Shetani's Sister (15 page)

The Brooks twins sat on a sofa in Shetani's sunken living room. They watched him, ashimmer in gold satin robe and pajamas, as he sat on a thronelike red silk chair. He had stared trancelike at the ceiling ever since they had given him their eyewitness account of Tuta's death. Cazo finally fidgeted and said softly, “Cap, 'scuse me for buttin' in on your thinkin', but wastin' the pig that chased Tuta into the morgue ain't no problem. Me and Eli will chill his shit anytime you…”

Shetani shifted his fearsome jade orbs from the ceiling to Cazo's face to silence him. Shetani's coal-black face was deformed by pain and rage. He whispered through his teeth, “You two forget about Rucker. I'm gonna do all the killing for Baby Sis…starting with that stinking black ho locked up downstairs.”

Eli flung out his open palms. “But, Cap, why Pee Wee?”

Shetani's pearly teeth flashed in a hideous smile. “She poisoned Toot against me and encouraged her to leave me.” He paused to wave them away. “Now, both of you, get out of my face.”

The twins quickly left the room. Sorrow and murderous hatred ached his head. He groaned and ground his fists against his temples. He remembered the day in the Harlem hospital when he was told Tuta had died of leukemia. He saw the bloody vision of himself, in his late teens, when he returned moments later with a tire iron. He saw himself smashing the heads and faces and limbs of nurses and doctors at random for letting Tuta die. He remembered how he had to be force-fed in the mental hospital where he was sent to prevent his suicide by starvation.

Now he staggered zombielike to his bedroom and locked himself in. He collapsed on the carpet and bellowed his anguish. He thrashed and clubbed the walls with his fists. Finally, drenched in sweat, he got to his feet and took a .38 automatic pistol from under a pillow. He dropped a key to the basement into a robe pocket. He unlocked the bedroom door and stepped into the hall. His stable, alarmed by the racket of his grief, stood frozen as they stared at him.

“Master, are you sick?” Akura, a Japanese pixie asked.

He waved the gun. “No, I'm fine. Get out of my face!”

The scantily clad girls fled. He went to the stairway leading to the basement cell. He unlocked the door and was about to switch on the basement light when he heard the faint sounds of soul music. He started down and stumbled—nearly fell down the steep stairs in his haste to kill Pee Wee. Petra had the only other key. He'd punish Petra for providing the radio, he told himself.

He tiptoed on the concrete to the candlelit cell. That fucking Petra, he thought, would get double punishment for providing the candle. He went to the cell door and glared at Pee Wee, catnapping on her steel-slab bed, covered by a quilt provided by Petra. He aimed the pistol at the center of her forehead. His trigger finger started to pull when it hit him that the killer of Tuta did not deserve an easy death. He lowered the gun and held it out of sight behind his thigh. “Wake up, scum ass!” he growled.

She opened her dope-clouded eyes and instinctively threw a jacket across the contraband radio before she sat up. Her eyes made him realize she had conned him on his last visit that she was half dead from kicking skag cold turkey.

“Shit, bitch, Petra's got you living fine and dandy down here with my China white and everything.”

Pee Wee shut off the radio. “Master Daddy, Petra ain't gave me no medicine. I shot up the last today I had stashed from my stealin' trip. Please, Master, let me out so I can hit the road and make you some more money.”

He leveled the gun at her chest. “Strip, and throw your clothes through the bars.”

She stalled, her big eyes oozing tears. “Please, Master, I'm a good bitch. Don't treat me like this.”

He gritted his teeth and fired a round into the wall that scorched her hair. A spurt of her urine splashed on the concrete. She jumped to her feet and tore off her clothes down to her bra and panties. She pushed her dress and slip through the bars. He turned them inside out. He waggled the gun. “C'mon, bitch, I want you stone naked.” He fired a round close to her feet. A sliver of concrete slashed a bloody gash on her ankle. She stripped off her panties and fumbled with her bra. She palmed a packet of dope as she unfastened the bra. A syringe fell to the floor. She pushed the bra and panties through the bars. He reached and grabbed the other hand and twisted her wrist until she squealed with pain and let the dope fall to the concrete.

He stared at her and smiled as he thought of the way he would kill her. He rocked on his heels and imagined her screaming in a maw of flames that would cinderize her. “Tuta's dead, crushed by a truck. You helped her to leave me. You killed her!”

Pee Wee dropped down heavily on the steel slab. “Please, Master, don't say that…I wouldn't hurt sweet baby Tuta. Have a little mercy!”

He grinned obscenely. “I'm gonna kill you, bitch, in a day or two. So live it up with your radio and candle. Now, ain't that mercy?” He picked up the dope packet before he went toward the stairway.

Pee Wee listened to his footsteps on the stairway. She heard him lock the basement door. Immediately she began to use a bobby pin to try to pick the padlock that secured the chain that locked her in. Fear and boiling hatred made her try unsuccessfully for several hours to free herself. She told herself she had to escape and kill Shetani, for his death threat and for conning her that he would fire Petra and make her his bottom woman. No less worse than that was the possibility she could end up serving a life sentence in Wisconsin for killing the German while on the stealing tour for Shetani.

At midnight, she heard someone unlock the basement door. She blew out her candle. An instant later, someone switched on the basement light and came down the stairs. Pee Wee shook with terror in a corner of the cell. She burst into tears when Petra came to the cell door, dressed in pink work clothes.

“Say, girl, pull yourself together or I'll take this turkey club sandwich and shake away,” Petra said as she placed a paper bag on the cell-door shelf.

