I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) (15 page)

“Who, Big Mike?” Gossitch shook his tumbler
of whiskey, the ice cubes clinking. “He’s alright, Boone.
Nonaligned.”

“Boone would kill every vampire if he could,”
proffered Hamilton. “Wouldn’t you, Boone?”

“Fuck ‘em all. Guatemalans too.”

Hamilton laughed.

“Let God sort ‘em out, that kind of thing?”
asked Santa Anna.

“Fuck Him too.”

“Whoa!” said Madison. “You talk like that and
a lightning bolt comes down out of the sky, I don’t want to be
sitting next to you.”

The club music was loud but in the V.I.P.
section you could at least hear yourself talking. Jay Z was rapping
about it being a hard knock life.

“Where’s Jay?” Boone asked.

“He didn’t come out tonight,” answered
Madison.

“So where the fuck is he?”

“Jay’s got himself a lady,” said
Gossitch.

“Hey, Santa Anna, you my nigger right?” If
Boone thought he was going to get a rise out of the guy, he was
wrong.

“You know what they say, right my little
cracker brother?” Santa Anna looked at Gossitch but spoke to Boone.
“You can pick your nose, you can pick your friends, but you can’t
pick your family.”

“Well let me ask you a question, right?
What’s up with that ‘80s couture, huh?”

Santa Anna was wearing a green Sergio
Tacchini tracksuit and immaculate British Knight sneakers. They
were the clothes that had been in his closet when he’d gone
away.

“Let me ask you a question, young-un. Why you
up my ass so hard?”

“Because,” Boone quaffed his rum and Coke,
“There’s something about you—and I can’t put my finger on it,
yet…something I don’t like.”

“The feelings mutual.”

“Boone,” warned Gossitch. “Play nice.”

“Yes poppa.” Boone raised his glass to
acknowledge their crew chief.

“This guy hasn’t even finished one drink and
he’s already talkin’ shit?” Santa Anna remarked to Bowie.

“That’s just Boone, he’s always talkin’
shit.” Bowie wore expensive baggy jeans and a Steelers number 32
throwback jersey.

“You should see him when he’s got a few in
him,” added Hamilton.

“Why’s that?” Santa Anna turned back to
Boone. “Why’s that, young-un can’t hold his liquor?”

“Oh, let me assure you,” Boone looked into
his empty glass. “I can hold my liquor.”

“Well,” Santa Anna placed a wad of rolled up
bills on the table. “Let’s see about that, why don’t we?”

“Let’s.”

“Hey, honey,” Santa Anna beckoned to a
waitress over the bass. “Bring us a dozen shots of—” he stopped to
look at Boone, “Whiskey? That’s a man’s drink. Think you can handle
that?”

“Make it a bottle,” Boone told her, his eyes
never leaving Santa Anna’s. “Top shelf.”

“Oh, this is gonna get ugly,” laughed
Madison.

“Put your money away, Carter,” said Gossitch.
“I’m buyin’.”

When the waitress returned with their bottle
and two shot glasses, Santa Anna said, “Young-un, meet my friend,
Mr. Johnny Walker.”

“Black. Huh. Like you.”

“Ohhh!” cried Madison. Beer came up through
Bowie’s nose.

Santa Anna poured himself and Boone a
shot.

“Cheers.” He went to tap glasses with Boone
but Boone ignored him.

“Fuck yourself.” Boone had already downed his
whiskey.

A dozen shots later Boone was snorting coke
in the bathroom. He liked the restrooms at Xerxes. The stalls were
little booths with actual doors that locked from the inside. He
tapped some powder onto the web of his thumb and inhaled.

Someone knocked on the stall door.

“Fuck,” he said to himself. “I’ll be right
out!”

Whoever it was knocked again.

“Fucker,” Boone slipped the glass vial of
cocaine into his flannel and opened the door, ready to pound the
motherfucker on the other side.

The stall door opened and a hot brunette was
standing there. She wore denim bellbottoms and a cropped tank top
and her breasts were propped up and looked like they might pop out
of her shirt. She had some kind of charm on a chain between
them.

“Hey.” Boone looked at her.

“Hey yourself,” she said, looking around the
bathroom. Men had their backs turned to them, urinating in stalls.
“Your friends told me you might be holding,” she stepped past Boone
into the stall and pulled the door closed before he could
answer.

“You a narc?” he asked her as she locked the
door.

“Come on,” she looked around impatiently.

