The Criminal Mind

by Thomas Benigno

  We continued walking and pointing our flashlights straight ahead—looking for something, anything—but all we saw were more curved tile walls and the same repetitive shades of blackness. Several hundred feet later, nothing had changed. There was no point of reference—nothing around us that was different or unusual to mark our way. But the more we moved forward, the warmer it became.

  “Charlie, is it me, or is it stifling in here?” I asked.

  “It’s got to be at least eighty degrees,” he said.

  We walked about another hundred feet, maybe two, until we could go no further. Another wall of large rocks and stones blocked our way. But even more unsettling was the steel utility door framed into the tunnel wall next to it.

  After Paul jostled Charlie on his back to get more comfortable, he approached the door and felt it with his hand. “It’s warm,” he said, shutting off his flashlight. “I don’t see any sign of light around the frame.”

  “Me neither,” I said, as I turned my flashlight off as well.

  Paul put his ear to the door. “I can’t hear much of anything—maybe a humming. I’m not sure.”

  “There could be generators in there,” I said. “That would explain the heat. Maybe it’s some kind of underground utility station.”

  “Yeah, but where’s the high-voltage sign and the DO NOT ENTER warning?” Charlie asked.

  “I smell something, too,” I said. “Like fireplace ashes.”

  There was a knob on the door, and without saying a word, Paul turned it, and pulled the door open.

  This was no municipal utility room.

  Flashlights back on, we pointed them at the open doorway. With Charlie on his back, Paul motioned for me to step away while he reached around the doorframe for a light switch. Then he found one but didn’t turn it on. Since we had no idea who—if anyone—was inside, Paul was allowing for the worst-case scenario. Standing in the doorway, we would be sitting ducks. And what we saw using our flashlights gave us little comfort.

  It was a room of sorts, sunken three steps down to a concrete floor about a hundred square feet in size and under a ceiling about fifteen feet high. Once completely inside, Paul dropped Charlie onto a long beige couch in front of a coffee table the shape of a wagon wheel. With flashlight in hand, he walked straight ahead and up another three steps to a second steel utility door, which he opened easily. Paul shined his light in. “There’s a passageway here that looks like a cave,” he said quietly.

  “I smell ashes, like something’s burning,” Charlie said.

  “Me too,” I added.

  “It’s a funny smell, too,” Paul said, then closed the door and pointed his flashlight at the switch beside the entrance door. I was about to flip it on, when he said: “Wait.” He gestured at a wall to my right, stepped down onto the concrete floor, and navigated in the semi-darkness around numerous scattered chairs until he walked up another three steps to a third door. He grabbed its handle and opened it. “There’s another room here,” he said. “It looks like a bedroom, but…”

  “Paul, what is it?” I spoke louder than I meant to.

  “You’ll see when you get over here,” he said. “You can hit that switch now.”

  A large bundle of florescent lights hanging on chains from the ceiling brightened the room we were in. I turned off my flashlight, looked around, and felt as if I was in a cross between a ski lodge and a western hacienda. Three of the four walls, which I was certain had previously been painted an unknown shade of white, had dulled and yellowed over what I estimated to be decades. The wall to the right––the one with the third door in it—was a putrid green. It had a stucco finish and chips had begun to form on its surface.

  Charlie remained sitting on the couch beside the entrance door to the tunnel. Across from him—on the other side of the wagon wheel coffee table—was a small desk. On it was an open laptop computer. Its screen was dark.

  The rest of the room was cluttered with upright cushioned chairs of different styles, but what was most unusual were the large decorative carpets that hung from the ceiling to the floor about a foot away from each of the walls. On them, threaded into the fabric and design, were faded poster images of classic Disney movies—Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, Alice In Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Lady and the Tramp. Were they hanging in effigy or in tribute? I couldn’t be sure. Their images were so terribly faded over time that Snow White was no longer white, and you could barely tell Lady from the Tramp. I had no doubt, however, that once upon a time they were adored works of fabric art, pleasing to the eye of any child or adult.

  You would think that these strange hanging carpets would have been enough to send us packing as we looked and listened for anyone or anything that would give us a clue as to the peculiar purpose for this underground bunker. Nor did we take comfort in the knowledge that we were in a desolate place under the woods and outside the town limits, which meant that if someone left us there to die, we would never be seen again nor heard from again—another unmarked grave.

  As I sized up our bizarre surroundings, I kept glancing at Charlie, who was fiddling with a coffee table drawer that was misaligned from its compartment. He kept tugging on it until it burst open and a bunch of pamphlets fell to the floor. As he picked one up, the vile purpose of the wall hangings and their false sense of childish merriment became apparent.

  The pamphlets were published and printed by an organization called AMBLA––The American Man-Boy Love Association.

  Charlie was dumbstruck. “You won’t believe what it says here.”

  On page one, the organization claimed to be ‘misunderstood.’ Its members were merely ‘standing up for the rights of male youths to be mentored, guided, and loved by older men,’ as if it was perfectly reasonable to espouse such a mantra. There was no mention of sex, just generalized notions of ‘love.’ A quote from Oscar Wilde and the sonnets of Shakespeare and Michelangelo (out-of-context references to be sure) were noted as testimonials to the validity and justice of their cause célèbre.

