Chick hallucinated in the Limbo throughout that night, while Bruno Seboldt carried him like a corpse across the dark countryside and a parade of freaks followed behind them both, their last Promenade in Old Bohemia.
BY DAYLIGHT THEY made it to the docks of Studl. And by the next nightfall, they were steaming out of Fleischmann’s Harbor, bound for distant Gehenna, a land known only through legend and folktale. It was a momentous turning point for the freaks. And even the pinhead knew it.
But if there was great fear — and, certainly, there was — the escape also brought a sense of hope and possibility, a sense of new beginning. Because while the freaks had escaped their first death sentence, they had also found a new, if unlikely, patriarch.
Bruno Seboldt stood at the bow of the The Touya throughout that first night at sea, staring into the ocean as waves broke to either side of the ship. He took no food and he spoke to no one. And when Chick approached him in the morning with some of Durga’s cinnamon coffee, handed the strongman the mug and whispered, “You’re one of us now,” Bruno never responded. As if he had not heard the words.
3
Every freak and his mother were out on the streets of Bangkok Park, running or hobbling as best they could to their sundry negotiations. In the daylight, the Park was an even greater spectacle of degradation, the freest of all markets, where bloody money and rough sex could purchase any commodity. In this tenderloin, more often than not, a flamboyant violence was the service fee paid on the edgiest transactions. And into this bazaar, strolling from the west, his hair greasier than usual, his bad knee acting up with the weather, and the crotch of his jeans tacky with drying blood, came the Spider.
If who we are is best defined by our bad choices, then Spider was the kind of raging fuck-up destined to ruin most of the lives into which he wandered. This morning, he was wandering down Watson Street, trying to remain inconspicuous in this sea of human detritus. And though he was not wearing his colors, the eternally pissed-off squint and the tattoo on his neck would have given him away to both rival and cop as a stone biker, if not necessarily an Abomination. So he hurried, bouncing the antique satchel off his bad leg, limping to his grisly appointment on Watson, like one more rancid pilgrim trying to slake a chronic thirst or score some dirty capital.
Made of gleaming black leather, handcrafted in Spain long before Spider fell into this world, the satchel looked like a doctor’s bag on steroids. But its bottom was growing damp as the biker made his way through the maze of alleyways and ruined factories and cryptlike saloons of the Park, toward a cross-dressers’ bar called the Grand Illusion.
Spider had intended to be late for his meeting, if not quite this late. But he’d been up half the night, running a hundred bullshit errands for Buzz Cote. And then, at dawn, there was one final errand of his own, which had taken a lot longer than he’d anticipated.
The thing was, most of Buzz’s chores felt like idiot work that even the Fluke could’ve done. Every now and then, Buzz got that way — usually before he decided to break camp and head for another farm. That’s what Buzz called the clinics — the farms. Where you pick the turnips for the soup. Buzz had a way of going all stressed and pissy before a move. And of making sure that Spider knew his place. “Remember,” Buzz would say through that fake laugh, “you’re the deputy, not the fucking sheriff.”
The truth was, it stung, and it was one of the reasons why Spider was willing to risk going solo into the Park to make a move on his own. He was tired of being second in command. Tired of following orders and running errands for Buzz Cote. And tired as all fuck of the arguments between Buzz and Nadia over where the family should go next. It was building toward something ugly no matter how they tried to hide it. Buzz mumbling all the time about how Nadia’d gone round the bend with all her “last clinic” bullshit. Nadia laughing at Buzz last week, saying his imagination was even smaller than his pecker. It was like being a kid again, back in one of the foster homes.
One of these days, Spider would split off from the Abominations, and then Buzz would know the cost of disrespect and thoughtlessness. But starting your own crew took money. Which was why Spider found himself jogging toward an eye-opener with a soggy-bottomed satchel, headed for a sit-down with the mad scientist.
The bar was a narrow hole that straddled the oscillating border between Little Asia and Latino Town. Jammed like a middle child between an abandoned appliance showroom and an abandoned rod and wire mill, the Illusion bathed the street, all year long, with its strange bouquet of lavender, sweat, skunk beer, and rain. No more than a dozen feet wide but running deep into the block, the G.I. was known to give even longtime customers the occasional sense that they were inside a dark train, swaying and hitching along the roughest of track. It was a good place to bring someone if, like Spider, you wanted to fuck with him a little before you took his money. And while there were other drag clubs in the Park that stayed open night and day, the Illusion was said to host the meanest transvestites in the city.
Spider entered through the rear door and stood in the shadows, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. A long black marble bar ran the length of the place, opposite a row of tiny, two-man booths mounted against the far wall. The ceiling was made of acoustic tiles gone yellow and brown and interrupted by a large circular vent, a broken paddle fan and a working disco ball. Two cement support columns split the narrow aisle between bar and booths, both columns wrapped in deep shag carpet, one pumpkin orange and the other a faded aqua.
There was no natural light in the bar. The windows up front were blacked out by velvet curtains upon which were painted nude portraits of the great belters of American cabaret — Ethel, Carol, and Judy. The juke, an old Wurlitzer, was tucked safely behind the bar and featured songs by that trinity and other, less well-known goddesses. The booths were wooden and scarred with a century of burn-and-cut graffiti. The tables were red Formica trimmed in silver and sporting disturbing patterns of gouges, and the seats were red Naugahyde and often sticky. The floor featured several layers of linoleum worn into a gully along the heavily trafficked path to the restroom, revealing what seemed to be lower geological levels.
And there, in the midst of this submarine gloom, was Dr. Peck, fidgeting in one of the booths that lined the side wall. The doc was dressed like an embezzler, in a pricey gray suit that needed a pressing. He had a charcoal raincoat folded next to him and a hat resting on top of it. And Spider wanted to kick his ass just for bringing the hat.
Peck hadn’t sounded happy with the choice of meeting ground but he was a smart guy and knew when he had no leverage. He’d been waiting for close to half an hour, nursing a sour coffee in a dirty mug while Jared, the former linebacker and current barkeep, done up this morning in a Balenciaga gown, played the juke — some Kurt Weill song by way of Anne Shelton.
Jared pulled a bag of trash from beneath the bar and moved for the rear exit, spotting Spider at the last minute and letting out a squeal before finding his balls and warning, “I’m strapped,” in a voice that insisted it was true.
“I’m not looking for trouble,” Spider said, amused and maybe even a little flattered. “I got a business meeting, that’s all.”
Jared looked the Abomination over and thought about this. “You even raise your voice,” he said, “I’ll start shooting.”
Another time, Spider’d have told him he’d be shooting out his ass, ’cause that was the only place he’d find his gun. But this morning was business, so he let the threat go and walked past the barkeep, sliding into the booth opposite Dr. Peck and noting that, aside from Jared, they had the place to themselves.