Goddesses Never Die

by George B Mair

  Grant stared at her thoughtfully. ‘Sure.’ He paused and studied her figure. ‘Though maybe some things more than others.’

  Harmony’s face became suddenly deadpan. ‘Watch it, David. I’m not an easy lay and I like men who aren’t obvious. So how about work instead of yacking like a schoolboy?’

  Grant flushed slightly. It was the first time in years that a woman had really rattled him, but he knew that he deserved it and forced a smile. ‘You don’t talk like a dove,’ he said slowly, ‘but I’ll bet you a thousand bucks that one day we’ll be in harmony.’

  Charlie suddenly laughed with a high-pitched giggle which jarred their senses as the girl uncurled with the controlled power of a trained athlete. Her hands moved like lightning, and as she smacked Charlie on either cheek she turned to Grant. Her face was pale with rage and her lips had suddenly narrowed to thin lines of anger. ‘You heard me say I didn’t like men who were obvious. Well, I don’t like vulgarity either.’ She whipped the gun from Grant’s hands and suddenly pressed the trigger. A burst of shot smashed into the floor less than an inch from his toe and then she pulled herself together. ‘Next time it’ll go through your foot. I won’t be insulted by you or any other living man. Understand?’

  Grant had stood bone-rigid when the girl jumped him, but now he relaxed. The storm was over, though it had been a very narrow squeak. And something must have held her back at the last moment from blasting his toes to smithereens. She was operating under a greater tension than he had estimated so it was time to quit fooling. ‘Sorry, Miss Dove. It was in bad taste.’

  She hesitated for a moment, and then, almost in slow motion, began to relax. ‘Sorry too, David. But we’ve work to do.’ She handed the gun back to Grant and smiled cynically. ‘Narain’ll have a fit when he sees his floor.’

  Grant tucked it under his arm. ‘Forget Narain. Tell me about the work.’ But as he spoke he knew that he would never forget the scene in front of him. The girl was panting with more, he suspected, than anger, and even in the cold unromantic surroundings of the room she was spectacularly lovely, while Charlie stood motionless in the background, his cheeks flaring crimson, but his eyes enigmatic as ever as they stared down at Coia, shivering in the cold water, but watching them with fleeting expressions of hope and desperation while blood-stained tears trickled down his face.

  ‘I’ve a notion,’ he said, as the girl leaned against the wall, ‘that you and me might make a pretty slick team. Suppose you tell me the story.’

  Chapter Three – ‘Truth could buy time’

  Harmony Dove paused, as though to marshal her thoughts, and then she looked up towards Grant. ‘I’m letting both Charlie and Sammy here into the secret. Partly because Charlie is a shyster who’ll do anything for a price, and partly because I want Sam Coia to see that his job’s washed up.’

  She lit a slender cigarillo, but as her story unfolded Grant guessed that she was giving only a strictly censored version, that it was an open bet whether or not he would ever learn the full truth, but that if even half of what she said was accurate he was about to step into trouble up to the neck.

  The story began in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park where she had once met three hippies high on LSD. She had gone waiting to be picked up and wearing beads or buttons stamped with slogans. ‘I’m available’, and ‘Take it off’, had been the main theme of the two-inch-broad mother-of-pearl buttons down the front of her coat, and one day they had got a rise with the second set of people she met. But it was only later when they had taken a ride to a topless bar in the Haight-Ashbury district that one of the girls had begun to talk. And she had talked good.

  The cost of heroin pedalled on the streets of ’Frisco was fetching what Harmony knew to be one thousand times the cost price in Palermo, Sicily.

  The drug was being smuggled into the U.S. by the Cosa Nostra, an offshoot of Sicily’s Mafia. But the man who had told her had broken another of the Mafia’s own rules and become an addict himself. As a ncarugmento—a mafiosa who had spoken out of turn—he had later been bumped off with a sawn-off shot-gun, but before being bumped he had got really high and given the name of his own papavero, or immediate big-shot chief. And that, Harmony added grimly, was the name Sam Coia, who was believed officially only to work New York State. The ncarugmento had even described how the stuff came in, and it had been a cinch apparently, since not even the F.B.I. or Narcotics Squad had rumbled a huge consignment of sugared almonds, each of which had ten grains of heroin in the centre neatly wrapped in a strong cellophane bag no larger than a nut.

