Terminal Island Read Online Free PDF Page A

ISLAND
    T his is a filthy place.
    There are two kinds of filth: There is filth on the outside and then there is filth on the inside. Filth on the outside is good, honest filth. A place that is filthy on the outside can be the cleanest place of all, because it hides nothing—that’s the kind of place I’m most comfortable. Sarajevo springs to mind, during the war. Baghdad, Beirut, Mogadishu. Give me a place where I can buy a modified Kalashnikov for less than fifty dollars and carry it through the town square in broad daylight, where I can sling it over my chair in a café while I’m having a drink. Where the bodies are left to rot in the street.
    Filth on the inside is more troublesome. It takes so many forms and uses pretty scenery as camouflage—as defense. No one can believe it exists, not in such a nice place, and they don’t like someone like me stirring it up. So not only have I got the filth to deal with, I’ve got these guardians of the filth, the so-called “innocent bystanders,” gawking at me like a bunch of sour-pussed old biddies in church. Sometimes they become casualties.
    That would be you, Mr. Fancy-Ass Concierge, unless you can tell me how somebody got in my room last night.
    You ever wake up somewhere and don’t remember where you are? For me, it comes from living out of a suitcase too long—every hotel room starts to look the same. Doesn’t matter where I go—Jakarta, Kigali, Los Angeles—one hotel runs into another, so that after awhile you begin to think the whole world is one big lousy Continental Breakfast—all stale rolls and bad coffee.
    Until the night you wake up next to a werewolf.
    It’s not like I’m a stranger to spooky shit—in fact I was born into it. Trust me, I come from a whole family of death-worshipping freaks, so you can hardly blame me for being like I am. How do you think you’d have turned out if both your parents were brutally murdered by their own kin—and your grandparents too? Don’t worry, I’m not gonna start sobbing or anything; I’m over it. Killing each other is practically a tradition in my family, so as far as I’m concerned they deserved what they got. As do most of us. Some a bit more than others…which is where I come in.
    You might say I’m here on family business. But I suppose you know that, right? I didn’t exactly come here for the scenic attractions; as you may imagine, I’m not really a fun-in-the-sun type. I’m more of a night person—which is why it’s usually very hard to catch me snoozing on the job.
    My only excuse for last night is that I was drugged. I’m thinking it was the room service I ordered—probably the coffee, because you can hide anything in crappy coffee, and I drink a lot of crappy coffee. Whatever, it comes down to your responsibility, Sam—the buck stops with you, buddy, you’re the go-to guy for this joint, so you’re the man who is going to tell me why I woke up tied to my bed with a fright-masked psycho bitch next to me. That’s bitch in the literal sense; I’m no sexist. But seriously, what the hell was that all about? I mean, no one puts out the DO NOT DISTURB sign expecting to be disturbed, especially by some kind of fucked-up female laughing hyena; it’ll mess with your faith in the basic tenets of Western Civilization.
    Here’s the kicker: “Welcome home, Peter,” she screeches in my ear. “Long time no see.”
    Peter , she sez. You get that? There aren’t too many people alive on this Earth who know me by that name, and I prefer it that way. So while I was trying to guess how I’m acquainted with Miss Nude She-Wolf, I notice that there’s another person in the room, a really big dude sitting in an armchair at the foot of the bed. I couldn’t lift my head long enough to get a good look at him, but he’s a real piece of work, a tattooed Goliath with the face of a wild boar. No bullshit, I’m talking tusks and all. I’m not a skinny guy, but this pig-faced motherfucker made me feel