On The Edge

by Daniel Cleaver

  “That’s because you’re plainly crazy.”

  “That’s not true, I’ve been tested and have a certificate to prove it,” I said indignantly.

  “The bullet will shoot your finger off and enter your body.”

  “Nope, it’ll explode in both of our faces. Try it if ya don’t believe me. Go on, pull the trigger. I dare ya.”

  He stared at me for the longest moment. His hand trembled. He rumbled me as a cop and now he was contemplating killing a cop on his business premises. Not a good idea. He didn’t have the strength or the sense to cover up such a crime. I could see the putrid soul of this being as maggots slimed from the corners of his eyes and his nostrils as if the festering evil of his soul was trying to escape. In a city of so many millions, I’d managed to find the worst, the real dregs of humanity, one after another, and they all seemed connected: this worthless piece of crap deserved to die. But he was going to help me find Mia first.

  I think he could tell my thoughts and let go of the gun. Bizarrely it stayed on my finger. I took it off carefully using my sleeve so as not to smudge his fingerprints.

  “Oh, very good,” he said admiringly. “Very clever, you have my prints on the weapon. You kill me and can claim self-defense.”

  I took out my Glock and saw him tremble in fear. “If ya wanna live, tell me where he is?”

  “I don’t know, I swear.”

  “Where did ya deliver it?”

  “It went through a third person.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Your call.” I lined up the gun.

  “Well, I could tell you, but I’d rather not.”

  “That’s not an option.”

  “I’ve read about what the Hangman does to people and frankly I’d rather you killed me.”

  I pulled back slowly on the trigger. “I ain’t gonna kill ya, I’m gonna maim ya. First each leg, then hand, then knee, then elbow.”

  “Wait, wait, I tell you what, I can give you a celebrity with a penchant for child porn.”

  “I’m listening,” I said. He looked relieved, but I thought he’d probably lie. “How’d ya know?”

  “I installed his computer encryption,” he answered quickly and without hesitation, and my instincts told me this was the truth.

  “Lemme guess, ya left in a Trojan Horse?”

  “Just a little back door, should I ever need to get back into his system undetected.” He grinned smugly. “You’ll never guess in a million years, it’s –”

  “Bruce Matherson.”

  “Oh . . . how did you know?”

  “A lucky guess,” I lied. “Now, the Hangman, where did ya deliver his stuff?”

  He sighed as he realized that he’d been had. “It went through a third person.”

  “Who?”

  “Guess again,” he said flatly. “Two for two.”

  “Really?” Now that was interesting.

  Homicide Special Section, 100 W 1st St 5th, Los Angeles, CA 90012 – 14:15.

  I ran through the bullpen and straight into the captain’s glass-paneled office and told him what I had just learned and demanded a warrant to search Bruce Matherson’s premises. “He has cameras set up and he’s filming the murders. He must have a library full of ’em by now.”

  “Would he be stupid enough to keep them at his home?”

  “I say library, but they’d probably be stored on his computer. So when the moment takes him to relive the moment and he wants to view one of these tapes, er, in private, for instant gratification . . .” I made lewd gestures with my hand to make it clearer what I meant. The captain signaled me to stop, he got the point.

  “Yes, I get the picture.” He leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling for the answer. “Okay, we’ll have to tread carefully on this one: we’ll go to a judge, but they might be in his pocket. We know some are, I think at best we’ll have to name something specific.”

  “The computer,” I said.

  “Not if it’s his business computer which I’m sure his lawyer will claim. But you had better think of something damn quick. We won’t be allowed to search the whole goddamned home on a fishing expedition. I’ll make the call.”

  The Tara Mansion, Mapleton Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90024 – 14:45.

  “You have a search warrant for a what?!” Bruce Matherson asked aghast.

  “An abstinence protection device,” I replied.

  “I don’t even know what an abstinence protection device is.”

  “Then you won’t mind us looking for it then, will ya?”

