The Vile Village

by Craig Sargent

  Stone kept trying to keep his eyes open to make sure they weren’t taking him out back to shoot him or to just throw him down a well. In his condition he wouldn’t have been able to put up much resistance. But they weren’t out to get him, at least not tonight. For suddenly he was being helped into a well-lit bordello with chandeliers and purple carpets and curtains all over the place. He could hardly see what it was he was looking at beyond the bright colors, which filled his pupils like overtuned color controls on a TV set. Then Vorstel was saying good night, punching Stone in the arm so hard that it would hurt him for two days.

  Stone found himself led down the second-floor hallway to one of a number of rooms that lined both sides. Two Strathers underlings threw him down onto the plush bed inside, turned out the lantern, and left, nodding their heads back and forth in disgust that this scum was being treated so good by Vorstel. But he was one of their top bosses. Not one of them would dare question an order from the man, or from someone Vorstel considered to be a “friend.” They had all seen what the topman could do, and it wasn’t something they liked to think about.

  Chapter

  Twelve

  * * *

  Stone was asleep and in a drunken stupor by the time he hit the satin sheets of the featherbed. He slept hard through the night, sunken deep into the bed, his face mashed into the pillow. When he awoke, it seemed like he had only been out a second, but he had a headache the size of the Grand Canyon. Why had he drunk all that slime water last night? The sheer memory of it made him want to puke his guts out. Stone pulled his face out of the pillow, squeezed as flat as a pancake into the mattress, with the night’s drool covering its case. He turned over and tried to look around through the half-closed orbs that felt like someone had been frying eggs in them.

  He had a dim memory of purple rugs and drapes and, opening his eyes fully, saw that it was true. For the whole room was done up heavy-duty, as a bordello circa 1890s New Orleans. The room was lavishly overdone with materials of velvet and satin-colored deep purples, magentas, violets, and cherry-reds covering every wall, chair, bed, and window. A gilded mirror hung on the ceiling straight overhead, presumably for the occupants of the bed to witness their writhings in the post-video world. Stone got a good look at his rad-pimpled, stubbly, hung-over face, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight.

  Suddenly he remembered Excaliber. He had left the damn dog outside, guarding the Harley last night. The realization slammed into his already reeling skull like a sledgehammer pulverizing a piece of rock. Stone groaned and fell back down, wanting only to slide under the satin sheets and sink into sweet oblivion. Anything could have happened. The damn dog could be dead, the bike stolen. And it was all his fault for going into the Get Drunk and getting soused to the point of no return.

  “Fuck.” He cursed at the walls, gritting his teeth. He rose, and since he hadn’t taken a thing off when he was deposited on the bed, not even his boots, he didn’t have to put a thing on, either. Without even straightening his hair or flattening out a single one of the hundred rumples and creases on his clothes, he tumbled out of the bordello room like a wild man from the mountains who hadn’t yet been domesticated.

  Most of the early-morning staff hadn’t arrived yet, as it was only 6:48, so the place was nearly empty downstairs but for two old women who polished all the woodwork in the place, keeping it shining for the “gentlemen” customers. They looked at the savage-looking Stone and shuddered, looking away, wondering silently to themselves just how bad the place had gotten if it was taking in clients of such low repute. Perhaps they’d better start looking for jobs elsewhere. The Hot Vagina might not be the kind of place they wished to work anymore.

  Stone stumbled outside into the early-morning daylight. Just his luck, the sun was shining like it was about to nova, the air was brilliant, the light cutting down like a sheet of shimmering aluminum foil from every pore of the crystal sky. He had to walk along, holding his palm over his eyes, which only added to his bizarre appearance so that the few people walking the streets of Cotopaxi veered away from the madman who was praying from his eyeballs. Stone wasn’t even quite sure where he had left the damn bike or the damn dog. They had dragged him blocks from the bar. But at last a few things looked familiar. Then he saw the alleyway. Taking a deep gulp and holding his breath, for Stone was truly terrified that he’d find nothing, he walked to the alley entrance and turned, his stomach clenching up like a fist.

