Authors: J. A. Kerley
Sparrow had been a bit optimistic, the cracking of the encryption taking closer to an hour. Gershwin had arrived, torn up at hearing Donnie had claimed another victim, his death toll now two in the past day. He leaned against the wall as Sparrow off-loaded the decrypted files to a DVD. They were video files.
“How much video?” I asked.
“A couple gigs, maybe an hour’s worth, pretty low resolution.”
“You watch any of it?”
Sparrow frowned as she slipped a disk from the computer. “I don’t think it’s an Adam Sandler movie.”
She set Gershwin and I up in a small room with a large monitor in the corner and handed us a remote. We grabbed coffees from the machine down the hall and came back to see what Gary Ocampo had been hiding in the cloud.
“Ready?” I said, flicking the screen into life.
“As I’ll ever be.”
We saw stuttering, murky images: dozens of moving male bodies, some alone, others in groups, dancing or crowded around tables. The audio was low, the party-fueled voices reduced to a sonic blur. I noted a long bar running to the right.
“The Stallion Lounge,” Gershwin said.
The camera tilted down and I saw a hand and a glass. “It’s Donnie,” I whispered. “He’s wearing the camera in a hat. I’ll bet it’s a knit cap.”
“A hat?” Gershwin said. “We’ll never see his face.”
The camera panned the room and stopped on jerky images of men chattering around a table filled with glassware. Two went to the dance floor, two remained. One smiled, his face angling toward the camera.
“Kemp,” Gershwin said.
The camera veered wildly as Donnie looked around the room, returning to Kemp.
“
Do you see us, Brother?
” said a rasping voice. “
Are you there?
”
Donnie’s voice. The first time we’d heard it … cold, clinical, amused. No accent.
“He’s talking to Gary,” Gershwin said.
The two dancers returned to pull the others toward the dance floor. One stood, everyone chiding Kemp for sitting. Seconds passed and Donnie’s voice returned.
“
Could you tell me if Dale’s a-boot? Dale Kemp? He is? Can I talk to him?
”
“The call,” Gershwin said. “Donnie’s calling the bar. He’s faking an accent.”
The camera panned to the barkeep, the bar’s landline at his ear. He put his palm over the receiver and yelled into the crowd.
“
Dale!
” Almost lost in the rumble of voices and music.
The camera returned to Kemp, hand behind an ear as he pointed to his chest, “
Me?
” He crossed the floor. The camera elevated and Kemp’s table grew closer. Then the table and solo drink, so close I could reach out and lift it.
A blur of motion over the glass. The room spun wildly and the camera reset in its original position. “Donnie spiked the drink,” Gershwin said, breathless. “Then went back to his table.”
I wanted to yell
No!
when Kemp returned and lifted the drink. Ten minutes passed before he patted his belly and went to the restroom. “He’s getting sick,” I said, needlessly.
Kemp returned for ten more minutes and downed the final ounce of beverage. He spoke to his dancing companions.
“
Damn flu
,” I imagined him saying. “
I’m heading home
.”
The last shot was his back going out the door.
When the video picked up again a naked Kemp lay on the gray floor of a long room with brick walls, his eyes wide with terror as he batted at invisible demons in the air. Hands reached in and rolled the kid over and roughly etched his back with a ten-penny nail. When his mouth opened in a scream, all that exited was a spray of spittle.
“
The bitch is branded
,”
Donnie said. The Gemini sign filled the screen as Donnie leaned close. I aimed a silent nod toward Key West. My brother had theorized that the victims were marked upon arrival.
Then, rape. Kemp’s shoulders shook with impacts as his arms flailed against the ground and his face howled soundlessly into the floor.
“
Are you with us, Brother?
” Donnie grunted. “
Are you turned on?
”
The scene turned to black. It was cool in the room, but I was pouring sweat.
Gershwin swallowed hard. “These were sent to Gary live?”
“Think of concert-goers sending video to friends.”
The next recording started: Brian Caswell after a performance and vamping at a table, a feather boa floating over a sequined purple blouse, leather miniskirt, diamelle-studded high heels. Donnie didn’t even have to sneak up and spike Brian’s drink: he simply handed it to him in a flute of celebratory champagne.
“
Great show, you earned this
.” The video blanked out and resumed with a hallucinating Caswell being marked and assaulted.
“
Are you there, Brother?
”
Donnie grunted.
