I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1)

by Tony Monchinski

  “You already questioned the psycho,” Sully announced none too delicately. Bowie saw the look that crossed Damian’s face.

  “Yeah, I’m talking about you, kook.” Bowie was reminded why Gossitch had left Boone outside by the car.

  “Sully.” Spasso said it firmly. “Go.”

  The gangster walked off towards the cage. “I apologize, Damian,” said Johnny. “We’re on the cusp of the twenty-first century, but old prejudices persist.”

  “Yeah” was all the bartender said.

  Bowie knew Gossitch had some questions he’d like to ask Damian about Jay and Tatianna, but he also knew Damian wasn’t going to answer them with Spasso around, much less after being insulted by Sully.

  Damian yelled across the room at a patron, “Hey! Take that out of your mouth! None of that in here!”

  “Damian tell you anything we can act on?” Spasso asked Gossitch. “He’s reluctant to talk to my kind. Understandably.”

  “He was about to tell me where we might find a suitcase pimp.”

  Spasso looked intrigued and turned to Damian. “Do tell.”

  Danny the Pony Boy passed back through the room with a different woman on his back. Bowie thought about how his mom would be turning sixty in a couple of years. Maybe he’d throw her a big party, rent out the VFW hall, hire Danny to give his mom and Sarafina and all their friends rides. Bowie wondered if Danny could carry his mother.

  “I don’t know Gossitch,” the bartender was saying, suddenly guarded.

  “Johnny,” Gossitch shifted his eyes back towards the exit.

  “We’ll wait outside for you guys,” said Spasso, then called out to Sully.

  “Hey, Johnny,” Bowie heard Sully say around his toothpick as the gangsters walked off. “Those women on the couches look suspicious to you?”

  Damian waited until they were out of earshot. “Gossitch, you, Bowie here, your guys, I got respect for. Spasso, well, he never done me wrong, but the company he keeps? It does nothing to endear me to him, understand?”

  “I do,” Gossitch assured the other. “You tell me where we can find Duffy, I’ll promise you this. We find Tatianna first, we’ll let you know where she is. You can call Emmanuela or whoever and collect, okay?”

  “What if Spasso and his guy find her first? I’m collecting shit then.”

  “We ain’t gonna let that happen,” Bowie spoke up. “Those guys find her, find Jay with her, they’ll probably both disappear. Forever.”

  “We’re not gonna let that happen to one of our own,” continued Gossitch. “Jay’s our guy. The girl? I could care less. You turn her over to the others, get what you got coming to you.”

  “Okay, Gossitch.” Damian gave them an address uptown.

  “Appreciate it, Damian.” Gossitch gestured to Bowie, who peeled five fifties off his cash roll and laid them on the bar.

  “Hey. Now that’s nice.”

  “You seen that guy shoot his load like that?” Hamilton walked back over to Gossitch and Bowie. “She wasn’t even touching him.”

  “Ham, me and Bowie are going to take a ride with Johnny. You want us to drop you and Boone off somewhere?”

  “Nah, I’ll chill here for awhile,” said Hamilton. “Peace.”

  Hamilton took Bowie’s place against the bar and listened to Damian complain. “These preppy assholes are going to get us shut down by the state.” He shouted across the room again. “Hey, asshole! How many times I have to tell you—not in your mouth!” He pointed the guy out to Young Big Mike, who was sidling through the room.

  “Damian,” asked Hamilton. “What’s my friend Jay got himself into?”

  “He’s in over his head.” Damian said it matter-of-fact.

  “Tatianna?”

  The bartender nodded.

  “I gotta find him.”

  “Find her,” offered Damian, “you’ll find him.”

  “What does she want from him?”

  “Who knows. Companionship?”

  “Is she using him?”

  “Her type ain’t like that.” The way Damian said it sounded like he spoke from authority. “It’s not like when one of the vampires looks at you and can get you to do whatever it wants. If he’s in her service, he entered voluntarily.”

  Hamilton thought about that.

  “What can I do?”

  “Find him, find her.” Damian shrugged. “You get your friend, get him away from her. You get her, let me know where. Like I was telling your man, Gossitch, before, there’s other interested parties in this lady.”

