“They probably will. After all, good old Dave is the current sex-crime expert for the force.”
“David...” Natalie looked at her Daddy. “Do you think you can invite David to come over?”
“Ha, why not? I’ll give him a call; it’s only eight in the evening.”
Anton dialed Dave. The phone rang only once, before being snatched up on the other side.
“Hello, Tony. Boy, am I glad to hear you.”
“How you doing, Dave?”
“Fucking horrible. Have you heard from Natalie?”
“Yes, she’s here with me. She’s very upset.”
“I can imagine. I was at the morgue today and found out the she discovered one of the bodies.”
“One of the bodies? There are more?”
“Yeah, as I said, everything’s pretty fucking horrible.”
“Listen, do you want to come over for a little while?”
“I sure do. I’ll be over in half an hour.”
“Great. Take a bottle of wine or something.”
“I will. See you soon.”
Anton rang off and thought for a second. Then he remembered that in the spur of the moment he had bought some fruit-flavored yogurts less than a week ago.
He went to the kitchen, rescued the tiny red buckets from behind the sausages, and broke off one yogurt from the rest with a sharp crack. Together with a small tea spoon, he pushed it into Natalie’s hands.
He snarled playfully at her, as he used to do when she was a kid and gave him trouble.
With an unstable smile, she forced herself to eat it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Anton opened the door, and let David in. David also looked somewhat haggard.
“Anton,” he exclaimed and pumped his hand and patted his shoulder.
“Natalie,” he said and hugged the frail black girl. “How are you?” he asked and looked carefully into her eyes.
“Fine, much better now,” she answered and broke loose to light another cigarette. Anton appeared with three glasses and a corkscrew.
Now all three of them lounged on the soft thick carpet.
After the conversation hovered unformed around a number of topics, Dave decided to bring up politics, “Hey, you notice that they upped the retirement age again?”
“Yes, I read that a day ago,” Anton said. “Bloody shameless thieves.”
“Everyone is being such a pussy about that,” nodded Dave, “no one calls a spade a spade anymore. Except these guys, the something patriots, I read their statement, powerful stuff.”
Anton looked at his daughter, “Don’t you work with them now, actually?”
Natalie nodded. She yawned, delicately covering her mouth with the back of her hand, and blinked for a few seconds. “Yes, these are the National Patriots,” she said dismissively, “they wrote this rubbish before I came on board, now I’ll have to do some quick damage control.”
“Come on, you’re too hard on them. I thought it was a good statement,” Dave said earnestly, cajoling Natalie to continue.
She continued, “It may sound good to some lay members of the public like you…” She rewarded him with a quick flash of her tongue. “But it’s no good from a political point of view. In this game, if you want to play with the big boys, to be a party with some real chances, you can’t risk alienating the military or the big businesses. This is what the dorks have accomplished with their statement.”
* * * *
Another hour passed. Natalie started talking of taxis, but on Anton’s insistence , she retreated to his bedroom to sleep.
The two men remained in the living room, eying each other with a certain relief, for they no longer had to keep up a fragile bubble of safe topics.
“So, tell me, Dave, what’s been happening?” asked Anton putting his glass on the carpet and fishing out another cigarette from his pack.
“I don’t even know where to begin.”
“You said on the phone that Jane wasn’t the only victim,” Anton prompted him.
“Ah yes, yes, she’s not the only one.” Dave tried to keep the memory of Georgette’s body from interfering with his tale. “There are three women in all, one twenty-something, one thirty-something and one fifty-something, found in the last week.”
“All of them suffocated?”
“Yes,” Dave’s eyes darted to the wall behind which Natalie now slept, “and in a way I’m glad that Natalie found Jane and not one of the others.”
“How come?”
“The other two were suffocated by their own shit.”
Anton’s eyebrows jumped and his jaw compensated by sagging. Then he quickly regained control of himself. “Shit you say...how exactly?”
“The bastard apparently tied them up and fed them their own shit.”
“He broke in and raped them?”
“No, it rather looks like they were all swingers who invited a stranger home to play.”
Anton let out a cloud of white smoke and watched it curl and swirl. “So, our culprit has killed a woman from three age groups, except the forty-somethings.”
“Yeah. I don’t know yet if it’s a system, or just accidental choice.”
“No fingerprints, no DNA?”
“No. We have one possible suspect, who looks like a latex freak. If it’s him, that would explain the lack of evidence so far. The boys are working hard on the two newest cases, maybe they will find something.”
“You said that they were fed their own shit, not his.”
“Yeah,” Dave said. “Yeah,” he said again and stood up and looked out of Anton’s window. It was night, and square lights were already shining from the buildings all around.
“That’s another thing I don’t understand,” said the detective without turning around, “what’s with all that shit eating? How did that become a fashion?”
Anton smiled, “I’ve pondered that myself and perhaps my mighty intellect has seen something which your puny mortal brain has missed.”
