Greely's Cove

by Gideon, John

  To get his point across, Cannibal shook him hard, and Mitch heard popping sounds in his neck. But he managed to nod his head. Cannibal smiled and released him.

  “It’s not like I don’t want good things for you, Mitch,” he continued, now smoothing the smaller man’s shirt like a helpful big brother, still chewing his bubble gum loudly. “I’m payin’ you good money for your help, and all I ask is that you do what you’re told. That’s your end of the fuckin’ bargain—to do what you’re fuckin’ told. I’ve got a lot invested in this business, a lot of goodwill worked up with people, and I’m not going to let you queer it because you’ve got an attitude problem.”

  For the first time that evening, Stella DeCurtis took an interest in the men’s conversation. She moved close to Mitch, a cigarette between her bony fingers, smelling heavily of costly perfume. Her colorless, coke-glazed eyes looked like plastic buttons set deep in a painted doll’s face.

  “There’s something you should know, little slave boy,” she said. “We didn’t just happen to settle here. We didn’t choose this place just because it’s out here in the boonies, y’know. Wc chose it because of you.”

  Mitch’s eyes widened and his throat went dry as sandpaper.

  “Does that surprise you?” she went on. “I can’t imagine why it should. You see, Cannibal remembered you from the joint. He knew you were a worthless little shitbag who’d never have balls enough to fuck us over. That makes you the ideal throwaway. You’re cheap, you’re gutless, and you’re expendable. What makes it even better is that you live just up the road. so you’re always within reach if we need you. How does that make you feel, slave boy?”

  “Aw, c’mon, Stella, don’t be so hard on the little puke,” pleaded Cannibal Strecker with mock sympathy. “Underneath that sorry excuse for a chest beats a heart like warm oatmeal. Ain’t that so, Marvelous Mitch?”

  Marvelous Mitch gulped air and nodded.

  “He’ll do just fine, now that his attitude’s straightened out,” added Cannibal. “He’ll carry our goods over to Seattle once a week, and he’ll keep an eye on the road for us, just to make sure our arrangement with the local heat is working out.”

  “I—I don’t get it,” stammered Mitch. “I thought I was going to be a throwaway. Am I supposed to be a lookout, too?”

  “Hell no,” answered Cannibal, chawing his bubble gum with violent relish. “We just want you to check on this dump now and then when we’re not here. All you have to do is give me a call if you see somethin’ that looks like a narc pokin’ around, so we’ll know not to show up. We never store any drugs here, so if the place gets tossed we won’t lose anything more expensive than a case or two of baking soda and a few bottles of ether—nothin’ anybody could use to send us back to the joint with.”

  “What’s this about an arrangement with the heat?” Mitch wanted to know.

  Cannibal’s eyes hardened into ball bearings again. “That’s no concern of yours, little man. Let’s just say that our associates in Seattle have worked out a deal with somebody who’s important locally and that we’ll hear about any undercover jobs goin’ down in the neighborhood. Like if the state and county decide to get tough on crack, or something equally wacko.”

  “That’s enough, Cannibal,” said Stella DeCurtis in a tone Mitch had never heard anyone use with the animal. “The little shit doesn’t need to know anything about anything.”

  “I only told him that much so he can sleep nights,” apologized Cannibal. “We don’t want him goin’ wild and paranoid on us, do we?”

  “All he needs to know is that you’ll rip his liver out if he ever crosses us or if he ever fucks up,” said Stella.

  “Hell, he already knows that, don’t you, Marvelous Mitch? You’ve seen ol’ Cannibal in action before.”

  Indeed, Mitch had. Better than most, he knew what this beast was capable of, and his hatred of him roiled in his guts like a nest of rattlesnakes. The day would come, he vowed silently, when he would be free of this monster, when Cannibal’s ownership of Mitch Nistler would end. For the barest moment he thrilled to the vision of holding a large-caliber pistol to Cannibal’s ugly head, of pulling the trigger and hearing the magnificent bark of fire and smoke, of seeing Cannibal’s subhuman skull come apart and his brain spatter in all directions. The vision sweetened as he saw Stella DeCurtis kneeling at his feet, naked as a newly hatched crow, pleading for her worthless life, offering to fuck him and suck his cock, until choking on the muzzle of the gun and...

