Where Evil Lurks

by Robert D. Rodman

  I decided to circle around, check the vicinity of the two squad cars, and if I didn’t find anything, hightail it the hell out of there. With Ashley absent, this was none of my business, and I didn’t like the way in which the scenario was unfolding.

  I’d started backing away into the tunnel to leave when I heard the crack of a pistol shot. I froze in terror. Then a second crack. I had to look. When I stepped forward, I saw what I had dreaded. Both of Beck’s henchmen had been executed, gangland style. One had fallen straight forward, his hands cuffed behind, his forehead on the ground as if in mockery of a Muslim in prayer. The taller man lay dead beside him. Beck was trembling in an agony of terror.

  One of the “cops” unlocked Beck’s handcuffs and ordered him to remove his clothes. Beck was babbling something, of which I comprehended only the frightened, pleading tone. The order to strip was repeated with a gun barrel under his chin for emphasis.

  Soon he stood naked, shaking in fear and from the cold November night. His only adornment was the large crucifix that hung almost to the bulge of his hairy belly. Two men held him while one affixed a gag over his mouth. They forced him to the ground on his back and two more men pulled his legs apart. A knife blade flashed in the lanterns’ glow, then again, and again.

  In my benumbed mind his muffled screams of agony shook the stadium as if ten thousand fans had arisen, screaming, to their feet. A wave of nausea swept over me and I retreated into the darkness of the tunnel and began to sob, attempting to muffle the sound in my two hands. Still the screams welled up. There was no escape from them. I pressed my hands to my ears and cowered in a paralysis of horror.

  A pistol shot quelled the screams abruptly. Now the utter silence that followed spooked me. I couldn’t afford to make a sound. My nose was running from crying but I was fearful even of snuffling. I’d have to hide in the stadium until the men left. There were too many of them to keep track of, and it would mean death if they found me.

  I sneaked back to my viewing place, expecting to see the men leave. But to my utter surprise they appeared to be starting a construction project of some kind. They brought out ladders and lumber, and several of them extended the crossbar of the goal post to either side. They erected a third post that bisected the crossbar, and when everything was securely in place, they dragged the bodies over.

  They had created three large crosses. To the ones on either end, they tied the two dead thugs in a position of crucifixion. They hung Beck from the middle crucifix, arms akimbo, legs crossed at the ankles. In a final repugnant act, they prized open Beck’s mouth and stuffed it with his bloody genitals.

  They prepared to leave, careful to collect all their possessions. The last man to go had a camera with a powerful flash attachment. He took about a dozen photographs of the victims, zooming his lens in and out for maximum effect.

  I was like a deer in the headlights. I couldn’t turn away. Each time the flash went off the scene etched itself in my brain. The shadow cast by the three crucified men towered menacingly on the stadium wall with each strobe. The blood oozing from Beck’s open mouth dripped onto his crucifix and left rusty tracks on his swollen belly. The black gap between his legs made me turn away. When I looked back for the final time I saw a tableau of grotesque horror that not even an ocean’s water could wash clean from my memory.

  From the street side of my tunnel I watched the men drive away. Only there were now three vehicles. A limousine had joined the two squad cars. The limo had darkened windows, so I couldn’t see the occupants, but one window was lowered a few inches and through it I caught a fleeting glimpse of golden hair.

  Sweat beaded my brow despite the cold night air. When I returned to the car the driver was as happy as a puppy to see me. He sprang out of the driver’s seat to open the rear door, and though he was a stodgy, taciturn fellow, he took my hands and practically danced as he held them tightly, all the while muttering thanks for the goodness of God.

  The Turkish authorities would go wild over this. I wouldn’t be able to leave the country any time soon if they knew I’d been an eyewitness. But their initial investigation would focus on the protestors against the orphanage, leaving me, and of course Ashley, time to get out of Dodge.

  Despite my misgivings about Ashley, I still wanted to find her, deliver the envelope in fulfillment of my professional duty, and then disown the whole affair. Events were tumbling out of control and I had no desire to become part of a murderous, vengeful bloodbath.

