by Ray Garton
"Did you know they were gonna kill Borgnine," he growled, "or were you hoping they'd kill me, you bitch?"
She struggled, her mouth yawning open, eyes bulging as she made gurgling sounds in her throat. She pushed on him, tried to kick him, knee him, but his body was pressed against hers, trapping her between himself and the wall.
"Is that what you were hoping, you lying cunt? How long have you been into this shit, huh? How long have you been with these — "
A powerful hand clutched Coll's elbow and threw him backward hard. Coll sprawled across the narrow bed with a grunt. The headache grew worse, becoming almost blinding in its intensity.
Deanna gasped explosively, gulping breath after breath, massaging her throat with one hand while pressing the other between her breasts.
The man who had thrown Coll away from her went to her side -and asked, "Are you all right?"
She nodded jerkily as her breathing began to calm. "Yes, Dr. Corbus, I'm ... fine."
Dr. Corbus turned to Coll as he asked, "Any luck with him?"
She shook her head. "None. He's ... not very happy with me at the moment."
"Very well. I'll take over from here."
"Does that mean I can get dressed?" she asked.
Dr. Corbus gestured to the door to the right of the bed. "By all means, Dr. Melton." She disappeared through the door.
"You mean Dr. Brooks," Coll spat. "The esteemed ... child psychiatrist."
"She may be Dr. Brooks to you and the rest of the country," Dr. Corbus said with a smirk, "but down here, she's Dr. Melton."
Dr. Corbus turned, went to the other door, opened it, and let in an enormous naked man in a black leather mask. The man carried a large glass jar. The man closed the door as he came in and set the jar on the small table beside the chair.
"Please get in the chair, Mr. Colloway," Dr. Corbus said.
Coll pushed himself up until he was sitting up straight on the edge of the bed. "Where am I?" he asked.
"I said, please get in the chair."
Teeth clenched again, his voice squeezing through taut lips, Coll said, "And I said ... where ... the fuck ...am I?"
Dr. Corbus sighed with mild annoyance and nodded at the large masked man.
The fist was a blur. The pain in Coll's head exploded, and once again, everything went away ...
"I'm afraid you'll have to be more cooperative, Mr. Colloway."
Coll heard the words before he saw the speaker. When he opened his eyes, even the room's dim light hurt his head. He groaned with the pain.
He was seated in the straight-backed chair.
"I am Dr. Corbus," the odd-looking man in black said. "And I have a number of questions to ask you. And do not expect to resist me the way you did Dr. Melton."
"Her name — " Coll coughed to clear his parched throat " — is not Melton. She's Deanna ... Brooks."
"Here, she is Dr. Jacqueline Melton."
"Why ... is she here? What does she do?"
"I am asking the questions, Mr. Colloway. If you cooperate, I may agree to answer a few of yours. But for now, please do not speak unless you are spoken to."
Coll let his oversize head fall forward limply, closed his eyes and tried to relax, tried to will the horrible headache away.
"Who knows what you and your friend Mr. Noble have been doing? Who have you told? Who has helped you find us?"
Coll lifted his head slowly, squinting at Dr. Corbus.
"I don't ... I dunno, I just ... I wanted to help Bent with ... with his story, that's all, I don't ... I dunno anything ... about the ... the others."
The pain in Coil's head worsened, as if his head were in one of those magician's boxes and swords were being driven through it for the amusement of an audience. He tried to think, tried hard, tried to decide what to do, what to say ... thought of Garner and Rob and all the others involved ... but how could he give their names?
"What others, Mr. Coll?"
"Who, um ... whoever might ... I dunno ... be involved."
"You are absolutely certain that you cannot give us any names, Mr. Coll?"
He nodded, wincing as the movement of his head increased the pain.
"Fine, then. We will see what we can learn through other methods."
The naked masked man wheeled the small wooden table before Coll. On the table stood the jar, about two feet tall, maybe a bit less. There was something inside the jar, something that was distorted sightly by flaws in the thick glass ... something Coll could not quite make out.
