“It’s already taken me over.”
“You have to keep functioning, is what I mean. Life can’t stop. Rest assured that we’re doing everything we possibly can. I hope that gives you the small comfort you might need to keep on going with your life. I’m sure your sister would want that.”
When McKenna hung up, he reviewed the platitudes he had just repeated to the girl.
He didn’t tell her that he had in his hands at just that moment the Medical Examiner’s report on the Schrodinger girl. It was far worse than what the media had described. They weren’t even supposed to get that much. You want to keep some information secret, so there’s still something that only the perpetrator would know in case you capture him, such as how the body was found and the wounds on it. Damn rookie cop on the scene started yapping to the press.
His eyes panned each photo. The torture was unimaginable and drawn out over a period of days. As he had done many times during his career, McKenna tried to enter the mind of the animal that would do this. It wasn’t for money―no ransom had been demanded. It wasn’t a political or mob rubout. This was sheer sadism.
Whenever McKenna tried to understand a killer, he had special tools at his command that most police officers lacked: he had been a trained killer himself.
He had been a Marine sniper in Afghanistan nine years ago. He knew what it was like to go after a specific target and kill it, not just in self-defense, but as part of another motive, a greater purpose, he had told himself. He had often contemplated the degrees of separation between himself and the men he now pursued as a lawman. So had his ex-wife.
After returning from Afghanistan, he drank heavily to hold at bay the blown up bodies that kept coming back at night. His marriage, held together by the daughter they both loved, was slipping away fast. When his wife got full custody of Brittany, he just got worse. He was banging in sick once a week when he was told to attend counseling or risk his career. It was a solid year before he stopped drinking. He was learning new concepts like relapse and solitude. At least in war, there was the unwavering loyalty of your comrades. Here, you were on your own. He immersed himself in police work for the next few years, making a few feeble attempts to connect with Brittany. But by the time he had straightened himself out on the job, he had neglected his only daughter. When he spoke with her last Christmas, he could tell she couldn’t wait to get off the phone, that she was just talking to him out of politeness or pity. When he hung up, he wished he hadn’t called. How do you make up for an eight year gap? You don’t.
His eyes dropped back to the photos. These were the sort of images that made it easy to forget his own troubles.
In his gut he knew one thing: The killer who did this to Kirsten Schrodinger also took Olivia Wallen.
Masutatsu Nakayama pulled the Macanudo cigar beneath his nostrils, inhaling its beautiful bouquet. After lighting it and laying it down on the ashtray, he reviewed the scene of the last execution, an auction he had won for $220,000.
She was a blonde girl, about sixteen, with large American breasts. He didn’t go through the whole scene, just the foreplay to the death sequence. He didn’t want the effect of the final images to wear off like everything else had in his life. The New York papers had confirmed her brutal death and this conferred the final stamp of authenticity to the scene.
He was intrigued by the new Asian girl being offered. Today he had struggled with the other clients, each man trying to steer the torment his own way. Cultures differed even in their taste for torture and abasement. For example, in Japanese bukkake, the girl must be emotionless as the man cums in her face, she must show gaman―endurance. Not like the Western girls who are smiling and showing pleasure in that moment. It is a completely different effect. But Nakayama was impressed with the imagination of his competitors. Client Number Two had won today’s auction with his request that the girl be raped by a specially trained dog, and the Webmaster was able to comply quickly. Nakayama was feeling new sensations, nuances of thought he believed long dead. He contemplated tomorrow’s session.
The first swallow of sake cleansed his mouth of the sickening taste of the bourbon he’d drunk at tonight’s dinner party. As he closed the door behind his last guest, he had told himself that he would no longer partake of these functions. But he had been saying this for years.
He stubbed out the cigar. It was bitter, and a glance at the humidor’s hygrometer indicated no water. The cigars were ruined. He gazed out the window briefly, then wrote a haiku as he had every night since he was a child.
The feast ends and brings
A silence like no other.
Laugh, then, for stillness.
achel needed to talk to Brother Horace again. Had he seen the video? Did he know any of the people in it? First, she needed money. She had already raided her coffee can of coins last week, so she took Olivia’s Medaglia d’Oro can, which was full. Probably over forty dollars’ worth.
TD Bank had a free Penny Arcade. Coinstar would take almost ten percent.
She hit START and an animation came up on the screen offering a prize if she could guess how much she was about to put into the machine. Rachel guessed forty-seven dollars and sixty-two cents.
She fed the coins and waited for the final tally and possible prize. The total was sixty-three dollars and seventeen cents. No prize, but more cash than she had expected.
DON’T FORGET TO CHECK THE COIN RETURN BEFORE YOU LEAVE, said the cartoon.
Rachel checked the slot and found three rejects. Two were Canadian coins.
The third was an odd coin with PP written over the outline of a naked girl.
“Is Brother Horace here?” she asked back at Transcendence House.
“He’s fundraising,” said one kid.
“Fundraising for what?”
“For himself. He’s hustling the chess tables in Washington Square.”