  “Hell, what are we standin’ around here for?” barked Cannibal, having regained his good cheer. “We’ve got work to do—miles to go before we sleep and all that good shit. We’re due at eight, so we can’t fiddle-fuck around any longer. Let’s all have a little toot and hit the road.”

  Mitch came to earth hard. “What do you mean, hit the road? You mean tonight? What are we going to do?”

  “You’re going to make some money, Mitchie Witchie.” Cannibal laughed. “Two hundred and fifty fresh little greenies—your first big run. And just to make things easy, Stella and I are gonna walk you through it, introduce you to the people you’ll be working with from now on. All you gotta do is sit back and relax!”

  So the three of them snorted perhaps eighty dollars worth of cocaine from the surface of a chrome-edged mirror that Stella DeCurtis produced from her alligator-skin purse. Cannibal then took the two neatly wrapped packages of crack from the refrigerator and zipped them into a large gym bag, which he ceremoniously turned over to Mitch. They switched off the lights in the sorry little house, locked it up with massive Yale padlocks, and boarded Cannibal’s Blazer for the ferry ride across the Puget Sound. They nipped Jack Daniel’s from a bottle under the seat, smoked cigarettes, and listened to country-western music on the stereo. But Mitch did not relax, as Cannibal had instructed him. Despite the booze and coke in his veins, the hunger was tearing him apart from the inside out.

  They got off the ferry at the Seattle Terminal and took First Avenue northward through the heart of the downtown area to Pike Street. The evening was young, but a cold drizzle and a stiff wind off the Sound had thinned the traffic that usually swarms around Pike Place.

  Cannibal Strecker turned into an alley just a block from the market, and Mitch squinted through foggy glass at the sights that crept by on either side of the truck. Huddled amid rusting dumpsters and mountainous stacks of plastic garbage bags, their backs propped against walls of sweating brick and cement, were the street people of downtown Seattle, the winos and bag ladies and shopping-cart jockeys, the child prostitutes already exhausted from a tough night on Second Avenue, and the wild-eyed addicts of heroin and crack.

  At an intersection of alleys, Cannibal turned yet again and piloted the Blazer into an open area paved with broken asphalt and concrete. Once a parking lot, the site had been chosen for yet another office building, wherein lawyers and accountants would impress their clients with spectacular views of the Puget Sound. It was dark, but Mitch could see the looming abutments of an elevated roadway ahead, which he suspected was the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

  Cannibal parked the Blazer next to an abutment out of the rain, and switched off the headlights. Darkness enfolded them, and Mitch fought the panic of instant blindness. After their eyes adjusted, the three of them piled out and lit cigarettes.

  “Where the hell are they?” grumbled Stella DeCurtis. “It’s almost eight o’clock, and it’s colder than shit out here.” She seemed worried about muddying her alligator shoes.

  “Don’t sweat it, Punkin’,” said Cannibal. “They’ll be on time. They always are.”

  And they were. Two cars arrived, a dark Caddy and a new white Corvette. The main man was someone Cannibal hailed as Laughing Luis Sandoval, the driver of the Corvette. From the Caddy stepped two bodyguards and a pair of “mules,” couriers of crack to various retail houses throughout the Seattle metro area. One of the mules had a name: Dexter, the man whom Mitch would meet every Monday night in some horrible place like this to hand ov
er crack and money and to receive unprocessed cocaine for delivery back to Cannibal.

  Though the darkness denied Mitch a clear view of their faces—which was exactly why this spot had been chosen—he got from Luis Sandoval the impression of a small man not much taller than himself. A small man who dressed in expensive clothes. Who bathed himself in expensive scent. Who had battled his way up from some stifling Hispanic slum to become a mandarin of the crack trade in Seattle, Washington.

  Beneath Sandoval’s amiable Latin charm ran an icy current of threat: Notwithstanding his willingness to laugh and joke and call a stranger by name, as he did with Mitch, he would gleefully kill anyone who needed killing. Of that Mitch was certain.

