"My name is Nathaniel Corners. That over there's my associate, Miss Negrita Marcos."
“Negrita?” Pabo said. “Que tu quiere, mama?”
Negrita bowed smoothly from the hips and answered him in Spanish. Her voice was heavy, dusky, like her skin.
“She said they come a long way to meet you, boss,” Pabo said.
Negrita smiled. Her teeth were very, very white.
"You are Lenny Ravanaugh,” Corners said. “But on the street they call you Highball."
“Lenny,” Lil’ Knot snorted. Corners laughed. Ravanaugh’s gut tightened and his mouth went dry. That’s not a man standing there, he thought. Nothing like a man and you know it, don’t you?
"Hey, Ravanaugh. What's happenin'?"
Ravanaugh turned to see Danny rising to his feet. The male twin looked like he’d been drinking cat piss in a fallout shelter for the last three months.
"Who the fuck is this clown?" he said.
Corners stopped chuckling. His smile winked out of existence: There was no gradual relaxing of facial muscles. It was simply there one moment and gone the next.
"I don't cotton to that kind of talk," Corners said.
Danny shrugged and pulled up his shorts.
“Let me gank this asshole, Naugh,” Rook said.
He lifted his Glock and aimed it at Corners. Lil’ Knot and Pabo followed suit.
“Chill,” Ravanaugh said. “Let’s hear the man out.”
“Yo, this is bullshit,” Danny said. I don’t have to listen to this asshole.”
Corners turned toward Danny and said: “You call me outta my name one more time, sonny-jim, and you’re gonna call down the thunder.”
Danny lifted his middle finger.
"Fuck. You. Asshole."
“Wait...” Ravanaugh said.
Corners’ right arm moved. Something flicked past Ravanaugh’s left ear. Then Danny’s hands flew up and fluttered against his face like startled doves.
“Get it off get it off get off me!” he screamed.
Blood splashed down the fronts of Danny’s arms, streaked his white skin with slashes of red; gouts of flesh flew from between his clenched fists. He screamed and fell to the floor.
“What’s happening?” White Bitch squeaked. “Danny?”
Danny arched and bucked on the floor, his head and heels drumming on bare cement where the linoleum had worn through. Then he lay still. A single robin’s egg blue eye glared at Ravanaugh through a mask of blood. The other half of Danny’s face was a gaping red crater.
“Son of a bitch,” Rook whispered.
Then something climbed out of Danny’s eye socket. It was the size and shape of a hockey puck. A dozen black spider’s legs extended out of the thing. It rose up on those perfect black legs, skittered up Danny’s forehead and settled on the crown of his skull.
Two legs scooped out a chunk of Danny’s eye socket and smeared it into a pink slit along the top of the hockey puck. Ravanaugh saw a tiny black tongue slide out of the slit and lap up the red glob.
“Bullshit,” Ravanaugh said.
Pabo and Lil’ Knot scrambled past the woman in red and fled down the hallway. Rook lifted his Glock.
Negrita moved. Ravanaugh was still staring at the empty doorway before he realized she was gone. He spun; Negrita was standing behind Rook. She grabbed his right arm and wrenched it up behind his back. Then she grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, bent him forward and yanked his arm over his head, lifting him up onto his toes.
“Let me go, you crazy bitch!” Rook said.
“Oooh,” Negrita purred. “Talk dirty to me, pusher man.”
Then she broke his arm. Crack! And Rook screamed and dropped his gun.
Negrita drew back her fist and punched Rook in the back of the head. The front of his face pooched outward from the blow. Hydrostatic pressure did the rest. Rook’s forehead exploded and spattered the floor with thirty-five years’ worth of bad news.
“Danny?” White Bitch screamed. “I can’t breathe!”
Over in the corner, Mosquito had slipped into a diabetic coma. White Bitch was stuck.
Corners seemed intent on enjoying Negrita’s display. His laughter sliced the air like ravens’ wings.
“Now that’s what I call black comedy,” he said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Ravanaugh?”