Pee Wee came to the door, wiping tears away. She pointed at the bullet gouges in the concrete and her lacerated ankle. “He shot at me! He told me he was going to kill me because Tuta was run over by a truck. He blames me! Please, help me get out of here!”

Petra removed dark glasses to reveal black-and-blue eye sockets. “This is what that radio and candle cost me. He'll cool off. I don't think he would kill you. He'd kill me if you escaped…besides, I don't have a key to that padlock. Listen, I've got to go. He could show at any minute. He went out with the twins to find out what Rucker, a cop, looks like so he can kill him for chasing Tuta into the path of the truck that killed her.”

Pee Wee reached through the bars to grab Petra's wrist. “He's gone crazy! He's gonna kill me! Please, bring me something to smash this lock. He won't know you helped me. I'll take the lock and everything with me. Please!”

Petra pulled her wrist from Pee Wee's grip. “It can't work. The only way out of here is that locked door at the top of the stairs. Only he and I have a key. I sympathize with you, kiddo, but not enough to commit suicide.”

Petra moved in close to the cell door. “Pee Wee, I've watched Daddy's head fall apart here in California, but I don't think he's crazy enough to kill you. I'm making plans to cut him loose. If you're still locked up when I split, I'll help you to escape. That's the best I can do.” Petra turned away for the stairway.

“Petra, I don't need to go out that basement door!” Pee Wee shouted. Petra turned back to face her. “I can go through that window.”

Petra stepped back to look at a tiny window off the front driveway. Petra shook her head. “You can't get through there, Pee Wee. It's only a foot or so high and no more than eighteen inches wide.”

Pee Wee grinned. “You mean it's that big? Shoot, me and a pal sawed off one bar in a cell and went out after greasing with Vaseline. I'm a tiny bitch, baby. Just bring me some butter, or even cooking oil, and a hammer or a bumper jack. Do it before the sun comes up. Will ya, huh?”

Petra studied her for a long moment before she said, “I'll think about it.” Petra walked away.

At the moment when Petra ascended the basement stairway, Shetani and the twins spotted Rucker on Sunset.

“Cap, there's the mothafucka!” Eli exclaimed as he excitedly pointed at Rucker, seated in an undercover Ford parked across the boulevard.

Driver Eli parked the rented station wagon. Cazo, seated behind Eli and Shetani, said, “Say, Cap, lemme go across the street and blow away the back of his head with my .38, huh?”

Shetani vigorously shook his head and stepped out to the street. He said, “No, bro, that's too good for that pig. Besides, I told you, he's mine to barbecue. I'm a stranger to him, so I'm going across the street to cop a close look at his face. Pick me up at the corner over there, behind his car.”

The twins watched him jaywalk through traffic. He reached the other side behind Rucker's car.

Rucker, distracted by a pair of flashy sexpots suspected as new hookers, did not notice Shetani as he bought a New York paper at a newsstand facing Rucker's car.

Shetani studied Rucker's profile for a long moment. Then he positioned himself a foot from the front of the car to get a full-face view. He pretended to look at the front page of the paper as he shot lightning glances at Rucker's face. Hatred paralyzed him. He saw an irresistible vision of himself slashing Rucker's throat. Why wait to kill the pig later? His question electrified his crotch. He gripped the switchblade in the pocket of his red silk leisure suit at the instant when Rucker locked eyes with him. Rucker made him immediately, from mug shots his New York detective friend had sent.

Rucker slipped on a bland mask to cover his loathing and alarm. He remembered Shetani's vicious rap sheet and thought, “This ass kicker looks like a clone of Satan dressed in a suit of fire.” Rucker toyed with his necktie near his shoulder-holstered weapon.

Shetani relaxed his facial muscles and stepped off the curb into the street. He went to the driver's side of Rucker's car. He showed his dental-ad teeth as he leaned close to Rucker's throat. “Sir, excuse me, but could you tell me the location of the Pussycat Theater?” Shetani drew the switchblade and held it tight against his right thigh. He'd decided it would be swifter and easier to backhand the blade into Rucker's throat, instead of slash action. With his victim in shock, he could stab him in the heart.

“Sure, the Pussycat is several blocks west of here,” Rucker replied as he slid inches away on the seat for drawing space.

Shetani grinned. “Thanks a lot.” He turned away to take his target by surprise. He was about to spin back with a horrific blow of the knife when one of Rucker's undercover cops cruised to a stop beside Rucker's car.

“Say, Russ, have you seen a blonde in a purple mini? She ran when I stopped her for questioning,” Shetani heard the cop say as he hurried away to be picked up at the corner.

“No, Tommy, I haven't seen her,” Rucker replied as he keyed on the car engine. The cop pulled away. Rucker hurtled the Ford in reverse toward the corner, in pursuit of Shetani. He had been about to draw his gun and search Shetani for concealed weapons when the cop pulled up.

Rucker did not spot Shetani at the corner, or in any of the business establishments, after a search of the immediate area. His guts ached from the confrontation with the breed of criminal he hated most after child molesters. He had a wishful fantasy that Shetani would draw a gun when he, Rucker, braced him the very next time he was spotted in Hollywood.

Shetani and the twins arrived at their hilltop lair. Froggy, the gate man in his cubicle, tore himself away from a porn magazine to admit them. Eli drove the rented station wagon down the long driveway to the side of the castlelike mansion. Maple trees groaned and swayed under the whip of Santa Ana winds. A monstrous moon flooded the grounds with eerie light.