"They've been investigating it for years and they've turned up nothing," Detective Orr said. "There's lots of rumors about it, lots of people say they've seen them, but the sightings are all once-removed. The FBI's been on this since the mid-seventies. Their official position on it is that snuff films don't exist."
"You believe that?"
Detective Orr paused. "I don't know what to believe."
"In 1970, if I had told you that there were a group of guys that got their jollies off by trading pictures of grown men having sex with little boys and that there was an underground market for it, would you have believed me?"
An awkward pause. William had him. "No," Orr admitted, his voice wearing a tinge of defeat.
"And why not?"
"People just.. " He hesitated. "People didn't just believe that kind of shit existed back then."
"Same rules apply here," William said. He leaned over his desk, resting his elbows on the mahogany surface. "Remember that thing in the news not too long ago about that woman who was convicted of cruelty to animals? She'd been stomping on mice with high heels for a series of porno films. Remember that?"
"Yeah," Detective On said. The tone of his voice told Billy that the detective remembered the incident clearly. For all he knew, On had inside information on the case.
"A guy was busted with her," William continued. "They had been making what are known as'crush videos' for a select number of clients. People pay anywhere from fifty to a few hundred bucks to collect videotapes of women crushing small animals with their high heels. Don't you think that if there are people that get their sexual jollies off on that, there might be even sicker people out there who get off on watching people die?"
`I understand your argument, William, but-'
"I know it's hard for you to believe, but this shit is real. I believe Lisa Miller. She's not the type of person who takes to flights of fancy. I believe that what she saw, that what almost happened to her, really happened. I believe that what happened to her is odd, yeah; I admit that. By all accounts, these guys target runaways that people won't miss. They don't go after people with families, people that will leave behind loved ones. I think the reason why the FBI is saying snuff films don't exist is because they can't penetrate the subculture that deeply. I believe the real audience for this stuff is less than a few thousand worldwide. When you stack that up against those crush films or bestiality films or other hardcore S&M films, that's nothing. I think that's why the FBI says they don't exist-the market hardly registers on their pulse. Know what I mean?"
"In other words, the market's so small it's not worth pursuing."
"Exactly."
"That's bullshit, and you know it: Detective Orr said. "If people are being killed-"
"Who's being killed? Some junkie in Harlem who's been living on the streets for ten years who has no family, no place to go? 'There's thousands of people like that in this country with no family, no parents, no support system. They come from foster homes, from institutions, whatever. Nobody gives a shit about them and you know it. Whatever family support they might have had is gone when they get into the streets. Maybe some of them do have somebody out there who loves them, who wonders where their son or daughter is, the wayward child who was perhaps a little too rebellious at home and left one night after a fit of anger. Happens all the time. Not all of these people get ground up and spit out for the camera; most of them OD, or they die of hypothermia, or they get knifed in a mugging or something. Or they die of AIDS. Some of them do get cleaned up. But there's probably a small number of them, say one percent, who simply disappear, never to be seen again by anybody."
"You're talking about the kinds of people who fall prey to serial killers," Detective Orr said.
"Serial killers and hustlers out to make a buck off their misery." William flipped through the papers on his desk, searching for something. He found it. "Listen to this. I printed this off a Web site yesterday. It's an article that details the illegal pornography industry, as well as the child porn market. And it stated here that something like seventy-five percent of the kids that wind up in low-budget porn-"
"I'm not interested in statistics, William," Detective Orr said, his voice becoming curt. "Look, I'm sorry, but there's nothing much I can go on. We've got a blowup of the suspect who kidnapped and stole Lisa Miller's money. That suspect and the Tim Murray character are being sought for kidnapping and extortion, and that's it. Same with the Al Pressman character. We can't make a case for murder until we get more evidence or if one of them confesses."
William Grecko sighed. His head was pounding. He needed coffee and he needed it bad. "Okay," he said. "What's on the agenda for today?"
