Duet for the Devil Read online

  “Come to think of it, you can still get your two cents-worth in with the coppers—right…?”

  Professor fumbles over the keyboard, finds the ESCAPE key & punches it. The monitor’s screen goes blank. He disconnects himself from the electronic apparatus, removes the IV needle from his arm, & gets up to change his pants.

  On the elevator trip down everything starts to go wrong, so wrong that he curses science for its insidious & demonic tendency toward chaos, the unpredictable fly in the fucking ointment, the fly in the hard-won formula, the aftereffects of his techno-chemo experiment in sweet horror, his empirical thrusts into the psyche of a killer primed for slaughter by Blue Devil (Li Di 9)…

  “This should not be fucking happening…” his words sound muffled in the elevator—the low-high vibration of the elevator’s cable is a hypnotic hum, insinuating snakes of unwanted stimulation—muffled & wrong, like the way the ceiling-recessed lights in this descending box (a coffin lowered into the earthen trench) are now burning blue, when a few seconds ago they were yellow, or the visionary flashes to that other brain, that other over-stimulated bundle of nerves & flesh & blood & muscle, tense & coiled & ready for a kill, another place… Another kill, you feel it coming as the elevator drops in terminal slowness, going lower than it should, descending into chaos…

  “Fucking scientific shit!”

  …& you sink to the floor, your eyes rolling up toward your brain, & blue-tinged visions unfold, take physical form but the words on your lips never quite take shape (“Fuck physics”)…

  …Climbing a stairway steep & dimly lit by a naked 60 watt bulb, you run your fingertips along the wall of peeling paint, spray-painted graffiti & knife-carved runes… You are unstoppable, invincible, & you can almost see through the fucking walls to the other side where hu­man hearts are beating lust-tightened skins, jungle drum drum boogie down dirty hot jam yeah. baby. that’s. what. I. like. There right there uuuuhh yeah OK uuuooh Oh Oh mmmm… you know the door is unlocked before you touch the knob, & you are moving with blue stealth across the stained cat-shit-smelling carpet, to the bedroom where the lovers are going at it for all they’re worth (which, at this moment, isn’t a Hell of a lot) amid crimson shadows thrown by the red party bulb in the Mickey Mouse lamp on the bedside table—You already have the knife in your hand & an erection in your pants—You/Professor/Slice are about to merge minds with your victims in orgasm-in-death, true multiple personalities, true Blue you old Devil…

  The woman is on top, straddling the guy’s loins, wild in the saddle, taking the saddle horn deep, moaning & tossing her long hair. You creep up behind her, knife ready, & you hook your arm around her neck as you spring onto the bed. Holding the breathless woman in a choke hold, you raise the blade high, then plunge it into the guy’s chest. His eyes swell like balloons & you know he is shooting his last wad. Your cheek is against the woman’s sex-tangled hair & you savor the scent of perfume & lust. The down of soft, silky hairs glistens an almost-subliminal blue-lit haze across the curve of her shoulders & upper back. Tiny beads of perspiration trickle the fear-taughtened ridgeline of spine. Tiny beads of cobalt blue. & you realize that glow is the cold blue fire emanating from beneath the translucent parchment mask of flesh you know as “face…” She tries to scream, but your hand covers her mouth. Your erection probes the crevice of her supple rear. Leaving the knife in the dead man’s heart, you unzip your pants & pull out your bluish prick. You jerk the corpse’s cooling cock out of her & replace it with your own loggerhead. Keeping her back arched against your belly, you pump her & it comes to you that what you shoot inside her will be blue, glowing. When you can wait no longer, you yank the knife out of the man’s chest & stab the woman’s abdomen. She screams through your fingers. You twist & jerk the blade inside her, & your mind merges with hers in that brief, beautiful moment of death (like stabbing yourself in a hari-kari-like ceremony of sex & snuff), & blue light explodes into her & across the ceiling, flickering blue stars showering the bed, the dying woman, everything.

  The house dick finds Professor on the floor of the elevator, his wang hanging out of his fly.

  “Crazy sonofabitch,” he mumbles. “For a fucking genius, you sure pull some dumbass shit.”

  [ 20 ]

  The snaps on Julie’s suitcase click open.

