Body on the Backlot

by Eva Monteleagre

  •••

  I WATCHED FROM THE shadows as Addams engaged The Barb in a short conversation. I followed them as they moved out the back door and climbed into the Humvee. Larry, the driver, stood outside the limo as the two men met within. He glanced at me and then pointedly ignored me, which was good. I was hoping the guy would be an ally, but you can never be too sure. The windows were tinted on the limo so I couldn’t see any other interaction once Addams and The Barb were inside. By accident, I noticed Dewey get into a taxi and I thought that was very strange. Why would he leave this esteemed evening of events? Was he going back home?

  I went back into the club, my anxiety level rising. Zombita was singing a spooky love ballad. It was a remake of an old Bessie Smith song. Something about her lover being buried in a graveyard and now she would always know where to find him. I listened to her voice, now a sinister haunting sound. More anger surged within me with every irony and rhyme. She finished the set and the crowd went crazy. I watched her cut off the stage, then through the backstage.

  Then Gus signaled that it was time to move out. Our plan was to take a ride up to Piuma Heights and check out that dirt road.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  WE SPED THROUGH HOLLYWOOD in a flash, zooming past all the tinsel, neon, and people of the night. We took La Cienega, the restaurant row of Los Angeles, and jumped on the Santa Monica freeway and were on Pacific Coast Highway in twenty minutes. There was traffic but it was moving fast.

  Gus made a call to get some additional information on our destination. Came back that the Piuma Heights address was the home of an old man who had lived there since 1932.

  “The guy must be ninety years old,” I said.

  “If he’s still alive,” said Gus.

  Gus called Mark O’Malley and had him start the proceedings for a search warrant. In the meantime, we asked for backup. I took a pic of the limo driver’s map and sent it on to Mark by text.

  We followed Pacific Coast Highway along the beach. A sliver of moon shone down on the dark water. The sky was electric blue. A half hour later, we turned right on Rambla Pacifica and climbed up the Topanga mountainside. Ten minutes later, we took a secondary road that snaked ever higher up into the clouds.

  An owl on a telephone wire took swooping flight as we passed. I could almost hear my gramma’s voice telling me that an owl moving off into darkness was a sure sign that you were about to move into the unknown and mysterious. As we got closer, I realized what I already knew was plenty bad. I wouldn’t like it to get much worse. What I would discover and the weight of the responsibility of it had me in its grip. I felt fear in my bones. Thoughts of the devil, quietly choosing victims to pull down to their deaths, filled my mind as we gazed into the black maw of that canyon.

  We climbed up and up, wound round and round, until we hit Ridgeback Road where the map indicated to go left and follow the road to the top of the mountain. I peered at sleeping houses, a few with porch lights still on and cars parked askew on barely hewn driveways. Near the top of the mountain, the Piuma Heights road sign was lit up by our car beams. The map showed that we should pass that road and continue another winding seven hundred feet, then take a right.

  Dread blossomed in my chest and I said a little prayer. When we took the right onto what looked like a fire road out through the heavy chaparral, a young coyote darted out in front of the car and we had to swerve not to hit it.

  We drove onward to where the road ended. The car headlights fell on a rusty NO TRESPASSING sign that swung eerily from an old chain pulled across a poorly kept dirt road of washed-out sandstone. I looked into a canyon that went all the way down to the ocean. The wind was beating the chaparral. Trees and bushes appeared to frantically warn us.

  “Canyons measureless to man down to a sunless sea,” whispered Gus.

  According to the map, the house we wanted was at the end of this gnarled dirt road. Gus parked the car behind a stand of tall pampas grass whipping in the wind.

  We’d have to continue on foot. I estimated from the map that it was another two miles to the house, and we weren’t talking about a neighborhood with streetlights. Except for the stars and the silver moon, the night was pitch black. Gus opened the trunk, got a flashlight, and put it into his back pocket. We moved on down the non-road to the sound of cicadas and furtive animal movements on either side.

  There were such deep ruts in the road that we had to use the flashlight. Gus kept it as low and close to the ground as possible. We moved in a half circle around the mountain. A chorus of frogs sounded in the distance, growing louder and louder. In my youth, I often took walks at night. Thoughts of the Ozarks invaded my thoughts. The chorus of frogs came to a dead quiet when the flashlight beam bounced around onto mud, then water, and finally on Autumn’s silver car, the Audi T. It was parked before a creek. She couldn’t make it across in the car and had parked it there. The water was cold. Halfway across the creek, we were up to our knees in mud and water. A chill ran through my body and my stomach heaved. A faint but deadly fear revisited me.

  “Joanie, are you okay?”

  “Fine, let’s just keep crossing.”

  A single frog croaked in encouragement. We managed to get across that damn creek, stream, whatever it was. I guess it wasn’t just pomp that prompted them to rent the Humvee limo; they needed a military vehicle just to get in and out of this place without messing up their nice clothes. We were wet and cold and the wind wasn’t kind to us. As soon as we were a few feet from the water, the frogs started back up in full chorus.

  There certainly was a house somewhere nearby because a pipe ran along what had to be a rarely used road.

