ONCE IN A GODDAMNED BLUE MOON…
[ 145 ]
He puffs a gust of stinking blue-white smoke out into the September night air. (No. It is well beyond midnight… & now it is the night air of October that His exhalation pollutes…).
He is George Simon Brittain, &, as His domineering maternal grandmother—the palmist, the astrologer, the early devotee of Spiritualist teachings who had later developed an obsession with Revelations, the Apocrypha & the dualistic Gnostic “heresies” of the Valentinians & the Carpocratians & Cainites—foretold so often to Him, He is the Magus reborn & reborn & reborn again to alter the destiny of Man & of the very stars…
He is the Zodiac. The Maldodor. The Wearer of the Twelve Masks. Lord High Executioner of The Circle of Twelve. He is immortal & invincible. His body is but a robe of skin, to be shed as the serpent casts off His old self, to be worn until this existence ends & the next cycling of the spheres calls forth His final manifestation, served by the slaves He has collected in the many turnings of the cosmic wheel.
He is in control.
He knows no fear as He confronts these pitiful blue meanies these blue pigs with their Tin Man badges.
He is the deathless Wizard. He is Z, the Last of Letters, & the Cross of the Material World & the Circle of the Spirit World. He is the joining of Gemini & Cancer. He is the twin, twining snakes of the caduceus… (albeit interrupted but invoked none-the-less…).
These blue pigs, then, are but figments of His imagination, puppets who fill the roles of actors in His opera His motion picture.
He dreams them all. They are His nightmares, even as He surely must be theirs…
Prison bars could never hold Him. He would realize them into nothingness…
He is the true ethical nihilist—
They hold no power over Him…for they are nothing.
“May I help you, gentlemen?” He asks these hallucinatory piggies, puffing another cloud of Evil-smelling smoke in their direction.
His voice is totally controlled, cold & clinical, the surgeon’s scalpel severing their will to dominate Him with their meaningless uniforms & badges of office. They are now His patients, as He, the collective-conscious father figure of the psychoanalyst bids them lie upon His couch to recount & recant the meaning of their dreams…
He is the Supreme Ego. The Headshrinker who shall shrink their very souls to nothingness if He so desires to do His thing & collect them for His Legion of the Damned to serve Him in the Blue Hell that soon approaches…
They are naught but smoke in the wind.
& it is He who puffs forth the gusts of gale & He who draws the smoke forth from the fire of purging…
[ 146 ]
The slanting rays of Florida sun flash from the mercuric-silver mirrors of Frank Hawkes’ shades, the frames an aura of blazing gold. The sleek Stingray weaves its way through downtown Miami commuter traffic, & the Kenwood is tuned to some strange station, just now playing Blue Öyster Cult’s “Veteran of the Psychic Wars.” If the serial crimes investigator only recognized the music, it would, no doubt, raise gooseflesh in its eerie synchronicity…
Abruptly, the cellular beeps, signaling an incoming message. He cradles the plastic receiver to the contours of his ear & chin, & answers: “Yeah? Hawkes—”
“Frank. This is Clarence. How y’ doin’, buddy? Lucas called. Hear you had some kind of shootout at a bar the other night?”
“Not good. Not good at all, Carter. When did you talk with him?”
“A.M. call. Around seven.”
“Well, then, you haven’t heard the half of it—Elijah & I were ambushed late this morning—a gang of sl…uhhh…Asian hitmen. Elijah nearly bought it. He’s gonna lose a leg—”
“Sorry, Frank. Nothing else—?”
“Nope. & we’re both lucky. All things considered. We’d both be dead if it hadn’t been for this well, uhhh, bodybuilder chick named ‘Cherry.’”
“What?”
“Some kinda private dick…-less from California. & I’ll tell you this, man, she’s got more balls than she does curves. & that’s sayin’ something… She saved both our asses, There’s some really weird shit goin’ on down here, C.C. Listen, you won’t believe half of it…
“Well. Lardass said it was gettin’ hot down there. & I’ve got some hot news for you as well.”
“Yeah?”
“Your hunch on the Zodiac. The bit about His birthdate? You were in luck—files are still intact, for the most part. Centralized in San Fran Homicide. Toschi & Armstrong, of course, have long since retired. But still alive, I think. Most of the other IOs have put themselves out to pasture, moved on to other divisions, or they’re deceased.
