“And now, directly from the highest tower…” the DJ announces, “… here, for you all to admire. Exclusively at Cicisbeo… The Spire!”
Hysterical screams. A bra lands on the stage before Gilder even makes an appearance. He comes on in one of those traditional tunics worn by asses, over his shirt, which is obviously ridiculous, but as the Brunette once explained to me, it’s one more garment he can take off during his number.
“This is pretty nasty, isn’t it?”
Am I expected to answer him? ‘Course not. I know that I could finally get an answer to my question about strippers’ cocks, but for some reason I prefer to keep the mystery intact. I carry on inspecting the table through the bottom of my empty glass, gradually realizing that I’ve already knocked it back in one go.
At the end of the musical number, when the last note is hanging in the air and the applause is at its peak, I force myself to look up and I catch sight of bare-arsed Gilder from the back, leaving the stage and mincing every step of the way. Fuck me, great idea, to leave the tower and end up doing this… thing.
It takes a while for the audience’s excitement to die down. Some punters gather together their miserable belongings and leave. Perfectly satisfied. Others exchange enthusiastic banter at their table and order another round of drinks. After a few minutes the barman arrives with two more fruit cocktails and a dazzling smile marred somewhat by his chewed off toothpick. He places the drinks in front of us and sits next to Cohl. He rests his arm on the back of the chair and stretches his legs out under the table, crossing his snakeskin boots.
“So, what do you think?”
“About The Spire?” asks the Inspector. “Fabulous!”
“Can we meet him?” I join in with a tone of urgency, which I hope is correctly misunderstood by our charming companion.
“This is your lucky night, my friends. Give him a minute to freshen up… or do you prefer him nice and sweaty?”
Revolting.
“We’ll wait. Where?”
“There’s a VIP room, in the back.”
“Take us.”
“Ah-ah.” Confirmation comes in the form of hus notorious index finger, wagging it from side to side. “We’re talking about a great artist here, do you follow?”
He rubs his fingertips together. Following a brief bout of haggling I manage to obtain a terrible price, to be paid after the service, which is all that matters seeing as old pointy ears is going to jail. I doubt his sugar daddy will complain about the unpaid bill.
The barman—Betherdo, or Betto, as his friends call him, we can proudly count ourselves as being a part of that circle—leads us towards a dark corridor at the back of the club, lit by a couple of neon lights—which, at least do us the favour of not flickering—up to a shadowy room, furnished with numerous floor cushions and a tacky shag pile carpet. There are a few matted areas, I prefer not to investigate too closely. In one corner there’s a bottle of wine on ice and three goblets. Romantic music is playing in the background.
Betto shows us the room like a proud father. It’s probably the most elegant thing he’s ever managed to create, poor bastard. A grotesque imitation of an Elvish slaughter house is the height of sophistication here at the Eighth. He closes the door behind him and treats us to another gun gesture.
“I’m horny already,” I say, horrified, addressing the world in general more than Cohl. The Inspector opens a curtain at the back of the room to reveal a table laid out with various sex toys and instruments of torture. With a disconcerted expression, he points to a dildo as big as a radioactive courgette.
“Nothing like that could ever fit into a person’s anus!”
“If you’re a good boy, I’ll buy you one for your birthday, so you can carry out some experiments.”
Nohl doesn’t rise to the bait, and closes the curtain, to conceal the table of horrors once more. As for me, I try to stand still in the same spot, so as not to tread in anything that makes a moist sound. If that happens, I’ll have to throw my shoes away.
“This place is appalling…”
“Not that much. You should see what they get up to lower down.”
“What the hell do they do lower down?”
“I won’t spoil the surprise. The whole City is appalling. An appalling pile of shit. You would have been better off back with the polar bears, boy.”
The door opens, injecting the deathly light from the corridor into the room, and dragging the thuds and muffled shouts from Cicisbeo with it. Fortunately, Gilder is dressed like a normal person. His long pointed ears stick out of his blonde mane of hair which tumbles onto his shoulders. He’s wearing a shoulder bag and shakes his lowered head in denial. Betherdo’s voice follows him from outside.
