Duet for the Devil
Page 20
But Frank is still drifting in the wash of free-associations—in the adamant-walled hall of Hades, lit up with the flaming waves of the river Phlegethon (sounds like a down-home spittin’ contest, don’t it…?), then a whippin’ by the furies before your own personal torment is selected & they toss your ass through the gate of Tartarus & down into the pit of sufferin’ sinners…
Rios rouses Frank from his self-indulgent reveries with a fleeting tap on the forearm, & the brawny detective barely manages to slip his survival knife into its ankle sheath before the iron door of the Mermaid’s Inn swings slowly open…
[ 91 ]
Frank glances down at his Rolex, as he & Rios enter Mermaid’s Inn with their guide. 11:59. Hard to believe it’s been less than an hour since Rios got the call from Lardass Lucas, the thought flashes. How in the Hell could we have done everything we have in only fifty-six minutes…? That just isn’t fucking possible!
He stares at the clock’s face for what seems a span of several moments, then realizes the watch has gone haywire, frozen in the split-second approach to midnight. The exact read is 11:59…:59…
& the sensation hits his head & heart like a sledgehammer—“Devil’s Fucking Valley,” he mumbles.
“What?” asks Rios.
They descend a steep flight of steps as if into the Pit…
Frank’s eyes dart around the big barroom, searching for ghosts or demons. Not since he was in Devil’s Valley has he felt this sense of impending Evil. Not even in the scenes of mayhem & murder that his quarry, the man-monster that he terms “The Beast” has left in the red wake of His passing.
The sensation is so utterly overwhelming, that Frank’s initial impulse is to turn tail & get the Hell out of here, but he can’t allow himself to lose face in front of Rios.
“I’m getting bad fucking vibes from this place,” he tells the young cop. “Just like I had in a Hell hole in Nam. It’s uncanny, man.”
He is forced to lean in close to Rios in order to be heard above the babbling Babel of the motley crowd, this madhouse of the damned where the jumbled snatches of conversation seem at first to be mouthed in the slur of unnumbered tongues…
“I’m not surprised, M… Frank. From what Captain Lucas told me, & from what our, uhhmm, partner Jones has spilled, it sounds like the scum of the earth come here for R&R.”
They make their way to the bar through the swirling smoke of cannabis & opium & hashish drifting like seafog, drawing more than a few furtive stares.
Surprisingly, Frank’s Texas-oil-baron-clone outfit blends into the general milieu with almost the chameleon-blending powers of a true lounge lizard basking in the tainted air of some sleazy casino in Reno or Atlantic City. Just another rich freak seeking out the fulfillment of his sickest fantasies.
Instead, it is some instinctual distrust leaking its scent from Rios’ subconscious or the way his trenchcoat fits him or his cop’s eyes slithering barely concealed hatred that causes heads to turn.
They order three beers from a bartender who looks like a living corpse. Frank is so struck by the surrealistic quality of the place that he thinks he must be on a movie set depicting a barroom in Hell. “These people can’t be for real,” he says. “They look like extras from Night of the Living Dead.”
“Heh, man, y’ain’t seen nothin’, yet, man.” Jones swivels his head back over his left shoulder & whispers to his two companions. “Wait till you see Barnacle Belle’s act, dude, it’ll like blow y’r fuckin’ MIND, man, like it’s fuckin’ sick, but the special effects are fuckin’ GREAT. It gets real fuckin’ bloody!”
“They ought to close this goddamn place down.”
“Well, they’d have to find it first,” Rios says, “something tells me we didn’t just luck out with our buddy, Jones, here just sniffin’ his tracks back to this pit. No. Frank. I’ve got this really weird feeling that the Mermaid’s Inn wanted us to find it tonight—”
Frank starts to mouth a quick dig about Hispanic superstitiousness, but catches himself before he can articulate it—he knows that what Rios says is the bald truth. In its place he merely groans out, “Devil’s Fucking Valley…”
His head throbs & aches with its Evil presence.
“& then, too, the legend has it that its owner is so well-connected to big money & politics that the MPD brass has adopted an unofficial hands off policy,” Rios explains. “The rumors also mention hidden rooms where high-paying customers come to watch young girls get snuffed.”
