by Kevin Wright
The blackness was no hindrance. Guns loaded, the viper hunted its prey through the twists and turns of muck that ran for miles underneath the city, spilling off somewhere into the winding Merrimack.
He walked for a long time. He stopped finally. Sneering, he took a deep breath, fighting back the worms wriggling in his belly. He looked up. “Thank you.” The metal rungs leading up were cold and rusty and, like everything else, dripping wet. Holstering one pistol, he grasped the ladder, pulling himself up.
The manhole cover was thick and heavy, and Detective Winters popped it up with a shoulder and wrestled it grating to the side. He restrained himself, easing his head to street level, breathing deep, breathing slow.
It was bright outside, despite the thick street mists of night. A buzz cloaked the chatter of conversation and reverie residing within the building to the north. Shielding his eyes, Detective Winters saw the source of that warm yellow glow, a neon sign that blinked on and off, buzzing when lit.
On the first phase, the sign was a golden dog smiling and winking and holding up a martini. On the second phase, after a blink, the same dog had the glass down and was pointing with his other hand at Detective Winters.
The sign said: The Gin Dingo!
The Count’s trail lead directly through its front doors.
Detective Winters ducked down.
Three men emerged from the mist, walked up the concrete stairs and disappeared inside.
One was grossly overweight, another tall, with a pronounced limp, and the third carried a sawed-off shotgun hidden within his coat.
* * * *
“Now that is most certainly some fabulous meat!” Tim said, looking at the beef carcass hanging in the meat cooler. Mist poured from his mouth and nostrils as he exhaled.
“Notice its marbling is most fine, most fine,” the waiter said. “Come, touch it. Aged to perfection.”
They just glanced at each other sidelong, snickering.
“He wants you to touch his meat,” whispered Alex.
“Uh, we’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself,” the waiter said. “I shall be back most swiftly. I must bring other customers in. While I am gone, you must choose.” The waiter left, and the cooler door shut with a boom!
“You must choose your meat!” Tim said in a bad Hindi accent.
“You will go to Pankot Palace,” Jay said.
“DEY vill be found, Dr. Jones!” Eric cried. “You von’t!”
They guffawed as the echoes of their voices died away. Then they were quiet.
“Uh, guys,” Alex said. “How do you know if the meat is, uh, good? Maybe we should’ve asked the waiter-dude. He seemed to know.”
“Dude, the guy’s Indian,” Jay said. “What’s he doing working here?”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“Aren’t cow’s, like, sacred, or something?” Jay said.
“Shut the fuck up,” Tim said. “Told you he was a towel-head. Who the fuck’d worship a bloated piece-of-shit-cow?”
“I worship your mom,” Jay said, “and she’s a fucking cow. She’s got nice legs, though.”
“Hey, shut up,” Tim warned.
“And she’s hot.”
“Damn right she is,” Eric said, “I’d get on my knees and worship her. Two or three times maybe.”
Jay and Alex elbowed each other.
“Dude, I swear—” Tim said, cut off as the door to the meat cooler opened. Like the cartoon wolf, his eyes bulged from his head, his slack jaw hit the floor, and his tongue rolled out.
The other three had similar reactions.
* * * *
“You sure this is it?” Peter asked.
“Yeah, right down there,” Sid replied. “Way down.”
They stood by the brick wall of an old mill building, towering eight stories, that paralleled the river. But what was truly impressive about the building was its length. Gazing down its side, they could not see where it stopped.
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, it’s big.”
Within his pocket, Peter’s hand clutched his gun. It and Sid, despite his personality, were his only sources of comfort.
“You’re sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure,” Sid said. “Gin Dingo’s on the other side, club’s more or less underneath it. Entrance is down there, way down.” Sid stared off into the darkness.
“I see it,” Peter said, squinting.
“No way. It’s too dark.”
“No, really,” Peter said. “Why not go through the restaurant?”
“Little too swanky for blue jeans and Green Lantern tee-shirts, Pete.”
“Whatever.” Peter shrugged. “Long as we get in.”
They walked.