But whatever it was ... it moved.
"It's a snake, Mr. Colloway," Dr. Corbus said.
Coll leaned forward to get a better look, but he could not move. He looked down at himself and realized he was tied securely to the chair.
Trying to relax in the restraints, Coll squeezed his eyes shut once, twice, three times, trying to clear up his vision. When he looked at the jar again, the snake inside was clearly visible. It was curled up in the bottom of the jar. It was a mottled brown and tan with a hint of tigerlike stripes wrapping around it.
The top of the jaw was covered with a round piece of sheet metal that had been cut into sections, like a pie.
"Do you know what kind of snake this is, Mr. Colloway?" Dr. Corbus asked.
Coll closed his eyes and shook his head.
"It is a tiger snake. Australian. There is another almost exactly like it found in Southeast Asia, called the tiapan snake. They are considered to be among the most aggressive snakes in the world. In other words, they need no provocation to bite. And to keep biting. Again and again. And they are extremely poisonous. My rather strong friend here is about to stick your arm into that jar, through the sliced sheet metal. The jar is very heavy, and you are very weak. But even if you try to pull your arm out, the jagged edges of the sheet metal will only dig into your arm. That, combined with the snakebites, will be very painful. The snakebites, however, will be very deadly. But — " Dr. Corbus held up his right hand to display a syringe held between his thumb and forefinger as he continued to smile " — we have the antivenin. We can save your life. But only if you tell us the name of every person involved in this little ramshackle operation that brought you here."
Dr. Corbus nodded slightly.
Coll felt his right hand being unfastened from the armrest of the chair. He tried to struggle, but was far too weak. So he tried to protest instead.
"Pluh-please, I'll — I mean, I can — if you'll just let me — "
But before he got any further than that, the naked man had shoved his forearm through the middle of the sliced sheet metal, right up to his elbow.
Coll's voice caught in his throat like small pieces of glass.
The snake began to bite immediately. Its head was a blur, not because of Coll's watery, unsteady vision, but because it was moving so fast as it bit him again and again and again, its lithe body squirming and twisting and undulating as it continued to strike Coll's arm.
The pain did not come right away. It took a moment. Then: the stinging of needlelike fangs piercing his flesh repeatedly, the cold burn of poison inside his arm.
Coll began to scream.
He pulled his arm upward with what little strength he possessed and the jagged edges of the sheet metal dug deep into his flesh, drawing blood.
The blood oozed over the top of the jar and dribbled down to the bottom around the snake.
But the snake did not notice. It just continued to attack, to bite, again and again.
Coll's scream became words, loud, ragged words, filled with agony and pleading: "Ethan Walker! In Vuh-Vallejo! His w-wuh-wife! Garner! A guy named Lewis Garner! In San Francisco! He's a-a-a ruh-researcher! And R-Rob Huh-Henson! A kid who wuh-works with him! A hacker, cuh-computer hacker! That's it! Thuh-they 're the ones helped us, I swear to god I swear I swear now help me please help me my god my god please help me!"
Dr. Corbus approached Coll with the syringe and relief began to flow through Coll so suddenly that he was almost able to relax, even though t
he snake was still biting him.
Dr. Corbus leaned forward, aimed the needle between Coll's eyes, and pushed the plunger. The contents splattered over his face and ran down his cheeks like tears.
Grinning, Dr. Corbus said quietly, "It's water. Thank you for your help, Mr. Colloway."
Deanna came back into the room then. She was dressed now, and wearing a black wig and red-rimmed glasses. Dr. Corbus went to her side, muttering, "I have things to do, people to take care of ... immediately." Dr. Corbus, Deanna, and the naked man left the room, leaving Coll alone.
Coll screamed, his shattered voice sounding jagged as he writhed in his chair, trying to pull his arm out of the jar and driving the metal even farther into his flesh ...