“
Are you enjoying the payback?
”
Next came the abduction and initial abuse session with Jacob Eisen, sickened and met in the bar’s bathroom by Donnie, posing as a doctor.
“It’s probably
Fraturna Mortuis
,”
Donnie tells the
pale, red-eyed Eisen.
“Dead brother,” Gershwin translated, his Catholic-school upbringing giving him knowledge of Latin. He checked the time remaining on the DVD, scant minutes. “Looks like we’re nearing the end.”
“It’s Brighton,” I said as the pictures resumed, seeing the dancer amidst a cluster of men beside a table. The camera lifted and closed in. As the point of view passed the table it paused to show a highball glass filled with a foamy drink. A hand waved across the top of a glass as if blessing it.
Minutes later, Brighton left the bar and the video resumed at Donnie’s lair with the marking and initial assault. The scene faded into a second one, Brighton in distress but, perhaps because of the dancer’s fitness and muscularity, more mobile than the others. One leg slammed the floor like remembering part of a dance.
“
Harold’s got to go
,” Donnie whispered. “
The bitch is a nuisance
.”
Donnie Ocampo suddenly had a pry-bar in his hand. When Brighton kept struggling, the truncheon blurred past, deflating the tarp.
“Jesus. Is he going to …”
The camera scanned down Brighton’s covered body. A hand slipped the tarp up the long and sinewy legs and administered an injection. The syringe was set aside and the hands returned to caress the legs.
Then, as if a decision had been made, the camera went black. The end of the downloaded files.
The end of the Twins.
“Go back to the injection,” I said.
Gershwin retracked the scene. I watched a length of arm enter the frame, broad hands guide the syringe into muscle, press the plunger. The hands caressed the legs and the screen again went black.
“What don’t you see, Zigs?” I asked, pointing at arms bare to the round biceps.
“Tats. Scott saw Gemini symbols tattooed on Donnie’s arms.”
“Did they go somewhere?” I wondered aloud. “Or were they never there?”
Patrick sat in the Brass Key, angry with himself. He should have stayed with Billy’s other friends gathered at D’Artagnan’s, helping console them, deal with the horror, the loss, but the grief turned into too many people having too much to drink, ending in waves of tears and maudlin excesses.
He’d needed somewhere quiet, but not his home, wall to wall memories of Billy: dancing in front of the stereo, primping in one of the mirrors, pacing the floor and exhorting Patrick to
hurry up.
Billy was always in a hurry to get somewhere, and once there, in a hurry to get somewhere else.
The never-ending quest for fun.
Patrick rarely visited the Brass Key and only when seated did he realize the cool and shadowy bar was three blocks from the hospital, like he needed distance, but not that much. Patrick’s phone rang. He checked the name, winced. Another of Billy’s friends wanting to commiserate. He silenced the phone – he’d check in tomorrow, when people sobered up and regained composure.
He rarely drank liquor, but had ordered Amaretto and soda. He raised his hand to order a second when he heard a familiar voice at his back.
“L-let me take care of it. I owe you one, Patrick.”
Patrick turned to see Derek Scott, his former patient. “What a surprise to see you, Derek. You don’t need to do that.”
“I owe y-you for all the care.”
“What brings you here?” Patrick asked.
“It’s one of my f-favorite places. Q-quiet. I l-like to sit and watch TV. How about you?”
“Same reasons. Plus it’s close to the hospital.”
“You looked s-sad when I came in. I almost tuh-turned around.”
To tell the truth would invite compassion, perhaps sympathy. All Patrick wanted was quiet. “A, uh, patient of mine passed away. It’s never easy.”
“I’m s-sorry,” Scott said. “I’ll leave you to y-your thoughts.”
“No, it’s fine, Derek. I’m just having a quick one. Gotta work tomorrow.” He nodded to the stool beside him. “Join me, please.”
Scott was a nice guy, if a bit self-deprecating, the touch of stammer, perhaps. Maybe it would be better to have someone to talk to, give him a few minutes from his thoughts of Billy.
Scott ordered an amaretto for White, a light beer for himself. The drinks arrived and the vested barkeep moved to the end of the bar. Scott sat and they talked, jobs, mostly. Scott was a veterinarian’s assistant and told amusing tales: the dyspeptic burro, the racehorse that went faster after drinking rum, the cow that grazed on chives and gave onion-flavored milk. Patrick talked of his studies and upcoming exam. Twenty minutes passed and Patrick ordered a round, then stood.