He didn’t care about how they got in, or where they got in, or even what happened after they got in. He didn’t care about much right now. Buzzed, that feeling of confidence and strength, that’s what he felt now. The confidence of three or four beers, but sharp, clear, crystal. Since the sun had set, and he had awakened clutching his gun, he had felt it pulsing within him, that feeling…
Whatever it takes. I’m coming. When he had awoken an hour or so ago, something had changed within him. Conscious, he was conscious now of it, his preparedness to kill. Strangely, it made him feel better, confident, though he should have been disturbed, repulsed. He didn’t dwell on it.
He just walked inside.
Through the archway he went, to the double-doors recessed within. The knob turned easily, and Peter pulled open the door.
“Jeeze, it’s dark, for a club.” Sid peered in, shaken. “Maybe this ain’t the place, Pete. It’s too quiet. Maybe we should go.”
“No, this is the place, Sid.” Peter squinted. “I know it is. I can see. It’s written on the walls. There’s an arrow pointing down.”
With the gun clenched in his fist within his coat pocket, Peter stepped into darkness.
He turned.
“Sid?” he called out the door.
Sid stood in the street, wringing his hands. “Pete, I…” He lowered his head. “Look, I can’t go in there. I can’t. Ringo asked me to help, and I owe you—” His hands balled into fists. “I just wanted to thank you … for helping Ringo and Lord Brudnoy.” He swallowed. “But I can’t go inside.”
Peter, nothing more than a black shade in the depths of night, nodded. “Okay, look, if I get out of here alive, Sid, I’ll try to remember to forget I know you … when I’m dead. Take care.”
“I’ll be in the taxi,” Sid said. “I’ll wait for a bit”
“Don’t,” Peter said.
* * * *
“And I’ll have the T-bone, rare, with the smashed garlic potatoes, and, what do you guys have on tap?” Carmine said.
“Ahem.” Elliot cleared his throat.
“Ah, never mind.” Carmine glanced at Elliot. “Just make it a Guinness.”
“A most excellent choice,” the waiter said, “a most excellent choice, indeed, sir. I shall return in a moment with your drinks and jojo potatoes.”
Elliot frowned.
“I know, I know,” Carmine said. “But I have a reputation amongst the eateries of this burg, and if I don’t order something alcoholic, our cover’s blown.”
Elliot continued frowning.
“Amongst the eateries? Burg?” Shotgun laughed. He turned to Elliot. “He’s right, though.”
Elliot smiled. “What in god’s name is a jojo potato?”
“Like steak fries, only fatter, softer, and,” Carmine closed his eyes, “Mmmmmmm, tastier.”
“It’s a quarter of a potato, deep-fried,” Shotgun said. “How you’re not dead right now? Well, plenty of time for that later.”
“Yes, we must locate the ‘Gates of Hell.’” Elliot leaned forward. He was uncomfortable.
“Uh, can we just call it, the club downstairs?” Carmine took a sip of water. “Just sounds less terrifying.”
“This hall reeks with a fume of evil whose roots crawl deep into
the earth,” Elliot said.
“I think it smells good.” Carmine glanced around.
Dozens of middle-aged couples sat around the spacious cream-colored hall and ate and conversed happily.
“Good that they did not frisk us,” Elliot said.
Shotgun nodded.
“You normally get frisked before dinner?” Carmine asked. “Never mind, one of us has to case this joint, find out where the back entrance to the club is. There’s a front entrance on Canal Street, if we have to.” Carmine looked back and forth from Elliot to Shotgun. “I figure this way is less obtrusive.”
“Obtrusive?” Shotgun raised an eyebrow. “That mean you’d score more food this route?”
“Yeah,” Carmine said, quasi-insulted. “Plus, I don’t think they’ll let old geezers like us in the front door. Well, who’s gonna go check it out?”
Elliot and Shotgun just sat there, smiling.
“Fine. Let the fat guy do all the leg work.” Carmine stood.
“Sir,” the waiter said, “would you please come with me. It is our custom here to allow the customer to choose which meat portions he feels will surely be most tastiest.”