  While I was away, Uncle Husnu had ascertained that Ashley had stayed at the Sheraton in the commercial district, but had checked out that morning. If she had checked in elsewhere, he hadn’t discovered it. There were many flights out of Istanbul at night, several to nearby European cities such as Athens. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had already left the country. My best bet was to do the same in the morning.

  When I told Uncle I was leaving the next day, he was amazed. Turkish people rarely move around in this fashion, and to come one-third of the way around the world to stay for two nights seemed crazy to him.

  “Dagny, my little artichoke,” he said, cupping my head in his hands, “you are like a wolf from the Steppes, untamed, and ever restless.”

  I assured him it was my job, not me, and promised him a leisurely visit, perhaps with my brother John, of whom Uncle was equally fond. This mollified him somewhat and he was further comforted when I asked if he’d have my stalwart driver take me to the airport.

  I caught a painfully early flight to Munich from where I could catch a nonstop to Orlando, Florida. If you’ve never shared an airliner with 400 Bavarians on vacation to Disney World, you’ve missed a unique experience. Which isn’t to say it’s either good or bad: simply that there’s nothing like it. The flight attendants could barely keep up with the demand for beer. Drinking songs filled the air from wheels up to wheels down. My seatmate translated some songs, every one of which extolled the virtues of beer, elixir of the gods, soother of the soul, mender of the mind, balm for the brain, and so on.

  The lavatory lines grew steadily longer as bladders filled and the aircraft drew nearer its destination. Half the passengers, it seemed, were standing in the long lines. Kids were everywhere underfoot. The order to fasten seatbelts as we approached Orlando was met with good-natured cries of “schnell, schnell” by those still waiting to offload their cargo of digested beer.

  I had deduced that Ashley would most likely have one of three destinations. She could simply return home, having taken revenge on the one rapist that hadn’t fathered a child. Or she could continue her rampage by going after Dick or Harry. If she returned to Kinston, it didn’t matter what I did. If she was determined to hunt down another rapist, it would most likely be Harry. I’d impressed upon her how well guarded Dick Sangfroid was, and had not even mentioned Harry’s bodyguard. Also, Orlando was a great deal closer than Los Angeles. To Ashley, Harry would be the next easiest target. The hypothesis wasn’t a certainty—there are few of those in life—but it guided my actions.

  CHAPTER 28

  Immediately upon seeing the balconies of the Raphael Hotel, I knew that Harry had departed. Swimsuits belonging to a generously apportioned woman and two small children hung over the railing of his former balcony. They weren’t Harry’s kind of people. Nonetheless, I dutifully asked at the desk whether a Harry Beck, or a Harry Angelica, was checked in. The answer was no and no. I booked a room anyway.

  While walking to the elevators I saw a pair of familiar pretty faces. It was Jamie and Jamie, the young couple that hung out with Harry. The recognition was mutual, except they knew me as Susan Radford.

  “Isn’t that that Susan person?” said Jamie-girl to Jamie-boy.

  He acknowledged that it was, and they both said at once, “Hey, Susan.”

  “Hey,” I said back, the standard manner of greeting in the South.

  “Hey, we heard some weird stories about you. Like you did something bad to Ernie.”

  “Me? Hurt him? Do I look like David?”


  “David?” they questioned in unison.

  “Yeah, you know, David and Goliath.”

  “Oh, whoever. We heard Ernie got killed in a car wreck,” said Jamie-boy.

  “Yeah, and that you had something to do with it,” said Jamie-girl.

  “That’s a lie, believe me,” I lied. “Stupidest thing I ever heard. What’s happening here? Where’s Harry? What are you guys up to?”

  “We had a breakup with Harry,” said Jamie-boy.

  “Yeah, he screwed us royal,” said Jamie-girl.

  “Yeah, me too,” I said, truthfully this time. “What’d he do to you?”

  “Well, you know Harry’s real business, right?” said the one.

  “Like the advertising gig’s just a front,” said the other.

  It struck me in a flash. “I kind of thought he might be making X-rated videos on the side.”

  “Huh, on the side, nothing.”

