As the Worm Turns Read online

  “So who’s Cyndi Lauper?” Zoë asked as she hopped up onto the bar stool.

  “Madonna,” Beth corrected. “Trainee. My replacement, probably. What do I care?”

  “You care.”

  “Caring is overrated. I’m supposed to spend my whole life caring about people who wouldn’t piss on me if I was running down the street on fire?” Beth lined up shots of Canadian whiskey for them both.

  “Oh.” Zoë eyed the whiskey. “It’s one of those nights. What happened?”

  “Usual stuff. Almost got jumped on the way here. Hank all but flat-out told me I was getting fired. Spent the past two hours trying to pick up after Kelsey over there, who’s apparently just taking shifts as some kind of research project.” Beth downed her shot. “Long story, don’t ask. And—”

  “Yo!” hollered Frat Dracula, wedging himself tightly against the bar. “Can I get a cup with ice?”

  “Water’s at the end of the bar.” Beth waved to a couple of pitchers she’d set up earlier as a kind of dance-floor hydration station. “And—”

  “No. I don’t want water. Just ice, in a cup.”

  “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?”

  “I’ll get it,” Kelsey said eagerly as she fumbled for the ice scoop.

  Beth stopped her. “Hold on a second.” She turned back to Frat Dracula. “Just ice? That’s it?”

  “Yeah, baby. I like to suck on it.”

  “Just a sec, Zoë. Come on, Kelsey.” Beth snagged a plastic cup and pulled her trainee aside. “Need to show you some trade secrets.” She pulled the new girl close, their backs tight together, blocking Frat Dracula’s view but not Zoë’s. Beth flashed a wink as she poked a few holes in the bottom of the cup with her bar knife. Then she filled it to the brim with ice and slid it to Frat Dracula. “Enjoy sucking it.”

  “Oh, I will, baby. I will.”

  Zoë couldn’t help but chuckle. She knew where this was headed. Frat Dracula huddled up with the rest of his crew, adolescent giggles bubbling from their midst. “Classic, Beth.”

  Kelsey looked at them with the blank stare of someone not in on the joke. “What’s going on?”

  “Just watch,” Beth replied, arms crossed. “These days, everyone wants to party, and no one wants to pick up the check. I’ll give you even money those douche nozzles snuck in their own booze. They’re trying to beat the bill and our tip. If Count Dorkula really just wants some ice to chew on, that cup’ll hold it fine. If he doesn’t—”

  “Hey! What the fuck!” Frat Dracula whipped around, face as red as a colicky infant’s. The crotch of his slacks was soaked through in a telltale splotch. He bounded to the bar, in his rage not even bothering to hide his flask. “You did that on purpose!”

  “How observant. And you know what else I’m going to do on purpose?”

  “What?”

  “Throw you jackasses out.” Beth eased back, and at the practiced flick of a switch, four bouncers materialized almost instantly. They corralled the frat monsters, herding them out into the cool October drizzle while the rest of the bar roared in approval.

  “Wow,” Kelsey said. “That is totally going in my TV show.”

  “TV show?” Zoë asked.

  “Long story,” Beth interjected before Kelsey could answer. “Now, get back to work.”

  “So?” Zoë said the moment they were clear of Kelsey. “Finish the story. You left off at and.”

  “Right. And Ryan asked me to move in with him.”

  Zoë let out a shriek that had the girl dressed as Wednesday Addams standing next to her clamping both hands down over her pigtail-bedecked ears. “What did you say? Tell me you said yes! Tell me you said yes!”

  “Of course I didn’t say yes.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve already got a roommate—you, remember?”

  “Come on, Beth, you’ve got to do this.”

  Beth planted both fists on her hips. “I do? Why, exactly?”

  “Because . . . just because. Think about it. You can quit this crappy job. Maybe go back to college, finish your degree.”

  “Freeload, in a word?”

  “No. Not like that. Just . . . well, you’d be taken care of.”

  “I can take care of myself.” Beth’s tone brooked no argument. “Besides, how are you going to pay for that place without me?”

  “I’ll manage. Where is Ryan, anyway?”

  Beth shook her head. “Left in a huff. Can’t say I blame him.”

  Zoë couldn’t, either. She could only dream of landing a catch like Ryan. And here Beth was pushing their relationship so far onto the back burner it was in danger of falling behind the stove.

