When Graveyards Yawn by G. Wells Taylor (popular books to read txt) đ
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- Author: G. Wells Taylor
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I knew what was going to happen next, so I averted my gaze. All that violence was an aphrodisiac to the clown. I looked out the broken window. Pigfaceâs body had regained its feet. It staggered blindly, whipped around quickly and flailed its remaining arm as though assailed by a flock of bats. I saw the bodies of the gangsters. They were lying peacefully amid the slaughter like they were made for the job. One even had an arm behind his shattered skull as if it were a sunny day, and a stream babbled nearby. His legs were crossed carelessly at the ankles.
Beneath me, I could hear Tommyâs wild breathing. He was reaching his peak. Taking over would be as easy as getting murdered in Greasetown.
I left the car at the curb. It leaned battered and beaten at the base of a dim street lamp. A carload of Firebugs roared past moments before an ancient truck burst into yellow flames down the street. A dead wino looked at me with frightened eyes. I gave him a quarter and stumbled up crumbled steps under a neon sign that throbbed the word Berlinz.
Shortly, I was curled around a pink marble bar. Some sex kitten purred in a voice of rustling bed sheets, a song about Stormy Weather. She seemed oblivious to the many blatant leers that dripped around the lips of foamy beer mugs. I leaned over my drink and slurped with a bruised pucker. My vision jumped like jacks as I waved for the bartenderâs attention and stabbed my empty glass.
âYou like that stuff, eh, Mr. Clown?â He was a small Latin fellow with thin black hair slicked over a tiny head. His skinny arms worked the bottle of Canadian Club over my glass. âYou got a lot of blood on you there.â He looked me up and down.
âJust pour, Caesar. It isnât mine.â I turned away absently. My head ached, my body shivered with pain, and my guts burned with each glass of whiskey. I was in a great moodâfelt like sixty-six cents.
I reached back, got my drink and concentrated on the singer. Her dress was slit to the crotch, and for a lascivious moment I distracted myself by playing peek-a-boo with a white silk bunny that flashed its cute little nose from time to time. When the singer jerked her hips in just such a way, her enormous augmented breasts heaved provocatively against the tight silk dress. I lit a cigarette, drained my glass and put my injured brain to work.
Pigface and the monkey-twins were obviously in Mr. Adrianâs employ. One might ask the question, why does Mr. Adrian hire gentlemen of questionable heredity when heâs just a nice old taxpaying businessman. The dead menâs wallets had provided little more than a few small bills in way of information; in fact, they were buying me a round. I hadnât expected to find anything. Nobody carried identification any more. Regardless, Mr. Adrian called the shots. He would soon know that I had escaped because his boys wouldnât be home tonight. I decided not to worry about what he would doâhe would do it anyway.
I was curious about Tommy. He had never intruded when I was taking my kick at the cat before, so why now? During my past possessions there had been a few odd Tourette-like explosions, but never awareness. He usually just picked up and went along his demented way when I was through with him. But now, he knew about the interview with the lawyer, heâd given that away when he was talking to Inspector Cane. The phantom baby case. Now out came his damn voice when I was talking to Mr. Adrian. Again, the phantom baby. And I couldnât forget the other new twistâmy fall from the MoroccoâIâd been knocked unconscious for the first time since Iâd become what I am. Whatever that isâŠ
A voice intruded into my thoughts.
âHey, whatâs with the makeup, Mac?â
I turned with my lips folded for an âfâ sound and looked into a face without a nose. I stopped.
âHow are you, Pogo?â I really didnât care. I was surprised at how much I didnât care.
âFine, you monkey fucker!â He hopped onto the stool beside me. âWhat brings you out on a day like this?â
âIf I didnât go out on days like this, Iâd never go out.â The whiskey was starting to take the edge off. Iâd known Pogo for about a year and a half. We frequented the same damp places on the underbelly of the world.
Pogo laughed in his peculiar wet way. He once told me he was a full-blood Apache Indian. Of course, it explained the brilliant war bonnet he wore to cap off his expensive suit. The subject of his heritage had come up once when we watched a documentary on the TV over the bar. Apparently terrified by the ramifications of the Change, large numbers of people had forsaken the godless life of the cities to return to nature. Some of the old tribes were letting them in too. Pogo laughed at the whole process but said he could never go back. âThey ainât got no video, no nothing in nature. Who the fuck needs that?â Later, he had had his nose cut off when heâd fallen into the hands of the Brotherhood of White Order. But he took the facial redecoration in stride. Pogo spent his afterlife as a pimp and dealer in exotic entertainment. He felt the new look terrified debtors and creditors alike. I added these facts to the list of things I didnât care about.
âYouâre as crazy as ever, Tommy!â he said and lit up a long imported cigar. Smoke curled up and was sucked into the wet nasal opening. My guts juggled whiskey. He continued. âBut like I said, what the fuck are you up to man?â
âSame old shit, Pogo. Shooting people, getting beaten up, falling out of windows.â I pointed for a fresh drink.
