Shackled

by Ray Garton

  The man just stared up at him with wide eyes.

  "Don'tcha?" Ed bellowed, wrapping his finger around the trigger.

  The man nodded stiffly and Ed chuckled.

  "Yeah," he said, "you know that every thought you ever had in your miserable life — and I figure there haven't been many — is gonna be sinkin' into this ground here like water into a sponge. So, now. I'm gonna ask you a question. You don't give me the right answer, then all them thoughts're gonna belong to this desert, here. You understand me?"

  After a long moment of fearful and hateful staring at Ed, the man nodded.

  "You got anybody else in that shitheap you call a building over there?"

  The man shook his head.

  "Good. Now, you're gonna do what we tell you, when we tell you, with no trouble?" Ed asked.

  Again, the man nodded, frantically this time.

  "Okay, now, listen carefully. Is there anybody in that trailer?"

  The man's wide eyes suddenly began to dart around frantically, looking at no one in particular.

  "Doc?" Ed muttered.

  Doc dug his powerful fingers into the man's square jaw, dug them in deep, and pulled his mouth open.

  Ed shoved the gun into the man's mouth, deep, and said, "I'll do it, my friend, faster than you can fart, I'll do it. Is there anybody in that trailer?"

  The man shook his head back and forth hard, his teeth clicking against the gun's barrel, his throat making a quiet gurgling sound. Unspilled tears began to appear in his wide, bloodshot eyes.

  "Good, very good," Ed said. "Now, since there's.nobody in there, I'm willing to bet good money you can get us inside, can't you? Like maybe with one of them keys you've got hanging from your pants like you're some kinda high school janitor?"

  He nodded.

  "Okay, that's great. Now, we're gonna stand you up and walk you over there to that trailer. You're gonna tell us which of those keys will get us in there, and that's all you're gonna do, right? 'Cause if you give us any trouble at all, I don't care where it hits but you're gonna have a hole in you somewhere, got it?"

  Another nod.

  "You cooperate, things'll be just fine, my friend." Ed stood with the gun still pointing at the man and nodded at Doc, who lifted the man off the ground effortlessly. "What's your name, buddy?"

  It took a moment for the man to finish gulping and answer. "T-Tuh-Tex."

  "Okay, Tex. Let's head for that trailer."

  Ethan stepped back, horrified, and let them pass. He followed them reluctantly, sickened by what was happening, but feeling just as helpless as he'd felt when his son first disappeared.

  "Which key is it?" Ed asked, gesturing to the keys with the gun as they stood at the trailer's door.

  "Right near the end," Tex croaked. "Silver. Shiny. Pert-near new."

  Doc leaned forward and rummaged through the keys until he came to a shiny silver one and Tex let him know that was the one. Then Doc removed it carefully from the large ring. He unlocked and opened the door.

  "Stay off the step," Ed said. "That blood might be important later."

  Doc unlocked and opened the door, took a big step upward and pulled himself inside.

  "Go ahead, Padre," Ed said with a nod.

  Ethan struggled a bit, but finally got himself through the door without touching the bloodstained metal step.

  "Hey, Doc!" Ed called. "Incoming!"

  Doc appeared in the doorway and held out his right hand. Ed tossed him the gun and he caught it. When Ed pushed Tex over to the doorway, Doc pointed the gun at Tex's face, leaned forward and gathered the collar of his jacket in one large hand, and lifted him off the ground and through the door.

  By the time Ed got into the trailer, Ethan was looking around, stunned and slack-jawed, at the living room.

  The coffee table was on its side. A chair was tipped over. The carpet was splattered with dark, dried blood from the doorway to the middle of the room.

  With Doc standing behind Tex, the gun to the base of his skull, there was a long moment of silence as they all looked around them and at the floor beneath them.

  Ed spun around and faced Tex, asking with a grin, "Okay, what happened?"

  Doc moved around Tex, pressing the gun to his temple.

  Tex's lips quivered and he sputtered for a while, then managed to speak. "I-I don't know. I ruh-really d-don't know."

  Ed pressed his face close to Tex's. "You came out to meet us with that gun in your pocket. I find it awful hard to believe you don't know what happened in here. So, why don't you explain the whole thing to us, huh?"