“Now, that,” Carmine pulled the napkin off his lap, “is a reason for leg work.”
* * * *
Behind the waiter, four women sauntered diaphanously. Like the sea they moved, waves rolling slowly into the beach from far out to sea. A smooth undulation of flesh that moved forward gracefully, inevitably, with hidden power that said without saying that nothing would stop it from crashing finally upon the shore. Ripples and eddies of dark satin and velvet swirled about their bodies.
They were babes. One blond, one tall and darker than night, one vermilion-haired, and the last an exotic Asian woman. It was a frat-boy’s dream come true, minus the waiter, who gave the four women the same meat speech he’d given the boys minutes before.
“Now that’s some meat I’d like to taste,” Tim whispered, back-handed, to Jay.
The blond, amidst the throes of caressing a large beef carcass, paused mid-stroke; she turned. Blue eyes drew a bead on Tim. With that gaze, she stalked forward smooth and fast and grabbed him under the chin. “What’d you say, sugah?” she asked in a musical tone akin to the whistles of the collapsed lungs of a dying asthmatic. No mist came from her mouth as she spoke.
“I, um, said, we, that is, are … jerks and stuff,” Tim babbled, euphoric on his tiptoes, at the feel of her palm on his neck, her nails digging into his cheeks.
“What’s your name,” she asked in a southern-belle accent.
“Um, Tim.”
“Well, Tim, and y’all.” She pointed lazily with an outstretched arm. “Call me, Pussywillow. That’s what my friends call me. You boys want to be my friends?”
The four boys nodded vigorously.
“Now, let me just introduce you to my three best friends in the whole, shiny, world. We’re in sort of a fraternity for girls, kinda like you boys.”
“A sorority?”
“No.” Pussywillow smiled. “Now, this lil firesparker’s name’s Cherry.”
Cherry strode forward and slung her arm through Eric’s.
“Hi, ulp. I’m Eric.”
Cherry swiftly pulled Eric towards him and devoured his lips with the fury of a lioness suffocating an antelope.
“Oh, my…” Pussywillow said, a hand at her neck. “And this is Cherry’s younger sister.”
The tall black woman strode forward and slid her arm over the shoulder of Jay, her breasts very close to his face, very close. “Her name’s Mocca.”
“Sweet, dear god,” Jay said, in a strangled voice of prayer, his eyes magnetized. “Thank you, God. Thank you.”
Mocca smiled.
And then the Asian beauty stepped forward, garbed in black leather, horsewhip in hand. She snatched Alex by the back of the head, kicked the back of his knee and pulled his head back. “Maggot will call me, Queen Ilyana, Mistress and Daughter of Pain.” She cracked her whip. “You will pleasure me.”
Alex fainted to the ground but was quickly revived by the copious amount of whipping that ensued.
“Now, y’all coming with us?” Pussywillow asked, though in truth it was no question.
The boys nearly snapped their necks nodding.
“Sanjay,” Pussywillow said to the waiter, who stood by, “you can cancel these boys’ orders. Unless, of course,” she glanced around, “y’all not satisfied with the meat you have?”
There were no even half-hearted disagreements, only grunts, and those were from Alex.
“Well, alrighty. Let’s have us some fun.”
* * * *
“I should wait,” Sid said to himself, wringing the steering wheel.
He sat in his taxicab, engine running. The river ran to his right; the titanic mill building loomed on his left, stretching far into the night. All he had to do was kick the shifter into reverse, back out, bolt.
Sid kicked the shifter into reverse, hit the gas, “Motherfu—” then the brake, screeeech!
He’d have kept going, but something, something compelled him to stop. It wasn’t his sense of honor; Sid’s sense of honor was about as compelling as a Republican’s sense of fashion. And it wasn’t shame; he’d killed that years ago. And it certainly wasn’t any debt to Peter. After all, he was nearly a blood-sucking leech.
No, what kept Sid from bolting at this particular time and place was the fact that a man garbed in gray stood in the path of his taxicab, twin pistols trained on him, a black case on the ground by his feet.