âOh shit man, I know,â Pogo laughed. âI heard about you whackinâ that Queen. Now, them Queens like whackinâ but not with no goddamn bullets⊠If I was you Iâd keep my balls the hell away from the Downingsâforever! A few girls down there want to wear them for earrings.â
âWhat the hell would I go there for anyway? Probably some other clown.â I slurped my new drink. âYou know I donât shoot people. Deathâs a serious thing these days.â
I noticed Pogo fumbling with something in his hands. It was a little can of Greaseasyâthe newest high in town. He squirted a drop into each eye, clenched his face and held the can out toward me. I smelled ethanol.
âNo thanks,â I said, pushing the tin back. âIâm working.â
âCome on, man,â he muttered; his head wedged between his knees. âYouâll see clearly nowâŠâ He gripped his skull with broad hands. âOh shit! There we goâŠâ
âMaybe later.â I turned away from Pogo and his convulsions, and watched the singer. She had just started into the same sultry tune again. I still couldnât name itâsome sad song about a storm, and somebodyâs baby going away.
âHey, Pompeii!â I waved the bartender over. âHave you got anything to eat in this joint?â
âJust sandwiches, Mr. Clown!â He smiled insolently and showed off a gold tooth. I wondered if heâd like to have it surgically removed from his bowel. I clenched my fists instead of swinging them.
âSham sandwichâmake it two, and one of those giant deli pickles if you have them.â
âYou want sham or real ham Mr. Clown?â He gave me another grin. âMaybe itâs payday at the circus?â I glared at him as he walked away from the bar, and whispered through a door at the back. He waved a finger to signify that it would be just a minute, hour, day or monthâpossibly a year. It would just be one of something.
I scanned the bar while I waited. Most of the waiters were dead. They were cheap labor, and would work for nothing: busier, the better. About ten people in all enjoyed the atmosphere of Berlinz. It was not a big placeâjust a long rectangle that looked like it had been made over into about nineteen different styles. Flickering lights behind a smoked glass wall screamed, âWeâre a disco.â Ancient sepia-tone pictures of black men holding saxophones over their bellies like brass entrails drawled, âWeâre a blues bar.â A prancing little maitre dâ in a lavender tuxedo looking more bored than gay lisped, âWeâre a bistroâ; while from the ceiling, low hanging wagon wheels slung with oil lamp light bulbs twanged, âWeâre a country bar.â It was that type of thing. Oddly enough, the customers fit right in.
My sandwiches arrived. My pickle didnât. The bread was white and dry; but I found the sham to be white and dry, so decided not to complain. Everything breaks down after a while. Who was I to rock the boat?
I looked over at Pogo. His convulsions had ended. The veins in his neck stood out like sewer pipes, and his face was apple red.
âGood stuff, Pogo?â
He smiled, eyes wide as an ocean, and nodded idiotically. âYeeaaah!â His voice was wild and uncontrollable. âGooood stuuuff, baby.â He nodded his head so rapidly that I had to turn away to smirk.
âHeeyy, Tommmmy!â His voice followed me.
âHey, Pogo.â
âDa-da Elmo, wwhereâs h-h-heeee?â
âAt home looking after the kidsâŠâ My voice trailed off. Mood momentarily lifted, I smiled at Pogoâs noseless face then threw a ten dollar bill at the bartender and left.
The Chryslerâs hubcaps screeched against the curb as I slid its long battered body to a halt. While I lurched up the steps to the office, the singer with the rabbit under her dress sang a song in the back of my mind: âSince my baby went away.â I moved past Elmo where he sat looking bored in the outer room, and in minutes was pacing the eight feet of dirty carpet I kept in front of my desk to impress customers. The whiskey wasnât doing its job. The back of my head had begun to throb again. The front of my head had joined in too. Elmo entered, his puzzled look crossed my bloodstained clothing but disappeared with a shake of my head. He sat silent in his chair like a deep dark secret. Cigarette smoke sketched clues in front of him.
I phoned down the street for coffee, lit a cigarette and sat on the edge of the desk. I was frustrated. I always got that way when a case broke. I may have completed the puzzle, but there was a real anticlimax in the way Authority dealt out justice. This was the hard part. Who could I trust with my news? True, I didnât have Van Reydner, but I as much as had a confession from Mr. Adrian. Since the lawyer had hired me to get the guy who killed him, our business would soon be concluded. My problem was finding some way of bringing Mr. Adrian to justice. The plain truth of it was exactly as Mr. Adrian had stated. He, like most powerful people in history, was above Authority. What that meant was he owned a piece of it. That was probably why Billings had wanted me to kill his murderer outright. The lawyerâs professional pragmatism must have told him that some people simply owned too much of the law to be subject to it. And even the worst, most hardened criminal could slip through the cracks on a technicality. The truth was I had an impulse to kill him myself. I
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