  The leather creaks & whispers as she unfolds its contents. Quite immodestly, Julie strips off her gingham dress, while both Maldoror & her own father obviously ogle her deliciously tempting nudity in the chrome-framed, rearward-staring mirror.

  She is a child/woman seductress, a harlot/beast of exquisite immaturity budding into the curves & musk-scented fur of puberty… a teenage sex kitten eager to be stroked & petted… to be toyed with in endless, deadly games of cat-&-mouse…

  She knows no pity—only lust & death & torment…

  Julie exposes herself to them, to the two pairs of eyes that stare at her youthful nakedness, taunting them to act out their twisted desires…

  She selects a pair of skin-tight short shorts & a halter top, both of the same, chaste-innocent-suggesting whiteness… snowy against her olive-tan skin as she begins to wriggle playfully into them…

  Snuff can stand her come-hither looks no longer, & he clambers over the seatback into the rear of the vehicle with her.

  Maldoror watches them at the peripheral boundaries of His detached perception, relishing the utter perversity of the situation, the obscene acts of unnatural, incestuous lust that are certain to follow in the metallic echoes of Snuff’s zipper, slithering down its tracks at the insistent pressure of his daughter’s girlishly small & fragile fingers. He imagines the release of the rearing cobra from its straining nest, & the pouting lips of little Miss Julie as she bends to render it her supplication…

  He is certain of His own invincibility—He has outwitted the Agents of the Law for over thirty years, through a series of capital crimes that make Henry Lee & his companions look like amateurs at mayhem… But Maldoror considers them both as conspirators in crime. As assets… & as liabilities… They are useful. But sometimes difficult to control. Careless cretins. Who must constantly be watched & reminded.

  But He is confident in the knowledge of His rather arcane & costly precautions:

  He thinks back on their “business” trip to Hong Kong four years ago. The “black clinic” of the outlaw plastic surgeon, posing as a tattoo artist, & practicing both arts… the twin shots of scopalamine/morphium-blend, the “Twilight Sleep” that had put both father & daughter under…

  While the skin at the base of their skulls had been slit & peeled back, & glass ampules of blue-ringed octopus’ venom (a neuromuscular poison of incredible lethality, extracted from the Indo-Pacific Octopus maculosus…) were implanted subdermally. Along with a CCD-linked primer charge of nitromannite, in a peach-&-pit system molded around a central PVC-shelled core of 60-40-cast RDX-TNT… A coded pulse, activated by Maldoror’s sub-micro sending unit, would trigger a miniscule yet devastating explosion of intense shattering power… If the detonation didn’t rip their head (s) clean off, it would most certainly serve to rupture the venom ampule into the victim’s system—

  A “failsafe” to silence them should they be apprehended, before they could be taken into custody & interrogated …

  Father & daughter were kept under with repeated injections of the “Twilight Sleep”—

  Until the scars were sufficiently healed to conceal beneath a tiny tattoo that each received, appropriately, images of the blue-ringed octopus…

  Maldoror, in His monomanic egotism had long identified with this deadly ocean predator, this macro-cephalic master of camouflage, many-armed & ever-manipulating ……

  Yes.

  It had been costly—

  The better portion of two complete importations squandered on the trip & the precautionary surgery…

  But it was INSURANCE…

  In more ways than one.

  Snuff had been lured to the underground clinic with the promise that, while
she was unconscious, the surgeon would perform an operation on the child “fixing” her so that they could tamper with her as they pleased (as she so-soon would begin to mature), & neither of the men wished to risk the potential embarrassment & inconvenience of accidentally impregnating her…

  & Snuff had gone under with her, begging for a spike of the Twilight stuff, Why? Shit! He’d try anyfuckin’thing at least once if he thought it would get him WASTED…

  [ 21 ]

  Frank Hawkes guides the gunmetal silver Stingray through the streets of northwestern Ocala. The bad side of town. Things really haven’t changed a Hell of a lot since he last passed through its city limits. At least not visibly.

