Duet for the Devil

by T. Winter-Damon

  With encouragement from his unseen companion—the voice in his left ear—Slice re-applies the latex skin.

  A fly lands on the nose of the corpse on the mattress, & crawls into the black, blood-crusted cavern of her nostril, looking for a good place to lay her eggs. It scuttles down the back of her throat, stopping just inside the ragged piece of intestine lodged against her uvula… The fly lays her eggs there.

  [ 118 ]

  Heather’s stepfather is standing over her as she kneels submissively on the hay-strewn floor of the stables, leering & laughing dementedly as he recites a meaningless babble of biblical phrases, & lashes her naked backside with his heavy leather belt…

  “We’re going to do something NEW today, you horrid little Jezebel! Something NEW to punish you for your filthy, whorish sins—!” His mouth is flecked with foaming spittle, & he drools onto her quivering, lash-marked back as he rakes at her bare flesh with his dirt-caked nails & forces her face downward in the hay & dust, trying to mount her from the rear…

  [ 119 ]

  Elijah scampers forward, his nose close to the ground, sniffing the still-fresh olfactory evidence of Rios’ relatively recent passing.

  The alley is a typical clone of urban accessways across the nation, undistinguished in its slovenly sameness: the one- & two-story tall tunnel broken only by periodic crossings with still-other similar alleys & unfamiliar streets; on both sides, seemingly endless rows of dented & battered doors, the grey or beige paint chipped away, exposing the oxidizing metal beneath; equally battered dumpsters & stained & crumpled aluminum trashcans spill their waste like regurgitating metal mouths; a scree of generic litter—plastic, paper, glass, & decaying garbage—shifts uneasily beneath their collective six feet; the stench of rotting vegetables & fruit & corrupted, maggot-riddled meat & the ammonia-tang of urine & the musk-stink of feces, both animal & human, ripe in the rising dayheat, the air swarming with a countless multitude of droning flies…

  Teetering piles of wooden packing crates & pallets are stacked haphazardly beside a number of the sheet-metal doors & corrugated garage lift-gates, all along the alley.

  Every few minutes, Elijah pauses, craning his neck to stare in the direction from which they’ve traveled. “Something the matter, Boy…?” Frank asks his mascot. But each time, just as his nerves begin to tingle, his companion moves on, as he once more takes up the track.

  Suddenly, the dog seems puzzled, sniffing in circles, unable to follow the scent which should still be strong. He does this for several moments, then gives up, & sits motionless, waiting for orders from his master. Frank gestures for him to move on, & both proceed forward, seeking for some clue to guide them in the right direction.

  They travel perhaps thirty or thirty-five feet, when Elijah pricks up his ears, & turns, snarling viciously. Frank trusts his companion’s keen senses. He swings around, drawing his long-barreled “Dirty Harry Special” in a smooth flash of blued steel…

  Strung out across the alley in a loose firefight-wedge are five Asians attired in basic gang-punk black: harness-strap boots, tight-fitting pants & motorcycle jackets or leather duster coats over muscle T-shirts. Their hair is shoulder-length & glistening with oil. All wear matte-black wraparounds or bugeye mirrorshades. They look like recruits from Japan’s bosozoku, the “violently running tribes.” Or from similar street gangs or biker packs endemic to modern Hong Kong or Manila or…

  One major point of interest sets them apart from the faceless swarm of the young savages. All are toting Chinese Type 64 Silenced submachine guns. Unusual equipment. Quiet & lethal. & their almost-ten-inch barrels are all leveled in Frank’s direction. Taking any further speculation on the subject from the realm of the academic to the arena of the tactical… He can see those thirty-round magazines jutting downward just in front of itching trigger fingers—one-hundred-fifty rounds of 7.62mm ammo against his six-pack of big, ass-kickin’ .44 Magnum loads…

  They are eager. Smiling. Giggling among themselves (no doubt booted up on blow or crystal meth…)

  He does a hyper-quick assessment of the situation: the only thing going for him is their current long-range status: the weapon-accuracy & penetrating power limited severely by distance—despite the bonus of their own outsized 9.6-inch barrels, the vented design of the silencers lowering bullet velocity to subsonic­—