Rachel found Brother Horace in the middle of a King’s Indian defense against a hippie throwback. Brother Horace prevailed, then defeated another opponent in seventeen moves―four minutes in blitz chess. He was four dollars richer. Rachel sat down opposite him.
“I know you,” he said. “Two dollars a game. I’ll give you white.”
“I was thinking about what you said, Brother Horace. About Olivia changing. How did you know about the porn movie?”
“Word was going around. Then I saw it.”
“Do you know the other girl in the scene―or the guy?”
“I take it you found the video.”
“Yes.”
“I hear the girl is a graduate of Transcendence House,” he said.
“I didn’t know they offered job placement for porn.”
“I didn’t know either.”
Rachel lowered her voice. “Was Olivia screwing the priest?”
Brother Horace looked up and his eyes glanced sideways for a moment.
“You gonna play or what?”
Rachel advanced her pawn and hit the clock. Five seconds a move. It was over in twenty-two moves. She collected the two dollars.
“Another. I’ll take white,” he said.
“You thinking about my question?”
“I don’t know the answer to that question.”
“Brother Horace, let me tell you something. I knew that girl better than anyone on Earth. We were like sisters. I know she was brilliant, beautiful, going to Harvard, and won more awards than the New York Yankees won pennants. I need to know what made her turn into a whore overnight. Doesn’t that interest you in the least, even if she was a stranger to you?”
“Not especially. People can do anything. They can turn in a second. And they can turn on you.”
“Did Father Massey know about what she was doing?”
“There isn’t much Father Massey doesn’t know about the kids.”
“So did Olivia get thrown out of Transcendence House for this?”
“Who said she got thrown out?”
This time it took sixteen moves.
; “You’re distracting me. And cutting into my profits,” he said.
“I’ll spot you a bishop.”
“Hell no. One more. I’ll keep white.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Four months ago, I guess.”
“So she volunteers at this shelter, starts making porn, then leaves on her own. And does what?” Rachel recalled that Olivia’s schedule hadn’t changed. She claimed, until last week, that she was still volunteering at Transcendence House. That accounted for her hours. So if she wasn’t at Transcendence House, where was she?
Rachel defeated him again.
“Damn, woman, that’s some fine playin’. You don’t mind if a man earns a living, do you?”
“That’s Sister Rachel to you. I give lessons if you’re interested.” She got up and checked her pocket for her Metro Card. She remembered the coin she’d found in Olivia’s change can.
“Any idea what this is?” she asked, handing the coin to the boy.
“That’s a peep show token. You buy these in the peep shows, then use it to see porn or naked girls in a booth.”
Back at her dorm, Rachel did a search on peep shows in New York and got two dozen hits. Her eye scanned the page, then fell on one line: The Pleasure Palace, and the logo of the naked girl.
t was on Tenth and Twenty-third among all the other vice dens that were displaced from forty-second Street under Mayor Giuliani. PLEASURE PALACE flashed in red neon with a purple nude girl lying down with one leg up. LIVE GIRLS flashed up a neon staircase. Buddy booths available. Today’s special was two DVDs for seven dollars. In the window, there were love dolls with their latex mouths open in a silent scream.
Detective McKenna flashed his badge at the goon at the door and asked to see the manager.
Zoltan Perlman came downstairs and said some words in Hebrew to his assistant. Another flash of the badge and McKenna asked if the girl called Tia Chan, AKA Olivia Wallen, ever worked here.
The Israeli glanced at the picture and replied, “For a few weeks. She quit months ago.”
“I need exact dates. You keep records, I assume.”
“Sure we keep them. Give me a minute.”
McKenna was standing in front of the sex toy rack. They sold latex cocks the size of salamis in a butcher shop. The owner came back with some papers.
“This is her application and driver’s license. She was over eighteen.”
“Why’d she quit?”
“She just stopped showing up, so I don’t have a termination date. But we hired another girl right after her. I think it was two months ago.”
“What about this girl?” McKenna showed him the picture of the other girl in the video.
“She works here.”
“She here now?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Perlman aimed his booming voice at the top of the stairs. “Ram, is Sonia here?”
“She’s with a customer.”
“Please get her over here,” said the detective to Perlman.
Not once did Perlman ask what this was all about.
The girl came down wearing a bathrobe, to McKenna’s relief. She looked way underage with long, dirty blonde hair cut straight across at her waist with Hannah Montana bangs. The detective could see the beautiful body moving beneath the terry cloth white robe.
“NYPD.” He flashed his badge. “You know this girl?” He held out the photo.
“We used to work together.”
“Not just here, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you did other work together. You made a video together.”
“Yeah. We did.” The girl tightened the belt of the bathrobe.
“She disappeared last week.”
“I know,” she said to the photograph as though talking to Olivia.
“Any idea where she is?”
She shook her head.
“She ever mention anyone she might be staying with? Anyone she had a problem with?”
“No.”
McKenna felt funny as the moaning from the porn booths appended itself to his every question.
“Look, you made a porn movie with her, I know you know more than that.”
