The Vile Village (13 page)

“This, this is our god, our inspiration, Al Capone,” Jayson said, making a little bowing motion with his head as his two brothers
did the same behind him. Just to be on the safe side, Stone tilted his head just a notch, so they could at least interpret
that he had genuflected if they wanted to. He stared up into the plaster features of the sculpture. It was very realistic-looking.
Whoever had made it—and from the faded coloration of the thing, he estimated it was at least forty, fifty years old—had done
a good job. It also appeared that they had had up-close access to the most famous criminal who’d ever lived.

The face looked evil. There was a sneer on the sculpture’s face that bespoke someone who could snuff out a life with a laugh,
slam a baby’s head to the sidewalk with a chuckle. The bust seemed to be composed of death, as if the artist had injected
the very energy of Capone’s soul into the sculpture. The jagged scar along one cheek that ran almost an inch deep didn’t help
make the guy look any friendlier. Nor did the eyes, which, even from the depths of the plaster figure, seemed to try to pull
Stone down into them, to fill his mind with a sudden rush of dark and grotesque thoughts and desires.

“Here,” Jayson said, snapping Stone from his momentary fixation on the bust, which was standing about five feet off the ground
on a miniature plaster Roman column. “Every man in our gang has given his blood.…” He pointed down to a small bowl that was
filled with what looked like about four inches of congealed blood, turned almost black now like tar. “It’s our way of giving
something to Al, so he gives something back.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Stone said, backing away from the revolting little collection pot. “I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t
have a hell of a lot to spare, and I’d pretty much like to keep what I’ve got.”

“Just a little,” Jayson said with a pout on his concave face. “A few drops—surely you could spare that.” The other two brothers,
towering over him like bears, stood just behind Stone, looking nervous and concerned.

“Well, I guess I could part with a few drops,” Stone said with a dark expression. He walked forward until he was just above
the gruesome altar.

“Here,” Jayson said, holding out a hand-carved dagger with a beautiful marble blade. “It’s sharp.”

“Thanks, but I’ll use my own,” Stone replied, stepping back from the silk-scarved brother, who had a stench about him of old
perfume and other things. He pulled out his own blade, a foot and a half of razor death, and held it against the fatty part
of his forearm. His body was already so blasted to pieces, another notch sure as hell wasn’t going to hurt anything. Stone
rested the blade right against his skin and pulled lightly. The edge of the blade was so sharp that it dug right in, and Stone
squeezed the small gash so that a few drops fell and landed atop the dark purple gum of blood in the bowl. He looked up, and
Capone’s mouth seemed to be twisted up just a little higher at the corners.

“And now the oath,” Jayson said with a little hysterical giggle, as if he were moved to tears by the ceremony. “I swear to
kill whoever the Strathers brothers tell me to. Or may Al himself come back from the grave and crush my head with a baseball
bat.”

“I promise to kill whoever the Strathers brothers tell me to,” Stone said, stepping back from the bowl and wiping his cut
on his pants as he replaced the blade. “Or may Al himself come back from the dead and crush my head with a baseball bat.”

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Jayson asked, reaching out as if to pat Stone on the shoulder. But he moved just out
of the way of the fake-fingernailed hand. He didn’t want that slime’s flesh to even touch his.

“No, not at all,” Stone said, moving away from the altar and circling around just a few steps so that they weren’t surrounding
him anymore. It was instinctive with him to always position himself, always be prepared to strike, parry—or get the fuck out
of there.

“Now, just one final little thing,” Jayson said, clapping his small hands together. “The other part of the initiation.” Stone
looked bored for a second, wondering if he was going to have to drink more of that green or brown, or maybe slurp down a little
blood. Yeah, that would hit the spot.

“You have to kill someone.” Stone’s face paled, and he coughed and took a few steps an that they didn’t notice. “All new applicants
to the gang must kill a man to become full members. Besides, you’ve killed dozens, right?” Jayson said with a mocking look
that instantly made Stone suspicious of the guy.

