by Ray Garton
"Yeah. Son of a bitch's probably trying to work some supernatural angle into his story, witchcraft, the devil, whatever. I mean, my god, isn't it bad enough already? It's not horrible and scary just the way it is, a little boy disappearing like that?" Cotchell leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
"Yeah, you'd ... think so."
There was a silence between them for a moment.
"Can I get you something, Chief?" Douglas asked distractedly.
Cotchell lifted his head and looked across the office at the desk sergeant. "No, I'm fine." Then he leaned forward when he saw Douglas's worried frown. "Something wrong?"
"Oh, no. No. Just busy, that's all. Gotta go. I've gotta make a call."
"Thanks for dropping by, Douglas."
"No problem."
The sergeant closed the office door and Cotchell went back to work ...
When he got back to his room at the Lamplighter, Bent finished his first installment and faxed it to Fleck. The telephone rang in under fifteen minutes.
"You're a fuckin' genius!” Fleck bellowed.
"Hi, Fleck."
"I'm tellin' ya, you're a fuckin' genius! If they gave medals for the shit we write, you'd win the gold!"
"I can't tell you how much that warms the cockles of my heart. In fact, my cockles are glowing."
"Hey, you've only been there, what, a couple days? You come up with a piece like this? It's great! I mean this shit is so sappy and precious I could puke! You're a fuckin' genius!
"So I've heard. Recently. What if Bergenstern doesn't think it's hopeful enough?"
"You outta your fuckin' mind? She'll melt! It makes our paper look like a crusader! Like a fuckin' factory of hope!"
After Bent hung up, he laid back on his bed with a sigh. He'd included nothing about Cotchell in his piece. The chief seemed to be doing nothing more than his job. He might have been loud and threatening, but he seemed sincere.
But Bent had to admit he'd been more that a little disturbed by the suspicious, staring eyes of Sergeant Phil Douglas ...
2
The doorman in Coll's building removed the apartment key from his pocket and handed it over the second Bent identified himself. Bent thanked him and handed him a ten-dollar bill, smiling as he mumbled, "It's not my money, so you'll probably get more later."
Upstairs, he knocked first, to see if Coll was home, then tried the door. It was locked, so he let himself in and put on a pot of coffee, helped himself to a pack of cigarettes, flopped onto the sofa, and picked up the stack of papers Coll had left on the coffee table along with a note. The note read:
Bent —
Here's what I got from NEXUS. Hope it helps. Make yourself at home, help yourself to whatever, etc. I've gone to see a friend who's having trouble with his computer. If you're there, I'll see you soon.
Coll
Bent started going through the pages, frowning as he read slowly. Coll had even included a copy of an article titled "The Symbology of Fear," which went on at length about inverted crosses.
According to the material that Coll had provided, the inverted cross was a symbol often used by anyone who wished to mock Christianity and the crucifixion in particular. Since the crucifix, and what it represented, was at the very center of Christian belief, turning it upside down — especially if it was painted black — was the ultimate insult to Christ's sacred death.
Although frequently, and quite mistakenly, associated with witchcraft, it was a common symbol in the practice of Satan worship and black magic. It was common for such practitioners to perform rituals in which the inverted cross was spat upon, urinated, defecated, and sometimes even masturbated upon.
The pages covered Aleister Crowley, who had once been called by London tabloids "the wickedest man in the world." A practitioner of black "magick" (he preferred the old spelling to separate himself from what he considered the common stage magicians of the time), Crowley described Satan with words such as "life," "love," and "light," and referred to himself as "the Beast." He once baptized a frog as Christ and crucified it on an inverted cross to, of course, mock the crucifixion.
Bent read of Anton Szandor LaVey, a former circus performer who went on to found the Church of Satan and included in his rituals the inverted cross to defame Christianity. Although LaVey himself was no longer active, the church's headquarters was still operating in San Francisco.
