Part 29 (1/2)

She was new. One of his girls had rescued her from a Brooklyn pimp named Ballpeen Willie, and Fortunato had paid five thousand dollars for her ”contract.” It was well known on the street that if Willie had objected, Fortunato would have spent the five thousand to have Willie hit, that being the current market value of a human life.

Willie worked for the Gambione Family and Fortunato had knocked heads with them more than once. Being black-half black, anyway-and independent gave Fortunato a feature part in Don Carlo's paranoid fantasies. The only thing Don Carlo hated worse were the jokers.

Fortunato wouldn't have put the killings past the old man except for one thing: he coveted Fortunato's operation too much to tamper with the women themselves.

Lenore came from a hick town in the mountains of Virginia where the old people still talked Elizabethan. Willie had been running her less than a month, not long enough to grind off the edges of her beauty. She had dark red hair to her waist, neon-green eyes, and a small, almost dainty mouth. She never wore anything but black and she believed she was a witch.

When Fortunato had auditioned her he'd been moved by her abandon, her complete absorption in carnality, so much at odds with her cool, sophisticated looks. He'd accepted her for training and she'd been at it now for three weeks, turning only an occasional trick, making the transition from gifted call girl to apprentice geisha that would take at least two years.

She led him up to her apartment and stopped with the key in the lock. ”Uh, I hope it's not too weird for you.”

He stood in the doorway while she walked through the room, lighting candles. The windows were heavily draped and he didn't see any appliances except a telephone-no TV, no clocks, not even a toaster. In the barren center of the room she'd painted a huge, five-pointed star surrounded by a circle, right onto the hardwood floor. Behind the sensual smells of incense and musk was the faint sulfurous tang of a chemistry lab.

He locked the front door and followed her into the bedroom. The apartment was thick with s.e.xuality. He could barely move his feet through the heavy, wine-colored carpet; the bed was canopied, with red velvet curtains, and so high off the floor it had stairs leading up to it.

She found a joint in the nightstand, lit it, and handed it to Fortunato. ”I'll be back in a second,” she said.

He took his clothes off and lay down with his hands behind his head, the joint hanging out of his mouth. He took a lungful of smoke and watched his toes uncurl. The ceiling overhead was deep blue, with constellations dabbed on in phosph.o.r.escent yellow-green. Signs of the zodiac, as far as he could tell. Magic and astrology and gurus were very hip right now. People at trendy Village parties were always asking each other what sign they were and talking about karma. For himself, he thought the Aquarian Age was just so much wishful think- ing. Nixon was in the White House, kids were getting their a.s.ses shot off in Southeast Asia, and he still heard the word ”n.i.g.g.e.r” every day. But he had clients who would love this place.

If the psycho with the knife didn't put him out of business.

Lenore knelt beside him on the bed, naked. ”You have such beautiful skin.” She ran fingertips over his chest, raising gooseflesh. ”I've never seen a color like this before.” When he didn't answer she said, ”Your mother is j.a.panese, they told me.”

”And my father was a Harlem pimp.”

”You're really f.u.c.ked up about this, aren't you.”

”I loved those girls. I love all of you. You're more important to me than money or family or . . . or anything.”

”And?”

He didn't think he had anything else to say until the words started coming out. ”I feel so . . . so G.o.dd.a.m.ned helpless. Some twisted son of a b.i.t.c.h is killing my girls and there's nothing I can do about it.”

”Maybe,” she said. ”Maybe not.” Her fingers tangled in his pubic hair. ”s.e.x is power, Fortunato. It's the most powerful thing in the universe. Don't ever forget that.”

She took his p.e.n.i.s in her mouth, working it gently with her tongue like a piece of candy. It stiffened instantly and Fortunato felt sweat break on his forehead. He put out the joint with a wet fingertip and dropped it over the edge of the bed. His heels skidded on the icy slickness of the sheets and his nose filled with Lenore's perfume. He thought of Erika, dead, and it made him want to f.u.c.k Lenore hard and long.

”No,” she said, taking his hand from her breast. ”You brought me in off the streets, you're teaching me what you you know. Now it's my turn.” know. Now it's my turn.”

She pushed him down flat on his back, his arms over his head, and ran her black-polished fingernails down the tender skin over his ribs. Then she began to move over his body, touching him with her lips, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the ends of her hair, until his skin felt hot enough to glow in the dark. Then, finally, she straddled him and took him into her.

Being inside her gave him a rush like a junkie's. He pumped his hips and she leaned into it, taking her weight on her arms, her hair waterfalling around her head. Then, slowly, she lifted her eyes and stared at him.

