The Hot Load was basically one long bar that ran the whole side of the joint, perhaps fifty round tables in the middle, and then various amusements—jukeboxes, slot machines, and sluts strutting their wares on little runways, bumping and grinding with profound crudeness along the other wall. Stone made his way over to the bar and managed to elbow his way gently between two lugs the size of trees. It was another story catching the barkeep’s eye as the man was injecting himself with some substance he had secreted just beneath the counter. But when the seven-foot and still counting bartender finished the injection, he got a flushed, stupid smile on his face and turned back to tend his wards.
“Whiskey,” Stone said, raising his finger to catch the man’s attention. The huge fellow walked over to Stone, squinting a little as he came. He stopped right in front of his would-be client and stared at Stone as a drugged smile wriggled back and forth across the Neanderthal face.
“What the hell do you want, turkey?” the barkeep asked, slurring his words so that spittle flowed out the right corner of his mouth like a little fountain of white.
“I want—want a drink,” Stone said apologetically as he raised his shoulders slightly. His disguise, the dumb wool hat, and the glasses made him out to be a nerd, he knew, and he played it to the hilt. There was no way in hell any of the slime would connect the man who had taken out a decent number of their own with this jocko who was in the wrong place.
“Does your mama know you’re out, boy?” the barkeep asked, unable to keep the stupid little smile from his thick lips. He was stoned out of his mind and was getting kicks from playing with the asshole.
“My mama?” Stone asked, a little confused as he adjusted his wool cap slightly. “What does she have to do with—”
“You know, you’re just about the stupidest asshole I’ve ever seen,” the man said, fixing Stone with his dark little eyes, all lit up and swirling with the drug he had injected into his veins. “I can’t hardly believe you’re still alive, asshole. But I guess that Big Scumbag in the sky in his fucked-up wisdom protects even the jerk-offs of the world.”
“Well put,” Stone said with an idiotic smile, adjusting his glasses, which kept trying to fall off the tip of his nose. Another of Dr. Kennedy’s little tips. Play the fool. It will make other men feel superior to you and consequently keep you around just to get their rocks off.
“Well put?” the barkeep said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I insult the guy right to his fucking face and he thanks me.” He was talking back to Stone, but it was as if he were addressing a third person who had nothing to do with what was going on. “Can you believe that shit? Jeez!” He threw his head back to laugh, and stuff flew out of his nose and mouth.
“Well, you see—” Stone said, starting to explain why he appreciated the truthfulness and directly expressed words of the fellow when the man’s face snapped back down out of its other wofdly trips.
“Shut up, asshole,” the barkeep said with an almost benevolent grin on his face. Now that he had decided not to kill the little twerp himself, the bartender had taken a sort of liking to the turd and felt protective toward him. “Whiskey, you say. Then whiskey it shall be.” He reached behind him and pulled a bottle down from the shelf, then reached down, extracted a filthy, grease-coated glass and filled it to the brim so it was flowing over the sides.
“Here you go, asshole,” he said, holding it out with a suddenly lurching jerk of his arm so that about a third of the drink sloshed onto Stone’s jacket.
“Uh, thanks,” Stone said, taking it and gulping down a few quick drafts. It was wretched, horrible stuff, but he could taste the alcohol somewhere within it, which gave a pleasant burning sensation to his throat and chest, warming him momentarily from the cold.
“So what’s a little snail like you doing here?” the barkeep asked after he had put back the bottle. He sipped a blue liquid from his own little glass, which brought a happy smile to his lips every time he took a toot on it. To affect a moose like that, Stone knew, the shit must be hot enough to power rockets.
“Well,” Stone said, talking in a slow, annoying, high-pitched tonality. “Me dad just died—bless his soul—and now that I’m a man of some means…” He raised himself up an inch or two and pulled up the waist of his pants as if he were hot shit. Which just added to the bartender’s amusement, as he could see by the cheap duds the turd was wearing that he was from the lowest of the low.
“Yeah, yeah,” the barkeep said impatiently. “Talk faster, asshole.” He leaned over on the long oak bar and looked menacingly at Stone.