  The dog was there. It was all right. It was standing atop the Harley and staring straight ahead at the entrance of the alleyway like it was ready to kill any son of a bitch who even showed his face around the corner.

  “Uh—uh—sorry, dog,” Stone said, sidling forward, trying to lift his shoulders apologetically but finding that the shrug made his neck feel like a guillotine was being run through it. “Ran into some trouble, you know how it in” The pitbull didn’t say a word in return. Not a growl or whine or snarl. Nothing, And that got Stone more worried than he had been. For he had never seen the animal completely silent before. It stared at him with black, brooding, accusatory eyes the closer he got, giving him looks of, How could you, you slime-sucking pea-brained moron and I’m going to kick your ass when I feel like it. And other such canine expressions of high-level indignation.

  “Look, dog—okay, I fucked up. Give me a break. You fuck up, too, sometimes. Remember how you jumped off the fucking Harley and went after a whole pack of timber wolves? That was great. Now you conveniently forget about that.” The pitbull stared back at Stone, not giving an inch. That was history. “Okay, okay, look, I admit I fucked up,” Stone went on, seeing the merciless, unforgiving look in the animal’s eyes. At last it let out a little snort of contempt through its dry and hungry muzzle, which to Stone was an encouraging sign.

  “I know, I know, you didn’t eat all night, and dozens of assholes tried to come in here and steal the—” As he spoke, Stone saw something on the filthy alley ground that showed that someone had in fact tried to come in. A finger, a human finger, freshly bitten off, lay at the foot of the bike, still oozing a little rivulet of watery blood.

  He grinned at the dog, which refused to return such a look but stared only harder, as if trying to burn its canine anger into Stone’s soul. “All right, come on, Mr. Macho,” Stone said at last, seeing that he was dealing with a brick wall. He took out the chain leash that he had used a few times on the animal, quickly snapping it around the pitbull’s collar. The animal pulled at the thing with a whine and then bit at it with his jaws, but Stone pulled hard, full steam ahead, and the animal jumped down from the bike and quickly followed, trotting along at his heels.

  Stone led the dog back down the street, appearing even more demented than before, since he now had an equally odd-looking creature following right behind him. If this was what they were breeding up in the mountains, thought dozens of townspeople who were out to on their food and used-goods stores, someone should go up there and wipe the whole damn place out.

  Back at the Hot Vagina, Stone walked right up to the madam, an ancient thing with so much pancake makeup and red rouge on her face that she looked like something a child had colored in a coloring book.

  “I want a steak,” Stone said. “A steak for me, and a steak for my dog here. Make that two steaks for my dog, and eggs too. Right up, okay? And two glasses of stout or beer, but none of that green or brown stuff I had last night.”

  “Breakfast for two.” The madam smiled without batting one of her four-inch-long eyelashes. “And will the two of you be needing any female companionship?” she asked, looking first at Stone and then at his dog.

  “We’re into steak and eggs, sugar.” Stone grinned as he suddenly saw himself in the gold-edged mirror and realized what a pig he looked like. Back upstairs, he found that the plush room had a real bathroom with—amazement of amazements—a bath with running warm water. Stone had no idea how they did it, but he didn’t ask. He took off his things while the pitbull sniffed around the perfumed chairs and couches of
the main room, his nose going wild with the thick, overlapping smells.

  Stone washed all the slime and the last coating of medicine off him, not to mention the blood he had splattered on his hands the night before when he had taken out Pins. Afterward, dried off, his hair combed back, he looked at least like he belonged to the human race, if not one of its outstanding members. The food came just as he had slipped his boots on, and Stone and the dog gobbled up the steaming chow like there was no tomorrow. The animal took half its plate down in one immense bite, turned its brown-and-white head to the right, where it drank its glass of foaming, homebottled beer with one big slurp, spilling half of it over onto the floor. Then it swung back to the dinner plate, a china-blue pattern around the edges, and lopped up what remained in a single wet snap of its tongue.

  Stone was hardly through his third forkful when the canine whined from across the floor, where its plate sat empty, and looked at Stone with an Is-this-it? kind of expression.