“… but they’re still clients!” the pimp concludes, thus terminating a bollocking to which I unfortunately missed the prequel.
“No, no,” answers Gilder while the other one is still talking. He comes in, and starts saying, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what he told you, but I’m—“
“—Gilder Feltu’Atheron?” asks Cohl, without even waiting for the ass to close the doors. Very bad idea.
Gilder looks up and scrutinises us with a furrowed forehead and menacing eyebrows. I don’t even have time to pull my gun out before the elf puts his hands together with his palms facing us and his fingers curled like claws. It’s an advanced move, I can’t even remember what it’s called, but the ass immediately reminds me what it’s for.
He’s a goods train that can’t be stopped, even if he encounters two bastards on the railway line. I’d like to shout when I’m thrown against the plywood wall, smashing it and crashing through into the VIP room next door, but the collision against Gilder’s rips the air from my lungs. Cohl collapses next to me, wheezing.
Everything is spinning, the stripper who was on before Gilder looks at me in terror with his feet on the ceiling and a cushion covering his shame. How absurd, he strips for a living but gets embarrassed when two cops burst into his office rolling like skittles through the wall. His client is cowering in a corner, naked, and invoking the Gods.
Coughing, I pull myself to me feet, taking out my gun which triggers another cacophony of effeminate screaming.
“Well done, champ,” I say to Nohl, still semi-unconscious on the shag pile. Yeah, he hasn’t got a drug buffer in his lungs: the pain hits him straightaway and at full whack.
Gilder tries to slip away, but I’m way too tired of this whole thing to let him run away like this. I want to have a shower and go to bed and cuddle up with my money. The barman has legged it. While I’m running out of the back exit, I’m literally shat out of Cicisbeo, a little voice suggests that I’m simply rationalising the bond of the magical contract. It is a petulant, pointless voice, seeing as even if I listen to it I still can’t do anything about it, anyway.
It’s started raining again farther up. Not here, near the centre of the Eighth. The sky doesn’t exist here. The drains, busy spewing putrid water into the alleyways, report the weather. With time, the puddles will empty into the lower level. In certain parts of Nectropis, the rain takes two days to reach the ground.
Splashing. The hare’s splashing in a puddle, nearly twenty metres ahead of me.
“Stop, police!”
He doesn’t stop. I follow him. It hardly ever works, but on the rare occasions when they listen to me, they save me a lot of work. Pointy Ears slows down almost imperceptibly to look at me, then he dives into a run-down building.
I follow him, dodging the columns of water coming down from the gutters, my weapon aimed. I lean against the wall next to the door, but the gushing water from the drains covers any noise from inside. Gripping my gun with both hands, we look inside.
Nobody. The place looks like an abandoned storage area, there’s all kinds of junk piled here and there. A small bonfire burns in the middle of the room, it’s probably the camp of some lowlife who’s popped out to do a spot of shopping in the dumpsters.
The spluttering
flames animate the shadows. I move forward slowly, My semi-automatic goes before me.
“Come on, Gilder, don’t make things worse. Aggression towards two agents is bad enough.”
A noise on my right. With a jerk-like movement, I clear the mound of decrepit junk, ready to fire.
The coarse cry of a gremlin with its arms in the air.
“Have you seen him? Where’s the elf?” I yell, holding my aim.
“No bam! Me good! Me good!”
“Where!?”
Ten to one he doesn’t understand me at all, but I catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye.
I turn and fire.
Just a fraction too late. The bullet gets lost in the echo of the explosion. I end up on the floor again, half of me is inside an old cupboard, the wood completely rotten.
Gilder’s on top of me, with my gun in his hand. The end of the road. Shit, I’m dead meat.
But he doesn’t shoot. He says something which I don’t quite catch in the middle of this swirling universe. He looks at me expectantly, like he’s waiting for an answer.