“Well, yes—you see—of course,” Stone stuttered, playing his role for all it was worth, “the point is, I’m here to get me a woman. A wife, that is. Or maybe—two of ’em, if I can afford it.” He stared over at the baseball-mitt-sized, acned face of the bartender with wide eyes like a teenager about to lose his virginity.
“Jesus Christ,” the barkeep said, slapping his hand over his own forehead in bemused exasperation. “I know you were a turd and an asshole—but I didn’t realize you were a fucking moron too,” the man said, standing up tall so that he towered over Stone. “And just how much was you ’specting to spend for these two bitches of yours, Mr. Rich Turd?”
“Sky’s the limit with me,” Stone said grandiosely, sweeping his hand like a windshield wiper in front of him. “Just sold some cows, even a horse,” Stone confided to the guy. “Don’t tell anyone—cause I kin trust you,” Stone went on, leaning forward himself, “but I gots me nearly fifty dollars here in my boot to buy me some woman meat.” Stone laughed as if he were trying to be lewd and lascivious, but it came out like Jerry Lewis having a coughing spell.
“Good god,” the man said with a sigh, crossing himself three times, which Stone found to be quite an odd gesture, considering that the man worked in perhaps the most evil, most perverted drug and sex operation on the planet. “Fifty fucking dollars, huh?” He paused for a moment and put his hand beneath his chin as if considering the whole affair with great deliberation. Then he looked back at Stone with utmost sincerity and said, “Then I think you better head over to the pigpens at the north end of town—buy yourself a sow, boy. Give her some of your rod, and I’m sure you could get a whole damn stable of little porkers oinking all over the fucking place.”
“You mean, I—I won’t be able to afford a breeding bitch with fifty dollars?” Stone asked, crestfallen. “It seemed like so much when I—I got it.”
“Listen, stupid. I don’t know why the hell I’m even talking to you—maybe because you remind me of my dead brother, Tino, he had glasses like you—but if I were you, I’d just forget about getting me a woman right now. Even the cheapest of ’em—and I’m not talking about fresh meat from the country that ain’t even been used up or anything—but even old whores, fifty-year-olds with tits hanging down to their toes and bashed-in faces from ten thousand bangs up their cazooties. Even them asshole—they start at a hundred. You hear what I’m saying? You’re out of the market.”
“Damn,” Stone said, punching one hand into the palm of the other. “I had it all figured out—where she’d put her little things and—”
“Jesus Christ.” The barkeep groaned. Each time he thought he had gauged the turkey’s brain level, the turd did something to drop it even lower. “Forget it, asshole,” the tender said. “That shit ain’t for you. Just spend your money here. Drink, shoot up, get a whore, and fuck her till your brains come out of your ears. Party like a maniac for one night—and then go back to your farm and screw your animals. And if you’re real lucky one day, one of them might just give birth to something that was half animal and half asshole. And that, my stupid friend, would be a sight to see.” He smiled at Stone, who acted like he didn’t quite know if he had just been complimented or insulted, but he took another slug of the rotten rotgut.
Suddenly there was a commotion off toward the center of the bar, and Stone saw the barkeep’s eyes light up like warning flashers on a radar tracker. With one hand on the wood
top, the bartender leapt in a single jump up and over the bar, down onto the floor, and through the crowd—all in the space of about a second. Stone was amazed by the man’s speed. For someone that size, he moved like a cat. Stone made a mental note: If ever—God help him—he went up against the son of a bitch, he’d remember to use a gun—or a bazooka, preferably.
Stone followed quickly behind, using the space the bartender had forged through the still half-sprawled men who had been knocked aside for thirty feet or so to where the commotion was taking place. Stone stepped to the very edge of the crowd, which had cleared back so that a rough square about ten feet on a side had been created. Two men faced each other with murder in their eyes. One was huge—perhaps even larger than the bartender—with an immense coat that covered him from shoulder to floor and was made of skunk skins sewn crudely together. The effect of black-and-white stripes all over the huge body, moving and undulating as their wearer did, was striking. Facing him, about six feet away, was a much smaller and leaner man. And meaner-looking by far. His face was thin and narrow like a rodent’s, all the skin stretched back taut and tight so the front of it almost seemed to come to a point. And with his greased-back, slick black hair, which lay like a sheen of ink over his head, the impression created of some sort of filthy, sewage-coated rat was quite strong—to Stone’s eyes, at least.
