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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:44:11 GMT -5
The Challenge from Beyond is a round-robin story, started by David Farnell after the original CFB by Lovecraft and so many others. Anyone can become an author by signing up during the original organizational period, and often later by replacing someone who gets taken out by RL(tm) bad guys. The current CFB2003 is posted here and on the DGlist, as well as being available in HTML form at: www.kurotokage.org/cfb2003a/Check the website for more information, including the background to the scenario and various spoilers. This thread is for the story alone; please put any commentary, discussions and gripes in the other thread. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! Edward Lipsett One of the editors #nosmileys#nosmileys |
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:45:19 GMT -5
Chapter 1 -- Something New on the Street
by Mark McFadden
Robert Landry was in the weight room when the perp was brought in, so he missed the first wave of excitement in Central Station. It had been a frustrating shift, and he was dealing with those frustrations through many reps with prodigious weights. While the arriving shift was getting the story from the agitated members of the previous one that were hanging on past the end of their watch, Landry was bellowing and grunting, pushing himself to the limit and then trying for just one more.
Weightlifting competition had become part of the culture of Los Angeles law enforcement, with officers pumping up with steroids and hitting the streets in a chronic condition of 'roid rage'. Landry didn't use juice, and competed with no one but himself and the force of gravity. He didn't track his progress or attempt to sculpt his physique; every time he hit the weights it was an all-out assault that would leave him gulping for air, bathed in sweat, with his muscles burning in a way he had come to enjoy. In the afterglow of a vigorous workout, Landry could find the peace the rest of his life denied him.
He had just completed a grueling set of bench presses and was setting the weights on the Nautilus machine for leg extensions when Lieutenant Manuel Flores came into the weight room.
Landry and Flores had come up through the ranks together, and had even been partners in the late Eighties. Although their careers had diverged; with Flores headed onward and upward as Landry hovered at Sergeant with no signs of rising above that until *just* before retirement; they had a mutual admiration for each other's abilities and commitment to the job. Flores was brass that Landry could respect, and Landry was the best detective Flores had ever met. Flores had become a sort of "rabbi" for Landry; his sole guide through the labyrinth of LAPD internal politics.
"Bob, did you have any plans for tonight?"
"Just dinner and a good book after I completed my sets, Manny. What's up?"
"I think you ought to call your partner and tell him to get back here. There's something I think you both need to see."
Landry got his towel and resignedly began to wipe his sweat from the weight machine's pads.
"And it won't wait until tomorrow? Christ, Manny, it was a sh*tty day; I was looking forward to a little down time."
"Bob, believe me, I know. I read your report, but it's Juvie's problem now. I think this is important, and I think we have to move fast. We've got a media feeding frenzy shaping up out there with at least three citizen's groups giving sound bites. Half of the last shift is still hanging around and on the verge of a riot. The testosterone in the air is so thick the walls are sprouting pubes. Don't you listen to your radio?"
Landry paused from his cool-down stretching to give a hurt look.
"Gimme a break, Manny. Is this about the 'Hey Rube' in Chinatown?"
"Bingo. I knew there was a reason they made you a detective besides your fashion sense and social skills."
"Huh. Well, Neil and I were down in Boyle Heights, so we weren't following the play-by-play," Landry growled while holding his forehead to his left knee.
"To be honest, you wouldn't have learned much anyhow. Just a bunch of repeated calls for more backup and a few non-regulation f**ks and sh*ts for the local news to bleep out at eleven. You'll probably get the highlights in the locker room. Bob, just call your partner and get a shower. I've got to make kissy-face with the media and ride herd on the troops before some CRASH cowboy does a Fuhrman on tape. I'll fill you both in when Casey gets here."
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Neil Casey was nine laps into a 10K run at the Police Academy track in Elysian Park when he got Landry's call. Mumbling curses, he pulled his cell phone from his fanny pack and slowed to a power walk. He recognized Landry's cell number on the readout and groaned.
"Bob, please tell me this is an emergency."
"I don't know what it is yet, Neil. But Flores thinks it's important for us to see something tonight. Did you talk to anyone before you got out of here tonight?"
Casey was already cutting across the field to the locker room as they spoke.
"Nope. I just grabbed my bag and headed to the track. What's up?"
Landry's voice lowered as if he didn't want to be overheard. "It's about that Chinatown arrest earlier. There were about a dozen uniforms involved and it sounds like they got their asses kicked by one perp with -- get this -- a f**king pruning saw. It was Kung Fu Theater out there. I heard eight of the troops are in the ER getting stitched up from saw cuts and bites."
Casey broke into a jog. "Did you say bites?"
"Like a f**king Pit Bull. You know Hackford?"
"The new guy from Rampart?"
"That's the one. He lost a finger in the clusterf**k, and everyone thinks the perp swallowed it. I guess if he passes a wedding band we'll know for sure."
"Jesus."
Landry's voice was still confidential. "Look, I'll meet you in the garage. I have to get out of here; it's like 'Lord of the Flies' in the locker room. The CRASH choirboys are wearing their colors like it's time to kill the pig and everyone's pounding on lockers. If they don't get some meat soon they're gonna turn on anyone that isn't with 'em. I'm trying to stay frosty here, so hurry up."
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As Casey pulled into a free space he spotted Landry waiting by the elevators, looking like Conan the Academic in his tailored tweed jacket with leather elbows. Landry was rapidly (and effortlessly) squeezing the handgrip exerciser that was always with him.
"You're just in time, Neil. Flores is done with the press and in his office," Landry said, then punched the down button at the elevator.
"I didn't shower."
"No one's gonna notice tonight."
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:45:50 GMT -5
When Flores saw them he set his phone to take messages and lead the way to the interrogation rooms, shaking off questions with a quick "Not here."
Several off-duty officers in civvies were loitering in the hallway outside the interrogation room with the "In Use" sign. A few were wearing the unofficial CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) patch, a skull with glaring eyes, wearing a cowboy hat with a police badge. Although officially frowned upon as bad community relations, the patches were nonetheless available at the Police Academy gift shop and from the LAPD online store.
Landry and Casey were assigned to CRASH, but as detectives they were on the intelligence side of the unit's mission. They kept track of gang members and trends and tried to anticipate problems on the street. The enforcement side used the tactics of suppression, sending messages and making pre-emptive strikes. In recent years they had come to resemble the gangs they opposed. The enforcement side also distrusted the intelligence group, which they felt was too friendly with the enemy.
One of the CRASH street monsters spotted the two detectives and jeered. "Yo, Cagney and Lacey. You two f*g**ts here to protect your little homie in there?"
Flores loudly cleared his throat and held the door to the hallway open. "Time, gentlemen," he said. "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."
The group broke up and filed out, giving dirty looks and bumping into Landry or Casey on the way.
Flores shut the door and pulled a ring of keys on a reel attached to his belt. He unlooked a door next to the one with the sign and motioned for Landry and Casey to enter. "Maybe after they go home and beat their wives they'll settle down," he said.
The room was small and dark, with a table and two office chairs against the wall joining the occupied room next door and centered under a large two-way mirror. A professional quality reel-to-reel tape recorder was on the table.
On the other side of the glass a small Asian man covered in blood was seated at an interrogation table, manacled at hands and feet with the joining chains locked to a ring set in the concrete floor. His head was shaved, and large tears in his clothing uncovered large sections of skin decorated with dense, intricate black tattoos.
He sat erect and poised with his hands on his thighs; motionless. His battered face had swollen and blood was still coming from his nose.
"Jesus," Casey whispered.
"It's not as bad as it looks, believe it or not," Flores said, facing the man in the other room. "Most of the blood isn't his. He's got some burns from the Tasers and a lot of bruises, but no one got a clear shot at him. There were a dozen cops on him at the end, but when he was on his feet he moved through them like -- I don't know what. Somehow he always managed to keep someone between himself and any guns. By the time they had him down there was a crowd of civilians at the mouth of the alley and the first news vans had made it to the scene, so the boys didn't get to do a Rodney King on him."
"Did he really swallow Hackford's finger?" Casey asked.
"Time will tell. We certainly didn't find it at the scene. Look at him in there. He hasn't moved or said one damn thing since he was brought in. We got him literally red-handed, sawing the arm off his victim. It was a righteous bust; but the DA doesn't know what to do with him. We've Miranda'd him in English, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, and Laotian -- no response. No counsel has shown up, and the DA's afraid to question him and f**k up the case -- if they intend to take this in front of a jury. He was found sawing an arm off a corpse, he probably ate a cop's finger, he says nothing and he makes no sign of understanding anything -- an insanity plea would be a slam dunk for a public defender."
"But you don't think he is insane, do you Lieutenant?" Landry asked, without looking away from the man in the other room.
"I don't think he's incompetent to stand trial, which is something else entirely. You want to know something? We had a couple of citizen's groups from Chinatown in here, and no one was concerned about police brutality. They're on our side in this -- they want this... they want him off the streets. You've done outreach in the community; does that sound right to you?"
"It's unusual," Landry replied. "Do you think they know something about... him?"
"Yeah. It wasn't what they were saying, but what they weren't saying. You know what I mean. There was the usual official conversation happening in English, but there was a lot going on in Chinese while I was talking to the spokesmen. I hate it when they pull that inscrutable sh*t. But here's the thing -- it reminded me of some things I saw years ago, before I joined the force."
Landry cocked an eyebrow. "This from your Navy days?"
"Yeah. I never told you any of my war stories because I don't have any. I joined up when things were winding down over there. I already knew I wanted to be a cop, so I became a Master-at-Arms. After school I was assigned to the USS Midway, and I got there just in time to help with the evacuation of Vietnam. This was in early '75."
"You told me some things about that," Landry said. "That was Operation Chronic Farts, right?"
Flores smiled. "Frequent Wind -- but I like your version better. It was insane. We were housing refugees in the hangar bay under the planes; ARVN troops were coming in fully armed; prostitutes were trying to do business; people were smuggling heroin to finance their start in a new country. They had to shove a couple of Chinooks over the side to make room for a Vietnamese Colonel to land his plane because he had his family aboard. A little Cessna Bird-dog packed to the ceiling with wife and kiddies -- and about a hundred pounds of white powder stuffed under the seats. I was in the detail that dumped the powder off the fantail.
