“We’ll just prowl around the area, until your wife is gone,” Cole said. “We’ll stay away from the club. What about Luddy and Earl?”
“Who?” the sheriff asked. “Oh! The two ’necks you shoved through the door. Yeah. That would probably be Luddy Post and Earl Wilson. I’m guessing now. Sometimes we find the bodies, but mostly they just disappear.” He sighed. “I’ve got a lot of sins to atone for, people. I don’t even know where to start.”
“You’ve already started, Sheriff,” Katti told him. “Let me ask you something: other than the chiefs of police and sheriffs that we know about through Billy Jordan and Ray Sharp, how many others know about the clubs in their jurisdictions?”
“Well, it would be purely a guess on my part, but I’d say none of them. Reason I say that is, because over the years, some of them would have surely gone public with it. They wouldn’t all be like me and Sheriff Reno and Captain Wood and Dick Austin and Paul Mallory and Sheriff Paxton and the few others.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t think there are any other conspirators among the law enforcement community. But I know there are many, many files about missing persons in other agencies. I’ve spoken with sheriff’s investigators and police detectives and state police from several states. Hundreds of people have vanished along this stretch over the long years. Three or four years ago, it started leaving a bad taste in my mouth to lie about it.” He paused, a strange expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Gary asked.
“If those . . . things . . .” Like the others, Sheriff Al Pickens had a difficult time vocalizing the word ghosts. “... know so damn much, how come they didn’t see I was getting more and more reluctant about shielding them and do something with me?”
“You mean, perhaps they are not all-seeing and all-knowing?” Jim asked.
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Somebody is feeding them information?” Bev asked.
“That has to be it. They can travel only a few miles from that old club site, then they begin to lose . . . something, I don’t know what to call it, and change into those sparkling dots that people see.”
“And it’s only when they materialize that they are vulnerable,” Cole said.
“Yeah.” The sheriff smiled for the first time that evening. “To that souped-up stun gun of yours. Who the hell would have thought that? Where the hell did you get those things?”
“At a police supply place in Memphis. I just did a little bit of work on them. I’ve got a case of them.”
“I want one.”
“You’ve got it.”
“Will they kill a man?”
“I ...” Cole hesitated. “Well, they might. If a person was not in good health. They might stop a human heart.”
“Umm,” was all the sheriff had to say about that.
* * *
“You fucked it all up,” Arlene told Captain Wood.
“I underestimated the abilities of Younger and the others, and overestimated the abilities of the men I hired to do the job.” Wood admitted that much. “I can bring some professionals. But it’s going to be very expensive if we go that route.”
“Are they good?”
“It’s what they do for a living,” Wood said drily. “One of the men has over thirty whacks to his credit, and has never even been a suspect in any of them. He’s a mob favorite.”
“How much?” Victoria asked.
“For a job this size?” Captain Wood thought for a moment. “About a quarter of a million dollars, plus expenses. We’re talking about killing a half dozen people, at least. The man I’m thinking about will have to bring two or three others in with him. And it can’t be done over any long period of time. It has to be done all at once.”
“We’ll think about it,” Victoria said, standing up. “That’s a lot of money. Right now, you fuck her,” she pointed to Arlene. “I want to watch.”
* * *
Cole had said nothing to Sheriff Pickens about Tommy’s warning that they were looking in the wrong direction. He had suspected that for several days, and had said nothing about it to Katti or the others. He had no proof—just a hunch. But that hunch was growing stronger.
Without telling the others, Cole used a pay phone and called a man he knew down in New Orleans, a man who for years had walked both sides of the law and order line. Only recently had he straightened up his act and gone legitimate.
Cole talked for about fifteen minutes, and when he hung up the phone, he was smiling. Sitting in his Bronco, he muttered, “How bizarre. But where do the ghosts tie in? What the hell is the connection? And who is really behind it all?”
He slipped the Bronco into gear and pulled out. “Time to do a little police work,” he said.
* * *
Fifteen hundred miles away, John Costa hung up the phone and sat in his study for a time. When he had told Captain Wood his price, that double-dealing, rogue cop son of a bitch had not hesitated. So that meant there was real big money behind this hit.
John walked into the kitchen and fixed a pot of coffee. He had a lot of thinking to do. He still wasn’t sure he wanted to take this job. Killing cops was bad business. He knew that for a fact, for John used to be a cop. It was a big family, with thousands of relatives. A brotherhood. And if he took the deal, he couldn’t use just muscle, the men would have to be intelligent, as well. And that combination did not often go hand in hand.
Costa fixed his coffee, carefully mixing in sugar and cream, and walked back into his study. He sat down and went over the list of possibles in his mind, rejecting most of the men and women immediately. He really didn’t want to use city boys and girls in the country. They stood out like a hammered thumb.
