Immortality Is the Suck
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a couple times to check on that. I thought it had a ticket, but when I opened
the ticket envelope, there was another envelope and inside of that, a new debit
card from my bank.
Fuck. After everything that had happened, that fucking debit card was
what brought a tear to my eye.
So I had my maudlin moment there in the parking lot of the Dunkin'
Donuts. Then I climbed on my bike and rode.
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Chapter Fourteen
I think best when I'm cruising.
You know, if my parents had been the kind who noticed, or cared, that
their kid was having trouble in school, or that he got confused and frustrated
with detailed tasks, I might have been diagnosed with ADD or something early
on.
As it was, I found my own way. And considering some of the side effects
I've heard about from the drugs they gave kids back then, maybe I'm better off.
On a bike, you have to focus or you'll wind up a smear on the asphalt.
That same concentration kept my thoughts simple and linear.
I had to find blood before I went amok again. Everything else was
secondary to that. The issues with Peter couldn't get better if I was mowing a
bloody row through the streets of Los Angeles.
I tossed the cell, bought a new one. At the gas station I stopped and tried
Alberto's number again. The call went straight to voice mail. Then I rode to the
spot Peter had told me that they'd found the Hummer, just north of the 210
overpass on San Fernando.
There's a stretch of empty gravel and scrub there. I got off my bike and
looked around. Sure enough, near a property fence, melted rubber and
blackened gravel, sagebrush, and mud all around, mixed with something that
looked like fire retardant foam. Our anal crime scene people had removed the
Hummer probably, because not a scrap of debris remained.
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The surrounding ground was a chaos of tire tracks and footprints. But
this particular turnout was frequented by motorcyclists and pedestrians of all
sorts, so the various tracks weren't of much use to me.
I perched my ass on my bike, lit a cigarette, and contemplated my next
move.
I wanted to call Peter. I told myself I needed someone to bounce ideas off
of, but I knew I was bullshitting myself. I actually had my phone out and my
thumb hovering over the keypad when I heard the roar of drag pipes with
nonstandard compression ratio and, looking up, could see the silhouette of
Alberto's chromed-out monster cresting the hill like some medieval knight of
old.
The first sign that something was wrong was the three hogs running
behind him. Albert didn't ride in packs.
The second was the Bandido's patch on Albert's leathers.
By the time they'd pulled into the turnout gravel, five yards away, I knew
that Albert was dead.
He climbed off his bike. He looked the same, glinting smile, shiny head,
and everything. Maybe his eyes looked a little crazier.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I guess they followed me.”
“Que será, amigo,” said Albert. “I hardly remember it.”
The three Bandidos with him were dead as well, and I was encircled by the
four of them. “You know, if you want me to follow you somewhere, I'm willing,”
I said, hurriedly stuffing the cell phone in an inner pocket.
But a couple of the bikers got hold of me and took the cell, my gun, the
chain and knife hanging from my belt, and slipped a pair of plastic handcuffs
on me deftly.
“I can't ride like this.”
“You don't need ta,” said one, lips moving somewhere under a thick,
matted mustache. A pimped out Suburban, shocks riding the chassis so it
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looked like it was two stories high, roared around the corner and, while I sat in
the passenger seat with a gun pointed at me, they loaded my bike into the back
and off we went.
“Aren't you going to blindfold me?” I asked the driver.
“Nope,” he said. He spat out the window.
I didn't want to ask why.
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Chapter Fifteen
“You hold this against me, don't you?” I said to Albert. I sat in a small
white room. From the size and the tile surrounding me on three sides, I'd guess
I was in an old bathroom. There were a series of lights that shone beams in
front of the chair where I'd been commanded to sit. From either side, their
narrow white hot beams shot horizontally across the room to the other wall,
like lasers, barring me from the doorway where Albert stood, arms folded, long,
lean legs crossed casually at the knee. He'd assured me that the lights would
function in a way very much like sunlight if I tried to cross them.
“Meh, what's happened has happened,” he said. He held what looked like
a soda can and sipped from it using a thick bendable straw. The smell of the
blood he was drinking rolled over me like incoming fog. It was dense and rich
and had me struggling with the urge to burst through the deadly bars of light
and grab it from him.
“Listen, bud, I'd be really, really grateful if you could just slide a little of
that juice past the lights.”
“The boss will be back and then we'll see, amigo.”
“You taking orders from someone? That's not like you, Albert.”
“We do what we have to, 'mano. You understand. Maybe the boss will like
you and then we will be brothers again.”
“Or maybe he'll just kill me?”
