Riding the Centipede Read online

  Riding the Centipede

  By

  John Claude Smith

  Omnium Gatherum

  Los Angeles

  Riding the Centipede

  Copyright © 2015 John Claude Smith

  ISBN-13: 978-0692458587

  ISBN-10: 0692458581

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author and publisher. http://omniumgatherumedia.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  First Electronic Edition

  For my love, Alessandra Bava, as well as the writers of the #weirdrenaissance, whose words inspire always.

  Thank you to my family, friends, and the readers who’ve spent time with my previous tales. Much appreciation for your feedback and encouragement.

  Special thanks to Kate Jonez for her editing prowess. The book in your hands would not be what it is without her assistance.

  “Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. ”

  ―William S. Burroughs

  “A willing vein is a cause for celebration. A willing vein opens many doors.”

  ―California Myers

  “Sometimes we have the absolute certainty there’s something inside us that’s so hideous and monstrous that if we ever search it out we won’t be able to stand looking at it. But it’s when we’re willing to come face to face with that demon that we face the angel.”

  ―Hubert Selby Jr., Last Exit to Brooklyn

  Chapter 1 Blake

  …as the current pulled the child away, he reached toward her with his damaged right hand. The current pushed back; it wanted its prize. He yelled and water filled his mouth. He tried again, desperate to save the child, his daughter, Claire. The frothing tide pushed against his fingers, intent on bending them all the way back to his wrist, flattened out as a stump sculpted from futility. “Daddy…” He watched his daughter’s shocked expression as she lost her grip on the car seat she should have been strapped into and was sucked out of the splintered halo of glass where the passenger side window should be. Jagged glass sliced into clothing and flesh, but the eyes moments ago filled with joy were now nothing more than dull buttons on the rag doll that remained. He yelled again, a stream of bubbles flowing from the inside roof of the car and out the crack in the driver’s side window. He pushed against the stick-shift with strong legs, his shoulder shattering the window. The sound was a muffled explosion. He watched the rag doll fade to black beyond the car’s beams. He closed his eyes, fighting back tears as he swam up, or somewhere, this watery oblivion, his personal hell…

  Chirping sounds clamored for his attention, a physical force pulling him up from the harsh realm of the dreamlands, grabbing his hand and winning the battle over the cloying mental quicksand that is Morpheus, not that this was a victory for Terrance Blake. The sound was akin to beetles picking at the remains of his dead past or the dregs of his present so-called life…or possibly of a future draped in shadows and secrecy and the same old, same old. Along with pain, the ever present calendar wrought in his bones, his soul, every breath.

  The promises spewed by the world of his hardscrabble youth, counterfeited and further cheapened by the accumulation of years. Endurance—the pin plucked from the grenade, while he waited for the explosion that never came. Endurance, the true meaning of life.

  The squalid five-dollar-a-fuck hotel room smelled of smoke, the cut glass ashtray overflowing with lipstick stained cigarette butts even before he’d lit up his first Marlboro. Remnants of passionless couplings.

  The stale stench of the room was infused with the ghosts of those who had passed through before him: transients and junkies and one night lovers, nomads and madmen and private investigators like him, getting by on somebody else’s dime, dismantling somebody else’s broken dreams.

  The chirping continued; his cell phone the culprit. He reached over in the dark thinking it couldn’t be time to be awake yet as shadows held conference in the room, his eyes. A glance toward the digital clock adjacent to the television confirmed his suspicions: 3:36 a.m. Scooping the phone into his thick, gnarled fingers, the light from the screen corralled motes of dust lifted by his clumsy maneuver. Dust he hadn’t noticed last night when he placed the bottle of whiskey there, the now two-thirds empty bottle.

  He wondered how long he’d been in this room, sleeping like Rip Van Winkle or dying with every stale inhalation, exhalation, and long pause to consider the prospect of terminating this bleak routine before carrying on, carrying on.

  He realized it was not the alarm that has inspired the insect revolution. It was a phone call. The name on the screen registered as familiar but not one he’d used often.

  “Mr. Blake, I’ve found evidence of Marlon’s whereabouts.”

  No matter how many times he had told her nobody called him Mr. Blake, it’s just Blake, she persisted. He let the miscue slide. The voice was unmistakably that of Jane Teagarden, a voice braided with iron and perseverance, something he could relate to.

  Jane Teagarden was the only daughter of successful Hollywood producers, Warren and Stella Teagarden. A production team made rich beyond filthy, producing a slew of action movies starring Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Snipes and Van Damme. All good things must come to an end, though, and with a glut of bombs, the freewheeling excess that had dominated their lives simmered cold and hard until rumors arose of Warren having affairs with some of the help; “affairs” being a polite take on the harsh underbelly of what often happens when the rich are overtaken by failures and/or their eccentricities.

  One of the maids made headlines with allegations of rape.

  One of the mechanics on the premises quit in a huff, suggesting Mr. Teagarden was a sexual deviant. A hush-hush payment altered his initial statements, casually sloughed off as a mistake of perception.