  "Ruh-really, I-I-I duh-don't know, I really d-don't!"

  Ed backed away but did not move his eyes from Tex's. He smiled when he said, "Doc? Have a ball."

  Without hesitation, Doc slapped his hand onto Tex's crotch and began to squeeze.

  Tex screamed and fell back against the wall, but Doc did not let go.

  "If you don't like that, you better talk, friend," Ed said.

  Doc's hand continued to clutch, just short of clenching into a tight fist, as Tex slid down the wall into a sitting position; Doc followed him all the way down.

  Finally, Tex's scream turned into words: "Okay okay okay I'll talk I'll tell okay okay!"

  When Doc let go, tears were pouring down Tex's face, his lips pulled back to bare his ugly teeth.

  Ethan stepped forward and said. "Look, this isn't right. I'm sorry, I know you don't want me to interfere, but I can't stand by and watch you — "

  Ed spun and faced him. "You wanna find your son? Your friends? Or do you just wanna screw around?" he asked angrily. "Because I think there's a good chance that this guy knows what happened to your friends at least, and, who knows, maybe even your kid, okay? You wanna let us do our work? Or you just wanna dust this guy off, give him a couple aspirin, and drive home?"

  Once again, Ethan backed away.

  Ed dropped to one knee, grabbed the gun from Doc's hand, and pressed it hard against Tex's left eye. "Now, listen to me, cock-sucker. You're gonna answer my questions, or you're gonna die. But you're not gonna die till you've gone through a hell of a lotta pain, because believe me, unlike you, we are not amateurs!"

  "They were killed," Tex gasped through his tears, trying to catch his breath. "I helped. They were in the way. A reporter and, uh, a writer, some writer, were hangin’ around asking questions. They were killed."

  "Why?" Ed asked firmly.

  "I don't ... I can't ... really, I can't ...”

  "Doc?" Ed muttered.

  Doc clutched Tex's crotch again, squeezing his testicles.

  Tex screamed, "Okay okay okay!"

  "Why were they killed?" Ed asked.

  "Not all of them," Tex whimpered. "Just the Kotters."

  "The Kotters?" Ed barked.

  "Those were the people who lived here," Ethan said.

  Ed nodded, then asked, "So the other two weren't killed? The reporter and the writer?"

  "N-no. They weren't. Those guys knew t-too much and thuh-they needed to know who'd been told ...' how much them two guys'd said to other people."

  "Who needed to know?"

  "Thuh-them. Them. The people them two guys were looking for."

  Ed looked over his shoulder at Ethan, who wiped a hand over his mouth and said hoarsely, "The Satanists."

  "Okay," Ed hissed at Tex. "Satanists. That's what we're talkin' about?"

  Cheeks glistening with tears, Tex nodded.

  "Who are they? Where are they?"

  "I dunno. I'm tellin' ya, I dunno." Ed nodded and Doc squeezed.

  "I dunno I dunno I dunno!" Tex's words dissolved into a shrill babbling shriek.

  Ed nodded again and Doc stopped. "You involved with 'em?"

  "Only ... a little," Tex croaked.

  "A little, huh? Well. Maybe we're in the wrong place. Maybe if we go over to that shithole of yours, we'll find something more, huh?"

  Tex's head fell forward and he said nothing, just cried quietly.

  "Yeah,"
Ed said through a grin, taking the gun from Doc. "That's what we'll do ...”

  The store was pathetic, with a dirty wood floor and dust on many of the items that lined the shelves. The cash register on the counter was the old-fashioned kind with a long, narrow window along the top to display the numbered tabs that popped up with each sale and a hand crank on the right side. The pungent smell of dirty, decaying wood permeated the entire store. But they weren't interested in that part of the building.

  On the way over, Tex had told them that he lived behind the store, and that was what Ed and Doc were most interested in.

  Ethan followed them, some distance behind, not wanting to get too close to the violence he found so repulsive, but at the same time — much to his chagrin — not wanting to get too far from what might prove to be a valuable source of information.

  Ed pushed Tex ahead of them, the gun pointed at his back, and said, "Okay, show us where you call home."

  Hands still bound behind him by the plastic strip, Tex led them around the counter. Doc opened the door, stepped inside, and the rest of them followed.