Lil’ Knot and Pabo were gone, but Ravanaugh knew they would have to pass two dozen killers on their way down to the street. He congratulated himself on having had the foresight to murder all the local gang leaders; it had made hiring their homeboys that much simpler. Ravanaugh could almost hear his kill squad thundering toward them. Money well spent, he thought. Any second now.
Even with Death staring him in the face, Ravanaugh remained a businessman. Life and Death were his business and there was always another angle to exploit.
“What’s next?” he said.
Corners turned, one eyebrow raised.
“How’s that?”
Ravanaugh shrugged.
“Since I’m still suckin’ wind I figure y’all must want something. Let’s conversate.”
Negrita draped her arm across his shoulders.
“We want information,” she said.
Ravanaugh’s nose crinkled. Negrita smelled of perfume, something fruity, like the stuff his more upscale call girls used before meeting a date. Beneath the perfume however, lurked another smell, something that reminded Ravanaugh of fresh roadkill on a hot summer day.
“What kind of - of information?” he said.
Corners strode over to where Goat lay unconscious on the floor. He bent down, his brow furrowed, and shook his head. Then he whistled.
The hockey puck that killed Danny Wahlberg rolled across the floor, leaving a trail of blood. The Death Puck stopped at Goat’s high top sneakers. Then it climbed up Corners’ leg and disappeared into his pocket.
Corners bent over and examined the Goat. He pulled a Smith & Wesson Model 19 Combat Magnum out of a holster on his left hip, thumbed back the hammer, and placed the barrel against Goat’s forehead. “This one’s done,” he said. Then he pulled the trigger. The blast drowned out Ravanaugh’s roar of outrage.
“Names,” Corners said.
“You’re crazy, motherfucker!“
“Ah ah ah,” Negrita said. “Profanity is the last refuge of the weak-minded.”
“Fuck you, bitch!”
Corners stepped over Goat’s body.
“I warned you,” he said.
Then he ripped Ravanaugh’s ear off.
Ravanaugh screamed; blood jumped out of his head and spattered the right shoulder of his new Armani running suit. He fell to his knees, stomach heaving as bile burned a fireline up the back of his throat. Help me, he thought. Where are they?
Negrita picked up his ear and pocketed it. Then she slid a long-bladed dagger from a sheath on her ankle and started doing things to the three corpses. Ravanaugh gagged.
Corners leaned down and spoke softly.
“Let me make it plain for you, sonny-jim,” he said.
He grabbed Ravanaugh’s right wrist, raised his hand to eye level and grabbed his index finger.
“You will provide the names and phone numbers of every dealer, every runner, every contact you currently employ.”
Ravanaugh’s eyes widened.
“You must be outta your goddamned…“
POP
Ravanaugh snarled and bit back his scream. Corners released the finger he’d broken and grabbed its neighbor.
“You will provide this information, or I’ll call Nat Jr. out to play, and believe me, Nat Jr.’s gonna do more than pop a few knuckles, right son?”
The Death puck climbed up onto Corners’ shoulder and shrieked. Nat Jr. sounded like a monkey with a throat full of razor blades. Something warm and wet landed on Ravanaugh’s forehead and settled over his left eye. Half blind, Ravanaugh broke.
“Please,” he said. “Get it off me.”
“Nat Jr. likes you,” Corners said. “F
indin’ the right playmate for your pups is so important these days.”
Nat Jr. stroked Ravanaugh’s left eyelid with one of his legs. Ravanaugh began to cry.
“In - in my briefcase,” he said. “My - my phone. It’s got all the names and numbers on it.”
Negrita retrieved the briefcase and opened it. Inside lay twelve thousand dollars worth of powder and rock cocaine, along with two handguns and three wireless phones.
“Easy peezy,” Negrita said.
She put the items she’d harvested from the two dead men, along with Ravanaugh’s ear, in the briefcase. Danny’s blue eyeball winked at Ravanaugh before Negrita shut the lid.
“Witch’s brew,” she hummed.
Ravanaugh looked up at Corners.
“P - please don’t kill me.”
“Alright,” Corners said.
He stepped back. Then Negrita yanked Ravanaugh’s head back and sliced his jugular. Ravanaugh clutched at his throat, trying to staunch the blood gushing between his fingers.
“Somebody…help…” he sputtered.