Boone produced the vial of coke and the woman
snatched it out of his hand. She tapped some out onto her
fingernail and inhaled it. She closed her eyes as a look of intense
pleasure swept over her face.

“That’s good stuff,” she approved. “Here.” As
Boone watched the woman wiggled her bosoms, tapping a nice sized
mound of the drug onto the top of one of her breasts.

“Fuck yeah—” Boone didn’t get to finish as
her hand grabbed him by the back of his head and pulled his face
into her cleavage. He snorted up the powder and her perfumed scent.
That smell.

He pulled his head back a few inches and eyed
the charm hanging between her breasts. It looked like a branching
root and on the end of each branch were various symbols: a rooster,
a dagger, the moon, a key.

“Aw, fuck.” He stepped back and looked at
her. “You.” The woman he had held close that morning. A nun or some
shit. In Xerxes. Dressed like this? Parlaying the ye-yo with him in
the men’s bathroom.
Fuck
.

“Now this is getting crazy,” he muttered,
angry, snatching his vial back from the woman.

“We have to talk, Boone.” Emmanuela told him.
“About that woman your friend is dating.”

Boone was turning to leave when she grabbed
his arm, whirled him around and slammed him into the wall.
Emmanuela pressed the blunted edge of the kukri’s curved blade
against his neck. Boone snickered. He wondered where she had hidden
the thing, dressed like she was.

“I’m serious, Boone.”

“Let me give you some advice.” Boone moved so
fast he took Emmanuela by surprise. One moment she was holding the
kukri to his neck, the next he had snatched it out of her hand.
“Don’t fuck with me when I’m in a good mood.”

He dropped the knife in the toilet and
Emmanuela gasped, immediately bending to retrieve her blade.

“You bastard.” But he had already left the
stall.

“What’d you miss the most inside?” Bowie was
asking Santa Anna.

“My family,” Santa Anna looked forlorn, like
he was reliving the moment. “I’d have done anything…to see them, to
be with them.”

“It’s okay, now,” assured Bowie. “Gossitch
made sure they were okay.”

“Frank,” Santa Anna locked eyes with
Gossitch. “I owe you brother.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Look at that one,” Madison said to Hamilton,
looking down onto the dance floor. “Ass like that, she gotta be
Brazilian, right?”

“Ass like that,” said Hamilton. “She can be
whatever she wants to be, far as I’m concerned.”

“Go down there and get her, man,” encouraged
Bowie.

“I don’t know Bowie. I ain’t feelin’ it
tonight.”

“Man the fuck up, Maddy.”

“Here, Maddy,” Hamilton borrowed the bottle
in front of Santa Anna and poured his friend a shot. “Drink
this.”

Gossitch was smoking a cigarette. No one was
going to tell him not to in Xerxes, even if it violated city
code.

“Come on, Maddy,” Boone had returned to his
seat and rejoined the conversation. “I’ll be your wing man.”

“You want to stand any chance with that
girl,” Bowie reminded Madison, “you go down there
without
Boone.”

“’Fraid she’ll eat me up, huh Bowie?”

“No Boone. ’Fraid you’ll scare her away.”

“Come on, Maddy,” Hamilton nudged his
friend.

“I don’t know,” the other hesitated.

“Here,” Santa Anna refilled the shot glass in
front of Madison. “Liquid courage.”

“Do it,” prodded Hamilton.

“Man the fuck up, Maddy.” Bowie had a few in
him and was sounding bellicose. “Drink that shit, get down on that
dance floor, and seal the fuckin’ deal, man.”

Madison tossed back the shot and let Hamilton
lead him to the stairs and the dance floor.

“Better start drinking up again,
young-un.”

Twenty minutes later Santa Anna and Boone
were still trying to drink one another under the table.

“Need anuther bottle shoon.” Santa Anna’s
voice was slurred.

Bowie was already drunk and keeping to
himself.

“Oh, the Aye-Taye,” said Boone.

Johnny Spasso walked up to their table.
Though the club was dark and the press of bodies competed with the
air conditioners, Spasso wore his microfiber rain coat and
sunglasses.

“Johnny Spasso,” said Gossitch. “Please.” He
indicated an empty seat at their table.

“Frank.” Spasso sat. “Gentlemen. Boone.”

“You know, Spasso. You’re the only guy I know
who could pull off that look.”

“How many of those things have you had?”
Johnny referred to the shot glasses and the bottle between Boone
and Santa Anna.