“But I aced it, Frank. Made contact with an officer in Records. He was a clerk back when you were involved in the investigation. Needless to say, he remembered you. Thought you were a most likable young hothead. But said he never made you for a Company lifer. Too much the outlaw even then, I guess…?
“He drew blank on the Taurus/Gemini cusp thing.”
“Shit! & I was so fuckin’ sure—”
“Hang on, Frank. Let me finish—”
“Okay. Sorry, Clarence.”
“But the concept intrigued him. &—”
“Yeah?”
“— he tried another angle—he played a wild hunch & tried the same parameters, but switched the focus to a Gemini/Cancer cusp DOB. ‘II,’ The Twins, paired with the two opposing sixes that are Cancer’s astrological notation seemed to sync neatly with Zodiac’s apparent fixation with numerology: 6/21; 6/22; II/69—”
“Did you just say June Twenty-second…?” Frank gasps.
“—& he came up with a minor Zodiac suspect who was born either a split-second before or after the stroke of midnight, depending on which records you believe. California DMV lists it as 6/21/1940. But His school records say 6/22/1940—”
“Holy shit! 6/22 is my goddamn birthday, too…”
“Heh? Some weird coincidence, huh…” Rios says, duly unimpressed by this latest fluke of fate. “Anyway, His POB’s listed as L.A., CA. Only copies of His birth certificate are available. There was a fire in the records section of the county hospital in the winter of 1959: the original was destroyed.
“George Simon Brittain. His mother had numerous arrests on D&D charges as well as a jacket for soliciting raps. Father was George Nicholas ‘Nick’ Brittain, Sr., a merchant marine who flew the coup immediately following Pearl Harbor. I smell ‘draft dodger.’ Before he split, though, he managed to rack up a hefty file of A&B beefs & a coupla counts of wife-beating. All charges dropped. No record of divorce proceedings.
“Raised by His maternal grandmother, some kind of occultist wacko. George Jr. did extremely well academically, but was noted as a ‘loner’ with ‘poor social development & skills,’ ‘moody’ & ‘withdrawn.’ She moved to the Frisco area from L.A. when He was in sixth grade. Regular gypsies for the next coupla years: Tiburon, Anchor Bay, Berry Creek, Whispering Pines, Sutter, Paradise—”
“Whispering Pines & Paradise…? I wonder…” Frank interrupts.
“& Vallejo.”
“Oh. Jesus H. Christ!”
“Yeah. I thought that would pop you, Frank. Some minor scrapes with the law as a juvie.”
“What kind?” Frank asks, just braking in time to miss a lane-swerving Lincoln. By a hair.
“My connection managed to pull in a few favors. Did a grave digging act with the buried juvie jacket. He was pulled in on Suspicion of Arson, Suspicion of Cruelty to Animals, Suspicion of Shoplifting. Zero convictions.
“Grandmother moved back to the LA area in the middle of His sophomore year. Near Riverside, to Lakeview. Stayed ’til mid-summer, then back to Frisco. Finally settled in Antioch. She lived there ’til she died on November 2, ’73. Not that far from Lake Berryessa, Vallejo, & within eyesight of Mt. Diablo.”
“Whoa…”
“Yeah. Okay, He graduated from high school in ’58. Enlisted Navy. Did His stint & rece
ived an honorable discharge in early ’62. Drifted for about a year & a half. Used the Vet Bill to enroll at UCLA. Fall ’63. Exceptional marks, Med school & philosophy. Dropout. About three months prior to graduation. Puzzled the Hell out of His profs. May have followed in His daddy’s footsteps, shipped out as a merchant seaman. Believed to have spent considerable time in Baja California, Yucatan & the Caribbean, uhhhmm, yeah, in particular, the Virgin Islands… possibly Haiti… He may have made contact with Process members at Xtul, there in Yucatan—”
“Fits well with His occultist background, huh? Neat work, C.C.!”