  “Forget it, dog, you can’t have a fucking single bite of mine. That’s right, not one bite. I know, you wished now you’d eaten that finger instead of spitting it out last night. But that’s how it is. Now, please, go meditate or something, I don’t need dog drool over my eggs.” The pitbull retreated, sulking to another smaller bed across the room where it jumped up onto the powder-blue satin covering and found itself a nice spot in one of the feather pillows, stomping it down here and there until it was just right for the shape of its body. It let out a deep sigh, then its head fell back and the big tongue lolled out of the right side of the furred face. It had been up all night guarding the bike, hadn’t slept a single moment. And it hadn’t been just one offending hand that it had had to snap at.

  Stone finished his breakfast, and his stomach actually began to settle down. He vowed never again to drink anything brown or green. Then he checked his weapons, making sure they were both loaded and in full working order. He had a feeling that his nine-to-five job as a hired killer was about to begin. Sure enough, there was a knock on the door, and Stone opened it to see one of the bearded underlings of the Strathers gang.

  “The brothers want to see you now. Pronto!” the man said, clicking his teeth in an obscene little sound. “Over at the Paradise Girls. You know where it is?”

  “Yeah,” Stone replied frostily. The man shut the door and was gone. He chained Excaliber’s chain leash to the railing of the brass bed that the dog was lying in like the King of Siam. Then he headed out, trying to close the door softly so as not to awaken the animal. He didn’t need any more accusing stares of desertion. On the way out, Stone stopped by the front desk and threw the madam a few silver dollars.

  “That’s for me and my dog for the next few days. Have another plate of steak and eggs—no beer—sent up in an hour or two. Oh, and this is very important, tell whoever brings it not to go inside but to just leave the food inside the door and then close it fast.”

  “Will do,” the madam said with a curt smile as she turned back to the ancient, yellowing romance magazine she had read over and over a hundred times so that its pages were covered with her fingerprints from makeup and lipstick. Stone kept expecting her to at least question some of his requests. But apparently a lot stranger things went on around here than a dog having breakfast.

  He made his way back to the main stretch of the town and to the headquarters of the Strathers clan. Stone could instantly see which was the place, as about a dozen of the lower echelon were set up outside a four-story building with a sandbagged machine-gun emplacement. It was all very official-looking, until Stone noticed that the guys had the ammunition belt inside the weapon upside down. He didn’t have the heart to tell them. Besides, someday soon they might just be firing the thing at him.

  When he gave his name at the barricade, he was quickly ushered in by a low-level slime whose low-sloped brow and hairy face and arms wouldn’t have been out of place about two million years ago when Zinjanthropus had roamed the world.

  “De brudders will see youse now,” the man said, trying to sound official, which was just about the most ridiculous sight Stone had ever seen, since the filthy fellow had dried snot and bones from last night’s alley-cat dinner all over his rabbit-fur vest. This particular group of rabbits looked somewhat the worse for wear what with bullet holes and bloodstains all over their pelts. Not that they were complaining.

  “Thank you so kindly,” Stone said politely, figuring it couldn’t hurt to make a few “friends” around here.

  “Ah, Mr. Preacher,” a voice said from inside a room. Stone walked in and saw three men seated side by side in large, plush armchairs—the Strathers brothers. And off to one side of them, chained to a wall, was a full-grown lion—mane, claws, teeth, and all.

  “Uh, hello,” Stone said, feeling like a whole swamp of frogs was stuck in his throat. “Nice lion you’ve got there.” He grinned and walked into the room, keeping a nice distance from the creature, which was eyeing him either hungrily or suspiciously.

  The Strathers brother nearest the beast, a smile on his thin face, reached down and stroked the animal along its golden mane. The predator closed its eyes and let out a roaring purr that sent goose bumps up Stone’s backbone. He headed quickly for the one seat they had left available, a similarly ornately carved armchair facing the three of them. Stone sat down in it, and once he saw that the lion was not about to leap at his face and rip it into sausage patties, he let his stomach loosen about a millionth of an inch. He turned toward the three brothers, who were staring at him, six sets of eyes burning through the brightly lit room with its row of windows, letting in golden streams of the morning sunlight.

