by Ray Garton
The room was brightly lit from overhead, so the two men with him apparently had nothing to hide. It was an empty room with gray walls, almost small enough to be called a cubicle. There was an odor in the room, faint, but distinctly the smell of some sort of gas ... propane, or perhaps natural gas, as if there were a leak somewhere.
Another man stood directly in front of Bent. He was much smaller, thin to the point of gaunt, with eyebrows that rose to a point in the middle, a small mustache, and a sharply pointed goatee. He was dressed all in black, which seemed to swallow his frail body.
The man smiled at Bent and tilted his head in greeting. "I am Dr. Corbus," he said. "And you are suffering from a headache, yes?"
Bent nodded groggily.
"It is pounding," Dr. Corbus said, still smiling. "Hammering at the backs of your eyes, yes?"
Again, Bent nodded.
"Yes. That is from the ether."
Bent tried to speak, but his voice sounded like a clogged drain, so he stopped, bowed his head, and swallowed several times, licking his lips.
"It is difficult to speak, I am sure," Dr. Corbus said. "But it is not necessary for you to speak just now. You only need listen to me, Mr. Noble."
Bent lifted his head, surprised to hear his name.
Dr. Corbus went on. "In a few moments, I will give you a drink of water so you can speak. But when you speak, there is only one thing I wish to hear. The answers to all my questions. And nothing else."
Bent's head lolled to one side as he stared at the man.
"If you do not answer my questions ... my friend here will begin to cut off your fingers. One knuckle at a time. Starting with the first knuckle on the little finger of your right hand."
Bent's neck stiffened and his head lifted as his eyes widened.
Dr. Corbus grinned. "Yes, that's right. Snip-snip-snip. One knuckle at a time. If necessary, we will go to the left hand. And if that doesn't work, we will make you eat those pieces of your fingers. Even if we have to force-feed you. But frankly, Mr. Noble ... I do not think that will be necessary."
The pain seemed to move around inside Bent's skull, to crawl down his spine like a long centipede until it settled in his stomach and began to feed on the soft wet tissue it found there.
Bent suddenly leaned to his right and vomited loudly onto the floor. Some of it splashed onto the sandaled feet of the naked man holding Bent's hand to the table.
The man slapped Bent hard on the side of the head.
Bent's head lolled, his lips soiled, chin dribbling.
"Try to be more considerate the next time you vomit, Mr. Noble," Dr. Corbus said, holding a paper cup of water to Bent's mouth.
Bent sipped cautiously at first, then gulped the water until it was gone.
"There," Dr. Corbus said genially. "That's better, isn't it?"
Bent nodded.
"Do you think you feel up to talking with me now?"
"Yuh ... yes. What ... what do you ... want?"
"Why are you here?"
"Here? I ... don't even know ... where I am."
One of those pointed eyebrows arched high as Dr. Corbus asked, "Are you absolutely certain?"
"Am I ... well, yeah, I'm ...” His voice was weak and hoarse, but it began to take on a tone of panic as he thought, My god, they 're gonna ask me questions I can't even answer! I have no idea where I am."
"Fine, then. Do you have any idea as to why you are here?"
Bent bowed his head a moment, closed his eyes, thought ... about those black-robed people who chased him and Coll through the desert ... who used clubs on them ...
He sucked in a deep breath as he looked at Dr. Corbus again and sighed. "Yes, I ... think I know why."
"Would you mind sharing your theory with me?"
"Um ... because of the, uh ... investigation."
"What investigation might that be, Mr. Noble?"
Even through the tremendous headache and in spite of his predicament, Bent felt a surge of anger. "I think you know, Doctor"
Dr. Corbus joined his hands behind his back and began pacing a few feet this way and a few feet that way, back and forth. "Two things, Mr. Noble. Number one: Watch your tone when you speak. Number two: What I know is not the issue here, it is what you know with which I am concerned. Is that understood?"
After a moment Bent said, "Yes. Understood."