“That isn’t the half of it, Frank. Reappeared in the Vallejo area in mid-’68. Set up shop as an automotive salvager. At least that’s what His IRS’ filings claimed. Owned a couple of trailers in various isolated locales, plus several possible apartments under AKAs. Chief residence was listed as His granny’s. But He apparently spent very little time there. He owned at least four or five driveable cars. From His DMV records. But neighbors mentioned even more. Mostly older models. Mostly Chevys. He was a movie buff. Spent a lot of time at some theater with a Zodiac painted on the domed ceiling. Also hung out at an after-hours bar called the ‘Zodiac,’ a biker hangout, down on West Capital Avenue in Sacramento. In fact, He was picked up at a nearby club for questioning following a tip regarding the ‘Friday the Thirteenth Killing’ of a young nurse who was last seen there—”
“Yeah. I remember that one. We tried to link it as a Zodiac slaying but results proved inconclusive. I always had a gut feeling on it, though.”
“Okay. Catch this— He was wearing a shoulder-length wig, sunglasses & a hacked-up denim jacket emblazoned ‘SATAN’S CIRCLE’ when questioned. His hair was actually short & neatly combed. Sans wig, He made a damn good match for the San Fran October 18, ’69 wanted poster of the suspect in connection with Presidio cabbie slaying near the corner of Washington & Cherry. He washed out as Zodiac when His prints were a total mismatch. His handwriting also was a bomb. He claimed He just hung out there pussy-hunting. Brought in a fancy-pants lawyer & threatened to sue if they didn’t get off His case.”
“Shit! I remember Him! I read the report, Man, Clarence, I can still see those eyes staring up at me out of the photo. I was sure we had Him when I saw it—”
[ 147 ]
Prof. Punk sits at his compact computer keyboard. He punches in the seven-digit access code, “SERIALK,” & taps his fingertips nervously while he waits. He looks even weirder than his bizarre norm. He’s wearing a red-painted Lexan police-style “riot helmet” with visor, gear that he conned from one of the SEC-squad boys in trade for 15 minutes in the Juan Corona Room of the catacombs.
Prof. has made a few adjustments, customizing the rig to suit his very special requirements. The interior surface of the helmet is now triple-layered in lead foil, glued in place with fifth-generation super-cyanoacrylate. The exterior—the once matte-black dome & once-smoked translucent visor—is painted with vermilion, red mercury sulfide, the pigment hand-ground by the Prof. with his mortar & pestle from a single chunk of the mineral cinnabar; upon this field of red are numerous arcane symbols scrawled in the black form of the chemical compound. A fine webwork of platinum/ mercury-amalgam threads is suspended over pins of the same material protruding precisely three inches above the helmet’s surface, & electrodes connected to its “lateral polar axis” feed in the high-voltage current that sizzles & crackles in a blue aura of electrical discharges.
A trailing collar of triple-layered lead foil dangles from the rim of the helmet down his shoulders & upper torso. & a matte-black cable housing fiber optic leads is jacked into the dermal patch at the back of his neck—to the spot known to Zen adepts as “The Jade Gate”— linking his mind D/C into the computer Matrix…
This quasi-scientific, quasi-magickal apparatus is his only hope of eluding the mind-fucking probe of the psycho Slice.
Once the helmet is drawn over his head & secured in place, Prof. Punk’s mind is locked within a scratch-built sensory-deprivation chamber that, if his calculations are correct, will serve to deprive the Blue Devil Slayer of access to the depths of the outlaw scientific genius’s brain…
When he felt Slice’s mental probings last fade, Professor swallowed a sugar cube laced with a “hit” of Sandoz-pure lysergic acid
(long ago he found the hallucinogen to be synergistic with the residual Li Di formula in all its permutations flowing through his veins, enabling him to expand his consciousness into never-before explored & non-Euclidian dimensions…),
then stripped, aligned & lit the blue votive candles, assumed the lotus posture, & let his conscious mind dissolve in this true Philosopher’s aqua regia, flowing into a trance-state, regressing down into the dark depths of the reptilian backbrain into the very core of Kundalini, the Serpent Power…
His motor reflexes working on preprogrammed autopilot, he picked up the ritual blade & carved the Glyphs of Summoning into the naked flesh of his thighs, calling forth his inamorata/mentor, the succubus, who suggested this possible solution to his problem…
The only reality that now exists for PP is the world within the computer:
the screen rolls up, scanning the filenames in alpha sequence:
past
“BTK Strangler”
“John Reginald Halliday Christie.”
