I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) (18 page)

His head throbbed. Too much drinking last
night. The air condition kept the kitchen nice and cool.

“Look at you, out to all hours of the night.”
The way his mother said it, she wasn’t really angry, just busting
his chops.

“I was out with Carter last night, ma. You
remember him?”

It took Bowie’s mother some time to get over
to the kitchen table where he sat with his cup of coffee.

“Black fella?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s he been?”

Bowie sipped the coffee. “He’s good. He’s
been away for awhile. Now he’s back.”

“It’s always good to be back.”

Bowie loved that about his mother. She
wouldn’t ask what he’d meant when he’d said Carter had been away
for awhile. He wondered what she thought. Did she believe Carter
had been living as an expatriate in Europe or somewhere? She also
wouldn’t delve too deeply into her son’s whereabouts, his own
comings and goings.

Bowie was thirty eight years old and yeah, he
still lived with his mother, but she gave him his space.

“You got any aspirin, ma?”

“One minute.”

Something was sizzling in a frying pan on the
stove. Bowie thought it smelled like chicken. She’d have breaded
the cutlets and would fry them, set them aside for later. Lunch was
going to be a good one today. Damn if this hangover wasn’t chasing
his appetite away though.

“What are we doing for Labor Day, Ma?”

“Your uncle is having a barbecue.”

Bowie’s Uncle Paul lived out on the Island
with his wife and kids. Uncle Paul was his mother’s older brother.
Paul was a school teacher, had been for thirty years. Guy deserved
a Labor Day barbecue.

Bowie’s mother thought her son worked some
kind of security. She spun mysteries about her son’s employment for
the neighbor ladies, for her friend Sarafina. Sometimes Bowie’s mom
alluded to her son working for a wealthy and famous architect. She
would say “I can’t tell you who” but his name rhymed with
“bump.”

Bowie let her have her fantasies. The truth
wouldn’t have been any less far-fetched.

“Here you go, Eddie.” She handed him his
aspirin and a glass of water.

“Thanks, ma.” Bowie’s mother waited on him
hand and foot. She was slowing down as she got older. She blamed
her knees. Bowie knew her weight wasn’t helping any.

Bowie noticed Leroi lazing on the window for
the first time. The cat was swishing its tail back and forth, its
eyes closed. His mom had two cats. Leroi and Warrior. They’d been
alley cats but they didn’t go outside now.

He tossed back the aspirin with a gulp of
coffee, ignoring the glass of water.

Those cats had the life. They had the run of
the five room apartment. The only place they couldn’t go was
Bowie’s bedroom. He kept it locked. Not even his mother went in
there. It wasn’t something they needed to talk about.

Bowie and his brother, Billy, had grown up in
this apartment. Their father had been out of the picture early on.
One of those guys who went out to the corner store for a pack of
cigarettes and never came back. Way Bowie saw it, man couldn’t be a
man, couldn’t raise a family, good fucking riddance. Coward.

Bowie was nine when his old man had split.
His mother made excuses for the guy, said the man was tired of
being sick and sick of being tired. Whatever the fuck that was
supposed to mean.

Their apartment was more than big enough for
the two of them and the cats. Billy had moved back in five years
ago before he’d died. Leukemia. Bowie was saving money so he could
buy his mom a house in the suburbs. He was reluctant to buy now.
The housing bubble would have to pop sooner or later.

He rubbed his forehead and thought about
Carter’s house on Long Island last night. It’d been dark so he
hadn’t gotten a good look, but what he’d seen had looked nice.

“Macy’s has a big sale this weekend.” His
mother started talking about all the stuff on sale at Macy’s.
Bowie’s mom thought Macy’s was the shit. He bought her gifts from
Saks and F.A.O. Schwartz, Monolo Blahnix, fancy little over-priced
boutiques in the Village. When he told her how much the Jimmy Choos
he’d bought her were, she’d looked at him like he was crazy. Bowie
knew none of that stuff compared to Macy’s for his mom. He could
buy her a Faberge egg, and if it hadn’t come from Macy’s jewelry
and watches department it wouldn’t have impressed her.

