by Kirk Alex
Biggs unlocked the lock. Lowered the crossbar. Opened the shutters. Window was far from clean. He wiped with a rag, not that it did much good. Most of the dirt was on the side of the pane facing the outside. No matter. He lifted the field glasses. Had them trained on the much smaller house the Roscoes lived in. “California bungalow” was accurate enough. Prefab. They were renting. Couldn’t even afford to own. Losers. It was a neighborhood made up of losers. What he found attractive about it. Barrio. Damn near. And he was King of the Barrio. Better yet: Baron of the Barrio. Cecil O. Biggs. Self-made. Bishop at that. Damn right.
He was looking down. Focused the binocs. Their windows were open. Curtains parted to promote circulation. They were employing fans, instead of having the smarts or (more likely) the budget to purchase and install air-conditioning.
Let them. Low IQ, white trash excreta. People like that were sewage. The fans that they had going inside the house were blowing the living room curtains out the window and had them fluttering in the air and heat that way. Speaking of heat, the attic was a real bitch as far as he was concerned. Hot, muggy, musty.
Biggs wiped sweat from his forehead. Drank some more milk. Let Marvin have what remained in the carton. The deacon kept eyeing the cake, and Cecil nodded the go-ahead—and watched Marvin attack it like a starved beast, just as he had before with Fay Crust’s fruitcake: biting into it like a mad dog digging fangs into a blood-soaked chunk of flesh.
Biggs did what he could to ignore it. He hated it, but let it go. He would try to. You couldn’t train a dumb mutt like Muck new tricks.
“See that ugly cow down there?”
Marvin found his own place at the window.
“Cracker’s old lady?”
“See how big her head is? I could cut her head off and feed Mr. Fimple and them for a week; well, not quite—but it’s amusing to think so. Make headcheese, as Big Tex likes to call it. Headcheese. . . .”
“Headcheese? What I can’t figure is how a mud duck like that could have any dude by the nutsack.”
“That’s his meal ticket. Just like I’m your meal ticket.” Bishop paused. “She reminds me of a troll—a chunky old troll with an oversized head. I’d like to bind that cunt’s wrists together and then bind her ankles together and let her hang from a spit like that over a nice, crackling fire. . . . It would be just like roasting a side of beef. Yes. I’d roast that beast. . . . Gut her first, and roast her. . . .”
“Marty got a piece, too. Trey-eight. Like’ to show it off.”
“That supposed to scare me?”
“No, that ain’t suppose’ to scare you, Cecil.”
“The fuck you regurgitating my observations back to me for?”
Marvin didn’t have a response; didn’t quite comprehend the question.
“The fuck you telling me for?”
“Man got a piece, Dawg. Nice to keep in mind, ain’t it? Nice to know what kind of bad shit the asshole got in case the Fruit-Loop-eatin’ asshole decide to fuck wiff us.”
Biggs shrugged.
“Gun or no gun, he’s a pussy. Marty’s nothing but a redneck faggot trying real hard to act like a macho man. Like I told you before: that cunt’s got him by the balls. Leading him around by his dick, if he’s got a dick.”
“Was in the army. Vietnam, too. Infantry. Got popped—”
“Where? In the fucking head?”
“Got a Purple Heart, Silver Star.”
“Where’d you hear that? Roscoe spreading tall tales about himself again? Yeah, I know he was in Vietnam, so what? I also know he was never awarded any metals, Free Ride. Limp Pecker Lloyd was, not Roscoe. No way.”
“He know’ some hand-to-hand. Seen him tryin’ to teach Finger Lickin’ and Rudy Perez.”
“I was in the army. Army didn’t teach me much. . . . Full of chicken-fucking rednecks, full of dumb-shits like Marty Roscoe and lifers like Lloyd Dicker. Why I had to get out. Couldn’t take it. Told them I was experiencing dizzy spells, blurred vision, nausea. They let me go with full disability—that’s how bright the army is. And the medals they give out? Lot of that is hype, bogus. It’s about blowing the right people and kissing ass. So bringing up Roscoe’s stint in the army only brings back all that, and then some.”