Bent read everything, but found himself reading the same thing over and over again: the inverted cross was a symbol revered by worshipers of Satan who wished to mock the Christian church, upon which they had turned their backs and which they despised.
Frowning as he puffed on a cigarette, he went through the rest of the material Coll had gathered for him. It covered individual pedophiles as well as groups, kiddie-pom rings, childnapping, and what could only be called child slavery. As Coll had said, it was big business — invisible, but big nonetheless. The children were sold into sexual slavery. Some were even used as sacrifices by religious cults that used Satanic rituals and black magic.
That last part made him flinch slightly. He went back, scanned some of the article about inverted crosses, then reread the paragraphs about cults that sometimes sacrificed children in their rituals.
Could any of this have some connection to the car that Suzie Bastino had seen with the cross hanging upside down from the rearview mirror?
Although he'd been working at the Inquisitor long enough to smell a juicy tabloid story that would make readers' mouths water at the grocery story checkout stand, Bent doubted it. Maybe upside-down crosses did have a connection to Satanism and black magic, but did that mean everyone who sported one was a Satanist? No more than riding a motorcycle meant one was a Hell's Angel.
He dropped the stack of pages onto the coffee table and fell back on the sofa, smoking his cigarette, frustrated. Maybe Suzie Bastino only thought she'd seen a upside-down cross and he was just chasing shadows.
The coffee was ready and he poured himself a cup, then went back to the stack of pages, absorbing as much information as he could.
There were, he learned, different kinds of Satanists. There were those who simply played around with Satanism — mostly teenagers who wanted to offend their parents — those who truly believed in Satan and worshiped him in all sincerity, and those who used Satanic rituals as a form of mind control in drug rings, prostitution, or kiddie-porn rings, just to keep the help in line, and they didn't believe in Satan any more than they believed in Santa Claus.
The stack included newspaper articles from all over the country, articles about suspected Satanic cult activity in small towns, rumors of babies being sacrificed, of teenagers being recruited on the very campuses of their high schools, of Satanic-related suicides and drug rings; stories of ritualistic child abuse involving inverted crosses and people — some who ran day-care centers, some who taught in small schools — who sexually molested children while dressed in black robes and reciting Satanic chants, threatening the children with their death or the deaths of their parents if they told anyone.
Bent could not remember the last time he'd read anything so depressing. It made the poetry of Charles Bukowski sound like nursery rhymes.
The apartment door opened and Coll walked in with a sigh, holding a briefcase. He dropped the case, pulled off his jacket, and tossed it over a chair.
"So, how's the Satan business?" he asked.
"Hellish."
"Very funny. How's the stuff I got for you?"
"Good. Very good. Pretty thorough. You're awfully good at this, you know that?"
"You would have known that if you'd read one of my damned books." He picked up the briefcase and flopped it onto the sofa, opened it, and removed a videotape. "I recorded Geraldo today over at my friend's house."
"How nice for you."
"No, you don't understand. I think you'll want to see this." He walked over to the television and turned it on. He slipped the tape into the VCR, then went into the kitchen, got a cup of coffee, and sat in his chair. They wa
tched the tape together.
There were three guests, but one in particular who stood out. She was a gaunt, nineteen-year-old blond woman with troubled eyes named Pam Streep. She claimed that, at the age of ten, she had been kidnapped from the very front of her house, taken into a dark and mysterious building, and tortured endlessly. She had been systematically raped, she said, by men in various costumes. She had been taken, blindfolded, out to a field, where a cow was killed and gutted right in front of her. Then she was sewn into the cow's carcass for several minutes. On being removed, she was told by people in black, hooded robes that if she disobeyed, if she tried to get away, if she ever told anyone what had happened, she would be sewn back into a cow and left there to die.
Pam Streep claimed to have been forced to appear in numerous porn films in which she had sex with adult men, was spanked, tied up, and urinated on. But she had managed, somehow, to escape. She had been in therapy ever since, she said, and expected to be in therapy for the rest of her life.
