“Heard of ‘em,” admitted Boone. “But don’t know shit about ‘em. Aren’t they some kind of harpy or some shit?”
“No, the harpies were ugly bird-women bitches, daughters of Electra and Thaumas. The harpies were the ones stole the food from Phineas’ buffet, shit on the rest and stuff so he couldn’t eat it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about, but okay.”
“The furies were chthonic goddesses, avengers Mojo. When Cronos cut his father Uranus’ dick off and threw it in the ocean, the furies emerged from the blood.”
“Crazy story.”
“Yeah,” the old man acceded. “There were at least three that Virgil wrote about. The one I think we should be talking about here is Tisiphone. Know what her name means?”
Boone shrugged.
“‘Avenging murder.’ How you like that? Other story holds Tisiphone and her sisters came out of Nyx, out of the night.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You don’t see where I’m going with this, do you?”
“Honestly? I have no clue old man.”
“You know what furies were supposed to look like?”
“Tell me.”
“Sometimes they would bleed from their eyes. Sometimes they wore black cloaks soaked in blood, wielded a whip made out of scorpions—”
“Scorpions? No shit…”
“—sometimes they had the body of a dog. Sometimes the wings of a bat or a bird.”
“Wings, huh?”
“Wings. Know what wings got?”
“Feathers.”
“Exactly. Other times, they looked like normal, good lookin’ women. Oh yeah, and sometimes they had snakes in their hair, real gorgon-like shit.”
“Great.”
“So what do you think?”
“What do I think?” Boone repeated the old man’s question. “Why, because some underground assholes have gotten themselves killed in the last coupla’ weeks and there were some feathers around? That’s gotta be furies—that what you sayin’?”
“Could be,” surmised the old man. “Then again, could not be too.”
“Right. Furies. That’s like, that’s like Greek myth shit is what that is.”
“Greek and Roman. That’s what that is.”
“Right.” Boone shook his head.
“Unbelievable?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Think about this world we live in Mojo,” the old man invited him. “You and me, we privy to things other people wouldn’t believe. Am I right about that?”
“Yeah, you right. But…let me ask you this. These furies, can they fly?”
“I’d think so,” the old man conjectured. “They got wings.”
“So how do you kill a fury?”
“That’s not one ‘a the questions you should be askin’.”
“Okay. What’re the questions I should be askin’.”
“There’s two. One, if this is a fury we’re talkin’ about, why she killin’? Who done her wrong, Mojo?”
“And we assume someone did her wrong because?”
“Because, like I said, there were three furies Virgil wrote about. Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera. Magaera all ‘bout envy and jealousy. Cheat on your wife, Magaera would come and get you. Alecto, she all on anger and castigation.”
“Castigation? I didn’t do so well on my SATs, Blind.”
“Castigation is punishment, boy, get it? And the punishment don’ just have to be physical, to the body, alright? It can be moral. But that’s not what I think we’s dealin’ wit’ here…”
Boone sat quietly, letting the older man say what he had to say.
“Now, Tisiphone, she all ‘bout punishing murder. In the myths, you kill, you deal with her.”
“Okay, Blind, let’s say maybe there’s something to what you’re sayin’, and you’re not just some old crazy fuck sittin’ in a park with a jacket on when its ninety degrees. Then why Tisiphone and not Alecto? You didn’t see what was done to those bodies…”
“Alecto is uncontrollable. She’s anger let loose, son. White rage. You can’t control blind rage. But Tisiphone, she got a purpose. She punishing specific individuals.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, find out what wrong was done to her, you’ll find out why she out there killin’.”
“I gotta be honest with ya’, Blind. I don’t give a fuck about understandin’ her motivation.”
“Then here’s somethin’ you should give a damn about boy. ‘member I said there were two questions you should concern your thick headed ass with? Well, why’s the Sisterhood lookin’ for her?”
Boone thought about it and nodded, “Yeah, why is that?”
“I’m a’ assume you never heard of Gaia?”