  The tabloids ran with it all, going so far as to suggest Stella Teagarden, fifteen years younger than Warren, subsisted on over-the-counter and extracurricular drugs that induced supportive silence, a sheep in fox’s clothing. The fox wired for the depraved transactions of the flesh of which her husband allegedly catered.

  Rumors, all rumors, erased with the remains of their dwindling bank account, until their only son, Marlon, two years Jane’s junior, ran away when he was fourteen, hitting the streets while hitting the newspapers with torrid accounts of sexual abuse nonpareil.

  The ruination such an incident would suggest disappeared as swiftly as Marlon had when Jane, dressed as one might imagine a modern day fairy tale princess—a formula façade worthy of Disney—made a televised statement to the contrary.

  I think it’s time I spoke up on my parents’ behalf. Over the last few years, rumors created by those seeking financial gain have cast my parents as monsters. She glanced down, considering her words. Her voice grew steady. I’m here to tell you nothing could be further from the truth. Two more loving and generous people one could never know. With the recent developments involving my brother, I must say, I do not know what world he lives in. Our lives are special and we are treated as special. We are shown love in…so many ways. But Marlon has always been a bit aloof. I am saddened by his disappearance and look forward to his return, so we can be the family you all know we are. And we can give him the help and love he needs. She smiled, her slim lips stretched tight, mouth unopened. Please leave us
be while we deal with our sorrow and the authorities help us find him. Thank you.

  Blake remembered watching this little scene with curdled curiosity, thinking it an Oscar-worthy performance jammed into a B-movie steeped in melodrama and deception. Because there was nothing in sixteen year-old Jane Teagarden’s tone or expression that rang true. (Claire would have been sixteen, had she lived…) He hedged his bets on hollow and scripted. Yet the public ate it up. Her glassy, tear-stained eyes drew support from the legions whose bible was National Enquirer-style rags and who gave a flying-squirrel-fuck-all like-minded media manipulated television programs such as Entertainment Tonight. A month before her nineteenth birthday, her parents died in a suspicious house fire that turned any evidence within the scrubbed-clean and lie-imbued walls to ash. Blake thought it a perfect obliteration of the crime scene; investigators always missed something. Speculation may be the trigger to the gun his instinct wielded, but he knew deep down he was right.

  Because the false sympathy the search for Marlon elicited lasted less than the usual run for most sub-blockbuster movies, the Teagardens had taken refuge as phantoms in their own lives, their chilly castle. They became non-existent to those they used to call friends. Those not willing to believe in them, perhaps knowledgeable of the accusations prior to Marlon’s leaving. Perhaps protecting their own high-profile asses in attempting to avoid the harsh, accusatory bleat of “accomplice” or “participant.”

  Jane Teagarden inherited what most thought must have been meager financial remains, only to be proven wrong. The latest version of the will contained the updates and restructured profits for the DVD and burgeoning Blu-ray contracts—restructured a mere two months prior to the fire—that set her up for life.

  When Blake heard her voice on the phone, the muffled ringing of the truth he never heard in any of her statements at grief-stricken appearances traipsed into his migraine infused cranium. Nine months after the fire, her voice had gone from Hollywood-practiced and Hollywood-refined grief, to the voice he knew now on the phone. Strength tinged with desperation; iron braided with perseverance. She really wanted to find her brother.

  “You, well…you and your family have had others looking for—what is it now?—almost three years? What makes you think I will have any better luck?”

  “Mr. Blake, you have a reputation of getting your hands dirty. I want those dirty fingers digging into the dark corners for the sake of my brother. I still believe he is alive. I need to know for sure. I want to help him.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to be helped? He’s not come out of hiding as of yet, and with your parents gone, you might think he would have, if it mattered to him.” He said this with a smattering of thought that Marlon may have been the one behind the suspicious fire that killed them; then again, with the timing so close to the restructured will…

  “It doesn’t matter what he wants…” She paused.

  Blake sensed her rearranging her thoughts.

  “I just need to know he’s okay, Mr. Blake. I need to know he’s okay.”

  The connection crackled, slackened then tightened as a noose, as if words were about to follow. It went slack again. Blake felt himself being drawn into a mystery he had no desire to explore. Though his home base was in Los Angeles, much of how people conducted themselves in the City of Angels left him dry. Rampaging egos and decaying ethics suffocated humanity, then molded it into media-prescribed perfection with plastic surgery. The prevalent smog was the perfect statement for it all, a black cloud corroding a moral compass that spun with relentless disdain out of true. Yet despite everything, his instincts told him she was telling the truth, even though something he couldn’t quite define bothered him.

  “I’ll pay you triple your usual fee, as well as all expenses.”

  Well, no dilly-dallying now, he did have his priorities. He’d made just enough money to eke by for the previous two years. Questions of how she’d found him—who had suggested him—what rumor of him getting his fingers dirty had been passed around, dissipated into dust, motes captured in light, only to fade when drifting into shadow.

  Just as everything faded to dust, eventually.