“You believe it?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s possible.” Rios takes a big gulp of brew to wash the sudden taste of foulness from his mouth, “I don’t want to believe it.”
“Well, I’ve seen more than a few films…” Frank says. “The snuff action hardcore…” He pauses, his facial muscles twitching with the intensity of his constrained emotion. “There are outlaw biker gangs that fucking specialize in it. Even do up custom orders. Name your preferred age, race, hair color, gender & perversion… & they’ll do you one to fit your most depraved desires. But NOTHING. NOTHING like the scale we’re talking here—”
“You buy that?”
“Rios, I can smell death. I can taste death. I can hear the whimpers & the screams of the tormented like a hound can hear one of those hyper-pitched whistles. Yeah, This is it. This is the real shit, Son. The corner of Dead & Gone Streets—”
“Shit, Frank, lay off, man, you’re givin’ me a case of the goosebumps.”
“Any idea who owns this place?” asks Frank. The bad feeling is not going away, but he’s trying as hard as he can to level out & ignore it.
“Some corporation, maybe. The locker room talk they spook the new recruits with has it that Erebos owns it.”
“Who?”
“Erebos Enterprises, I think it is. They’re supposed to own a Hell of a lot of valuable real estate all over Florida. In Texas, too. So I hear. Oil wells, publishing companies. I would bet a month’s pay that it has ties to the wonderful world of illegal drugs.”
Frank nods, secretly thankful that none of his demons have showed up yet in this Evil inn.
A ship’s bell sounds out the midnight hour. The room hushes. & a tiny click & whir as Frank’s watch suddenly jerks back to life, the second hand spinning to 12:00:… & on past due north to 12:01.
“Now’s when y’get’ta see Barnacle Belle, man! Check this shit out!” Jones whispers. The lights begin to dim. Above the din of catcalls & loud music, Rios says, “After her routine, I’ve got to go. I’m too much of a night owl when I have to work the next morning.”
Frank nods. He’ll be glad to get the Hell out of this place.
But when the blue velvet curtains sway open, there’s a new act tonight: Two huge aquariums have been set up flanking centerstage. Even from the distance at which they stand, they can see the water boiling with bright quick flashes of metal-hued scales, & the light in the room flickers through a spectrum composed solely of nuances of neon-brilliant BLUE…
A tall, skeletal man costumed as a magician or an undertaker stands directly between the two aquariums. He bears a studied resemblance to H.G. Lewis’ Wizard of Gore.
The symbolism is lost on Frank & Rios, but Jones (who’s obviously a man of cultured sensibilities) immediately notes this visual tribute to the films of the notorious “Godfather of Gore.”
“Fuckin’ A. Man. I seen this flick, I know I have, but where’d th’ friggin’ fish tanks come from, man, like I’m reeealll sure those weren’t in the one I seen, or did I f’rget this part or did I just fuckin’ dream this shit or somethin’? No. No. I did see it, man, I fuckin’ know cause I wz with ‘Sadie th’ Lady’ & she got so fuckin’ bummed watchin’ th fuckin’ thing like she went down t’ th fuckin’ john in it wz th’ Presidio Plaza I think, y’know, like in SF, man, like we were like livin’ down in th’ Haight, man, back then &…well…y’know, like where wz I fuckin’ ennyway, huh? & of yeah, she goes down’t th’ fuckin’ John & fuckin’ ODs on me man, like she fuckin’
OD’d th’ BIG ONE, man, like Slab City, fuck, man, that’s what fuckin’ happened, I missed th’ fuckin’ ending, man!”
Jones is scratching at invisible insects crawling on his scrawny, pock-marked flesh. He’s wiping at the snot drooling from his left nostril with the back of his right hand… & his feet are beginning to drum the Devil’s tattoo as the shakes start to rip through him…
During the momentary distraction, the crowd has gone over the wall TOTALLY— phasing from stone silent to eagerly whispering to hungry yelps & growls to blood-craving crazy howls in a mere span of seconds. Two young girls, unquestionably natural blondes as evidenced in their current starring role as “totally nude live performers,” have been lowered slowly towards the raised platform of the stage from somewhere unseen above. They may be merely actresses— or kidnapped college coeds or highschool honeys highjacked for Midnight Grand Guignol at Mermaid’s Inn.