  “Is she dangerous?” Hamilton wanted to know.

  “Only if you wrong her. Oh, and, listen, Ham. I didn’t get a chance to tell Gossitch before the goon squad arrived, but there was a vamp in here asking about your crew last night too.”

  “A vamp?” There was concern in Hamilton’s voice. “You sure?”

  “Ham, look at me,” something sparkled in Damian’s eyes. “I’m sure.”

  “What’d it want to know?”

  “Wanted to know if Gossitch’s crew was still active around here.”

  “What’d you tell it?”

  “I told it I never heard of anyone named Gossitch.”

  “You think it believed you?”

  “Nah.”

  “Okay. Well, thanks Damian. Hey, you got a pay phone in here?”

  “Other room, by the pillory.”

  Hamilton thanked him again and left the bar.

  Damian thought about the thing that had come around asking questions last night. It had called itself Enfermo, said it like he would know what it was, like he should have heard of it before. Enfermo. Sick, diseased. Thing looked it too. Maybe it hadn’t fed in awhile.

  Something he hadn’t told Hamilton, the thing had come with a lot of cash in hand, a lot of cash that was now in Damian’s bank account. A lot more than Gossitch and Bowie and their five fifties. Damian had lied to Hamilton. Sure, he’d told the vampire, he’d heard of Gossitch and his crew. He’d told Enfermo a few things he knew, it had handed him the money and left.

  Damian wasn’t sure why the creature had been asking. He didn’t know for a fact what its intentions were. Far as he saw it, no harm, no foul. Anyway, Damian felt that by mentioning it to Hamilton, he was giving Gossitch and his guys a heads up. It was out of his hands now.

  37.

  11:34 P.M.

  “I hate that fucker Sully,” Boone growled in the car with Bowie and Gossitch.

  “I don’t think he likes you either,” said Bowie. “Hey Boone, let me ask you this, who do you like?”

  “Gossitch is okay. And you still ain’t on my shit list.”

  “We need you, I’ll page you,” Gossitch said to Boone as Bowie pulled the Audi over to the curb. Boone struggled to get out of the backseat. He thumped his palm on the top of the sedan and walked off to the subway entrance.

  Bowie checked his rear view and pulled away from the curb. He looked in his rear view. Johnny Spasso and Sully were behind them in Spasso’s ruby red Mitsubishi Eclipse.

  “Hey, Gossitch, let me ask you a question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Is it true Spasso’s gay?”

  “That I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him.”

  “Because he might shoot me.” There was little traffic and Bowie gunned the Audi. Spasso’s Mitsubishi followed him easily.

  “How about Damian—remind me what’s up with that cat?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Gossitch.

  “Is he some type of demon or what? He’s got that look in his eye.”

  “Damian’s heavily medicated. That’s crazy eye.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Gossitch unclipped his pager and looked at it. “It’s Hamilton.”

  “Want me to pull over at a pay phone?”

  “Nah. Later. Let’s see what’s on the radio.”

  Gossitch hit the power knob on the Audi’s sound system. Monster Magnet was singing “Space Lord mother mother...” Gossitch hit the
scan button and the numbers on the digital readout flickered to the next station. “Get at me dawg.” DMX was barking. The radio scanned to the next station. “This is Armand DeMile and the Positive Mind here on WBAI, 99.5 on your FM dial, and my special guest today is—.” Haddaway plaintively asked “What is love?” on Z-100.

  “Nothing on the radio.” Gossitch hit the power button again.

  When they turned the corner to the block with the address Damian had given them, there were flashing lights, half a dozen police cruisers, and an ambulance.

  “Look at this, Frank.”

  “I’m seeing it.”

  Bowie pulled the Audi over at the curb and hit the alarm on his keychain as he and Gossitch got out of the car. Behind them, Johnny Spasso and Sully disgorged from the Mitsubishi.

  As they walked up to the scene Gossitch noted a woman crying hysterically in the back of the ambulance. She had a little poodle on her lap. The dog looked nervous and was licking her face. There were two sheets on the sidewalk, one larger than the other, the kind of sheets they put over bodies. Shards of glass littered the concrete.