"It was the mother of all cluster-f**ks. We had a joke at the time. What do you call two hundred Marines hanging from a helicopter? A strategic withdrawal from Saigon. There were American troops coming in, too. Regular troops had their own bugout procedures, but we were getting Special Forces types straight out of the sh*t, still wearing camo make-up. And -- they brought their guides with them. They had Montagnard and Hmong tribesmen with them. No ID, no official existence. f**king tribesmen from the bush.
"Anyhow, it was one of those tribesmen that the snake-eaters brought in that started the trouble. We tried to put him in among the refugees in the hangar bay, and they weren't having it. Almost started a riot. We had removed the fire axes from the area, so refugees were unhooking the tie-down chains from the parked planes for weapons, which is not a good idea on a moving ship. I was with the detail trying to hold off the crowd, and the little bastard just stood there looking bored. Didn't say a word, just like our friend in there. Mardet - uh, the Marine Detachment got called in, and they hustled him off to the brig for safe keeping. When we got back to Yokosuka he got picked up by Intelligence types. We never did find out what that was all about or what happened to him.
"Anyhow, that's what I was reminded of. I don't speak Vietnamese, so I don't know what the crowd was saying aboard the Midway, but I kept hearing the same word I heard there tonight, when the citizen's group people were talking among themselves. I don't know what it means, but the magic word seems to be something that sounds like 'chocho.'"
"Chocho?" Casey asked.
"That's what it sounded like to me. Ring any bells?"
Landry and Casey looked at each other, and then shook their heads.
Flores shrugged. "Well, maybe it's a start. This is Homicide's case, but I thought you needed to see... him. The victim was a gang member, and this might have been the first round in a turf war. If there are more like *him* around, we need to get on top of the situation ASAP. If he's Vietnamese, maybe the boys in Gardena know something about him."
Landry nodded. "It's worth a try. Let's give a heads-up to the local ERs, too. Add saw cuts to the injuries we want to be told about. Casey?"
Casey was looking intently through the glass. "I want to know more about those tatts. Where did he get them? What do they mean? Let's get some pictures and talk to some experts."
As he spoke, the small man slowly turned his head to look directly at the mirror, like a tank turret swiveling to take aim. His face remained expressionless, his eyes as dead as glass. He didn't seem to be looking at his reflection.
Then he smiled, showing his teeth filed to points.
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:46:24 GMT -5
Chapter 2 -- Cavities
By Eckhard Huelshoff
Landry felt like he was in a museum as he wandered around the tattoo shop, looking at all those examples of the shop owner's work. Even though he would never agree to being tattooed and could not understand those who did, he gazed in awe at the talent documented in the photos. Some of the tattoos shown were nonetheless irritating. One of the photos showed a young girl - obviously in her late teens - who had gaping maws tattooed in her palms. In fact, most of the tattoos were terrifying pictures, many featuring symbols connected to Satanism; others were just downright horrible, like the one that showed a 250-pound woman with an astonishingly realistic tattoo of Siegfried and Roy on one of her gigantic ass cheeks.
"Sorry, Landry, but I can't help you," Daniel Homann said as he put down the photos of the suspect. "Whoever tattooed him was a real master, but I don't know anyone in this city who might have done this. It just doesn't resemble any style that I know. And you know I know 'em all."
Homann was one of Landry's main informants in the seedy part of the city. When he had checked out the tattoo expert's background he had been very surprised to find out that the man was in fact a licensed dentist, and had once owned a dental clinic on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland.
"Okay, Danny Boy, so you can't identify the artist. But can you tell me anything about the symbols used? Have you ever seen them in other tattoos?"
"Well, those symbols seem Asian. Did your experts already identify what language it is?"
"No. Nobody knows what language it is. It bears a certain resemblance to many Asian languages, but no one can identify it. At the moment, about several dozen Ivy League experts in Asian languages are trying to translate it. The only result, after more than two days, is that three academics have had nervous breakdowns."
"sh*t. Sorry, guess I can't give you anything on the tattoos, my friend, but..."
"What?"
"On this photo," he said, pointing to the only photo that showed the suspect grinning, "You can see the guy's teeth."
"And?"
"You know my background, Bob. Whoever worked on these teeth was an expert. And a complete wacko."
"Why's that?"
"These teeth are filed to points, right? No good dentist could ever do this. And no good dentist would ever do it this way! These teeth are filed so drastically it would cause the patient enormous pain!"
Landry wanted to answer but his mobile phone rang. He recognized the number that popped on the display.
"What's up, Lieutenant?" he asked as he answered.
"Don't call me Lieutenant!" snapped Flores. "Listen, Landry, I've got interesting news. Our suspect has found a lawyer. And it's no public defender."
"What!? Who?"
"It's Vince O'Donnell."
"You mean THE Vince O'Donnell!?"
"Yeah. Same one. The criminal defense superstar of Friedman, Friedman, Tyrone & Partners. According to my informants it will be Friedman, Friedman, Tyrone, O'Donnell & Partners, if he wins this case."
"But how?"
Flores had expected the question.
"They are doing it pro bono, they say. The DA isn't too happy either; she's pretty certain they'll claim insanity. And O'Donnell is an expert in these cases. After all, he managed to save the 'Austin Ripper' from the electric chair. 16 dead nuns and the guy is spending his time in a luxury mental hospital, right?"
"sh*t. Did he already speak with his client?"
"Not yet. But he wants to speak to you when you come back. He'll be here at 1600, so you better show up, too. See you then."
"Yeah. Thanks," replied Landry as he dropped the cell phone back into his jacket.
"Do you have a beer, Danny Boy?" he asked the tattoo expert, who had kept busy sterilizing his equipment while Landry was on the phone.
"Sure. No good news?" Homann asked, going to the office where his refrigerator could be found.
"Not really."
A minute later, Homann returned with two bottles. He opened them and passed one to Landry.
Landry looked at the bottle. "Warsteiner!? What's that?"
"German beer. You can find it if you look hard enough. It's a classic. And I know one of the brewers."
Landry took a sip. It tasted great.
"Whoa, that's fine stuff."
"Okay, Bob. I know you need help in this case. I promise, I'll keep my ears open. But can you tell me one thing?"
"What?"
"Did you guys already identify that rabid little dude?"
"Nope. We tried to, but we can't get acceptable fingerprints. He doesn't have anything to print on his fingertips, actually. There's just scar tissue."
"Like John Doe in Seven."
"Who?"
"Seven, the film by David Fincher. It's a classic! It's about two cops hunting a serial killer. You should watch it; it might help your investigation."
Landry wrote down the title on his notepad. Probably he should watch more films, he thought to himself.
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Linda Bateman was no ordinary hooker. She considered herself an actress, and she only worked as a hooker because she had no real offers in the film industry at the moment. She figured, since she might someday have to play a prostitute, her current experience might come in handy in the future. She was a real method actress.
She had lived this lie for two years now. She had come all the way from Springfield, Michigan, to become an actress and now her only connection to the film industry was that she was waiting for her clients not far from the place where the character played by Julia Roberts had picked up Richard Gere in Pretty Woman.
A car stopped next to her. She knew the car, a 1990 Dodge Viper. This was no client. She bent down to the window nonetheless.
"Hello, sweetheart!" the black man behind the wheel rolled, his grin shining even more than the gold chains looped at his throat.
"Hi, PJ," she replied, forcing a smile.
"Sweetheart, when I gonna get my 3,000 bucks?"
Linda's business had suffered from the general depression over the last few weeks, and she hadn't been able to pay PJ for his deliveries.
"I'm sorry, PJ, I just don't have the money right now, but I promise I'll pay you real soon. Just as soon as I can!"
"Oh, darlin', you know that I need the money, right? But I am no a bad man, you know. How about makin' a deal?"
"What kind of deal?"
"What if I forget about your debt?"
"Yeah? And what do I have to do?"
"Easy, honey. No big deal. There's some new stuff on the street, and maybe you might help me pick up a few new customers..."
PJ gave her a jar containing some grayish powder.
"This stuff is great," he said, "I don't know how it works, but it makes time pass real slow like. Pop some of this and five minutes of sex'll seem like five hours. Time just don't matter no more when you're on this stuff."
"So what do I do?" she asked.
"Just get your johns hooked on it! I mean, like, it's the perfect sex drug. They'll hand over the dough for 15 minutes, but go away feeling like they've f**ked you for a coupl'a hours."
"Where does it come from?"
"Don't know, don't care. The gooks sell it, so it prolly comes from the triangle. sh*t, I don't really care. It's a gold mine, sweetheart, and if you play along it'll be a gold mine for the both of us."
"So, what's it called?"
"What?"
"The stuff!"
"It's called 'Sweet & Low'! Your johns'll jus' love that name!"
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:47:15 GMT -5
Chapter 3: Heat
By Raymond Welt
Tommy almost choked on his hamburger, but managed to keep from spitting it over his friend. "With a saw?" he asked when he finally swallowed.
Landry nodded. He was hoping Tommy would be able to help him on this case. The answers to all his questions so far were just leading to further questions. Tommy Ng was one of his best sources of information when it came to Asian gangs. Tommy had been mixed up with a gang while he was growing up, but managed to keep his record clean and now worked for the Los Angeles Times. His media contacts and the contacts he kept from his younger, gang-related years made him a valuable resource to Landry.
"We can't find anything on this guy," Landry continued. "He can't, or won't, talk to us; fingerprinting is no good; nothing else is turning up anything either. I hate to admit it, but we're getting desperate. I was hoping you could help us out here."
Tommy shook his head. "I wish I could, but I'm drawing a blank. Never heard of anything like that before." He took a sip from his soda. "With a saw..."
When they had both finished eating, Landry pulled some photos from his jacket pocket. "Might as well show you these, too." Tommy quizzically raised an eyebrow. "Tattoos found on the perp's body. Nobody's been able to identify them. Don't expect you too, either, but have to be able to say I tried."