  The mafiosa had also claimed that tens of thousands of Americans were now working for the Cosa Nostra and laughed at the President’s Task Force Report on Organised Crime published in ’67. Nothing, he had laughed when he was really hep, could stop them. And it would take a lot less than Timothy Leary’s predicted fifteen years to see an LSD President and a pot-smoking Supreme Court.

  Every hippie was now looking for his own new religion and ready either to follow Tim Leary’s advice to ‘Make your own ten commandments’ or else to follow Santayana’s advice: ‘There is no cure for birth or death save to enjoy the interval.’

  The girl and her friends had once been followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (chief guru at one time to the Beatles), but they had lately heard of a new faith beginning in Central Asia and were waiting for the arrival of this new religion which would unite all the gurus under a switched on mod brand of Zen Buddhism.

  Christ had been a ‘very groovy cat’ and Buddha a ‘real turned-on guru’, but this new creed would be the one which would eventually save the world.

  The world was sick. ‘Straight’ humanity needed a couple of stiff drinks before it could meet a fellow man or try to make another fellow’s wife. But 300,000 youngsters in the U.S.A. were waiting to save the world from itself, stop war and through ‘flower power’ bring the new religion to the West.

  The girl’s mafiosa friend had also said that there was more to the new religion than mod gurus ready to covert the West; there was also a packet of money waiting to be made out of it, and since things were getting ‘soffia vento’[1] in both Europe and the U.S. there might be a rake off from mystics who used ‘pot’ and ‘acid’[2] as part of their act of worship. Handled properly it could be the biggest money-spinner of all time: especially if the Mafia got control of the top people behind the new faith.

  The very letters LSD were important. Dr. Timothy Leary was head of the LSD movement and top man in the League of Spiritual Discovery. He had been one of the first to see that Man was wanting more than old hat religion, that the stuff Man needed wasn’t yet in the Bible, and that ‘kids’ more than their parents were now searching for the real happiness which mattered.

  But what Tim Leary didn’t know was the promise of this new faith rising beyond the Himalayas, and it was rumour of that faith which had brought half the pop world and every hippie who could afford it to Benares or beyond. But always in search of truth. Flower power, plus LSD, plus the new faith would save even this sick world from itself, and in less than a generation enable it to enjoy the most glorious peace and prosperity which it had ever known.

  There was also talk of a new guru. A woman who was a living goddess, and this was real flower-power stuff since woman was the source of all life. So it was through a woman that the world would be saved: a woman who nourished her flock on free love, on love for all, on kif[3] and acid, but above all on training young parents in how to breed a new hippie generation of flower power.

  Which was why free love was important. The world needed new children. And their parents might even have to get someone to use the bomb to rub out squares or ‘straights’ who would try to stop their progress towards perfection.

  A new Russia had been built on the graves of millions, and maybe a new Amer-Europe might have to be built on the graves of more millions. But the graves would be covered, one day, with flowers, and the souls of all the dead would have hit Nirvana: so it would even be doing the ‘stra
ights’ a favour to rub them out, since they would be happier in Nirvana than in a world where they were afraid to try decent free living.

  Harmony’s story was staggering, her gift of impersonation almost professional, and she stopped after a spine-chilling imitation of a girl speaking under a hibiscus bush in the Golden Gate Park while her lover was embracing her. ‘Man, kif turns you on, but LSD just sends you. It’s so beautiful you jes’ caint describe it. Why don’t we kill all them squares an’ make the world hippie for folks like us?’

  Harmony paused and then she spoke quietly to Grant. ‘You can guess the rest. But here are a few facts before we get to work on Sammy here, and they’re taken from official records. So pin your ears back, Sammy boy, and listen to what your dope racket has done to the United States, not forgetting much the same thing in England.