“The earth goddess?”
“Damn,” a begrudging smile spread on the old man’s face. “Just when I’m thinkin’ your ignorance is approaching new levels, you surprise me and make me rethink my assumptions.”
“Just cause I don’t know what castigation means don’t mean I’m completely stupid.”
“Gaia’s the earth mother, what we twentieth-century motherfuckas refer to as ‘mother nature’.”
“And the furies are Chthonic demons.” Boone spied a connection.
“‘Of the earth.’ Exactly. Now you gettin’ it.”
“What’s the Sisterhood want with an ancient demon?”
“I don’t have the answer to that question. But I don’t think they want to kill her.”
“Okay. I’ll bite. Why not?”
“I’m being straight with you here, boy. I don’t know. Only thing I can think is that Cronos is a son of Gaia, and the furies come about when Cronos—”
“—when Cronos castrated his father,” Boone finished the thought. “Yeah, you told me that. Blind, let me ask you this. Why’d Cronos cut off his father’s dick?”
“Because his mother asked him too. His mother asked all the titans—Cronos and his brothers—to do the deed. Hell, she made the sickle herself. But only Cronos stepped up.”
“Why’d Gaia want to maim her husband?”
“Uranus was a motherfucka,” the old man waved his hand dismissively. “He took her youngest children and hid them from her. That’s why.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“That’s exactly what that is.”
Boone’s pager vibrated and he unclipped it from his shorts, looked at it. Gossitch’s number.
“So, let’s say there’s any truth to what you’re sayin’ here,” he clipped the pager back in place. “What would you say I should do?”
“If I were you,” the old man leaned across the table towards Boone. “I’d get out of town for awhile. Let this shit play itself out. Tisiphone do her thing, get whoever she come to get, she’ll go away again.”
“If she’s a demon, how do I kill her?”
“You’re not hearin’ one word I’m sayin’, are you? You listen to me when I was divinin’ your cards? You don’t just kill a demon, Mojo. It’s not as simple as a silver bullet or cutting its head off. We’re talkin’ magic here son, sorcery and what not.”
“And what do you know about that?”
“Not enough of anything to tell you, son. But let me counsel you this: get out of the city for some. Head to the shore or somethin’. Trust me.”
“Why? Tisiphone or whoever—whatever—she doesn’t got it in for me.”
“Yeah, but you’re snooping ‘round now. Shit, the Sisterhood thought enough to come lookin’ to you and your crew, right?”
Boone thought about the women outside Raheem’s and in the club last night.
“I appreciate everything you do for me, Blin’” he told the old man.
“It ain’t nothing.”
“Nah, it is. That GH come in from China yet?”
“You gonna have to give me a few more days on that.”
“Sounds good.”
36.
10:45 P.M.
The Hellfire
Club was an S&M club located in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Bowie steered his A4 past the line of Harley’s outside of Hogs & Heffers and started looking for a suitable parking spot.
“There,” Boone said from the back seat.
Bowie pulled into the spot, next to a fire hydrant.
Gossitch pulled back the slide on his 9mm, chambering a live round. He put it back in its holster under his jacket and tapped the ash from his smoke out the window. “Boone. You wait here with the car.”
“Come on, Goose.” The mountain of muscle protested, too large for the compact executive car’s backseat. “Why do I always gotta wait with the car. I don’t even drive.”
“You want to go inside and say hi to the trannies and other deviates, Boone?” Bowie asked. He knew the answer. “Then man the fuck up and wait for us, huh?”
Man the fuck up, mouthed Boone.
“You hear shots, bring the cavalry,” said Gossitch. Bowie figured he was referring to the firepower in the trunk.
Bowie looked back at Boone as he and Gossitch walked away. The kid was leaning against the Audi’s hood, his massive arms folded across his chest. He didn’t look too thrilled to be left behind. Too bad.