  Paul left his perch by the third door and walked over. He picked up one of the pamphlets and stuck it in his pocket, while the one in Charlie’s hands fell to the floor as if it had suddenly become contaminated.

  “I can’t believe what I just read,” Charlie said. “This is sick and can’t be legal.”

  “It’s legal as long as they don’t talk or write about having sex with underage boys,” I said.

  “I bet years ago it was a lot easier for them to recruit,” Paul said. “Society was much less accepting of gay kids than it is today. With nowhere else to turn, I’ll bet the open arms of AMBLA seemed like the right choice…and maybe the only choice for some of them.”

  “It’s like walking into the open arms of the devil, if you ask me,” Charlie said. “And who are these grown men who participate in this shit?”

  “They are from all walks of life,” Paul answered. “Men with money who can’t get their rocks off any other way except by having sex with young boys. But make no mistake about it: Getting these boys here has got to be one costly venture.”

  “I just wanted to find out who killed my sister,” Charlie said. “But this sick stuff…I could have done without.”

  “You never know where an investigation is going to take you,” Paul said, while walking back to the third doorway. “It’s rarely a pretty picture.”

  With pamphlets scattered on the floor below him, Charlie stared blankly across the room. “I nearly got killed in Vietnam,’ he said. “And if I have to risk my life up here, so be it if it means finding out what happened to my sister and Mia.”

  “Well, whatever they did to that little girl…I’ll bet it was in here,” Paul said, as he stood beside the third doorway that led to the adjoining room. Once he stepped inside and turned on the room’s overhead lights, I hurried over and followed him in. The first thing that
caught my eye was the set of twin beds against the wall. There was also a stairway in the far corner that led to another hatch in the ceiling. But what I had missed, until the moment that I walked over and looked up those stairs, was a most peculiar but familiar sight.

  Hanging on all four walls were Hitchcock movie posters.

  Paul reached for his phone. “After we spoke to Lauren, I made a list of the characters and their Hitchcock movies that coincided with the names of the alters.” He spoke loud enough so that Charlie, who had remained on the couch in the next room, could hear. Then, like a teacher in a classroom, he pointed to each poster and recited its female lead. “Let’s start with Psycho,” he said. “Remember Janet Leigh in the famous shower scene? She played the character, Marion—an alter. In The Birds, Tippi Hedren played Melanie—also an alter. The movie, Vertigo, starred one female actress who played two parts. I’m talking about the beautiful Kim Novak, who played the roles of Madeline as well as Judy. Ring a bell? It’s no coincidence that the alter Madeline said that she is closest to the alter Judy.” Paul kept looking down at his phone and then up at the walls. “Then over here we have my mother’s favorite—Rear Window, where the name of the female lead is Lisa, another alter. And last but not least, sitting on a wall all by itself, where the leading female character shares her name with the title of the movie, is Marnie—the alter who was supposed to show up at the meeting with Lauren, but didn’t.” When Paul was done, he put away his phone, lifted his head, and again spoke loud enough for Charlie to hear in the next room. “Gentleman, and I’m referring to you too, Charlie.” Charlie didn’t respond. “As we examine these underground rooms, which are becoming more sordid by the minute in sight and smell, one thing is undeniable: We are in one horrible and very dangerous place.”

  I watched as Paul’s eyes simultaneously widened with the declaration and his pupils appeared to dilate under the bright florescent bulbs overhead.

  Then, before any of us could utter another word, the steel door between the rooms slammed shut, the lights went out, and we were thrown into complete darkness.

  Not a glint of light appeared, anywhere, as we stood frozen in blackness. If I hadn’t felt a rush of air when the door between the rooms closed hard and fast, I would have sworn a shot rang out.

  Paul immediately turned on his flashlight. Shaken by the startling jolt to my eyes and ears, I had dropped mine when the door violently closed. I knelt down and anxiously felt around the darkened floor, searching for it.

  “Forget it,” Paul whispered. “Just take out your gun.” Paul already had his in his hand.

  I quickly unlocked the strap of the pistol holster at my side and with my thumb and index finger began searching for the Glock’s safety release. “How do I take the safety off?” I whispered with a nervous energy in my voice, unsure of what frightened me more—the source of the blackout and the closed door, or that I couldn’t find the safety.

  Paul spoke quietly into my ear and killed the mystery. “It’s a Glock. There is no safety. You just cock it and pull the trigger.” He then moved toward the door, turned the knob, and slowly pushed it open.

  As the smell of ashes and spoiled meat filled the air, Paul beamed his flashlight into the main room where we had left Charlie. He was looking for something—anything—that could have caused the lights to go out and the door to slam shut. But there was nothing. And worse still, no Charlie.

  Paul stepped through the doorway pointing his flashlight at the chairs, the couch, the wagon wheel coffee table, the desk, the laptop, and the concrete floor. Everything seemed undisturbed, yet there was still no sign of Charlie. Paul then beamed the light on to each and every Disney carpet that hung alongside the walls, except for…the one behind him.