After an hour, he had chosen three people: Weber, Collins, and Ginny Hammond. All three were experienced, and they were smart. Costa packed an overnight bag, locked up his house, and drove into the city. He checked into a small but expensive downtown hotel, and began contacting the two men and the woman. It took most of that night and all of the next day to set up meets and firm up the deal. He met Weber at a restaurant down on 1st Avenue, Collins at Grand Central Station, and Ginny up at the Cloisters, laying out the deal . . . at least as much as he knew about it. He held back nothing.
The next morning they began their flights into Memphis, Little Rock, and St. Louis. Costa and Ginny linked up in Memphis, Collins went into Little Rock, and Weber into St. Louis. They rented cars and headed for northwest Arkansas. Costa had told Wood what they would need, and the rogue cop had said supplying it would be no problem. They checked into motels at Blytheville and Osceola, Arkansas. The next night they would shift to motels in Dyersburg, Tennessee and Sikeston, Missouri, the third night they would move to motels in Kennett, Missouri and Piggott, Arkansas. On the evening of the fourth day, they would make their touch and be gone. At least that was the way Costa had it worked out, if all went well.
* * *
Sheriff Al Pickens saw his wife and her companions off at the airport in Memphis, and was back in his county an hour and a half later. His chief deputy, Win Bryan, had asked for his vacation time and Al had okayed it. Al sensed that everything was coming down to the wire, and the whole mess was more than likely about to explode. In whose face was the question.
Al sat behind his desk at the office, the office door closed, wondering who in his department he could really trust. He knew that most of the older deputies were solidly behind Win. They knew nothing firm about the ghost clubs, only that there were dozens of rumors about strange sightings in and around the area, but those had been circulating for years. Al concluded that there was only one deputy he could really trust. A young man who had only been wearing a badge for a couple of years—Frank Bruce. Al had known Frank all his young life; had coached him in Little League. Frank was six foot three, about two hundred and twenty pounds, solid as an oak tree, literally did not know his own strength, and he was totally loyal to Al.
Al walked out of his office, through the front door, a
nd spotted Frank just pulling up in his unit. He walked over to the young deputy. “Meet me at the south gate of Fletcher Farms in an hour, Frank. Don’t tell anybody where you’re going. No one. Understood?”
“Yes, sir, Sheriff. One hour. I’ll be there.”
Using the phone in his car, Al called the number of Cole’s mobile phone, which Cole always took into the motel room with him. An hour later, all the players on one side of the issue were gathered in the timber, by a little creek on the south side of Fletcher Farms. Al introduced Frank all around. There were a dozen questions in the young deputy’s eyes, but he kept his silence.
“Everyone seems to have taken their vacations at the same time,” Al told the group. “My chief deputy, Judge Evans, Chief Deputy Sam Rogers, Sheriff Paxton, Judge Silas Parnell, Captain Curtis Wood. Something is about to pop. And I got a dirty feeling that it’s gonna be us, if we let it.” He turned to Frank. “Frank, sit down on that stump over there, boy. Believe me, you don’t want to be standing when you get a head full of what we’re about to tell you.”
“Yes, sir.” Frank sat.
Two minutes later, the young deputy’s eyes were bugging out, and his mouth had dropped open.
And that was only the beginning.
Fourteen
A badly shaken young deputy sat on the stump in silence for a few moments, trying to make some sense out of what he’d just heard. Frank Bruce was a deeply religious young man, a member of the local Baptist church who taught Sunday School whenever his work schedule permitted it. He was religious, but not prudish. A truly prudish cop is a rare thing.
“The devil? Ghosts?” Frank finally found his voice. “The rumors about that old roadhouse are true? Come on!” He tried a smile. “You guys are putting me on, right?”
He met the eyes of the group. He saw no humor in any of them. Frank’s smile slowly faded. “You guys are serious, aren’t you? I mean . . . you . . . Oh, my God!”
“The devil has nothing to with it,” Cole said, after a moment had passed. “Or at the least, very little. I finally figured out what Tommy was trying to tell you the other night, Katti. Or I think I have.”
“Let me call in to see if I have any messages,” Al said. “I want to hear this.” He returned in just a moment. “Everything is quiet. You ready with this theory of yours, Cole?”
“Yes. Gary, you said you’d been doing a lot of reading about the supernatural, as have most of us. Have you ever found a single incident where a ghost actually killed anyone?”
Gary shook his head. “No. Never. A ghost can certainly make a person hurt themselves. And a poltergeist can make noise and throw things around—or whatever they do to make objects move. But a ghost can’t kill anyone.”
“That’s right. Billy Jordan and Ray Sharp were right in a lot of their beliefs, but way off base as far as the rest of it goes.” He looked at Katti and Jim. “You recall how bright those sparkling dots were out at Katti’s house? We had to avert our eyes to maintain vision. They were almost blinding in intensity. I don’t doubt those sparkling beings appeared at Billy and Ray’s houses, but someone else did the killing, while the old men were nearly blinded by the lights. Someone very human.”
“But how about the years of assaults and rapes all up and down the highway?” Katti asked. “I felt hands on me. I know that!”
“Ghosts can’t rape anyone. You certainly felt something cold,” Cole said. “But what you were experiencing was the touch of the grave.”