Bowie sipped his coffee, listened to his
mother talk, and hoped one of her friends was available to go
shopping with her. Bowie always paid for Sarafina, wherever her and
his mother went. He’d sent them to Hawaii a few years back, right
after Billy died. His mother had liked that. Gave her and Sarafina
something to brag about at church for a few months afterwards. He’d
send her again but she couldn’t get around any more. It was bad
enough he was probably going to have to go and see Johnny Mathas.
Again.

“Want to go see a movie this weekend, ma? Mel
Gibson’s got a new one out.”

“I know, I saw that in the paper. Eddie,
you’re a young, handsome man. You should go to the movies with a
pretty lady, not your mother.”

“My mother
is
a pretty lady.” Bowie
knew it’d bring a smile to her face and it did. His mother never
liked any of the women he brought home. Truth was, neither had he
really.

“How bout you, Ma? When are you going to let
Augie the butcher take you out to eat?”

“Pshoosh! Your father was the only man for
me.”

“Come on, Ma. You think dad would want you to
be all alone?”

“He wouldn’t and I’m not. I’ve got my boy.”
It was the way they talked about Bowie’s dad. Like he had died and
not walked out on them. Bowie figured it was a coping mechanism,
something that had allowed his mother to raise her two boys alone
in Queens all those years.

Bowie knew if he ever got married she was
moving in. It went unsaid. He also knew he didn’t plan on ever
getting married.

“What about Dr. DeStefano?”

“Dr. DeStefano,” his mother reminded him,
“died fifteen years ago.”

“You could have been a rich woman, ma.”

“I have everything I need.” And she did.
Bowie provided well for his mother. She had every conceivable
gadget someone like her could want or need. A five-quart tilt
mixer. The finest China Macy’s sold. She had shit she didn’t know
how to use, shit she couldn’t pronounce. The rent was paid on time
every month. Bowie paid a woman to come in and clean twice a
week.

“Eddie, could we talk about something?” His
mother was all serious now.

“Sure, ma.” He finished his coffee. “What’s
up?”

“Those boys are out on the corner again.”

Bowie knew which ones she meant. The hood
rats.

“They say something to you, ma?”

She ignored his question. “I was thinking
maybe you could talk to Thomas again? Those boys, well, they
frighten Sarafina and some of the other ladies in the
neighborhood.”

“Got it, ma.”

Bowie’s mom wanted him to get in touch with
his childhood friend, guy who’d gone on to be a cop. Bowie’s friend
drove a patrol car in Staten Island. Bowie knew his mom didn’t
understand this. But he knew what he had to do.

“Eddie? It’s got nothing to do with they’re
being black, you understand?”

“I got it, ma.”

“Thanks, Eddie. What would I do without my
boy?”

“You’d probably drink beer and play cards
with Sarafina.”

Bowie’s mom laughed as her son excused
himself and left the kitchen. He dialed the combination to the lock
on his door and entered his room, closing the door behind
himself.

He changed to jeans and a black t-shirt with
a Marilyn Manson’s
Smells
Like
Children
print.
He left the shirt untucked. Bowie considered the twenty five pairs
of sneakers in his walk-in closet and decided on his blue on white
Nike Air Penny 3s. He’d have to clean the BKs he’d worn last
night.

Bowie unlocked the fireproof strong box that
took up most of the back wall of the closet. He looked over his
guns and money. He always kept fifty thousand cash in the safe.
Most of his money was overseas. He took one of the two Glocks he
owned, inserted a magazine, jacked the slide. Bowie stuffed the
pistol in his jeans at the small of his back, under the t-shirt. He
closed and locked the safe.

He collected his money clip, loose change,
pager and keys from the bureau and put it all in his pockets. After
locking his bedroom door he walked back into the kitchen.

His mother was dicing onions for a gravy over
by the stove.

“What’s on Oprah today, ma?”

She told him but he wasn’t listening, he was
watching Leroi’s tail swish back and forth and hoping the thugs
would be outside on the street, that it wasn’t too early in the day
for them. He kissed his mother on the forehead and promised he’d be
back in a few minutes.