  & he reads these punks as overconfident & trigger-happy—they’ll squeeze off way before they should…

  “Ooohhhhh, sssshhhitttt!” he murmurs beneath his breath, his bruised chest searing pain at the impact as he ducks & rolls for the cover of a fortuitously nearby dumpster. Just as the yellow-orange of five muzzle-bursts flares dimly (the silencers, efficient flash-hiders, as well…). Just as the spray of lead hail begins to fly… Just as the patch of potholed pavement on which he’d been standing a split-second before erupts in disintegrating shards of asphalt…

  Frank fires twice even as he rolls—lucky? or well-aimed?—one strikes true, & the second man on the left crumples as it perforates his chest, rupturing lungs & heart in a spray of blood…

  The prolonged volley of incoming bullets gouges pockmark craters in zig-zagging rows scant inches behind him, kicking up a razor-edged whirlwind of glass splinters & ripped shreds of cardboard & paper, clanging & clattering against the sturdy metal of the dumpster, denting & ricocheting but failing to penetrate his cover.

  Frank immediately rechambers the two spent rounds.

  He hears a howl of pain, swings, & sees Elijah knocked sprawling by the impact of one or more stray hits… The dog lies totally still: dead? or unconscious? lying in a pool of his blood.

  “OOOOHHH! FFFFFUCKKK!” He bellows in blind rage, breaking cover in a blaze of return fire, swinging into the two-handed combat stance, outstretched arm angling in a tight “V” towards his attackers, the thundering cannon-barrel of the .44 at their apex, as he squeezes off all six rounds. His anger throws his aim, & four shots go wild… but­—

  The point-man takes a headshot—his skull exploding in a burst-tomato splattering of blood & brain…

  & the farthest on the right stumbles to his knees, tossing the spent magazine, slapping in a fresh one…

  Frank’s trigger-finger jerks automatically, & he hears the firing pin click on an empty cylinder…

  No time to reload.

  He takes a dive for the dog, scoops up the limp, unmoving animal, rolls, gains his footing again, bent-double, & makes a mad dash for the dubious cover of several heavy wooden packing crates stacked against the far side of the alley, incoming bullets tugging, ripping at the cloth of his pants legs & jacket sleeves, creasing his flesh in half-a-dozen places…

  [ 120 ]

  “Fuck! Uncle Mal, I’m starving to death!” Julie whines. “Can’t we go get a hamburger & some fries or something…?”

  “Shit, yeah. We been so goddamn busy all day we ain’t had a bite t’ eat since breakfast—& that was, what? eight o’clock this mornin’?” Snuff says, scratching the wrinkled sac of his scrotum absentmindedly. “I been too wired up t’ really notice, y’know? But my belly’s startin’ t’ growl.”

  Their comments meet with silence. Except for the voices arguing from within the television, except for Dennis Hopper groaning, “MMMaaaaa- hhhh-mmm-eeeee!” as he clasps an inhalant mask across his mouth, sucking amyl nitrate down in greedy lungfuls, reveling in the intoxicating scent & taste of pears…except for the whispered moans of a brutally violated Isabella Rossellini (in this scene from the movie critics labeled “The Hardy Boys Go to Hell”)…while the soundtrack croons “Blue Velvet” & “bluer than velvet was the night…”

  The room stinks of sweat & sex & fresh-spilled blood & the betrayal of bodily functions beyond containment.

  “Will you. Change the channel. Please. Who watches this crazy shit? Lunatics—?

  “Nobody is going. Anywhere. Call out for a pizza, Snuff. Use the phone next door, in your room. Ring up the nearest Domino’s. They deliver fast. & they are reliable. Now that you ment
ion it, I could use some victuals, too. Sausage & pepperoni. A Large. & a couple of quarts of Coke. Don’t forget. Extra ice.”

  [ 121 ]

  Frank’s accelerated heartbeat jackhammers through his aching chest: the deep-bruised musculature of his pectorals, the damaged nerves, his ribcage all shrieking PAIN with every bellowing of breath,

  He crouches behind the flimsy haven offered by the stacked wooden crates. His own body shielding that of the blood-soaked Elijah. He digs the handful of ammo out of his pants pocket, chambers in six rounds, & clenches the remaining five casings between his teeth, the acrid, metallic taste of brass mingling with his bitter saliva.