... and the snake continued to bite ...
14
"Ho-leee shit," Shockley hissed as he drove his car up the hill.
He had followed Deanna Brooks from her office in Beverly Hills, past enormous houses that he could not begin to pay for if he were to combine his income with that of every other cop with whom he'd ever worked. He'd assumed, at first, that she was going to another house, the house in which she really lived. But no. Keeping his distance, he followed her into the Holcombe Hills, above Bel Air and Beverly Hills.
The people down there were filthy rich. The ones up here had so much money that no adjective had been invented for that kind of rich yet. Their houses were well off the road, behind enormous wrought-iron gates and decorative retaining walls ... and security that might rival that of the President of the United States if he were to visit a hostile country.
Suddenly Shockley was much more curious than he had been before. A couple of times, he'd reached for his car phone to call Roberts, but he decided it would be best to wait, see where she went, then let him know.
When it finally happened, Shockley stopped his car right there in the road, like some kind of tourist looking at the celebrity gates and driveways, unable to believe what he was seeing, but trying, fast and furious, to come up with an explanation. Nothing came right away because he was too busy watching.
Dr. Deanna Brooks drove up to the gate of Rex Calisto's mansion, stopped for just a moment, and was allowed in almost immediately. The gate had closed behind her.
Now, Shockley sat in his car, stopped in the middle of the road. He looked all around him, saw the cars parked up and down each side of the narrow road, then looked up the hill at the glowing, ghostlike mansion so high above and far away from the road. For just a moment, he got a glimpse of Dr. Brooks's car driving up the tree-lined road that led to the mansion.
Obviously, there was some sort of party going on, which was not only common at Calisto's mansion, it was a way of life.
So ... Deanna Brooks was a celebrity. She had that radio show, she'd written those books ... maybe that was why she was let in. Maybe she'd been invited to the party. Why the hell not? The only people ever invited to Calisto's parties were celebrities and the press, right? Celebrities of all kinds — movie stars, TV stars, musicians, writers, you name it. Sure, that had to be it. She was there because of who she was, what she was.
But Shockley knew enough about this particular milieu to know that if she were merely an invited guest, she would have parked on the street, or perhaps at a designated spot down the hill to be shuttled up by one of Calisto's buses. For a late party like this, only Calisto's closest friends would be allowed through the gate to drive up to the mansion. He was no different from Heffner or Guccione; they were all hated by so many religious groups and individuals alike that they had to be careful even with their own invited guests.
Calisto's gate did not look guarded, but Shockley was pretty sure that going through it was like crossing a border into a police state ... but with invisible police.
The only reasons Dr. Brooks would have been given entrance so quickly would be if she was a close friend of Calisto's, had important business with Calisto ... or if she lived there.
Maybe if he waited ... maybe if he watched ... then he could follow her to wherever it was that she went. If she went anywhere else.
Shockley started looking for a parking place, thinking, Thank God I'm off duty. He'd followed up on Roberts's request while he was on duty, but not like this, not putting himself in a position where he was surrounded by celebrities and probably under the scrutiny of god only knew how many security cameras.
He found a space on the opposite side of the road from the retaining wall, about three hundred yards away from the gate. He was barely able to squeeze his Toyota Corolla into the space, but managed.
He sat there for a while, doing nothing, watching more cars coming, watching people get out of them. Voices rambled on over his police radio.
Shockley looked at the digital clock on his dash, figured Roberts would be at home, picked up the phone, and gave him a call.
"Where the hell are you?" Roberts asked the second he heard Shockley's voice.
"Well, you're not gonna believe this, but I'm parked in front of Rex Calisto's mansion. Looks like he's having a party. No surprise. Anyway, I followed Deanna Brooks here and I'm gonna wait until she — "
"You on duty?"
"No, hell, I wouldn't be doing this on — "
"You listen to me, Shockley. Looks like you're gonna have to call in some backup."
"What?" Shockley barked. "What the hell're you talking about, backup?"
