24.
10:23 P.M.
Xerxes was crowded already, though the real crowd hadn’t even got on line yet. Boone, sitting next to Gossitch in V.I.P., said, “They got a blood sucker guarding the door now? Wasn’t bad enough when he was just fixing our drinks. What gives with that shit, Goose?”
“Who, Big Mike?” Gossitch shook his tumbler of whiskey, the ice cubes clinking. “He’s alright, Boone. Nonaligned.”
“Boone would kill every vampire if he could,” proffered Hamilton. “Wouldn’t you, Boone?”
“Fuck ‘em all. Guatemalans too.”
Hamilton laughed.
“Let God sort ‘em out, that kind of thing?” asked Santa Anna.
“Fuck Him too.”
“Whoa!” said Madison. “You talk like that and a lightning bolt comes down out of the sky, I don’t want to be sitting next to you.”
The club music was loud but in the V.I.P. section you could at least hear yourself talking. Jay Z was rapping about it being a hard knock life.
“Where’s Jay?” Boone asked.
“He didn’t come out tonight,” answered Madison.
“So where the fuck is he?”
“Jay’s got himself a lady,” said Gossitch.
“Hey, Santa Anna, you my nigger right?” If Boone thought he was going to get a rise out of the guy, he was wrong.
“You know what they say, right my little cracker brother?” Santa Anna looked at Gossitch but spoke to Boone. “You can pick your nose, you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family.”
“Well let me ask you a question, right? What’s up with that ‘80s couture, huh?”
Santa Anna was wearing a green Sergio Tacchini tracksuit and immaculate British Knight sneakers. They were the clothes that had been in his closet when he’d gone away.
“Let me ask you a question, young-un. Why you up my ass so hard?”
“Because,” Boone quaffed his rum and Coke, “There’s something about you—and I can’t put my finger on it, yet…something I don’t like.”
“The feelings mutual.”
“Boone,” warned Gossitch. “Play nice.”
“Yes poppa.” Boone raised his glass to acknowledge their crew chief.
“This guy hasn’t even finished one drink and he’s already talkin’ shit?” Santa Anna remarked to Bowie.
“That’s just Boone, he’s always talkin’ shit.” Bowie wore expensive baggy jeans and a Steelers number 32 throwback jersey.
“You should see him when he’s got a few in him,” added Hamilton.
“Why’s that?” Santa Anna turned back to Boone. “Why’s that, young-un can’t hold his liquor?”
“Oh, let me assure you,” Boone looked into his empty glass. “I can hold my liquor.”
“Well,” Santa Anna placed a wad of rolled up bills on the table. “Let’s see about that, why don’t we?”
“Let’s.”
“Hey, honey,” Santa Anna beckoned to a waitress over the bass. “Bring us a dozen shots of—” he stopped to look at Boone, “Whiskey? That’s a man’s drink. Think you can handle that?”
“Make it a bottle,” Boone told her, his eyes never leaving Santa Anna’s. “Top shelf.”
“Oh, this is gonna get ugly,” laughed Madison.
“Put your money away, Carter,” said Gossitch. “I’m buyin’.”
When the waitress returned with their bottle and two shot glasses, Santa Anna said, “Young-un, meet my friend, Mr. Johnny Walker.”
“Black. Huh. Like you.”
“Ohhh!” cried Madison. Beer came up through Bowie’s nose.
Santa Anna poured himself and Boone a shot.
“Cheers.” He went to tap glasses with Boone but Boone ignored him.
“Fuck yourself.” Boone had already downed his whiskey.
A dozen shots later Boone was snorting coke in the bathroom. He liked the restrooms at Xerxes. The stalls were little booths with actual doors that locked from the inside. He tapped some powder onto the web of his thumb and inhaled.
Someone knocked on the stall door.
“Fuck,” he said to himself. “I’ll be right out!”
Whoever it was knocked again.
“Fucker,” Boone slipped the glass vial of cocaine into his flannel and opened the door, ready to pound the motherfucker on the other side.
