Chapter 10

Temporarily, we forgot about the South End Motorcycle Gang and went back to my first love: rapists and pimps. Another trip to Humboldt St. with me in my African-American disguise proved that we were a long way from getting rid of those bastards.

I had hardly stepped out of the alley and started down the street when I was accosted by a man who looked like the very stereotype of a pimp, with his wide-brimmed hat, his black pinstriped suit, and his overload of chains and bangles. He looked like an apparition right out of a Loony Tunes comedy of the 50s. His skin was nearly as black as his suit, but most of the effect of his appearance was lost by the heavy load of sweat that coated every exposed bit of skin. "Hey, Bitch! What do you mean working my street without my permission?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about. For one thing, I am not 'working' this street, but, if I were, it would be none of your business."

"Can't no cunt talk to me that way. I think I need to teach you a lesson in respect and manners. Come with me."

He started pulling me toward an alley that I had just passed. Man, was he going to be surprised when he found that alley already occupied by Phobos! When we got to the alley, he pulled out a knife with a four-inch-long blade. "The first thing we're gonna do, Cunt, is to cut those clothes off you."

He grabbed the cloth of my dress between my breasts and brought the knife around to slit the cloth. Before he got that far, a baton impacted on his right hand, the one holding the knife, and broke that wrist. At the same moment, my baton whipped up and broke his other wrist. I stamped my right foot on the ground and extended my spike from the toe of that boot. A swift kick in the shin with that spike took the last bit of fight out of him.

He fell to the ground, whimpering and blubbering. I probably shouldn't blame him, since he was now suffering from two broken wrists and a broken tibia. I retracted my spike and pulled my knife. He looked just as I started to cut the crotch from his pants. "Hey, don't cut that. This is a $2500 suit."

"OK, if it makes you feel better, we'll do it this way." I unfastened his belt and his fly and pulled his pants off. I did cut his underwear off, though I could see that they were silk boxers with hearts! Phobos fastened the pimp's unbroken leg to a convenient water pipe with a plastic tie, and I put a tourniquet on his cock. I held up the knife again and said, "This is what Nyx does to pimps." I thought I would try something different and stuck the knife through his cock just passed the tourniquet. I pulled up and split his cock lengthwise. His scream told me that it hurt as much as I hoped it would. The crowning touch was the crushing of his balls. I called 911 as we walked away.

We walked the full six blocks of Humboldt St. two more times without getting a nibble, so it looked like our fishing expedition here was not going to amount to much. Since this was a lost cause, we decided to move on to a neighborhood that was too rough for even streetwalkers. This was an area populated by the urban dirt-poor living in government-built highrise apartments built in the 50s, and looking like they had not had any maintenance since the 60s.

It was a place overrun by small gangs of 10-20 late teens and early 20s, not all of whom were male. Drugs and prostitution were facts of life in this neighborhood, and everybody, including the cops, had just decided to live with that situation. We had planned a visit here, but it was not originally scheduled until later in the month. Oh, well, this seemed as good a time as any.

I was still wearing my disguise, so it seemed like as good an outfit as any to use to attract some attention. Martha dropped us off with some trepidation; she was well aware of the reputation of this neighborhood. I hadn't gone 20 feet before I was spotted by a gang of 14 males. It was like I was the wagon train in a Western movie and they were the encircling Indians. I stopped walking once I had reached a clear spot with enough room for free operation. They walked around me, never stopping, but always looking at me. My plan was to give Phobos plenty of time to get into position.

The gang finally stopped circling me and started closing in. It only took me a few seconds to take off my wig and dress and to drop my skull mask into place. They all stopped in astonishment as I did this. Now, except for the skull over my face, I was almost impossible to see in the nearly utter darkness. I said, "What's the matter, children? You aren't afraid of Nyx, are you?"

Some of them, at least, had heard of me, because three turned to run. That was Phobos' cue to smash a knee so that they could not go anywhere. This really frightened the rest of the gang because they could not see who was attacking the cowardly ones. Phobos moved fast, but the last victim was about 75 feet away before he was caught and disabled.

In a kind of panic, the remaining 11 young men in the gang tried to attack me with knives and short clubs. This was to my advantage, because they kept getting in each other's way. A number of the attackers struck their fellows by mistake as they tried to reach me; my mask was the beacon that attracted them. Between my boot spikes and my baton, I was having a field day, though my uniform was getting sliced pretty badly by the knives. The underlying chain mail was stopping the knives, so that I was in good shape there, except for the buffeting. On the other hand, It was a good thing that I had taken to wearing a helmet as well as my cuirass because of all the blows from the clubs.

Strangely, very few of the attackers were paying attention to Phobos, so he was laying one out with almost every blow. We didn't want to kill anybody, but we did want to cause as much pain as possible. Therefore, we went for the maximum in broken bones.

The spikes on my toes were playing hell with tibiae, and my baton was doing similar damage to wrists, forearms, and elbows. These were obviously not pimps, and we could not be sure that they were rapists, so we just went for broken bones. This was a long battle for us, it must have lasted all of six minutes! When we finished, there were 14 young men lying on the ground with a multitude of broken bones, but, fortunately, no compound fractures.

I had so many cuts to my uniform that Phobos went almost through my roll of black duck tape to repair them all. I was curious as to how long it was going to take the EMTs to respond for 14 injuries. I was sure that the 911 operator was going to assume it was a gang fight even though I told her it was not one. Well, the EMTs did show up, but it took them a lot longer to arrive than I had hoped. They were escorted by a fully armed SWAT team, so I guess that was what took the extra time. No TV trucks this time, they are smart enough to stay away from this place after dark.

We walked deeper into the complex, more as tourists than as avengers. We had no specific goal in mind; we just wanted to see what went on around the neighborhood at night. At the moment we were both wearing our uniforms—my disguise and mask were hidden in a large fanny pack. We were virtually invisible, so we were not bothered.

To our surprise, we saw a single man, about 30 years old, walking across the courtyard completely undisturbed by any of the three gangs we had recently sighted. This was so unusual that we decided to follow him to find out what was going on. He went inside one of the apartment buildings, and we followed. He bypassed the elevators and went up the emergency stairs. Curiouser and curiouser.

He was already out of sight as we started up the same stairs, but we caught sight of him talking to another man on the landing above. The second man said, "You got it? I need a lot this time."

"Don't I always have what you need? Where's the cash?"