A shrug of one shoulder, quirk of an eyebrow. “Perhaps.”
I'd been walked through an enormous front room. The floor was covered
with gleaming white ceramic tile. A tall central fireplace, with no fire in it but
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many twinkling white Christmas lights, surrounded by low, modern white
couches on which sat any number of men and women. The women were typical
biker chicks. Old and nasty or young and hot, they were all scantily clad. Most
of them looked wasted. A lot of faces in the room were familiar to me and
everyone was dressed to the nines. Diamonds sparkled off fingers, ears, and
dangling chains. A couple of tall glass hookahs sat on glass-topped tables.
Drug paraphernalia everywhere. It looked like a high-end gangsta party, except
some of the guests had the demonic faces I'd come to associate with my blood-
drinking state.
Music thumped through the walls, the smell of blood making me half-
insane. And then they'd shoved me through a narrow doorway, down a long,
white hallway, and into this prison.
“What's going on in this place?” I asked Albert.
“The boss will tell you,” he said. “If he wants you to know.”
“Or else he'll just kill me.”
This time Albert smiled. “That would be a shame.” A general hubbub
erupted in another part of the building then, and he glanced down the hallway
that led to the bathroom in which I'd been caged.
“What is it?” I asked him, but he just headed off in the direction of the
buzz without a backward glance.
I could hear
snatches of conversation, but the music was loud and
thumping in the walls, efficiently masking even my sensitive hearing. It seemed
a very, very long time before a man appeared in the doorway.
Tall and heavyset, Paolo Spence had been described in the LAPD file as
six-four, two-sixty. He had dark brown Hispanic skin, thick black eyebrows,
and slightly Asian, narrow black eyes. His ears stuck out and he'd always worn
his wavy hair long to cover them.
“Ozone, I presume?” I said.
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I'd heard an urban legend once about Paolo being a flamenco dancer in
his youth. It was hard to imagine, though he moved with a certain sly grace; a
long black revolver hung from one hand, the other arm wrapped around a
plump white girl who wore a skimpy red suit that allowed one to see the livid
bite marks across her belly. Saliva filled my mouth. Ozone's eyes narrowed so
he looked like a Chinatown tourist toy, round head tilted sideways, smile
literally inscrutable.
“How long since you've eaten?”
“It's been a while.” The white girl undulated when she sat on Ozone's leg.
I'd guess from the glaze in her eyes that she was stoned on heroin. Whatever it
was it seemed to make her blood denser, more fragrant, as its scent washed
over me.
Half of Ozone's mouth turned up in a smile. The other half stayed stone-
cold serious. “I wish I could help you, but one must be careful. You
understand.”
“You can trust me, man.” I had to swallow before I could speak.
“Seriously. Ask Alberto.”
“He tells me you've been asking questions. Why is that?”
“I'd heard you had blood,” I said. “I need blood. I don't know where you get
it, but I'll do whatever you tell me if I can just…”
“Of course you will. I made you.”
“You made me? What does that mean?”
“Or rather, I should say one of my soldiers made you.” He gestured with
the gun. “The one who bit you and drained your blood. Tainted, by the way. We
don't usually like to drink cop. Too many unnatural ingredients.”
I can't really describe the emotions that played inside me at that moment.
Later, I'd figured they all devolved to rage but at the moment, I merely said,
“Whatever you say. Obviously you have something I need. My question is, what
do you want in return?”
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Ozone frowned thoughtfully. The gun waved idly back and forth as he did
so. “Loyalty is essential. I hear you aren't worth the trouble.”
“I was LAPD. It was my job. Things have changed.”
“Hmmmm.” He looked around the room. “We'll see, why don't we.”
Meaning what?
“I have a meeting in an hour with an associate,” said Ozone, raising his
gun and sighting through the barrel. “One of my soldiers has offered to show
you around. I apologize for what has to happen next. It really is just a
formality.” And he smiled. Wide, white, slightly prominent front teeth.
He waved a hand at someone I couldn't see and a couple of your typical
thugs entered the room in which I sat. I braced myself, feeling my eyes get that
oddly pressured feeling, my lips drawing back. One of the thugs laughed and
looked at his friend and they both flashed their demon visages at me. Behind
them Ozone laughed again.
“Oh stop, please. So many peacocks. Just try to clean up when you're
done this time.” And he swung his plump girlfriend out the door.
The lights barring me went out; the two thugs stepped forward. I couldn't
have struggled if I willed it. They outweighed me and were at least as fast as I. I
don't know why I even bothered to fight back; it only extended the beating. But
when I finally felt myself losing consciousness, what was left of my blood oozing
from my mouth and nose onto the cold bathroom tile, it was with a sense of
relief.