Tommy sifted through the pictures slowly, studying each one. He closed his eyes and thought hard for a moment. After what seemed like forever, he quietly said "I think I've seen something similar."
"What?"
"It was a couple of weeks ago," explained Tommy. "It was from a distance, so I can't be sure, but I think I saw someone with similar tats walking through the Alhambra. I wouldn't have paid any attention except that it seemed like people were spreading out around him. Like there was some field around him that no one else could get through. People just parted before him like he was Moses."
"Anything else?"
Tommy shook his head. "I talked to one of my guys from the old days a couple days later. When I asked about it, he didn't say much. Only that there was some new guys in town. I didn't press any further. Figured it was just a new gang with a bad rep. Didn't know they used f**king saws!"
"Do me a favor. Dig deeper, find out what you can about these guys, and get back to me." Landry could hardly keep still. Finally, a possible break had presented itself.
"I don't want these guys coming after me, Landry. I thought guys chasing me with submachine guns was scary, but f**kin' saws! That's too much!"
"Come on, Tommy! I need this! Keep a low profile and you'll be fine. You've done it before!" Landry's cell phone rang. "Take a minute to think about it." He flashed Tommy what he hoped was his most convincing smile and answered his phone. "Landry."
Casey's voice crackled over the phone. "Landry, it's Casey. You gotta get over here right away."
"Where's here, and why?"
"USC Med. And let's just say your hunch to watch for more saw attacks may have paid off."
"What do you mean?"
"Some ganger kid just came in here with saw-like wounds to his groin area."
"To his..." Landry shot a look over at Tommy, who was listening closely. "I'll be right there." He put the phone away and turned back to Tommy. "I need an answer, Tommy."
"I'll sniff around. But don't expect much. I'm not putting myself on the line for you again, Landry."
Landry shook Tommy's hand. "Good enough," he said. "I owe you one."
Tommy smiled. "You owe me a lot more than one!"
Neither Tommy nor Landry noticed the small man watching them from the shadows.
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Linda's life was getting better. She was pushing the Sweet & Low like PJ wanted, and her johns were rushing back to PJ to buy another hit. She was giving him so much business that her debt to him was almost gone in less than a month.
She never stopped hearing about how good the stuff was. Every john she gave it to had become a regular for her. She barely had to walk the streets anymore, she was in such demand. All because she always had a hit of Sweet & Low to sell before getting down to the real business.
She stepped out of the bathroom into the dingy bedroom of the cheap hotel where she did most of her work. Her john was already naked and lying on the bed. He looked up at her as she sashayed in. "You ready for me, cowboy?" She knew his name was Mike Stephens, but he would go into quite a rage if she called him anything but "cowboy."
The cowboy took a pill from the small pile on the nightstand and swallowed it. Then he smiled and motioned for her to come closer. She got on the bed and crawled up to him. He kissed her and rolled her over. He took another pill and pressed it to her lips. She didn't open them.
"Take it," he urged. She shook her head. "I said, take it, bitch!" She still refused. He smacked her cheek hard. "Take the f**kin' pill!"
Thoughts raced in her head. How good everyone said the drug was. Especially during sex. The extreme prices people were willing to pay for it after their first hit. Even some other hookers had started taking it, saying it made their job fun again. Then she looked at the cowboy's hand as it balled up into a fist.
She swallowed the pill.
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Before the night was over, Landry and Casey visited three young Asian saw victims in two different hospitals, and heard about a fourth victim from Orange County, near Little Saigon.
Only one victim had been able to talk when they visited, and he refused to say anything. They didn't wonder why he wouldn't talk -- it's easy to spot fear that intense. Casey and Landry resigned themselves to follow-up visits over the next few days.
It was beginning to look more and more like Tommy had been right. A new Asian gang had hit town, and they weren't wasting any time cutting out their territory. What worried Landry the most, was that the other gangs wouldn't sit still for this for too much longer. And when they decided to strike back, there was going to be a bloodbath.
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:48:30 GMT -5
Chapter 4: Revelations
by Jürgen Hubert
It had been a frustrating week for Robert Landry. Four more gangers had turned up with saw wounds in their groin regions, and another three missing arms or other limbs. Unfortunately, none of the gangers who were able to speak was willing to do so: their fear of their attackers was plainly evident.
So it had been a welcome change when Tommy Ng had hinted on the phone that he might have some useful information. When he met him at their usual place, Tommy was jittery, but eager to talk.
"It's been a royal bitch to get any dope on this," muttered Tommy. "Most of my sources -- the ones who didn't just clam up -- just told me these dudes are bad sh*t, and to stay as far away as possible. I called in a coupl'a favors, though, and a few of the elders opened up a bit."
"Seems these new gangers come from the Chauchaus, a little tribe no-one's ever heard of living off in the mountains of Vietnam and a coupl'a other spots in Southeast Asia. Lots of stories about them, making the tribe sound like bogeymen - they kidnap people and eat them, worship terrible and evil spirits, the whole shebang. If they hadn't turned up here and started hacking people to bit, I'd a' figured 'em to be fairytale monsters made up to scare kids with.
"But they're real, man. They're so real that all the other ethnic groups in Southeast Asia -- and I mean ALL of them, every damn one – know 'em and hate 'em. ...about them only thing they all have in common."
"Sound like real charming people. So, how did they end up here in L.A.?"
"That's where it gets real interesting. Seems like the CIA worked real close with 'em in Vietnam back during the war, and when everythin' went apesh*t over there, they brought a whole bunch of 'em here. The INS just rubber-stamped 'em."
"Wonderful. Just frigging wonderful."
"The grapevine says most of 'em went up to Chicago, but seems there's a bunch here, too. And some punk Chauchaus are into drugs now – one named 'Sweet & Low', to be specific. And since no one in any Asian community would give 'em the time of day, they use all non-Asians on the street."
"That's pure gold, Tommy. Thanks! I owe you, once again."
"If you want a lead on Sweet & Low," Tommy hesitated, smearing the beads of sweat on his forehead with a quick dart of his hand.
"Yes...?"
"One of my nephews, a student at UCLA, has been acting real stupid lately... he's been popping a few pills 'n stuff. One of 'em was Sweet & Low. I screwed his head back on straight, 'n got him to tell me what his pusher looks like and where he hangs out... You interested?"
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After her 'client' had left, Linda stared at the remaining pills. The rush had been unbelievable -- better than anything she'd ever felt before. Her dreams of becoming an actress, her debts, her "work", her hopes of making some fast money selling the drug -- nothing of it had mattered while she had been under Sweet & Low's influence.
She stared at the pills for about half an hour, then, reaching a decision, swallowed another one. The next pill followed a minute later.
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The 'Gentlemen's Diner' was one of the many student pubs surrounding the University of California campus -- and, according to Tommy, a place where you could buy some Sweet & Low, if you knew the right person.
Landrey and Casey had agreed that Casey should enter the pub and try to spot the drug dealer -- Casey had a better chance as passing as a grad student or junior faculty member. Someone approaching his fifties, like Landrey, would just stand out too much.
Unfortunately, the place was quite crowded -- the only free tables Casey could see were in out-of-the way corners with no clear view of the rest of the pubs. He had no choice but to find an already-occupied table with a good view, and try to get a seat there. He leaned against a pillar, scanning the tables.
"...See? I think I've photographed a genuine ghost here!"
Perfect.
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The drug-induced visions made Linda weep with joy. They reminded her of dreams she'd had as a child, when her imagination was still vivid and before her hopes and illusions has been stripped from her one by one. She soared over the deserts like an eagle. She saw the Native Americans of old dancing to the music of their instruments, before the White Man came and destroyed their way of life. She saw the forest stretching from one horizon to the other.
But inevitably, the effects of Sweet & Low wore off. She lay very quiet for a time.
Then she got up, dressed, and went home to her own tiny flat. When she got home, she went straight to the locked cabinet that contained the supply of Sweet & Low PJ had left her for this week, and opened it.
Then, one by one, she put the pills into her mouth and swallowed them all.
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:49:06 GMT -5
"Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing. did you say you actually managed to photograph a genuine ghost?"
"Sure! Here, take a look at these images!"
"...Hmmm. OK, these look odd. But aren't ghosts supposed to look vaguely humanoid, instead of like some kind of orb?"
"Well, I think only the strongest and youngest ghosts actually look human. Since ghosts are known to have a half-life span, or half-unlife span, if you will, of approximately 300 years, most of them slowly dwindle to nothing and probably assume a spherical shape to save energy."
"Uhm, right."
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She saw how glaciers covered North America. She saw wooly mammoths. She saw the world, as it was when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. And she saw other things, beings she had never heard about in her public school back in Michigan. Strange cone-shaped beings built vast cities in a distant land, while horrible creatures of black slime lurked in vast underground caverns. Most of these entities seemed completely unaware of her gaze, but some of them stared right back at her.
And her visions took her back ever further in time, back to an age when Terrestrial life took its first, tentative steps onto land.
And then something living in the primordial soup found her.
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"Sorry, Horker, gotta go – I got a class coming up."
"Sure thing. Anyway, that's pretty strong evidence that there are lizard people living in vast cave systems under Los Angeles. Incidentally, did you know that George Bush senior is one of them?"
"What, Bush secretly lives below Los Angeles?"
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If Linda had been in full possession of her wits, she might have recoiled instantly, and possibly avoided her fate -- or perhaps not, for the entity that discovered her was much stronger than she.
But she wasn't, and so her soul screamed in agony for an instant, and then her memory, her thoughts, her very soul were instantly consumed, and the person called 'Linda Bateman' was no more.
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Mathew Braumann, usually called 'Horker' by his friends for no reason anyone could remember, wasn't too good at paying attention to other people's moods. But even he slowly became aware that the guy who had listened to all his favorite conspiracy theories was gradually losing interest -- his eyes were glazing over, and he seemed to be staring beyond Horker's left shoulder a lot.
When the stranger excused himself and left in a hurry, Horker wasn't too sad about it. He had wanted to head back to the dorm anyway. Before he left the pub, he slipped into the lavatory to empty his bladder.
