I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) (16 page)

“Didn’t you ever want to have any kids,
Frank? You’s a man, it ain’t too late you know.”

“Please. I got my kids.” Gossitch gestured
back towards the living room and Tanji’s husband on the couch. The
woman smiled. “Me and Renee, we tried. It didn’t happen. That’s
okay. When are you and my man here going to get to work on number
three?”

Tanji scoffed.“Thanks for bringing him home,
Frank.”

“No problem, Tanji. Sorry it’s so late.”

“It’s okay…he hasn’t really been out since he
got home.”

“How’s everything going then?”

“It’s good.” It was Tanji’s turn to lie, but
her next sentiment was true. “I’m glad to have him back.”

“He’s a good man, Tanji.”

“I know he is.”

Outside in his silver Audi A4, Bowie yawned
and said, “You know, Boone, he’s not a bad guy.”

“That’s what you and Gossitch keep telling
me. But, no, I don’t know that.”

“You don’t trust much, do you Boone?” Bowie
was feeling the effects of his drunk in his skull and it wasn’t
feeling very nice. Boone had drunk way more than he had but the guy
looked fine. Fuckin’ Boone.

“Trust is made to be broken,” said Boone.

“You trust us, though, right?”

“I trust the old man,” Boone dead panned, as
close to humor as he was going to get. “You, well…”

“Well, do the old man a favor then and
lighten up on Carter—on Santa Anna. He’s not a bad sort. The man
just spent almost ten years locked up for something he did with me
and Gossitch. He didn’t have to do ten. He could have talked any
time. And he didn’t.”

“So I should trust him?”

“Okay.” Talking to Boone, Bowie was reminded,
could be like trying to run through a brick wall at times. “Maybe
nothing I can say will get you to trust him, but like I said,
lighten up on him, okay?”

“He’s a grown man, ain’t he?”

“Boone, you know you rub people the wrong
way, yeah?”

“Thing is—”

“Thing is you don’t give a fuck,” Bowie
interrupted him. “Yeah, yeah, we know. You know, you got a lot of
potential, Boone. But that temper of yours, it’s gonna land you in
some hot water, and nobody—not me, not Gossitch—nobody’s gonna be
able to fish you out of that mess.”

“What you sayin’?”

“I’m saying man the fuck up. Bite your tongue
and be a man. And what was that shit with the blood suckers this
morning?”

“What do you mean?” Boone looked taken
aback.

“You know exactly what I mean—”

“Gossitch didn’t—”

“Gossitch ain’t going to say nothing to you.”
Bowie tried not to get pissed but with all the liquor in him and
the throbbing in his head it was tough. “He knows I would. We do
what we do, no need to make it uglier than it needs to be.”

“What, you want me to go easy on the
vampires?”

“Boone, those pathetic fucks…” Boone just
didn’t get it sometimes. “Listen, we need them and they need us,
right? Can you at least acknowledge that fact?”

“No,” stated Boone. “If I had the chance I’d
kill every single one of them. All I’m missing is a reason.”

“Only thing holding you back is Gossitch,
huh?”

“Something like that.”

“Hey there little man, who are you?”

Gossitch was still standing in the doorway
talking to Tanji. A little boy had stuck his head around her
leg.

“I’m Carter Jr.”

“Carter Jr., huh?” Gossitch smiled, tired but
happy. “And how old are you little man?”

The kid held up nine fingers.

“Carter,” his mother demanded. “Why are you
up so late?”

“I heard voices downstairs, momma, so I come
to check.”

“Lookin’ out for his mother. You’re a good
kid, Carter Jr.”

“Thanks.”

“Let me ask you this,” Bowie rubbed his head
in the car. “You don’t seem to give a shit about anyone or anything
or what anyone thinks, but you care about what Gossitch thinks,
right?”

“The old mans been good to me.”

“So maybe you can be good to the old man, you
know?”

“You implying I’m not?”

“I’m saying—” continued Bowie “—the nature of
what we do, it’s gonna be hairy. But we don’t need to do anything
to make it hairier, right? I mean, that shit today with the
vampire, burning him like that—”

“That wasn’t about
him
.”

