“You’re a priest, no shit?”
“Yeah, you’re that guy over in St. Ann’s, right fadda? My aunt’s parish. My aunt says you were some kinda football player or somethin’.”
“Yeah, somethin’ like that,” said the priest.
“You seen a lot of juice in the locker room playin’ ball, fadda?”
“The gear is everywhere, guys. But listen to me, Joey and Mossimo. Why are you guys even thinkin’ of messin’ around with that shit?”
“Yo, look at your cuz there, bro.” One of them said but Mark had honestly forgotten which one was Mossimo and which one was Joey. “Look at yourself man. You gonna tell me prayers alone responsible for that?”
Mark scoffed good naturedly. “Yeah, well let me school you on something here, okay? Listen up. Steroids don’t make guys like me or my friend there what we are? Get it? You know how many guys in this gym use, right?”
“A lot,” ventured one of the two.
“A lot.” Mark agreed. “And you’d never be able to tell based on how they look or how much they lift. You follow baseball?”
The young men said yeah and sure.
“Well look, you following this shit with Sosa and McGwire?”
“Yeah, who isn’t?”
“You think they’re on ‘roids?”
“Nah, no way—”
“Why you ask, man—I mean, father, you think he is?”
“Sure I think he is,” Mark finished up his last fork of chicken and rice. “I ain’t a gambling man, but if I was…look, steroids get developed in what? The 1950s? The genies’ out of the bottle ever since then guys. And it ain’t going back.”
“So whattya’ sayin’? You think some players in the major leagues are using?”
“No, I think some players in the majors aren’t using. But that’s not the point. The point is these guys are better baseball players than me and you in their sleep. Nothing they take makes them hit the ball the way they do. Nothing.”
“I don’t know man…”
“Yeah, if they’re all juiced why aren’t they all jacked up?”
“Because, kid, it’s like I was saying before. Not everyone who uses gets all Schwarzenegger, right? If it was as simple as that then you or me could take whatever Mr. Olympia is taking and we’d look like him, or we could take whatever McGwire takes and we’d be hitting fifty-something home runs. But it ain’t like that.”
“So you’re saying…?”
“My friend there? He’s been big and nasty since I’ve known him. He looks at weights and he grows. Got it?”
“And you?”
“Same way for me. I was always a husky kid. Wasn’t until college that I burned some of the fat off and saw there was some muscle there.”
“How long you been a priest?”
“Five years now.”
“Hey, fadda, I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Don’t you ever…you know, about women I mean?”
“Do I miss fuckin’ them, is that what you’re askin’ me?”
“Yeah.” The kid looked embarrassed. “No disrespect fadda.”
“None taken. I wasn’t born a priest kid. I did my share of knockin’ boots before I put on the collar. You get me?”
“Got you father.”
“How old are you guys?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen. Jesus Christ. At your age you guys should be chasing as much tail as you can. Don’t even think about taking steroids you knuckleheads. You know what’s the first thing happens when you take steroids?”
“Your balls shrink, right father?” the one kid looked at the other kid like Mark’s answer would validate some discussion they’d had earlier.
“No, that’s bullshit. What happens is your balls shut down. You’re getting testosterone from outside, why does your body need to make it on the inside, right? But that’s not the problem. The problem’s when you come off and your nuts take two or three months to kick in and start making the baby batter again, okay? You’re seventeen, you even want to imagine life without a sex drive?”
“No,” said the one kid and the other shook his head.
“And neither could your girlfriends. So stay off the sauce, got me?”
“Well, thanks father. I mean, that’s the weirdest advice I ever got from a priest, but—”
“Don’t mention it. Now give me three Hail Marys and get some food in your fuckin’ stomachs. Your age, that’s what’ll make you grow. Train hard and eat. Now get outta here.”
“Thanks father.”
“Yeah, fadda.”
20.
3:07 P.M.
The priest met Boone on the street. The clouds had given way to a clear sky and the sun blazed down on the people below.