  A total of eleven shots left: then he’s a sitting duck in a rigged shooting gallery.

  His chest hurts like Hell, & he’s bleeding from at least four or five flesh-wounds. He wastes a precious moment striving to gather his mental & physical resources to a last-ditch peak—

  He hears the cross-talk of the approaching assassins: they speak some shared Asian lingo to confuse their quarry. With that strange, uncanny clarity experienced at the razor edge of waiting death, Frank’s mind does a slow spin, analyzing all available data. The words sound familiar, yet he finds he cannot understand them. His own knowledge is limited to a scattering of key words & phrases in a number of the Asian dialects—his near-eidetic memory retaining many chance “throw-away” scraps of reference, both from his army days & his years with the FBI—as well as a somewhat rusty comprehension grammar of Vietnamese—the basics learned as part of the army’s survival crash course in native culture for its officers deployed there, the balance picked up “on the street” during his three tours of duty—& a characteristically lower proficiency in production grammar acquired via the same means…

  But the punks who stalk him speak another tongue entirely—whether Japanese or some Filipino or Chinese dialect he can’t be certain. The rhythmic & tonal patterns of the language seem too guttural & singsong to be the former: Japanese is notable for its crystalline musicality & lyricism. He listens carefully, hoping to pinpoint even a single telltale word—without luck in the short span of seconds he dares to waste in contemplation. But his deductive reasoning suggests Cantonese: the primary dialect of Hong Kong, most likely source of black market Chinese weapons like the Type 64 submachines & the assassination pistol he encountered at the Inn last night…

  Not that it makes a tinker’s damn right now, as the muffled chatter of the three remaining selfsame imported arms erupts again.

  This time far far closer. This time there is no shield of metal to protect him. Only flimsy wood. Being drilled & chewed to splinters by the swarm of 7.62mm lead-termites…

  Frank assesses the only slim chance of survival for himself & Elijah (he can’t allow the likelihood of reality to sink in…not yet not yet…) is a kamikaze firefight —hoping against hope to hit at least one more, trusting to his expert marksmanship & the superior accuracy of his pistol—then an abrupt break down the alley, running a quick-sprint of evasive zig-zags, & praying to Lady Luck that she will save his heretofore charmed ass…

  He takes a quick glimpse over his shoulder to scope out his escape route, & stares into the flared muzzle of a twenty-inch barrel that, from his vantage, looks like a cannon-mouth. It might as well be. At a max of seven yards away, the 5.56-mm ammo spit out by the Singapore SAW (“Section Automatic Weapon”) light machine gun will turn him into human Swiss cheese. The moon-faced punk grips the fore & rear pistol-grips of the “Tommy Gun”-type weapon like he is in love with Death, & his right index finger toys with the trigger. The immense hitman grins, then bursts into demented laughter. He’s built like a Sumo wrestler in a King Kong-sized black leather jacket. His eyes are masked behind matte-black wraparounds, & his long, trailing mustache & inverted spade-shaped goatee glisten with stray spittle…

  He may be crazy as a shithouse rat, Frank thinks, but he’s the one holding the trump card… as he stares at the disposable plastic drum magazine that holds one-hundred rounds.

  “See you in fuckin’ Hell, Pig—” the giant laughs; Frank reads his body language: his muscles tensing for the kill.

  [ 122 ]

  Always keep plenty of change on-hand, Mal frequently cautions. Pay with exact change if possible: the less time spent in transactions, the less time they have to remember your face…

  A now-clothed Snuff answers the knock on the door of Room #12. He wears his windbreaker, the COBRAY slung in its left pocket, within easy reach, against the long odds it’s the Man & the ambush that the luck of the draw says someday must come. “Who is it?” he queries like any crime-concerned John Q. Citizen might do.

  “Pizza delivery,” the kid says, his voice slightly muffled through the thin wood of the door.