Gossitch always seemed to have so much patience with Boone. Bowie didn’t and he didn’t see how Gossitch did. Bowie thought maybe he himself was just in a bad mood. He’d been popping Tylenol all day for the headache that had been with him ever since he woke up. Those fucks on his block. Had to draw down on them in broad daylight in the middle of the street like that.
There was a small line of people outside the entrance to the club. Hamilton waved as they came closer and greeted them. “The gang’s all here.”
“Except for two,” said Bowie, thinking of Madison and Jay, then Santa Anna. “Make that three.”
“What’s going on Gossitch?” asked Hamilton.
“You able to get in touch with Jay?”
“No.”
“We might have an issue here we have to deal with.” Gossitch dropped his cigarette and ground it out on the sidewalk. He coughed.
Young Big Mike was working the door.
“Ladies are free,” the bouncer told the yuppies trying to get in. “Fifty dollars for you gents. Pay inside.”
“I always get you and your cousin confused.” Gossitch smiled and the bouncer shook his hand.
“Cause we’re both so damn good looking, that it?”
“What, do you guys work at every club in the city?”
“Only the good ones, till the Generalissimo shuts ‘em all down.” Young Big Mike was referring to the city’s mayor. “You here early, Gossitch. Party don’t really start until after midnight. Madonna and her entourage come by last night.”
“Madonna, huh?” Bowie was impressed. If he had seen her maybe he would have asked her for an autograph. For his ma. She loved Madonna. Especially La Isla Bonita.
“Now’s as good a time as any for what we need,” said Gossitch. “Where’s Damian?”
“Inside,” answered Young Big Mike. “Check the bar.”
Bowie followed Gossitch and Hamilton followed Bowie.
Gossitch stopped at the counter and paid for the three men.
“Any of you guys want to check your clothes?”
“He might.” Bowie nodded back towards Hamilton.
Bowie had been in this club before. It used to be called the Vault. Name changed a few years before, he didn’t remember when. Same kind of clientele. The bondage and discipline, sadism and masochism crowd. Good number of tourists. Always a lot of guys, fewer women.
As they moved through the club, Bowie noted the dungeon-motif was still going strong. They moved through a series of interconnected rooms, some smaller than others. Techno music blared out of speakers in some, hurting his head. Other rooms were quiet enough to hear the voices of people in conversation. The lighting was low in most.
They passed a few couches and Bowie thought of a story he had heard. One night, Hamilton, Madison, Jay, and Boone had come to the club and hooked up with what they thought were some chicks on these very couches. Penetration had been banned with the AIDs plague, but mutual masturbation was still allowed. The boys were going at it hot and heavy with the ladies, getting their dicks pulled when—the story went—Maddy reached down between the legs of his broad and found she had a bigger dick then he did.
That had ended the make out session for Maddy, Jay, and Ham. Boone had let the tranny he was with finish him and then he’d joined the others at one of the pool table upstairs. Or at least that’s what Maddy, Jay, and Ham had said.
Bowie looked over his shoulder at Hamilton. If the guy was thinking about that episode it wasn’t registering on his face.
The room they ended up in was larger and better lit than the others they had passed through getting to it. There was a lot of action going down in this room. A man and an Asian woman were making out in a cage in one corner of the room. A bunch of guys stood around the cage, watching. Most were jerking off. A man with an enormous gut and a small, erect penis was flat on his back on a wooden platform raised off the floor. His woman, heavyset like he was and decked out in dominatrix leather, was hitting him with a cat-o-nine-tails. Each time they struck and brought temporary red welts to his skin the fat guy shuddered like he was feeling the best thing in the world.
Bowie couldn’t imagine.
“Well, I know this isn’t a social call.” Like Bowie, Damian was a tall, broad shouldered man. He had a lot of blonde hair on his head, looked like a surfer transplant. He wore an official black STAFF t-shirt and the meaty arms poking out of the short sleeves were covered with tattoos from the wrist up.
“Damian.” Gossitch got along good with all sorts. “How you been?”