  “Frank.”

  “Gritz. What happened to her?” he nodded towards the woman in the ambulance.

  “Guy took a dive out of his twentieth-floor apartment window.” The cup of coffee in the detective’s hand was steaming even in the muggy night air. “This lady’s out walking her dogs. Guy lands on one of the dogs. Splat.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Sully.

  “Another couple of feet,” Gritz looked up at the building above them, “we would have been consoling the dogs.”

  “I’m thinking I don’t need to guess who the jumper was.”

  “You’re right, Frank. It was that Duffy guy. I’m going up to look around. You and Johnny want to come along?”

  “Yeah.”

  38.

  11:51 P.M.

  The elevator dinged as the doors opened on the twentieth floor. Gossitch and Spasso followed the detective down the hallway to the door that was marked off with yellow crime scene tape. Neighbors in their robes and slippers were talking to police officers around the tape.

  “These are some high class digs,” noted Johnny Spasso. The dwelling was a luxury apartment, big with a lot of space. Sleek, black furniture with plenty of curves and stainless steel. Much of it was upended and scattered around the apartment. Stuffing from what looked like an outrageously priced Italian couch was strewn all over the place.

  There were a dozen official looking people working the apartment, marking things off and gathering evidence.

  Gossitch studied the depressions in the walls. Looked like someone had been battered into them repeatedly.

  “Pimp lived well off his girl,” Johnny surmised.

  “Sucking and fucking paid for this,” said Gritz. “You gotta love America. Maybe I’m in the wrong line of business.”

  One entire wall behind the upturned couch was taken up with a floor to ceiling window. A huge, jagged hole in the center of the window gaped out into the night air.

  “You see the feathers, right?” Spasso asked Gossitch, and yes he had, but Gossitch was more interested in the cigarette butts that littered the floor. He crouched down next to one that was marked off and considered it. A Moore.

  “I always thought of Moore’s as a woman’s cigarette,” Spasso said.

  “Only smoke Marlboros myself.” But Gossitch knew who smoked Moores. “Maybe Duffy’s?”

  “Yeah, could be.” The way Spasso said it, Gossitch knew he didn’t mean it.

  Gritz came over after speaking to another detective.

  “Neighbors said they heard a racket, sounded like World War Three in here. No one was brave enough to go down the hall and take a look. One old lady had her eye pressed to the peep hole in the door. Saw something she described as ‘a malevolent shadow’ pass her apartment.”

  “A malevolent shadow, huh?” Spasso smirked.

  The detective shrugged. “You got some educated people living here.”

  A few minutes later, Gossitch and Johnny walked out of the apartment to the elevator together. It took a minute for the elevator car to arrive and when it did they had to let some more emergency response personnel off before they could get on.

  Neither spoke until the elevator doors closed.

  “You think Bowie and Sully killed each other by now?” Spasso inquired.

  “Nah, Bowie knows how to get along. Now if it was Boone…”

  “The kid has a lot of anger in him, don’t he?”

  “You could say that. You find whoever—whatever did this, you’re gonna kill it?”

  “Someone’s got to answer, Frank.”

  Gossitch’s pager vibrated. When he and Johnny walked out onto the street he was squinting at it.

  “Who is it?” asked Bowie. Johnny walked off with Sully back to the Mitsubishi.

  “It’s Madison.” Gossitch had forgotten that Hamilton had paged him earlier. “Come on, let’s find a phone.”

  Friday

  28 August 1998

  39.

  12:47 A.M.

  Drip…drip…drip…

  When Gossitch regained consciousness, he realized he was bound and gagged. He couldn’t see and it took him a few seconds to realize he was blindfolded as well. He listened and thought he could hear labored breathing nearby. There was a muffled voice near him.

  “You wake.” A voice hissed in his ear and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The blindfold was ripped off and a hideous, disfigured visage glared into his eyes, inches from his own face. He recognized it immediately as the vampire from the trailer, the one Boone had burned.

  “Remember me?” The thing cackled and disappeared behind Gossitch.