  ‘Nearly three-quarters of all hippies are school dropouts, and almost half come from broken homes. So Timothy Leary’s claim that “the kids in the United States today who are taking LSD tend to be from our best colleges” is nonsense.

  ‘Drug addicts cause fifty per cent of all crime in the cities of America.

  ‘And there are fifty thousand registered addicts already, while the figure is skyrocketing annually.

  ‘In California there were ninety-two per cent more arrests for dope taking in 1966 than in ’65 and colleges have claimed that use of LSD in California is now an epidemic.’

  Harmony thoughtfully lit another cigarillo. ‘But don’t think that the U.K. is perfect, David. Heroin addicts have increased there by one thousand per cent in seven years, which is something for the government to laugh off which modified the laws a few years back, though the U.S.A. is worse. In New York City venereal disease has had a five hundred per cent boost in ten years, not forgetting ’Frisco’s six hundred per cent in two years. And to round off that angle, experts figure on around four million cases of V.D. in the States annually, of which only about one in ten are treated. So we are now breeding a race of syphilitic monsters, so help us God and gurus!

  ‘And in England’s Birmingham one research college has recently reported that half the teenagers have had a swing on dope. Which is not bad going for a “straight” dive like that. So imagine what London must be like behind the scenes: not forgetting Hamburg, Berlin, Paris or Brussels.’ She stood up for a moment and looked down at Coia, who was now shivering with cold, and whose eyes were bloodshot behind the splints which separated their lids. ‘Got a lot to answer for, Sammy, or maybe I’m just a square.’

  Grant stared at her curiously. ‘What made you go to Golden Gate Park in the first instance? And weren’t you lucky to meet a girl who sang like a lark at first meeting?’

  Harmony’s eyes were now inscrutable. ‘I went because of a rumour, and I met these people on my fifty-ninth trip. I spoke to more hippies than I’ve eaten peaches before I met the one who talked. But I admit that it was my good luck she had a Cosa Nostra boy friend. Mafia hippies don’t often exist, because Mafia drug addicts are killed. Though this one was lucky to last long enough to spring Sammy’s name. And a girl’s entitled to a bit of luck from time to time. But I worked on this for over thirteen months before I struck oil. Maybe thirteen was my lucky number that time.’

  ‘And this goddess guru,’ said Grant quietly. ‘No clue about where?’

  Harmony shook her head. ‘Right now, no. But right now we’ll work a little on Sam here. All set, Sammy boy?’ She carefully unbuttoned her hip pocket and pulled out a slim manicure case. The lining was crimson velvet and Grant watched with interest as she carefully selected a nail file. The tip seemed to have been sharpened, and he saw that it was as keen as a razor. Harmony was clearly a professional. Or else a strictly solo worker. And he wondered why she had spoken so freely in front of Charlie. In fact her technique was such a mixture of amateur and professional that he was interested. He knew at least a quarter of the facts she had listed about the effect of drugs on crime, but she had presented them with an air of authority which was unexpected, though somewhere along the line he guessed that the things which mattered she had kept to herself.

  And then he reappraised her as she snapped an order to Charlie and he saw that now she really was a professional to the finger-tips. ‘Check the gag, Charlie, and then we get going.’

  Charlie’s sensitive fingers tautened the knots which bound Coia’s legs, adjusted the gag and double checked that the modified straitjacket was tight in position. ‘Okay, Miss Dove. He give no trouble.’

  The man in the bath was looking at them like a hunted animal. His eyes were thick with tears, and trickles of blood were running down his face from the wood which still spiked sensitive flesh. But for Grant the most remarkable thing about the whole night was Coia’s self-control. Until he remembered the inflexible Mafia code of silence. It could never be broken. Unless, he thought grimly, Harmony Dove happened to be in charge of operations. She was now speaking directly to the man and leaning casually over the bath.

  ‘I’m taking out that gag, Sammy, so that you can sing. But no funny business. One scream costs you either an eye or maybe another organ you might rate as more important, just according to how I’m feeling. Comprende? You speak only when spoken to and if you slip up in guessing which is which you’ll get a free circumcision—or something. All clear?’

