Suzannah returned to the torture chamber and took the torch from the wall. Shining it up to the ceiling she located the meat hook in its vault. Next she removed the drip-tray from under the rack and centered it in the floor. She wanted the john to see it the second he entered the room.
Good!she thought, smiling. Now the place is ready.
Leading with the flambeau, Suzannah left the chamber, crossed the hall, and made for the underground river. Finding a bucket, she dipped the container into the stream and carried the water over to a large stone trough. When the trough was a third full, she added the plaster of Paris. A plastic bag around the sack had protected it from the dampness.
She was stirring the powder and water together when once more from far away came the whine of a howling. In this part of the cavern, it sounded nothing like the wind.
She stood up listening, then began to walk the bank that led to the mouth of the river. The wailing grew louder, now a dismal moan.
Halfway toward the mouth that joined the Mississippi, the torchlight from the flambeau glinted off some metal. Here a rusting iron ladder climbed the side of a cylindrical stone bin. The howling — more insistent now — was coming from inside.
"Easy boy," Suzannah said. "Just wait a little longer. You will get what remains when our friend is finished."
Howling mad with frenzy, the Dobermann pinscher gnashed its teeth.
"Put these on!" Suzannah snapped as she threw the lingerie at Crystal. They were back in the bedroom on the second floor. Crystal looked at the white cotton bra and pair of white panties and then began to cry.
"I said put them ON!" The woman almost screamed.
Shaking, Crystal did as she was told. The white garments stood out against her rich, dark skin.
Suzannah crossed to the wardrobe and swung the right door open wide. Inside it was covered with numerous clumps of different colored hair hanging on metal hooks. The woman selected one of the wigs and sat down at the washstand. She pulled on the hair piece and adjusted it just right. When she stood up once again, long black snake-like strands writhed about her shoulders.
She grabbed the girl by the arm and dragged her out of the bedroom. Suzannah then went to one of the walls and took down a half-face mask. It was white with vision slits shaped like cat's eyes and two horned ears. "Put this on," she ordered, handing it to the girl.
Again Crystal did as she was told.
"Now, I don't care what happens, that mask does not come off. Understand? Neither does his. You deride him, shame him, spit on him — and most of all laugh at him while I work. Do you comprehend? All right. Now let's have that cocaine."
Once more Suzannah sat down at the glass table and delicately opened up a bindle. She selected a large rock from the powder and placed it on the surface. When it was chopped and lined she turned to the girl and said: "You snort first." Crystal did.
It was as Suzannah was leaning over to inhale her second line that the girl found the courage to whisper: "I won't do it!" She was staring at the empty eyes all around the room.
The blow hit her square on the cheek as the cocaine powder went flying. The tremendous force in the slap sent Crystal sprawling across the floor. The drug settled like snowflakes on the surface of the table.
Seeing this, Suzannah's mind flashed with a vivid thought. For there he was once again dying in a wasteland of snow She could see his face contorted as the poison took effect, the yellow spittle caking his moustache and freezing to ice as it dribbled from his lips. Outright terror was registered in his eyes.
Suzannah pulled her gaze away from the cocaine on the table. She jerked a leather thong from off a hook in the wall. Then she pounced over to stand straddled above the girl.
"Eat me, sugar!" she ordered. "Then lace my cunt up good!"
Crystal shook her head.
She refused to look at the rings glinting in the hair.
The second blow was harder, almost lifting her off the floor. It sent the girl crashing against one of the wooden doors. This door was the third one in the wall on the left.
Suddenly Crystal yanked her hand away as if the partition had burned her. Suzannah laughed, then smiled.
"When you don't have the one you hate, you work on what you've got. What you're hearing, Crystal, is my very special project."
Low and muted behind the door, a child's voice was sobbing. "Mommy! Mommy, I'm sorry! Forgive me. Mommy! Please!"
At 1:13 that morning, the doorbell rang.
Macho/Macha
Vancouver, British Columbia, 1982
Sunday, October 31st, 11:05 a.m.
Katherine Spann was standing at the bulletin board looking at the photograph of Joanna Portman's head when one of the# men in the group with her said: "Well, this sure puts all our balls on the line."
"And just what does it do for me?" the woman asked.
The male cop who had spoken looked her over from head to toe. "Depends what part of your body you want to put at risk," he said, winking in conspiracy with a couple of the men. Spann turned back to the bulletin board, ignoring the taunt.
Beside the plastic sealed photograph and note from the Headhunter, MacDougall had just pinned up the duty roster. Spann scanned the list of assignments and began to hunt for her name. She found it under the list heading: seven flying patrols.
"Anybody here know a guy named Rick Scarlett?" she asked.
"You're looking at him," the man said who had just given her the visual once-over.
"Oh, great!" the woman said. "Just great!"
Scarlett was tall, just under six two, and in his late twenties. His hair was short and light brown with just a hint of redness, the color the same as that of his clipped military moustache. His eyes were a muddy brown. The features of his face were clean and sharp as were the other lines of his body. His muscles were tightly knit, and he moved with fluid motion. Athletic was the single word that best summed him up.
"I'll see you downstairs," Katherine Spann said, then she turned on her heels and made for the locker room.
Behind her someone whistled.
Locker rooms — even coed locker rooms — are the same the whole world over. There is that universal smell of sweat. There is the certain knowledge that the fungus of athlete's foot is lurking in at least one of the corners. And — if males are present — there is sure to be a jock mentality to the level of conversation. Men in locker rooms always relate that way.
When Katherine Spann came down the stairs at 4949 Heather Street, two men and a woman were talking at the foot of the steps.
"… he was a bum-face all the way," one of the men was saying.
"A bum-face? What do you mean?"
"You know, one of those guys with big fleshy round orbs for cheeks, skin stretched tight as it goes. Always got a little mouth pursed together like a twitching sphincter. Guy looks at you, ya think he's hangin a moon."
"Do you always talk about judges this way?" the woman in the group asked.
"Always," Ed Rabidowski said.
"Mad Dog" Rabidowski at thirty-two was a Charles Bronson type: square shoulders, over-developed muscle tone, latent violence. His face looked like a piece of rough-cut stone. His cheekbones were chiseled high with an Oriental slant, his nose chipped fine and his mouth slashed thin. He had Clark Gable ears, jet black hair, bushy black eyebrows, and a drooping black moustache. His eyes were colored gun-barrel blue.