She closed the neck of the bathrobe with her hand and McKenna thought that was pretty ironic considering what she did upstairs.
“I made lots of those movies. I don’t even know the names of the guys I worked with.”
“Could I see some ID, Miss?”
“I’ll have to get my purse.”
McKenna could bet money this girl was underage, no matter what that ID said. But that wasn’t what he was here for. Doesn’t even know the names of the guys she works with. Christ.
She came back with a driver’s license that was a good fake.
“This says Hannah. He just called you Sonia. Stage name?”
She nodded. He gave it back.
“Who approached you about making the porn flick?”
“A guy came up to me in the street and asked if I’d be interested in doing some modeling. When I got there, he said he’d pay a lot more for adult movies. Then I asked Olivia if she was interested. She was.”
“What’s his name? The porn producer.”
“He just called himself Skip.”
Skip. That was about right, thought McKenna.
“When was the last time you saw her or spoke to her?”
“About a month ago.”
“Here’s my card, Miss. Give me a call if you remember anything that could help us find her. She’s been gone over a week. That’s usually a bad sign.”
McKenna sat in his car and forced down the rest of the Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. It was tepid. He was losing sleep in the last few days and wasn’t sure if it was the extra coffee or the case. He had a hard time with missing kids. When adults got killed, he could still go home and turn on the football game. Not when he was working a missing kid’s case. He was estranged from his own daughter and he missed her, but at least he knew she was alive and safe. But to have a kid vanish on you. To not know if you’d ever see her again―he didn’t know how these parents dealt with it. Especially if they blamed themselves.
McKenna blamed himself for losing Brittany. He had always been short-tempered, but the whiskey had made him go ballistic too many times in front of her. She had seen him at his worst. That was the father she knew. She had told her mother that she was afraid of him. That he should go back to Afghanistan and do what he did best. That still hurt.
His one hope in life was to redeem himself in her eyes. He’d be happy to find himself a new wife, but he had to win his daughter back.
He looked at Olivia’s picture. The Pleasure Palace was another dead end. It was time to start at the beginning. Father Massey.
rom what Detective McKenna said, Sonia had to know more than she was letting on, thought Rachel. There had to be a way to find out. There was always a way. She went to see Brother Horace about getting some new ID.
“I want to see Tarik about getting some paperwork,” Brother Horace said to the clerk in the New Amsterdam Smoke Shoppe.
The cashier jerked his head toward the back.
Rachel told him she wanted a driver’s license in the name of Lisa Barino, eighteen. Tarik took the order like a civil servant, then snapped a quick picture and collected the fifty dollars.
“Do people ever order a license and then never pick it up?”
“Not usually.”
“If Olivia Wallen ordered something here, I’ll pay for it and give it to her. Can you please look?”
The Pakistani looked through a leather satchel, then said, “No one by that name.”
As they left the smoke shop, Rachel said, “Brother Horace, I’m desperate to find her. You know what it’s like to lose someone. Isn’t there anything else you can tell me that might help?”
“‘Fraid I’m not much help there. But the police are already looking for her. What can you do that the police can’t do better? I have an aunt in Georgia. Whenever
I needed something really bad I would call her and she would pray and it would happen. She does some powerful prayin’. I know it sounds like bullshit, but some can pray better than others. Some have it down. I’ll call her tonight.”
“Thank you.”
Rachel considered Brother Horace’s words. What can you do that the police can’t do better? The police couldn’t spend the night in a youth shelter or mix with runaways on the streets. And there was at least one more thing the police couldn’t do.
Rachel stood in the bathroom of a pizzeria next to the Pleasure Palace. She had changed out of her baggy runaway jeans and sneakers into a pair of Olivia’s tight black jeans and the black high heels she had bought for the prom, but never got to use. After brushing her hair straight down over her shoulders, she tied off the denim shirt under her breasts. Lots of girls had told her the boys thought she was nice-looking, but had to work on her wardrobe and do something with her hair. It never bothered her. She liked dressing like a librarian or a research scientist, which is what she was. Now, looking at the finished product, she was pleased with what she saw, but anguished over what she was about to do.
hanks for taking the time, Father,” said Detective McKenna, flipping open his notebook.
“Certainly. Have a seat, Detective,” said Massey, settling in his office chair.
“Thanks, but I already sit too much. When we initially spoke, you’d mentioned Olivia had worked here for an unusually long time as a counselor. About a year.”
“Eleven months.”
“And that she had left about four months ago.”
The priest said nothing.
“Is that correct, Father?”
“Yes.”
“There’s been a disturbing development. Olivia seems to have left here and gone to work in a―I guess you’d call it a sex emporium. A kind of strip joint downtown. From counselor to stripper. I see a lot of odd things in my business, but that one stands out.” Massey didn’t seem disturbed. Not a lot of rapport skills, this one.
“Well, I see a lot of odd things in my business too, Detective. And I know that very young people are extremely malleable. They’re still at the age when they can have an epiphany that changes their lives, sometimes for good. Sometimes not.” Massey locked eye-contact with McKenna.
The Schwarzschild Radius Page 6