Most of the buildings had been razed. The few that were still standing were gutted or boarded up. Rubble was strewn throughout the streets and alleys. A few years back a wealthy real-estate developer had proposed developing this part of town into an upper-class preserve, a yuppie enclave. Gilcrease, only nicer. He bought up and tore down most of the residences and street-front stores, but before he got to the renovation part of the plan, the oil bust hit, followed by the long-lingering recession. The project was abandoned. And Richfield was left in shambles, even worse off than it had been before.
“Are you sure this is where the creep lives?” Ben asked as he stared at the urban oblivion.
“I’m sure this is the address the DMV gave me for his license-plate number.”
“Are we sure it belongs to the man we’re looking for?”
“The car registered is a gray Ford sedan. Unless he stole the car, this is the right address.”
Ben peered through the passenger window at the vast wasteland. “But no one could live out here.”
Mike nodded grimly. “I think we have to face reality. The man we’re after is smart. And careful. And he didn’t start this sick business yesterday, either. He prepared.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, for instance, he registered his car and license under a fake address. It’s not that hard to do. No one really checks; most of the time the officials will blindly accept anything you write on the form.”
“That’s disappointing.”
“Very. After all, if the address is fake, it’s a safe bet the name is fake, too.”
“But why here? Why this address?”
“Beats me. Probably it’s the first address that came to his mind. Maybe he’d been out here for some other reason and knew no one lived here. After all, the only way he could be caught would be if he gave an address already claimed by someone else. The computer would catch that. So he probably—”
Without warning, Mike slammed down on the brakes. Since he had been traveling at a considerable speed, the sudden stop threw Ben forward against the dash.
“What are you doing?” Ben screamed. “There’s not another car in sight! Only you could nearly kill us when you’re the only car on the road.”
Mike didn’t say anything. He was staring out the window on his side of the car.
“What’s the matter? What are you looking at?”
“I’m not entirely sure. But I think it’s … yes!” Mike popped open the door and sprang out of the car. “Blue!”
“Blue?”
“Right. I’ll go in the front. You drive around the block and watch the rear exit. And call for backup. We may need it. Don’t let him get away!”
“Blue?” Ben wanted to ask several more detailed questions, but it was too late. Mike was already barreling across the street, his trench coat flapping in the breeze.
What was it Mike saw? Ben squinted into the blazing sun and peered at the building Mike was making a beeline for. It looked like all the rest of them to Ben. Empty, hollowed out. Ruined. Graffiti on the walls. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except—
Wait a minute. He was looking too high. There was something on the ground, something on the sidewalk in front of the building.
Something blue.
Ben crawled into the driver’s seat and threw the car into drive while fumbling with the handset.
It was a blue book bag.
39
“THAT’S IT, ABIE. NOW just a few more.”
Abie stared into the camera lens and tried his best not to cry. He was so scared of Sam. The look in his eyes terrified him; he was certain the man would hurt him if he got mad again. If Abie didn’t do everything Sam wanted him to do.
Abie had stripped down to his underwear, no further. Sam had grinned, said something about taking it one step at a time, and began clicking the camera. He kept moving Abie around, repositioning him, telling him to act happy or sad or other words Abie didn’t even understand. Abie hated this, he felt … he didn’t know. Gross. Dirty. It made him sick, and it made him sad.
It made him want to be home with his mommy.
And dad.
Sam stepped away from the camera. “All right, then. Let’s try another pose.”
“Don’t wanna,” Abie whispered, backing away.
“Tired of posing? Well, I guess that’s fair. You’ve been working hard. Maybe we should take a break.” He reached out and grabbed Abie’s hand. “Maybe we should do something else. We could play a game. You and me, together. A real fun game. Would you like to do that?”
“No,” Abie said, lower lip protruding. “Don’t wanna play a game. I wanna go home.”
“All in good time, Abie. All in good time.” He held fast to Abie’s hand. “Do you like to be touched, Abie?”
Abie tried to twist away. “No!”
“What about when your mother pats you on the back to help you fall asleep? I bet you like that, don’t you, Abie?”
Abie continued to squirm. “So?”
“Well, that’s okay for little babies, Abie, but grown-ups have other ways of touching. Better ways. Would you like to learn about those?”
Abie was so scared he didn’t know what to do. Tears tumbled out of his eyes. He yanked as hard as he could, but he couldn’t get away.
“I said, would you like to learn what grown-ups do?”
Abie continued to struggle.
“Answer me, Abie.” The man pulled the boy close to him. His hands slowly moved around Abie. “Do you want to do something wonderful?” He stroked Abie’s chin. “Do you?”
“No!” Abie took Sam’s hand inside his mouth and bit down on it as hard as he could.
Sam shrieked.
Abie tried to break away, but Sam still held his arm firmly.
“You ungrateful brat!” Sam slapped Abie, hard, right across the face. Abie tumbled backward, falling onto the exposed concrete floor.
“I didn’t want to do that,” Sam said quickly. His breathing was becoming fast and irregular. “You made me do that. You’re a dirty boy, and you had to be punished. Now let’s see if we can do better—”
Abie pushed himself to his feet. Something about the slap had worked wonders, had shaken him out of his lethargic, dazed state. He felt a surge of energy charging through his body. He was free of Sam for the moment. He was going to make the most of it.
