Duet for the Devil
Page 13
“&. Bring. Me. The. Razor.”
[ 54 ]
Leaving Elijah in the car, Frank slogs through the mud to the motel’s office, where he is greeted by a middle-aged woman who looks nothing like Norman Bates. In fact, she is a homespun composite of several female celebrities: she has Dolly Parton’s bosom, Barbara Streisand’s nose & Kate Smith’s hips.
She smiles, rests her breasts on the counter so that Frank can’t miss the deep cleavage on display in her low-cut blouse, & says, “Ain’t a fit night out for man nor beast.”
He nods, thinking that it would take a hurricane to hold back The Beast he is seeking. “I need a room for tonight.”
“I’ve got plenty of vacancies,” she smiles amid a batting of long lashes, “Monday nights is purty dead ’round here…” When she sees that he is not going to respond to her bored flirtation, she goes about the business of renting him a room (#7); her heavy breasts sag with the weight of her disappointment.
Once the transaction is completed & the room key is dangling in Frank’s hand, she asks, “Where you headin’?”
“Miami.”
“Shoot, I wouldn’t go there for all the tea in China,” she says with a twang in her cigarette-hoarse voice. “Too dangerous for me. Didja hear about that mutilation murder? Jeeee-zusss! I almost lost my lunch when I heard about it on the news! No, sir, I’ll keep my sweet buns right here in L.A.”
“L.A.?”
“That’s what we natives call it. L.A., Lower Alabama. Why, half the people I know hail from Ala—”
“Excuse me,” Frank interrupts, “but I’ve got some calls to make.”
“—Bama. Any calls you make will be added to your bill.”
“Right.”
“Number seven’s the last room on the left wing,” she tells him.
“& if you need anything, give me a ring…”
A minute later, Frank is sneaking Elijah into number seven. He shuts the door & the dog goes to the middle of the uncarpeted crackerbox & shakes the rainwater from his fur.
“Make yourself at home, boy. Just don’t piss on the floor.”
[ 55 ]
Heather thinks that Mal is planning to slice her up.
But instead, He adds: “& don’t forget to bring Me the shaving cream—time to properly prep her pudenda for My pleasuring…”
This strange request seems not to surprise Snuff in the least. He giggles again. Then says, “Yeah. Old Mal here, see, He likes His pussy either real cold or real young—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Mal warns him.
But, for once, His henchman disobeys, adding, “I guess Old Mal don’t quite get off on th’ fact y’re gonna pop a kid th’ way I do… Makes y’ seem way too grown up & all for His tastes! Yeah. Old Mal, He’s gotta real bad case’a short eyes! So we’ll just have t’ do our best t’ make your fuckhole look like some little schoolgirl’s for Him…”
The implications of this coarse, disgusting monologue make Heather feel sick to her stomach.
“Sssheeeittt! Y’ wouldn’t fuckin’ believe what He likes t’ do t’ babies when He can find hisself one, though!” Snuff giggles insanely.
It is all Heather can do to keep herself from vomiting.
Is there no end to their sickness…? she thinks.
All too soon Heather Rylie will learn that their degeneracy knows no boundaries…
[ 56 ]
Frank sits on the edge of the bed, lights a smoke, & picks up the ten-year-old telephone, crusted with the grime of uncounted unwashed fingers & faces. He finds Clarence Carter’s home number in his pocket address book, & makes his call.
“Hello.” An irritated Clarence answers.
“Clarence? Frank. Am I interrupting something?”
“Not really. I’m just kicking back with a beer, watching the fight on cable. Coupla welterweights dancing around the ring. Any minute now, one of them will do a Michael Jackson moonwalk… Coupla pussies.”
“I need a favor,” Elijah sits at Frank’s feet & rests his jaw on his knee. “I want all the info you can get on that coffee house murder in Miami, Saturday night. The mutilation thing.”
“You got it, man,” says Clarence, “Say, Frank, you’re not getting strung out on your Zodiac theory, are you? It’s a damn good theory & I tend to believe it, but you can’t go tearing around the county—”
“You have a friend in Miami Homicide, don’t you?”