  Coia stared at her with a malevolent frustration which was almost frightening as Charlie released his gag, and Harmony breathed deeply with satisfaction when she saw that he was toeing the line.

  ‘So now,’ she said softly, ‘Your full name?’

  The man’s voice was thick with rage. ‘You know it.’

  The girl didn’t hesitate. Her hand flickered, and a hairline cut was slashed from the corner of his mouth to lobe of ear. ‘Just tell me your name, Sam. Full name. And the same goes for all other and future questions. No comment. Only facts. So, full name?’

  ‘Samuel Melochrina Coia.’

  ‘Nationality as of today?’

  ‘American citizen.’

  ‘And as of twenty-odd years ago?’

  ‘Italian.’

  ‘Italian or Sicilian?’

  ‘Sicilian.’

  ‘And when did you take your oath under the Capomafia . . . as Dolci calls your combined set-up in America and Sicily?’

  The man hesitated, and Harmony’s hand again flickered deep in the bath as the file slit a symmetrical cut along the other side of Coia’s face. ‘When?’

  Grant saw Coia take a deep breath. There was a unique quality of ruthlessness about the woman which was terrifying. And this was one question on which he daren’t risk a bluff. Too many others were bound to know and the information might have leaked. ‘Ten May nineteen-fifty.’

  ‘And when did they make you a capo in New York State?’

  ‘Seventeen December ’sixty-three.’ This was still another question on which he daren’t risk a bluff, and Grant watched with reluctant admiration as the girl offhandedly held the tip of her smouldering cigarillo near Coia’s face. ‘Now careful with this one, Sam. What brought you to Nepal?’

  And Grant began to understand why she had spoken so freely at the beginning. It was impossible for the man to guess how much she really knew, and how much she had kept back. This could well be a double check which mattered to them both.

  The weed began to drift, almost accidentally, nearer to the man’s face and he winced as a wisp of smoke curled around his nostrils. ‘Business.’

  Harmony struck in the same second and her cigarillo was stubbed out against his cheek. ‘You were warned,’ she said coldly as he tried to stifle a scream. ‘Facts. Not vague generalities.’

  ‘Dope.’ The word was almost spat out as Coia looked at her with a hate which Grant knew could spell his death warrant, because from that moment on neither Coia, nor the Mafia—if they knew what she had been up to—would rest until she had been destroyed.

  The girl relaxed slightly. ‘I’ll accept that. But your contact man?’

  Grant saw
Coia’s thighs writhe in desperation. ‘I tell you I don’t know. He was to contact me.’

  Harmony studied him thoughtfully. ‘And your code?’

  They each knew that here, at least, there might be a margin for bluff, since it was virtually impossible for anyone to know the code. Though Grant had marked a hardening in Harmony’s eyes when she asked the question, and one part of him sensed that she might know even that.

  ‘I was to stick around the Tibetan Restaurant. A guy would ask for a loan of five bucks and give me an IOU. There would be an address on the back and I would meet him there next day at noon.’

  Harmony looked at him with grudging admiration. ‘A good try, Sam. But my people say it was to be at the Park. Seems that that leaked after a session another guy had with the F.B.I. and other people. Tough luck! But you’ve got to be reasonable and I warned you. So this costs you some more blood.’ Her hand again flashed and Grant almost winced as the razor-sharp file slit open the edge of Coia’s right nostril.

  ‘Try again, Sammy. Where?’

  Coia’s staring eyes were blinded with tears, and Grant saw that he was on the verge of cracking. Nor could he blame him as he stared at the rock-steady woman beside him. Even Charlie was looking at her with a new respect, and Coia’s sobbing voice came, somehow, as an anticlimax. ‘You ain’t a woman, you’re a she-devil.’

  ‘Just stick to business,’ said Harmony quietly. ‘The code?’

  There was a long silence as Coia pulled himself together, and then he gritted his teeth. ‘It was to be the Park. But the five bucks and IOU stand.’