Shockley heard Roberts take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then Roberts said, "I've gotta lotta stuff to tell you, m'boy, and you'd better listen up real close, because I think we might only have time for me to say it once ...”
15
Loraina Walker sat on the sofa with her daughter Anice, watching Beauty and the Beast on the VCR. It wasn't actually a VCR, because it didn't record. It was only a player because that was all they could afford and all they needed.
Anice had seen the movie countless times, but was just as entranced as she had been the first time, chewing and sucking on a knuckle as she stared wide-eyed at the screen.
Although Loraina would be hard-pressed to admit it to anyone, she felt the same way, and watched the animated movie with a childlike smile on her face.
The two of them were holding hands when Loraina heard the sound. It was just a small sound, nothing she would even notice under normal circumstances.
But things had not been normal for quite some time.
It was a clicking. A quiet clicking.
Like a key in a lock ... or something in a lock that was not quite a key.
Loraina swept up the remote control from the sofa's armrest and turned off the television.
Anice looked up at her and asked, "Momma, how come you — "
"Sshh! Just be quiet, honey," Loraina whispered. "Quiet, now."
Very gently, she placed a hand over Anice's mouth ... and listened.
She heard the clicking ... accompanied by very faint voices. But where was it coming from? She leaned close to Anice, putting a finger over her own lips, silently telling her to remain quiet. She stood, moved to the middle of the living room, and listened some more.
It was coming from the back door.
She turned to Anice and beckoned to her frantically with one hand.
Anice hurried to her side and Loraina put an arm around her, rushing her to the front door, reaching for her purse, which always rested on a small table beside the door. In her purse were the keys to the house and the car. Once she had the purse in hand, she opened the door.
A man in dark clothing stood in the doorway, staring at her ominously.
Loraina screamed and slammed the door.
The man tried to turn the knob from the other side as she struggled with the dead bolt. He slammed himself against the door and Loraina slammed herself against the door on her side.
She was not strong enough.
Loraina dropped her purse, grabbed Anice up into her arms, and ran across the living room and down the hall.
She could hear the heavy footsteps of the man
behind them, following them, through the living room, down the hall.
Loraina turned left into the bathroom, slammed the door, and locked it.
Anice began to cry and squealed, "Mommy! Mommy, wha's hap'nin'? Mommy, how come — "
Loraina slapped her hand over Anice's mouth, lifted her off the floor, and carried her to the bathtub. "Now, you be quiet, girl, you hear me?" Loraina hissed.
With tears dribbling from her big, frightened eyes, Anice nodded.
Loraina pulled her hand away from her daughter's mouth, clutched the edge of the white plastic curtain that was pulled the length of the tub, and jerked it aside hard. Over the tub was a small window that was always kept open about two inches. On the sill stood bottles of shampoo and conditioner.
Loraina stepped into the tub, swung her hand outward to knock away the bottles, then lifted the sash all the way. Then she started punching at the outside screen.
The bathroom doorknob began to jiggle hard as someone on the other side tried to get in.
Voices muttered beyond the door.
Someone kicked it.
Loraina did not pause. She punched the screen and its wooden frame again and again, kept punching even after her knuckles began to bleed, until finally, finally, the screen fell away.
She knew there was no way she could possibly fit through that window. But Anice could.
Loraina held Anice before her, hands beneath the little girl's shoulders, and said, "Now, you listen to me, girl, 'cause this is important. I'm gonna push you through that window and you're gonna go plop right down in the bushes, you hear me?"
Anice nodded, still crying silently.
"Then, what I want you to do is this. You listenin' to me, girl?" Anice nodded.
Heavy bodies began to slam against the bathroom door.
"I want you to run across the street fast as you can and go to the first house you find, pound on the door, and you tell 'em your momma's in big trouble. You tell 'em to call the police, you hear me? And you tell 'em our address. You 'member what we taught you 'bout our address, right?"