  After the introductions, Mitch handed the gym bag full of crack to Dexter, and everyone talked and chuckled and smoked cigarettes that glowed like little orange eyes in the dark. Money changed hands, hands slapped backs, and everyone was great friends. His business done for tonight, Sandoval said goodbye, but before climbing into his white Corvette he took time for a quiet word with Mitch.

  “Welcome to our little band of bad guys, amigo,” he said, squeezing Mitch’s arm. “I hope you’re happy with us. Just remember who you are, okay?” A dim hint of a smile flashed in the darkness. “You do right by us, we do right by you. Otherwise...” He made a sound in the rear of his mouth that could have signified a throat being cut with a long, glittering knife, which Mitch supposed was strapped to his forearm in a quick-release scabbard. Then Sandoval laughed loudly, and everyone else did, too.

  Everyone except Mitch Nistler.

  It was late by the time Cannibal and Stella dropped him at his house near Greely’s Cove. They thundered away in the Blazer, shit-brained with cocaine and whiskey, leaving him alone in the dark, cold rain.

  He stood a moment in the quiet of the night, watching their taillights bouncing away through the trees, listening to the fading growl of the Blazer’s V-8, and hating Cannibal and Stella with every calorie of energy he could muster. Then the hunger stirred, and the demon-taste bubbled up from his guts. His hatred of Cannibal and Stella faded in importance. He felt himself trudging along the weed-infested walk to his house, propelled by a sick urgency that part of him wanted to deny. He felt himself pushing open the front door, moving inside, not needing light.

  Who owns Mitch Nistler?

  He climbed the stairs in the darkness, arousing creaks and snaps from old boards. The hunger owned him wholly now, and he knew the uselessness of trying to fight it. Every muscle in his body, every bone, every fiber of nerve was under its control, and he was again the man he had been just twenty-four hours earlier—the master embalmer, the artist with certainty in his hands, the giver of beauty to dead and discarded flesh.

  Dancing in his head were answers to great mysteries, solutions to ancient riddles and visions of magical faces and symbols. Rowing through him, coursing up from that vacancy in his soul, was the power of Anubis, the god of embalmers, whose red dog’s eyes and slavering canine teeth flashed briefly in his brain like a lick of flame, followed by the scaly, homed head of the Lord of Misrule, who smiled horrifically, approving.

  And swarming within the cloud were symbols he somehow recognized, that in defiance of any sane man’s reason gave him power and urgency—the four Hebrew consonants of the Divine Name, the five-pointed star, the bronze hand, a multitude of others, all conjured from an ancient time when every breath of wind had a message, every tree and stone a soul. These were the ken of wizards and warlocks, of learned scholars who studied dark tomes—not of Mitch Nistler. He had never read such books. He had never studied the grand mysteries of time and death and magic. The knowledge could not have been his.

  His head cleared when he came to the upstairs landing, and he stood a moment in the pitch blackness, listening to the pounding of his heart. From below came the labored sound of his old refrigerator kicking on, and from above, the patter of cold rain. His senses were incredibly alive, and for a moment he fancied that he could hear his own hair growing, that he could actually taste the odors of old cardboard and rotting wood.

  He moved forward in the blackness toward the door he knew to be closed, needing no light because he could feel its location without touching it. Old hinges groaned and squealed as he pushed through into the cluttered bedroom. The cloying scents of the embalmer’s perfumes filled his throat and lungs.

  He knew exactly where Lorna Trosper lay, and he went to her. Snaking a gentle arm beneath her neck, he lifted her dead weight upward, and with his other hand he worked away the sheet in which he had wrapped her the night before. After letting the sheet fall to the floor, he stood upright, his hungry eyes round in the dark, his heart skittering, his chest heaving. Vaguely he became aware of his hands working again, this time on his belt and the buttons of his faded slacks. With pants and undershorts gone, he attacked his shirt, and it too fell away.

  He stood naked in the dark. His hands went to his groin, and he nearly screamed with excitement and alarm: His cock was monstrous, twice as big as it had ever been, a sinewy rod of steel.

  Who owns Mitch Nistler?