  The place smelled of dirt, cigarettes, beer, and body odor. There was a sofa with a bed sticking out of it, made with wrinkled, filthy sheets. Magazines were scattered over the floor on one side of the bed around a cardboard file box with its lid propped against it.

  Paper plates with old dried and rotting food were scattered everywhere. Empty beer bottles covered the scratched and knicked unmatching lamp tables on either side of the sofa and were scattered here and there in corners on the stained and lumpy beige carpet that looked like rotting flesh.

  Beside one of the lamp tables, pressed against the wall, was a makeshift, homemade computer desk with a monitor and keyboard on it. The computer was on and humming quietly and lines of words covered the screen of the monochrome monitor.

  Across from the bed, beside the door, was a television set with a VCR beneath it. Unboxed videotapes were scattered all around it over the floor.

  There were no pictures on the smoke-stained walls, only thin cracks and chipped paint that used to be white, but was now tan and peeling like sunburned skin.

  "Tex, my friend, you're a fuckin' slob," Ed said with a chuckle. Without letting the gun waver from its target, Ed looked around, smirking. "You watch a lotta movies, Tex?"

  Tex gulped, licked his lips, and rasped, "No cable."

  Ed looked him in the eye. "So, whatta you like, huh? You like old movies? Sci-fi? Westerns? You like porn? What?"

  Tex trembled as he stared silently at Ed.

  Ed tilted his head back and gave one knowing bark of a laugh: "Hah!" Then he gestured toward the magazines with the gun. "Those dirty magazines, Tex? Huh? Or maybe they're the kind with them big hard-muscled guys with hard-ons, huh?"

  Tex looked away from him and stared at the floor.

  Ed said, "Hey, Doc, why don't you bring a few of those over here and show 'em to us?"

  Doc walked over, scooped up a few of the magazines, and brought them over, standing beside Ed, who said, "Read a few titles."

  When Doc spoke, Ethan realized why he was so quiet. His voice was damaged, harsh, ragged.

  Doc shuffled through the magazines, reading the titles as his face grew darker and his brows lowered to a wrinkled ridge over his eyes. "Peach Fuzz. Schoolgirl Follies. Slumber Party. School Play. Doll House. Popsicle Girls. Show and Tell. Girls With — "

  Ed jerked his head toward Doc and asked, "Kiddie porn?"

  Doc looked at him solemnly and nodded.

  "Okay. Go look in the box, Doc." Then Ed turned to Tex. "So, you like 'em little, huh, Tex? Huh?"

  Tex's head bowed even farther and he stared at the floor.

  "You ever hear the phrase 'short eyes,' you motherfucker?" Ed growled in a whisper.

  No response.

  "Look at me!" Ed roared. His voice was nearly deafening in the small space in which Tex lived.

  Tex lifted his head slowly and turned his eyes to Ed.

  "See, Tex, my friend ... I don't know about you, but I been in prison. You know what guys like me do to guys like you in prison? Huh?"

  No response.

  "We rip out your colon with our dicks and make you wear it like a fuckin' turtleneck!"

  As Ed stared hatefully at Tex, as Doc sat on the edge of the bed and inspected the contents of the box, Ethan tried to decide what to do. He was repulsed by everything he'd seen so far, but he was also excited by the possibility that this man — an apparent pedophile — might lead them to his son. Without even thinking about it, he stepped forward and placed a hand on Ed's arm.

  "My son," Ethan whispered to him. "If this man is involved with them and what I've been told about them is true, he might know something about my son."

  Ed looked at him and spoke, for the first time, gently. "Don't worry, Padre. We'll find that out."

  "Polaroids," Doc gurgled from the bed, holding up a handful of pictures like a deck of cards.

  "Tell ya what, Tex," Ed said, "why don't we go over and have a look at them pictures, huh?" Then he turned to Ethan and whispered, "You stay here."

  Gun still pointed, Ed walked Tex over to the box.

  Ethan watched as Ed looked at the pictures that Doc handed him. He looked at several, and with each one, he looked angrier and sicker. Finally, Ed nodded toward the television and said, "Put in a tape."

  Doc went to the television, turned it on, slipped in a tape.

  Ethan stepped forward cautiously, dread running through his veins like acid, and turned to the television. There was no picture yet, but the volume was beginning to come up.