“Bring him in,”Vorstel screamed out, cupping his hands and shouting toward the doorway. In seconds a struggling mountain man—one
of their own gang—all chained up hand and foot so he could only move a few inches at a time, was escorted in. He was brought
before the three brothers and his legs kicked out from under him so he slammed face-first down into the rug. Then his hair
was pulled up so he was raised to a sitting position, looking straight at the statue of Al Capone.

“He stole shit from us, from his own gang. Nobody steals from us. Kill him,” Jayson said, folding his arms across his chest
and looking on in an expectant manner. Stone gulped hard, raising his hand to his mouth as if picking his teeth to disguise
his nervousness. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill a man in cold blood no matter what he’d done. In combat, yes—he would
take out anyone who tried to take him out. But just to execute someone on orders, no way. He never could do something that
cold-blooded. Stone tried to think fast. The brothers were starting to look at him. He knew they’d kill him at this point
if he refused to play along any further. And he knew that in the small space with all three of them—and a fucking lion—he
didn’t stand a chance. His mind raced like a computer as he tried to think of a way out. What would the Old Man have done?
What the hell would the Major have done if he—

Stone took out the Ruger .44, raising it slowly up into position. Suddenly he had an idea. It was risky, but he had no or
chance. The brothers watched as Stone sighted up the man’s he, and they got an excited look in their eyes. They loved to see
men die. Next to raping virgins, it was their prime pleasure in life.

Stone got the man’s head in line. The pathetic bastard was crying, tears flowing out of his puffed-up, wart-edged eyes. He
was an ugly, murderous slime. But still, the pitiful bastard deserved to live. Stone wasn’t going to play God.

He shifted the gun fractionally and squinted. This was going to have to be the best fucking shot he’d ever made in his life.

“This one’s for you, Al,” Stone said, and pulled the trigger as the slug tore out of the muzzle with a roar. The bullet ripped
right along the side of the man’s skull, sending him flying sideways from the sheer force of the hit. Though it didn’t actually
penetrate the skull, the bullet did rip a nasty wound along the skin and the thin layer of muscle up there. A curtain of red
poured out around the head as the man slumped to the ground, motionless, knocked out into deep freeze.

“You got him good,” Vorstel mumbled inanely. And Stone saw as he glanced around quickly that they were all excited by the
killing. These bastards made the Marquis de Sade look like a nun.

“Yeah, I always get them good,” Stone said, slamming the Redhawk back into its leather home.

“Feed him to Pussy,” Jayson half shrieked in excitement as he clapped his hands and two men came forward to drag the still
body away, a small pool of blood extending out around its head.

“Uh, wait a minute,” Stone said, walking forward so he was between the body and the rest of them. “Look, let me have the corpse.
After I kill ’em, I like to cut ’em up in private, you know?” He looked around at them. He was taking a wild chance that the
bastards were so sick that they
did
know what he was talking about. And he was right. Jayson looked hard at Stone, for he in fact had his own private ceremonies
with corpses that only he and the devil were privy to. That Stone was on the same wave length as him almost made Jayson like
Stone, at least for a second or two.

“Sure, take him,” Jayson said. “Have fun with him. There’s lots there to cut up.” He laughed. Stone leaned over and grabbed
hold of the 250-plus pounds of ganger and threw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He walked forward, staggering
slightly under the weight, with the three brothers following behind. Jayson closed the door to the altar of death behind him,
to the thousand candles burning brightly like the marbled eyes of corpses in the moonlight.

Stone walked out of the place with the “dead” man, praying that he didn’t come out of his unconscious state in front of the
brothers, or both he and Stone would quickly learn all about the real thing. But the thug stayed dormant, his head coated
red from hair to chin like he had been dipped in paint. Stone walked about three blocks, making sure none of them were following
him, which, as far as he could see, they weren’t. Even those slimy bastards believed in letting a man carry out his perversions
in private. He saw a stable with a few horses tied up in front of it, and a familiar-looking cart with a few coffins on the
back. It was one of Undertaker’s, with the big
U
on the side in gold paint, which marked all his funeral equipment.