There was already someone in there -- a wild-looking guy with blood-shot eyes and all the signs of a drug junkie. He was breathing heavily, eyes darting around the room.
While Horker was trying to figure out how he could slip past the junkie without actually touching him, a movement in a ceiling corner caught his attention.
Then *something* leaped out of the corner.
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Time passed.
The entity now occupying the body of Linda Bateman was not used to such a form, and frequently had to search through the consumed memories to make sense of her surroundings. It ignored the sounds coming from outside of the apartment, like the noise of traffic and the loud knocks at the apartment door, and concentrated on how to manipulate its environment. Slowly, it learned, until its movements were confident and sure instead of awkward.
Then, the sound of splintering wood caught its attention. A large, dark-skinned human male had apparently demolished the apartment door to gain entry. The male seemed to be upset at something, especially when he discovered some empty packages lying on the floor, and shouted a lot. Now, what do humans normally do when trying to put other humans at ease?
After a quick search through the absorbed memories, the body of Linda Bateman smiled.
Strangely, this only seemed to enrage the man-thing more, and he grabbed the body's right arm. His anger turned to fear as his own arm started to mutate wildly, melting into horrifying shapes. But it was too late for him -- he couldn't let go of the arm, and soon was sucked into the now-bloated body of Linda Bateman in one piece, screaming all the way.
A few minutes passed. Then the body of Linda Bateman ejected the victim in a horrible parody of a birth, and the new, grotesquely-shaped being that used to be a human known as 'PJ' struggled to free itself from a thick film of slime.
And the avatar of Yidhra had its first servant.
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When Eric O'Connor was playing EverQuest, he didn't pay much attention to the world beyond his computer. Especially when he had joined an important Raid with dozens of other online role-playing gamers from all around the world that was sure to bring them lots of experience and high-quality magic items.
So he didn't really consciously register when his roommate Horker shut the door of their apartment with a loud slam. But after a while, he did notice that Horker was panting heavily, and had been doing so for quite some time.
"Hey, Horker, what's up? Wow! You look as if you finally saw one of those ghosts you've been chasing!"
"Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!"
Seconds passed, in which Eric noticed how messy Horker's shirt was.
"No, wait! Do you remember the phone number of Phenomen-X?"
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:50:57 GMT -5
Chapter 5: Underworld
by J. Edward Tremlett
"When it comes to Los Angeles, lot of people make the mistake of buying the myth..."
*GLUG* (Belch) "Excuse me.
"She's got a lot of names, LA does. They call her the City of Angels, Tinseltown, the Magic Kingdom... so on. Cute names: the sort of stuff people come up with when they've had too many on an empty stomach and think that it all REALLY matters, just then. Stupid a**holes...
"But the lady's got another name. A name that means a lot more than any of the other crap she gets called. People don't say it by name that much, but even if they don't SAY it, they're THINKING it. Subconsciously, like. You know what I mean.
"And that name is... The Queen of Dreams.
"Who? What the f**k do you mean 'WHO'? You've seen her in your sleep, you dumb ape. Sitting on a big, golden throne, dressed like Greta Garbo and looking like Jean Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn all rolled up into one. Just sitting there, legs crossed over one another, smoking a cigarette in a long, black holder and looking at you from all the way across the room.
"See? Told you you'd seen her. *GLUG*
"She promises a lot, The Queen does: fame, wealth, glamour... you name it. They say she gives anyone and everyone the second chance they deserve. The big break and the brass ring. And people from all over America... f**k, all over the world, really... they all flock to her gates like moths drawn to the flame.
"But let me tell you a little something, kid. If you've lived inside her long enough -- long enough to see what's left behind when the dross and candyfloss are all gone when the sun comes up -- you'd know better.
"And you'd know, sure as Sundown in the Valley, that The Queen's no Queen. No. She's just a f**king, clapped-out whore, spreading her legs for the whole goddamn world. She eats people up like... sh*t, like cats do mice. She knocks you out, plays with you for a while, and then claws out your heart and leaves your head in someone's shoe.
"And that's my big secret, kid. You came out here for nothing. Go back where you came from before The Queen gives you something they can't cure... leaves you staggering down the streets calling her name like some lovestruck bozo in a B-Film.
"Just go back before she eats the dreams from your head, leaves you a dead man walking."
So the tired, old bum had said to the booze-animated vision of his younger self, that night. He could see him as clear as day, standing there with his hat in his hand and his face split by a million-dollar smile. The one all his friends had said would get him noticed. Take him places. Make him a star...
By the morning the old man was dead on a park bench, his liver having gasped its last in his trouble-free sleep. His younger self, on the other hand, was still walking the streets. He'd wandered all night and into the Sunrise, drinking others' stares down like fine Port. Someone bought him breakfast because he looked so charming. Someone else -- several someone elses, in fact -- wanted his phone number, his agent's name, his cock... Wanted him. Badly.
The Facedancer was having a f**king great time in LA, that day. And it wasn't the only one, either.
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i) I'd... become... chemical
Los Angeles was full of unexpected guests that night. Across, under and deep within the city, the walls between the present and the far-flung past were turning from solid to liquid in selective spots.
* Junkies in squalid apartments exploded in their bathrooms as things from the world's earlier eras possessed them through cracked mirrors, took them for a short turn around the house and -- judging them unsuitable for their habitation -- turned them inside-out on departure.
* Literally indescribable animate shapes that could only be described as "foulness" given form leaped from sharp corners, sucking the stuffings out of their targets with tongues writhing with blue, living saliva, and then leaping back to their own, angled time/space continuum in Earth's distant past.
* Hookers found themselves being ridden in several senses of the word, their drug-addled consciousness hijacked by ur-concepts whose faces the Church tried to convert out of existence, but never even had a prayer of doing. Something often mistaken for Mdme. Ezili did something unspeakable to a john in Santa Monica, while "Tlazolteotl" ate a man's sh*t off a marble-tiled, bathroom floor in Beverly Hills. These ones -- and other power-beings with no understandable, human face -- played in the sleazy streets of the city, coupling firmly and roughly, then slipping away before anyone could ask their names.
* Other, even-less understandable things showed up, did things strange and terrible, and then disappeared. They slid in and out of the world throughout the night, f**king the holes in space and time for all they were worth. And then they were gone, leaving only strange corpses, maddened witnesses and odd remnants to mark their passing, like wrinkled dollars tossed onto a cum-stained mattress for services rendered.
Of course, these strange manifestations and murderous visitations only happened to the poor, the strung-out, the criminal and the unlovely. As such, the people who were supposed to be watching out for their welfare, but really could care less, weren't too worried by the strange calls that flooded their switchboards after a certain period.
After a while the police phone-handlers figured it was just another urban legend that had taken on a strange, half-life of its own. Much like the one night when EVERYONE started seeing Osama bin Laden in Hollywood, it was chalked up to just another night when a whole series of full moons were beaming bozo rays into people's brains (Zach Allen, 'Babylon 5').
So no police cars were dispatched. No superiors were alerted. No one was told anything they really needed to know. Outside of the people at 911 there was no real talk of what was going on. No one cared at all.
And the skin of Los Angeles' reality shuddered like a starlet's tits in a porn film: mouth forced open by rough, sweaty hands, throat cleared and ready for the big money shot...
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:51:40 GMT -5
ii) The golden sunrise of you
Sonja Dewey was naked, wrapped up in bright red oriental S&M knotwork and kneeling with her eyes closed and her mouth wide open. Her face was bloodied and bruised from the frequent love slaps of her skinny, somewhat frail lover, who stood before her, whipping his substandard pecker for all it was worth.
"Oh yeah!" Robert Hoggard sneered, staring down the hole of her mouth: "You want some of daddy's gold?"
"Oh yes," she breathed: "I want it."
"Beg for daddy's gold, you scheming little whore!" he screamed, getting ready to let his bladder loose.
"Oh yes," she breathed: "I want it!"
"Oh yeah! Here it comes!"
"Oh yes," she breathed: "I want..."
And then the phone rang.
Robert Hoggard -- Chief Researcher and Writer for Phenomen-X -- opened his eyes, sighing. He was standing in the shower all alone, as usual, his whipped-raw manhood starting to deflate. Just one more minute... just one more! Damn it all...
"Yeah, yeah..." he grumbled, wrapping a towel around himself as he headed out of the bathroom and to the phone. This had better be good. REAL good.
"Good morning, Rob!" a booming voice said on the other end. It was his Producer, Frank Carincola.
"Hey Frank," he said: "What's up?"
"Let me tell you... I just got a lead on a GREAT story!"
"Really?" he asked, trying not to sound too pissed off. Couldn't this have f**king waited until he'd gotten to the studio?
"Oh yeah... now, try this on for size," Frank breathed, and Robert could imagine him making big talking-gestures with his hands at his desk as he perched the phone between his shoulder and jaw: "Man attacked by ghost dog in toilet of student pub!"
"Ghost dog?"
"The lone witness saw the creature leap from a wall! Before his horrified eyes, it savaged an innocent victim! And then... it slipped right down his throat!"
"Whose throat?"
"The victim, Roger."
"Okay... and then?"
"And then... um... the witness ran away! To preserve his sanity!"
"Okay..." Roger said, his mental bullsh*t detector turning on right from the get-go. But then, he didn't dare say so. Frank kept him in money, which kept him in coke, and he wasn't going to f**k over one and risk losing the other two for anything. Like so many others just like him, he'd come to the bottom rung of his ladder: there was nowhere else to go from here but straight down the well.
"I smell some good, good copy, here, Robert," Frank went on: "Really good copy."
"Yeah, same here," he lied: "Ghost dog stories... yeah, that's in the literature."
"f**k the literature! We've got a real, live witness!"
No doubt an escapee from 'The Other Side,' Robert thought, but he got out his pen and paper, anyway.
"So who's the lucky guy?"
"Horker," Frank breathed.
"Horker?" Robert asked: "Wait a minute... isn't he the guy who claims he got the picture of George Reeve's ghost at that gay bar?"
"No! That's Pete Porker."
"Oh."
"Pete Porker the porn star."
"Well, with a name like that, I sure hope..."