Santa Anna was trying to formulate an answer
when Boone blurted, “Twenty seven Mai Tais, motherfucker.”

Spasso spoke quietly to Gossitch for a few
minutes, after which he rose, bid farewell to Gossitch and the
other men, and left.

“What was that about?” asked Boone.

“Business.” Gossitch sipped his own
whiskey.

Hamilton and Madison had returned to the
table with three attractive young women similarly attired in
bellbottom pants and tank tops.

“Oh shit.” Boone clasped a hand to his
forehead. “You know who these bitches are, don’t you?”

“Marsha, Jan and Cindy?” quipped Bowie.

“Good evening, sisters,” said Gossitch as the
ladies sat down. “Could I offer you a drink?”

“I’ll take one,” said Daniella. She was
sitting next to Gossitch. “We need to talk, Gossitch.”

“So let’s talk.”

Daniella looked at the other men at the
table, as if she had something she needed to say that she didn’t
want anyone but Gossitch to hear.

Cotton
Eyed
Joe
was
blasting out of the speakers on the dance floor.

“I hate this fucking piece of shit song!”
shouted Bowie, the first time he had spoken in awhile.

“Boone wasn’t at the Alamo.” A besotted Santa
Anna pointed his finger at Boone.

“And Santa Anna was Mess-ican.”

Emmanuela and Isabella looked at one
another.

“Debbie Boone.” Santa Anna swallowed another
shot and scrunched up his face. “You light up my life…”

“Keep talkin’,” promised Boone. “I’ll light
you up.”

Daniella was talking to Gossitch in a low,
confidential tone. Madison and Hamilton were making small talk with
Isabella and Emmanuela.

“Come on, Boone, another!” Bowie punched
Boone in the shoulder. “Time to be a fuckin’ man!”

Boone knocked one back and looked across the
table to the black man. “Hey, Santa Anna, let me ask you a
question, how many cocks you take up your ass in prison?”

Santa Anna was too drunk to try to
answer.

“How ‘bout you, sister?” Boone turned his
head to ask Emmanuela. “You take it up the pooper?”

“Not on the first date,” she said coolly,
causing Hamilton and Madison to laugh nervously.

Boone was feeling the alcohol. Snippets of
conversation and song and random thoughts flowed through his mind
as time passed. At one point he looked up and there was a second
bottle of Jack on the table before him. Santa Anna’s head was on
the table and he was snoring.

“Hey, where’d Ham and Maddy go?” After awhile
Boone noticed they were gone.

“Home with my friends,” Emmanuela leaned over
and told him.

“Wait a second,” a drunken Boone remarked. “I
thought you guys were chaste or some shit like that?”

“We’re brides of Christ, Boone,” said
Emmanuela. “But our pussies are ours to do with what we will.”

Boone looked at her out of one eye. “You’re
fuckin’ with me, right?”

“If you’d played your cards, right,” she
tapped her fingers on his hand and it felt electric, “I might have
been.”

“Goddamn.” Boone felt frustrated. “Let’s
start this all over, okay? Do over?”

“Not tonight,” her smile was radiant. “Finish
your game with your friend,” she reached over and grabbed his
crotch through his shorts under the table. “You’ve got whiskey dick
anyway.”

“But remember,” Emmanuela said as she got up.
“What I said to you before.”

Boone had no idea what she was talking
about.

“Did my husband fall in a vat of whiskey,
Frank?” Tanji stepped aside as Gossitch dragged Santa Anna into the
house. One of Santa Anna’s arms was draped around Gossitch’s
shoulders.

“Might as well have, Tanj. You know how the
boys can get.”

“The boys? Frank, Carter will be forty three
next month. Ain’t no boy about him.”

Gossitch set Santa Anna down on the sectional
in the dark living room and sighed. “Come on, Tanji. You know age
is only chronological. Look at me.”

“Yeah, just look at you, Frank.” Tanji was
tired but her attitude was feigned and Gossitch knew her well
enough to know it. “When you gonna settle down, let some good woman
make a straight man out of you?”

“I been down that route before, Tanji,”
Gossitch held up his ring finger. “It was great while it
lasted.”

“It doesn’t have to be over, Frank. There’s
plenty of women—”

“Renee was the best, Tanji.” They stood in
the doorway. Gossitch looked out to his car where Bowie and Boone
waited. “I mean, for me.”

“No doubt about it, but that doesn’t mean you
have to spend the rest of your days alone and lonely.”

“Alone, yes.” Gossitch lied. “Lonely?
No.”