The two adversaries tried to stare each other down, but the smaller man was winning, as his steely eyes bore into the larger one, so that the huge skunk-clad mountain man stepped back a few inches, dizzy.
“Boss, boss, you want me to help you?” the huge barkeep screamed out, standing just at the edge of the crowd of fur-and leather-coated men who stood, drinks in hand, and watched it all, hoping some blood would be shed on this otherwise boring evening.
“No, stay back,” the ratlike man replied with icy command in his voice. He wore an all black suit, black tie, shirt; every goddamn thing on the man was black. And as he circled slowly around his huge challenger he threw the lower flaps of his silk jacket back away from his hips.
“I don’t care if you are Joey Scalzanni himself,” the mountain boy said with a sneer, suddenly regaining his courage after turning away from the little man’s eyes for a few seconds, “you took my fucking money—and I want it back.” He reached inside his coat and took out a handcrafted knife that must have run two feet long from hilt to blade tip. Stone thought he had seen big blades before, but this thing looked like it could take out an elephant.
“Took your money?” Scalzanni laughed, a nasty little sound from hell. “I wouldn’t touch your stinking money with a ten-foot pole,” the weasel of a man spat out in disgust. Both of his arms whipped out in a blur from his coat, and suddenly two hooks were clutched in each claw of a hand. Meat hooks—long and curved, ready to sink into huge cattle carcasses and move them along. What they could do to a man, Stone didn’t want to think about. So this was Scalzanni—the son of a bitch who had killed Doc Kennedy or ordered it, and had had April kidnapped. He could see the family resemblance between this one and the brother of the man, who Stone had taken out months before. They both looked like rats. And both experts in hand weapons. The other man had handled knives like he was a chef in a sushi bar. And this one handled the meat hooks like a seasoned butcher. By the way he moved gingerly around the barroom floor, by the way a smile like a fresh gash worked its way in sadistic expectation across Scalzanni’s face, by the way he slowly turned the huge hooks in his small hands, Stone knew he was about to witness a massacre.
And he didn’t have to wait long. For suddenly, with a roar befitting his mighty stature and small brain, the huge mountain man, who apparently believed that Joey “Cheap” Scalzanni, the owner of The Hot Load and half the buildings and whores in town, had defrauded him of a hundred dollars’ worth of hides the week before, lunged forward slashing the blade of his great beheader down like he was ready to slice through trees. But Scalzanni, hardly 5′5″, 120 pounds of amphetamine-crazed, psychotic energy, danced back on his toes, letting out horrible little giggles as his eyes lit up.
“Come on, dinosaur, I heard you were tough. I think you’re just homoshit, you hear me?” Scalzanni made a clicking sound with his teeth and tongue and waved his fingers forward. The gesture infuriated the skunk-clad attacker, and his face turned beet-red. With another roar, totally forgetting who or where he was, the bear of a man rushed forward in one huge arcing step, slashing four times back and forth in the air at the Mafia warlord.
But somehow Scalzanni wasn’t there. Again with that spine-scraping giggle, he danced down real low on his toes and shot right around the slashing giant. He came up and spun on one of his shiny, pointed Italian shoes, circa 1950s, and whipped his right hand around in a blur. The hook ripped into the man’s side, digging clear into his lungs and sternum. Scalzanni gripped hard around the wooden handle and pulled back with all his might. Ripping muscle and lungs and every damn thing inside, the steel hook spun the mountain man completely around like a top just released from its string.
Only what this top of human flesh found on its first half revolution was revolting to the max, for Scalzanni’s other hand came up with the speed of a leopard’s paw and the chromed hook, kept all bright and shining as if it were the new chromium bumpers on a Caddy, tore through the lug’s face like a scythe. The mountain man, who had been in mid-yowl from the terrible pain of the first wound, as half his lungs were dripping out, suddenly heard his vocal cords sending out a scream of pure terror as he saw the point of the hook coming right toward his eye.