When the tape was finished and the television had been turned off, Bent continued to stare at the blank screen, silent.
"So, what do you think, my friend?" Coll asked.
"I don't know what to think. Except that ... there's nothing I could make up for the Inquisitor that could possibly come close to the weirdness of real life."
"Ah. Now you're beginning to understand my fascination with the work that I do."
They smoked and sipped coffee in silence for a moment, then Coll asked, "Can you use any of it? I mean, did I dig up all that stuff and bring this tape home for nothing?"
Bent did not reply for a moment as Borgnine hopped into Coll's lap and curled up into a wrinkled lump.
"I don't know," Bent said. "But there sure seems to be a lot of connections between these Satanists and the disappearance of children."
"Mm-hm. I was hoping you'd notice."
"What do you think I should do?"
"Call Barbara and tell her hope is out of the question."
"What about those computer networks you mentioned," Bent said. "Any chance of getting into one?"
Coll laughed. "Get real."
They sipped and smoked. Coll leaned his head back and closed his eyes, looking relaxed. Bent, however, frowned and looked tense. He was thinking. Thinking hard. Finally, he spoke, but his voice was quiet and reluctant.
"You mind if I ask you a favor?" Bent asked.
"Oh, sure. What is it?"
"Well ... you may not like it."
"So what else is new? I don't like most of what's asked of me." Coll grinned, still petting Borgnine.
"Um, well ... I was thinking. You know, all these people were kids when this happened to them. Or so they say, right? So it would be natural for me to talk to someone who's an expert on kids. Someone who would know if all this mind-control stuff rings true. So what I'm asking is, um ... would you mind if I called Deanna? After all, she's a child psychiatrist, right? She could tell me if this stuff would work or not ... or maybe if she's ever heard of anything like this before."
"Oh, yeah, sure, go ahead and consort with the enemy, that's fine with me, yeah, okay, go ahead."
Bent closed his eyes and flopped back on the sofa, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it was just a thought, that's all, I just figured — "
"Hey, look, pull your tail out from between your legs, okay? I was kidding. Jeez, you sound scared or something. Go ahead and call her, I don't mind, okay?"
"You've got her number, right?"
"In my office. It's in the Rolodex by the phone on my desk."
Bent grabbed his pack of cigarettes and got up, saying, "Thanks, Coll."
"Be sure and tell her I said I hope she slides under a gas truck and tastes her own blood."
"No problem." Bent laughed as he left the room ...
3
"Hello?" She sounded out of breath.
"Hello, Dr. Brooks?"
A brief pause, then: "Uh, yes, this is ... I'm sorry, who is this?"
"I'm sorry for bothering you. You don't know me, but you've probably heard of me. Bentley Noble? Bent? Um, I'm a friend of Coll's."
"Ah, yes, the tabloid reporter." She said that the way one might say "the convicted rapist." "Yes, I've heard of you, Bent. What can I do for you?" She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"I'm sorry, it sounds like I called at a bad time. You sound busy."
"Oh, no, it's nothing. I'm moving, so I've been loading boxes and carrying them around."
"You're moving?"
"Yes, I am. So, what possessed you to call me?"
"Well, actually I'm working on a story, and I thought you might be able to help."
"A story for your paper? The Global Inquisitor!" There was unreleased laughter in her voice. "And how can I help you with that, Mr. Noble?"
Trying not to show his reluctance, Bent told her of his assignment, of the Walker boy and Barbara Bergenstern's idea of giving their readers something to hope for, something to lift their spirits. Then he told her about the material Coll had gathered for him and the episode of Geraldo he'd just watched. Then: "The reason I'm calling you, Dr. Brooks — "
"Oh, please, call me Deanna. Coll does."
"Okay, then, Deanna. The reason I called you, Deanna, is to ask you if any of that rings true. The business about mind control, I mean. Could children actually be taken — I mean, stolen — and controlled in such a way that they would never want to at least try to get away? Or tell anyone? Or try to get help? Could that happen?"