  “What’s his deal, you think? Why the full-court press?”

  Zoë shrugged. If she’d had the inside line on why men did the things they did, she wouldn’t be propped up on a bar stool most nights sucking back liquid self-worth. She’d be flashing her own finger-mounted diamond headlamp and treating herself to a reverse French manicure and matching pedi from someone else for a change. And had Zoë been the one with a lawyer boyfriend asking her to move in, she’d sure as hell have said yes. “Ugh, so sick of all these tools.” She dismissed the crowd with a weary wave. “Where’s my Prince Charming?”

  “Don’t think you’ll find him here,” Beth answered. “Kiss one of these frogs, all you’ll get is warts.”

  Zoë tried to muster a laugh, but it hung hard in her chest and refused to come out. “You ever wonder if there’s more to it all than this? Sometimes I wish I could just, I don’t know, evaporate. Float away like a cloud until I rained down someplace else.”

  “Hey there, mopey.” Beth gripped her lightly by the wrist, a secret signal they’d shared since childhood, code for We’ll get through this. “What do you want some prince for, anyway? They’re all inbred and have hemophilia.”

  “Fine. I’ll settle for a frog who’d make me breakfast after.”

  “Good luck.” Beth turned to see the crowds massing on Kelsey, all shouting over one another, demanding more drinks. “Think I’d better bail out the trainee.”

  Zoë nodded. She swiveled her bar stool toward the dance floor. Smoky spokes of light shot down from a mirror ball twisting away in the rafters, piercing the dark and pinning the crowd like the arrows of Saint Sebastian. Costumes were in various stages of being shed, sacrifices to the heat and lust. Zoë spotted a midriff flashed here, a nipple there, a skirt hiked up high on the thigh and getting higher. And in the midst of it all—Ryan.

  He was staring straight through them all with eyes only for her. His unblinking gaze seemed to tell Zoë that he’d made a mistake, that it was her he wanted to move in, it was her he wanted to protect. He lifted a hand and beckoned. She rose, gliding toward Ryan. Except it wasn’t Ryan after all. It was someone else, something else, something more. They met. Her hand slipped into his as if it was made to do that.

  Later, when Beth turned back to Zoë’s bar stool, she would find it empty.

  Eight

  Eli pulled out the cheap plastic fangs that had been chafing his gums all night and dropped them in the middle of the sidewalk. If it wasn’t obvious to onlookers who he was supposed to be by the satin cape and Count Chocula widow’s peak he’d drawn on his forehead, then fuck ’em.

  “Hold up, nukkas!” The muthafuckin’ wolf man—as his buddy absolutely demanded to be addressed—stopped dead to snort of heap of cocaine off his thumbnail. Half of it ended up smeared over his black rubber snout. “Bump up! I’m the muthafuckin’ wolf man!” He howled as he dumped more into the crook of his fist and held it out for Eli.

  Eli obliged. The muthafuckin’ wolf man started singing, “Saw Dick Cheney walking with a queer. Doin’ the werewolves of club land.”

  Eli shook his head. The shithead had been singing that same damn song all night,
and he hadn’t gotten the words right once.

  “AAHH-OOOO . . . werewolves of slum land!”

  There were only the three of them left now. Him, the muthafuckin’ wolf man, and Frankensteve—who, since he’d stuck those bolts to his neck, had only ever spoken in near-monosyllabic Frankenspeak. Drink! Titties! Coke! Titties! Fuck! Titties! And so on.

  Eli had thought for sure the cornball monster bit was going to get him laid. But then that bitch at the bar had tricked him into spilling his Courvoisier XO down the front of his pants like some chump. Didn’t even let him clean up. Just tossed all their asses out onto the street, where the air bit at his still-soaked crotch, turning his dick into a Popsicle. Fuck, his nuts were practically crawling back inside.

  Whatever. He’d get warm enough soon. He’d get blazing. They were off to Goldie’s, New Harbor, Connecticut’s numero uno gentlemen’s club. He probably wouldn’t find any gentlemen wandering its neon-lit interior, but he was sure to see that what’s-her-name stripper and her forty-dollar guaranteed blow jobs. Not the hottest piece of tail on offer, with her lazy eye and crooked teeth. But she had the body of a fourteen-year-old and always wore a Catholic schoolgirl outfit to match. That really did it for Eli. If she went and got braces, he’d just about have to marry her. That is, if she wasn’t a whore and all.