The stall door opened and a hot brunette was standing there. She wore denim bellbottoms and a cropped tank top and her breasts were propped up and looked like they might pop out of her shirt. She had some kind of charm on a chain between them.
“Hey.” Boone looked at her.
“Hey yourself,” she said, looking around the bathroom. Men had their backs turned to them, urinating in stalls. “Your friends told me you might be holding,” she stepped past Boone into the stall and pulled the door closed before he could answer.
“You a narc?” he asked her as she locked the door.
“Come on,” she looked around impatiently.
Boone produced the vial of coke and the woman snatched it out of his hand. She tapped some out onto her fingernail and inhaled it. She closed her eyes as a look of intense pleasure swept over her face.
“That’s good stuff,” she approved. “Here.” As Boone watched the woman wiggled her bosoms, tapping a nice sized mound of the drug onto the top of one of her breasts.
“Fuck yeah—” Boone didn’t get to finish as her hand grabbed him by the back of his head and pulled his face into her cleavage. He snorted up the powder and her perfumed scent. That smell.
He pulled his head back a few inches and eyed the charm hanging between her breasts. It looked like a branching root and on the end of each branch were various symbols: a rooster, a dagger, the moon, a key.
“Aw, fuck.” He stepped back and looked at her. “You.” The woman he had held close that morning. A nun or some shit. In Xerxes. Dressed like this? Parlaying the ye-yo with him in the men’s bathroom. Fuck.
“Now this is getting crazy,” he muttered, angry, snatching his vial back from the woman.
“We have to talk, Boone.” Emmanuela told him. “About that woman your friend is dating.”
Boone was turning to leave when she grabbed his arm, whirled him around and slammed him into the wall. Emmanuela pressed the blunted edge of the kukri’s curved blade against his neck. Boone snickered. He wondered where she had hidden the thing, dressed like she was.
“I’m serious, Boone.”
“Let me give you some advice.” Boone moved so fast he took Emmanuela by surprise. One moment she was holding the kukri to his neck, the next he had snatched it out of her hand. “Don’t fuck with me when I’m in a good mood.”
He dropped the knife in the toilet and Emmanuela gasped, immediately bending to retrieve her blade.
“You bastard.” But he had already left the stall.
“What’d you miss the most inside?” Bowie was asking Santa Anna.
“My family,” Santa Anna looked forlorn, like he was reliving the moment. “I’d have done anything…to see them, to be with them.”
“It’s okay, now,” assured Bowie. “Gossitch made sure they were okay.”
“Frank,” Santa Anna locked eyes with Gossitch. “I owe you brother.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Look at that one,” Madison said to Hamilton, looking down onto the dance floor. “Ass like that, she gotta be Brazilian, right?”
“Ass like that,” said Hamilton. “She can be whatever she wants to be, far as I’m concerned.”
“Go down there and get her, man,” encouraged Bowie.
“I don’t know Bowie. I ain’t feelin’ it tonight.”
“Man the fuck up, Maddy.”
“Here, Maddy,” Hamilton borrowed the bottle in front of Santa Anna and poured his friend a shot. “Drink this.”
Gossitch was smoking a cigarette. No one was going to tell him not to in Xerxes, even if it violated city code.
“Come on, Maddy,”
Boone had returned to his seat and rejoined the conversation. “I’ll be your wing man.”
“You want to stand any chance with that girl,” Bowie reminded Madison, “you go down there without Boone.”
“’Fraid she’ll eat me up, huh Bowie?”
“No Boone. ’Fraid you’ll scare her away.”
“Come on, Maddy,” Hamilton nudged his friend.
“I don’t know,” the other hesitated.
“Here,” Santa Anna refilled the shot glass in front of Madison. “Liquid courage.”
“Do it,” prodded Hamilton.
“Man the fuck up, Maddy.” Bowie had a few in him and was sounding bellicose. “Drink that shit, get down on that dance floor, and seal the fuckin’ deal, man.”
Madison tossed back the shot and let Hamilton lead him to the stairs and the dance floor.
“Better start drinking up again, young-un.”