  “It’s sort of like a chastity belt,” George McGinty told him.

  “A chastity belt?” Bruce Matherson repeated in astonishment. “Seriously?”

  I nodded solemnly. It was the first thing that came into my head. Looking back, not one of my best suggestions.

  Bruce Matherson was not pleased but opened the door wide, perplexed but convinced we would not find such an item. Marcus Eglin was on hand and able to confirm that the warrant was kosher and reiterated that he was going to sue us for harassment. Having his house disturbed unsettled Bruce Matherson: he watched us like a hawk. I began in the bedroom, which was the epitome of bad taste, with all the excesses of what a man cave should have, but it was so ostentatious that I found it garish and embarrassing. I heard, I Fought The Law, my ringtone. My cellphone showed a voicemail and I played the recording, it was from Melinda, the young girl Mia and I saved the last time we were here. She was home and happy and thanked us profusely. She’d been one of the lucky ones. She had managed to slip through the grasp of the network of pedophiles. She was back with her loving family. I felt pleased.

  Strike one for the good guys.

  She added that she remembered the groomer she’d met at the bus depot was a rat-faced youth with a Southern accent. Hillbilly Willy, I thought grimly. I searched high and low for a chamber off the master suite. The house could have been remodeled but I tended to believe the axiom, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. They’d had a production line of girls entering the building, sometimes never to leave. I was counting on the fact that had a routine that worked and stuck to it. I tried to find the secret door: most of the buildings in Bel Air had panic rooms, but then the whole idea of a panic room was that it was to be undetectable. I knew that this one was being used for nefarious purposes. I found a crack upon the wall and traced it down from the ceiling when Bruce and Marcus Eglin stumbled across me. “What do you think you’re doing?” asked Eglin.

  “Carrying out the warrant.”

  Marcus Eglin followed my gaze upward. “You’ll not find a chastity belt up there, Detective. Please contain your search to finding said item.”

  “You’re in on it, ain’t ya?” I said to Eglin. “You’re in the pedo ring, too?”

  “How dare you, I’m in no such thing.”

  “So there is one, then?” I grinned widely as he had walked into my trap.

  “Nice try, Detective, you repeat one word of this and I’ll sue you for everything you’ve got.”

  “Well, I ain’t got much, just my Camaro and I recently totaled that.”

  “I’ll break you, I’ll –”

  “Ya know what they’re doing here and ya condone it by turning the other way. Man, you’re as bad as they are, worse even. They have urges they can’t control; yet you’re overlooking these kids’ plights for money. To line your big, fat wallet. How do ya sleep at night?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” replied Marcus Eglin.

  “I know lawyers are meant to be thick-skinned and normally immune to the misdeeds of the clients, but child abuse? Murder? Even someone like you must find that appalling.”

  “I have no knowledge of such activities, my client –”

  “Has been at it for years and has had layers of protection all around him, people like you willing to turn the other way as long as he pays his hefty fees.”

  “Now look here –”

  “Detective,” ooz
ed Bruce Matherson, as he butted in. “What can I do to help? What are you really after? Is there some sort of deal we can make? I must admit I throw a wild party; they’re legendary, as you’ve probably heard. I used to give Hugh Hefner a run for his money. My parties are quite a scene for a young man about town; maybe you’d like to join us next time. I’m sure I could arrange . . .”

  “No, thanks.”

  “It’s all above board, the most gorgeous of women, a select group of men and hey, do what you please, that’s my motto.”

  “Including child sex?”

  “Never, never anything like that, how dare you!”

  “We have information that was exactly what happened here last week.”

  “Look, I can’t account for everyone’s taste, like that rock n’ roller, Donnie Deathstar, my God, that man was an animal: good riddance to bad trash is what I say. Now he did have peculiar tastes.”

  “Did ya see him with anyone in particular?”

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” said Marcus Eglin. “Who are you really looking for, Detective?”

  “A scumbag schoolteacher, bragging about his activities with the girls at his school to everyone at your last party.”