"Just hang tight. We're still running a vehicle check on the van. We're also doing some checking on the homeless woman, the one Lisa identified as Alicia. We had a sketch artist work up a composite based on Lisa's description, and we're putting that over the wire. We're also working with the broadcast news media and some of the local papers in running the photo. Maybe somebody will recognize her and we can get a positive ID. If we can find her, that might answer a lot of questions"
"And what if you don't find her?" William asked. He got up and walked to the coffeepot, poured himself a cup. "What if Lisa's story checks out? What if this ex-boyfriend of Alicia's decides to grow a heart and calls and everything he tells you checks out? Then what?"
'We'll cross that bridge when we get there," Detective Orr said.
Than was resting his muscular six-foot-six frame on the king-sized bed, a cup of coffee within easy reach on the nightstand. The Jets were on, pounding the hell out of Philly, and he had three hundred bucks on the game. He was following the game, his mind mostly on the last twenty-four hours. The reports that had come back from security had been negative. There was no news of anybody resembling Tim Murray, Al Pressman, or Jeff. Their descriptions had been given out to all of hotel security, and the spooks that manned the cameras in the casinos were also instructed to keep their eyes peeled for them. So far, nothing.
That was fine with Titan. As long as the Millers stayed in their room, they were safe. Than or somebody else from the security team was always on hand, twenty-four seven, right across the hall. And somebody was always armed. Than knew that the minute anybody resembling the suspects walked into the hotel, he or John would get a call. He'd gotten five calls between yesterday morning and last night, all of them turning out to be false leads. In each case, they had dispatched one of their men down to intercept the suspect and tail them. The report always came back the same: "Guy looks like the dude in the sketch, but it isn't him. This guy looks like a tourist, and he's got a wife and five kids trailing along behind him."
So much for that.
Titan yawned and reached for his coffee just as there was a knock on his door.
He looked at the door, annoyed. John Panozzo had gone down to the kitchen to bring the Millers their roomservice breakfast three minutes ago. The knock came again, light yet persistent. Titan swung his legs over the bed and got up, ambling toward the door.
When he peered through the spyglass he saw a little old lady, looking forlorn and lost. She looked like she could be between sixty-five and ninety, and was wearing a blue plaid dress, had short, wispy white hair, her thin frame looking both grandmotherly and kind.
Titan opened the door. "Can I help you?"
The old lady turned to him, her watery blue eyes wide with confusion. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice wavering. Her hands were shaking, as if she were a victim of Parkinson's. "I got separated from my… my church group. We took separate elevators and…" She licked her lips. She looked terrified-and no wonder, for an old white lady like this one, confronting Titan-six foot six, muscular, shaved head, ebony skin-was probably giving her a heart attack.".. I'm lost. Can I… can I use your phone, please?"
Titan glanced quickly down the hall. No sign of John. The old lady trembled beneath his gaze. She clutched a small white purse in her liver-spotted hands. '!here w
ere senior citizens' groups staying at the Luxor all the time. No doubt the group this poor old woman had been with had neglected to check to see if all of their party were together. Maybe this lady wanted to call a church member on their cell phone. If so, too fucking bad. "Sorry," he said. "'IYy the room next door."
"Please!" The woman began to cry, and Than had almost shut the door on her when he paused. You can break this woman in half by breathing on her. What the fuck is she gonna do?
Feeling like a shithead for slamming a door in the face of an old lady, he opened the door. The old woman stood in the hallway, looking lost and in tears. "Come on in, but be quick," he said, already hating himself for letting a crying little old lady get to him.
The old woman sniffled back tears and hobbled in, her gait wavering. Titan closed the door and followed her into the room and then bumped into her as she suddenly stopped and whirled around toward him. He felt her face brush his chest as he tried to stop the forward momentum of his stride, hoping he hadn't hurt her, and that was when he felt the pain in his abdomen.