Twenty minutes later Santa Anna and Boone were still trying to drink one another under the table.
“Need anuther bottle shoon.” Santa Anna’s voice was slurred.
Bowie was already drunk and keeping to himself.
“Oh, the Aye-Taye,” said Boone.
Johnny Spasso walked up to their table. Though the club was dark and the press of bodies competed with the air conditioners, Spasso wore his microfiber rain coat and sunglasses.
“Johnny Spasso,” said Gossitch. “Please.” He indicated an empty seat at their table.
“Frank.” Spasso sat. “Gentlemen. Boone.”
“You know, Spasso. You’re the only guy I know who could pull off that look.”
“How many of those things have you had?” Johnny referred to the shot glasses and the bottle between Boone and Santa Anna.
Santa Anna was trying to formulate an answer when Boone blurted, “Twenty seven Mai Tais, motherfucker.”
Spasso spoke quietly to Gossitch for a few minutes, after which he rose, bid farewell to Gossitch and the other men, and left.
“What was that about?” asked Boone.
“Business.” Gossitch sipped his own whiskey.
Hamilton and Madison had returned to the table with three attractive young women similarly attired in bellbottom pants and tank tops.
“Oh shit.” Boone clasped a hand to his forehead. “You know who these bitches are, don’t you?”
“Marsha, Jan and Cindy?” quipped Bowie.
“Good evening, sisters,” said Gossitch as the ladies sat down. “Could I offer you a drink?”
“I’ll take one,” said Daniella. She was sitting next to Gossitch. “We need to talk, Gossitch.”
“So let’s talk.”
Daniella looked at the other men at the table, as if she had something she needed to say that she didn’t want anyone but Gossitch to hear.
Cotton Eyed Joe was blasting out of the speakers on the dance floor.
“I hate this fucking piece of shit song!” shouted Bowie, the first time he had spoken in awhile.
“Boone wasn’t at the Alamo.” A besotted Santa Anna pointed his finger at Boone.
“And Santa Anna was Mess-ican.”
Emmanuela and Isabella looked at one another.
“Debbie Boone.” Santa Anna swallowed another shot and scrunched up his face. “You light up my life…”
“Keep talkin’,” promised Boone. “I’ll light you up.”
Daniella was talking to Gossitch in a low, confidential tone. Madison and Hamilton were making small talk with Isabella and Emmanuela.
“Come on, Boone, another!” Bowie punched Boone in the shoulder. “Time to be a fuckin’ man!”
Boone knocked one back and looked across the table to the black man. “Hey, Santa Anna, let me ask you a question, how many cocks you take up your ass in prison?”
Santa Anna was too drunk to try to answer.
“How ‘bout you, sister?” Boone turned his head to ask Emmanuela. “You take it up the pooper?”
“Not on the first date,” she said coolly, causing Hamilton and Madison to laugh nervously.
Boone was feeling the alcohol. Snippets of conversation and song and random thoughts flowed through his mind as time passed. At one point he looked up and there was a second bottle of Jack on the table before him. Santa Anna’s head was on the table and he was snoring.
“Hey, where’d Ham and Maddy go?” After awhile Boone noticed they were gone.
“Home with my friends,” Emmanuela leaned over and told him.
“Wait a second,” a drunken Boone remarked. “I thought you guys were chaste or some shit like that?”
“We’re brides of Christ, Boone,” said Emmanuela. “But our pussies are ours to do with what we will.”
Boone looked at her out of one eye. “You’re fuckin’ with me, right?”
“If you’d played your cards, right,” she tapped her fingers on his hand and it felt electric, “I might have been.”
“Goddamn.” Boone felt frustrated. “Let’s start this all over, okay? Do over?”
“Not tonight,” her smile was radiant. “Finish your game with your friend,” she reached over and grabbed his crotch through his shorts under the table. “You’ve got whiskey dick anyway.”
“But remember,” Emmanuela said as she got up. “What I said to you before.”
Boone had no idea what she was talking about.
Thursday
27 August 1998
25.
2:45 A.M.