The ice-pick sharp tip of the long question mark of steel dug into the eye, then the brain, then the back of the skull. With a sharp shriek of delight Scalzanni pulled back hard, and the hook ripped forward again a few inches, pulling out a geyser of mush and slime from the eye socket and nose of the struggling mountain man. He flopped around as Scalzanni held him on his toes, one hook through his eye and brain, the other all the way inside his chest—like a double-hooked fish out of water, gasping frantically for oxygen, though each time he exhaled, a big gush of blood spurted out.
The Mafia boss led the wretched thing around the center of the circle as the crowd pulled back so as not to get their fancy town duds all bloody. The little rat of a killer was in his element now, knowing how to play with the crowds to the utmost. He had started out, after all, as had all his brothers, all seven of them, only five now left, as shills—selling shoddy goods and bad drugs in the dark back streets of America. He had worked his way up through a sea of blood, treachery, and assassination. And even now that he was at the very top of his profession—a don of dons, one of the Council of Twelve who divvied up the pie that was the collapsed America—still, he liked to put on a show for the common asshole every now and again.
Among the many things that the black-suited Mafia king had been in his early days was a butcher. He had worked in a stockyard in Chicago where he had handled the big dumb steers, their throats freshly slit, had poked and pulled them along with two such meat hooks. And he had gotten to be an expert with the things, able to manipulate, move along even tons of meat with the expertise of a surgeon. Thus it was little effort for him to turn and spin the wretched piece of humanity he had caught in his hooks. He walked the bloody, spurting thing, which gasped out bubbles, perhaps some last farewell or prayer, though all that came out was a foam of red that dribbled down his chin like a baby that had eaten too much jelly.
Scalzanni completed one complete turn of the square of combat created by the surrounding crowd around the wide-planked wooden floor. When he had gotten back to roughly where he had started, he stopped and bent down with his knees so the flopping man’s knees lowered, too, as he followed his manipulator like a puppet on strings of pain. Then with a burst of energy that startled Stone, who was right in front of all the action, just a yard away on one side of the crowd, Scalzanni stood up fast and swung his arms up with all his might. All 350 pounds plus of dumb Rocky Mountain fur trapper shot up into the air like a shell b
eing launched from a cannon. Only this shell was made of flesh and blood. As it left the floor, Scalzanni ripped backward on the hooks with a snap of his hands, and they pulled free of the body. The force of the dual motion was incredible, sending the body both flying up into the air a good eight feet off the ground and at the same time ripping it apart as the hooks tore free. The head just seemed to explode out, the skull and brain tissue, along with a single eyeball, spiraled out into the air, while from below the lungs and ribs all snapped apart like a smashed wall of lathing and tumbled into the air.
The red meteor of flesh flew perhaps fifteen feet before it crashed down right on top of, and then through, a table. It slammed onto the floor headfirst—or what was left of it—though that, too, splattered into a coarse pulp. The rest of the huge body followed right behind and came to a flopping rest on the floor. The thing just lay there, twitching and jerking like wild. Death had come so fast and so painfully that it didn’t even quite realize that it no longer existed. That it was not human any longer but a mockery of a man. A carving of death, an artwork of mutilation.
The crowd edged in closer, all talking at once as laughter and screams of madness echoed through The Hot Load. They all wanted a view, and numerous fights broke out as every son of a bitch in ,the place fought for an up-close visual inspection of the monstrosity that twitched and spasmed its way out of this life and into the next black pit that awaited it.
Chapter Fifteen
“Drinks on the house,” Scalzanni screamed in that same shrill voice, like a rat in a sewer squeaking . out that it had just killed something that stupidly had passed by. “I always feels generous right after I has killed,” the Mafia chieftain said, waving his hand toward the bar. The man right in front of Stone, a prospector with a football helmet on his head and 12-gauge pump shotgun around his shoulder, turned suddenly to get his free booze and came barreling toward Stone, wanting to be the first at the bar. He raised his elbow as he stepped forward to level the spectacled nerd before him. But the elbow never reached Stone’s face.
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