Boone stood among the hustle and bustle on Myrtle Avenue, stuffing the remains of a hot dog in his mouth. He held a second frankfurter in the same hand he ate with and in his other fist he gripped a Kit Kat and a Coke. His calves were bulging between his cut off shorts and work boots, and the veins were popping out all over his arms.
“That’s what you eat after working out like that?” Mark shook his head. Some people stared at them as they walked past, the monstrous priest in his boat top with an eight inch powerlifting belt looped over the strap of his gym bag that hung from his shoulder, and his two-hundred sixty pound flannel shirted companion.
Boone shrugged and held up both hands. “I got my protein and my carbs,” he said, referring to the hot dog and the candy bar. “You want one?” he proffered the second hot dog.
“No. Don’t you know your body’s a temple?”
“Yeah, whatever. Shit, hold on.” Boone reached down and unclipped his pager, looking at the screen. “I gotta call this guy.”
“Look, legs tomorrow night?”
“If you think you can keep up with me, holy man.”
“Keep up with you? It’s squat day, son. I’mma bury you.”
“Well, at least you’ll be able to do the last rights too if that happens, right?”
“For your ass? St. Peter ain’t going to let you past the Pearly Gates.”
“Fuck him then.” Boone shoved what was left of the second hot dog in his mouth and held out a clenched fist. Around a mouthful of mustard, bun and questionable pork product he mumbled something that might have been peace out.
“Yeah, B, you too.” Father Mark gave him the pound. “Hey, you ever wonder where those guy’s who sell you those dirty water dogs take a piss?”
Boone shook his head and waved, turning and walking up the block towards a pay phone.
He dropped coins in the slot and dialed the number. The phone rang a few times and while it rang he popped the top off his Coke and swallowed half of it.
“Kid.” Gossitch answered.
“Yeah.”
“You coming out tonight, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, listen, I’m going to swing by the usual spot, pick you up in an hour, okay?”
“Why, what’s up?” Boone asked, knowing Gossitch wouldn’t tell him on an open line.
“Something you’ll dig,” Gossitch promised.
“Yeah, okay. I gotta run home, shit, and shower. Give me an hour and a half.”
“Fuck kid, make it snappy.”
“Yeah-yeah, Goose. Just be there.”
“Right.”
They hung up in tandem.
21.
5:20 P.M.
“You okay, kid?” Detective Will “Gritz” Gritzowski asked the uniformed officer stationed at the door of the loft. “You look like you’re gonna puke.”
“This is…” Police officer Jason Smith looked like he was having a tough time swallowing something down.
“This is fuckin’ disgusting,” declared Boone as he and Gossitch walked in. “Wow, is this fuckin’ disgusting.”
“Hey, who are—”
“It’s alright, kid.” Gritz waved off the cop’s concern. “These guys are okay to be h
ere.”
“Like that guy?” Officer Smith nodded his head at another man in the room, a man in a microfiber trench coat with a fu Manchu, his jet black hair slicked back into a pony tail. The guy was squatting near the remains of a victim.
Gritz ignored him and greeted Gossitch and Boone. “Frank. Frank’s guy.”
“Gritz.” Gossitch smiled, shook hands with the detective. “What’s going on?”
“This city, Frank. We got a serial killer, calls himself Mr. Mephisto. Mephisto, Frank? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Guess he likes Faust.”
“Then this…” The detective gestured to the scene around them.
Gossitch eyed the chaos of the loft. A string of intestines hung across the room, draped from the umbrellas of two strobe lights. Various limbs and body parts littered the floor, centered around a shredded mattress in the middle of the room. The walls and flooring were awash with gore. High end audio and camera equipment lay smashed in pieces among the human wreckage.
“Fuckin’ bloodbath,” announced the detective. “Why don’t you and Conan there have a look around. See what you can find.”