  “Titties!” hollered Frankensteve as he smashed his empty beer bottle on the curb.

  “Chill! You want University five-o coming down on us?” To get to Goldie’s from the Strip, they’d had to cut across the University commons, a land of faux-Oxford quads that screamed privilege from every leaded-glass window and granite wedding-cake spire. The University employed its own police force. And they didn’t take kindly to townies, even if they weren’t drunk to the gills and snorting blow in public. “And stash the yayo, you fucking idiot.”

  The muthafuckin’ wolf man obeyed. “Hear you gotta jerk off in a coffin.”

  “Come again?”

  “To get in with those fuckers.” He hooked a furry thumb toward a building that, even among the gothic wonderland that was the University, stood apart. It was cut off from the street by a fence of nine-foot wrought-iron pikes, a red granite monolith that jutted into the slate-gray sky like a palisade of knives. “Not enough that your daddy’s some senator or CEO. You want in with the Order of Sormen, you gotta jerk off in a coffin in the basement of their mausoleum.”

  Eli wished he could blame it on the coke, but the muthafuckin’ wolf man talked this shit over his morning coffee, stone sober, posted it to his Twitter feed like every fucking ten minutes. “Yeah, why?”

  “Initiation, nukka. That way, they got the goods on you, you try to expose them.”

  Eli had heard the stories about the Order of Sormen; every townie had. It was supposed to be some kind of secret society and training ground for captains of industry, heads of state, and countless shadowy men with sinister global reach. Eli knew he was only making matters worse by baiting his pal, but fuck it, why not? “Expose what? Their dicks? If they’re jerking off, they’re already exposing their dicks.”

  “Jerk. Off.”

  “Yeah, go on. You think it’s funny.” The muthafuckin’ wolf man’s tone was all business. “But you look deeper and you’ll see it. That clinic they opened up down in the Docklands, you think that’s about free vaccinations for welfare kids? Nah, nukka, that’s for medical experiments . . . on us.”

  “You’re paranoid.”

  “Bitch, you ain’t paranoid enough.”

  Eli kept his mouth shut. It was too fucking cold to deal with another round of the muthafuckin’ wolf man’s wackadoodle shit about the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Bilderberger Group, the Trilateral Commission, General Mills, the Moon Nazis, the Mormons, and who knew what the fuck else.

  “Yo, nukka. Look at that.” The muthafuckin’ wolf man pointed to some graffiti sprayed near a narrow brick alley. Beware the Night Angel.

  “Sounds like some gay-wad metal band.” Eli’s bladder felt fit to burst. He’d never make it all the way to Goldie’s. “Hold up. Gotta drain the lizard.”

  “Ain’t waitin’ for your ass, nukka. Cold out in this bitch.”

  “Head over without me. I’ll meet you two fags there.” Eli wheeled down the alley. “Try not to suck too many cocks on the way over,” he yelled to his departing friends. “You know what happened last time.”

  Eli parked behind an overfilled Dumpster rank with a week’s worth of garbage. The stench of rancid grease made his eyes itchy. “Night Angel,” he said, unzipping his almost frozen zipper. “Give me another fucking hand job.”

  From somewhere in the gloom came an animal hiss. Eli looked up to spot a ragged tomcat perched on the corner of the Dumpster, ears flat, back arched, tail twitching.

  “What gives? Jealous ’cause somebody cut your nuts off?” He waved his dick in the cat’s direction.

  The tom hissed again, adding a scratchy growl as he bared his fangs.

  “Beat it, Garfield. Trying to concentrate here.” When the cat refused to budge, Eli pulled a slimy wine bottle from the Dumpster and threw it at him. It popped against the wall, but the cat didn’t move. He just kept glowering at him. It was as if he was looking straight through Eli. “Whatever, cat pervert. Hope you enjoy the show.” He sighed, relief shuddering upward as a steaming stream of piss hit the Dumpster’s side. Halfway through, he stole a quick glance over his shoulder.

  And that’s when he saw her.