Dr. Corbus stopped pacing, put a hand on the small table, and leaned close to Bent and said very quietly, but with thunder in his voice, "Now tell me about this in-ves-ti-ga-tion."
"Mine. I was trying to ... find out what happened to the Walker boy. Samuel Walker. He disappeared. In Vallejo."
"Why?"
"For the paper I work for, the, um, the Global Inquisitor."
Dr. Corbus chuckled. "Yes, the Inquisitor. Tell me, Mr. Noble, what kind of career move was that? Going from The New York Times to the Global — "
"How do you know that?"
Dr. Corbus's smile disappeared in a blink. "I ask the questions here, no one else. Remember that."
Bent pressed his lips together tightly, said nothing.
"So, you work for this tabloid rag, for which you are investigating some little boy's disappearance. That's fine. I have no objection to that, none whatsoever. But I am compelled to ask what possible motive you could have for coming to southern California if this terrible crime took place in Vallejo? Why is that, Mr. Noble?"
"I don't know, the story ... it just sort of ... led me here."
"You and your friend, the illustrious true crime writer, Mr. Colloway?"
Bent looked up at the smiling man with fear suddenly glimmering in his eyes.
"Why did he come, Mr. Noble?"
"He was helping me."
"And who else was helping you?"
There was an icy explosion of fear in Bent's chest that was so overwhelming, it made him forget his headache for a moment. Bent realized, with horror, what these questions were really all about. The Satanists were real. Their theory — the computer networks, children being sold for snuff films, sold into sexual slavery — was real, all real. And now these people wanted to know who else knew so they could —
"You're gonna kill them," Bent whispered.
"Well, since that was not exactly a question, I will let it pass. Let me tell you a few things, Mr. Noble. You have stumbled onto something far beyond the rather small circle that makes up tabloid reporting. This is real. And it is much bigger than you can imagine. You are, as they say, Mr. Noble, in over your head. You should stick to Elvis sightings and babies with birthmarks shaped like the face of Jesus Christ." He chuckled again. "That is much more your speed, I suspect. UFO abductions, women giving birth to Bigfoot's child. You should stay with what you know, Mr. Noble. Because, no matter what you might think, you know nothing of us. Nothing. But we know everything about you. And that is why you are here. You have fallen down the rabbit hole. And I am the white rabbit. So now you are going to answer my questions."
"And you're going to kill them."
Another smile. "I admire the way you phrase questions as statements so as not to annoy me. Just don't press it, all right? Yes, Mr. Noble. We are going to kill them. Because they know. In fact, they don't even know what they know. The point is that they do know. And I cannot let that be."
Bent stared at him, thinking of Coll and Garner ... of Rob and Ethan and his family. His teeth ground together; it made his head hurt worse, but it was an involuntary reaction.
"So, Mr. Noble, aside from Mr. Colloway, who else has been helping you? Who else knows what you've been doing?"
He thought of those others once again. Vivid images of them flashed in his mind — the wheelchair-bound Garner, the bony, awkward Rob, the kind and gentle Pastor Walker, and, most of all, his wife Loraina and their little daughter Anice — and he felt sick again. But he didn't vomit. It wasn't that kind of sickness. It was the kind of sickness that came with knowing that something unspeakably horrible was about to happen to him.
Bent was silent for a long time, trembling.
"You are not answering my question, Mr. Noble."
Still silent, Bent closed his eyes. He said nothing, sitting in the chair as if frozen.
"You know what this means, don't you, Mr. Noble?"
Finally, Bent spoke, his eyes still closed, voice faint and tremulous. "No one else ... has helped me. Even my ... editor doesn't know ... what I'm doing."
"We find that difficult to believe, Mr. Noble. Mr. Colloway is here with us, you see, and we have been speaking with him, too. We know he's not the only one."
Bent flinched slightly. What had Coll told them? What names had he given? Surely he wouldn't have his own friends killed. Bent clenched his teeth and spoke through them. "No one ... else."