There was a long silence after that. In it, Bent could hear her breathing on the other end.
"Well," she said breathily, "that's quite a question. I suppose so. After all, children at that age are virtually clay in the hands of adults. They see adults as figures of authority and knowledge and tend not to doubt what they say. But, uh, devil worship? Baby sacrifices? Do you actually believe all that, Mr. Noble? I've done a good deal of research on this topic and I've found the coverage of it to be very hyperbolic and hardly trustworthy."
"Yes, that's exactly why I'm calling you. Because I wanted to know if any of this makes sense to you. As a professional, I mean."
"Well, yes, of course there's some merit to it. Pedophiles tend to employ a subtle form of mind control on their young victims. As I said, children are terribly vulnerable. But that, of course, does not mean this Satan worship stuff is true. In my years of work, I've come to learn that one must be very careful about what they believe when children begin to tell fantastic stories under interrogation. You'd be surprised how active their imaginations are, even at the youngest ages. And quite often, the very method of interrogation itself is at fault. It can be very leading. Children are always eager to please adults and will often say whatever they think the interrogator wants to hear. I've seen innocent men imprisoned — and most, thankfully, later released — because of accusations of child abuse made by children who have given excruciatingly detailed descriptions of what those men have done to them, things that most people would think a child of that age would not be able to make up. And those details have been given under pressure at the hands of well-meaning but overeager therapists. So, do you see what I mean?"
"Yes, I see what you mean. And that is exactly why I called you. Thank you very much."
"Well, Mr. Noble, while we're talking, the guests on that show — you said it was Geraldo?”
"Yes."
"You said one of the guests was a young woman named Pam Streep?"
"That's right."
"Well, that's interesting. I know her therapist."
"Really? Well, he was on the show with her."
"Oh? I'll have to call him. I'd be interested in getting a tape of that show."
"Well, thank you very much for your help, Doctor. I really appreciate it."
"No problem. You know, I really have heard about you, Mr. Noble. Coll considers you a very good friend. It's nice to talk to you."
"Well, I'm at Coll's right n
ow. He's giving me a hand with this story on the Walker boy."
"Well, then, you can tell him that I'm moving. To Los Angeles. And you can tell him he can keep all my CDs. And anything else I might have left there. Okay?"
"Sure. No problem."
"It's been a pleasure talking with you. Good-bye." Before Bent could say anything else, she hung up ...
4
Coll sat in his chair frowning after Bent relayed Deanna's message. "So, she's moving to L.A.," he said quietly, a little sadly.
"Uh-huh. Well, you said she spent a lot of time there anyway, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, maybe she's moving her practice there."
"Either that, or she's got some guy there. That's probably why she was going back and forth so much in the first place."
"I thought you said she had patients there, and that she was always making television ap — "
"Well, that's what she told me. You don't think she would have been honest about a thing like that, do you?"
"Well, look at it this way: You get to keep her CDs and stuff."
"Big deal. She's got shitty taste."
"I don't know what to tell you. Maybe it's better that she's moving away."
"Yeah. No chance of running into her on the street and getting some of her free fucking analysis." He laughed, but it was humorless and cold. Then suddenly, anxious to change the subject, he said, "Well, what do you make of your upside-down cross?"
"I don't know. It could be real Satanists, or people using Satanism to run a childnapping ring ... or, as intriguing and bizarre as it is, it might be nothing at all."
"Yes, there's a very good chance you're just jerking off."
"Oh, well," Bent sighed, "I guess I'll just have to put it on the back burner for now. I don't have time to chase shadows. I've got uplifting stories to write and kiddie porn and snuff films don't exactly make for an article in Guideposts. But thanks a lot for this stuff."
"No problem. I'm glad to help. Let me know if I can do anything else. Hell, who knows, if you come up with something, you may have my next book on your hands."