Duet for the Devil

by T. Winter-Damon

  “Yes. & I knew the true ‘Sons of Sam,’ as well…

  “Such enterprising amateurs. Alas. & alack. But ever so careless. But, then, you know the Children, of course, don’t you, Snuff? They first befriended you as a child of the streets yourself in the height of the Haight, as one might say…

  “Before I took you in. Or took you to the Inn…”

  [ 125 ]

  The sudden panicked shouts & muffled chattering of the Type 64s are nearly drowned out by the loud barking stutter of the SAW & the repeated thunder of his .44 Magnum ringing in Frank’s ears.

  He triggers all six rounds, as much homing in on the sound-source of his assailant’s gunfire as truly sighting on his intended target, shooting even as he slams sideways attempting to evade the incoming stream of 5.56mm slugs blasting craters in the wood & asphalt at a cyclic rate of 520 rounds per minute…

  Frank is fortunate. Very fortunate. In the dilated hyperreal eternity of blurred motion that follows­—

  His first shot punctures the heavy leather jacket with a sickening, nanosecond-spanning POP! & blows a gaping hole through the Asian gangboy’s bulging gut in a spray of blood & shredded flesh.

  The wrist-jerking recoil of the .44 kicks the barrel up just a hair, & the second shot smashes a fist-sized entry wound through King Kong’s chest—accompanied by another rending POP! the snapping bones of his shattered ribcage crack like tinder-dry branches, & the chrome zipper slanting down across his right breast frags, a tiny section chain-whipping a deep, bleeding furrow over Frank’s left cheekbone, just below the bottom rim of his aviator’s glasses.

  Delayed action—the lumbering giant lets out an ear-splitting bellow of pure pain, like a wounded rhino…

  Frank senses his left pant leg tearing as either ricocheting slugs or asphalt shards lay open more shallow gashes in his thigh & shin…the pain is a dull flash stifled in the intensity of his survival-focus of his finger squeezing the trigger, the tendons of his wrists straining to steady the recoiling revolver, fighting against the bone-shuddering force of energy expended in the discharge of the Magnum loads.

  The third shot drifts upward by another hairsbreadth, dually perforating heart & lung.

  The fourth enters the giant punk’s armpit, & exits via his shoulder, shattering both socket & collarbone, the massive damage caused by the impact of the .44 Teflon-coated bullet nearly severing the thick, muscular limb from his body in yet another eruption of fountaining blood.

  The two remaining shots go wild.

  No great loss, Frank flashes, as his opponent stumbles a few paces backward, chaotically strafing the sky with machine gun slugs, & topples like a brick shithouse hit by a wrecking ball… The gun clatters to the pavement, silencing its stuttering fusillade.

  [ 126 ]

  “It is so hard to accurately attribute the very genesis of one’s own true awakening.

  “Of course, I had known the pleasure of bringing death. But I suppose it must have been that one single film, with Mickey Hargitay in his role as ‘The Crimson Executioner’ in the Bloody Pit of Horror. Ah. How I identified with his physical prowess & perfection, & with his aesthetics of so-cleverly refined torture. I believe it must have been the line in the newspaper ads that credited it was ‘based on the writings of the Marquis De Sade’ that first caught My attention. I went back each evening for almost a fortnight, staring in amazement at the sheer genius of its perversity, dreaming the dreams of the Lord High Executioner…

  “Listen to Me, you Bible Fuck—” Maldoror’s hand whips out, clenching Truman’s jaw painfully between His vise-like fingers, twisting the captive’s face in His direction. “Listen up—”

  Then He returns to His rambling discourse:

  “& to think how those pitiful piggies credited The Phantom of the Opera, the 1924 silent-film version, the one with Lon Chaney…in reference to My July 8, ’74, missive to the San Francisco Chronicle…

  “What did the blue meanies think? That I was some hideously deformed monster, masked to conceal My shame?

  “But then. They overlooked so many clews beneath their noses. That’s why I chose to rub them in their own boo-boos, as one might say to a dog…even if it was capable of coherent speech.