Maybe Cohl shouted in the alley. The cavalry is on its way, little cock-sucking rabbit. This is what I’d like to say but I can only taste the blood in my mouth. How much will it hurt after? Lots. Lots and lots. That’s if there is an ‘after’.
A metallic sound on the cement floor.
Gilder’s thrown the gun down, after shooting into the dancing shadows.
When Cohl appears before me, his moronic face all worried, I can finally pass out.
Thursday night (but it feels like Monday morning)
We get back to the club in under ten minutes. When I come to, Cohl bombards me with questions which I don’t even listen to. The pain in my back is still somewhat distant, but it gradually increases as the effect of the Onirò wears off, a sharp reminder that my stash is gone. I’ve got an hour, maybe two, before I feel the full effect of the beating I got from Gilder.
The host—a greasy fat-arse wearing an unspeakable checked shirt—is waiting at the back entrance, with his arms spread wide questioningly. I push him inside, ignoring his protests and quickly lock the door, leaving a bewildered Cohl in the alley with the jets of slimy of water spurting out of the drains.
The client has disappeared, while the stripper is dressed and worried at the other end of the corridor.
“Clear off,” I say. “Murder.” I only need to say it the once, and he melts away into the front part of Cicisbeo, where everything seems to be as normal.
Nohl’s fists make the door vibrate. “Arkham, let me in!”
“What the fuck’s going on?” demands the pile of shit.
In reply, I stick him with a kick to his right knee, he falls to the ground on all fours with a yell. Then, I kick him in his face and he rolls over onto his back, two red rivulets flow out of one nostril and from his mouth.
“Arkham!” the Inspector calls me again, and hits harder.
I ignore him and sit astride the presenter’s chest, quickly taking advantage of the first moan of pain to ram my gun in his mouth.
“Listen closely, you dirty bastard. Listen like you’ve never listened before. Okay, wanker? Okay? Nod that fucking head of yours, if you understand.”
His head goes up and down and tears spring into his terrified eyes.
“When I take my gun out of your mouth, you’re going to tell me where the elf lives, otherwise I’m going to spread the shit inside your skull all over the floor, is that clear? Now, where does the elf live?”
I extract the gun but still point it in his face.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” he answers hysterically, waving his meaty arms like a tortoise on its back. “I swear I don’t know, Oh God… oh God don’t shoot, I beg you.“
“ARKHAM!”
“Shut your bloody mouth, Cohl!” Back to the fatty mass underneath: “Wrong answer, lardarse.”
I cock the hammer.
“No! No! Betto knows, Betto knows! Don’t shoot!” He squeezes his eyes shut, as if not being able to see the gun makes him safe. Like a twenty-stone child who thinks he can hide by covering his eyes.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know, he ran off, he ran off right away! At home, he’ll be at home, I’ll give you the address, eh? What do you say?”
I get up, before he pisses his pants and wets me too. He catches his breath and leans against the wall, keeping his hands in full view and never taking his eyes off me.
“Open up or I’ll shoot this fucking door!” threatens Cohl from the alley.
“Clean your face, prick.”
The DJ wipes the back of his hand across his mouth with a sigh of relief while I go and open the door. The Inspector has already got his gun in his hand, there’s menace in his eyes.
“It was jammed,” I explain arrogantly.
“Yeah, right.” He takes a few steps, making the human brick shit house wince at the sight of the weapon. “Him?”
“He tripped over a roll of fat. Took a terrible fall, it made him want to collaborate.”
Nohl would like to lecture me, but I think he’s realised by now that it would be a complete waste of time. Never mind that he doesn’t have the authority to give me more than a mild bollocking.
“Any idea as to where Gilder may have gone?” I simply ask in the end.
“No, but the barman will know. Get a warrant for Betherdo’s arrest issued…” I look at the two-legged ox slumped against the wall, trying desperately to pull himself together. “Siten, Betherdo Siten, at 1072 on the r-270.”