  Fifteen if she was a day. And that costume! Pigtails, plaid mini, cream stockings that showed plenty of thigh, tight white shirt tied in a knot that left her porcelain midriff bare. Bare and begging for him. There was the jailbait look, and there was jailbait for real. This wasn’t some Halloween bullshit. This was it. Naughty, naughty, naughty, for this one to be out past bedtime. What she needed was a spanking.

  Eli didn’t even feel the hot piss running down his leg as he stood there mesmerized. He could never have known how fast she’d be on him, hands crushing his skull. Her eyes wide with hunger. Her mouth wider. Much wider.

  Nine

  Check it out,” the cop said as he pulled the empty spray can from Gil’s pocket. Showing it off to his partner, he gave the can a shake. It rattled with a hollow clack. “You been huffing this stuff, Grandpa?”

  “No wonder he’s seeing shit. That stuff’ll peel your mind like a grape.”

  “Yeah, pal. Ain’t you a bit old to be huffing paint?”

  Gil kept his mouth shut through the schoolboy scolding. He should have known a couple of flatfoots wouldn’t believe him. The scriptures rang true, now more than ever. A prophet is without honor in his homeland. And while Gil had been born a world away from New Harbor, there was no doubt that it was the only place he could call home. “There’s something out here,” he said. “You’d better believe it.”

  “Like what?”

  Gil swallowed hard. “It’s the Night Angel.” The laughter rattled his skull like hammers on a drum, but Gil knew what he’d seen.

  He ran it over again in his mind. He’d just emptied his last can of paint when he’d heard a heavy scraping. Curiosity overriding fear, he went down that alley, heart rabbit-punching his ribs with every step. There, almost lost in the murk, was a hole in the brick. From the ragged arch jutted the head and arms of a man done up in cheap Bela Lugosi drag. He was unconscious, or worse.

  Before Gil could take another step, the man, satin cape and all, disappeared into the hole. The hitching movement of his body could only mean one thing: he was being dragged in. Time slowed for Gil the way it had the first time he’d been shot at back in Nam. The spit in his mouth dried up and his sphincter clenched like a pair of pliers. He knew what was inside that hole, but damn it all, he had to try to see it for himself.

  Like Daniel in the lion’s den, he told himself as he drew close to that dark recess. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be
fore, the Fourth Man in the Fire will protect me. Gil got on all fours, feeling his knees pop as he fumbled in his pocket for a matchbook. Three lonely matches clung to the bent cardboard. He struck one and let the flame’s wavering light lead the way.

  He didn’t see the body, just a long trailing gouge in the compacted dirt floor. The darkness beyond the match’s reach was so complete it seemed endless. He pressed on, terror festering in his gut. He spotted a dark slick welling in a recess the same instant the smell hit him, a sweet metallic stench he knew all too well. Blood. And in the middle of the pool, a length of intestine . . . that was moving.

  The flame bit Gil’s fingers. It went out with a hiss as it hit the blood, but not before he saw something else in the gloom. There were eyes in there, and they were watching him. He scrambled back. Ran to the street screaming. Screaming and screaming, until the cops finally pulled up in their cruiser, flashing lights like the glow of mortar fire against the brickwork. And now he stood here, a laughingstock, a fool.

  “Wanna book him?” the first cop asked.

  “For huffing paint? Just write him up.”

  The first cop shrugged. “Hey,” he said to his partner as he pulled out his ticket book and started filling out the citation slip. “You ever hear of something called The Division?”

  “Division of what?”

  “That’s it, just The Division. Above top-secret stuff. Black ops, mind control, sleeper agents. Like a CIA but run by the big multinationals instead of the government.”

  Gil shot a glance back to the alley. Was that a shadow on the wall? Could the Night Angel take all three of them at once? Would she try?

  “What’s that got to do with this guy?”

  “Dunno. Got me thinking. Heard they used to do experiments on vets. Manchurian Candidate stuff. Maybe he’s a casualty of that.” The first cop tore a yellow slip from his pad and slapped it into Gil’s hand. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Nothing surprises you. Lay off the Coast to Coast before bedtime, okay? If this guy’s a casualty of anything, it’s drinking too much antifreeze.” The man took a hard look at Gil. “You show up in court, all right? And I don’t want to catch you around here with this shit, okay? Stick to booze.”