They are slung from rusted chains. Manacles chew into the soft flesh of their pinioned wrists, as their bodies’ weight tugs their upraised arms into excruciating contortions, separating from twisted shoulder sockets, tendons creaking & popping like bent & snapping twigs. Their ankles, also, are manacled.
Their faces are obscured by domino masks of waxy black leather.
But their mouths are left unbound to let the shrieking soprano of pure terror echo excitingly through the tavern, rousing a standing ovation of jutting erections in sick appreciation.
The girls are lowered to just inches above stage level.
The man in the undertaker’s outfit produces a single long-stemmed rose from the folds of his coat. The flower has been dyed a brilliant cobalt blue. He whips both girls savagely with the thorny branch until the blood flows freely from the scourge marks criss-crossing their pale, tender flesh of naked breasts & backs & buttocks.
Despite his revulsion, Frank finds that he cannot tear his eyes away from this obscene, sadistic spectacle. But Rios is unused to such casual brutality & keeps glancing away.
The chains clank & creak as unseen pulleys hoist the two girls upward, swinging them agonizingly into alignment above the churning water of the aquariums.
Bright scales flash as the emaciated emcee tosses a knife-gouged, squealing, squirming baby piglet into each huge fish tank. & razor-toothed jaws like sprung bear traps snap shut to rend & tear the still-twitching meat to bloody scraps in the span of an eye-blink.
The crowd shrieks in frenzied blood lust.
“Oh, Holy Madre de Dios!” Rios gasps as the truth of the scripted situation strikes him. “Those are fucking PIRANHAS—Frank!”
The big detective’s first instinct is to draw his “Dirty Harry Special” & shoot his way through the crowd in an attempt to rescue the helpless young captives.
Rios sees the fleeting motion of his gun hand, trapping Hawkes’ right wrist in a restraining grasp. “No, Frank, don’t do it, man!” Rios hisses the warning beneath the near-deafening roar of the howling, catcalling perverts. “There’s no fuckin’ way you can make it past this pack of wolves! Be cool, man! Maybe there’s some other way!”
[ 92 ]
Frank turns his head away from the spectacle of the two screaming, struggling blondes suspended directly above the Piranha tanks. The carnivorous fish are thrashing the water’s surface, metallic scales glittering, their red-gold sheen tinged black-to-silver-blue in the flickering BLUE light pouring from hidden spots above…
He is hyped beyond the normal edge of perception in the rush of epinephrine jolting his system to Full Battle Alert. Time dilates, each throb of pulse each motion each sensory impression exaggerated, drifting through the processing centers of his brain in slow flutter, each thought encapsulated like film frames rolling through EDIT at a mere two frames per second. Each creak of tendon each shifting of underlying musculature & dermis each slow bellowing of breath each eye blink flickering registering in Frank’s aroused consciousness, perceived as separate, non-integrated segments of the experiential whole as he swivels his neck to scan the remainder of the room…
His eyes come to rest on a big woman with long, blonde hair. She is sitting at the other end of the bar, alone. Something about her rivets Frank’s attention. Her face is heavily made-up. Her hair is obviously a cheap wig. Her shoulders too wide. Her hands look like… man’s hands—A fucking transvestite, Frank thinks.
She pulls something from her bra. Stands up. & walks toward the elevator door, in spite of the sign on the door that reads: NOT IN SERVICE. Her gait is decidedly ungraceful, distinctly masculine.
In her hand is one of those round elevator keys.
Frank is about to ask Jones where the elevator goes, but things get crazy before he can get the words out.
Two men in dark clothes converge on the transvestite. One of the men suddenly reels backward, clutching at his throat. Blood gushes through his fingers. The other wiseguy whips a Beretta Model 81 from his shoulder rig. But before he can get off a single shot from its ass-kicking, thirteen-round magazine, the man dressed in women’s clothing lashes out at his throat with a shining blade. The gun drops from his slackening fingers.
The man in black folds, disappearing from Frank’s line of vision.
“Rios…” Frank says as he hits the young detective on his right shoulder blade with the back of a big, slab-like hand, not taking his eyes from the scene of the assault. Frank is sliding off the barstool, moving quickly toward the knife-wielding man in the blonde wig.