Dave smiled weakly at his reflection in the windowpane, “Pray tell, wise one.”
“Point one: you will not deny that our civilization has an oral pathology.”
“I will not deny this, because I don’t know what you mean.” Dave smelled the beginning of a lengthy discourse and took his place by the albino.
“Well,” said the albino, “almost everyone has eating disorders for one. A lot of women are anorexic, a lot of women are bulimic, and the ones in between are either tubs of lard who can’t stop stuffing themselves, or are paranoiacs who count guiltily every calorie.”
Dave’s lips twitched as another ghost of smile passed over them, “Put that way, I might agree. What about the men?”
“The men...” Anton waved a hand, dismissing all men as below contempt. “There’s a rising number of male bulimics and anorexics, and the rest...well, you can’t deny, that most men are now also obese or constantly sucking at a beer bottle.”
“Or at a cigarette, ahem, ahem.”
Anton took that with good grace. “Right, or a cigarette.”
“Granted then. Our civilization has an eating, drinking, and smoking disorder.”
“Right. This disorder is an oral pathology.”
“You’ve lost me again.”
“You know,” insisted Anton, “the first stage of the child’s development.”
“Oh, riiight,” said the detective. “Yeah, I think I’ve read that somewhere.”
“This deepest layer in our psyches, the oral layer—” The albino spilled a drop of wine on the carpet as he gesticulated with his glass. “…is for some reason pathological on a mass level. Think of all the advertisements. There’s always an open mouth eating something, sucking something, drinking something. Indeed, we call o
urselves a ‘consumer society’. We have a fetish with consuming.”
“If you say so.”
Anton looked at the detective and quickly thought of a fitting example to make his point. “Back in nineteen seventy- two I think it was, a film appeared in adult movie theaters. Back then, there were no computers and no videos, and people had to go to a place packed with other wankers, and jerk off while watching the big screen. The film in question was Deep Throat.”
“I’ve seen it. It’s ultra boring.”
“True.” Anton narrowed his eyes. “However, this film made more money than any Hollywood film ever has. Adjusted for inflation of course. “
Yes, these were concepts Dave understood instantly. “No shit?”
“No shit. The reason for that was just the fact that the actress in the film could deep throat.”
“I guess that freaked everyone out back then.”
“It did. A few years later, all the porn stars started doing it, or trying to do it. These days, we expect from every woman we have sex with, to do this.”
Dave gave a nervous cough. “Yeah, go on.”
“So you see, a society with an oral pathology, with eating disorders and throat fucking as a more visible examples of this pathology, it was only a question of time before shit eating came on the scene.”
“On the scene obscene. I still don’t see how one leads to the other.”
“Neither do I, to be perfectly honest,” admitted the albino and tickled his oral pathology with another lungful of smoke.
“Anyway.” Dave held out his empty glass in front of Anton, but the albino shook his head. The wine was finished. “Want some tea, detective?”
“Later maybe, thanks.”
“You were saying?’
“What were we talking about?”
“Shit eating. You said ‘anyway…’”
“Ah yes. Anyway, it was German porn, I think, which introduced shit eating to the masses. Why did it become popular with us?”
“Not only German porn,” Anton said with brisk confidence, “German porn and Japanese porn introduced it to the masses.”
An obliging vintage image of a Japanese actress dressed like a schoolgirl pooping on some balding man popped into Dave’s head. “Okay, I think you’re right.”
“So, what would you say is the thing which connects Germany and Japan?” asked Anton mischievously.
“You obviously have an idea, oh wise one. Lead on.”
“The Second World War.” Anton said with a triumphant glint in his eyes. “Both nations tried at the same time to conquer the world and both were defeated.”
“Right, black and white soldiers walking very quickly with their hands up in the air. So?”
“So, these two super-militarist nations populated by self-designated master races, had to turn into super-pacifist, super-tolerant nations, and this did not happen because they suddenly chose to change, but because they were bombed into submission.”
“Yeah, Nagasaki and...Dresden?” Dave knew his history more or less, some years ago he had a period of surfing online encyclopedias for hours on end.
Anton pointed a forefinger at the ceiling. “Ah, Nagasaki, that’s another question. I wrote an interesting article once, exploring the connection between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the wave of postwar Japanese movies, dealing with huge monsters destroying their cities.”
“Where was it published?”
“In a blog,” Anton said a trifle defensively. “Anyway. So Germany and Japan were defeated and the Germans had to learn to think of Hitler not as of a demigod who made them into superhumans, but as of a lunatic; while the Japanese had to listen on the radio to emperor Hirohito confessing on the insistence of the Americans, that he is not a god.”
“Yeah, they lost the war, and they had to take a lot of shit.”
“Exactly my point.” Anton tapped the carpet with vigor, “exactly my point. They had to take this shit politely and gratefully. I mean, intellectually they were completely morally right to become polite pacifists, but deep down, where human nature is still on the level of kill or be killed, on that level they knew that they were taking shit. That is why they pioneered shit-eating porn.”
