brain.
He fumbled with the complicated series of locks, yanked the door open and nearly fell into the hall. How had he entered the building? ... Up a metal staircase, through a door at the end of the long dark hall. He reached it and let himself out. The hot October night seared his lungs. He could smell every poisonous particle of exhaust blanketing the city, every atom of shit and filth and blood baked onto the streets. Not like the ripe wet kiss of Bangkok, but so arid, so mercilessly dry. He felt his way down the fire escape and around the corner of the building.
The empty street seemed a mile wide. There was no sidewalk, only a steep curb and a long gray boulevard stretching away toward some other part of the city. There were no cars; he could hear no traffic anywhere. Even with his head feeling so strange, Suko knew something was wrong. L.A. streets were often empty of people, but always there were cars.
Far away at the next intersection, he made out a small group of figures straggling in his direction, bathed in a traffic light's red glow. For a long moment he watched them come, trying to be sure they were really there, wondering what he should do. Then he started toward them. The blond man had done something awful to his head; he needed help. Maybe the figures would be able to help him.
But when he got closer, he saw that they were like the things he had seen in the bedroom. One had a long fatty slash wound across its bare torso. One had been gouged in the face with something jagged; its nose was cloven in half and an eyeball hung out of the socket, leaking yolky fluid. One had no wounds, but looked as if it had starved to death; its nude body was all bone-ends and wasted hollows, its genitals shriveled into the pelvic cavity, its blue-white skin covered with huge black and purple lesions.
When they saw him, the things opened their mouths and widened their nostrils, catching his scent. It was too late to get away. He couldn't run, didn't think he would even be able to stand up much longer. He stumbled forward and gave himself to them.
The little group closed around Suko, keeping him on his feet, supporting him as best they could. Gouged Eyeball caught him and steadied him. Slash Wound mouthed his shoulder as if in comfort, but did not bite. Lesions nudged him, urged him on. Suko realized they were herding him. They recognized him as one of their own, separated from the flock somehow. They were welcoming him back in.
Miserably, Suko wondered what would happen when they met someone alive.
Then the hunger flared in his belly, and he knew.
Pin Money
People ask how Christa and I wrote âTriads.â Answer: A lot of 4 a.m. coast-to-coast phone calls, a lot of Hong Kong gangster movies, and a lot of work, most of which was done by Christa. We shared the writing pretty equally, but she did probably 95% of the research and laying-out of the plot. Much of the characterization of the two boys from the opera school was hers as well. But the dangerous French-Chinese pretty boy who turned out not to be so dangerousâPeriqueâhe was all mine. Two years later, I found another story to tell about him. It's actually a âprequel,â but I hate that word.
Pin Money
Nicole cradled her newborn son and gazed through her window at the moon rising in the purple Shanghai sky. Her pussy throbbed in time with her heartbeat, a low, gnawing ache that persisted despite the bitter herb tea the midwife had made her drink. Though Nicole's labor had ended hours ago, her lover had not yet entered the room. She was beginning to feel afraid.
What is there to fear? she wondered. I'm in one of the finest houses in the French Concession. I've just given a rich man his first son. There will be no more eternal nights on high heels, no more grinning into ugly drunken faces, no more scrounging for the rent. It is nearly June already; why should I feel so cold?
She took a deep draught of the nighttime air, rich with the heady
He fumbled with the complicated series of locks, yanked the door open and nearly fell into the hall. How had he entered the building? ... Up a metal staircase, through a door at the end of the long dark hall. He reached it and let himself out. The hot October night seared his lungs. He could smell every poisonous particle of exhaust blanketing the city, every atom of shit and filth and blood baked onto the streets. Not like the ripe wet kiss of Bangkok, but so arid, so mercilessly dry. He felt his way down the fire escape and around the corner of the building.
The empty street seemed a mile wide. There was no sidewalk, only a steep curb and a long gray boulevard stretching away toward some other part of the city. There were no cars; he could hear no traffic anywhere. Even with his head feeling so strange, Suko knew something was wrong. L.A. streets were often empty of people, but always there were cars.
Far away at the next intersection, he made out a small group of figures straggling in his direction, bathed in a traffic light's red glow. For a long moment he watched them come, trying to be sure they were really there, wondering what he should do. Then he started toward them. The blond man had done something awful to his head; he needed help. Maybe the figures would be able to help him.
But when he got closer, he saw that they were like the things he had seen in the bedroom. One had a long fatty slash wound across its bare torso. One had been gouged in the face with something jagged; its nose was cloven in half and an eyeball hung out of the socket, leaking yolky fluid. One had no wounds, but looked as if it had starved to death; its nude body was all bone-ends and wasted hollows, its genitals shriveled into the pelvic cavity, its blue-white skin covered with huge black and purple lesions.
When they saw him, the things opened their mouths and widened their nostrils, catching his scent. It was too late to get away. He couldn't run, didn't think he would even be able to stand up much longer. He stumbled forward and gave himself to them.
The little group closed around Suko, keeping him on his feet, supporting him as best they could. Gouged Eyeball caught him and steadied him. Slash Wound mouthed his shoulder as if in comfort, but did not bite. Lesions nudged him, urged him on. Suko realized they were herding him. They recognized him as one of their own, separated from the flock somehow. They were welcoming him back in.
Miserably, Suko wondered what would happen when they met someone alive.
Then the hunger flared in his belly, and he knew.
Pin Money
People ask how Christa and I wrote âTriads.â Answer: A lot of 4 a.m. coast-to-coast phone calls, a lot of Hong Kong gangster movies, and a lot of work, most of which was done by Christa. We shared the writing pretty equally, but she did probably 95% of the research and laying-out of the plot. Much of the characterization of the two boys from the opera school was hers as well. But the dangerous French-Chinese pretty boy who turned out not to be so dangerousâPeriqueâhe was all mine. Two years later, I found another story to tell about him. It's actually a âprequel,â but I hate that word.
Pin Money
Nicole cradled her newborn son and gazed through her window at the moon rising in the purple Shanghai sky. Her pussy throbbed in time with her heartbeat, a low, gnawing ache that persisted despite the bitter herb tea the midwife had made her drink. Though Nicole's labor had ended hours ago, her lover had not yet entered the room. She was beginning to feel afraid.
What is there to fear? she wondered. I'm in one of the finest houses in the French Concession. I've just given a rich man his first son. There will be no more eternal nights on high heels, no more grinning into ugly drunken faces, no more scrounging for the rent. It is nearly June already; why should I feel so cold?
She took a deep draught of the nighttime air, rich with the heady
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