elijah’s ears perk up, as if he hears them, too.
After months of freedom from them, Frank now knows that his demons have tracked him down & are gathering for the assault. The war dead are massing just out of sight. Frank feels their presence, remembers their faces, smells their decay.
“Fuckin’ gooks,” he hisses, then downs another cup of sour mash, refills the cup. “Come on, you rotten bastards. You think you can take me? Come on!”
Elijah whines, then trots off to the bathroom.
Something stirs the air behind him, & Frank whirls around with his old survival knife clutched in his hand.
The demons are coming through the walls. The dead are rising from the floor. Frank slashes the air with his knife, dancing about the room like a martial arts maniac. The towel slips from his hips, his flaccid penis flopping as he does his demented defensive dance.
“Fucking gooks?”
The bottle of Jack Daniels shatters.
Elijah barks at his crazy master.
A Vietnamese boy with half his face blown away wraps his frail arms around Frank’s legs & tries to bite him, though his lower jaw is missing. “Get away from me, goddamnit,” Frank yells. He trips over a bloody, headless torso.
The demons take him…
[ 65 ]
The two jive gangbangers stand on either side of the young white girl lying on the rubbish-strewn tarmac of the alleyway. Watching the shadowy form of their bro’ humping her, his naked buttocks pistoning up & down into the hollow of her outstretched thighs & belly.
From his frenzied strokes it’s obvious that he’s getting ready to shoot his load again.
“C’mon, Man, c’mon, Wylie! Get yo ROCKS OFF in dis heah bitch! Sink it TO her, Man! Quit yo hoggin’ all th’ AC-SHUN—!”
“Yea-uh, bbbllooddd!— Get yo stones off so’s we can try us a litt’l FUDGE-PACKIN’ wid dis friggin’ white-ass honkie bitch!”
“Yea-uh, get down ‘n’ brown! Man, I digs dat TIGHT young JAILTAIL, yeauh—”
The needle-thin beam of red laser stabs out, sighting on the silhouetted skells, tracking in on the back of one eye-level, dreadlock-dangling cranium—
ffftt. ffftt. ffftt,
The gangboy’s skull frags under the dead-center impact of three 9mm dum-dum slugs.
The other boy just begins to pivot towards the sound…
ffftt. ffftt.
The slugs rip off the side of his face, tearing away fist-sized chunks of temple & cheekbone & jawbone with a sick sssssmmmmmuusshhhhh, like a rotten melon splattering.
“Yeah. Three fuckin’ niggers havin’ some fun. Pulped two of them niggers & then there was—”
Snuff stoops, kneeling behind the pistoning youth as he hammers out his climax in Julie’s battered little cunt.
Snuff grabs the boy savagely by the afro’d hair at the nape of his neck, tugging him out of the saddle, sensing him spasm his climax into empty air—
“EEEEEEEEoooowwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhwwwwwww!” he shrieks.
Snuff smashes him face-downwards into the asphalt, pulping his nose, ripping the flesh away from his lips.
“You got about six seconds to fuckin’ tell me what I wanna know— & I’ll let you fuckin’ live, niggerboy—”
Nothing.
“Nod yr fuckin’ woolly black head or I squeeze it off RIGHT NOW!”
Mr. Badass gangbanger nods—FAST!
The tip of the silencer is shoved into his quivering sphincter, giving him just a hint of what his companions had planned for Snuff’s already-ravaged daughter.
“Now. Nigger. What gang’re you runnin’ with—?”
“De Slik Shivs—”
“& who’re you bangin’ heads with—?”
“Cold Stones, Man, Cold Stones—jis don’ hurt me, Man!”
“Thanks! Jigboy—! Now, pack it where the sun don’t shine—”
Snuff squeezes off, giggling hysterically as the 9mm rips the kid’s fuckin’ guts out, the muffled ffftt of the silenced muzzle burst sounding like a big wet blood-bubbling fart…
“So I lied—so fuckin’ sue me!”
ffftt. ffftt. Two more just for good measure.
Snuff holsters the COBRA.