Abie ran behind the camera. “Stay away from me!”
“But Abie. We’re friends.”
“We’re not friends! You’re not my friend. You’re—I don’t know what you are. But I don’t like you anymore.”
A dark cloud seemed to cover Sam’s eyes. “Don’t be this way, Abie.” He stepped slowly toward the boy.
“Stay away from me!” Abie reached into the equipment bag, pulled out the Polaroid camera, and threw it at Sam.
Sam dodged the camera, but it fell with a crash onto the concrete floor, shattering into pieces.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Sam snarled. “You’ve ruined the camera.” He continued advancing toward Abie. “I don’t allow my little boys to hurt my belongings.”
Abie grabbed the black bag and hurled it at Sam. Sam caught it, but the impact knocked him backward.
“All right, Abie. Now I’m mad.” His jaw was tightly clenched. “And you don’t have anything left to throw, do you?”
Abie ran to the back of the room. He slammed against the door and turned the knob—
It was locked.
“How stupid do you think I am, Abie? Of course I locked the door. We wouldn’t want anyone walking in on us, would we?”
Abie kicked and pounded on the door, all to no avail.
“It’s pointless, Abie. It’s a very strong lock. I put it in myself.”
Turning, Abie saw Sam hovering over him, his face burning with anger. Abie pressed back against the door, more scared than he had ever been in his life. There was nothing else for him to do, nowhere else for him to go. He was trapped.
“Now
I’ve got you, you dirty, weak little boy. And now you’re going to be punished. Over and over again. Until you’re clean.”
Abie screamed, but even as he did he knew that he was far, far away from anyone who could help him.
40
WHY DID IT ALWAYS happen like this? Sam thought. Why were the little boys always so mean, so unappreciative in the end? Didn’t they know he loved them? Didn’t they know all he wanted was to take care of them, to share something wonderful with them? Couldn’t they see that?
He pinned Abie against the door. He pressed his hand firmly against Abie’s chest, then leaned forward and immersed his face in Abie’s hair. Oh God! He smelled so delicious! So intoxicating! He loved this boy so much.
“I’ll give you one last chance to be good, Abie. Won’t you play with me?”
“No!” Abie screamed, tears in his eyes. “I don’t want anything to do with you. I want to go home!”
Sam reared back his hand and slapped the boy across the face, even harder than before. He grabbed Abie and pounded him against the door. “I was so good to you. I gave you everything you wanted. And how do you repay me? How?” He squeezed Abie so tightly his fingers left impressions on the boy’s skin, then pounded him against the door again and again.
“You’re hurtin’ me!” Abie cried.
“I’ll do worse than that.” He took his free hand and clamped it around the little boy’s throat. Abie gasped, but too late. He couldn’t get any air.
“I don’t want to do this, Abie. I truly don’t,” Sam said as he squeezed even tighter. “But you’ve left me no choice. You’re no use to me when you act like this. No use at all.” He pressed his thumb down against Abie’s larynx while tightening his chokehold.
Why did it always have to end this way? It could have been beautiful. They could have trusted one another—
But no. Abie had proven he couldn’t be trusted, just like the boy in the park, and the boy at the mall, and all the others. He couldn’t take the chance of their escaping once they made it clear they would talk.
They had to die.
Gritting his teeth, he squeezed even harder. Abie’s face was turning blue, and he no longer appeared to be breathing. It would be only a few more seconds now. …
41
JUST AS SAM TIGHTENED his chokehold he heard a tremendous booming noise, and the wall behind Abie seemed to lurch forward. Distracted, the man eased his grip on Abie’s throat. What in the hell …?
Wait a minute. It wasn’t the wall moving. It was the door.
Someone was trying to break down the door. Someone was trying to get into his secret place.
Before he could react, the door bowed forward again, and a few seconds after that it burst open, knocking Abie several feet into the room. Abie fell face forward on the concrete floor, motionless.
Sam jerked his head around and saw a bulky man with dark wavy hair and—despite the fact that it was probably a hundred degrees outside—a tan trench coat. He was holding a gun.
“Freeze, you son of a bitch,” the newcomer said. “You’re under arrest.”
Mike tried to absorb the scene as quickly as possible. The man crouched in front of him had to be the pervert. He was tall and he was wearing a Marvin the Martian T-shirt and a red wig that had fallen forward on one side.
A few feet into the room, Mike saw a small boy lying on the cold floor. He wasn’t wearing anything except his jockey shorts. He didn’t move.
Mike would’ve liked nothing more than to grab the sex offender and pound his face against the wall a few thousand times, but he somehow managed to restrain himself. “Get down on the floor,” he barked. “Hands behind your back.”
Mike pulled his cuffs out of his back pocket, then was startled by a muffled gasping sound from the boy. A trickle of blood dripped down the side of his face; he seemed to be having trouble breathing. He might need CPR. As in immediately. Damn.
“Don’t try anything,” Mike ordered. He quickly slid the cuffs over the man’s wrists, then stepped over him to get to the boy. “Don’t try to get away,” he warned, then he crouched down beside Abie’s body.