Then he dropped.
The strangers stood in the center of the room with their eyes closed. Outside, a passing pigeon blew apart in a Technicolor burp-blast of blood and feathers.
Corners moved first.
“Okay then,” he said.
Negrita said, “Had enough?”
Nat Jr. shrieked, curled itself into a ball and slipped back into Corners’ pocket.
“Not quite done,” Corners said. “But we should move on.”
Corners strode out into the hallway and headed toward the elevator. Negrita hefted the briefcase, but a flicker of motion caught her eye. She whirled, knife in hand.
A smile lit up Negrita’s supermodel face.
“Oh ho,” she grinned. “What have we here?”
The woman in red glided across the room to where White Bitch peered out from beneath her fleshy prison.
Negrita chuckled. “You look like you’re wearing a babushka made out of chocolate- covered chitlin’s.”
She kicked Mosquito in the ribs. Her boot disappeared up to the ankle in a gelatinous fold near his armpit.
“What…the…hell?” Mosquito grunted.
Negrita leaned down and sniffed.
“Diabetic,” she said. “Asshole.”
Then she jammed her knife into Mosquito’s right ear. Mosquito shuddered and vomited all over White Bitch. Negrita grimaced and rolled him off of the girl.
“Hello, treasure,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“White…“ White Bitch shook her head and cleared her throat, “I mean…Carrie-Ellen Wahlberg, ma’am.”
Negrita stooped and helped Carrie-Ellen stand up.
“Let’s get you out of here, honey,” she said.
“My - my brother,” Carrie-Ellen said.
“Dead, I’m afraid,” Negrita said, “Best not to look.”
Carrie-Ellen accepted the bad news as gracefully as a woman wearing a body fluid cocktail dress can.
“Fuck this,” she said.
“Language, dear,” Negrita said.
Corners was waiting at the elevator.
“Look what I found, partner,” Negrita sang.
Corners smiled. The elevator doors slid open.
“Whoa,” Corners said.
The shaft was empty. No elevator waited beyond the doors. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator glared at Corners, emblazoned in silver and red on the back wall of the shaft. A lightless abyss stretched away beneath his feet.
“Pity the children,” Corners said.
A volley of curses erupted from apartment 1646.
“Better hurry,” Negrita said.
“What are we gonna do?” Carrie-Ellen said.
Corners extended his right hand.
“Trust me, baby doll?”
Carrie-Ellen nodded. She placed her small pink hand in Corners’ big brown one. Then Corners whipped her around and threw her into the elevator shaft. Carrie-Ellen bounced off the back wall and fell screaming into the darkness.
“Now I’m done,” Corners said.
From around the corner, the sounds of a posse filled the hallway. Corners extended his left hand.
“Shall we, milady?”
Negrita gripped the briefcase in her left hand and gave Corners her right. Together, they stepped into the elevator shaft and went up, Corners’ duster flapping behind him like wings in the darkness.
They held hands as they rose.
DORMANT
White noise filled Hopkins’ head.
Twenty-four hours.
“Mr. Hopkins? Can you hear me?”
Twenty-four hours to live.
Hopkins shook the white noise out of his
head.
“What did you say?” he said.
The doctor, a young Pakistani with long
eyelashes, nodded with practiced sympathy, as if he’d delivered the same report too many times to count.
“The organism inside your body is commonly known as an extraterrestrial bipedatropic microcarnivore; EBM for short. You’ve seen the recent headlines?”
Hopkins nodded. Who hadn’t seen the ghastly images? Millions of human beings, their bodies writhing as the ‘space worms’ gnawed through their hosts’ bowels.
“I read somewhere that some hosts have been able to stun the worms using hypersonics,” Hopkins said.
“Ahh yes,” the doctor said. “Hypersonics have proven effective in crippling the EBM’s sensory apparatus: the fine network of tentacles located at both ends of the organism. The worm dies and can be removed from the intestinal tract by a simple surgical procedure.”
“Yes!” Hopkins shouted.
The doctor flashed his sympathetic smile again.
Michael Boatman
“However, I’m afraid Accounting has informed me that you simply cannot afford the treatment.”