Biggs suddenly grabbed Marvin by his left ear and pulled him down to where he was forced to bend his legs at the knees, and Cecil had that sharp switchblade at the other’s throat.
“You’re thinking of crossing me, aren’t you, motherfucker?” And the tip of the blade slowly crept up toward Marvin’s right eyeball. . . .
“No, I swear it, Cecil. I wouldn’t cross you, me.”
“Who sent you?”
“Nobody did.”
“Who sent you to rob Betty Lou and her daughter down on the Boulevard that time? Who was it? Who sent you?”
Cecil was remembering when he’d had the old broads selling pencils and small US flags at the corner of Hollywood and Highland and had been taking in a nice enough amount for the slush fund—until Marvin had happened along, pranced up to them and absconded with the cash. Cecil had chased him down to an abandoned building on Yucca; he’d had his dog Rutherford with him at the time. Had been about to slice Marvin’s neck open when a couple of the white trash young bitches who’d also been living in the condemned building came into play. They’d been strung out, and turning tricks (from time to time) for Marvin. Marvin had offered them up to him: “They can suck yo dick, and do whatever you want.” What had spared him. The bitches weren’t as lucky. Biggs had kept them for a couple of weeks, and slaughtered them. Had seen to it that Marvin had his share of blood on his hands, to be on the safe side. The runaways had ended up in Greta’s jambalaya and were fed to staff and congregation, and to homeless down by the Mission. Even though Muck wouldn’t be able to run to the law and rat him out, at least on the surface it looked that way, something bothered him about it; there was this innate apprehension that, in fact, he would do exactly that one day, that maybe he had been sent. By whom? Wasn’t quite clear to him—but someone, some government entity had sent him to spy on him, get the “goods” on him—and sell him out.
“Why don’t I carve your eyeballs out just to play it safe?”
For kicks, J.J., his stepfather, had done that once or twice: carved the eyes out of a doll, or teddy bear—then gouged the eyes out of a pup, a live pup—and jammed the dripping-with-blood eyeballs into the doll or teddy bear—and laughed that drunken laugh.
He thought about doing that to Marvin: plucking his eyes and stuffing them into that old eyeless teddy bear he had sitting in his room. That was the idea, a thought.
“Please, Cecil. . . .”
“The more you whimper, the more I like it. If you want to live, don’t whimper, boy. Don’t beg, don’t plead. You should know that by now. I despise weakness.”
“What do you want me to do, Cecil?”
“I pay for all your meals; I cover the tab, pay all the bills. I gave you the roof over your head.”
“Anything you want me to do, I’ll do it, Brotha Trusty. What do you want me to do?”
“Do? Don’t do a fucking thing.” And the blade dropped back down to about Marvin’s Adam’s apple and began to cut into the skin. Blood materialized, a thin, slow, stream of it, and then the blade went up higher and pressed in again against the skin, just under Marvin Muck’s chin.
“Who sent you? Who was it?”
“Who sent me? Yo mama sent me.”
“She’s dead.”
“I know she be dead. Do it, then. Fuck it.”
“Now you’re learning.”
CHAPTER 279
Biggs took the blade away. Lifted it from the sidekick’s face and slowly lowered it down against his left ear and drew it ever-so-lightly above it. Breaking skin there. Blood appeared, thin stream as before, and began to spiral gradually down inside the ear. Some of the red rolled down Marvin’s neck. Biggs backhanded him, splitting Marvin’s lower lip.
Muck was on his back on the floo
r, looking up. Biggs stood up, and pressed his foot down hard against Free Ride’s face.
“Give me one good reason why I should let you live.”
“We partner’. Me and you, Cecil.”
“BULLSHIT.”
“We be partner’. Homeboy’ don’t be jackin’ each other. You said yo mama be Creole like me; what you said. You black like me—even though you don’t look it, even though you be light an’ can pass for white—you like me. We be same.”
“I never said the bitch was black. What I said was the bitch had some Creole blood/Native American, Irish; not that any of that shit makes any difference.”
Marvin insisted that they were partners, that they were the same.