  Frank allows himself a momentary flight into a world of daydream—a strange synthesis of nearly equal parts of free-associating pop philosophy, wish fulfillment & nostalgic reminiscence:

  If Time is indeed the metaphoric river that many hypothesize, & if urban, late 20th Century mainstream America—the Third Wave society postulated by Alvin Toffler in his popular writings ­might be represented by a series of white-churning rapids, then perhaps Ocala might be symbolized by a lazily circling backwater. A slightly seedy Norman Rockwell triptych honoring an almost-extinct Americana preserved only in the more bucolic reaches of The Twilight Zone: the old swimming hole & freckle-faced kids sharing chugalugs of fresh-squeezed OJ from one of those forever-smiling Mr. Kool-Aid pitchers; a field of turf bordered by white split rail fences stretching on into the infinity of vanishing point & populated by a pair of frisky thoroughbreds & their wobbly-legged foals; tearfully homey clapboard houses with fading whitewash & picket fences & cast-iron lawn jockeys with flaking paint, the rust crusted on them like shriveled rinds of orange peel…

  But surface appearances deceive…& long term memory can play the trickster… Facets within facets—

  There is no swimming hole.

  The white fences are board, not picket.

  & NOBODY BUT NOBODY WOULD BE CRAZY ENOUGH TO PLACE A LAWN JOCKEY IN THEIR YARD. NOT HERE…

  Not on this side of town. Not in northwestern Ocala…

  The air is thick with the oppressive, enveloping humidity that soon raises the red itching of prickly heat on his dripping flesh…

  Seven murders in one recent month. Most likely drug-related.

  & if Ocala had a theme song, it sure as Hell wouldn’t be that goddamn insipid whistling from The Andy Griffith Show or that doo-doo-doo’ing drivel from Mayberry RFD. NO. Maybe Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” (?) or The Atlanta Rhythm Section’s “Cocaine Charlie” (?) or Hoyt Axton’s “My Snowblind Friend” (?) or Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “The Needle and the Spoon” (?)…

  [ 22 ]

  Like a shadow set free from its human mooring, Pynchon slips unnoticed into the blue den of cutthroats, perverts & thieves—the regulars (& a few irregulars) who come to Mermaid’s Inn to worship the Evil gods of their choice. A darker shadow moving in a world of shadows. Washed in flickering blue. A veteran of secret wars & a practitioner of the blacker guerrilla arts, Pynchon is a master of the discipline of Perceptual Invisibility—which is why no one in the Inn will remember seeing him here on this balmy night.

  If he wanted to, he could kill at least ten unsuspecting assholes in a Hong Kong minute & be gone before anyone noticed the first corpse.

  But tonight he won’t.

  Tonight he has another mission, a mission worth far more than the pitiful lives of all the pub-crawling scum in this whole place.

  Under his long, black leather jacket, his Zombie 9mm sleeps in its shoulder holster, close to his heart. The light-weight Zombie is his favorite handgun & a very light sleeper; though he has no present intention of waking it tonight, he is grateful for its company. Pynchon likes the way it becomes a part of his hand & an extension of his steel will as the Zombie spits, slamming crimson petals into frail flesh, bucking in his hand like a wild lover at the moment of orgasmic release… But not tonight, my dear; tonight there are other fish to fry. Pynchon works freelance, usually for the highest bidder & without selling his soul to any master or ideology. Those who employ his services know he could dispatch them as easily as anyone else. He could play havoc with the balance of global underground power if he so desired. In fact, he knows the hits he would have to make in order to throw the above- & below-ground power structures into chaos, but there would be nothing for him to gain by such actions. He makes his livelihood by milking the multinational beast of corporate horrors. Like his Zombie, Pynchon doesn’t give a damn who dies at his gun hand.

  A target is a target is a target…

  The house dick leans a fat arm on the bar, chatting up a retired madam from a bygone era of simple, painted ladies & cheaper flesh. Pynchon waits in the shadow & smoke at the other end of the bar. When finally the dick waddles to the john like an aging weightlifter, Pynchon follows.

  Their eyes meet in the mirror. “You don’t look happy to see me, old friend,” Pynchon says with a tight-lipped smile.

  The house dick spins around to face him in the flesh. “Why should I be? Whenever you’re around, there’s a shitstorm brewing. But, on the other hand, when you’re around & I don’t see ya, there’s always a goddamn bloodbath.”

  “So it’s shit or go blind, eh, Rupert?”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just piss…”

  “Be my guest.”