”I am Shakti Shakti,” she said. ”I am the G.o.ddess. I am the power.” She smiled when she said it, and instead of sounding crazy it just made him want her even more. Then her voice broke into short, rattling breaths as she came, shuddering, throwing her head back and rocking hard against him. Fortunato tried to turn her over and finish it but she was stronger than he would have believed possible, digging her fingers into his shoulders until he relaxed, then caressing him again with aching slowness.

She came twice more before everything turned red and he knew he couldn't hold back any longer. But she sensed it too, and before he knew what was happening she had pulled away and reached down between his legs, pus.h.i.+ng one finger hard into the root of his p.e.n.i.s. It was too late to stop and the o.r.g.a.s.m took him so hard that it lifted his b.u.t.tocks completely off the bed. She pushed his chest down with her left hand and held on with her right, cutting off the sperm before it could shoot out, forcing it back inside him.

She's killed me, he thought as he felt liquid fire roar back into his groin, burning all the way through to his spinal cord and then lighting it like a fuse.

”Kundalini,” she whispered, her face sweating and intent. ”Feel the power.”

The spark rocketed up his backbone and exploded in his brain.

Eventually he opened his eyes again. Time had come out of the sprockets of the projector and he saw everything in single, unrelated frames. Lenore had both arms around him. Tears ran out of her eyes and down his chest.

”I was floating,” he said, when he finally thought to use his voice. ”Up around the ceiling.”

”I thought you were dead,” Lenore said.

”I could see the two of us. Everything looked like it was made out of light. The room was white, and it seemed like it went on forever. There were lines and ripples everywhere.” He felt a little like he'd had too much cocaine, a little like he had his fingers in a socket. ”What did you do to me?”

”Tantric yoga. It's supposed to . . . I don't know. Give you a charge. I never heard of it taking anybody so hard before.” She turned her face up to him. ”Did you really get out? Out of your body?”

”I guess.” He could smell the peppermint shampoo she used on her hair. He took her face in both his hands and kissed her. Her mouth was soft and wet and her tongue flickered against his teeth. He was still diamond-hard and he started to shake with wanting her.

He rolled onto her and she guided him inside where he could feel her burning for him. ”Fortunato,” she whispered, her lips still so close that they brushed his when they moved, ”if you finish, you'll lose it. You'll be so weak you can barely move.”

”Baby, I don't give a s.h.i.+t. I never wanted anybody this much.” He pushed himself up on his forearms so he could see her, his hips thrusting frantically. Every nerve in his body was alive, and he could feel the power surging through them, then slowly drawing back, ma.s.sing somewhere at the center of his body, ready to roar out of him, to pump him dry, leave him weak, helpless, drained . . .

He pulled away from her, rolled to the end of the bed, and bent double, clutching his knees. ”Jesus!” he screamed. ”What the f.u.c.k is happening to me?”

She wanted to stay with him, but he sent her to geisha cla.s.s anyway. He would be here, he promised, when she got home.

The apartment seemed vast and empty without her, and he had a sudden, chilling vision of Lenore alone on the street, with Erika's killer still loose.

No, he told himself. It wouldn't happen again, not this soon.

He found a gaudy oriental robe in her closet and put it on, and then he walked back and forth through the apartment, pacing out the inaudible hum in his nervous system. Finally he stopped in front of the bookcase in the living room.

Kundalini, she'd said. He'd heard the name before and when he saw a book called The Rising Serpent The Rising Serpent he made the connection. He took it down and started to read. he made the connection. He took it down and started to read.

He read about the Great White Brotherhood of Ultima Thule, located somewhere in Tartary. The lost Book of Dyzan Book of Dyzan and the and the vama vama chara chara, the lefthand path. The kali yuga kali yuga, the final, most corrupt of ages, now upon us. ”Do whatever you desire, for in this way you please the G.o.ddess.” Shakti Shakti. s.e.m.e.n as the rasa rasa, the juice, of power: the yod yod. Sodomy that revived the dead. Shape s.h.i.+fters, astral bodies, implanted obsessions leading to suicide. Paracelsus, Aleister Crowley, Mehmet Karagoz, L. Ron Hubbard.

Fortunato's concentration was absolute. He absorbed every word, every diagram, flipped back and forth to make comparisons, to study the ill.u.s.trations. When he finished he saw that twenty-three minutes had pa.s.sed since Lenore walked out the door.

The trembling in his chest was fear.

In the middle of the night he reached out to touch Lenore's cheek and his fingers came away wet. ”Are you awake?” he said.