He looked down at his belly, his mind trying to figure out how a knife had been thrust into his stomach. The hands holding the handle were small, birdlike, skin wrapping bones. They jerked upward, opening him up, and Titan gasped, looking in wide-eyed horror at the old lady, who now wore a different expression. Gone was the look of elderly confusion and meekness and tears; it had been replaced by a look Titan had seen before only on people much younger than she-namely, male street criminals. Her blue eyes reflected a sense of malice as she grinned. "Fooled you, didn't 1?" She pulled the knife out of his gut, and Titan felt the lower part of his body grow numb and wet. His belly exploded with sharp pain.
He staggered back, eyes still on the old woman, than looked down at the blood spattering on the carpeted floor. He could feel the blood soaking into his jeans. He looked back up at the woman, still trying to comprehend why she had stabbed him when she lashed out again with expert precision. He saw the blade flash below his field of vision in a delicate swoop, felt a line of pain blaze across his throat, and then a sudden sense of warm wetness as his shirt was soaked. He opened his mouth to scream, but his vocal cords refused to take the commands. "That's what I like best about being elderly," the old woman said, her voice still possessing that same brittle tone but now strong with conviction and purpose. "You can catch so many of your victims off guard."
Titan made an attempt to lunge at her, to try to get the knife away from her grasp, just as his body went completely numb. He collapsed to the floor on his knees, his belly a pit of fire, his throat singing with pain, the scent of his own blood filling his nostrils, chasing him into darkness.
Mabel Schneider didn't waste time. She wiped the bloody knife blade on the comforter, then approached the door, peering through the eyeglass.
She knew another man was due any minute now with the room-service tray. The plans they had made earlier this morning had been hasty, but they were working beautifully. The best part of it all was they were actually going to let her take a souvenir! "One of her eyes," she'd told Rick Shectman over the phone yesterday when he'd spoken to her about coming out to assist in the abduction of a snuff-film victim. "If that animal you use in those films doesn't pop them when he sticks his dick in her eye sockets, I want one of them. Maybe both of them if they're unruptured. I haven't had boiled eyeballs in a while."
Shectman had agreed, only on the condition she prepare her meal on this coast. "I can't risk airport security finding body parts when you board your plane on Friday," he'd said. "If I can't get you the eyes, I'll arrange somebody to get you a kid. How's that sound?"
"I can get my own children," she'd spat out at him. "That's easy. Children flock to me because I remind them of their grandmother. If I can't get her eyes, I'll think of something else. Maybe you can convince that beast of yours to fuck me in the ass or something.'
"I'll do what I can," Shectman had said.
Mabel replaced the knife in her handbag, leaving it open enough so that she could retrieve it quickly for the next one. She examined herself quickly in the mirror. She hadn't gotten any of the big man's blood on her, which was good. She glanced back at him, her eyes lighting on his chest. It was still. He was deader than shit.
With that, she turned back to the task at hand. She opened the door slowly, peered out to make sure the corridor was deserted, then slipped out, dosing the door behind her.
Then she waited.
When John Panozzo rounded the curve in the corridor he saw an old woman wandering the hall, glancing at the numbers on the doors as if she were searching for something. He dismissed her from his mind as quickly as he had taken her in, and pushed the room-service tray ahead of him, the scent of fresh pancakes and coffee creating his own pangs of hunger. I didn't realize how fucking hungry I was until I smelled this shit. Man, that smells good!
John pushed the tray to Brad and Lisa Miller's room and knocked on the door. He was wearing the official uniform of the Luxor room-service employees. John had thought it was a good idea to have his team dressed as hotel employees to avoid suspicion. If somebody was out to get Brad and Lisa Miller, they wouldn't have a due they were being watched by hotel security as well as the best private security team in Las Vegas. They would be lulled into a false sense of security. Of course, that wouldn't work if-
"Excuse me. Sir?"
It was the old woman. She had noticed him and approached him tentatively. John glanced at her. She looked lost. He turned to the door as he heard footsteps approach.
"Sir?" Her voice was more persistent, wavering on brittleness and tears,
He turned back to her just as he heard the deadbolt being thrown open. "Just a minute, okay?"