  His right hand is gloveless. Instead he uses an old jailhouse trick that has been a favorite of Mal’s since His early days as Zodiac—the fingertips of the exposed hand are coated with a thin layer, a false “skin” of airplane glue, leaving five big “O’s” in the print dept. He must only be careful to avoid leaving palm-print latents. (& he’s carefully wiped the talcum traces left by removal of the latex glove with the motel hand towel casually draped across his still-gloved left—eliminating the chance of “printing” the pizza box with any portion of his ridgeline pattern…).

  He turns the doorknob with his fingertips. Says a quick “Hi” to the kid in the red-white-&-navy webwork baseball cap with its company logo for ID to reassure in a world grown paranoid of strangers.

  He asks the total. Takes the box & paper sack from the delivery boy, eases the door shut with his toe, “Just a second, let me get y’ the money—” Then sets them on the seat of the generic turquoise naugehyde motel chair just to the left of the door. “Here y’ go, son. Here’s a coupla bucks for yr trouble, okay?”

  His change is exact. Plus the two-dollar tip that blends him into the mental background. The main thing, Mal always stresses, is not to be remembered…neither as a piker nor a glad-hand…

  “Thanks, Mister,” the kid says, already beelining for the car to maintain his frenzied schedule of so-efficiently routed stops.

  Snuff swings the door shut behind him. As ever, playing out that complex of scrupulously orchestrated moves that Mal insists upon—a justly-paranoid attention to detailed minutiae that has kept Himself & His companions free to roam the highways of America in their secret campaign of murder & mayhem these thirty-odd years…

  He opens the door between the adjoining rooms; the lock took only a matter of seconds to jimmy when they first arrived.

  Yet another rule of the road on Death Highway—always leave your options open: yeah, the fox digs two doorways to his burrow…

  [ 123 ]

  The King Kong-sized punk with the SAW stands frozen in a gelled split-instant of indecision, his huge index finger wrapped around the trigger. His eyes flicker upwards from his intended victim, his mental focus wavering…

  Distracted by the sudden roar of exhaust & churning tires of a vehicle careening down the narrow alley like a Chiroptera ex-tartarus…stray trashcans clanging & clattering on impact, stacked boxes & crates toppling, smashed to splinters in its frenzied progress…

  Frank levers sideways, trying to clear the immediate line of fire, his crooked left leg thrusting like a coiled steel spring, & he stakes his life on his quickdraw target practice, aiming in two-handed combat mode even as he catapults himself sideways, striving to clear the machine gun’s immediate line of fire…

  [ 124 ]

  “I am the demon from the bottomless pit here on earth to create havoc and terror. I am War. I am Death. I am Destruction!” Mal recites in typical monotone. Finished, He downs a gulp of icy Coca Cola from one of the flimsy plastic, motel “guest cups,” takes another bite from His slice of pizza, munching away, His lips red with tomato sauce. He swallows, then adds: “A very interesting, very dedicated young man wrote those words over two decades ago…”

  He pauses for a moment, the silence prolonged & deafe
ning. Julie finally takes her cue (though she’s heard this familiar rhetoric before…), questioning with her mouth still half-stuffed with cheese & crust: “Who was he, Uncle Mal—?”

  “David Berkowitz, The .44 Killer. The ‘Son of Sam.’”

  Truman Gilmore lies on his right side, moaning softly through the muffling leather of his bondage gag, facing away from the stocky man who sits beside him on the farther bed. Julie & her father sit across from Mal on the bed nearest the door, listening dutifully as they devour the spicy, meat-covered pizza. Heather is sprawled motionless behind them on the plastic dropcloth-covered blanket: whether she is unconscious or dead is a matter open to speculation…

  “Yes, an interesting young man, with an interesting group of friends.

  “I knew ‘the brat,’ before he became famous. Not well. &, of course, he never would have recognized Me. After all, I was robed & wearing the Mask of the Lord High Executioner at the time, & I was putting the ‘Count Zaroff’ knife, the knife of Spring-Heeled Jack to quite good use, carving up some Alsatian cur for the sacred rites of the Twenty-Two Disciples of Hell: drinking its blood & savoring its primal power…

  “Untermyer. Interesting park. A place of Power, long established. Since the ’40s, if memory serves Me correctly. I have been known to frequent it on rare occasion. Very rare. Like fine brandy. The experience must not be overdone. Must be savored. Too much attention since Berkie’s time, though… alas.