  “So, Mr. Preacher Boy—what’s the fucking story?” the brother fondling the lion asked him. Stone made a quick take on the three to see just who the hell he was dealing with. Vorstel was on the right and he was smiling, at least it looked like he was. In the light of day his twisted, acid-burned face looked even more horrible than it had when he had drunk with the bastard the night before. The one in the middle was about a foot shorter than Vorstel—from the description Undertaker had given Stone of the three, this one was Rudolf—but the man was no less formidable, being about as wide as a table, with no neck and hardly a chin to speak of, either. Stone always tried to find his enemy’s most vulnerable spot so that when and if he had to, he’d know where to go. But he couldn’t find an Achilles’ heel on this one. The man looked like he had armor built over him—nothing had been left exposed, nothing open. Just rock-hard muscle and belts of ammunition that crisscrossed back and forth over his broad shoulders.

  The third brother, Jayson, was the smallest of the three, smaller than Stone himself, who at six-foot-one, was no slouch. But the man was thin, like a rail. Stone was sure he was a junkie, judging by the emaciated cheeks, the white lips, the thin smirk that junkies always had right after they’d just shot up. The brothers would sure as hell have access to it all. Stone saw something else, too, in the fraction of a second that he let his eyes sweep across them—that Jayson was looking back at him with something more than a killer’s curiosity.

  “My story is, as I’m sure Vorstel here told you,” Stone began, “that I’ve come here to make a name and some goddamn money for myself. And I’ve chosen your organization to do it. I could have picked those other bastards, you know. I mean, ultimately it don’t matter to me. But I heard good things about you guys. That you run a tight ship, that as long as things are kept in place, the money flows like water out a spring.” The three looked flattered as Stone again used the oldest trick in the book. Men will believe the most obvious lies about themselves if they are made to look good.

  They seemed to digest Stone’s words for a few moments, no one in the room saying a word. Stone had no way of knowing if they believed everything he was saying, or if they were about to launch Simba, Son of Tarzan, over there, right into his kidneys.

  “And just what makes you think you’re the man what can keep things in order here in our sweet little town of Coto
paxi,” Jayson asked him, taking out a dab of some powder in a perfumed silk handkerchief and sniffing it greedily into his inflamed nostrils. It was a bizarre mixture of men—the two huge Cro-Magnons on one side, the effete dandy dressed in a monogrammed red morning robe on the other, his legs up on the edge of his chair as if he were riding sidesaddle.

  Stone smiled grimly. “I just know. That’s all.” He let his eyes fall on each one of them for a few moments, to let them feel his will and to let them know that he wasn’t bullshitting, that he had killed men and could do it again.

  Suddenly he saw a flutter of motion from Jayson’s handkerchief and then felt a sudden rush of energy from behind him like something attacking. Stone instinctively leaned forward, crouching fast, and the assailant behind him, already striking with a baseball bat, fell forward so that he tumbled over Stone’s head, and the bat cracked down on the floor in front of the chair. Stone was up in a flash, grabbing the hand with the bat and at the same time placing his right foot down on the slime’s neck, locking the man so that he was completely immobilized. Stone pulled up hard on the arm, and the man let out a howl of pain. Stone raised up the bat with his free hand, ready to let the sucker’s head feel what a home run felt like, when a voice yelled out.

  “That’s enough, Preacher, you don’t have to kill him.” It was Jayson, retrieving his handkerchief from the floor. “It was just a test, man. Just a test. All done in a spirit of friendly paranoia.”

  “Just a test, my ass.” Stone snarled angrily. “My brains would have been all over the fucking carpet if Junior hadn’t struck out there.”

  “If he’d hit you, Mr. Preacher Boy, then you wouldn’t be the one we want, now would you?” Jayson asked with a mocking, effeminate tone in his voice as he tilted his head and looked coyly at Stone. Stone let the attacker up, and the gang member ran from the room, a look of confusion on his face at the speed with which Stone had moved.