He turned back to the door as Brad Miller opened it. "Room service," John said, pushing the cart past Brad.
"Hey." he heard Brad exclaim. John pushed the tray to the center of the room, taking only quick notice that the TV was on and Lisa Miller was still in bed, lying on her right side, her back away from the door. He turned around and was surprised to see that the old woman had followed him into the room.
"Uh, can I help you, miss?" John said, stepping toward the old woman.
"I'm lost," she said, her voice sounding as brittle as dead leaves. "My church group lost me on the way to the elevator. Do you have a phone I could use?"
Brad was still standing by the open door, obviously stunned that the old woman had blundered past him into his room. John took a step toward the old lady, his training taking over. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
"Please!" she screeched, and then she started crying. She clutched her purse in her brittle-looking hands, and John reached her just as Brad closed the door. "Let her use the phone, John. She's not gonna hurt anything."
John was just turning to answer Brad when he felt the knife punch into his throat.
* * *
The first thing Brad saw when he came back into the room after closing the door was John was clutching his neck trying to stop the geyser of blood that was gushing out of him like a fountain. A knife with a seven-inch blade was sticking out of his throat where his Adam's apple should be. His eyes bugged in his face, his skin turned white as he grabbed for the knife unsuccessfully. The image hit Brad like a sledgehammer, shocking him with the brutal intensity of it. He felt frozen as the old woman reached for the knife handle and wrapped her brittle fingers around it. She tugged, and Brad could see the tendons along her upper arm tense as she pulled the blade out of John's throat. When the blade slid free, blood shot out of his neck with a sudden ferocity; it was like turning on a garden hose in the summer at full blast. It spattered the floor and the bed, some of it hitting Lisa.
This can't be happening, this just can't be happening, he thought. He tried to command his limbs to move, to do something, but he remained frozen in shock at the hideous scene. John Panozzo fell to his knees, his fingers clawing at his throat, trying to stem the flow of blood. Brad felt his ch
est constrict as the room became increasingly claustrophobic, and then the old woman was standing in front of him, her features twisted in a mad grimace, the bloodstained knife in her left hand. Brad was so shocked, so frozen in horror, that his reaction was like moving through a sea of molasses. The old woman reached into her purse with her right hand and brought it out, and even when she pulled the trigger on the object Brad still didn't believe this was happening. How could this be happening? They were under protection, with an armed security team looking out for them! And as the old woman shot him with the Taser gun and Brad felt his body go numb with pain, he slumped to the floor, hitting his head on the desk. He tried to move, tried to turn over as the woman cackled, "Fooled you, didn't I?" She pressed the trigger of the Taser gun again, sending thousands of volts of electricity through his system, paralyzing him, and the last thing Brad Miller saw before he lost consciousness was the wide-eyed face of his wife on the bed, frozen in fear, and it was the first hint of emotion he had seen in her since they had gotten to Las Vegas.
When it was over, Mabel Schneider put the Taser gun and the bloodstained knife in her purse and pulled out a cellular phone. She glanced at the woman on the bed, watching to make sure she wasn't faking unconsciousness. She'd been instructed to stun the woman with the Taser gun too, but she didn't need to do that-the woman had fainted. She lay on her side limply, tongue lolling out the corner of her mouth, her hair hanging limply across her face. Her breathing appeared shallow, and Mabel had reached out cautiously prior to putting the knife away, touching the woman's face. If she had been faking it, the woman would have jerked with a scream at her touch. Mabel had caressed the woman's cheek, then lightly slapped it. No response. Mabel smiled. She wondered why Rick wanted to take such big risks in securing this woman as a snuff-film victim, but then, he was paying well for her work. What did she care for what Rick had in mind for her?
Mabel turned her attention to the cell phone. She turned it on, hitting the speed-dial button for the number already programmed. "It's done," she said when it was answered. "I'll be waiting." Then she hung up, pushed the antenna down, stepped around the bloody mess on the floor, and hovered by the door to wait.
Survivor Page 24