"Who gives a f**k about him? The guy's real name is Mathew Braumann, but everyone calls him Horker. He's given me a few leads on tinseltown ghost stories before, and they've always come up golden."
"So why is this the first time I'm hearing of him?"
"You know... I don't know," Frank said: "And I don't really see how that's even important right now."
"Well..."
"Call up Sonja, get Allen off the crapper, send them over to the kid's apartment. And you take their copy and turn it into gold for daddy."
"Uh... yeah," he said, looking at the phone strangely.
"Go make that story happen!" Frank commanded, and then hung up.
Robert sighed, looking at the dead receiver, and remembering it all over again: the day Sonja had caught him doing a little bit of coke-enhanced gruntwork for his new friends, and how she'd "saved" his ass just so she could blackmail her way up the chain.
He didn't dare tell his friends about her for fear of her ruining him from beyond the grave (how much DID she know, and who had she told it to?). But he also hardly dared tell them anything for fear of her finding out about it. She seemed to have an uncanny knack of knowing when he'd done a line...
He sighed, again, put the phone down, and went to get his kit. He came back with it, and dispassionately chopped himself a line, rolling a c-note as he got ready to toot his way to a happy morning. If he had to talk to the bitch he might as well have some hair of the dog, right?
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:52:21 GMT -5
iii) My iceberg naked -- my black hole nature
"Come on, kid," Casey said, holding up the evidence baggie, which was full of small vials of Sweet and Low. "Give it up."
The perp said nothing, looking right past Landry and Casey. He hadn't said a thing since Landry had busted him, yesterday, and a night in the holding cell hadn't helped matters much.
He looked like a human potato: big and beefy, with an odd-shaped, shaved head. He had a forehead you could break bricks across, and his back seemed to be fixed in a permanent slump. He reminded Landry of that one guy from 'Full Metal Jacket': the one who shot the Drill Sgt. and then blew his own head off.
"Come on... you GOTTA say something, here," Landry tried to reason with the perp. "You came right up to me and asked me if I wanted any. Remember?"
Oddly enough, that was exactly what had happened. While Casey was inside the Gentleman's Diner, trying to mix with the kids, Landry had been waiting outside. All of a sudden the human potato had just come up and asked if he'd wanted some Sweet and Low -- just like that. It was almost as if the perp had mistaken him for someone else (which happened more often than you'd think, courtesy of pushers being dumb enough to use their own product).
So Landry had played along, and then cuffed the SOB when they went to exchange money for pills. Then he'd popped his head into the pub to alert Casey, who'd apparently spent the whole time being talked to about ghosts by some weird kid. Talk about your bass-ackward stakeouts...
Still, it had worked. The only problem was that the human potato was in no mood to talk. He just sat there, staring into space. If he hadn't spent all night in a holding cell they'd have suspected he was on something, himself.
Casey banged his hand down on the table. The guy didn't even blink.
"You could be looking at a long time in for this, you know," Landry said, trying to be helpful. "Now, if you cooperated, maybe we could get a reduction."
The man just stared past them, as though watching something else.
"If we had you any colder, you'd be giving blowjobs to penguins at the South f**king Pole, kid," Casey hissed, leaning into the man.
"And I think you'll be giving some in the joint, for certain," Landry said, trying to back up his partner.
"Come on, just tell us who you got it from. You roll on him, he'll roll on someone else, and no one'll know it was you that talked."
Dead silence and a dead stare was all they got. Casey was sorely tempted to slap the fat f**k upside the head, but decided he didn't need the grief Internal Affairs would slap him with for that. Even CRASH couldn't get away with everything under the sun.
"Alright," Landry said: "Let's go get us some air. Maybe sitting back in the holding cell will help him see some things straight."
They rang for the officer to come take the potato away, which he did. Oddly enough, the guy gave no resistance, though he probably could have bowled the cop over and tried to make a run for it, given his girth. There was something unnerving about all that...
"So when do we get a shot at your new boyfriend?" one of the CRASH dummies asked, leaning up against a wall with one of his pals nearby.
"Yeah, I hear he's got drugs you could connect with your other sweetheart downstairs," the pal asked, his eyes dead, accusing things in his head.
Landry tried not to look too pissed: you couldn't keep an investigation's finer details secret around this place for love nor money. But the last thing they needed was any cowboy bullsh*t from the rank and file.
"You keep your anger to yourself," Casey said, going back to being the good one now that they were out of the interrogation room: "We want him to sing, not croak."
"Oh, we'd be real gentle... wouldn't we?" one chuckled to the other.
"About as gentle as his pal was with us," the other replied, still looking dead from the nose-up. "We got some payback coming, ladies."
"Yeah, I bet you'd like to get your hands on his ass, wouldn't you?" Landry snorted. "You all get back to pounding your lockers. We've got work to do."
One almost actually lunged at him, quickly restrained by the other. The two pairs of men stared one another down, with neither side really winning, and then went their separate ways. There was nothing left to talk about.
"So what do we do if he doesn't change his mind?" Casey asked as they walked off to their desks.
"Why wouldn't he?"
"I think this guy's borderline retarded or something. He might not be smart enough to be intimidated. Did you see how he didn't blink when I shouted at him?"
"Well..." Robert said: "I do have one lead."
"From the same guy who had me chasing ghosts?"
"Hey, sorry about that. Your fault for sitting next to Karl Kolchak."
"I thought he did vampires?"
"Whatever," Robert said, sitting down at his desk and reading through his rolodex: "Anyway, my source says the folks up in Chi-town might have more of an angle on these Chauchaus. And I got a pal up there, so I figured I'd waste the city's dime and see if he's got some ideas for me."
"Sounds like a plan," Casey said, sitting down at his desk and looking up at the ceiling. While he didn't like to admit it -- and certainly wouldn't have said anything if you'd asked -- being attached to Landry was looking like less and less of a promotion ticket
It was more like a one-way trip down the crapper.
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:53:17 GMT -5
iv) The face is leaking (mmm-Hmmmm)
"Are you done, yet?" Roscoe's boss asked. He'd asked that question about ten times in the last half an hour, always poking his head just inside the bathroom's door when he did.
"No man, I ain't done, yet," Roscoe replied, looking right around at his boss. He -- Roscoe, that is -- was on his hands and knees on the floor, scrubbing at the nasty, red stains that had appeared on the floor sometime last night.
"Well, hurry it up," his boss said: "I gotta open up, soon, and I don't want the Health Inspectors on my ass, again."
"Well, how 'bout you make cookie wash his damn hands?"
"Hey..." the owner started to say, but just let the point drop and backed out. Roscoe cursed under his breath and went back to work. For a place called the "Gentleman's Diner," there weren't that many gentlemen, here.
Roscoe had been working here for about a month, now. It was part of his parole arrangement: they gave him a work release to make sure he could hold a job and be a responsible citizen, and after a certain time (eleven months, three days and two and a half hours) he'd be free to go.
That was, of course, dependent on his boss giving him a good recommendation. One bad word out of him and Roscoe could go from having the upstairs room at his mama's house to being back in the block for the rest of his sentence. You had to be really careful with this kind of thing.
Now, this joint wasn't as bad a deal as it could have been. Some places, the boss knew he had you over a barrel and f**ked your ass for all he could get. Especially if you were Black (which Roscoe was) and didn't look smart enough to put up a fight (which Roscoe was, actually, but didn't like to advertise).
Those bosses were mean sons of bitches. They'd make you work overtime without pay, come in seven days a week and get paid for only five, and give you ten shades of sh*t right on top of it. And they'd all expect a crisp, smiling "yes, sir" out of your mouth, no matter what. You lost your temper even once, and it was back to the big house that very same day.
This guy, he was an a**hole. But he was a fair a**hole. He played about as fair as you could expect someone running a dinky little burger and beer joint to play it. That meant he got on your ass a lot, expected too much too soon and punctuated his lectures with handfuls of multicolored Tums... but he didn't try and f**k you over. And Roscoe could respect that.
But cleaning blood stains -- and that was what they were (Roscoe knew from his time in the slammer) -- off the floor in the bathroom with just an hour's notice... that was asking too damn much. His hands were starting to sting from the bleach, and he hadn't even made a damn bit of progress in half an hour of Army-barracks scrubbing.
He sighed and leaned back, wondering what the hell had happened. Someone get cut and splatter blood on the floor? It must have been some cut: little drips and circles were all over the damn place.
But they hadn't found anyone hurt in here, had they? One of the other people who was working yesterday said they saw some kid go running out with a stained shirt, but he didn't look hurt.
Was he the one that done it, then? And why the hell hadn't they cleaned it up last night, the lazy bastards...
A sudden noise came from one of the toilet stalls, down at the end. It sounded like a nasty gurgle from someone's throat.
Roscoe leaped back up against the wall, where the urinals were, holding his fists out. He waited a second, and then slowly made his way down to the stall.
The gurgle happened again: louder this time. Roscoe gritted his teeth and then, ever so slowly, reached out for the door and pulled it open.
The toilet was backing up -- violently -- and the stench made Roscoe's head swirl. The water was being pushed towards the rim by what could only be described as oil-black, semi-solid sewage. Blue droplets of something -- probably the stuff they tossed in the tank to keep the germs away -- were slipping up to the waterline and skittering around like junebugs.
"Oh Lord Jesus," Roscoe sighed under his breath, shaking his head. "Deliver me from Satan's plumbing."
He was about to turn his head and shout for someone to bring him a plunger, mop and bucket -- for all the good that they would have done -- and call the damn hotline for city sanitation. But then he thought he saw something else in the bowl, and looked down in it.
Two balls floated to the top of the black sludge. They were white, tinged with red streaks that looked a lot like veins. Black, horizontal slits split them both from left to right.
The balls "blinked," and then swiveled around in unison, as though fixing themselves right on his face...
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:54:23 GMT -5
v) Woman with her head in a box
Sonja Dewey, being the sort of woman that men liked to call "strikingly beautiful," was used to being stared at by the men she interviewed. That was just fine by her: in fact, she'd often feigned having a more than journalistic interest in them in order to get them to tell her more than they otherwise would have. That was just part of using your charm, and a reporter without charm was not going to be a reporter for very long.