“Dr. Neill Cream.”
“Fritz Haarmann.”
“Edmund Emil Kemper III.”
“Peter Kurten.”
“Leonard Lake.”
“Henri Desire Landru.”
“Pedro Alonzo Lopez.”
“Henry Lee Lucas.”
“Charles Chat Ng.”
“William Palmer.”
past
“Dr. Marcel Petiot.”
“George Joseph Smith.”
“Peter Sutcliffe.”
to perhaps the most notorious: not because of the confirmed number of His kills, but because He has never been brought to Justice, the secrets of His taunting cipher codes as-yet unrevealed after more than thirty years, only their surface “shells” of information “broken,” despite His promise they would divulge His true identity if only the law enforcement community could crack them:
to
“Zodiac.”
[ 148 ]
A little jolt of mainlined meth serves to drag Bible Boy back from beyond the veil of mist & tears into a world of suffering. The womb of darkness expels him forth, & he awakens, drenched in chill perspiration, a strangled cry of pain seeking exit from between his gag-stuffed lips.
“Guests could not stay long. I am afraid. But I am certain they did miss you.” The face of Maldoror leering above him looms huge & owlish in the distortions of his drugged perception.
He lies in a stinking pool of his own shit & urine, curled in a fetal posture on the cold linoleum tiles of a long-worn-out bathroom floor, his wrists chained to the base of the commode.
“Oh. Yes. Truman P. Gilmore. Touter of Testaments. I shall fill your mind with wonders of which you have no conception… I shall make My testament to you. Yes. You shall be honored above all men. For you shall know the opening chapters & shall share in them as My fourth disciple. Bear witness, Mortal. To The Books of the Great Beast…”
[ 149 ]
“—Only thing that threw me was He was using some kinda phony biker alias: ‘Nick the Noose’ Nicholas. Yeah. & now I can see the fuckin’ connection. He was originally ID’d as ‘Simon (Si) Legrand,’ a security guard. His boss gave Him the highest praise. Then He closed the loop on that AKA back to His real name. Copped it was ’cause of His juvie. But, like you said, C.C., Sacramento PD lacked probable. & some witch/bitch broad & a kid up in the Haight alibied Him, right?”
“Yep, you got it, Frank. & they lived on Oak, only about a block away from the Process crashpad. I know you know the inside skinny on the Process’ Church of the Final Judgment—you covered them in S&SV. But I had to do a bit of boning up. I reread your chapter covering the DeGrimstons’
tripartite cult—with its basis in christ-satan duality. Much as Satan was originally perceived in the Old Testament as the prosecutor of men in the court of yahweh’s justice, so, in Process philosophy, christ becomes the judge & Satan the executioner.”
“Yeah, you did your homework, Clarence. Robert DeGrimston fueled the fires of Armageddon with his rhetoric aimed at hastening the Second Coming. ‘My prophecy upon this wasted earth & upon the corrupt creation that squats upon its ruined surface is: THOU SHALT KILL.’ Manson is only one of many who eagerly embraced this philosophy. Our nemesis, Zodiac, seems to have at least paralleled this line of reasoning.. But I believe this was no matter of chance. Whether He was ever a member of one of the three Process subsects—the Jehovahs, the Lucifereans & the Satanists—is something we may never know. The three groups could be categorized simplistically as: Puritans of tyrannical bent; Libertines who advocated free sex & freedom to indulge in drugs; the Blood-&-Thunderers, who apparently reveled in violence, destruction, living sacrifice, & Devil worship.”
“Yeah. A philosophy that would very neatly embrace the Cainite & Carpocratian teachings that Brittain’s grandmother became obsessed with! Ironically, Gardner, my Records’ contact, was into philosophy himself, in his earlier years, & had toyed with the idea of becoming a prof, before the financial realities sidestepped him into police work. Okay. So he was more than happy to flaunt his own area of expertise for my benefit.
“Frank, both sects were libertine christian-heretical spinoffs of Gnostic belief. The Gnostics were religious dualists who believed that matter was Evil & only the spirit was good. Salvation hinged upon acquiring the esoteric knowledge, or gnosis. These were only two among many, many splinter groups, each following their own centrally-linked philosophy—
Duet for the Devil Page 29