Hopkins sat, stunned. The doctor glanced at his watch.
“There are a number of excellent pain relievers on the black market, Mr. Hopkins,” he said. “I’d recommend that you secure one. I would do it very quickly.”
Outside, a city bus lay on its side in the center of the intersection. As Hopkins emerged from the clinic he saw a crowd of people clustered around the front end. Through the swaying forest of bodies, Hopkins could see a man writhing on the cement.
The writhing man was tall and blonde, wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt, khaki shorts and sandals: probably one of the wealthy European tourists who haunted Times Square searching for cheap metadrugs.
Someone in the crowd screamed, and the watchers broke apart like minnows fleeing a Tiger Shark. The European twisted in a spreading pool of blood as his worm chewed its way out. The EBM had become disoriented. One end had eaten through most of the European’s lower face; squirming black proboscis whipped and wriggled where the European’s mouth nose and eyes should have been.
The worm opened the mouth at its anterior end and uttered a gibbering metallic shriek. It bared a gleaming mouthful of razor sharp teeth and wrapped its blind head around the front bumper of the bus, struggling to pull itself from its host, even as the posterior end pushed its way out of the European’s anus. It shrieked as it thrashed, twisting
God Laughs When You Die
in a gush of red/brown matter as the European’s head and heels drummed against the hot concrete.
Hopkins turned away from the crowd and began to walk. He chose no particular direction. At his first sight of the European’s worm the EBM in his guts had begun to squirm. Hopkins walked. But as the twisting ache began in his stomach, he began to run.
THE UGLY TRUTH
“I can’t tell who’s uglier, the man or the pig.”
Molo Kananda glanced up at the tall, mahogany skinned noblewoman. Her white even teeth bared in a snarl of distaste. She shone in the crimson glow of the setting sun. With the gold that encircled her long neck, she could have bought Molo outright.
A servant whisked the tall wo
man away and escorted her into the great silken wedding pavilion. Molo laid his hand on Juba’s massive flank.
“Easy, boy,” he crooned. “Easy.”
Molo Kananda came from a long line of ugly people. No one even remotely pleasant looking had ever allowed a single molecule of DNA to come near Molo's unlovely ancestors.
This genetic social deathblow had become painfully obvious when upon Molo's birth, his own mother flung up her hands and cried, "Pluck out mine eyes! Seal up my womb for all eternity! Spay me lest I bring forth monsters!"
It was said - mostly by the old men who drink berry wine in the Shanzi Lodges of Ghoval after long days of running antelope and fighting werepanthers
- that Molo Pigsplitter had "fallen face first out of the world's tallest Ugly Tree and struck every branch on the way down."
But Molo had no way of knowing these things. He’d inherited the nickname ‘Pigsplitter’ through no fault of his own; having been abandoned, still steaming from his mother’s womb, upon the doorstep of the Goa. When the strangely quiet newborn had been brought before Master Kani, the bladeseer of Ghoval’s mysterious school for bladed combat, the headmaster had studied his features intently. Affixed to the infant’s blanket was a note bearing a simple message: Ward this child as I cannot. He bears a gift more precious than beauty.
The signature adorning the letter belonged to Dogen Maseni, the greatest sorcerer in all of Unan.
When Master Kani dispatched runners to Maseni’s palace at the northern end of Ghoval, however, they’d found it abandoned, with no sign that it had ever been the home of the nation’s mightiest mage.
Dogen Maseni was never seen again.
Molo was the son of N’tosi, Maseni’s housekeeper; a woman whose personal unattractiveness had once stopped a rampaging rhinophant dead in its tracks. Some whispered that Dogen Maseni (who had shattered more than a few mirrors himself) had fathered Molo on N’tosi before departing the mortal world for realms unknown. The truth, alas, was never known. N’tosi (whose name in the High Speech of Ghoval translates roughly as ‘Near-sighted Dung Bride’) died days after Molo’s birth.
Noting the infant’s protruding brow and yielding chin (a sure sign of ignoble lineage in the beauty obsessed culture of Unan’s capitol city) Master Kani had given him into the care of the sook i-makopu: the pig tenders of the Goa.
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