I hadn’t gotten any sort of murderous vibe off them except for Chuck. Were the others a part of this or was Chuck or someone else simply working on his own?
I turned and saw the girl in the cage.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered.
She couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. She was naked and bruised badly, with huge pendulous breasts and lean legs covered in welts. When she saw me she scurried to the far side of the cell and hid her face.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said but she just glanced up and stared at me through flowing locks of her hair. She frowned and watched me curiously but didn’t say a word.
The little cage had an old-fashioned turn-key lock. I scanned the area but couldn’t find the key, and just as I was about to kneel and get my tools out again I heard a heavy grunting.
He came out of the pantry holding a skillet large enough for a man to sit in. He weighed an easy 350, most of it flab hanging over what had once been hard muscle. The boy knew how to eat. He smiled and I saw a mouth stuffed with way too many teeth—they came out from every angle, wrenched and twisted, canines in the wrong place, molars crushed down to the nub. His own incisors were rotted black fragments and it looked like he’d implanted others into his own gum line. Shards of coyote fangs, mangled bridges and dentures. They were jagged and infected and scraped clean by gnawing on bones.
His clothing had been made from animal pelts and scraps of three-piece suits. I did a quick count and spotted at least four Armani labels. The kitchen had been in business for a while. He wore a thick leather belt from which hung a variety of clattering utensils. A huge spoon, a corkscrew, and an egg beater hung side by side with a double-sided hatchet, a meat cleaver, and a bone saw.
Knots of scar tissue jutted from his forehead and his eyebrows had been torn off so many times that they now formed a heavy frontal ridge. It gave him an almost Cro-Magnon appearance. I’d seen it on cons before to a lesser degree, the guys who went crazy in solitary and did nothing but smash their own faces into the wall all day long.
“Howdy,” I said. “You the cook?”
Smiley dropped the skillet and drew the saw from his belt. Blood and sweat stains had given the wooden handle a red polished sheen.
“Dis ma kitchen,” he said.
“And I’m sure you pass the board of health inspections with flying colors.”
When he shut his mouth those teeth clashed together like wolves locked in combat. His movements were slow and precise and had a suggestion of dramatic flair to them. He was used to scaring people and drinking in their fear while they died, and he wanted to milk it even more.
Smiley grabbed the hatchet with his other hand and let both weapons swing at his sides, building up a rhythm. A strange noise bubbled up from his guts but I couldn’t place it at first. I cocked my head and listened. Was this fucker laughing at me?
I reached under my arm and drew my .32 from its holster. Not quite as much firepower as I would’ve liked but anything bigger would’ve ruined the crease in my suit. I put one into his forehead.
It was a mistake.
The .32 didn’t have enough kick and the bullet got tangled in all that scar tissue. It barely even staggered him and only two drops of blood leaked out. Smiley kept up with that weird sound and swung the hatchet. I dodged left but couldn’t get off another shot before he had me backed up to the cage. There was no room to maneuver.
“All right, the hard way,” I said.
Bringing the saw up, Smiley tried to take the top of my head off with one brutal swing. If I’d been 6’1” instead of 5’11” my brains would’ve rocketed to the other side of the kitchen.
The thought didn’t thrill me. I elbowed him hard under the heart and tried to gain the space I needed to bring the gun up, but he didn’t back off an inch. The hatchet came down for my thigh and I barely deflected the blade with the barrel of the .32. My fingers went numb and the gun skittered across the floor.
Monty’s guts smoked on the grill. They sizzled and spit and my stomach took a bad tumble. Smiley kept grinning with a mouth full of madness. The girl let out a squeak that for some reason picked up my heart rate. I was acting like an amateur and it was going to get me killed.
I elbowed him again in the same place and this time it got his attention. The noise in his rotund belly stopped and he snarled, “Dis ma kitchen!” I wasn’t about to argue. I stomped his foot and brought my fist down against the inside of his knee cap. I heard it snap and Smiley groaned but didn’t go down. I tried again and missed as he slid the saw up towards my neck and started to draw the blade away. I rolled my shoulder and ducked aside but not fast enough. A spurt of my blood splashed up against the edge of my jaw. It didn’t hurt so much as it filled me with a sickening heat.
I drove the thick part of my palm into Smiley’s mouth and heard all those fangs and contorted teeth crunch together. He spit out blood and infection and pieces of his black gums. He took a step back and raised the hatchet overhead. I dug into his belt and came up with the corkscrew. He made his noise again as he brought the hatchet down and I jammed the corkscrew deep into his Adam’s apple.
The girl shouted, “Yeah!” I had a fan. Smiley stumbled backwards but didn’t drop as he quivered and his eyes rolled. Those thick hands came up and he grasped the handle sticking out of his throat and tugged hard. A spray of blood and gobs of bile showered across his chest. The corkscrew came out about an inch and he pulled again and again until he tore out part of his own esophagus. The fucker kept right on laughing and that really pissed me off.
“Jesus Christ, Smiley, give up the ghost already!”
I nabbed the .32 off the floor, walked over, aimed away from the scar tissue and put another into his head. He took two more tottering steps back as he reeled away into Monty’s corpse. Monty’s arms almost hugged him as Smiley fell into the body. Their combined weight was enough to rip Monty off the hook, and they both fell into one big dead heap.
We’d made too much noise. Chuck would be around soon.
I used my tools and got the cell open in under a minute. It was coming back to me quick.
She said, “You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“I’m starting to get that feeling.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, it’s bad.”
Monty’s burning innards were smoking the place up. I reached into the cage and she took my hand and held it tightly between her huge tits and sort of fell against my chest. From what I could see, she was bruised but otherwise unharmed. In East Hollywood she would’ve been a video star. Monty would’ve loved the script: Cannibal Hippie Wasteland. I could imagine him framing shots all over the place, zoom-ins on the girl, icing down her nipples for the re-shoots.
I took off my jacket and helped her into it.
“My clothes are in the corner there,” she said.
I went and checked and found some ragged jean shorts and a torn halter top. The grill had erupted into a grease fire and I hoped it burned the whole goddamn town down. I turned and saw that she’d stepped over to Smiley and was giving him a few good kicks in the head. I went to the door, eased it open, and looked out. So far, no one was around yet.
“Come on, we’ve got to go.”
“Why do you have a gun?” she asked.
“To enforce proper civil conduct.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a soldier.”
“In the army?”
“In the Family. I’m an enforcer.”
She couldn’t puzzle it out so I just let it go. The Feds had come down and put my boss out of action, and instead of finding a new crew I’d just moped around and laid low and wrote scripts and plays. I was starting to have some second thoughts about my new life.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Mary. I was hitchhiking and got lost on the highway. One of those hippie guys picked me up and brought me here. I thought it was a nice place at first.”