This time, however, she was having a hard time keeping a straight face.
The guy who'd called Frank -- who'd then called Roger, who'd then called Allen and had him call her, probably so he wouldn't have to talk to her himself (chickensh*t cokehead) -- was okay. He was a little over-excited, and kept trying to throw in talk about his own, personal researches with ghosts, but she could deal with that. This had been her sort of gig for years, now.
But his roommate, Eric, was really hard to be in the room with. He was just staring at her -- eyes wide and jaw almost touching his chest. It was almost as if he'd never seen a real, live woman in his life. That and the fact that he (a) smelled like an unwashed butt-crack, (b) had Dorito-dust running down the front of his rumpled, long-unwashed shirt, and (c) was starting to drool was making her really uncomfortable.
If Allen -- a veteran of countless, horrible, free-fire zones -- hadn't been there to back her up, she might have made some excuse and rescheduled. It was that bad. So bad that she was almost missing some of her question cues.
"... I couldn't really describe it," Horker said, gesticulating wildly: "It was like... a shape, but no shape. A lot like your standard B.E.D..."
"What is a B.E.D, Mr. Braumann?" She asked.
"Oh..." he smiled, thrilled that a pretty lady was calling him 'Mr. Braumann' instead of 'Horker,' or something that rhymed with 'turd'. "It's an acronym for Bodiless Ectoplasmic Discharge. The shapeless form that a lot of ghosts take in order to conserve energy. You can't make sense of it, really. It could look like a... like a thousand different things to a thousand different people."
"So what did it look like to you?" She asked without missing a beat, firmly aware that Eric's stare had gone due south, towards her breasts.
"I don't know if it really looked like anything," he said after considering it for a moment. "But I know how looking at it made me feel."
"How's that?"
"Foul," he said, shaking in the chair just remembering it: "Like... like the time I actually found out what 'scat porn' was. I thought it was just some sick rumor, but..."
"I've got some on my hard drive," Eric offered, out of the blue.
"Will you f**k off?" Horker hissed at Eric, who looked down at his shoes, utterly dejected to have been dissed in front of such a fine woman.
"Please, just go on, Mr. Braumann," she said. "We can edit that out of the tape."
"Okay, whatever it was... it was nasty and foul," he went on. "And when I try to think of what it looked like, all I can do is think of the most foul thing I've ever seen in my life. And that... that was it."
She looked around to Allen, and then made a 'cut' signal by drawing her finger across her throat.
"Okay, I think that about covers it," she said: "Unless you've got something else for me...?"
"Yes... yes, actually, I do," he said, getting up from the chair. "I'm sorry I didn't show it to you the first time... er, the first moment... let me get it..."
He ran off to the bathroom to do something, leaving Allen and Sonja alone in the room with Eric. The guy just sat there, flash-frozen with it all.
"Do you ever play Everquest?" he asked, trying to smile.
"No..." she said without missing a beat, "but I hear it's being blamed for the suicide of a mentally handicapped boy."
"Uh..."
"Would you care to comment on that, sir?"
"Uh... no..." he said, looking back down at his shoes and shutting up. And Sonja was eternally grateful for that.
"Here," Horker said, coming back into the room. He had something sealed up in a big, self-sealing plastic bag, the sort of thing you'd use to put something in the fridge. As he brought it closer, they could see it was a shirt: smeared with what seemed to be dried blood and some weird, bluish stains that appeared to be anything but dry.
"And this is what was sprayed on you when that ghost dog attacked?"
"Yes!" he said. "And while the blood has dried, the blue substance -- which I am convinced is ectoplasm -- has not. In fact, if you look at it long enough, you can see it's moving."
He grinned with discovery; the grin was not infectious. But they took a few stills, just for completeness' sake. Sonja told Horker to call her Producer if he thought of anything else. She was damned if she was going to give him her business card: the roommate might call her up and breathe funny into the phone, or something.
Once out in the Phenomen-X van, Sonja allowed herself the prerogative of her full and informed opinion: "Bullsh*t."
"I... wouldn't be so sure," Allen said, closing his door and starting the van. "Why do you think he's making it up?"
"Well, for starters, if there really had been a savage, bloody attack on someone at that pub, it'd be in the f**king papers, wouldn't it?"
"Right."
"And there isn't, is there?"
"Nope," he said, pulling away from the curb. "But maybe something happened to the body."
"Alright. That I could believe. But there'd still be blood all over the floor, wouldn't there?"
"Yes," he said, remembering the time he'd watched government soldiers let a hungry dog loose on a tied-up captive, back in Honduras. He'd never thought someone could bleed that much... at least before he'd been seen himself do it in Sarajevo.
"Okay, so should we go there?"
"Yeah, if you want. I think I know where it is..."
"Let's do that," she said: "Check it out ourselves."
"Get some photos of the scene of the crime?" he confirmed.
"Yeah... at least to play up the 'unsolved mystery' aspect of it. I bet Roger'll love that."
They drive in silence for a time. Allen seemed to know where they were going and she was lost in thought.
"You really don't like him, do you?" Allen chuckled as they got within a block of the place.
"Who?"
"Roger."
"Well, he's better than the talking head," she replied, thinking of their fairly-pathetic host for the show, David Carmichael
"Cat turds are better than the talking head."
She laughed: "You know what that name makes me think of?"
"What?"
"The band."
"Oh, THE Talking Heads?"
"Yeah. Every time I hear someone call him the Talking Head, I keep imagining that one video they did. The one where it's just the lead singer in that suit in front of a bluescreen, and he looks like he's about to have a seizure?"
"Oh yeah!" he laughed. "I love that one."
"'And you may find yourself... living in a shotGUNnnnn-SHACK,'" she sang, off-key.
"'Time isn't holding us -- time is an act of us,'" he added: "'Same as it ever was.'"
"I love that bit."
"You know, I keep getting the idea that the song's about something... something really important," he said, noticing some commotion up the road. "You ever get that feeling? That a song's a lot more than just a song?"
"Yeah..." she said, about to expound on her somewhat irrational theories on Blue Oyster Cult before noticing the commotion, too. It looked like a police car. Maybe two. An ambulance...
"sh*t," she said. "I think we got to this story a little late, Allen."
"Time to flash our press badges, then," he said, parking the van half a block up the road and leaping out to get his camera. She headed over right away, getting the tape player ready to roll.
The police were keeping back a small crowd of students from the establishment's front door. A man who looked like the proprietor was having a heated argument with a policewoman who looked like she was in charge of the matter. And a large, black man was being carried out on a stretcher, his eyes so wide they could have burst like balloons.
"Excuse me," she said to the proprietor. "I'm Sonja Dewey, with Phenomen-X. Can you tell me what just happened here?"
"Ma'am, you're interfering in police business," the policewoman said, trying to shoo her off.
"I'll tell you what the hell just happened!" The proprietor yelled, apparently really sick of dealing with the police. "The damn city sanitation just went apesh*t in my own f**king men's room, that's what. f**king blew the hell up, damn near killed one of my employees -- that's him over there, on the stretcher."
"Blew up, sir?" Sonja asked, hoping Allen was coming with the camera.
"Blew up! Boom! One f**king shattered toilet and one good man damn near dead. What the hell am I paying my taxes for, huh?"
"What hurt him, sir?"
"Lady, I'm telling you to get lost," the policewoman insisted, cupping her hand over Sonja's microphone. "I can call it interference right now..."
"Freedom of the Press, bitch!" the proprietor yelled in Sonja's defense, which set off another round-robin of arguments, leaving Sonja on the sidelines and not getting a damn thing. Where the hell was Allen...?
Oh. He was over by the ambulance, getting footage of the guy they were carrying off. He didn't look too injured, just scared sh*tless.
There was a grunt and more expletives behind her. She turned and saw that the policewoman had managed to put the proprietor in handcuffs in three swift moves, and was now reading him Miranda. He was cussing her out using words she'd never even heard before -- which was saying something. She was about to try and get another statement from her, but something in the policewoman's eyes told her it was time to back the f**k up.
She walked over to the ambulance, which was having its doors slammed and getting ready for a trip to somewhere else. Allen was unslinging his camera and walking towards her, an odd look on his face.
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:55:07 GMT -5
"Is he okay?" she asked.
"He didn't look injured... at least not seriously," Allen replied: "Maybe a few cuts. Looks like he got sprayed with shrapnel."
"The owner said the toilet blew up."
"Yeah, that'd about do it."
"He looked scared, though?"
Allen nodded: "sh*t scared. He kept saying something about 'Satan's in the plumbing.' And..."
He trailed off. She looked at him, and he sighed, nodded and looked up at her. "His shirt was stained with something. Like he got spattered with it."
"What? Blood?"
"No," he said: "Blue stains. Just like the crap that guy had on his shirt back at the apartment."
"Holy sh*t," she said.
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vi) I remember now her unnatural surprise
The long, brown gutworms slithered across the Linda Bateman's floor, much like strange, fat snakes without heads or scales.
The thing that had usurped Linda's body had discovered how to adjust the multitude of parasitical and mutually beneficial organisms in the body after reworking PJ, and had set to work making some use of all the small creatures. This had taken most of the night, and it had still not exhausted but a fraction of the possibilities.
The worms were the latest discovery, and she converted and shat them out one right after the other, in a seemingly inexhaustible stream. Bacteria the size of crabs scuttled over the walls. Clouds of mitochondria floated through the air like bright, red pollen clouds. Other things -- some of which were yet unknown to human microbiologists -- crawled and crept and slithered here and there. The apartment had become a strange creche of raw, wet monstrosity.
The avatar of Yidhra was amazed -- simply amazed. This glorious body was a wonderland. This body could do so many things, once properly coaxed! So many glorious possibilities. Perhaps it had been hasty in reworking PJ so quickly...
There was a knock at the door, which it'd had PJ put back into place so that it might be undisturbed. It recognized that particular knock from the memories it had assimilated into itself: Hubert the German from downstairs, no doubt wanting to do what he and she normally did once every week or so. He would have her take his genitalia into her mouth, and then he would put his genitalia into hers for a few minutes, and then he would give her some form of repayment for letting him do it.