Katti was not alone in shuddering at that thought.
“So you’re saying these ghosts are real, but harmless?” Sheriff Pickens asked.
“Not harmless. Just unable to kill. What they do is entice people into the clubs, then somehow, I don’t know how, hold them there until a living being comes for them. Perhaps just the sight of these things cause most people to faint, or become so scared and disoriented that they can’t get away, can’t find their way out of that old roadhouse.”
“Then what happens?” Bob asked.
“Well . . . my theory gets awfully iffy at this point. I don’t know how these things communicate with the living, but somehow they do. That’s when those people who were unfortunate enough to wander into that roadhouse are seized and used by real people.”
“But what is the point of it all, Cole?” Jim asked. “Is this some sort of weird, kinky sex club?”
“I can believe that,” Sheriff Pickens said. “Roscoe Evans is damn sure kinky. And so, from what I’ve heard, are Arlene and Victoria. And Captain Wood, to a degree. Maybe a few of the others. But there’s more, isn’t there, Cole?”
“Yes. I spoke with a man who was on the wrong side of the law for years. He lives down in New Orleans. For years he was heavily involved in the pornography business. But he drew the line at snuff films. He testified before a federal grand jury and helped put a number of people behind bars. I asked him if the snuff film business was still going on. He said it was—big time. Maybe stronger than ever before. With new slants to it. And he said of late he’d been hearing that the films were being shipped out of Memphis. But not shot there. He said he heard they were being filmed somewhere out in the country ... in North Arkansas.”
“Son of a bitch!” Al Pickens blurted. “Things are beginning to fall into place now.”
“Please excuse my ignorance,” Deputy Bruce said. “But what is a snuff film?”
“A porno film where one or more of the participants is killed during or at the end of the sex act,” Bob Jordan told the young man.
“That’s disgusting!” the deputy said.
“You bet it is,” Cole said. “But there is more. My man in New Orleans says this part of the country is fast becoming known—in certain circles—as not just the snuff film center, but also the kiddie porn capital of the United States. There is big money behind it, and big money being made from it.”
Bob looked at Cole. “Mob money?”
Cole shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe. I didn’t ask about that.”
“How young are the kids being used?” Frank asked, his face tight with anger.
“All ages, my man said.”
“People who use children in deviant acts should be killed,” the young deputy said. “No trial, just killed on the spot.”
“I damn sure agree with that,” the Memphis cop said.
“Victoria Staples is a mean bitch,” Sheriff Pickens said. “She’s a man-hater, and most people know that, too. If y’all know what I mean. But she’s worth millions. One of the richest people in the state, if not the richest. Old, old money. Her family settled here back in the early 1800’s. Arlene Simmons had buckets of money, when she married into more money. And in her own way, she’s just as mean as Victoria. I often wondered why those two women would want to keep company with the likes of Win Bryan, Nick Pullen, and Sid Ballard. Those three are abnormal in the sex department, if you ladies will excuse my language——”
“Heavy hung ol’ boys,” Bev said.
The sheriff flushed and cleared his throat. “That’s right.”
Deputy Frank Bruce went red in the face and refused to look at Katti and Bev.
“Well,” Cole said, breaking into the silent embarrassment, “there is something we’re going to have to do, and like it or not, it has to be done.”
“Get ahold of some snuff films and view them,” Bob said, then spat on the ground.
“That’s right. Bob, can you access your Memphis files and get pictures of the people reported missing in this area?”
“Sure. I get you. We cross-check the people in the snuff films against the pictures on file.”
“Right.”
Katti said, “Cole? How are you going to get your hands on some snuff films? I mean, you can’t just walk into a video store and rent them!”
“The guy in New Orleans is sending me a box of them. They should be here tomorrow.”
“I have a wide screen TV at my house,” Al said. “We can view the goddamn things there.”
“I
think I’m going to be sick,” Deputy Bruce said.
* * *
“The distributor is screaming for more films,” Win Bryan told the gathering. “He wants more rape and torture scenes.”
“Let’s grab these people who are nosing around, and use them,” it was suggested.
“No!” Victoria quickly nixed that. “That would be too risky. Someone would be sure to recognize one of them and link it to this area, then to us. It’s a good idea, and it would be fun watching, but no.”
Albert Pickens stirred restlessly in his chair. He needed some pussy bad. He knew he could always screw Arlene, but that cunt was old and tired. Albert wanted a young girl, twelve or so. Albert liked firm and hot young flesh beneath him; he liked the way they screamed when he rammed the meat to them. He rubbed his crotch. Damn! He was getting a boner just thinking about it.
“That’s not all,” Win said. “The distributor wants more black on white rape scenes. Big niggers and young white girls. There is a hell of a market for those.”
“We don’t do anything until this present mess is taken care of,” Victoria said. “And that will be over in seventy-two hours.” She paused and looked at each man and woman gathered in her den. “But we have another problem. Gerald Wilson.”
“That little goody-two-shoes, tight-assed prick,” Arlene said. “I have an idea how we can shut him up without killing.”
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