“Hey, boy,” Stone said, hissing up to the kid who sat in the high wood-plank seat reading a dirty magazine he had just rented
for a penny from a dwarf who sold them from a “newsstand,” a shack with two sides and no roof across the street. “Psst, boy,
wake up,” Stone said, staggering now under the weight of the man he’d been supposed to kill. It would have been a lot easier
to take the son of a bitch out, that was for damn sure.

The kid looked up like he was pissed off to be torn away from his dirty mag. “Huh,” he said with a buck-toothed mouth, looking
at Stone with a somewhat idiotic expression.

“You one of Undertaker’s brood?” Stone asked.

“Sure am, mister,” the kid began. Then he remembered Stone from the farm, and his face took on a slightly more intelligent
look. He threw the magazine down under the raised wooden seat of the wagon. “Hey, what the hell you got there?”

“Now listen to me,” Stone said, “and listen carefully.” He lowered the man off his shoulder, and the unconscious body fell
forward with a loud thud onto the flat wooden back of the wagon next to two coffins sitting there. “This is very important.
Take this sucker out to your spread. Tell your father the bastard’s not dead. He’s one of the Strathers gang. I was supposed
to bump him off, but I didn’t. Tell Under-taker to fix up his head and then kick him the hell out of there. The guy knows
he’ll die if he comes back, so he won’t. You got all that, boy? You understand what I’m telling you? And don’t let him move
until you’re out of town. No one except your father can know he’s still alive.”

“Sure, I understand,” the lad said, glancing around at the limp body behind him.

“And this is for your trouble,” Stone said, taking out a silver dollar that everyone in the territory seemed to love more
than life itself.

“Hey, thanks, mister,” the teen said, flipping the coin in the air and catching it in his palm. He pulled the reins hard,
and the big old mare hitched to the front started lazily and grudgingly forward, one snaillike step at a time. “And if he
wakes up before I’m outs here”—the Undertaker kid grinned, revealing a whole row of missing front teeth, then hefted a large
wooden mallet that looked like it could drive stakes into the ground—“just call me the sandman.”

T
hat evening, now that he was on the payroll, Stone was sent out with some of the “collectors” to see how things were done
around Cotopaxi. It was agreed after some hard negotiating—and Stone pushed it to the limit, wanting the brothers to think
that he really was a greedy son of a bitch who was after every stinking penny he could get—that he would receive a basic monthly
stipend of fifty silver dollars. And an additional thirty-five for every asshole he had to kill. Workings-over were only fifteen
dollars. Mass killings, when necessary, would be charged by the half dozen at the rate of two hundred dollars a dozen. All
proceeds were payable upon delivery of body, or any part there-of. Then they all shook on it. And after making sure he still
had his fingers, Stone was part of the operation.

Ovan and Mr. Tibbets ran the little search-and-collect mission. The two guys reminded Stone of something he had seen in a
bad dream—one of them with an ear missing, the other with a wide scar that looked like it had been carved by a steam shovel
running across the front of his face, almost level with his lips, so that it looked like he had a perpetual Cheshire-cat grin.
All the Strathers gang members seemed to be in dire need of some sort of physical repairs—their teeth were half falling out,
there were sores all over their skin and hands. Coming down from the mountains to run the show here hadn’t improved their
health habits or their appearance, though the thugs Stone walked down the street with at least had cleansed their ragged clothes—fur
jackets and vests—of food and bodily fluids.

The first stop was the butcher shop, which Stone could smell from half a block off, and the meat didn’t smell the freshest.
As they drew closer, he could see the dark carcasses on racks in front of the place. Inside were all kinds of chops, steaks,
rumps, from bear to wildcat, horse to dog. A group of old ladies and housewives bickered and jockeyed in line for the precious
cuts. Their faces froze up in fear as they saw the Strathers boys walk in.

“Ah, Benchley,” Ovan said, walking over to the butcher, who was dicing up a big alley cat. He was slicing the fur right off
the carcass and throwing it in a basket with other blood-coated pussycat hides to be cleaned and made into clothing and blankets
for his wife’s apparel store across the street. He moved the cleaver up and down the skinned alley cat like a Japanese chef
making sushi cutting the cat into little inch-long pieces for stews and shish-kebab.