  “That’s what he does for the real money.”

  “So you guys were, uh…”

  “That’s right. We were stars, leastwise for the adult stuff.”

  “And the cocksucker owes us some big bucks and welshed out.”

  “What do you mean, ‘the adult stuff’?” I asked.

  Jamie looked at Jamie. “We shouldn’t talk about this, here. Let’s go outside.”

  We found a table to sit at in a corner of the outdoor patio.

  I said, “Guys, I’d really like to hear y’all’s story. Maybe we could help each other. You know, he screwed me too. Why don’t we rat him out?”

  “Oh, no way, man. First, we’d never collect if he got busted, and second, he’s got some stuff on us.”

  The other Jamie added, “And third, the gorilla he hired to replace Ernie is a mean fucker. I mean, like, we want to go on living.”

  “So why not a little blackmail?” I suggested. “I’m willing to try it, and if you guys help me, I’ll see that you get what’s coming to you.”

  They looked at each other, unsure.

  “So he’s doing kiddy porn,” I ventured to guess. “Is that it?”

  “You got it. He makes a fuckin’ fortune. I mean, like a hundred times over legit porn.”

  “Thousand times.”

  “Wow, who buys it?” I asked, at once repulsed and spellbound.

  “Rich fuckers, I can tell you that. Businessmen, movie dudes, you’d be surprised. Politicians.”

  “One old rich Japanese fuck, he paid half a fucking million for the only copy of a video of a twelve-year-old girl being, you know, getting it done to her the first time.”

  “We don’t approve of that. I mean, you know, we do it in front of cameras, but we’re adults, and anyway, we do it artistically.”

  “Children?” I was still shocked. “Where does he find them?”

  “That’s the thing we don’t get. I mean he’s got a steady stream of, you know, really young kids, like a new one every week or two. They’re brought in by these women and there’s like a bunch of different ones. And they look, you know, way strung-out, the kids, I mean.”

  “The women too, if you ask me,” chimed in the other Jamie.

  “And after a week of shooting, they’re kind of used up, right, so they’re sent to adoptive homes.”

  “Don’t the kids ever tell their new parents?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, they always seemed all fucked up with drugs. Maybe they don’t remember. Anyway, I think they’re foreigners, like, they don’t speak English. They don’t understand things. You have to show them.”

  “They definitely look foreign,” said the other Jamie, knowingly. “Real dark-like, not like blacks or anything, but, you know, more like Mexicans.”

  “Except sometimes he gets a white girl, I mean a blonde.”

  “And Harry, he saves those girls—there aren’t that many—for himself.”

  “Are they all girls?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.

  “Oh he does gay porn. There’s more girls than boys, but he does boys. Man, he makes oodles off the boys. Same kind of deal. They’re brought here from somewhere, made to do, you know…”

  “Sexual things. Then at least he finds them homes so they can grow up in America.”

  “Decent of him,” I said bitingly. “Was he doing all this in the hotel?”

  “Nah, we did some shooting here, but not all. On weekends when he wasn’t doing younger kids, me ’n’ Jamie would recruit older kids, like teenagers, for him, from the hotels around here. Would their parents be surprised!”

  “Yeah, we’d give them some grass or coke, and they’d get stoned and we’d start to do stuff with them, and Harry would roll the video. And other kids might join in and next thing we had an orgy. People pay big money for it because they like, you know, off-the-cuff sex. But the kiddy shit, he does that in his house.”

  “His house? He has a house around here?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. It’s 40 or 50 miles from here. Ernie was going there when he got himself killed. Got drunk, missed a curve, whammed into a tree. Harry thought you had something to do with it.”

  “Well, whatever. Can you tell me where this house is?” I asked, steering the conversation away from the murky waters of Ernest’s demise.

  “Oh shit, he’d have us killed for sure. I don’t think we should.”

  “Hey, no one will ever know who told me. I’m just going to suggest to Harry, real subtle-like, that he pays me what he owes me, and when he does we’ll split it three ways. That’ll be a grand for each of us, and he’ll never know how I found out, I swear.”