"Well, at least you are responding. But, of course, you don't expect me to believe that, do you?"
"No one. Is helping me."
"Except for Mr. Colloway, yes?"
"That's right."
Dr. Corbus said nothing for a long moment, then: "You might pass out, Mr. Noble, that's to be expected. You might even go into shock. If so, do not worry because we have a doctor waiting just outside the door and you will receive proper medical attention. Once you have recovered, we will continue. We can wait. We have all the time in the world."
Bent felt cold metal on the little finger of his right hand at the first knuckle, and his eyes snapped open wide as he gasped and looked down at his hand.
That was when the man squeezed the handles of the shears together.
There was a sickeningly thick crunching sound as the blades cut through flesh and bone and Bent saw the end of his finger pop forward away from his hand ... separate from his hand ... a small lump of flesh and bone with a little fingernail on it ... followed by a thin string of blood that spurted over the wooden surface, then another, and another .. . and then the warm blood began to pool around the finger, spreading to surround his hand, gushing from the bloody stump.
Bent screamed. His entire body became numb, as if he had been injected with a massive dose of Novocain.
The man holding his hand down placed the shears on the tabletop, leaned forward, and produced a handheld propane torch from the floor. It was already lit; a small blue flame tapered-to a point from the nozzle, like a faint, fiery tongue.
The man lifted Bent's hand from the tabletop and held the flame to the wounded end of his little finger.
Bent screamed again, and the ragged, pain-filled sound of his voice drowned out the sharp sizzling of his flesh as the bloody wound was cauterized.
By the time Bent's scream faded to a throaty gurgle, the inside of his skull became cold as ice. He started to tremble, then shake convulsively, breathing rapidly, faster and faster, until he was gasping desperately for breath and beads of sweat began to dribble down his forehead and face.
And all the while, he stared at that small piece of his finger lying still and bloody on the tabletop as gut-wrenching pain spread over his hand, making its way up his arm.
"I'll get the doctor," Dr. Corbus said quietly, turning toward the door.
Before Dr. Corbus left the room, Bent blacked out ...
9
Shockley was illegally parked in a red zone across the street from Deanna Brooks's building. Waiting.
It was a typical office building: concrete and glass, a gray monolith with rows of rectangular windows, most black, just a few lit from inside.
He tried to find the window of Deanna Brooks's office. Sixth floor, facing this street, toward the south end of the building ...
... there! The light was on. She was still inside, then. So he waited,
And waited.
Old jazz — Fitzgerald, Monk, the Bird, Garner, Kruppa — played softly from the car radio. Shockley listened peripherally, enjoying, but at the same time concentrating on that window.
He wondered what would be the best thing to do. There was a pay phone on the corner. He could call her ... but he'd probably , just get that damned service. He could try to get into the building and talk to her personally ... but that might make her suspicious because, other than that dead dog Roberts had told him about, he had no reason to be looking for her. Maybe he was doing the best thing he could: waiting.
Suddenly the light in that window blinked out, leaving the rectangle of glass black.
Shockley sat up behind the wheel.
At this hour, there were no cars parked in front of the building, so she must have parked in the garage. How would he recognize her car when it drove out? How would he know it was Dr. Brooks?
He waited, his eyes darting back and forth between the building's front entrance and the large opening of the parking garage.
A fat man in a security uniform stood in a harshly lit booth at the entrance of the garage. A zebra-striped guard-gate stretched across the entrance to keep anyone from going in or out.
One of the glass doors in the front of the building opened and a woman came out, swinging a briefcase at her side as she hurried along the sidewalk. She wore a short skirt that showed off her long legs as they took broad strides toward the parking garage.
Shockley put his hand on the key, which was already in the ignition, ready to go.
She went to the security guard in the booth, who greeted her happily, putting a hand on her shoulder. He was obviously familiar with her. He left the booth and disappeared with her into the darkness of the parking garage, apparently walking her to her car.
A couple minutes later the security guard returned alone, went back inside the booth, and waited.