* * * * *
Consciousness was unwelcome and full of pain and hunger.
The smell of blood nearby made my head ache and my eyeballs bulge, my
teeth jabbing at my lower lip. One swollen eye could open enough to see a
plump white thigh by my mouth. A number of bruised green and purple marks
with neat holes at the center of them decorated it like a tattoo.
I couldn't have resisted if I wanted to.
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She tasted sweet and sour. The blood, full of hormone, pumping weakly,
and I had to manipulate her skin with my tongue, sucking, to bring enough
into my mouth.
“Fuck, man, you been starving yourself?” said a familiar voice.
I raised my head. The woman I had been sucking on lay beside me,
watching me through dulled, half-open eyes. Now that my first hunger was
sated, she looked horribly unappealing. The marks pocking her pasty skin
could have been either bites or needle marks. I pushed her away, disgusted.
“My old man would say you're like a bad penny, man.” Caballo leaned
against a wall opposite me, lean body in a white muscle shirt, cigarette
dangling from one hand. He looked like a particularly sexy Gap commercial.
“Time to leave,” he said to the woman who lay next to me. He helped her
up and to the door of what appeared to be a very small white ten by ten room.
Dominated by the wide bed on which I lay and a small chest of drawers.
Caballo sat on the bed next to me. He took a drag on his cigarette and
squinted at me through the smoke.
The blood and smell of sex had gone straight to my cock. My face was out
of control; I could feel my extended fangs, my eyes bulging and my chest and
face full of heat. Caballo stroked my chest, making soothing noises until I
stopped fighting my urges and started responding to his touch.
He guided my hand to his cock. It was heavy and hot and leaking as I
stroked it. Then his hand wrapped around my erection and the hunger for
blood transmuted into a hunger for the inside of Caballo's mouth, the feel of
his hand on me, his cock surging in my palm as he spewed cum across my
belly.
I lay on my back, breathing hard.
Caballo chuckled. “That was a long time coming.”
“In a manner of speaking. I heard you stood up for me with Ozone.
Thanks.”
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“Sorry about the quality of the dinner, man. She's a whore,” said Caballo.
“And already bled too much today, but Ozone, he said to do you a favor.”
Caballo sat next to me companionably, legs spread to accommodate that
gorgeous schlong, which now slept peacefully between his thighs.
“I'm still hungry,” I said, sounding like a little kid.
Caballo carded my hair fondly. “I know, bro, but you have to learn to stop.
At first it's hard, but we don't want to kill our blood cows, right?”
“Blood cows?”
“Crazy junkies let us suck their blood. I guess in exchange the boss gives
them their drugs.” Caballo sounded matter-of-fact. “I think some of the crazy
bitches like it, though. Accidents happen, but you kill them all and we'd have
to hunt all the time. No time for more important things.”
“Never mind that. The boss said I should keep an eye out for you, show
you around, while he decides what to do with you.” He rose to his feet
gracefully and extended his hand to help me rise.
“Why is he letting you show me around? What if I see something secret?” I
asked him. Caballo had gone to the chest of drawers and brought out a T-shirt,
which he tossed at me. I changed out of my bloodstained shirt gratefully.
“It is a big secret. But you won't be telling nobody. You'll either be one of
us or…”
“Or?”
“Or you'll be dust, bro.” Caballo swung open the door of his room, and
gestured smoothly to the long white hallway. “Ready for the tour?”
* * * * *
Nobody paid much attention to us. At one end of the hallway in which
Caballo's cubicle lay was the enormous front room I'd been brought through. It
seemed to be filled continuously with bikers and their female companions.
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Sitting in front of the cold fireplace I saw a Latino with bad skin and
“Respect Few Fear None” emblazoned in six-inch-high letters above his
sternum, sitting with his arm draped companionably across the shoulders of a
Caucasian red-haired man with long, scraggly white and blond whiskers
draping to either side of his mouth. HA inked on his neck and the Angels' logo
plastered across one pectoral muscle.
They were sharing the plump, pale brunette who lay across both their
laps.
While puzzling over the enigma of a Mongol and a Hell's Angel sharing a
woman, I saw two men coming through a door opposite, both of whom I knew
as members of the Mexican Mafia. “La Eme,” the “M.” What was curious was I'd
last seen them in photos of the dead after a bust in San Diego. The women with
them hung on the men and stumbled a little as they were led to the seating
area. When they passed, one of the women bumped against me and looked up,
eyes a startling bright green and the smell of her blood a cloud around her.