“An interesting theory Doctor Martorino.”
“Thank you, professor Cohran.”
“But we were not defeated in the war. We won it.”
“Yes, yes, that was just an example. This is the mechanism which I think popularized shit play. On one hand we have a civilization with oral disorders anywhere you turn. On the other hand, this civilization has taught its people how to take shit and like it, not least of all by using happy pills and or various legal and illegal stimulants to evade noticing it.
“Once it became a trend, it clicked with a lot of people, because a lot of people are people with oral disorders, who have to take shit from someone every day of their lives. You know, neurotic mechanism often work in a like-for-like manner.”
“Whatever you say doctor Martorino,” agreed Dave and stood up again, to get another dose of fresh air from the window. “I’m sure you’ll get a Nobel for this discovery.”
“Or a golden turd award or something.” Anton’s attempt to lighten up the atmosphere and relax Dave fell flat. The detective mused tensely without even turning around. “Why does my killer kill other people with their shit?” he asked somewhat angrily. “Is he compensating for something? Would he himself eat shit according to your theories?”
“Probably, probably he would,” Anton said. “Maybe he doesn’t admit his desire to do that to himself. He would see this as a terrible weakness.”
“I don’t blame him.”
“Right, so he projects it on other people. He doesn’t eat shit—he gets other people to do it instead of him.”
“Projection eh? Does stuff like that really happen?”
“Yup, classical psychoanalytical concept.”
Dave turned and shook his head at the albino, “You must be the last person alive who still reads that stuff.”
“Yah,” Anton said and looked at the table. Then he looked back at the detective. “Anyway, what about that robot sex toy that you’re hunting?”
“Oh, I’ll try to catch it tomorrow evening.”
“Really? How?”
“I’ll use myself as bait, lead it, hopefully, to my home, and my stakeout buddy Andy will nab it.”
“Well, good luck with that,” Anton said dubiously. “Why don’t you use some other place instead of your home? Sounds a bit dangerous.”
“Want me to lead it to your home?”
“I’m serious. Can’t you rent a flat and lead it there?”
Dave shrugged. “Well, it’s too late for this now. We’ll just have to hope it works out.”
“To things working out.” Anton said and raised his empty glass. Then he went to make some tea.
Chapter Thirty
The Thursday night rain pelted the window and as the big drops exploded on the windowsill tiny sprinkles fell through the window opening, into the room, and onto the wooden floor.
Which was probably not good in the long run, but Dave preferred to have the fresh moist air coming into his room. The consequences to the floor would have to be dealt with when they came.
He was sitting at his desk, slowly chewing a sandwich from the nearby Burger Pad, and also chewing over yesterday’s events. Maldiva had already gone home hours ago, but Dave had stayed in the office.
His cell phone began vibrating and making noises.
The alarm.
It was time.
He switched off his computer, closed the window and struggled with his long gray overcoat. The office buzzer rang. He opened the door and let in a wet-haired Andy. He was carrying a nylon bag.
�
�Hey, Dave,” he said, shaking the rain droplets from his hair. Then he quickly shoved his hand into his bag and produced various treasures.
“Motion detectors,” he said, producing half a dozen small nipples. “They vacuum stick to the walls.” He then took out a small touch screen mini-pad four inches across. “This is for you to monitor the motion detectors.”
Dave slipped it into his overcoat’s pocket. Andy was already offering him the next piece of equipment. “This is a German earplug. Range eight miles, after charging works for eight hours. I just charged it.”
Dave took the skin-colored button and wedged it into his left ear.
Andy clipped another anonymous looking button below the left lapel of Dave’s overcoat. “That’s the microphone,” he said. “Same characteristics. Let’s try it.”
Andy tapped his ear, indicating that his earplug was already inside. Dave quickly went to the other room. “Testing, testing,” he said into his lapel. “Loud and clear,” he heard deep in his left brain hemisphere.
“Jesus, not so loud man.”
“Sorry, I’ll lower the sounds settings.”
* * * *
Andy remained in his car, parked thirty yards from the sex shop. Dave parked his BMW ten yards from the shop, quickly sloshed his way through the shallow puddles on the pavement and stopped below the X-SEX sign.
“I’m going in,” he said.
As he pushed the door open, a ten second recording of a lusty groan announced his arrival. Inside, a young woman with very short hair, dressed in a thick long-sleeved pseudo-lumberjack shirt raised her eyes from her latest model tooter-twatter.
On the desk in front of her two pairs of handcuffs lay by an array of small bottles and tubes.
“Hi,” she said, gave her twatter one last toot, and stood up. Dave nodded silently and looked around.
To his left was a wall with rows of colorful dildos of various sizes. To his right hung square plastic bags with kinky sex-wear. Near them was the metallic railing of a staircase which led to the lower floor.
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