Narrator/Jake Brennan (23:36)
I split through the diner door, down the short three steps to the sidewalk, began my sprint after Lou and Jesus, and somehow, without seeing him, ran straight into Beardless Harry's meaty fist. When I woke up, I was tied to a chair in a crowded, dingy basement with a low ceiling with exposed pipes and a dirt floor. There were stacks and stacks of boxed and canned Italian specialty foods and a heavy aroma of garlic, onions and sweet peppers. My stomach roiled. I hadn't eaten in days, but I had bigger problems. I was reminded of those problems toot sweet with a quick open handed smack across the mouth from one of Beardless Harry's goons. My eyes stung. My body ached. I shook my head and gave Harry an unintentionally vacant Look. His goon geared up to crack me again, and this time with a closed fist. Harry stopped him short and what I mistook for mercy. Ace, you stupid schmuck. And then Harry cracked me across the grill. The taste of blood quickly filled my mouth. He gave me the drill in stuttered sentences. No. No vig, no call, no nothing. Nunzio wants his money. You ain't got any. You are beyond late. You are a fucking walking talking insult to human faith. I tried to speak. Harry gave me a quick fist to the face. It did not stutter. It said, shut the fuck up. I did, he went on. I know you ain't got no money because we searched you and tossed that shithole. Fourth floor walk up, you call home. I just stared at him. So what's it gonna be, Ace? He said cleanly. I'm working on something. I just need a little more time. Harry stutter came back strong with his next sentence. Does it have to do with the two Marys you were run, run run chasing after through Union Square? Damned if it don't, I said. Does it have to do with this? Harry then pulled a crumpled handbill from his pocket and shoved it in my face so close I could hardly read it. In big block letters it said Venus and Furs, and under it the exploding plastic. Inevitable. Whatever the any of that meant. I did recognize the next two words, though. Velvet Underground, today's date, and the Hell's Kitchen address were printed at the bottom of the page. It might, I told Harry. Where'd you get this? I asked. Fell out of one of the Marys you was run, run, run to chasing after the teenage Mary. He ain't teenaged. He's dirty. And yeah, he's the thing between me and your bread. It ain't my bread, Ace. It's Nunzios. If it were mine, you'd be buried under that dirt floor already. We might have had some times, you and me watching the ponies run, run a race. But I ain't the sentimental type of Nunzio, on the other hand, tends to get sentimental about his money, though, to a point. He gets all sad when it don't come back to him, and then he gets anxious and then he gets angry and pretty soon he's wanting to bury a deadbeat under a third floor. So you gotta one more chance, Ace. 24 hours or the next time you see me. Well, you won't see me. You'll feel quick cold steel against the back of your skull, and a second later you'll feel nothing. Nothing at all. I hit the front door of the Hell's Kitchen, address listed on Harry's handbill, and entered a dark, compartmentalized space. Red light pulsed on and off, slowly and intermittently blanketed the dingy, smoke filled space. Street lights snuck through the window in tiny spurts. Fancying itself, boss, it wasn't the red pulse and the darkness blew it out. Out of nowhere what can only be described as a servant appeared with a drink and an array of pills on a tray. I refused all of it, blew him off, lit a smoke, and slowly made my way into the space. There were bottles upon bottles of alcohol, empty and full, beer, wine, liquor, along with overfilled ashtrays covering every flat surface. The sight of it all made me tired, weary. I could sleep a thousand years, I thought. A record player spun endlessly and aimless, endlessly with its needle bumping up against the Record center label, and the sound of the vinyl crackling on repeat added a weird ambiance to the viola player droning on in the corner. He looked like Lurch and the whole thing seemed intentional, even though I knew clearly that it wasn't. And there were bodies intertwined with one another on the furniture post coitus, half naked in stone, dragging casually on cigarettes. Two ringleaders patrolled the small space with giant bullwhips. Both were masked in leather, shiny, shiny leather. One a man with long greasy 50s style pompadour and fit thighs like a varsity wrestler who wore tight jeans, high heels and nothing else aside from his leather mask. The other a woman, a mistress I guess you would call her, wore a shiny leather MC jacket with nothing on under it, Panties, heels and nothing else. They