A woman sees the man drop to his knees, his throat slashed & pumping blood, & she opens her mouth to scream. But her face is a frozen mask of surprise & terror, the sound drowned completely beneath the blood-curdling SHRIEK of twin throats voicing the soul-shattering agony as their squirming flesh is ripped chunk-by-fist-sized-chunk from their bones in a splashing, watery Hell of razor-edged jaws slashing…
Frank clutches the sides of his skull. The SHRIEK is like a chainsaw whining & chittering through his tormented brain… At the edges of his field of vision, demonic shapes are beginning to caper, chittering obscenely. Oh, shit! Frank tells himself, not now! Not fucking now! He swings toward the sound, pulling his .44 Magnum from beneath his jacket, that barrel looking about a yard long, pumping off four rounds as he swings his arm in a slow arc—
The left aquarium explodes in a rain of fragging glass & a raging flashflood of churning white-water & black blood & bare-stripped bones & flopping fish flesh & gnashing, gashing jaws… roaring out into a group of Hong Kong hardcases with slicked hair & grey silk suits, partying & looking for some sick tricks, but now painting the town red…
The twin head-shots rip open the gore-meister’s head in an explosion of blood & brains that rivals that legendary scene from Cronenberg’s film, Scanners…
The right aquarium shatters, also, doubling the deluge of water & man-eating fish that gushes across the stage & roars in a torrent of destruction through the nearby spectators— jagged shards of flying glass bristle from sliced flesh, the fury of raging water is dark with blood, its force knocking people from their feet, upturning tables, smashing bottles & glasses, starting a stampede, the stronger trampling the injured in their panic, & everywhere the snapping, bear-trap jaws of blood-crazed piranhas, gasping their last in a final orgy of savagely ripping kill frenzy— Chaos breaks out in Mermaid’s Inn.
Frank charges through the gawking geeks separating him from the fleeing knifer, sending more than a couple sprawling, using his massive frame to batter his way through…
The man with the slit throat hasn’t kicked it yet. The need for retribution fires him with one last burst of strength. He crawls to his knees clutching the retrieved Beretta, the wobbling, walnut-gripped pistol coughing savagely & spitting spent brass cartridges as he empties all thirteen 9mm shorts into the nearest bystanders.
A punk in skintight leathers tries to dodge the first hail of bullets, but dives directly into a chest-shot that would have slammed into Frank…
The man with the knife is bolting for the side exit, his tig
ht blue dress hampering his movements.
The room reeks of cordite.
“Frank, what the Hell’s going on?” Hawkes hears Rios’ voice close behind him. He points at the man in the blue dress fleeing toward the exit. Another guy with a gun raises his weapon & snaps off a shot at the knifer. As Frank runs after his quarry, Rios draws the Luigi Franchi, brandishing the autoshot dramatically, & shouts: “Police! Drop it?’ Then blows off two warning shots into the ceiling. The man who has just fired his pistol looks dumbly at Rios, then drops his gun.
As the near-deafening bark of gunfire echoes through the barroom, the cross-dressed killer swings, drawing his own pistol from somewhere beneath the folds of his dress.
The self-silenced whoofs five times on blowback, spitting a deadly volley of .765 X 17mm slugs that chops his unknown attacker in the gut & groin, dropping the man like so much dead weight. Another of the special Chinese-import bullets smashes into Frank’s exposed chest.
Rios stares in horror as he sees his partner hit…
But Fate & the gift of an old war buddy save Frank’s charmed ass—the impetus of the slug discharged by the low-velocity, rimless cartridge is blocked by the golden St. Michael’s medal dangling from his neck. Hawkes rolls with the hit. The medal is ripped loose & clatters across the floor.
His assailant tosses the now-empty pistol. It crashes against the wall & rebounds, but the noise it makes is drowned in the roar of Rios triggering off a couple of twelve-gauge shells from the Luigi Franchi. The shots are too-hasty, shy of their rapidly moving target. The attached shot spreader fans the deadly hail of pellets out in a wide burst of devastation.
Dust & splintered concrete erupt from broad, gaping craters in the wall.
Stunned by the bullet’s impact, Frank loses precious seconds, allowing his quarry to escape through the side exit.
The massive epinephrine rush that is jagging Frank’s every cell has him wired to near-superhuman stamina, & he quickly recovers, lurching to his feet in pursuit of the knife-wielding weirdo.