  I was sure we’d approach a structure soon. After another quarter mile we came upon a foundation of large hewn stones. There was old broken pottery in different stages of development strewn around the structure of a small house. It was as if this were a dump for a potter’s mistakes. The design of the building was old, like it had been built in the bootleg era. Gus flipped off the flashlight. A small florescent bulb hung from a wire in one room.

  Gus and I moved up closer. We approached a window and peered in. Inside, we saw there was a short and roughly constructed doorway, with a rusty bar across it and a shiny new padlock on it. I figured it must lead to a cellar or a basement, which is highly unusual in earthquake-prone California.

  We heard footsteps moving about inside, so Gus and I moved to each side of the window and pressed our backs against the rough stone. A shadow moved over the grass outside the window. Someone inside was obviously near the window, and from the sound of it, they unlocked the cellar door. Their footfalls went down the steps. When I thought it was safe, I took a peek to discover that it was Dewey disappearing down into the basement. I strained to see more when I heard a mewing sound and I guessed it was a cat. It seemed to be coming from behind us, but I couldn’t locate the animal. There was a covered well with an old-fashioned lock on it, and the mewing had to be coming from there. Maybe the cat had fallen in and couldn’t get out. Or maybe someone had locked it in the well to be cruel. It was then I considered for a moment whether it was a cat mewing or a person, a woman, whimpering. I turned back and peered into the house. The shiny silver padlock dangled loosely from the hook on what I assumed was the basement door.

  “What’s going on?” whispered Gus.

  “I don’t know,” I breathed. “It’s Dewey. He just went down some steps. It’s got to be a basement or something. I think I hear someone trapped in the well.”

  Gus looked over at the well. “Listened, but no mewing or whimpering came from the well.”

  “I heard it Gus, I’m sure of it.”

  He nodded. “If it’s a basement, there’s probably a window,” said Gus as he started moving.

  We felt our way around the building, being careful not to make any noise. We came across a huge vent coming out of the structure, even more unusual in California and especially for such a small structure. Several dozen propane tanks were lined up
against the building and we scooted around them. There was a rusted military jeep, with no top, parked behind the house. It had to be fifty years old.

  “When we get inside, we need the keys to that thing,” Gus pointed at the jeep.

  “You think it runs?”

  Gus nodded. “There’s fresh mud on the tires.”

  We continued to move around the building to a shining light that came from what had to be a basement window. On hands and knees, I bent down to carefully and quietly wipe away a small area of dust and cobwebs, being careful not to actually touch the window or make any movement that would be sighted from inside.

  At that moment, the light went off. We froze and listened to the door being closed and padlocked. I waited a moment, stepped away from the window, and looked in.

  Nothing but darkness.

  Dewey had gone back upstairs and moved into what must have been the kitchen because he turned a faucet on and off and I heard the door to an icebox open and close. He rattled around in there for a while, then began a strange moaning sound that had a certain repeated rhythm to it like an incantation or a chant.

  Gus went to work on the window with one of his gadget contraption things, a pocketknife with every kind of tool you can imagine.

  “You got a glass cutter on that thing?” I asked.

  Gus nodded, “But that ain’t gonna get it.”

  The front door was thrown open and Dewey came out and shouted something out into the night. He did this repeatedly as if he were calling someone or something. I couldn’t make out who or what.

  Gus had some problems as the window was rusted and old. He’d have a hard time crawlin’ in that window, but I could make it through, even with my hips, if he managed to get the window completely out of the frame. He was working it. Gus was sweating so much his collar was completely wet. His muscular arms and shoulders strained with the effort to control his movements and not make any sound. Finally, he managed it. When I bent down to enter, the rank stench that came out of that opening was disheartening. “Where’s a gas mask when you need one?” Gus whispered.

  “I’m going in,” I whispered back.

  Gus nodded solemnly and took out the flashlight.

  He popped on a red plastic cover over the bulb so that when I used the flashlight it wouldn’t dilate my eyes. My appreciation for his gadgets grew by the moment. I’d be able to continue to see in the dark after I used it. I tucked it into my back pocket.

  I sat on my butt and stuck one leg in, then the other, and maneuvered around onto my stomach, twisting, inching my way through the window, trying not to crush my breasts.

  I hung down the side of the wall from my fingers and my feet scrapped and slipped on slime. I heard Dewey walking across the floor above me and held my breath. I was stunned by the realization that the fear I felt was similar to when my father walked across the floor above me after he had killed my mother. An uncontrollable trembling came over me. I pushed it back, fighting it off, refusing its grip. I dropped to the ground, landed softly on my feet.

  I stayed frozen there for a moment, listening. The air was thick with the smell of feces, urine, and mold. Upstairs, the footfalls moved to the living room area. I felt around in the darkness and put my hand against the damp wall and began to move, continuing to feel along the wall.

  It was sweaty with a slimy moisture I couldn’t identify. I gasped when something scurried over my feet. Two hands clasped my arm and I nearly screamed.

  “Help,” a voice whispered.

  I pulled my flashlight out and flicked it on.

  The face of Vernice, the black girl, was lit in red before me. Barbed wire was tied around her neck. Her eyes bulged in fear and desperation.