His downstairs neighbor, Lou, was outside on
the sidewalk, sitting in his lawn chair much like everyday. Lou had
been out on disability from the sanitation department for as long
as Bowie could remember. Lou put on his neck brace before he went
outside every day so no spies from the DSNY would see him and
report him. Cut off his checks.

“Eddie.”

“Lou.”

Bowie’s silver Audi was parked at the
curb.

He walked down the street and saw the boys.
They were already out and in place. Two of them. Where was the
third? It was a hot day. Shouldn’t these guys be in school or
something? Bowie wondered when school began. Summer vacation had to
be ending sometime this week or next. How old were these guys? Were
they still in school?

As he walked he whistled to himself, and the
tune he whistled was Morricone’s
The
Good
,
the
Bad
,
and
the
Ugly
.

Where was the third? There were usually
three. Today there were two. Bowie decided he’d hit the drug store
first, then talk to the boys. He crossed the street before he got
to where they were so he could avoid them for the time being. They
paid him no mind, he was just another big white dude on the other
side of the street.

He purposefully didn’t look over at them as
he passed by. He knew the kids. They lived a few blocks away in the
projects, but for some reason hung out on his block. They’d always
looked like they were up to no good to him, but they’d never
exchanged anything other than hard looks.

He rounded the corner and rapped on the glass
of the deli, waving to Mike and Fat Tony behind the counter.

In the drug store he waited on line behind an
old lady at the pharmacy counter. The
Les
Miserables
soundtrack was playing on the stereo system. Val Jean and Javert
were confronting each other over Fantine’s dead body. Val Jean was
asking for a few days to find Fantine’s daughter and set her up.
Javert continually resorted to the law and how he had to uphold it.
Steve, the pharmacist, loved the show. Bowie had taken his mom to
see it. Twice.

Bowie stared at the condom display.

“Eddie.”

“Steve.”

Steve had his mother’s prescriptions ready
and bagged and rang them up. Bowie knew Steve didn’t particularly
like him. Steve wasn’t one of those guys who believed his mother’s
cockamamie stories, that her son was a security guard or secret
agent. Steve, Bowie knew, recognized that Bowie had some kind of an
edge.

But the pharmacist was good to his mother,
had been all these years.

Bowie paid cash, thanked the druggist and
walked up front where one of the two ladies behind the counter
asked him “How’s your mother, Eddie?”

“She’s good. Thanks for asking.”

He bought two newspapers and ten dollars
worth of instant lottery tickets for his mother.

When he left the store the lady who was
arranging the cigarette cartons said “He’s a good boy” and the
other one agreed.

Bowie waved to Mike and fat Tony behind the
counter of the deli and rounded the corner and as he did he resumed
whistling the Morricone tune.

He walked past Arlene’s house and hoped he
wouldn’t see her and was relieved when he didn’t. He’d fucked her
once, had to have been ten years ago, and she never let him forget
it. It was almost one o’clock in the afternoon. She was probably at
work.

He spotted the boys on the corner and there
were three of them now.

Time
to
man
up
,
he told himself.

As he walked, Bowie thought of things that
irritated him. His mom getting on him about getting married and
starting a family, that wasn’t an irritation so much as a nuisance.
He’d never say it to his mother but he was tempted to ask her how
her marriage had worked out for her.

Billy had been married twice. Divorced twice
too.

Having to speak to Boone last night in the
car, now that irritated him. The kid was a loose canon. Like Carter
before he went away. Had been since Gossitch had brought him on two
years ago. That vampire with the hat, walking outside in the
morning like that. That irritated him. His father walking out on
them…Billy dying…

He crossed the street and walked over to the
boys.

The pretty young Asian lady from down the
block walked by, pushing her baby carriage. She ignored the three
guys even when one of them said something to her.

Bowie looked them over. The shortest of the
bunch had a peanut head sprouting out of an oversized white
t-shirt. He was sitting on the hood of a car that wasn’t his. The
tallest and toughest looking of the three had a set of lips on him,
looked like you could suction him to glass. The third kid had his
hair pulled back into some sort of bun on the back of his head. He
wore a dollar-sign medallion on a long square-link gold chain. The
medallion looked diamond-encrusted. All three wore their jeans
low-slung, showing their boxer shorts.