Another man, and Sid would have punched the gas and run the bastard over; Sid was after all, a tough target to hit, especially when traveling at thirty miles per hour and encased in the finest steel Detroit had ever cranked out.
Sid knew this man, though, by sight, and by reputation, and he was not one to be run over lightly.
“Winters.”
Detective Winters walked around to the driver’s window.
Sid rolled it down with the enthusiasm of a Vegan cranking out blood sausage.
“Sid,” Detective Winters said.
“Uh, hi, inspector, sir,” Sid said. “I’m in kind of—”
Sticking his head in the window, Detective Winters inhaled deeply, frowning as though sniffing rotten cabbage. “You have been transporting ghouls.”
“Uh, no sir,” Sid said. “Just dropping off some—”
“It was not a question, Sid,” Detective Winters said. “Peter Reynolds. He was in here, recently.”
“I—”
“Do not insult me,” Detective Winters said. “It is not safe transporting him, Sid. He is changing; you know this? Yes, of course you do. And I understand your debts,” Detective Winters looked at his watch, “but he may be a ghoul by now. The hunger gnaws at his soul like a wolverine through elk marrow. Are you keen on being there when it breaks through?”
“Uh … no?”
“Then keep driving him around, and you will join him.” Detective Winters pulled his head out of the window. “Did he have a pistol with him? An old revolver, looks like a cowboy’s. Black, charred steel. Does not seem to need reloading on a regular basis.”
“No,” Sid said.
“Do not lie, Sid.” Detective Winters studied the taxi. “The truth, Sid. I am pressed for time. He used the gun today, in this car, from the rear seat. What did he shoot?” Detective Winters stepped toward the trunk. “Redcap marks all over the bumper and trunk, Sid. Ringo Lister was mauled at the train station this morning by a gang of wrinkly old men, long gray beards.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, since ZZ Top is not playing in town, they must be redcaps. Hospital says he was brought inside by a young man and a midget.”
Sid blinked. “You know ZZ Top?”
“He used a gun,” Detective Winters said. “The gun.”
“Blew the thing’s head off, my rear window, too. Hopefully my insurance covers—”
“It does not. Where is Peter now?” Detectiv
e Winters asked. “He went inside the restaurant?”
“No, the club, the front entrance.” Sid pointed down the street. “Down there.”
“The Gates of Hell.”
Sid looked away.
“When he is a ghoul, Sid,” Detective Winters said, “he will come for you. To help him curses you.”
“Yeah, I know, I just…” Sid said, still looking away. “Can I go now?”
“What else do you know?” Detective Winters asked. “Why did you bring him here?”
“He wanted to come here,” Sid said. “Said he’s looking for some chick named Pussywillow or something. Ringo says she snatched his dad. Says she’s a vampire. She’s here, supposedly.”
“Hmmm, Pussywillow here? Providence? Synchronicity?”
“Yeah, she—”
“Her dance card is full tonight, Sid,” Detective Winters said. “I just hope she saves one for me.”
“You going to ice her?”
“No, Sid,” Detective Winters marched away, black case in hand, “I am going to save her.”
* * * *
The aroma of perfume lingered in the air, some exotic wildflower scent coupled with that of the huge shanks of beef hanging from the ceiling by metal hooks. Carmine took a few steps inside, eyes wide, a fat guy in a candy store.
“I shall be returning in but one moment.” The waiter closed the door with a thump and a clack that silenced the clash and clang of the kitchen. Carmine was left alone in a world of meat. It was all so, so wonderful.
He strolled about the meat cooler, along the walls, getting the full layout. The restaurant was only a small part of the huge mill building it was situated within. The full building went far beyond where he presently stood, practically to the river. “Maybe a door back here?” he muttered to himself, feeling along walls. There hadn’t been any other doors around the inside perimeter of the restaurant; he’d checked before going into the meat cooler. The waiter had been more than obliged to give him a full tour of their facilities.
Keeping his left hand to the wall, he circled the meat cooler clockwise, his vision clouding intermittently from his exhalation. His back was to the far wall as he stepped with purpose towards the door to the kitchen.