“Captain Lardass Lucas.”
“Well, I’d appreciate it if you called him now. Call me back at this number—” Frank recites the motel’s phone number & the number of his room. Then adds: “I’d’ve rung you on my car phone, but it’s got a glitch. Need to get it fixed. But the FAX is still operational. You’ve got my number—hit me with anything hot—”
“Okay, Frank, I’ll get right on it. Say ‘Hello’ to Elijah for me.”
[ 57 ]
Mal lathers the girl’s lewdly bared pubic mound, then uses the straight razor to shave off every vestige of hair from her now totally naked privates.
Snuff collects the shavings, neatly packaging them in a cellophane bag. He seals it with a strip of transparent tape.
“Yeah. She sure does look like a young ’un now!” Snuff comments, reaching down to fondle the smooth, hairless flesh of her shaved twat…
Mal allows His leering henchman to push his fingers into the girl while He toys with her clitoris, tweaking & pinching at it as He has so-recently done to her nipples. The man seems incapable of any sex act that does not directly involve sadistic cruelty.
Heather tries to struggle, but Mal holds her tightly by her right hip with His free hand, forcing her to submit to their crazed assault upon her bald-shaved genitals. Both men take turns groping between her shapely bottomcheeks, violating her anus with their outthrust fingers. Heather wriggles & tries to flinch away from this new outrage, but her struggles only serve to whet their twisted lusts.
Both men withdraw their fingers from her brutally pummeled orifices.
“I want to see you play with her tits—” Mal instructs his cohort. “Hurt her. I want to see this little cunt squirm.”
Snuff wastes no time in complying, again sadistically savaging Heather’s firm, jiggling cones of flesh. Mal fondles His penis while He watches her torment & degradation for several minutes before boredom sets in & He must seek some new demented thrill.
“Why not offer our little playmate, here, some coke…? I would ask her if she wishes milk & cookies, but she’ll be lactating on her own, soon enough. If. There. Are. No. Complications. & we can both see what a splendid little cookie she has already started to share with us…” He says.
Snuff stands. Walks over to the dresser, & returns with his vial of cocaine.
Snuff opens it, & uses his gold razor to draw two perfectly heaped lines of the white powder along the ridgelines of her vulva.
Then he buries his face between her thighs, sucking the powder into his flaring nostrils, doin’ the lines while his tongue probes obscenely into her widespread slit.
The small quantity of remaining powder he rubs briskly into the moist folds & tunnel of her sex.
“Go ahead, Snuff. Stick your cock in her! I want to watch you FUCK HER UP THE FUCKING CUNT! STICK IT UP HER & FUCK THE LITTLE BASTARD FOR ALL THAT SHE IS WORTH! THINK ABOUT THE BABY SHE HAS WRIGGLING WITHIN HER WOMB, & PRETEND THAT IT IS YOU WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAKING IT IN HER!” Mal’s characteristic monotone has finally given way to a fevered snarl of unfettered lust.
[ 58 ]
Frank cradles the receiver after talking with Carter, then stares at the phone. After a moment of indecision, he punches the buttons sequencing a call to Judy Lynn.
His ex-wife answers on the fourth ring.
“It’s me,” he says. “How are the kids?”
“Missy has a cold & Frank Junior has a black eye. But they’re fine, really.”
“How’d he get the black eye?”
“Oh, he got into it with a couple of gang boys from his school.”
“You’ll never change, will you, Frank? Of course, your son won. He used those punches you showed him, he said. He’s so macho now I can hardly stand him. Just like you. All that macho bullshit.”
“Cheap shot, Sweetheart. So, how’re you doing?”
After a long silence, she says, “I’m making it.”
“Yeah? With who?”
“Fuck you, Frank. If you just called to harass me…”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve said that. Can I talk to the kids?”
“Missy’s asleep. You don’t want me to wake her do you?”
“No. How about F.J.?”
“Frank Junior’s still out with his friends—playing basketball over at the gym, I think…”
“Okay. Well, tell them I called, at least. Will you?” He fights to keep his voice from trembling: “And tell them that I love them very much.”