“I gotta hit the head, Derek. Watch my drink and phone, would you? Not that they’re in much danger here.”
Scott turned to see a table of business types huddled in conversation, the barkeep watching a muted boxing match.
“You bet I will, Patrick.”
Patrick returned a minute later, the businessmen leaving in a single file. They seemed to signal his own time to leave. He downed his drink and bid Scott good night, thanking him for his company.
The good-hearted Scott flicked a wave. “Take care, Patrick. Hope to see you soon.”
Patrick climbed into his Honda compact and belched, tapping his stomach with his hand, indigestion, the stress of the day. Derek Scott been a decent addition, though. Maybe Scott had been destined to be at the bar to keep Patrick from tumbling too deeply into his sorrow.
Patrick rented a bungalow west of downtown, a crummy place overall, but at least he didn’t share walls with others. When he made the jump to Nurse Practitioner he could look into buying his own home. He pulled into the drive and unlocked the rickety front door. The house to the left was vacant, the one to the right blared with guitars and trumpets, the renter a Mariachi who learned new tunes by cranking up the volume and sitting in front of the speakers.
Patrick passed through the living room – avoiding the book-laden desk in the small living area, guilt – and went to his bedroom. When he removed his shirt, his hands felt clumsy, inept.
Jeez, did I drink that much? Three amarettos over ninety minutes?
His guts started cramping and he headed for the bathroom, but his knees collapsed, the floor seeming to rise into his face. He pushed himself to standing and wobbled into the hall.
What the hell is happening?
A knocking at the door. Patrick stumbled into the living room and fell down again. He tried to yell
Who’s there
? but his words hardened in his throat and all he could do was croak. A coal-black iguana skittered across the floor and exploded into musical notes. A second iguana followed. How did iguanas …
Hallucinations,
Patrick realized, fighting to keep focused.
I’ve been poisoned.
The knocking again. Patrick grabbed for his phone, his fingers almost useless. A third black iguana raced across the carpet and exploded.
“Cm un,” he rasped, staring at the dead screen.
Thunder at the door and Derek Scott appeared in the room. He was green and smiling and holding something bright in his fingertips. His voice wavered up and down like someone was playing with his volume.
“I REMOVED the BATTERY from YOUR phone, PATRICK. How WAS your COCKTAIL, buddy?”
Patrick tried to kick himself backward across the floor, but Scott crossed the distance in an eyeblink, a pry-bar in his hand. The bar flashed and Patrick’s head exploded into stars and his back slammed the floor.
A hand grabbed his collar, trying to turn him over. Patrick pulled the hand to his mouth and bit. A scream and the hand wrenched away, Patrick tasting blood. Without knowing how, he was standing and running the short hall to his bedroom, bouncing from the walls like a drunk. He shut the door, pushing the lock with his knuckle.
Footsteps. A voice outside the door.
“COME on, BITCH,” Scott said. “IT’S gonna HAPPEN.”
Nothing. Then a slam from the door. The door cracked at the upper hinge. A second slam … the crack widened almost the length of the cheap door. A dozen glittering purple worms emerged from the split and began flying around the room.
Patrick squeezed his eyes shut. His guts screamed with pain and his heart jackhammered in his ears. Purple worms buzzed past his eyes. But there something he was supposed to know … something he had done.
“
WHAT IS IT?
”
he screamed to himself, the words making spittle on his chin.
He heard his closet door open at his back. Patrick spun to see Detective Ryder stepping from between hanging clothes. Ryder pointed to the dresser and his voice made the sound of a siren.
Patrick yanked his bedside drawer open and saw the syringe stolen from Billy’s room. Pulling the plastic cap from the needle, he looked at Detective Ryder for approval, finding only
a wisp of blue smoke spiraling in the air.
Patrick sunk the needle into his thigh and threw the syringe aside. The shattered door fell from its hinges and a gigantic scorpion entered the room.
The monster’s immense claws lifted Patrick into the air and pinned him to the wall
as black, stalk-mounted eyes inspected him from all directions. The scorpion’s stinger floated above Patrick’s head, a curved and dripping dagger. The creature’s mouth was a wet slit beneath the swirling eyes, pursing open and shut and dripping sour fluids. When Patrick screamed, he heard nothing but the voice from the scorpion’s reeking mouth.