Bowie knew something was up with Damian. There was a sparkle in his eye, gave it away if you knew what to look for. A demon? Fairy? Bowie always forgot exactly what. Definitely not a vamp.
“Been worse.”
Bowie leaned against the bar, hands in his Tommy jeans casual-like. He’d let Gossitch do the talking, look around, see the sites. A man led another man past on a spiked dog collar. Hamilton had wandered over to watch the woman whip her husband.
Bowie listened to Gossitch and Damian make small talk about Giuliani and his ban on sex video shops. Those kids he’d confronted hadn’t come back to the corner all day. He didn’t think they would, ever again. It would be bad for them if they did.
There was a small group of leggy blondes and brunettes. Bowie thought they looked like fashion-models.
Gossitch asked Damian, “You hear anything about a porn director named Savage getting himself killed?”
“Course I heard about it. Bad news travels fast in this city.”
“What’d you hear?”
“Heard it was a slaughterhouse. Heard they were identifying people by their teeth.”
“You hear Stephanie Swallows was there?”
Damian looked genuinely surprised and saddened. “Now that I didn’t know.” He sighed. “Steph was a good kid, Gossitch. Came out here from the Midwest a couple years back. She’d come around here on weekends with clients.”
“Clients?” asked Gossitch. “She was a working girl?”
“Started out as. First blowjobs at the Port Authority and tunnel. Met her man, she graduated to dancing at the clubs and high price escorts.”
“Her man Duffy?”
“Yeah, that’s him. You’re pretty well informed Frank.”
Two of the leggy models came over to the bar. Bowie shifted over a step, making some room for them but not enough to give them their space.
“Hey, are you Naomi Campbell?” he asked the black one. He thought his mother might like this one.
“Know where I can find him?” Gossitch asked Damian. The bar tender was fixing the women their seltzers. The club didn’t sell alcohol but you could bring in your own bottle.
“He wasn’t at the scene? Thanks ladies.”
“If he was they haven’t I.D.’
d him yet,” said Gossitch. “If they had, I would have heard about it.”
Bowie watched Danny the Pony Boy come gamboling by, a woman in the saddle on his back. Her bachelorette friends followed in their wake.
“Yeah, I know where you might be able to find him, Gossitch. Duffy never was too smart. But it’s gonna cost you.”
“What kind of price are we talking about here, Damian?”
“See, when you walked in here, I thought you were here to ask me about your boy—what’s his name, Jay?”
Bowie perked an ear up, leaning back on the bar. The woman whipped her husband and he spontaneously ejaculated a foot into the air. Somebody clapped.
Gossitch had nodded so Damian continued. “I thought you were coming in here to ask me about Jay and Tatianna.”
“Yeah, I was.”
“Uh-huh. Well, that wouldn’t have made you the first ones. Had some ladies came by last night inquiring.”
“Ladies by the name of Emmanuela, Daniella, and Isabella? The Sisterhood?”
“That who they told you they are, the Sisterhood?” Damian considered it. “Well, listen, they want to find Tatianna too. And they’re willing to pay for information that leads to wherever it is she is.”
“Pay what? A bounty?”
“They don’t want to hurt her Gossitch. They want to keep her from being harmed.”
Gossitch and Damian stopped their conversation long enough for the latter to fix an old naked man a drink.
Bowie wondered about Jay’s woman. Gossitch had told him about the murder scene. If she’d been involved, much less responsible, who could hurt her? Hurt her how?
“Who would want to hurt her?” asked Gossitch.
Looking across the room, Damian said, “These guys here.”
Johnny Spasso and Sully walked across the room to the bar. Johnny wore his microfiber raincoat and Sully chewed on a toothpick.
Gossitch and Spasso greeted one another by their first names. Sully nodded towards Bowie and Bowie returned the gesture.
“Our paths been crossing often these days, Johnny.”
“An auspicious sign, Frank?”
“Too early to tell.” Gossitch smiled.
I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) Page 16