“Gritz,” the uniformed cop spoke up. “We just gonna let these guys waltz in here like—”
“Quiet, Smith.” Gritz dismissed the officer but Boone was already talking shit.
“Hey, flat foot. Don’t you got some Haitian immigrants to fuck up the ass or something?”
If Smith was intimidated by Boone’s size and attitude he didn’t show it.
“Foley.” Gossitch stopped next to the coroner, who was bagging evidence.
“Frank, Frank, Frank. How ya been?”
“Can’t complain. Life’s been good to me so far.”
“You and Joe Walsh, Frank. But not these people.”
Boone looked down at the lower half of a human jaw that rested on the floor. He prodded it with his foot.
“Hey,” warned Foley. “Don’t play footsey with that shit. That’s evidence.”
“How many you’d say we got here?” Gossitch asked the coroner.
“At least twelve. But I’m still counting. Dental and DNA will have to sort it out.”
“They were making a movie.” Boone noted the wrecked audio-visual equipment and the lighting.
“Must have been a fag film then,” uttered Foley, “cause we got what looks like a fucking sausage festival here. All these body parts? Male. ‘Cept that one.”
Boone walked over to look at the remains Foley had indicated.
“How can you tell?” Gossitch has seen a lot of ugly things in his life. This scene was surreal. If he didn’t know that these had been human beings a couple of hours ago, he wouldn’t have believed it.
“Well, one thing, if these were broads, they had some hairy arms and legs. And we got their wallets over on the table near the door. Only one purse.”
Gossitch looked at the nearest severed arms and sure enough they were covered with blood matted hair.
Boone stared down at what was left of a naked woman. Aside from where she had been severed in half, her legs and stomach looked untouched. A section of spinal column jutted out of her.
“Other thing?” continued the coroner. “Take a look at that there. That’s a glans.”
“What’s a glans?” questioned Boone.
“It’s the head of your dick.” Boone involuntarily grabbed his own crotch. “And I’ve counted six of them so far.” Foley talked as he did his work. “But we’ve got eight wallets with I.D., so I’m expecting we’ll find a couple more.”
“Wait a second…” Boone put his hands on his knees and focused on the lower torso before him.
“I know this woman.” He couldn’t believe it.
Foley raised an eyebrow. “You knew her?”
“No. I mean, I know of her. I know who she was. See those tattoos on her thighs?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s Stephanie Swallows.”
“He’s right,” acknowledged the man squatting across the room with the Fu-Manchu.
“I’m just the clean up crew, okay Gossitch?” Foley asked rhetorically. “But for my money, here’s what happened. We had some kind of adult movie being filmed here, right?” Foley counted off on his gloved fingers. “We got the lower end of our fluffer there. Director. Cameraman, at least one. Those are the parts with clothes still on them, okay? We got seven or eight strokers…who we missing here?”
“Steph Swallows was no fluffer.” Boone was adamant. “She was a featured performer.”
“She fucked for a living, kid,” replied Foley, ignorant of the look the other man gave him.
“They called us in we had to break down the door.” Gritz had wandered over. “It was locked from the inside.”
“Who called?” Gossitch wanted to know.
“Neighbors downstairs. Said they heard screams. Sounded like a big fight. Some firearms discharged.” The detective indicated the marked positions of cartridge cases that littered the floor. “Haven’t found the gun yet.”
“It’ll be here somewhere,” Foley promised, looking over the wreckage.
“It got out that way.” Boone pointed to the shattered skylight over their heads.
“Yeah, we noticed that.” Gritz was staring out into the afternoon sky. “But it doesn’t make sense. How did this go down? I’m thinking, someone dropped in from above, blew the fuck outta everybody and locked the door.” The detective revised it as he said it. “Probably locked the door first and then blew the fuck outta everybody.”
“Stephanie Swallows woulda been blowin’ everyone,” said Boone. “This was a Rick Savage film. You know what he’s known for?”
“You tell us,” prompted Gritz.
“Blow bangs.”