mock, inspected the goings on on the couches and floor cushions and cracked their whips for added effect. Mr. Pomp circled away from me and toward the big platform bed at the end of the space. The mistress followed him, cracking her whip with more consistency. Lurch on the viola settled into something repetitive, the drone moved into a melody and the bodies lining the wall began a slow clap in unison and a hypnotic rhythm took shape around us, and Mr. Pomp climbed onto the bed slowly on all fours, waving that big ass of his at all of us for effect. The mistress gave it a crack with her whip. The bodies took up a chant in time with the viola and their claps. At first it was a murmur I couldn't quite understand, but then the words emerged clearly in unison. Taste the whip. Taste the whip, taste the whip, they repeated in Eastern mantra style over and over again. The mistress set about to humiliate Mr. Pop. He lay on the bed on his back. She straddled him and strapped a ball gag around his head, under his mask and into his mouth. She got off, stood, and cracked her whip repeatedly across his hairy chest. The ball gag absorbed his screams. The servant stood next to me, still holding his platter of goodies out in front of him, even though he was fully attending to the show happening in front of him. Everyone stared. Most shifted in their seats, adjusting themselves just a little too forcefully. Trousers tightened, panties loosened, heads swelled and hearts quickened, mine included. What the fuck was happening to me? What had I gotten myself into? The mistress stood on the platform bed, now above Mr. Pomp. She took one of her heels and dug it into his chest. More ball gagged screams off to the side of the bed. Behind it, really, in the darkness, I could see him. There he was, Liu, standing in front of what must have been the emergency exit. As his back was up against the door which faced the back of the building where the fire escape would most naturally be. He was mesmerized. Of course he was, the depraved little fuck. I quickly braced the servant next to me with a firm grip under his arm and quietly pulled him back a few steps to make sure any slight step scene would go unnoticed. It broke his spell. He seemed shocked. Before he could speak, I stuck a snub nose.38 into his ribs and whispered sharply, one word and you bleed out on this piss stained floor. Got me, Pluto? He nodded and ironically started to piss his trousers. Which of these pills knocks you out? Not speed downers. He timidly pointed to a pile of grayish green pills. What are they? I asked. Mandy, he said, mandrakes, basically horse tranquilizers. I grabbed as many as I could in one handful off of his tray and made my way toward Lou. No one noticed me, especially not my guy. The depraved show kept captivating the room. I walked past the bed into the darkness, straight up to Lou, palmed his face and knee, his groin, all in one continuous motion, pushed his body with mine backward and straight out the emergency exit and onto the fire escape. He was slouched onto my chest in agony. I snapped him back upright, looked into his weasely eyes, and had a mind to do society a favor and toss him over the railing and onto the street head first. I didn't. Instead, I unloaded with a right to his gut. The pain caused him to buckle over again. I grabbed a touch of his curly black hair above his forehead and yanked his head back. Then I opened his lips and shoved the Mandy's into his mouth. I swung him around and up against the building in one fluid motion, pressed my body against his, securing to the wall, and pinched his nose with one hand and held both his eyes open with my other. Chew and swallow, motherfucker, or you've already drawn your last breaths. He did as he was told. Quickly I let go of him. He gasped for air. I let loose with another merciless wallop to his gut. He fell to his knees in front of me. Without thinking I raised my knees sharply into his face. He toppled over onto the grated iron fire escape. I picked him up, tossed him over my shoulder, and descended onto the street in search of a cabbie who could keep a secret. Big Bill paid the hacks fair. I caught him outside his Long island home on his way out the door to start his work day. Two stints in Korea for the weekend shift at Rikers. Bill had it worse than I did. I thought to myself. He was shocked when he saw him. I drugged and beat him. Package. He told me. What? He didn't want to know anything. All I told him was that the package was crucial to getting his daughter off. He told me Marcia and his wife were away at his mother in law's for a couple days. The house was mine. Put the package on ice and we'd sort it out when he got home after his shift.