“Are you all right?” He touched the side of the boy’s face. No reaction.
He turned Abie’s head around, placed two fingers against the neck, and searched for a pulse. “Goddamn you,” Mike murmured. “If you’ve killed another one—”
The man on the floor was smiling at him. Grinning.
Mike gripped the boy by the shoulders. “Come on, Abie. Don’t give up. Come back to us.”
Still no response.
Mike held his hand over the boy’s mouth. He didn’t feel anything.
Damn, damn, damn. He would have to try CPR. Maybe if he just got the boy breathing again, he’d come back.
Mike cleared the boy’s mouth with his finger and tilted back his head. As a police officer, he’d been trained in all forms of CPR. The techniques were slightly different for small children, but damned if he could remember exactly how. He’d just have to plunge in and hope for the best.
He started CPR, watching to see if the boy’s chest rose.
No luck.
Come on, Abie! He crouched down again and blew air into the child’s lungs. Don’t give up on us, Abie. Don’t give up!
The man in the wig hit Mike in the gut, knocking him onto his back. A follow-up kick to Mike’s hand sent his gun skidding across the room. Mike pushed himself back up on all fours, but before he could do anything, the man hit him again, this time with a foot pounding into the small of his back.
Mike fell down onto the concrete. His face hit the floor, momentarily scrambling his brains. Stupid fool. He’d gotten so concerned about reviving Abie he’d forgotten to keep his eye on the goddamn pervert. He shook his head forcefully, trying to clear away the cobwebs.
He heard the man coming at him again. Grunting, Mike rolled over onto his back. The man was almost directly over him. Straining with all his might, Mike raised his feet and kicked the front of the man’s kneecaps.
The attack took the man completely by surprise. He cried out, then crumbled to the floor, Mike saw his opportunity. While the man struggled to pull himself together Mike gave him his best roundhouse punch to the stomach.
The man screamed. Mike followed insult with injury—he caught the man between the legs with a swift kick to the groin. Mike’s instructor at the academy had been right—trite though it may be, it was the most decisive way to stop an attack. The man doubled up and went reeling across the room.
He fell back onto a mattress in the center of the room beside a camera. Just looking at the scenario made Mike feel ill. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out what this was about. And when the lab boys developed the film, as they would be required to do, he would have to look at the pictures. …
Mike blocked it out of his mind. First things first. Apparently he hadn’t done as good a job on the sicko’s knees as he had hoped. The man was getting himself up and his legs seemed to be supporting him. He was desperately trying to pull himself together, gasping for air, leaning on the tripod.
“Stay down, you sick piece of scum,” Mike said, lumbering toward the camera. He was breathing rather heavily himself. And where the hell was his gun? “Don’t give me an excuse to shove you out a window. I’d enjoy it too much, and that’s—”
The flash went off directly into Mike’s eyes. He was standing barely a half a foot from the camera and looking straight at the bulb; the sudden illumination blinded him.
He reached out for the creep, but he was already gone. Mike could hear the footsteps of the man scrambling away.
Mike blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. Still blind as a bat, he stumbled toward the door. He couldn’t see anything, but he remembered generally where the door was. He made it to the top of the stairs, but remembered how dangerous and unstable they had been. He had almost killed himself coming up. And back then he could see where he was going.
He could barely hear the man’s footstep
s now; they were far ahead of him.
Damn safety anyway! It was now or never. Mike extended one foot and lowered himself onto the first step. So far so good. He took another step, then another. If he just took it easy, didn’t rush, didn’t take any chances, he should be—
Suddenly .the ground went out from under him. His feet sank through the stairs, plummeting him downward. He extended his hands to break his fall, and just in time. He narrowly missed falling all the way through.
“Ben!” he shouted. There was no response. Naturally. Ben would be on the other side of the building watching the rear exit. And he wouldn’t see the perp because, thanks to Mike’s own stupidity, he was escaping through the front door.
He had to face facts. The son of a bitch had gotten away. The best thing Mike could do now was get back to that little boy and get him medical attention as soon as possible.
If it wasn’t too late.
The white light obscuring Mike’s vision gradually dissipated. He managed to extract his legs from the hole in the steps and to crawl back up. He ran into the room and knelt over Abie’s body.
The boy still had not moved.
This was the worst of all, the most crushing failure. Not only did the pervert escape, but the little boy—
Wait a minute. Did he imagine that, or did the boy …?
Yes! He moved. Praise God Almighty—he moved!
“Abie, can you hear me? How do you feel? Can you breathe? Does your head hurt?”
Abie blinked rapidly several times, then peered out through clouded, watery eyes. “Who …?”
“I’m a policeman,” Mike said, his heart nearly beating out of his chest. “I’m—I’m here to help you.”
Abie’s breathing slowly became more regular. His lips trembled, and all at once he began to cry. “Will you please take me home?”
“Of course I will.” Mike scooped the boy up and cradled him protectively in his arms. “Don’t worry about a thing,” he whispered. “Everything’s going to be all right now. Everything’s going to be fine.”.
THREE
Cruel Justice Page 23