“…Siten, 1972 r-270,” I repeat with a sadistic leer. “Let’s see if your colleagues can put their dicks away for a minute and do something useful, for a change.”
“I doubt he went home—“
“Obviously, otherwise we could go and get him, don’t you think? You, out of the fucking way.” I dismiss the presenter, who shows himself to be incredibly agile despite his size.
“And Gilder? A warrant for him as well?”
“No. The press will almost certainly find out…” And Lonny would literally rip my balls off. “…Oh, and by the way, if I see another interview with Inspector Cohl in a newspaper, I’ll make you eat the entire copy, is that clear?”
“All I said was that—“
“Don’t say a fucking word. Don’t do a thing, don’t think, don’t fuck and don’t even wank off without asking my permission first, you useless shit. That fucking stunt you pulled in there could have gotten us both killed, do you get it or not, you fuckwit?”
He listens to my rant, staring at a random spot on the floor. He’s angry, but smart enough to realise that I’m right. He doesn’t have the courage to look me in the eye, and with a small voice asks, “And what are we going to do?”
“You’ve got a call to make. I’m off home, to swear my head off for the pain. I’ll see you tomorrow, I hope one of the fifteen thousand people at MetroPo is smart enough to catch that sad old pimp between blowjobs.”
I wish I could go home, I think to myself while leaving Cicisbeo with the promise to only come back to set fire to it. The thing is, I really don’t like suffering at all, even if I was platonically attracted to certain devices the Brunette used with her clients before she left the business. And then, I’d need at least a whole day at home in my underpants on the sofa and in bed to get a proper rest. Which will never happen while all this is going on.
It’s time to confiscate something from my good friend Eton—dealers have to pay their taxes, too.
If it were me, I’d rename this place ‘Eton Square’, seeing as the half-ogre practically lives here. What’s more, the signs bearing the real name of the place have long since been nicked, seeing as some imbecile had the bright idea of using expensive mable to make them. Usually, the dealer hangs around under the street light that works, in full view of his clients.
Not tonight. The cone of light contains only a tramp, sat on the kerb, obsessively scratching, some bizarre withdrawal
symptom. Just getting out of the car sends a searing pain down my back; I only hope I haven’t broken anything. I rip the cellophane off a new packet of cigarettes, and drop it on the ground along with the small piece of foil. The square is unnaturally quiet. Normally it’s packed with impatient consumers lying around along its walls, tramps and thugs who’ll cut throats for a few coins, pushers and slags.
Maybe there’s just been a raid. Or a showdown, but there are no dead bodies. In any case, there’s a menacing feel to this calm environment. If my back wasn’t hurting so much I’d go and look elsewhere, but seeing how things are, it’s worth asking the junkie crouched under the street light a few questions.
The echo of my shoes sounds sinister. When I get to the edge of the pool of light, the flea-ridden junkie jumps to his feet with a flash of hope. Momentarily, he stops scratching his arms which are already scarred from a long drug addiction and deep lacerations which are almost definitely self-inflicted.
“Eton?”
I take one more step, into the light. His enthusiasm fades instantly with the return of the rhythmic scraping of nails on flesh.
“I’m looking for him as well. Do you know if he’s coming?”
He shakes his head, and shifts the scratching to his back.
“Have you got anything, while we’re waiting?” He moves nearer.
“Keep your distance, fleabag.”
“Prick!”
He sits back down again, in a sulk. My cigarette is half-finished; I decide that I’ll wait until I get to the filter. Another drag. Someone’s coming out of the building, on my left. Someone very large indeed. Maybe it’s more a case of ‘something’ rather than ‘someone’. Noticing my interest in another area of the square, fleabag jumps to his feet again, trying to see if his own personal powder messiah has finally returned.
Three humanoid profiles, at least nine feet tall and stooping. They are using their freakishly-long arms to help themselves walk. The only sound they make, despite their size, is a long, drawn-out wheeze. I know what they are before they even get near the light. Trouble.
Lieutenant Arkham: Elves and Bullets Page 8