“I will.”
“Thanks, Judy. Bye.”
After a trip to the bathroom to relieve his bladder, Frank stretches out on the bed, closes his eyes, & waits for Clarence to call back.
He’s crashing back down off the peak of a caffeine jag that had him up all the last three nights—wired tight as any cranked-out meth-head—playing & replaying the mental tapes that were his past 88 hours since departing his homebase of the Windy City…
Within minutes he is asleep.
Dreaming. In black & white. Film noir a la Psycho:
Judy Lynn is in the shower, soaping her breasts, her arms, her belly…alone, humming a showtune, dipping her lathered fingers into her wet pubic hair, lower, deeper, closing her eyes now, no longer humming, but breathing faster, oblivious to the shadow moving on the shower curtain, moaning a little, the shadow getting bigger, letting the hot water wash down the front of her body, the soap suds gathering, unnoticed, at the gurgling drain, then the shower is swept open & a backlit figure stands with raised knife… a silver arc of blade… tempered steel meeting soft flesh… chook chook chook… Judy screaming… her assailant’s face coming into slow focus through the mist from the hot shower… Frank’s face, twisted into a rictus grin, leering at her as he stabs her again & again & again, her breasts bleeding from countless punctures & she screams, “NO, FRANK, NO…”
[ 59 ]
Mal allows her a moment’s respite after Snuff has orgasmed into her twice & finally unsheathed his still-stiff cock.
Mal walks to the dresser, returning with the toilet brush.
Heather’s eyes fill with absolute terror & sickened disgust when she realizes what this monster intends to do with it…
Mal grasps the cleaner just below the loop of the brush. Then guides the long plastic handle between Heather’s widespread thighs. Inserts the thick, rounded tip of it between the lips of her shaved sex. & forces the length of the filthy instrument inch by inch into the acutely sensitive tunnel of the young girl’s vagina. Thrusting it all the way into her until the tip of the handle batters excruciatingly against her cervix…& beyond…deep into her womb…
Mal rapes her brutally with the toilet brush while He grasps the length of His jutting penis with His left hand, holding it directly above her shaved slit, jacking Himself off in a positive frenzy of perverse excitement.
The crazed serial slayer’s face soon knots itself into a demonic mask of sick rapture. His eyes roll up, showing nothing but blank whites through His slitted lids,
“Oooohhh! FUCK! Oooohhh! FUCK! Ohhh! FUCK HER FUCKIN’ FUCK…!” He moans mindlessly, & begins to spew His semen onto the bald-shaved mound of her hideously violated genitals & soft, quivering young belly… His onanistically spilled seed splatters in sticky spurts across her naked flesh.
Mal tugs the brush handle from her bruised & battered sex.
Heather lies belly-up on the bed, legs wide-splayed, her ankles & wrists still cinched securely with lengths of clothesline. She moans & whimpers through her gag, writhing in agony as sharp bursts of pain stab her back & lower abdomen. The rumpled sheets beneath her buttocks are soaked with blood & small clots of livery tissue, as are her inner thighs & belly…
Mal thrusts His face down there, into the exposed hollow between her wide-open thighs, crushing His mouth to Heather’s pubic mound…
Once again,
they are forcing aside the frail thin membrane that separates REASON & REALITY from TOTAL MADNESS…
breaking through to the other side
INTO THAT ETERNAL HELL-WORLD OF THEIR SEEKING, A FLUID SEA/WOMB OF TORTURE & PERVERTED SEX & DEATH… THE ROOM SEEMS FILLED WITH CRASHING WAVES OF COLD BLUE LIGHT, THE SCREEN OF THE TELEVISION FLICKERING HYPNOTICALLY, SEDUCING ALL WHO WATCH INTO THE DEEPEST DEEPS OF FEVERED MELANCHOLIA, DEPRAVITY & …
[ 60 ]
He awakes with a jerk of panic, as if his body is trying to flee the bloody vision his mind dreamed up for him.
Frank sits up & looks around, seeing his dog curled on the floor of the low-rent room.