  “Ah. How I do love a good riddle or a cipher or a puzzle…

  “They missed the truth because they fixated upon their own fallacies. Instead of upon the infamous secrets contained within that Hell-spawned film. Had they seen the prologue with its slowly unrolled scroll: ‘My vengeance needs blood!’ credited to the Marquis de Sade… Had they heard his demonic laughter booming out in peals of godlike pleasure amid the raging thunder… Then only would they have fully understood My own paraphrasing:

  ‘(signed) the Red Phantom

  (red with rage)’

  “Ah. Even now I can quote those haunting words of inspired Evil verbatim. I long ago learned each line each phrase each subtly orated inflection & nuance:”

  (suddenly, Mal’s voice casts off its normal monotone, & transforms itself into a deep, theatrically solemn recitation):

  “On this fifth day of December, in the Year of Our Lord Sixteen-Hundred & Forty-Eight,

  By virtue of the power vested in us by Our Noble Sovereign,

  This tribunal sentences you, The Crimson Executioner, to Death…

  You will die by one of the very instruments you devised to torture & kill your innocent victims…

  You dared to take into your own hand the Laws of both God & Man…

  You set yourself up as both Judge & Executioner…

  You caused inhuman suffering…

  & took Life not from any sense of Justice, but for Hatred & Self-Satisfaction…

  You showed no Mercy to your victims…

  You’ll never kill me! I’ll return & be avenged!

  I am The Crimson Executioner!

  (ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!)

  This day shall be written in BLOOD!

  No man can judge me—I am the Supreme Law!

  I shall have my REVENGE!…

  May the Dust of Time not erase from the mind of Men the infamy of THE CRIMSON EXECUTIONER!”

  [ 127 ]

  Frank hears screams & gunfire still echoing from up the alley, from the direction of the three remaining assassins. He struggles to his knees, first noticing the blood-soaked fabric of his pants legs, then wincing as the searing pain of torn flesh & flayed skin registers among the overload of sensory input. His skin feels chill & damp, his head reels with momentary vertigo, & his stomach is struck by a sudden, convulsive wave of nausea.

  He barely manages to choke back a churning flood of vomit, willing himself not to puke, not now, not yet… His throat burns as he coughs, & his mouth is filled with the bitter taste of bile.

  He looks up to witness still more carnage: three bodies mangled on the pavement—the “point man” he’d headshot & two other ambushers (the one with the leg wound, too, though he’s unrecognizable in his current condition)—obviously all crushed beneath the wheels of the metallic-bronze Jeep Renegade, still idling, effectively blocking the eastern access to the alleyway. Another of the remaining opposition lies bullet-riddled on the asphalt.

  The last of the living badboys is holed up behind Frank’s former hiding place across the alley, trading bursts of gunfire with a grim-faced Cherry, who’s leaning from behind the opened driver’s door, a cordite-smoking Sniper-version Galil rifle cradled expertly in her grasp. The weapon is an SOTA, high-precision variant based on the Israeli assault standard: immediately identifiable by its heavier barrel & telescopic sight clamped to the side of the receiver by a massive (& quickly removable) bracket.

  Frank realizes he’s lost his five teeth-clenched cartridges in the heat of the fray, &, instead of searching for them, he retrieves the dropped SAW, & uses it to chop the legs out from underneath the gunman with its last remaining burst of ammo.

  The sleek, copper-haired ex-bodybuilder slides out from behind her makeshift shield. She’s wearing a loose, billowing �
�Harem” style jumpsuit in camel-colored, open-weave cotton, cinched at the waist with a tasseled rope belt. Quite surreal, considering the circumstances. Particularly in combination with the finishing touches of her wardrobe—spike-heeled suede half-boots, cobalt-blue bugeye mirrorshades & 7.62mm Galil… She does a careful all-points check of the fallen assassins. “All dead,” she says, calmly, “except for your clipped pigeon…

  “I’d finish him, but I figure you want to goose this shitbird for any enlightening information—?”

  “Well, since when did you join the Eleventh-Hour Cavalry?” Frank quips, maintaining for the moment his tough-guy veneer, even as he turns, trembling, & stoops to check the vital signs of the injured Elijah. His hair is matted with still-flowing blood, swarming with a host of buzzing flies. He’s inert, unconscious, but Frank is able to detect a faint pulse & the slightest rise-&-fall of breath. Closer examination reveals a bullet-shattered right foreleg, & a shallow flesh-wound where a second slug must have grazed the rear of his skull.

