The Teratologist (2 page)

The image alone, evidently, kept Phil where he was, and this was a good thing. He didn’t need to see what Louie was doing now: sucking Sharon’s toes, dirty inch-long yellow nails and all. His penis stiffened in no time—long and thin, like the rest of him. The glands looked like a pair of arthritic knuckles, with a glimmering hole in the middle. He rearranged himself on the bed, parted his ass-crack and carefully placed it over Sharon’s agape mouth. Then he began to vigorously masturbate. His stomach muscles tightened and loosened, tightened and loosened, along with periodic grunts, and then he whispered, “Phil, Phil! Watch this, it’s really cool! I’m gonna shit in her mouth same time as I come.” His hand shucked and shucked; he grunted some more. “She’ll eat it, too—she’s so stupid she thinks it’s food!”

In actuality, Sharon did not think it was food but she essentially had no choice but to consume what he expelled into her mouth—otherwise she’d gag. Even if she had any significant mobility, her mind was too undeveloped to understand defensive impulses, such as biting, but she couldn’t bite him anyway because she had no teeth. She simply lay there, quivering as her air supply was depreciated. At one point her coated tongue wagged upward and accidentally licked Louie’s distended anus, which was just beginning to dilate. His loathsome scrotum slapped her crooked chin…

Then—

Snap!

Clink!

The great weight on Sharon’s face was suddenly gone. Had Louie fallen off in his fervor? He’d disappeared over the side of the bed and didn’t get back up again. Sharon wasn’t capable of wondering much about it, but she instinctively sucked in fresh breaths of air now that her nose and mouth were no longer obstructed.

Did she see a shadow roving to one side of her?

Phil had stood back up, wiping his mouth. “Louie? Where’d you go?

Snap!

Clink!

Phil toppled to the floor. He was gone, too.

The nicest voice Sharon had ever heard beckoned her. Though she wouldn’t have known the distinction, the words rolled out in a soft, articulate British accent. The voice said this:

“
Hi, there. You must be Sharon. I stopped those bad men from doing what they were doing. I’d like to take you out of this place, to a much better place where you’ll be washed and cared for and you’ll get to eat good food. Would you like that, Sharon? Would you like to go someplace nicer than here?”

Sharon, of course, couldn’t answer, but she quivered where she lay in response to the question.
Yes yes yes!
she thought. More than anything else in the world, she’d like to go to a place nicer than this.

“
Here. Let me help. I’ll take you out of here right now.”

Hands were on her, strong arms sliding under her back and her thighs. She was being lifted up and then she was very gently placed in a wheelchair.

“
We’re on our way. You’ll like where I’m taking you, I promise.”

She rolled through darkness. The door clicked open and then she was being wheeled out into the hall outside. Sharon rarely saw this hall. It was bright and very quiet. Her warped head lolled to one side, a string of drool trailing. It was fun being pushed along. Every so often, though, something passed in her field of vision: people. A nurse, then a doctor, then an intern. A janitor, another nurse, a security guard. They were all lying sprawled on the floor, unmoving. Behind each of their heads, a halo of blood bloomed, shiny like wet paint. Sharon was too excited and confused and simply too mentally deficient to deduce what had happened to them all: they’d all been shot dead, each by a single small-caliber bullet to the head.

“
I’ve a nice big comfy van waiting to pick us up outside, Sharon,” she could hear the British man saying behind her. “It’s even got a television in it. We’ll watch anything you like. Would you like that?”

Oh yes yes yes yes!
Sharon’s misfiring brain thought.

The wheelchair stopped. She heard a door open in front of her. Her head drooped—she had almost no control of her neck muscles so she couldn’t incline her head. What was happening? Another voice, not the British man’s:

“
Hey! You!”

Sharon couldn’t move her neck but she could move her eyes, and she strained them forward and to the right. At the end of the hall stood one of the home’s security guards.

“
Visiting hours were over at—” The guard’s objection ceased when he noticed all the bodies lying in the hall.

“
I’m not here to visit, friend,” the British voice sprang out behind her. “I’m abducting this critical-care patient. And, yes, I’m obviously the one who killed all the staff on this floor.”

The nice man’s hand shot up, gripping something. Sharon could only piece the generalizations together by what she’d seen on TV. No way, of course, for her to know precisely what the British man held in his hand: a Walther PPKs with an M9-SD integral quick-detach 40db sound suppressor. Then came a:

Snap!

—
As the diminutive weapon’s slide cycled, and then a:

Clink!

—
As one expended .380 brass cartridge arced out of the ejection port and hit the floor. There was no other sound. The sub-sonic hollow point hit the security guard in the bridge of the nose and he fell down like a hinged duck. A circle of blood spread behind his head on the glistening tile floor.

“
There. We’re off now, Sharon.”

The British man wheeled her off the floor and out into the warm, windy night where a coal-black van sat in wait.

(I)

Westmore lit a generic cigarette and sputtered. The flight from LAX to Metro Detroit International had been delayed an hour on the runway because the ventilation system wasn’t working. “Can’t I just get off the plane for a few minutes and smoke while you’re fixing the motherfucker?” he asked the stew. He was told he could not, but, if he liked, he could get a different flight with another airline. Then there was the fat guy sitting next to him who smelled like he hadn’t washed his shirt in a year.
It’s my karma,
Westmore resigned. Now he was sitting in the airport bar waiting for what’s-his-name-Bryant, the journalist. Westmore typically drank beer but after the grueling flight, he wanted to start with a little kick. He ordered a scotch and water and gasped at the first sip.