“Did my husband fall in a vat of whiskey, Frank?” Tanji stepped aside as Gossitch dragged Santa Anna into the house. One of Santa Anna’s arms was draped around Gossitch’s shoulders.
“Might as well have, Tanj. You know how the boys can get.”
“The boys? Frank, Carter will be forty three next month. Ain’t no boy about him.”
Gossitch set Santa Anna down on the sectional in the dark living room and sighed. “Come on, Tanji. You know age is only chronological. Look at me.”
“Yeah, just look at you, Frank.” Tanji was tired but her attitude was feigned and Gossitch knew her well enough to know it. “When you gonna settle down, let some good woman make a straight man out of you?”
“I been down that route before, Tanji,” Gossitch held up his ring finger. “It was great while it lasted.”
“It doesn’t have to be over, Frank. There’s plenty of women—”
“Renee was the best, Tanji.” They stood in the doorway. Gossitch looked out to his car where Bowie and Boone waited. “I mean, for me.”
“No doubt about it, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your days alone and lonely.”
“Alone, yes.” Gossitch lied. “Lonely? No.”
“Didn’t you ever want to have any kids, Frank? You’s a man, it ain’t too late you know.”
“Please. I got my kids.” Gossitch gestured back towards the living room and Tanji’s husband on the couch. The woman smiled. “Me and Renee, we tried. It didn’t happen. That’s okay. When are you and my man here going to get to work on number three?”
Tanji scoffed.“Thanks for bringing him home, Frank.”
“No problem, Tanji. Sorry it’s so late.”
“It’s okay…he hasn’t really been out since he got home.”
“How’s everything going then?”
“It’s good.” It was Tanji’s turn to lie, but her next sentiment was true. “I’m glad to have him back.”
“He’s a good man, Tanji.”
“I know he is.”
26.
2:51 A.M.
Outside in his silver Audi A4, Bowie yawned and said, “You know, Boone, he’s not a bad guy.”
“That’s what you and Gossitch keep telling me. But, no, I don’t know that.”
“You don’t trust much, do you Boone?” Bowie was feeling the effects of his drunk in his skull and it wasn’t feeling very nice. Boone had drunk way more than he had but the guy looked fine. Fuckin’ Boone.
“Trust is made to be broken,” said Boone.
“I trust the old man,” Boone dead panned, as close to humor as he was going to get. “You, well…”
“Well, do the old man a favor then and lighten up on Carter—on Santa Anna. He’s not a bad sort. The man just spent almost ten years locked up for something he did with me and Gossitch. He didn’t have to do ten. He could have talked any time. And he didn’t.”
“So I should trust him?”
“Okay.” Talking to Boone, Bowie was reminded, could be like trying to run through a brick wall at times. “Maybe nothing I can say will get you to trust him, but like I said, lighten up on him, okay?”
“He’s a grown man, ain’t he?”
“Boone, you know you rub people the wrong way, yeah?”
“Thing is—”
“Thing is you don’t give a fuck,” Bowie interrupted him. “Yeah, yeah, we know. You know, you got a lot of potential, Boone. But that temper of yours, it’s gonna land you in some hot water, and nobody—not me, not Gossitch—nobody’s gonna be able to fish you out of that mess.”
“What you sayin’?”
“I’m saying man the fuck up. Bite your tongue and be a man. And what was that shit with the blood suckers this morning?”
“What do you mean?” Boone looked taken aback.
“You know exactly what I mean—”
“Gossitch didn’t—”
“Gossitch ain’t going to say nothing to you.” Bowie tried not to get pissed but with all the liquor in him and the throbbing in his head it was tough. “He knows I would. We do what we do, no need to make it uglier than it needs to be.”
“What, you want me to go easy on the vampires?”
“Boone, those pathetic fucks…” Boone just didn’t get it sometimes. “Listen, we need them and they need us, right? Can you at least acknowledge that fact?”
“No,” stated Boone. “If I had the chance I’d kill every single one of them. All I’m missing is a reason.”
“Only thing holding you back is Gossitch, huh?”
“Something like that.”
I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) Page 11