But I was talking about the great pictures I see on the job. They’re the reason I have to go to 1201 Arrowhead Avenue tomorrow. I’ll explain it then...assuming I come back. Like I said, this is not just a record, it’s a precaution.
AUGUST 21
Okay, remember how that killer in Silence of the Lambs was based on some crazy motherfuckers from real life? One was Ed Gein, who killed at least three women in Plainfield, Wisconsin. His hobbies included cannibalism, necrophilia, and fashioning furniture, bowls, masturbatory aids, and clothing accessories from dead women. Waste not, want not, right? Ed could have taught home economics and interior decorating.
The other inspiration was Gary Heidnik, who kept some prostitutes hostage in his cellar. They were played against each other as he systematically tortured and killed them. Just goes to show you can never tell what’s going on in the homes around you.
Unless, of course, you develop their film.
The house on Arrowhead certainly didn’t look like the kind of place you’d find a lot of missing women chained up in the cellar, assuming there is a design intended to suggest this. It’s a two-story the color of earth clay, with blue shutters, entirely visible from the street except where maple trees get in the way.
The mailman stops here six days a week, never realizing. The resident probably didn’t have subscriptions to magazines like Unwilling Sex Slaves, Torture Made Easy for the Suburban Serial Killer, or Middle Class Murder, though.
I rang the doorbell. I’d thought about what to say all week, and this was the big moment at last. I heard footsteps, the door opened, and I got my first look at him. (After we develop the film, it’s packaged and placed on an in-store rack where the customer can pick it up. I rarely see them unless they have questions or they need one-hour photo service.)
“Mr. Owens?”
He squinted in the light—a scrawny, skeletal man whose smile may have seemed pleasant to anyone who didn’t know his secret life. I bet it was the last thing several women the police didn’t know about saw, and I doubted they’d describe it as “charming.”
“Yes?” he asked. The picture of innocence. I could sense the gears turning in his head; he’d seen me before, even if I hadn’t seen him. If it was at work, I generally pay little attention to the male customers anyway, especially when the females are parading around in shorts and halter-tops.
I had this elaborate story about a lost basset hound named Gloria, but I found myself saying, “You’re the one who took Cassandra Bittaker.”
If the police dropped that line on him, I don’t think he would have reacted, but this was coming from some kid he vaguely remembered seeing before. He couldn’t quite conceal his discomfort.
“Are you out of your mind?” he finally asked—which wasn’t quite the same as denial.
“Cassandra Bittaker back in April. Melinda Trenton in June. Gina Norris and Lorraine West in July.”
Owens’ expression gradually changed as I named the young women who mysteriously vanished in the past four months. Initially, he had the look of a claustrophobic man on a stalled elevator, but by the time I got to “Gina Norris,” he was positively beaming. Like I was describing his greatest accomplishments.
“You read the papers,” he said. “So do I. I don’t go door to door making wild accusations, though. Maybe you should stick to the funnies.”
“Maybe I should call the police,” I countered. “They’d be very interested in your basement. That’s where you keep them, isn’t it?”
The whole time, he kept that smile. Fight or flight was in his eyes, but the smile never faltered. It reminded me of all those pictures where the flash gave people red satanic eyes, but they smiled good-naturedly all the same.
Owens surreptitiously examined the street from right to left. I knew he was looking for potential witnesses to his next disappearing act, having realized that he wouldn’t be having this conversation with me if I’d already called the police. A SWAT team would have smashed through every window and door of the house.
“I wrote about coming here in my journal,” I lied. He didn’t have to know that I hadn’t actually gotten around to naming names or reasons. “I went from house to house on your block, too, asking about my lost dog. ‘A basset hound, long ears, sleeps about twenty hours a day, answers to Gloria.’ If I disappear, someone around here will remember me. It won’t be long before they figure out my last visit was at your house.”
Sounds convincing, doesn’t it? Wish I’d thought of it BEFORE I went through with this, and actually did it.
He looked at me like he was trying to solve an equation, and the smile finally receded.
“Not only that,” I went on, “but you know who I am. And I have copies of your pictures. It was pretty ingenious of you to nab all those girls without being seen, but you need to bone up on common sense.”
He didn’t look pleased with that remark at all. “Just what exactly is it that you want?” he asked, his mouth barely a line on his face.
“Show them to me,” I said.
AUGUST 21 (LATER)
I’m back. Damn telephone. People calling to ask how my mom and I are doing, as if they really care. We oughtta have the thing disconnected.
Anyway, I GOT TO SEE THEM! It must have been how those astronauts felt at the moon landing. One small step for man, one giant leap for sexual sadism. You go in the house, through the den to the kitchen, and that’s where the door to the basement is. I made Owens go first, because I didn’t want him to a) push me down the stairs, b) lock me up down there with the women, or c) both. Not that b) wasn’t without its prospects, but I’d only accomplish half of my goals. More on that later.
So we went down there, and of course it’s just like the pictures, for the most part. The basement walls are stone, and Owens has the shackles driven into them. You aren’t breaking away from those unless you come from the planet Krypton. There were also some empty shackles, for future acquisitions. And speaking of acquisitions, there, from left to right, were the pretty little schoolgirls and co-eds all in a row. Alphabetical order, too. I thought it was a coincidence, but he consciously lined them up that way. It seems like a pointless risk to me if he has to trade out shackles, but Owens is a bit weird.
The girls are chained with their arms overhead, which makes their breasts rise up. I sound like Gray’s Anatomy, don’t I? Their tits, then! I’d seen tons of pictures, but never in the flesh, never right in front of me. Not even when I was looking into houses, even after three steady years outside Lissa Hindley’s. My sister always locked her room and the bathroom, too. It was like this huge conspiracy to make sure I never got to see the good stuff, but I found a way around it, didn’t I?
It was all on display! Four downy clefts, eight TITTIES, and four sets of ass. Hours and hours of fist-pumping action if you just happened to sit next to them during a study hall, but in a place like this, where you can blur the line between daydream and reality, the possibilities were almost exhausting.
I HAD thought about being a “law-abiding citizen” and calling the police when I first saw the pictures. If anyone ever reads this, I want to go on record as saying I considered it. But when I weighed the pros and cons, doing the “right thing” seemed like a real cop-out. Think about it. Let’s say I reported the pictures to the proper authorities, and they stormed the house, saving the women and arresting Carl Owens. Would I even get so much as a thank-you card from three of those women? It’s doubtful. After all the psychiatric treatment for their “ordeal” and their “post-traumatic stress disorder,” they’d either go on with their lives and purposely leave any reminders of the experience way behind them, or they’d try to cash in on their “tribulations.” The bottom line came down to “Will good ol’ Alex get some ass in return for his heroic benevolence?” and the answer was always “Not bloody likely.” What WHORES! Some gratitude, huh?