“No, we’re not the same. You’ll double-cross me eventually, asshole—just like everyone else. Watch out for ‘friends’—’friends’ are always first to stab you in the back. ‘Friends.’ Your lover, wife, family. . . . With ‘friends’ like you and the kind of family I had, not to mention the imbalanced types the staff is made up of, I sure as shit don’t need enemies—do I, ‘Homeboy’?”
“I ain’t never did nothing to you. Got you all them bitches. I wouldn’t cross you. I ain’t got no reason to cross nobody.”
“You know too much. . . .”
“I ain’t got nothing to benefit by dropping a dime on you. . . . I ain’t got no use for Five-O, and Five-O ain’t got no use for Marvin Muck. They don’t exactly be my friend.”
“Why’d you have to ruin my day by telling me all that shit about Marty Roscoe and that repulsive bitch he lives with?”
“Just lookin’ out, Cecil. What partners is suppose’ to do. . . .”
“Who told you Roscoe owned a gat? Who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who was it? Who told you he was a ’Nam vet and owned at least one firearm? Who was it? Think.”
“You. You the one.”
“So why remind me? Unless it was meant to ruin my day?”
“I couldn’t remember who it was told me. That be why, prob’ly.”
Biggs glared at him for what seemed like a good long while and released his foot. Gripped the deacon by the collar and lifted him up on his feet. No sooner had Marvin sighed a sigh of relief, when Biggs held his left wrist and drove the blade through his hand: up through the palm the blade went and came out the other side and Marvin yelped like a pup in pain. Biggs held it there. Waiting. Slugged him in the face to daze him, and pulled the blade back out with a grin. He tossed him a rag to wrap around his hand. Marvin glared at him.
“The fuck be wrong wiff you, Hoss? See if I be there to help next time yo back hurt and the ‘roid’ give ya the itch so’s you can’t move.”
“You molested that bitch after all. Southern Belle. We picked her up in South Gate, her and her pimply-faced boyfriend. You molested her in the woods, while I was busy chasing down the punk to keep him from getting away.”
“You a lie.”
“‘I’m a lie?’ I smelled her on you.”
“Fuck that. You smelled shit.”
“She told me later. I asked her—point blank.”
“You want to stab my ass for gettin’ me some pussy? The fuck you think I be here for?—workin’ hard all the time: scrapin’ ash inside the oven, cleanin’ out the grease trap, diggin’ grave an’ shit?”
“So long as you get sloppy seconds, I don’t mind. Once I’ve had my fill, I don’t mind.”
“That be a ‘sloppy second.’”
“That’s the other thing that annoys me: all this ‘we be,’ ‘you be,’ ‘I be,’ ‘they be’—when there is no ‘be’ in any of it.”
“I don’t know no better. Crack addict mama ain’t teach me nothin’, on account she knowed nothin’.”
“No excuse. I don’t speak that way. No reason why you should.”
“You the genius. Got IQ.”
“Self-taught. Autodidact. For the most part. When I was stationed in Germany I took their tests, a battery of them. My scores blew them away. IQ back then was past 170; probably closer to 190 these days. They begged me to re-up.”
“What I be sayin’. Got it up here. Smart. Play stock market an’ shit. I don’t know nothin’ about it, me.”
“Not much to it.” Biggs pointed out the college courses he’d taken over the years for the hell of it, and no other reason. “Picked up credits in anthropology, history, chemistry, and biology. Put the professors to shame. Idiots. Most people are, cops in particular. I can do whatever the fuck I want. They’ll never stop me.”
He cleared his throat. Felt a need to scratch his rectum. Didn’t dare. “My point being: You don’t have to sound like an imbecile. Nobody talks the way you do; well, no one with a bit of common sense. At least the Rumanian has a legitimate excuse. You, on the other hand, have no excuse. None. Zero. It’s nothing more than mental laziness. I keep lots of books around, on almost every topic. You refuse to read.”
“I ain’t good at it. I could try, Cecil. I could do better.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it. Better yet: I’ll believe it when I hear it.”
CHAPTER 280
The bishop took him downstairs to the first floor. Picked up a few things in the john: roll of gauze, bottle of peroxide, medical tape, container of Tylenol.
They entered the kitchen and sat at the table. Biggs unwrapped the rag on the deacon’s hand and tossed it in the wastebasket. He poured peroxide on Marvin’s wound and wrapped it in gauze.