  Again they considered. Finally Jamie-girl said, “Awright. If we can get the two grand, we can go to the West Coast. He couldn’t find us there, and there’s plenty of work, ’specially in Portland or Seattle.”

  “So, will you do it?” I asked.

  They did. In a schoolchild’s handwriting, Jamie-girl wrote out the directions and even drew a crude map to a house on the outskirts of Lakeland, southwest of Orlando. Formerly a horse ranch, it sat on an isolated 20 acres, with its own pond and stables. Its nearest neighbor, according to Jamie, was a nudist colony.

  They gave me their room number—they were still staying at the Raphael—and made me swear I wouldn’t welsh out on them. In the meantime they’d be making ends meet by picking up “odd jobs,” just as they had been doing. We’d just shaken hands when the square-jawed man with a crew cut exited the lobby.

  I hastened after, catching up with him on the empty shuffleboard court.

  “You’ve been following me, haven’t you?” I began without ceremony. “You’ve been on my tail for weeks. Why?”

  “Go home, Ms. Jamison. These matters are bigger than you are. You did your job, and you were well compensated. Your hour on the stage is over. Don’t overstay your limit.”

  “Who are you?”

  He shook his head deliberately from side to side and started to walk away. I snagged his elbow but he wrenched it free and kept walking.

  “Why are you dogging me? Who do you work for?” I said to his retreating back.

  He turned to face me, backpedaling away slowly. “Goodbye, Ms. Jamison. Our next encounter, should there be one, may be less pleasant than this one.”

  With that, he spun round and walked rapidly away, leaving me both angry—I didn’t like the veiled threat—and confused. I now was convinced that he was the man I’d seen during my first visit to Orlando, in Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, and on the streets of Los Angeles. And now here again in Orlando. This cast the entire case in a new, strange light. Somebody had been keeping tabs on me since the very beginning of my investigation.

  I spent the evening making my old rounds, barhopping furiously, leaving a trail of untouched cocktails, looking for Ashley as I’d once sought Harry. Unless I spotted her near one of the hotels, I’d have to concede that I’d lost her trail.

  By midnight I gave up, dog-tired. From my room I called Mr. Bloodworth to see whether he’d heard anything. He had indeed.
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br />   “Ashley left the children with my cousin’s wife, Olivia, on Sunday. They’re from Columbia, Maryland. I asked her why she didn’t call us, but she thought everything was normal until this afternoon. Apparently Ashley showed up, totally exhausted-looking according to Olivia, and didn’t even stay five minutes but she packed up Jeanne-Renée and left.”

  “And goes where, did she say?” I interrupted

  “She didn’t know. She just said that Ashley made her promise to keep Benton in her home no matter what.”

  “Can you go there? I mean, is Benton safe there?”

  “Oh, I think he’s safe. I’m more worried about my daughter. I don’t know what Ashley is doing, or if she knows what she’s doing. And I’m worried sick about my granddaughter.”

  I told him there was a good chance that Ashley would come to Orlando, and added that my unswerving mission was to find her.

  “What does Orlando have to do with my daughter and granddaughter?” he asked.

  “I can’t tell you, sir. I can’t even tell you not to worry. But I can tell you that I’ll do everything in my power to find Ashley and her daughter, and when I do, I’ll hand over the envelope you gave me.”

  He pleaded for more information but nothing I might tell him would reduce his anxiety. The truth would only make it worse. Hell, I was anxious and on edge myself. All I could do was to say that I had some ideas, that I was competent when it came to finding people, that I’d spare no effort, and so on and so forth; I sounded more sanguine than I felt, but finally succeeded in getting off the phone.

  The next morning I drove to Lakeland to check out the surroundings of Harry’s house. I bought a map of the area in the BP station by the narrow road where Ernest had died, and where I’d had years scared off my life. That road, according to the map, was a shortcut to another road, which led to both the nudist camp and Harry’s ranch.

  I took it, at once curious and loath to revisit the scene of my “accident.” As I approached the site, dread welled up in me. I nearly became unnerved and I had to fight off the desire to turn back.