  “Can’t help you there.” He shook his head solemnly, although I was sure I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

  “What about a rat-faced hillbilly?”

  “Ah, him I do know. He hit on one or two of the younger guests and we had to throw him off the premises. Both he and that rocker were chased off. I did not want their sort bringing down the tone of my party that any red-blooded American male would give his left nut to attend.”

  I gave him a withering look.

  “If I give you the hillbilly’s proper name and address,” Bruce said, “can we make this all go away?”

  “Sure,” I lied.

  “Good, then it’s a deal,” he smarmed and held out his hand but I left it hanging.

  CHAPTER 37

  Trailer park, Imperial Highway, Los Angeles, CA 90045 – 15:30.

  I rolled up at the trailer park where Hillbilly Willy lived; it was at the rougher end of the scale as trailer parks go. Most of the trailers were rusting out. A few had old trucks sitting on cinder blocks in various stages of repair, or were being stripped down, it was hard to tell which. It was about two hundred yards from the end of the runway at Los Angeles International Airport and jumbo jets screamed overhead at two-minute intervals. I’d been told that the hillbilly lived down at the far end of the park in a yellow single-width trailer. I turned around ready for a quick getaway, as his neighbors were a gang of bikers who had already pegged me as a cop and they glared at me with open hostility. I glared back, I was now a rogue cop and if they wanted trouble, then bring it on. I wondered if they knew of the hillbilly’s proclivities. The fact that no one hollered out a warning to him made me think that maybe they had an inkling. The yellow trailer had faded to a dull buttermilk and was lopsided. I banged on the door in what was universally acknowledged as the sound of a cop knock. I heard him scrambling around inside, hiding evidence of whatever he shouldn’t be doing.

  “What’s that?” I said loudly for the Hell’s Angels to hear. “Come on in?” Thankfully the door was unlocked and I entered.

  Hillbilly Willy was battered and bruised but he didn’t recognize me as the person that inflicted the damage upon him, although I did notice with grim satisfaction that he had a limp. He looked like a startled deer caught in headlights. He had guilt written all over his face. “Wh . . . what the hell?” he stammered. I flashed him my badge too quickly for him to get my name or badge number.

  “I ain’t done nothing,” he said. “What are yuh harassing me for? I told the last one all I knew.”

  “The last one?”

  “The pretty cop, I told her all I knew.”

  Mia again. Oh Mia, why didn’t you share this with me? “Why didn’t ya come forward and make a statement?”

  “She told me not to,” he said with a shrug.

  What was she up to?

  “Do yuh want me to make a statement?” he offered.

  The trailer shuddered and the pots and pans clanged together as a 747 came in to land at LAX. I imagined that there must be tire prints on the roof. “Why? What do ya know?”

  “Erm, nothing,” he tried hopefully.

  “I’m after the address of one of the guests at Bruce Matherson’s party last Saturday.”

  “I don’t know no schoolteacher.”

  “Not an English-language one,” Sheldon sneered.

  “So, ya were at the party then?”

  “Hur, um, no?” he tried pitifully.

  “You’re lying.”

  “Why’d yuh say that?”

  “Because you’re a liar.”

  “What makes yuh say that?”

  “Because ya haven’t stopped lying since I got here.”

  “I don’t have to answer your questions.”

  “Yah, you do.”

  “Why?”

  “’Coz I’m a cop and you’re a sick, twisted pervert.”

  He looked puzzled but didn’t reply, nor did argue the point; he quickly glanced at the bedroom door as another jet screamed overhead.

  “I know you were at the party because I saw ya there with my own eyes.”

  “Oh well, then, I guess I was there, then.”

  “So ya were lying when ya said ya weren’t there?”

  “I, erm, I guess?”

  I smirked at him: this was too easy.

  “I know my rights,” he said with a quiver in his voice. “I want a lawyer.”

  “I thought ya said ya hadn’t done anything?”