  Cherry stands beside him, momentarily flashes a brass badge, & identifies herself: “Frank, I’m a PI, licensed through the State of California. I couldn’t tell you that before…

  “What can I do to help…?”

  “Do you have a blanket—or anything to wrap him in? He’s suffering from shock.”

  “Yeah. I’ll get it.” The girl is fast on her feet, & she wastes no time. Frank is so absorbed in tending to his injured friend, brushing the flies away from his wounds, that he barely realizes she’s gone before she’s back, toting an army blanket. They use it to swaddle the wounded dog, & Frank exercises extreme caution as he lifts him, carries him to the Jeep, & lays Elijah on the rear floorboard in the space between the two parallel bench-seats.

  “Get him to the nearest vet, Cherry, quick, I’m afraid we’re gonna lose him…”

  She notices the trembling of his stern jaw as he speaks, notices the hint of gathered tears trickling from beneath his blank stare of his mirrored glasses, but all she says is, “Sure. Pronto. Count on it.”

  “Thanks. Thanks, Cherry,” he says, hobbling toward the last living punk, sidestepping the forward-lurching vehicle. “I’m gonna find out as much as I can before the cops show…”

  [ 128 ]

  Mal pauses for a moment, His face that has become a mask of snarling Evil suddenly returns once more to disarming blandness, a mirror of His voice’s segue to monotone.

  “Have you ever been to Ocean Castle?” He asks, His train of thought seemingly as erratic as His voice is controlled…

  “Ha. As they say: ‘Sticks & stones may break My bones, but whips & chains can hurt Me…’

  “‘Son of Sam’? Never into wordplay are they, those cops? Son of a dog? Sons of Guns, I’d say. 22, the number of Hell’s Disciples. It was the Charter Arms Bulldog .44 they all used. It all began in ’66, issuing in the new Age of Satan. A logical progression. To the secret key of Abrasax/Abraxas. Yes. That. & the known key to the cosmic: 365. Oh. Yes. They even missed the inversion, eh? DOG become GOD…? GOD is DOG… As well as the substitution cipher: yes, ‘Sons’ are ‘Children,’ are they not? Berkie wrote, ‘Kill for my Master.’ ‘I turn children into Killers.’

  “‘Son of Sam.’ Son of (P)SA(L)M.’ The Twenty-Second Psalm. Sometimes called ‘The Cursed Psalm.’ Listen. To. The. Silences. The Dead speak in silences & whispers. The twelfth verse: ‘Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.’ Yes, Bulls. Are. The. Blue. Pigs. Verse sixteen: ‘For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands & feet.’ Following a four-verse progression: verse twenty: ‘Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.’ DELIVER. MY. DARLING. FROM. THE. POWER. OF. THE. DOG… BULL-DOG. & The Twenty Two Disciples of Hell… Yes. 22 doubled is .44… The Power of the Dog slew their darlings, their daughters… The Zodiac has twelve points. The compass is a sixteen-bladed star with thirty-two points (directions). ‘Compass’: ‘Thirty-two. Less. Twelve. Is. Twenty… ‘Compass’: ‘to grasp mentally; understand; comprehend; to surround; to besiege; to beleaguer; to purpose; to intend; to imagine; to plot; to contrive (something harmful); to bring within one’s power…”

  “Yes. Of course I know. I am the expert on these things. You might even say that I got in a ‘guest shot or two’ in the heat of things. Look for the Water Signs. Yes. While the blue meanies were just fiddling & farting around, as usual…

  “Berkie & his ‘siblings’ did so love their ciphers, too. Good boys & girls, all, but careless—such a waste of brilliance…

  “Ah. Zodiac… How the occidental mind is limited… They never even supposed the connection, did they? That the Year of the Beast, was also the Year of the Horse in the Chinese Zodiac—the Year that I came forth as ‘The Pale Horse, Death.’

  “Nor did they connect the ‘Zodiac’ with the Aztec calendar, the Round of Death, those diurnal sacrifices required to assure that the Cross of the Earth & the Circle of the Sky shall keep their bloody proper balance…”

  [ 129 ]

  Frank towers over the wounded Asian gang punk huddling on the ground next to the bullet-pitted dumpster. Close up, his ancestry is evident—the delicate facial bone structure, the characteristic epicanthic folds & the pale, flawless pigmentation of his skin mark his Japanese origin. He has lost the anonymous mask of his matte-black wraparounds. They lie on the asphalt perhaps ten feet away from him, the left temple broken off either during the battle or during their fall. Not that it matters. Only a brief flash of semi-academic interest that flickers through the ex-Fed’s mind as he walks over, picks them up, & returns to the subject of his intended interrogation.