“Yeah, it was about that day walking fuck,
wasn’t it? But listen, what if that day walker decided he wanted to
get back at you through me or the old man, like you did to
him?”

“You I wouldn’t care so much about,” Boone
noted sardonically.

“Be that as it may,” Bowie pressed the issue,
“what if?”

“Let me tell you what I’d do,” Boone spelled
it out. “I’d fuck him up. I’d come after him and his whole clan.
I’d destroy his children and his children’s children, and then I’d
go and dig his old mother up and fuck her bones.”

Bowie shook his head.

“Like I said, Boone, you got potential. Thing
I’m wondering, what side of the divide you gonna come down on?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“The line between humans and…and animals,
man.”

“Humans are animals, Bowie.” Boone looked out
the window into the night. “Guys like you like to kid yourselves
otherwise. Guy like me never forgot the fact.”

“So there’s a deeper philosophical core
underneath that hard bullshit exterior, huh Boone?”

“Call it what it is. It’s too late for this
bullshit anyway.”

“Here comes the old man, let’s make nice. Or
just pretend.”

“Don’t worry, Bowie,” mentioned Boone.
“You’re not on my bad side. Yet.”

“Believe me,” promised Bowie. “I’m not.
Worried that is.”

Tanji had taken Carter Jr. back upstairs to
his bedroom and tucked him in. She checked on Deanna sound asleep
in her own room. Back in the living room she covered her husband
with a light blanket and went and sat at the kitchen table with the
checkbook and some bills.

She sorted through the bills and arranged
them by amount due and date due.

She couldn’t believe Carter was back. She’d
messed around with other boys in high school, but once she met
Carter, he’d always been the only man for her. No man was perfect
and she knew hers wasn’t either, but he always tried and he was
true to her and their children.

When he’d been arrested…Tanji knew Carter had
been tempted. If he had just cut a deal, given up Frank or maybe
not even Frank, maybe just one or two of the other men who they
were working with, he could have avoided prison. He could have
avoided being away from her and Carter Jr. and Deanna.

Tanji wrote a check for the mortgage. She
should have had that one out in the mail earlier, but so long as it
was in by the 15th of the next month they were okay.

When Carter went away, money had been a
concern, a major concern. At least until Frank stepped up,
delivering thousands of dollars to her each month, more than enough
to cover the bills and whatever else she and the children might
need. Tanji knew Frank was rewarding Carter’s loyalty by providing
for her and the kids.

Because Carter hadn’t talked. He’d kept quiet
and he hadn’t said a word when the prosecutors were threatening him
with twenty to thirty years. He’d kept quiet when the judge slapped
him with a ten to twelve year sentence. He’d kept quiet after
everything he had seen and done to survive inside prison. He’d been
away when Carter Junior was born and Tanji knew that had hurt him
bad.

She stuffed a check and the statement in an
envelope for the electric company, made sure the address was
visible in the cellophane window, sealed the envelope.

Tanji wondered what Carter had been through
in prison. He hadn’t talked about it when she’d gone to see him and
he didn’t talk about it now. He’d returned to them older and
leaner, but being back with his family had revived her man. And now
he was back on the job and money would be coming in, big money.
They were talking about visiting the Magic Kingdom in the fall.
Disney had just opened the Animal Kingdom this past spring. The
kids would like that.

She subtracted the amount of their phone bill
from the balance in the checkbook ledger.

Tanji knew her man must have seen bad things
in prison all those years. He’d been home a few weeks already and
he hadn’t touched her. He’d
touched
her, hugged her, kissed
her, held her, but they hadn’t been intimate. Carter definitely
wouldn’t have let any man harass him in prison, but she wondered if
he had ever been with another man in all that time. The thought
disgusted her but she had heard about what went on in prisons and,
god, ten years was such a long time. She knew.

There were nights she woke up and Carter
wasn’t in the bed next to her. He was downstairs somewhere, doing
she didn’t know what. This seemed to be most nights. She assumed he
wasn’t sleeping, because he wouldn’t get out of bed until ten or
eleven the next morning.