  He put his all into the case for the following year, with no results. There was usually something, at least a trace he, and only he, could discover or decipher. It was as if Marlon Teagarden truly had disappeared. Even with no results of any sort, Jane Teagarden still kept him on retainer, yet he expected minimal contact.

  This was only the third call in five years. Wild goose chases and dead ends had been the result of the previous two. He expected the same from this one. He sensed Marlon was dead and her belief was simply propped up by denial.

  “Miss Teagarden. Good early morning.” He said this more for himself than for her, her voice, the wake-up call he did not expect on this dreary day. “What can I do for you?”

  “I have evidence of Marlon’s whereabouts,” she said again, her tone rimmed with annoyance.

  Direct and to the point: “Continue.”

  “I’ve had not one but two sources inform me of Marlon being sighted in San Francisco’s North Beach. I need you to head there immediately, to confirm it is him and to make contact.”

  “As in the beginning, Miss Teagarden, perhaps, quite obviously, he does not want contact. Perhaps—”

  “Perhaps you should do as you’re told, Mr. Blake. I don’t pay you good money to question my motives.”

  She was right, of course. Yet the desperation increased from haloing her tone to wrapping around it as a cloak.

  “If a couple sources have alleged to have spotted him in San Francisco, might I suggest getting photos to confirm—”

  “I want to speak to him.”

  Again she cut him off. He felt his blood rise.

  “I want to see him face-to-face. I want to know…all he knows. I need you to finish the job.”

  Why Blake? Why did it have to be him to finish this job?

  The stale air grew electric. Or perhaps it was his blood’s pace picking up exponentially amid her desperation and oblique comment: “I want to know…all he knows.” Smoke burned in his lungs, at the back of his throat. He exhaled sharply.

  He popped four generic aspirin he’d purchased at the airport, downing it with the rest of the whiskey.

  “I’m presently in Portland, Maine, wrapping up a case. I will be finished in a couple days, then heading out to San Francisco.”

  “Leave now and I will quadruple your fee.”

  The line crackled taut—tauter still—the static noose strangling him.

  He made the airport in time to catch an early morning flight to San Francisco, attempting to clean himself in the small restroom and failing. His clothes needed a wash and masking his sweat in cologne only magnified this problem. He stared out the window toward the top layer of clouds that seemed to go on forever and half-heartedly wished the plane would go down in a fireball of screaming metal and charred bodies. Half-heartedly, because he knew that was not his destiny, if one were to believe in such a thing. His instincts, a psychic gift or an eternal curse, let him know this much.

  He tilted the black cowboy hat he’d bought in San Antonio, Texas, many years ago—bought on a whim while running around with a woman whose name evaded recollection—over his eyes, and thought it still a better option than this misguided excuse for a life.

  Chapter 2 Chernobyl

  The only light in the room came from the man’s glowing, mismatched eyes. The left pupil was a black ink stain abyss, a swirling wasteland devoid even of the promise of starlight. The right pupil was gray as ash, the remnants of hope long dashed. Riding the rim of each pupil, flares worthy of the Sun writhed with furious intensity. The veined white of each eye illuminated the room in a blinding brilliance that ebbed into a sickly, jaundiced hue, depending on his focus, until the man closed the lids and the room went dark.

  The eyes may be the windows to the soul. These windows were pitted with cracks, as if pebbles had been tossed for attentions neve
r attained. Furthermore, what resonated within the man in no way resembled what paltry beings usually defined as “soul.” His allegiance was to a higher force bereft of humanity. At least in its purest distillation.

  He rubbed his thumb, pointer and middle fingers together, an instinctive practice he used when conjuring the past. Sparks crackled at the tips of his callused fingers.

  As he concentrated, he pried the memories from the clutches of time, refurbished as if recent. The initial stage of the ritual delved into the few minutes prior to his conception and included details about the participants as if he were jacked into their thoughts and memories. The room smelled of burned plastic and animal musk, of damp, aged ruins and electrical currents that tweaked the mind as well as the nostrils.

  The fragmented mind-field was a flurry of clipped imagery: gagged and bound, a thin woman, flesh stretched taut over a blade-like pelvis, the hollow between her tiny breasts. A man carved out of the same tainted material, though a wiry strength accentuated the muscles of his back, his buttocks. Hours of physical exertion defined by semen, sweat, excrement, misery, torture. The genetic material each contributed the product of generations mired in futility and rife with mental deficiencies. The man in particular spawned from a long, corrupted squiggle of a line of nefarious design, his father and the fathers before him: cruel, sadistic, evil. Though they were all infused with deep intelligence, they were all psychologically broken—a Ming vase shattered into thousands of tiny pieces, chips and shards and miniscule slivers, with no desire or means to mend what’s bred in the bone.

  The seated man tilted his head back, remembering the annihilation of the ovum, the vile, dissonant echo that accompanied his conception. A reverberant pulse filled his resting body as water fills a balloon. His core stiffened. His penis stiffened. Passions wrought in immorality were at the root of his being.