He helps Julie to her feet. Then retrieves her clothes from where the boys had tossed them. Then helps her pull up her short shorts, his hands sliding in the blood & semen drooling down her thighs.
He hands his daughter her switchblade.
Snuff searches in a nearby dumpster. Finds a rag. Soaks it in the boys’ blood. & scrawls a message in blood-graffiti on the wall of the nearest building:
s L i K s H i V Z S U K!
c 0 L d S t 0 n E z I z ki n G!
B L U e B 1 0 o d Z F u C K A lL!
Julie, meanwhile, has recovered sufficiently from her ordeal to slice off the four boys’ genitals & stuff them into one another’s mouths.
“SUCK DICK YOU BLACK MOTHERFUCKING STIFFS!” a staggering Julie snarls at the corpses.
Snuff frisks them. & pockets the .38 Police Special & the stiletto that he finds concealed & no longer needed…
Snuff digs into his pants pocket, & tugs out the container of blow. He sprinkles it across the butchery.
“We’ll try to make it look like some kind’a drug rip-off or gang thing—”
“Where did you drop the stuff you bought—?”
Julie totters about, scuffing with her feet until she finds the bag. “Here—”
Snuff walks over to where she’s standing, & scoops up the bag & his daughter.
He carries her down the dark tunnel to the first southward turn, then heads toward the motel in cover of full darkness…
[ 66 ]
…Into Devil’s Valley, the verdant concavity of spooky shadows & twisted trees, that dark hollow like an oozing wound in the earth. Nobody in Frank’s platoon knew who gave the name to the valley, but they all agreed that it lived up to its name. Devil’s Fucking Valley. Less than twenty klicks from Khe Sanh, & too fucking close to the DMZ.
They slog through the swamp of the valley’s floor, Shaw walking point. Thank god for Shaw. Shaw is a soldier’s soldier, a natural-born warrior & soul brother number one. & he is Frank’s best friend.
“This ballgame is fucked, man,” Shaw says as they first enter Devil’s Valley. “Boo-coo dinks. I smell ’em.”
“You smell your dick dripping gook disease,” says Garcia, who shows his affection for Shaw via such put-downs.
“No shit, man,” Shaw says. He is in no mood for Garcia’s bullshit. “We gon’ be in a world of hurt. Fuckin’ brass got they heads up they ass.”
“Tell somebody who cares, Bro,” Garcia says.
As the patrol humps into the valley, the word spreads from man to man:
“We fucked, man—”
“Shaw smells dinks—”
“Indian country, amigo—”
“Keep ya shit tight—”
“Devil’s Valley, man. Numba fuckin’ ten—”
Before he moves off to assume point, Shaw grins his patented, pre-combat grin, & says, “Don’t mean shit to me.”
As he moves into the deep shadows of the boggy valley, Frank senses the Evil of the place itself. To Frank, as to most other GIs in Nam, the war is neith
er good nor Evil. It is a wargame with the highest stakes, a game you don’t have to win; but if you are a loser, you end up in a body bag, stacked with other occupied bags at Graves Registration. But this valley is a crucible of Evil. You can see it in the twisted roots of a tree, growing with fungus, & you can see it in the way the shadows close in on everything. If you die in this place, the Evil can claim your spirit. If you take a hit here & live, the Evil can seep into the wound & poison you for life. How does that go? If I die in a combat zone…?
The entire platoon is wound tighter than a five-dollar wristwatch. Shaw’s nose is never wrong; if he smells dinks, you can bet that enemy contact is imminent. Frank moves through the thick vegetation, his M16 ready to rock & roll.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
“I’m freakin’, man,” Carver says in a loud whisper. “I got a real bad fuckin’ feel—”
“Stuff it, Carver,” Frank orders. Carver smokes a lot of weed, but he can always be counted on in a firefight. Carver claims that reefer calms him & improves his aim.
“Fuck me, L-T, we got to dee-dee this Devil Valley shit,” Carver says.
Shaw freezes beside a thicket of bamboo & elephant grass. He holds up a hand, freezing the whole patrol.
Frank watches Shaw, can see him listening to the jungle.