  Rupert the house dick goes to the stained urinal to drain his shrunken lizard. Uneasy with his back to Pynchon, he keeps glancing over his shoulder.

  “Where is the illustrious Professor Punk?” Pynchon leans against the tile wall & crosses his arms over his chest.

  “Bastard’s still in bed. He’s under the weather.”

  “Oh?”

  “One of his fuckin’ experiments almost did him in.”

  “You know what he’s workin’ on?”

  “You know better than that,” says Rupert, zipping his plaid pants. “I ain’t ready to die.”

  “In that case, let me up to see him.”

  “I can’t. I don’t have the elevator key.”

  Pynchon becomes a blur as he spins Rupert around & slams his balding head against the wall above the urinal. Rupert slides down the tile & over the porcelain, his bloody face coming to rest in the pissy water.

  “You don’t want to lie to me again, my fat friend. Give me the key.”

  “Jeezus,” he groans, pushing up from the pisser. He reaches into a vest pocket & withdraws the key. “Here. Take the sonofabitch.”

  Pynchon takes the key & says, “You’re a mess, Rupert. I’m afraid you just blew any chance you had at getting into that old madam’s silk panties.”

  [ 23 ]

  Truman Gilmore is down & out in Demerol City…

  His universe is heavy with the stink of blood & sweat & feces, & gasoline & the new-car/techno-scent of long-chain polymers…

  His ravaged skin is chafed with the synthetic pile of carpet, his arms strained in their shoulder sockets by the unnatural torque of his bondage, his fat wrists gouged by the cold cruel grip of stainless steel manacles… But he is, quite literally, oblivious to the confines of his temporary prison…

  Truman Gilmore’s existence is a grave-black Bardo, his rnam-shes mind-locked in a transitional state flickering between “Moment of Death” & the clear light of “Experiencing Reality”—

  The drifting entity of his consciousness is assaulted by visions of the karma path he’s traveled…like a runaway ride careening & clattering through a berserk Fun House whose rails are a fragile silver psychic cord vibrating with a road-noise steel-belt hum…the pop-up monsters of his own sweet secret sins writhe/wriggle/slobber, lurching upright with pneumatic slamdance hisses…

  But there is no one to read Truman through this realm of tortured being…no one to recite aloud from Bar-do Thodol to guide him through…

  & neither the Holy Scriptures nor the Eternal Dollar that he worships holds the power to save his endangered soul…

  No, if
anything, they have only served, not in his Salvation, but in prolonging the span of his waiting agony, & the depths of degradation that must surely lie ahead shall pale his darkest shrieking nightmares into gusts of breath swirling in the stillness of some long-forgotten winter midnight…

  There are more things in heaven & earth (& HELL), Truman, than are dreamed of in your (so-pitifully limited) philosophy:

  &, indeed,

  EVER THE DOORS OF HELL HANG OPEN:

  [ 24 ]

  Frank’s hairy, mitt-like right fist unknots itself from the steering wheel, & reaches out with surprising gentleness to run his outstretched fingers through the ruff of hair along the back of Elijah’s neck, stroking & scratching with absent-minded affection.

  Momentary inner musings fade & the reality of road & real estate once more asserts its primacy:

  The sign on the convenience mart reads “JACK’S FOOD STORE.”

  “Better grab myself a pack of smokes while I’m thinking of it, Old Boy—” Frank says to his companion, the redbone hound.

  He hangs a hard turn, burning a little rubber as the treads of the Vette’s steelbelt radials bite pavement, noses it between a mudcaked & backroad-battered ’71 Ford pick-up & a once-yellow, ’52 Studebaker rust monster deluxe.

  The sign on the wall outside clearly states: “NO LOITERING OR DRINKING ON PREMISES,” but a pair of aging black winos are leaning against the building, sharing slobbering swigs from a crumpled brown #8 grocery sack wrapped around a bottle that looks suspiciously like NIGHT TRAIN to Frank’s trained eye. Both wear dipso-reg navy knit caps & frayed & filth-stained army surplus jackets. Their body language deciphers as charter members of Local #000 of the Street Trash Legion. Alkies. Shiv swingers. Neither looks like he might be holding. Or packing heat.