He seemed to enjoy this act, and given the enormous sex drive of the species, it was not completely incomprehensible to it. On the other hand, it remembered that she -- that is, Linda -- was not so enamored of the act, itself. Something about it left her wanting more...
It smiled, and bid its servants leave her. They slithered under the bed, into the kitchenette, and the bathroom. PJ rolled up into himself and went straight up the wall, becoming one with the ceiling tiles just above the door.
"Hello, baby," Hubert said as he came inside: "Vhat thee fvuck happened to your door?"
"Separate entity PJ demolished," it said in her voice, holding her hands clasped before her, just above her hemline: "Gain entrance angry. Now serves divine fecundity entity."
He blinked. "My goodness... I think you are perhaps very stoned."
It just smiled, and came closer so he could kiss its lips, which he did. He also slipped a hand down the front of her crotch, feeling for the warmth, there. It let this continue for as long as it desired, and then it decided to take the initiative.
Hubert thought she was just being a little frisky with her tongue, but then he realized that he couldn't breathe. He coughed and backed up, about to ask what the hell was going on, and then he saw what he'd choked on.
It was raw, bright red and long, like a dog's lipstick-like whanger, and as big around as a baby's arm. And it was coming right out of Linda's wide-open mouth, where her tongue should have been. It twitched, throbbed and curled in the air, a hole at its end widening and closing like the mouth of a gasping fish.
A penis. Some kind of alien penis was growing out of her mouth...
Hubert tried to scream and run away, but PJ was suddenly between him and the door. With arms made strong and fast by Yidhra's servant, he grabbed the German and held him tightly, not letting him go. They spun down to the ground, and the remade man twisted his captive back around to face Linda with such force that Hubert almost thought his neck had been broken.
And as the hours passed, and PJ's master/mistress found increasingly interesting and baroque ways to pleasure itself using this man's body, he found himself wishing -- between long, insane screams -- that it had.
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vii) It's your name day -- it's your name day
The human potato sat in his holding cell, his hands folded in front of him and his eyes fixed onto something that only he could see.
He hadn't been alone, in here. People and come and gone the whole day: being taken upstairs, and then back down here, and then somewhere else. He'd shared the bench with three junkies, a drunk, a wifebeater, two guys who'd tried to hold up a 7-11 with water pistols -- one of which had leaked, and some guy with a big smile who just sat at the far end and didn't say anything to anyone.
The two detectives hadn't come back for the potato yet, but even if they had he had nothing to say to them. He had nothing to say to anyone. This whole thing had been a stupid, stupid mistake, and if he got out of here he was going to have to atone for it, somehow...
A guard came by and opened the door. For a moment, he thought the guard might be there for him, but he wasn't. He was there for the guy who'd been sitting down at the end of the bench, just smiling.
"Okay, sir," he said: "Good news is that no less than ten people came to vouch for you, so you're free to go."
"Well hot damn!" the man said, getting up and spinning his hat in his hand, million dollar smile blazing like Texas sand. "So sorry about not having any ID, officer."
"Hey, it ain't me you gotta apologize to," the guard said.
On the way out, the million dollar smile flashed at the potato, and just kind of nodded at him. Was it recognition, or... what?
And then the human potato was all alone, just sitting in the cell. A minute rolled by, then two. Five. Ten.
At the thirteenth minute, there was a noise like a door opening up in a windstorm. And then the man was no longer alone in his cell.
The newcomer hadn't come in through the door. He'd just appeared, crouching in the corner like a wild animal waiting to strike.
The man was a blaze of green scarves, limb-thongs and bare, hairless skin. His entire face -- even his eyes -- was covered by a scarf, leaving only the hairless, almost skull-like pate visible. His skin was covered in strange tattoos, all done in some blackish-green ink that seemed to breathe with a life of its own.
The potato sucked in a breath, watching the newcomer unfold himself from the crouching position he'd taken. He was tall, thin and lithe, and looking right at the man in spite of the scarf over his eyes.
"I..." the potato stammered. "I didn't tell them nothing."
The newcomer nodded. He knew this thing.
"I did just what you all told me."
He nodded at that, too.
"Are you here to save me?"
The newcomer cocked his head to one side, perhaps wondering how best to answer that question...
No. Not wondering a damn thing. Just preparing his body for a single, quick movement.
In less time than it took to blink, the newcomer slid across the floor and brought his left hand sweeping right past the front of the fat man's forehead. A sonic boom echoed across the holding cell, and the potato's skull visibly rippled under his skin.
He stared at the newcomer for a second. Then one of his eyes went screwy, and a gout of blood shot from his nose. He convulsed and fell down to one side, his body shutting down from the shock. He was dead seconds thereafter, the last thing in his mind being the one thing he'd told no one at all: his real name.
With that, the newcomer stepped into the Underworld once more, and was gone.
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:55:42 GMT -5
Chapter 6 - Tyrannis
by The Nuge
It had been a frustrating week for Robert Landry. There was a distortion in the flow of everything, like something was f**king up every piece of order in the city, inflicting persistent deja vu, inexplicable paranoia, a formless nausea located in the bridge of the nose. Everyone was irritable, as if relating to any other human being was a distraction from self-preservation. Los Angeles had become a**hole central.
The Chocho case was just the urinary icing on the excrement cake. When they met a week before, O'Donnell had seemed the usual rat-bastard that becomes a lawyer: Cold, calculating, faux-compassion, attired in a manner that said sharply 'I could make you drop and give me head for a dollar and cut your partner's throat for five'. f**k the human inside the suit, O'Donnell was the suit. The usual 'violation of clients rights', 'Police brutality against minorities', 'contact with the commissioner'. O'Donnell spewed a lot of rhetoric, but didn't back any of it up which gave Landry the initial impression that he was an amateur. It took Landry's harsh instincts, and the proof he had sitting on his desk that O'Donnell was far from that, to shake the misconception.
For the next few days, Landry and Casey had given as much attention as they could to the case. But their investigations, combined with every crazy weeping out of the sidewalk and the growing irritability of everyone involved, including himself, meant that what he heard was sporadic.
Arraignment should have been done within twenty-four hours. Instead, it was in the region of seventy. The Chocho failed to respond to a call for identification in no less than eleven languages. Every attempt to find a translator in the Asian community still met with either ignorance or outright refusal. After almost three days of frustration, a break came from a Korean gangsta charged with petty theft, who dropped the name Shu Goran in an bid for leniency. The Chocho, normally rigid, responded to this name with a strange astonishment, as if his name were secret and contained some subversive power. Given the type of crimes involved, bail was set exorbitantly, well, out of the league of the suspect, and the generosity offered by Friedman, Friedman Tyrone & Partners seemed limited to providing their star lawyer, but not bail. The lawyer didn't even argue the amount, or try for a mistrial because of the excessive length of arraignment. He entered a straight plea of Not Guilty, and Shu Goran was remanded to the US Marshals.
What now stuck in Landry's throat was this plea. He'd been so busy, that'd he'd failed to notice one small detail. It was a straight Not Guilty. No insanity plea. Landry knew that, as much as it looked like an enormous f**k up, it wasn't. This was something awful; Vince O'Donnell, the Insanity Expert, was going for something completely different.
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The self-same O'Donnell had just returned to the monolithic building that housed Friedman, Friedman, Tyrone & Partners. The building was a piece of disturbing Gothic/Industrialist design, dating back to the twenties. Most people thought it was either beautiful, or an archaic failure. O'Donnell saw something else. The fact that whole building was designed with a nodal purpose, to act as the center-point for strange magnetic warps that lined the planet. The current occupants had no idea of its abilities; even Friedman et al hadn't a clue, bar 'power'. O'Donnell could see the remnants of the things that had inspired the design. He saw lots of things.
Irony would have it that as a child, Vincent Michael O'Donnell had been cursed with bad eyesight, which deteriorated to awful myopia as a teenager. An inability for physical activity and teenage flirtations with the occult, appropriate for the era, put him in contact with the elder academic who resided just outside O'Donnell's small town. Despite his paedophilic attempts at seduction, it wasn't until the arrival of a 'special item of interest' that their association placed O'Donnell in danger. The 'item', an utterly ebonic gem in a case, of inexplicable design and alien beauty, had made its way from the East Coast, supposedly after quite a few years of 'inaccessibility'. Its proximity quickly lead to the demise of the other man, after awakening something old and dark associated with the item. He burned to death from claws of smoke while O'Donnell watched, given sight beyond anything his limited human eyes could ever offer. It was an unexpected boon that offered O'Donnell the means of avoiding his patron's fate. Specifically, the statuette appeared to be a malformed Hindu deity, but rather than having a head, the part bearing the pattern of the skull was instead a thorax. It represented a lesser, younger, lower creature than the one which threatened O'Donnell, but far more capable than O'Donnell would ever be. A spider god who, despite being inhuman and indifferent to Man (all gleaned by O'Donnell's new found perception), was a better bet than the dark thing guarding the gem. In return for obedience to the deity it represented, the statuette transported the gem, case and guardian to places other. O'Donnell gained three things that night. First, his new found vision. Second, his obligation to a higher power, which manifested in the ever-growing, black web tattoo that had spontaneously appeared that night, and currently covered half his back. And third, the realization that anything was possible, if you knew which string to pull. Everything obeyed a law of sorts, even chaos.
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The names on the law-firm were the real power in the firm: hidden in plain sight, the movers and shakers were also the public faces, while the 'Partners' were human teller machines, sources of funding, blackmail opportunities, but nothing more. The hidden faces of evil were Arthur and Prescott Friedman, and Dascal Tyrone.
Both Friedmans fought in World War II. Arthur, the older, stopped being human then, when a malignant cancer entity invaded his body and turned him into a skin-suit used for human depravity for the last fifty-eight years.
Prescott didn't possess the inhuman lifespan and experience of what now existed as his brother, but compensated as best he could through dedication, imagination and child abuse.