  Gossitch steeled himself and forced himself to breath normally through the gag.

  The muffled voice next to him became recognizable as the gag and blindfold were removed from its owner.

  “You pansy fuckers,” Bowie spat. “Why don’t you let me up out of this chair. We’ll see how you play!”

  “We saw how you ‘play’ yesterday morning.” The scarred creature’s voice promised cruelty. “And we’ll play again, very soon.”

  The thing leaned around Bowie’s shoulder, its fetid breath on his face. Gossitch watched his man hold himself solid, not flinching. Bowie didn’t even wince when the thing flicked its tongue out and licked the man’s face.

  It pulled back and disappeared behind them, vowing ominously, “We’ll play my game.”

  They listened to its steps receding somewhere behind them.

  Gossitch took in his surroundings. He was in some vast, dark room, the only light that cast by torches that burned on the walls. His legs, torso and arms were secured to the chair he sat in. He pulled back against his bonds but they didn’t give an inch. His forearms were secured to the arm rests, though he could move his fingers. Little good that would do him.

  “Gossitch…where are we?” Madison’s voice was full of fear.

  Bowie was on his right and Madison was on his left.

  “Fuck these fucks, Maddy,” cursed Bowie. “Fuck ‘em all!”

  “What happened?” asked Madison.

  “We got a page from you.” Bowie answered because the gag was still secure in Gossitch’s mouth. “How’d they get you, Maddy?”

  “I got a call from Santa Anna, asked me to meet him…said it was about Boone.”

  Gossitch hung his head. Santa Anna.

  Somewhere in the shadows water dripped.

  “These ropes are so tight.” When Madison said it, Gossitch looked down at his own wrists and fingers. His hands were purpling, the blood cut off. He wiggled his fingers, light from an ensconced torch reflecting off his wedding band.

  “Man up, Maddy.” said Bowie. He was thinking about his mother. “You gotta be tough now, kid.”

  Bowie breathed out, a sigh of resignation. “We’re not alone, kid.”

  Others had filed into the room, standing back in the gloom
, hidden. Gossitch could feel them there.

  “Hey, Maddy. You smell that? Smells like a bunch of pussies to me.”

  As if on cue they stepped into the torchlight, nearly three dozen in all. Some of them, Gossitch saw, were obviously vampires, but the most were human, slaves. A good number of the slaves were armed with submachine guns. Looked like Uzis and their cousins, Ruger MP-9s. Gossitch knew the MP-9s had only hit the market a couple of years ago. He wondered where the vampires and their slaves got theirs.

  “Yeah, I was right,” said Bowie. “Look at this bunch of cunts.”

  “Make room for the master,” a voice in the dark hissed. Lein’s voice.

  Madison gasped as a tall, cloaked form stepped into the torchlight.

  “And look at the size of this one, Maddy…”

  Gossitch knew what it was as soon as it appeared. The vampire from the trailer. The one that somehow managed to walk around in the daytime.

  “Well, ain’t he an especially ugly looking motherfucker.” Bowie laughed. “But not as ugly as his little suntanned bitch over there. You should have heard him, Maddy, when he got stuck out the window. Real Wizard of Oz shit, Oh nooooo, I’m melting, I’m—”

  A chain dropped around Bowie’s throat and pulled his head back. Gossitch craned his neck and could see a woman in a leather trench coat and a nun’s wimple pulling back on the chain. The chain was attached to a sickle of some kind.

  Bowie sputtered and choked, his body straining against its bonds. The chairs were secured to the ground.

  Gossitch listened to Bowie being strangled and wondered why they had left his gag in place. What could he have said anyway?

  Images flashed through Bowie’s brain as it was starved of oxygen. His mother in her kitchen. Leroi on the window sill, swinging his tail. His brother, Billy, smiling, young and strong.

  “Enough.” The voice was authoritative and the bride immediately removed the chain from Bowie’s throat. Bowie leaned forward and gasped for breath, his face purple. The woman stepped around to where Bowie could see her.

  “Oh fuck honey.” His voice was hoarse. “Why’d you stop? I didn’t cum yet.”