“The only reason I’m going to all the trouble is because you’re of no use to me with only one good hand.”
“Nice to know you care, homie.”
“To borrow a line: Blood don’t bother me . . . long as it don’t ‘be’ mine.”
Biggs reached inside a refrigerator for a plastic jug of blood and washed down a couple of Tylenol. Tylenol was a potent pain killer, in addition to being a liver destroyer.
People have dropped dead from “excessive” consumption of said drug. He was well aware of this little known fact.
“Hemorrhoids are a bitch. Prep H only offers moderate relief.”
Marvin stared at him.
“What about me?”
“Give me your hand. Not that one. The good one.”
He shook the container over Marvin’s open palm until two tablets dropped into it.
“You givin’ me aspirin?”
“Aspirin?” Biggs indicated the label on the container. “Told you before: it’s Extra Strength Tylenol, dummy.”
“I got to drink it down wiff blood?”
Biggs shrugged. “Not if you don’t want to. Besides, blood is harder to come by these days. Good-tasting blood, anyway.”
“Ain’t got to tell me twiced.” Marvin chased the painkiller with water. “What I really could use is a croaker. That be it. Croaker.”
“Sure. Except money’s tight right now. Revenue stream Bordello of Fear generated’s been cut off by the DA. Shouldn’t have to remind you. Hand will heal. Don’t worry about it.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Doctors are overrated. Bunch of quacks and butchers. Cut Harold Crust open and stuck a pacemaker in him for no reason. Want the same to happen to you?”
“Ain’t got no pain in my chest, Brother Trusty. Most of my pain be in my dick—’cause I ain’t had enough pussy. And my hand be fucked up ’cause some dude put a shiv through it.”
“All I know is you could lose the hand if you go to a quack. They don’t give two shits about you. I know. I worked in hospitals. Oh they can pretend to care; they’re great at pretending. Only the second your back is turned the sadists are laughing their asses off. Male nurses, especially. It’s a way to make a buck, pay bills. Respect and prestige. Not that so much anymore. It’s closer to the other: earning a buck, driving a new Corvette or Benzo. Especially if you practice where the filthy rich live: Beverly Hills, West LA.”
Biggs looked at him, at his hand. Thought maybe he ought to do something to make it up to the lame-ass
. Reached inside the fridge for a soda and a pack of Twinkies. Handed them to the backslider.
“I don’t want to hear anymore grousing about how you’re not treated right around here, either.”
“I like Twinkie’.” Marvin tore the pack open with his teeth. “You know I be likin’ it, but I like culo a whole lot better.”
“Which one you want?”
Marvin cracked back the tab on his soda. Pulled on the can.
“Big ass.”
“Norbert? I thought you said you weren’t queer. Fimple’ll break your dick in fifty places if you so much as attempt to molest him. Why not try Olin instead? As I understand it, when he was on the outside and working Santa Monica Boulevard, he’d take dick in his shitter for nothing more than a drumstick and a can of cheap beer.”
“Yo, man; no no no. The cook; Greta. That Big Ass.”
“It’s your funeral.”
“No, it ain’t.”
“She cut you to pieces the last time you tried it.”
“Gimme the sap; all you got to do. I’ll knock that ho out cold—and then take that big ass booty.”
“With your hand being as fucked up as it is?”
“I don’t fuck wiff my hand.”
CHAPTER 281
Cecil was back in the fridge for a can of Canada Dry Ginger Ale, and a pack of Ding Dongs. Placed them on the table.
“Try bribing her with this. See if it works. I’d rather not see her damaged any more than she already is.”
“What chu be sayin’? You give a shit about the ho? You don’t be givin’ a fuck what you done to my hand, but you be givin’ a fuck what happen’ to the ho.”
“I need her as happy and healthy as possible—otherwise she’s no good to me, to this church. Her cooking basically sucks, is nearly useless—well, not quite. She is getting better. She pulls her weight, unlike some people.”
“Yeah; only ain’t she the one caused the Bordello of Fear to be condemned by the Man?”
“Condemned? It was never condemned, merely shut down temporarily, until the Mexicans and their lawyer are paid off.”