The biggest c**t-weasel of them all was Tyrone. Dascal Tyrone wasn't even his real name. Rather, it was Dieter Tiberus Rhone, a Holy Roman sorcerer and would-be immortal who, in 1644, had himself ritually killed and resurrected. He used his corrupt influence and wealth to keep masking his true identity, passing off as a modern German, but his ego was so massive that a covert role wasn't enough for this self-proclaimed colossus of the world.
Likewise, their estimations of O'Donnell were equally myopic. The older Friedman assumed O'Donnell was a whipcord cut-throat, but still lacking in knowledge of the true order of things. The younger had degenerated to the point where he couldn't maintain his facade more than a few hours without killing something. And Tyrone was an ego undeserving his small goals. O'Donnell wasn't in a position to eliminate them yet, but to him their failings were all the more obvious than the employees who unknowingly aided their corpulent lifestyles.
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In a chamber with proportions and styling matching their collective misconceptions, O'Donnell now stood before these three amateur devils. With the aid of a wireless net palm-pilot linked to a massive screen, the demonstration began. No insanity plea; rather, a defense based on proving "racial bias against a specific minority population," and disproving the credibility of the prosecution. He listed names of probable witnesses, both police and experts, alongside which stood various discrediting hooks. He had also prepared a number of experts proving a culture of "Anti Tcho-Tcho" bias among Southeast Asians, and a skewered take on decades of race-relations precedent, all to be wrapped up in barefaced emotional manipulation. As he finished, O'Donnell let slip a minor expletive, intentionally, comparing the Tcho-Tcho's morals to Mengle. The elder Friedman broke a momentary and minute smile, the younger nodded in approval, while Tyrone cocked his head back and sneered.
" Gud. Liets us show who pools the stringks und vires".
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Post by E. Lipsett on Sept 21, 2003 18:56:16 GMT -5
Chapter 7 - Controls
by Daniel Jackson
Dr. Perelman picked up the scrubber, and stepped on the pedal. As it gave off a high-pitched whine, he leaned forward and peered into the patient's mouth.
The cubicle was empty, and the door closed as he whirled away plaque and debris from the man's teeth. And, as dentist's often do, he talked while he worked. The conversion was, though, a bit odd for your average dental visit.
"Remember those bizarre filed teeth you asked me for information about a few months back?"
His victim, mouth wide open and suction chuckling away, grunted affirmatively, eyes fixed on Perelman's.
"The cops just asked me to comment on a set of photos of somebody they picked up for something. The teeth are filed in exactly the same painful way."
He snagged a piece of paper out of an inside pocket of his white coat, and slipped it into the man's hand.
"Everything I know's there. And I don't really want to know anything else, not if this is related to the first group of people you showed me."
He eased up on the footpedal, and the high-pitched whirring faded out.
"I think you're all done now, Mr. Gentian. No cavities that I can see; perhaps you just have a sensitive nerve. Give it a week or so, and if the pain persists we can have a deeper look, but I don't see anything on the X-ray, either," advised Dr. Perelman. "If you'll stop by the receptionist on the way out, she'll set up another appointment for six months from now."
The man - Raymond Gentian, known as Agent Nolan to a very different group of people - thanked the dentist, and walked out to speak briefly with the receptionist. For a Friendly, Perelman was pretty good. Not only was he an official police consultant, usually called in to identify skeletons from dental records and such, he was also so easy to meet whenever necessary. Just call up and make an appointment...
After setting up his next appointment, six months away, he left the office and strode over to the car standing at the meter across the street.
Agent Nancy chucked the magazine into the back seat, and popped her bubblegum as he got in and started the engine.
He handed her the slip.
"It looks like we might get lucky this time... the police have taken a Tcho-Tcho for us."
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The hotel door slammed shut behind him as he slipped quickly inside.
"Detective Landry? I'm Raymond Gentian, DEA. Thank you for making time to meet me on such short notice."
Landry shook the outstretched hand, liking the quiet, solid feel of the man.
"Yeah, sure, no problem," he said as the DEA agent walked deeper into the dingy hotel room. "This is Detective Flores, my partner."
They shook, murmuring pleasantries. Landry turned up the volume on the boombox.
"So? What does a lordly DEA undercover agent want with a couple'a LA cops?," asked Landry, with a grin to take the sting off. "We haven't even smelled a major drug deal in months, been so busy with our own stuff."
Gentian pulled out a set of photos and held them out.
"These are some surveillance shots of a few people working at a company called Tiger Transit. It is a small air transport firm running in and out of Southeast Asia, and now has a network to many major US cities as well. Apparently it used to be a CIA front, back when the US was involved in Viet Nam."
Landry and Flores riffled through the shots, stopping suddenly at a close-up of one of the men.
His teeth were filed.
"The teeth..." said Flores. "You heard about our mystery man."
"Yes. He goes under a number of names, and is known in LA as Shu Goran. Ah, you already found that out, I see..."
Landry brought his eyebrows back down.
"Yeah, a Korean gangster wanna-be thought we'd spring him for the information. Just found out yesterday.
"So in other words, Tiger Transit is drug-running, is that what you're saying?"
"That is what the DEA thinks. We have not been able to prove it yet, but they are certainly into some fairly bizarre hobbies: filing teeth, body tattoos, ritual mutilation, possibly ritual murder."
"Murder? You mean, like, religious sacrifice?" asked Flores, staring at a photograph of a dead dog obviously missing a number of internal organs from the shattered abdominal cavity. "Not to mention they kill dogs, too... I really like dogs, you know."
"They kill many things," said Gentian. Landry saw the look in his eyes, and decided that he'd rather not have Gentian for an enemy. Maybe not even for a friend.
Flores chimed in again. "Sweet and Low, right?"
"Yes, Sweet and Low... such an innocuous name. It is building quite a reputation on the street already, you know."
"Yeah, we've run into it already, but haven't had any success tracking it down yet... We snagged a pusher a few days ago, and he got wasted - in the goddam jail cell, no less! - yesterday. It hasn't leaked yet but the commissioner and the mayor are already ballistic," commented Landry. "And of course we still don't have squat to go on."
"Where is the body?"
"At the city morgue, of course. Filed as hit-and-run victim John Doe for now."
Landry didn't mind sharing the information; he'd never had any problems with the DEA boys before, although they were all pretty self-righteous. This Gentian dude didn't seem to have any problem working with lowly LA cops, but he did talk a bit strange...
"I will drop by later and examine the body. Was he skinned?"
"SKINNED!?"
The two policemen exchanged looks.
"You're serious, aren't you? Hell, no, he wasn't skinned! Goddam, is that the sort of weirdos we're dealing with here?"
Gentian smiled thinly.
"Yes."
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Agent Nancy had pulled her hair back tightly, folding it up expertly into a bun fixed in place with black hairclips that were nonetheless quite visible.
Agent Nolan stood watching, black briefcase in hand, hair greased up over thick, black-rimmed glasses.
He had a nametag reading "D. Hartly, Department of Public Safety" snapped to his breast pocket.
"Shall we go, Mr. Hartly?" asked Agent Nancy, adjusting her own narrow, wire-famed eyeglasses and squinting to give her face the parched look of a librarian with ingrown virginity. Already her voice had assumed a painful shrilling quality sure to put anyone's nerves on edge.
They stepped through the front doors of the City Morgue and she click-clacked straight to the receptionist's window.
"I am Chastise de la Roche of the Department of Public Safety," she announced in stately tones as if advertising the ultimate deodorant for the jet set. "We are here to photograph the recently-admitted 'John Doe' traffic accident victim for identification purposes."
The uniformed man slumped behind the counter rubbed his nose.
"Sorry, Ma'am, but I haven't heard anything 'bout that... Let me check with my boss," he drawled, reaching for the telephone.
"Young man, we do not have all day. I'll mention your slovenly attitude to your superior," she sniffed, turning sharply on her heel and, nose in the air, stepping smartly toward the back room. "Come along, Mr. Hartly."
The door swung shut behind her before the guard had even begun to object.
They were done in less than three minutes, well before anyone appeared to question who they were or what they were doing. As the car pulled away, Agency Nancy - Julie to her friends - chucked her eyeglasses out the open window and shook her head like a wet terrier.
"That is pressure wave damage, no question about it," commented Gentian, quietly. "I do not quite understand how they generated that kind of force inside a jail cell, but then again, we do not know how they got into or out of the jail cell in the first place. If indeed anyone did."
He sighed.
Julie's eyes were fixed mostly on the road in front of them, with glances into the rearview mirror.
"I think we'd better let Alphonse know what's happening, and bring Nantucket up to speed," she suggested. "Having two pet cops on our side will be nice, but if Sweet and Low is what it looks like we're going to need a hell of a lot more firepower on tap. Official and unofficial."
Landry's eyes were boring through the car roof, but not seeing it at all.
"Yes. Firepower. It would be very nice to have plenty of firepower at our command when we go have a talk with these Tcho-Tcho, would it not? It would have been so nice..."
She shot a glance at him out of the corner of her eye.
"You all right, Ray?"
"Of course I am all right. Everything is all right; I am in control."
"... Now..." she added.
"Now," he agreed.
He ignored the greasy stains his absurd hairdo left on the car's headrest.
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Alphonse was not impressed, it seems.
While it was difficult to judge from a bald email, especially since Gentian had no idea whether Alphonse was a man or a woman, or even how many people 'he' was, the strain seemed to seep from the computer screen, a scent of tension.
Phenomenon X had been into something in LA, too, he advised. It was impossible to tell what yet, but it was pretty clear that something was brewing. Another team was being sent in to back them up, and he said he'd have someone higher up the chain at the DEA look into their investigation of Tiger Transit.
Gentian wondered idly just what sort of connections this 'Alphonse' had, and then turned off that line of thought. It didn't matter.
As long as he provided the back-up Agents Nolan, Nancy and Nantucket required to blow the Tcho-Tchos back where they came from, that was enough for him. And while his expression remained blank and placid as he scanned Alphonse's reply, even Mack Bolan would have found the way he stroked his well-worn Smith & Wesson 39 a bit obsessive.
Nolan was very, very eager to repay an old debt.
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