  Down, down he went, until the skin of his chest touched the corpse’s breasts. For an excruciating moment his heart cried out in revulsion, for they were not warm and silky as he had imagined a woman’s breasts to be, but cold and vaguely moist, like latex filled with something went and spongy. His thighs found hers, and his cock played in the cold hair of her groin. He forced it into her, no longer expecting warmth and delight, wanting only depth. He achieved it. Just as his tongue achieved the depth of her dead throat after forcing her teeth apart with his own.

  He tasted embalming fluid and sassafras and lavender and humectant.

  He tasted the unthinkable slime of bacteria and fungus, already growing in the oral region.

  He tasted the sickness of death as no man was ever meant to taste it, and his soul writhed in agony. His body squirmed and his hips jounced as he thrust his mindless cock into and out of that poor, dry vagina.

  He came explosively, and thunder clapped in his head. With every spasm he screamed into the blackness, as if yearning to rouse the faintest whisper of response from Lorna’s defiled corpse. He lay silent and spent, gasping, worrying insanely that he was smothering her with his weight. Rain fell, and somewhere in the night the refrigerator whirred.

  Somehow, now that the hunger was gone, he managed to sleep.

  10

  Lindsay Moreland had insisted that the gathering for Lorna in Suquamish Park be neither a funeral nor a memorial service, but rather a simple coming together of friends and loved ones to comfort each other and to remember.

  “An informal celebration of Lorna’s life,” she had called it, for this is what Lorna would have wanted in place of a lugubrious ceremony and tearful eulogies. Those friends who felt a need to make short speeches were certainly welcome to do so, and a few of them did. They remembered Lorna’s loving nature, her willingness to involve herself in community projects, her hands-on support of the local arts, her unflagging readiness to do charity work even though she herself was far from well-off. Old Hannie Hazelford—shrivelled and tiny under full-length black velvet, outrageously rouged and be-wigged in blond—spoke of Lorna as a woman of great wealth, measurable not in money but in “richness of spirit,” the treasure of love for her fellow humans, the riches of steady friendship.

  Carl was glad when the speeches were over, for he had come dangerously close to tears more than once during the outpouring of love. He made his way to the fringe of the surprisingly large crowd that had gathered under the barbecue shelter, hoping that no one had noticed his fluttering eyelids. He edged into the tentative sunlight that poured between billowy gray clouds.

  The morning had been cold and dank, and the meager warmth felt good on his shoulders. The music resumed, played through a sound system that someone had set up under the shelter and connected with a long cable to a utility pole nearby. There was Beatles’ music from the White Album and Rubber
Soul, salvaged from the stash of records that had somehow survived the terror of Lorna’s final days. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young came next, then Simon and Garfunkel.

  The lump in Carl’s throat grew hot and painful as he remembered younger times, loving times with Lorna. This was the music that moved her. And him, too. He wondered how he ever could have left her.

  His eyes wandered over the tall cedars and pines of Suquamish Park, down the grassy hill that ended on a brief stretch of gritty beach and then beyond to the white-capping waves of the Puget Sound. Cormorants and gulls dipped and wheeled overhead, tankers and container ships lazed in the distance. A breeze stirred the rain-laden trees, producing a sibilant background whisper that could be heard between the gentle rock songs.

  This had been one of Lorna’s favorite places, where she had often set up her easel in quest of capturing its magic in watercolors, a retreat during those brief hours when some kind friend had agreed to look after Jeremy in order to let her savor a morsel of aloneness. Here she had allowed her mind to roll outward over the waves, or soar high into the billowing clouds. Here she had created beauty.

  In better times Carl had often come here with her, for the park was only a five-minute walk from their bungalow on Second. They had strolled along the beach or eaten sack lunches on the picnic tables or lain hand in hand on a blanket in the grass, watching the sky as it sailed by. They had often joked about that summer night shortly after their marriage, when they had slunk into the park like a pair of randy teenagers, to shed their clothes and lie naked in the questionable privacy of a cluster of cedars near the shore. They had drunk cheap California wine and munched expensive Oregon cheese. They had fucked like a couple of insatiable hamsters. The odds were at least even that Jeremy had been conceived on that very night.