“What’s a blow bang?” asked officer Jason Smith.
“Woman sucks off a bunch of guys,” explained Foley. “No fuckin’. Not that I’m a connoisseur of that shit, mind you.”
“A blow bang, huh?” Gritz looked around. “Like Lewinsky?”
Boone ignored them. “I’d heard she was working with Savage.”
“Where’d you hear about that?” Gritz asked, wondering where someone heard about something like that.
“Screw magazine.”
“Screw magazine.” The detective shook his head.
“I knew there was a reason I brought you along, kid.” Gossitch smiled, drawing a Marlboro from the box. “Okay if I smoke here, Foley?”
“Yeah, just don’t leave the butt on the floor,” required the coroner. “Don’t want to get it mixed up with the other ones already here.”
Boone noted that there were some cigarette butts marked off with little evidence flags.
“Those things are gonna kill you one day, Frank,” Gritz said of the Marlboros. “You sound like shit already.”
“If I live long enough.” Gritz thought it through out loud. “Okay, so someone pulls a burn, kills Savage and our Miss Swallows over there, then leaves.”
“But, Gritz, how do we know for sure it was that director?” Officer Smith asked.
Gritz cast him an irritated look. “The crime scene investigators were in here right before he arrived,” he said to Gossitch, nodding at the man in the rain coat with the facial hair. “They pulled what they could with their portable print scanners. We’ll get I.D.s soon. But like Foley was saying, we got all their personal effects bagged over there by the door.”
“Through the roof though?” asked Smith. “Don’t make sense.”
“Whole thing doesn’t make sense,” agreed Foley. “Hey, Smith, see this?” The coroner held something up in an evidence bag. “Know what this is?”
The cop shrugged.
“Saline breast implant.” Foley made like he was going to throw it. “Here catch.”
The cop recoiled and the coroner chuckled.
“Frank.” The man in the microfiber rain coat stood up, pulled a plastic glove off his hand, and shook the one Gossitch extended.
“John
ny. How’s Dickie?”
Johnny’s long dark hair was slicked back and tied off in a pony tail. Sunglasses covered his eyes like the Fu-Manchu covered his upper lip.
“He’s been better.”
“Fuckin’ Feds, right?”
“Fuckin’ Feds, right.”
“Johnny Spasso,” said Boone.
“Boone.” Johnny replied in a neutral tone.
“Kill anybody today, Spasso?”
“No.” As Johnny Spasso rubbed his index and middle finger with his thumb, he studied his fingers like he was thinking on something. “But you know, the day ain’t done yet, Boone.”
As Gossitch spoke with Johnny Spasso, Officer Smith stepped up to Gritz.
“Hey, Gritz…”
“What’s on your mind, Jason, aside from the obvious?”
“These guys? I mean, why are they even here? The Captain know about this?”
“Listen kid.” Gritz sounded two steps from perturbed. “There’s the way the world is, and then there’s the way the world ought to be, right? You want leads, or you want another cold case?”
He didn’t wait for the officer to answer.
“Then we keep our ears to the street. And the way we do that, is we talk to these shady characters and listen to what they say. And more importantly? We listen to what they don’t say. Capiche? Good. Then shut the fuck up.”
But Smith wasn’t going to be shut up. “Come on, Gritz, look at these two monkeys? And that other guys a known Nicolie Family associate. He’s a hit man for Christsakes.”
“You want to get busted down to reading meters? No? Then keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. Don’t make me tell you again.”
“These guys,” surmised Gossitch. “Thought they were gonna be handed a few hundred bucks to blow their loads all over some chick’s face. Then this…”
“You know how it goes, Frank,” said Johnny.
“The family was bankrolling this then?”
“Yeah.”
“And that was pretty common knowledge, I take it?”
“To those in the know.”
“So whoever did this?”
Johnny nodded.
Gossitch considered. “Who’d have…?”
“That’s what I’m wondering,” replied the gunman.
I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) Page 9