“
Do I look like I’m in the Rat Pack?” he griped to the barmaid. “I ordered a scotch and water. This seems to be sufficiently lacking the water.”

She smirked back, too much lipstick, and bad hair. The blond perm looked like a pile of curly fries on her head. “Most drunks don’t complain when you pour them a hard drink.”

Westmore, actually, appreciated the snide answer. He believed that what didn’t kill him made him stronger. “You got me pegged that fast?”

“
It’s easy, buddy. Most drunks are bad tippers, too.”

“
I like you already! Are you married?”

She wandered away to some other chores, while Westmore nursed the scotch. It must be a rail brand, tasted like kerosene. When he looked around, he noticed he was the only one in the bar, and beyond, the airport concourse looked almost empty.

It was only eleven a.m., which didn’t help Westmore’s impressions. It was the dichotomy: the safety of the late-morning and the black cloud he felt hovering over his head. He knew he wasn’t psychic but whenever he got the willies before a shoot, something often rang true. Like when he’d gone to the Hamptons to interview the famous abstract painter in the fussy beach house. Westmore thought his art looked like someone tossing paint on a canvas, not too tough a trick. The old geezer had croaked in his armchair before Westmore even had time to get a light reading. Heart attack.
What am I supposed to do!
he screamed to the fates.
Take pictures of a fuckin’ corpse?
Then there was the time the magazine had flown him to Redmond, Washington, to shoot some pictures of Bill Gates. Westmore got some serious willies on the way to the airport. His cab got a flat in rush hour on Sepulveda and he’d missed his flight. The plane crashed.

He had some big time willies right now.

Then he thought one word, one name. Farringworth.

Even the name sounded pinky-in-the-air, like Carnegie, Van Buren, and Rothschild.
Thirty-year-old multi-billionaire,
Westmore thought. It was nothing new to him; he’d been snapping pix of these caviar-scarfing snobs five years. Bluebloods. Their fucking handkerchiefs cost more than Westmore’s best suit. But what the hell was putting the butterflies in his gut? Bryant would know more.

They worked for
Blue Chip
magazine, a Forbes clone that had taken off. He’d teamed with Bryant on a couple jobs in the past—Trump, Rockefeller’s kid, and some Indian Chief who owned the biggest casino in the country, in Connecticut of all places. Best thing about Bryant was he didn’t fuck around. Westmore’d snap the pix right off, and Bryant would take his notes, and they were out of there. He hoped this gig would go as well.

He glanced around, bothered. He didn’t like being the only person in a bar; it made him feel like a man with a problem, which he supposed he had. “Hey, how come nobody’s in the bar?”

“
Because you’re here?” she answered.

“
Beautiful
and
witty.”

“
Hate to tell you this, killer. Not many people drink this early.”

“
Ah, there is that…”

She meandered away just as a massive shadow crossed Westmore’s back.

“
Isn’t it a little early to be drinking?”

Westmore frowned. “Everybody seems to be telling me that today.” Bryant stepped up to the bar: black, shaved head, six-five, two-fifty, and zero body fat. The barmaid winked at him.
Figures,
Westmore thought.

Bryant didn’t look like a writer. He looked like a kick-boxer or something, he looked like the kind of guy who could clear out a shit-pit bar full of rednecks with one arm. He wore a suit and tie, while Westmore wore jeans, Velcro sneakers, and a t-shirt that read CAPTAIN KIDD’S SEAFOOD MARKET, REDONDO BEACH.

“
We’re interviewing a billionaire today,” Bryant reminded him. “Did you have to get so dressed up?”

“
Come on, these Velcro sneakers cost ten bucks. At K-Mart.” Then Westmore raised his overly stiff drink. His hand was shaking.

“
What’s wrong with you?” Bryant asked next. “Even
I’ve
never seen you this jittery so early in the day.”

What could Westmore say? “I’ve just…got a bad vibe, you know?”

“
No, I don’t know.”

“
Something’s giving me the willies about this one.”

“
Who? Farringworth? He’s just another billionaire. We see these guys all the time. They’re like sports stars, they’re all the same and they’re all assholes.”

“
The guy’s thirty years old,” Westmore pointed out. “How’d he get to be a billionaire by thirty?”

“
Spot trading on the 4X. On a average there’s about three trillion dollars a day trading. Farrington’s an institutional trader whose clients have to put up a minimum of ten million dollars per transaction. He gauges global monetary fluctuations on a minute-to-minute basis. Farrington watches everything as it happens, from New York to Tokyo, Switzerland to Hong Kong, from Dollar to Yen to Deutschmark to Guilder to Lire to Ruble. His own profits he juggles through authority loan markets, interbank markets, yearling bonds, sterling money contracts, and flexible competitive-range ventures.”

Westmore’s face scrunched up. “Well, I guess whatever just came out of your mouth answered my question.”

“
What are you worried about? We know he’s legit. IRS and SEC audit the guy out the ass every year. What, you think he’s secretly funneling biological weapons to Iraq? He a front for white-slavers? That’s what you thought about the last guy.”

“
I don’t know what it is. I just feel weird.”

“
Westmore. You
are
weird. Rejoice in who you are.”