  Ed sat on the edge of the bed and turned slowly toward the television with the gun aimed at Tex's stomach.

  The volume rose. Voices were grunting and moaning and gasping for breath. One voice was crying quietly.

  The picture faded in very, very slowly.

  There was a lot of flesh moving this way and that.

  Limbs ... some thick, hairy, and muscular ... some thin, hairless, and tiny ... a grunting male voice ... a childlike voice whimpering ...

  They watched, silent and still.

  Ethan slapped a hand over his mouth and turned away, groaning into his palm as he bent over, as if he might be sick.

  There was a gunshot and the almost simultaneous whump of the television picture tube imploding.

  Ethan spun around to see Ed's arm stiff, gun in hand, still aimed at the smoking television.

  Suddenly Ed turned to Tex, slapped a hand to the side of his head, and grabbed a handful of hair, stabbing the barrel of the gun into his stomach.

  "You have no idea what a shitload of trouble you're in, asshole," Ed growled, his face less than an inch from Tex's. "Now, you either give us a little tour of your humble abode, here, and show us everything we wanna see, or we take you out in the desert and dump you like the garbage you are, you unnerstand me?"

  Ethan stepped forward, holding up a hand. "Now, wait a minute, Ed, please, I can't be a part of — "

  Ed turned to Ethan and said, "Don't worry, Padre. This human wart's gonna do what we want." Then he turned back to Tex. "Ain'tcha, m'boy?"

  Tex's mouth began to move rapidly, sputtering and stammering, shooting bits of spittle this way and that, until he was finally able to form words. "Look, now, listen to me, 'kay? I don't really know who you are or what you're gonna do with me and I'm not gonna — "

  With one jerk of Ed's head, Doc stepped forward and grabbed hold of Tex's crotch once again.

  Tex screamed and fell on his back heavily, squirming like a captured lizard.

  Ed dropped to one knee, pressed the barrel of the gun hard to Tex's right eye, and hissed, "Now, are you gonna do what I say, or what!”

  Tex screamed, "Okay okay okay!"

  Doc let go and Tex curled into a ball.

  Ed stood and faced Ethan, smiling. "See, Padre? No problem at all."

  Ethan turned away, leaned against the doorjamb, and pressed a hand over his eyes ....


  7

  Shockley had just fallen asleep in his recliner in front of the television, wearing only his undershorts, when the telephone rang. He jerked awake and knocked over a half-full beer can reaching for the cordless on the lamp table beside him. "Yeah?"

  "Um, Leonard Shockley?"

  "Yeah, that's me. Who's this?"

  "Harry Yardly."

  Shockley straightened up in the chair. "Harry, whatta you got for me?"

  "Well, I just saw her come in. Dr. Brooks, I mean."

  Shockley shot to his feet and glanced at the clock on the VCR on top of the television. "At nine-thirty at night?"

  "Yeah, I know. But she's here, all right. I just don't know how long she's gonna stay, so I thought I better let you know right away."

  "Which way'd she come in?"

  "Right through the front door."

  "Where'd she park?"

  "Probably in the parking garage. It's private, for the people who work here. It's right beside the building. Or maybe on the street. I couldn't tell you for sure."

  "You know what kind of car she drives?"

  "No idea."

  "Okay, I'll get there right away. Thanks a lot, Harry."

  "Hey, um, you think you could let me know what comes of all this?"

  "I'll try."

  Shockley hung up without saying good-bye and immediately began to search for his clothes. Once he was dressed, he left the apartment in such a hurry that he left the television on with Joe Friday wrapping up another case on Dragnet ...

  8

  While Shockley was hurrying to get to Deanna Brooks's building before she left, Bent was drenched in sweat, sitting naked in a hard, wooden, straight-backed chair, his ankles tied to its legs and one arm tied to its armrest. His other arm, his right arm, was being held down on the flat surface of a small wooden table that had been wheeled in front of him. It was held there by a very large hand that had its meaty fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist. The hand belonged to a very large, muscular man who was naked except for a black leather mask that covered all but his eyes and had a closed zipper over his mouth. The man's other hand held a small pair of pruning shears at his side, the kind with two half-moon-shaped blades and small wooden handles that could be squeezed together between the fingers of one hand.