Frank’s pulse is racing, his breathing shallow & rapid.
The phone rings.
“Yeah?” He answers.
“I’ve got something for you,” says Clarence Carter.
“Go ahead.”
“The victim was 29-year-old Mary Gruber, a.k.a., Phaedra Flame. She was a poet, or is it poetess? real artsy-fartsy type, into all kinds of new wave art shit. She was mutilated & literally turned into a human piece of abstract art, according to Captain Lucas. Carved into her forehead was a number—‘seven. seven. three. four.’”
“Anything else?”
“No, that’s it.”
“Thanks, old buddy,” says Frank. “I owe you.”
“No sweat, man. I guess you’re bound for Miami now.”
“Yeah. I’ll stay in touch.”
“Later.”
“Oh. Wait. One more thing, Clarence, if it isn’t asking too much—”
“Yeah?”
“All this number stuff, this numerology bit with the forehead carving, a bit Manson-esque, isn’t it? Anyway, it just jogged a train of thought I’ve been mulling over for quite some while but haven’t had the access to through my normal contacts…”
“Oooohhh! Keeeeeee-r-ist! I can feel this one coming! Must be a goddamn doozie!”
“Well, it’s no cake walk. If you wanna bow out—?”
“No. I’m in, my friend! Allll thway innnnn, from what my gut instincts are screamin’ at me—” Clarence moans.
“Okay. I admit it’s a wildass theory. & I know it’s an ultra-longshot, but I’ve gotta play every possible angle…”
“So, what’s the bottomline, Frank?”
“Oh. Yeah. I’ve got this wildass theory that certain hints the Zodiac left point to the fact that He was born sometime within a minute-or-two either side of midnight on May 20th. The year is a big question mark—”
“Heh. Earlier you come on like you’re playing recruiter for the High Priest of Evil, ‘the Black Pope’ himself. & now you’re tryin’ to compete with the Amazing Kreskin, huh? Shit, man, next you’ll be trying to do palmistry readings on me!”
“‘No. Cut the bull, Clarence. I may be off base, but I’ve got some interesting data to back up my hypothesis—”
“Like—?”
“First, we know, without doubt, that the Zodiac & its signs were obsessions with Him. Right?”
“Sure. That’s belaboring the obvious.”
“Second, we found five astrological ‘Taurus’ symbols that He’d hidden in His letters.”
“Okay. Still with you.”
“Well, the too-obvious conclusion is that He was telling us He was a Taurus…”
“Why do you think He wasn’t?”
“Hah! Our boy was far too ingenious, too subtle for that. His fixation initially was tied up with the ego-bit of taunting us. Proving His ‘superiority.’ I never could buy that He’d be satisfied with such simplicities. He called Himself the ‘Cipher Slayer’ & prided Himself on the onion-skin layers of His game of Truth & Deception…
”
“I admit your line of reasoning has merit.”
“Thanks, C.C.. Glad you’re willing to keep an open mind—”
Frank pauses for a moment. “Where was I—?” he asks. “Oh. Yeah. One fairly plausible explanation is He was telling us that certain ‘facts’ He’d related were ‘Bull.’ An interesting concept, as He usually seemed to ‘shoot straight with us’—psycho or not, He felt so superior I don’t think He felt that He needed to lie…”
“You’re saying that telling the truth, albeit riddled & concealed, was a part of His obsessive-compulsive behavioral pattern?”
“Yep. Oh. Another aside, while I think of it—our best psychological-profile boys in the Bureau all had Him ‘made’ as a sexual sadist, a far more elusive quarry than either a psychopath or a psychotic. I’ll spare you the ‘whys’ & ‘wherefores’ for now, just trust me.
“Now, if we ask ourselves the ‘why?’ as to how it relates to His initial & primary obsession with the Zodiac thing, one very strong possibility, perhaps the strongest possibility, is that there was something truly unique about His personal relationship to the ‘Scheme’ of things RE the astrology/Zodiac bit. Of course, if His name was ‘Zodiac’—but that’s too obvious, again, right?—”