  “Please, help,” she whispered again. Her teeth chattered, creating an eerie percussion. Her body trembled and I thought my heart could not bear the weight that seemed to crush it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  AS I POINTED THE red beam on the rest of the room, I thought something was wrong with the bulb of my flashlight as it kept flickering. Then I realized the flashlight was fine—it was me that was shaking. I moved from bed to bed, almost unable to comprehend what I saw. I looked at the face of each sleeping young woman. Vernice was at my side, still clutching my arm. My heart beat against my chest. None of the young women were conscious except for Vernice. All had the cruel barbed wire wrapped around their necks. I recognized Suzy, the girl with the mole, and Jeanette, the one with the scar, Marissa, the one with the tattoo, Judy, the one with the birthmark, Jennifer, the tall one. Anne, with the olive complexion, was drooling.

  Then finally I discovered Katrice, the one with a dimple when she smiled, but she wasn’t smiling. I couldn’t even be sure she was breathing. I touched her face but her skin was cold and clammy. I feared that she was near death, if not actually dead. Then I remembered Autumn and how well she had revived and I hoped the same would be true for Katrice. If, in fact, it was the same drug at work, for it was certain that they were all drugged. Katrice was more sunken down in the bed, almost as if she were in a shallow grave. I shone the flashlight under her bed and saw that the rusty wire webbing that was supposed to hold the mat in place sagged down. A rat dashed across the stone floor. I said their names over and over again. It was my mantra. My own protective chant.

  I bumped into a huge propane gas tank. When I searched around the area with the flashlight, there was a large mass in the corner. As I got closer I realized it was barbed wire. Anger flushed up the back of my head, but it was quickly replaced by horror when I realized that there were two thin red-and-black wires attached to the propane gas tank. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the tank was connected to a long pipe that also ran up and through the hole into what I guessed was the kitchen. The place was wired and the piping looked like the work of an advanced student of explosives. Neither Gus nor I had explosive training, and getting the bomb squad here in time was out of the question. Getting the victims out and safe was priority one.

  An archway led into more darkness and I moved, pulling Vernice toward a smaller room with an even smaller wooden door. “I don’t want to go in there,” said Vernice.

  “What’s in there?” I asked. “Tell me.”

  She shook her head violently and let go of my arm. I found there was a rusty bar across the wooden door but no lock. I took the bar off and leaned it against the wall and gently opened the door. It creaked, so I moved it slowly. Once inside, I turned my flashlight onto the vent that led to this room and saw it was attached to a large kiln, which explained the pottery and at least one reason for the use of propane. I searched the rest of the room and found first a bucket, and then a boy, naked and huddled in the corner of the darkness behind it. His whole body trembled with fear.

  “Hello,” I said, my voice sounding strange and hollow. “My name is Joan and I’m going get you out of here.”

  He ducked his head between his knees. The trembling increased.

  “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you. Understand?”

  The boy ducked his head farther down and put his hands over his head.

  “My name is Joan,” I repeated. “What’s your name?”

  He lifted his head and peered at me, the trembling stopped.

  “Tommy,” he said.

  Tommy, the missing boy.

  “Okay, Tommy. We’re getting out of here, okay?”

  He looked doubtful. “They have guns,” he said.

  “We’re going to trick them,” I said. “We’ll sneak out, okay?”

  He thought about this, then nodded.

  “Okay, let’s go,” I said.

  I put out my hand. He grasped me with both his small cold hands. We walked together through the archway. As we turned around the corner, I bumped the bar I had placed there and it fell to the ground with a loud clang.

  I heard Dewey’s footsteps immediately. Vernice scuttled through the darkness to her bed.

  “Tommy, go back and pretend I wasn’t here, I’ll come
and get you, I promise.”

  He resisted, so I had to push him back into the dark room. My heart sunk as I closed the door and put the bar in place. I heard Dewey undo the padlock at the top of the stairs. I didn’t have time to climb out the window so I had to disappear. I saw Gus place the window glass gently against the frame to disguise his handiwork. I crossed to the cots, found the one with Katrice, and lifted the mattress just enough to slide in underneath. The rusty wire webbing dug into the flesh all along my backside. I focused on not breathing. Dewey’s footsteps came down the stairs and a bright light came on. Dewey immediately went into the smaller room where Tommy was. I could hear as the bar was removed and the door creaked open.

  “Whas goin’ on in here, boy?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You tryin’ to escape?”

  “No.”

  “You better not be!”

  I heard a struggle, then a slap, and something huge and fierce loomed up in me. I shot out from under that mattress and pulled the gun from my back holster. The smaller room was lit from a hanging light bulb just like the one with the girls. I heard Tommy whimper. A murderous bile came to my mouth.

  Dewey’s back was to me when I stepped into the room. Dewey had Tommy’s head clasped in one hand with a tight grip on his hair. He was pulling the boy toward him. I placed my gun into the base of Dewey’s skull.

  “Don’t move, Dewey. I wouldn’t want to get your brains all over the place, the kid’s already been through enough.” Dewey was still. “Now, let go of the boy.”