  “See these, you little Fuck?” he asks.

  The youth totally ignores him. Frank stoops, his huge left hand out-thrust, seizing the hitman’s slender jaw, applying near-shattering pressure, sensing the bones give beneath his grasp, sensing every ridge & curve & indentation of teeth & mandibles, sensing the excruciating pain his prisoner is suffering, twisting his head up so his eyes are fixed in the cold silver mirrors of the detective’s stare…

  “See what I can do to these—?” There is a sharp snapping sound as his right hand crushes the heavy plastic frames & lenses into an unrecognizable mass of tiny, sharp-edged shards.

  “You, know, Asshole, I can do this to your fuckin’ jawbone just as easy—” He holds his cupped palm upright, blood trickling from numerous small lacerations, displaying the devastation, leaving no doubt what damage his strength can do…

  The punk maintains his wiseguy silence despite his obvious pain & the intimidation of further violence.

  “But, then again, you might not be able to talk if I did—so try this instead…” Frank suddenly rams his cupped palm into the man’s face, puncturing his perfect flesh with a hundred jagged fragments, shattering the bridge of his nose with the force of the straightarm blow. Blood spurts from his flattened nostrils, spraying Frank’s hand & coat sleeve, bubbles from between his clenched lips, trickles like crimson tears from the countless tiny pricks of his impalement…

  An image of the blood-soaked, unconscious Elijah rushes through his epinephrine-wired brain… & he senses Shaw & Carver & Doc & Zenno & the others, shadows clustering just behind his tensed shoulders, urging him on… for an instant, the crimson transforms to black & the tunnel-world of Frank’s focus flickers BLUE as his rage taps some secret tainted place deep within his soul… The rage carries him along on a tsunami wave of violent, churning blue, & he lifts the punk one-handed, as easily as a straw-stuffed scarecrow, smashing his skull & spine against the battered dumpster. There is a loud clang as flesh meets metal. & another. & another.

  His free right hand frisks the pockets of the punk’s leather duster coat, extracting exactly what he needs—a gravity knife. He flicks it open, exposing its razor-honed, six-inch blade.

  “You’ve heard of enko zume, the ‘shortened finger,’ haven’t you?” He allows no time for a response. “But of
course you have! You’re familiar with the rite of punishment inflicted by the Yakuza…”

  Fear suddenly leaks through the mask of dazed indifference posed by his interrogation subject. “You know the fuckin’ score, you goddamn Nip Bastard—” Frank snarls, dropping the wounded man to the ground, giving him a vicious kick to his gun-shot shin with the pointed toe of a lizardskin Tony Lama. He squats on his heels, grasping the man’s left hand in his own, smashing it flat against the metal of the dumpster. He carefully lays the opened gravity knife on the asphalt. Then draws out his trusty survival knife from its ankle scabbard.

  “You can do it now, or you can do it later, Prick,” he warns, his voice low & calm & controlled. Then screams into his prisoner’s face: “WHO THE FUCK SET YOU ON MY ASS? WHO ARE YOU WORKIN’ FOR, YOU SONUVABITCHIN’ COCKSUCK—?

  “It’s one at a time until you spill it…”

  [ 130 ]

  “& I can see little Charlie’s face even now: bearded, so like Rasputin, eh? Nice touch, the swastika carved into his forehead. The ancient Sign of Luck. Derived from the Sanskrit: ‘su’/‘well’ & ‘asti’/‘it is’… Sun Sign if right-handed. Symbol of Kali & the night & magick if left-handed…

  “Little Charlie said it so well, but the piggies never really listened, did they. Not even at his trial, when he told them outright:”

  (again the perfectly controlled voice of Maldoror seems possessed by another’s—this time the rantings of Manson, jailed some several thousand miles away—yet so tone-perfect is the mimesis, that one would swear it is indeed him who speaks…):

  “‘What about your Children? You say there are just a few? There are many, many more, coming in the same direction. They are running in the streets—& they are coming right at you!’”