  “I ain’t.”

  “Or were ya lying again?”

  “Hur?”

  “Now, I know ya procure young girls for the –”

  “Excuse me, ‘procure’?”

  “You trawl the bus and train depots looking for young runaways that you can exploit.”

  “Uhuh, not me, I told ’em before, I was exonerated.”

  “Ya went to court?”

  “Sure.”

  “How many times?”

  “A fair few.”

  “And ya always get off?”

  “I told yuh I ain’t done nothing.”

  I waited for the screaming engines of another airplane to pass before continuing. “So, ya got friends in high places, pulling strings?”

  He grinned, knowing that if I went to the trouble of arresting him that he would slip through the net. “What if I have?” He couldn’t wait to brag.

  Well, that wasn’t going to happen, not today, I thought. I continued with my nice guy act. “Ya tell me where the schoolteacher works and I’ll see if I can work ya a deal.”

  “Uhuh, I ain’t telling you where he works.”

  “I thought ya didn’t know him?” How dumb was this hick?

  “Look, mister, I ain’t done nothing. I keep telling yuh.”

  “I’ve seen ya with my own eyes.”

  “Well, I do like ’em young. Y’know, where I come from it ain’t illegal.”

  “Not if it’s your cousin.”

  “Hey!” He tried to sound offended but failed.

  “And it’s illegal, right across the United States of America.”

  “What a man does in his own home is his own business.”

  “Who told ya that?”

  “It’s a fact.”

  “No, it ain’t.”

  “I can’t help myself; I was born like it, I like ’em young, a lot of guys do.”

  “Perverts, maybe. Ya know you’re sick, right?”

  “What can I do?”

  “Ya had a choice, ya could’ve gotten therapy or just controlled your urges. Instead ya move out to California and act out your sick, twisted fantasies.”

  “It’s a free country.”

  “Not to child molest it ain’t. Not for you or your child-molesting pals.”

  “I ain’t the only one.”

  “That
don’t make it right.”

  “It does if we don’t get caught.”

  “How’d ya work that one out?” I asked, astounded.

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “Who?”

  “The schoolteacher.”

  “So, ya do know him?”

  He thought about this for a moment as a jet roared overhead, shaking the trailer. He decided to offer me something. “Yeah, I guess I do.” He guiltily looked towards the bedroom door again and this time I realized that’s where he was hiding someone.

  “Have ya got one of the young girls here now?” I asked in disbelief.

  He shook his head no, but his face had all the signs of yes. I marched toward the bedroom door. “Hey,” he said. “Yuh cain’t go in there not without a warrant.”

  I burst through the door and found a young, blond girl maybe fourteen at the most, tied to the bed. She looked petrified and struggled against the ropes.

  “I ain’t done nothing to her, I daren’t,” he added. “They want her pure.”

  I pulled my gun and he squatted down onto a chair with his hands up. “Who wants her pure?” I knew the answer but wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

  “Those guys up at Bel Air, I ain’t done nothing wrong, ask her.”

  I was incredulous. “Ya ain’t done nothing wrong? You’ve got an underage girl tied to ya bed. She’s here against her will and she was going to suffer at the hands of those men and ya know it.”

  “I meant I ain’t touched her,” he said in his defense as if that made a difference.

  I undid her gag and I signaled for her to be quiet. “Kidnapping and false imprisonment for a start,” I told the hillbilly. “And ya may not have touched this one but ya would have after they’d had their fill, right?”

  “Well, yuh, that’s how it usually works,” he admitted quietly.

  I untied the longer piece of rope around the girl’s hands, then she worked the knots loose around her legs. It was all one piece of rope and I took it from her.

  “You’re safe now, sweetheart, I’m a cop. I’ll get ya home. Just stay there for a while longer.” She stared at me blankly. “Do ya understand?” She nodded slowly. Hillbilly Willy grinned. “What’s so funny?” I asked. He was pissing me off.