  As I followed him in, unable to find my flashlight, I reached for the only light source I had—the one on my cellphone.

  “Charlie?” I whispered.

  I listened for a response, but all I heard was the sound of something cutting through the air and Paul groan just before he hit the floor. A split second later, a sharp pain coursed through my neck and head. I had lost control of my arms and legs. My collapse on to solid concrete was gratefully broken by the cushion of a nearby chair.

  Semiconscious, eyes glazed, the Glock no longer in my hand—and the only light around me coming from the screen on my cellphone that lay face up on the floor—I looked up at the dark figure of a man standing over me. My vision blurry, and having little ability to gauge time in the condition I was in, I had no idea how long he stood there before he walked over to the second door that led to the cave passageway and opened it. Feeling faint, I tried hard to remain conscious. Call it the brain’s ‘protective mechanism,’ but when the stranger returned, my head and vision had cleared just enough to watch him drag Paul over to the doorway, up the steps, and into the cave. I tried to move but couldn’t. I managed to reach for my phone. Seconds later, I heard a grunt and something heavy drop into what sounded like muddy water. My head aching and my vision growing hazy again, I looked up.

  Inside the doorway to the cave—a bleak light shining behind him—stood the dark figure.

  As he stepped down and moved toward me, the light on my cellphone timed out, and the world around me went dark again.

  The overhead lights flickered and then came on—painfully bright. Though my vision was spotty at first, after a second or two, I recognized my assailant. He was the same smiling man I had seen walking past when Charlie and I left the sewing shop. With eyes that appeared enlarged because they were magnified behind thick bifocals, he was dressed in beige corduroy pants and a matching blazer with patches on the elbows.

  As he stood over me, his arm extended, a pistol in his hand, my vision began to clear again. Despite the pain in my head, I sized him up to be about my height and weight—five-foot-nine (or ten) and about a hundred and sixty pounds. He had short blond hair and a light, almost pale complexion.

  Since there was no way he or anyone else could possibly know that Charlie and I would be crossing Main Street when we did, the odds of passing him were damn lousy ones—odds we didn’t deserve to die over. Then again, I’d already beaten the probabilities of my demise on more than one occasion. But to lose my life at the hands of a monster who kidnaps and kills little boys? That was hard to accept, whatever the circumstances and whatever the timing.

  I was always keenly aware of the imperfect and unjust life we are all born into. I often wondered whether we were really put on this earth to be happy, or if life is just one long search for meaning amid an ever-constant struggle. Convinced at that moment that I was going to die, my journey in life—from Brooklyn to the Bronx, then to Long Island, and finally to Tennessee—flashed like a photo reel in my head, as fright turned into sadness and the awful realization that I would never see nor hear from my kids again swelled inside me. I would wind up like the young boys we were trying to save—under a mound of dirt in the woods, or in a crate by the river, or as a mere pile of ashes inside a putrid furnace. There would be no body to bury. I would just disappear.

  I thought about Charlie. Hadn’t he suffered enough?

  Though the pain in my head escalated each time I moved it, I looked around. The wall carpet with the poster image of Lady and the Tramp sewn onto it was on the floor. There were bloodstains on Lady’s face and on the pants of the man standing over me––no doubt from Paul’s head. I tried in vain to shake off the fear as the man relaxed his arm and bent it to the side—the pistol still in his hand—the barrel still pointed in my direction.

  “Where’s Charlie?” I asked.

  “Never mind about Charlie,” he said. “He’s where he belongs.” He spoke like an apathetic store clerk––monotonous and unremarkable.

  Having no real sense of my own body, I realized that I was gripping the back of my head with my right hand while lying on the floor. “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Never mind who I am. N
ow get up.” He sounded more like a bratty computer nerd than a schoolyard bully. Why I took comfort in this, I’ll never know. I was in no position to defy him. He had gotten the jump on Paul, which meant he was as quick and strong as he was devious.

  I slowly turned to my side. One knee at a time, and one leg at a time, I rose to my feet. Though I tried, I couldn’t seem to stand up straight. The room was spinning. I reached for the arm of a nearby chair, grabbed, and held on.

  “Sit down,” he commanded. “And face me.”

  I turned and fell backward onto the couch. The AMBLA pamphlets that had fallen to the floor were now under my feet. With my body barely taking messages from my brain, and my head springing back, then forward—for a brief moment, I was seeing double. Two evil monsters were standing over me, each pointing a gun at my head. Then the two morphed into one—one diabolical demon.

  An anger that I had no control over began stirring inside me. If I was going to be killed, I damn well wanted to know who my killer was, so I asked again. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Your worst nightmare,” he said contemptuously.

  “Seems you’re not only my worst nightmare, but the worst nightmare of innocent young boys as well.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You never did.”

  “I never did?” I asked. “Have we met before?” I took my right hand off the back of my head and rested it on the arm of the couch. I forced my eyes to open wider, which only worsened the throbbing in my head.

  “Let me put it this way,” he said cavalierly. “I’ve been following your so-called illustrious career for quite some time.”

  “Interesting…except I couldn’t give a shit. You’re not the only one following my illustrious career, but maybe—if you tell me who you are—you’ll also start making sense.”