Headlights oozed out of the darkness and slowed as the guard gate rose slowly.
The security guard waved as a silver Porsche 911 Carrera 2/4 eased out of the garage. The top was down and Shockley could see her plainly as she turned left onto the street.
Shockley started the car quickly and followed her, staying some distance behind ...
10
"You sure this is right, Mr. White Trash?"
"Look, I-I told you, I tuh-told you! All I heard 'em say was the word 'mansion'! Thuh-they didn't say where, or nothin'!"
Tex was still crying and had been since they'd left the desert.
Ethan was driving the car, following Ed's explicit directions. Ed had spent a good deal of time studying a map back in Tex's store.
It seemed eons ago, although it was only hours since they had been there in that filthy smelling place that had made Ethan feel sick ... because he could not help wondering what kind of obscene things had gone on there ... what kind of atrocities a man like Tex might have performed on little children there in his secret, isolated home.
Tex had babbled incessantly, even before they left his house. He'd told them about the Satanists, about what they did and how he knew them. He had babbled and babbled ...
"Okay, okay! I'll tell you whatever you want to know! Don't take me, please! Don't take me anywhere! Don't take me off and kill me, please, I'll tell you, okay? I'll tell you!"
"You'll tell us what?" Ed growled, the gun still aimed at Tex.
"Anything. Everything. Whatever you wanna know." His voice was suddenly weak, defeated.
Ed said, "Hey, Doc, why don't you move this scumball to the bed."
Doc lifted Tex from the floor by one arm and led him to the bed, pushing him down to sit upright on the edge of the crooked bed.
Ed followed them, stepped in front of Tex, and put the barrel of the gun to his forehead.
"Question number one," Ed said loudly. "Where were they taken?"
"Well ... you gotta listen to me. I mean, don't do nothin' to me till you hear everything, 'kay?"
"I'll be the judge of that, my friend," Ed said. "Just keep the information coming, or you're fucked. Got it?"
Tex nodded. "Okay, now you gotta believe me. I heard them talkin' about this place. I mean, lotsa times. I'm not sure what it is or where it is. All I know is that they call it 'the mansion,' okay? That's all I know, really."
Standing across the room
, Ethan's eyes widened when he heard those two words, "the mansion." He remembered what Garner had told him on the car phone: that the computer had traced that telephone number to the mansion of Rex Calisto.
Mansion ...
"So, Tex, what're you doin' with these people, huh?" Ed asked. "You worship the devil, or something? Huh?"
"Look, I don't give a fuck what they worship. They just gave me what I wanted."
"And what's that?"
Tex looked, away, his lips tight and squirming together like two dry, cracked worms mating. He muttered something that was unintelligible.
"What'd you say, boy?" Ed barked, pressing the gun harder to his head.
"I said, kids. They gave me ... kids."
"Gave you?"
"No, no ... I hadda pay for 'em."
"You rented them?"
"I ... well, no, sometimes I ... man oh man, what the fuck difference does that make, huh?" he asked with pathetic desperation in his voice. "I mean, I'm not the guy you're after, right?"
"No, I guess you're not. But I'd sure like to know what got you hooked up with these fine folks."
After a long pause, Tex nodded toward his computer. "That did. I, um, knew another guy who told me about their BBS ... I got on there ... got to know a few people ...”
"What's a BBS?"
"A bulletin board system, where people can put up messages and others can write back to 'em ... back and forth."
"And?"
"Well, I couldn't pay the prices they were asking, so I offered to help 'em out."
"And how'd you do that?"
"Well see, they, um ... they meet out here in the desert sometimes. I don't know why, I don't know what they do and I really don't give a flying fuck. That's their business, y'know? But, um ... I own this property and this road out front here is the closest road to where they meet and they needed somebody to keep track of the traffic. So, when people come through here, get gas, buy snacks, I yack with 'em, find out where they're headed, what they're doin' in the desert. I keep an eye on the traffic, watch out for hikers, and, well, uh ... I guess you'd call me a guard."