Maybe what they needed was a night out
together, alone without the kids. Carter had been spending as much
time with their son and daughter as he could since he’d returned.
Every day they were out and doing things, going places. Except
yesterday when he’d put in work with Frank.

She heard her man snoring on the couch and
smiled.

Tanji looked up from the checkbook and out
the sliding glass doors that let onto their deck. She stood, pushed
her chair in to the table and walked over to the doors, looking out
onto the deck and backyard. She looked over the grill, the patio
table and chairs and umbrella and the trees that ringed their
property. Everything was as it should have been.

Still, she’d felt like something had been
watching her.

Tanji yawned and decided it was time to put
the checkbook away and head back up to bed. She’d be up in a few
hours with the kids. Carter Jr. wanted to make pancakes for his
father and she had told him she’d help.

The thing standing in the trees watched her
turn from the sliding doors and walk off into the house, the light
in the kitchen turning off.

Boone flipped on the light in the alcove of
the small apartment he called home in Queens. The apartment was
quiet and everything looked undisturbed. The room was slightly
cool. He’d left the air conditioner on from the night before and it
continued to hum. He opened the door to the hall he had just closed
and sprinkled a handful of the marijuana seeds Blind Mellon had
given him on the floor outside the door.

He didn’t think vampires or anything else in
this city that might have a reason to want to find him knew where
he lived, but he believed one could never be too careful. Most of
the vampires showing up at his door would have to stop and count
the seeds before trying to barge in. Even then, he’d been told they
couldn’t get in unless he invited them, and fuck if he’d ever do
that.

He locked the door and set the dead bolt.

He stepped past his small bathroom and
kitchen into a larger room that served as his living area. Boone
sat down at the small table where he took his meals and unlaced his
boots. As he did so he thought about the woman in the bathroom
stall at the club. He wanted to fuck her, even if she was some kind
of nun. He thought about the tall vampire that he’d confronted this
morning. He just wanted to fuck up that dude.

Hamilton and Madison had gone home with the
nuns, Boone couldn’t believe it. Get out of here.

Boone pulled off his socks and walked over to
his entertainment center, pressing the power on his CD-stereo. The
radio came on, set to one of the urban stations.

“Yo, New York, this is your girl Neecy here
on WKEA, and I’m sittin’ here with that young up-and-comin’
superstar who’s new joint,
Way
Back
, is really
lightin’ stuff up. I’m talkin’ bout Busta Nutz. Busta, what’s
crackin’ daddy?”

“Chillin’, chillin’.”

Boone laid the Smith & Wesson on the
table but didn’t bother to unload it. There were things in this
city that wouldn’t stop to count seeds at his door, things that the
dead bolt would only slow but not stop. Most of those things, from
Boone’s experience, wouldn’t get past the .529 if he could manage
to hit them. There was a Remington 1100 shotgun mounted on the wall
above the alcove leading off to the kitchen and bath and the
entrance. Point and shoot, the spreading buckshot would do the
rest.

“For real, Busta, let’s get this right out in
the open. Clear this thing up for real, right here, right now,
aight?”

“Aight.”

“I’m talkin’ bout your name, Daddy.
Busta
Nutz
. What’s up with that?”

Though Boone’s apartment was only three small
rooms and a bath, he had multiple guns stashed somewhere in each.
In the room where he slept he had a locked gun case with a small
arsenal secured inside.

“Yo, I’m sayin’, it’s like this, ya her?
Nutz
. Cause I’m nuts. I’m a crazy mother—
beep
—ya
n’meen?”

“Yeah.”

“A crazy mother—
beep
”

“Yo, yo, daddy, you gotta watch yourself with
the F-bomb, okay?”

Boone sprawled out on his futon couch, tired,
deciding whether he wanted to go to sleep or not.

“Crazy, I mean, people don’t even—niggas
can’t wrap they heads ‘round it. Look here, what I’m sayin’, when I
was a little nigga up in the group home, the staff used ta say t’
me, they say, nigga, ya’ crazy. Youse nuts. Get it?”

“For real, jus’ like that?”