A lucking psycho?Tim thought. "So what he do? He talk some sense into you, or what?"
"Jerry made a deal with some of the NewYork people," Mabel said. "He emphasized that I was… special. That I wasn't like other dominatrices. He made it clear that I could play out extreme hardcore scenes, that I had the stomach for them. Believe it or not, there were just as many hardcore freaks back then as there are now. They were just harder to find in those days. The ones we did find… well, they paid handsomely."
Tim nodded. "You do snuff films back then?"
"No. The technology wasn't available. We didn't even think of snuff films back then. What we had were live shows.*
"Live shows?"
"Yes" Mabel looked at him, an elderly grandmother instructing the young. 'If you wanted to watch, you paid two thousand dollars. We'd get around ten people, maybe twenty tops. And they would sit around and watch while I tortured some kid until they died. We'd do a show like that maybe once ayear."
"Fuck! Your husband know?"
"No. He never knew about the live shows. He did find out about the lighter S&M, though. At first he was furious. Then I showed him the money I made and he had a change of heart."
"How much you make?"
Mabel looked at him, grinning. "For the regular S&M? In one year I'd made ten thousand dollars."
Tim nodded. Ten grand in the fifties would be like sixty now "What was the scene like then?"
"Same as it is now," Mabel said. "Rich businessmen wanting to explore the forbidden. Pain freaks that got off on having pins being inserted in their scrotums or having their penises split in half and pierced. Same sick fucks."
Tim chuckled. "Aren't you a sick fuck?"
Mabel snorted. "And you aren't?"
Tim shrugged. "1 just do this shit for the money."
"You don't enjoy it?"
"No"
Pause. Mabel turned back to the passing scenery. They were on the outskirts of the city now. "Waste of time if you don't enjoy it. You don't know what you're missing."
"What am I missing?"
Mabel looked at him. "If you knew, you wouldn't be asking me."
Tim glanced at her, turned his attention back to the road. He had asked Animal the same question once. The sadist had remarked: "l like the feel of brains on my dick when I'm skull-fucking 'em." That had been his answer. He wondered what Mabel's answer was. "I'm asking you now," he said. 'You ain't got a dick, so I know it's not a sexual thing the way it is with Animal.'
"What makes you think it isn't? Women climax just the same as men do."
"So you get off on it?*
"Yes"
'You get off on torturing and killing people?*
"I wouldn't do it if I didn't like it."
"And you really like eatin' people?"
"Yes. I do." Mabel Schneiders eyes gleamed. She licked her wrinkled lips. "You really don't know what you're missing."
They were in the desert now, cruising the last remaining suburbs of Las Vegas. "How long you been doing this shit, then?"
"Over forty years!
'And you never been caught?' He realized it was a dumb question the minute it slipped out of his mouth.
"Na" She grinned. "Things were the same then as they are now. The people I was allowed to… to wallow in… they're the same kind of people we use now. Nobody wants them. They're throwaways. Homeless people, runaways, vagrants. Rejects of society. Nobody missed them then, nobody misses them now'
Tim thought about it as he drove. It was hard to believe that the hardcore scene had been around for so long, but then he supposed that, in a way, it always had been. The Romans used to have stadiums erected for the singular purpose of torturing and killing people in front of an audience. Man may be more civilized in social aspects, but he hadn't really changed in two thousand years. F ople still lived for blood sports. Look at boxing. And they called that a sport. Watch two men pound the crap out of each other for the sole purpose of trying to knock the other unconscious. And audiences cheered for the winner. The more mayhem, the more blood, the better.
Tim nodded. "Do your kids know you do it?"
"No." Her knuckles were bone white as she gripped the clasps of her purse.
"They never suspected?"
Mabel Schneider looked at him. "I never once let them even think I was involved in the scene. It's… it's my private thing. Do you understand? It's my private pleasure. It's something nobody can take away from me."
Tim nodded. That was the excuse patrons to the hardcore scene always gave. They participated in this in the privacy of their own homes. They didn't hurt anybody. They just liked to watch other people be tortured, raped, and murdered in the privacy of their own homes, where they weren't hurting anybody. Yeah, right.
They were ten miles from the secondary road he needed to take to get to the location. From there it was another thirty miles. They would be there in about forty minutes. "So back in the forties and fifties there was a thriving S&M scene, right? And as far as underground hardcore, there were no snuff films."
'There were no snuff films. At least as far as I know"
"You ever been in one?"
"A snuff film?"
"Yeah."
She nodded. "A few. The first one back in sixty-nine, maybe 1970."
"You wear a mask?"
"Yes" Mabel pulled herself up a bit. "I was playing the role of the madam dominatrix. I was in my late fifties then, and I still had my looks. I had quite a body back then. You would have wanted to fuck me."
"I'm sure I would've," Tim said, prodding her to go on. "So what happened?"
"1 played the role of a madam dominatrix. The film was commissioned by a rich businessman. A homosexual sadist. He wanted to watch a young man get raped and tortured by a woman. Strange, don't you think? Usually queers like to watch men get done by other men. Not this guy. He wanted a woman. An older woman. He had a thing for older women, even though he was queer. It was probably a mommy complex. What do they call that?'
'Oedipus complex." "
"Right. This guy, this client, obviously had one. The slave we used was some kid from New York. A hustler. He'd been kicked out of his home a few years before when his father, who was a minister, found out he was queer. He was into light S&M… nothing too daring. He started appearing in B&D loops that Rick Shectman's father produced as a bottom."
So Rick's dad was into all this then? That's how Rick knows you?"
Mabel Schneider nodded. "Yes. I've done a lot of work for Boris Shectman"
'What kind of work?"
"The usual. Hardcore S&M stuff. Fetish stuff.'
"He used you even when you were, you know…"
"So old?'
'Yeah"
Mabel chuckled. "What are you, naive, boy? Don't you know there's a big market for films showing us old folks fucking? It's huger
Tim nodded. That much was true. Rick Shectman had produced a few commissions for clients that catered to this fetish. "So you been working steadily for Boris, and now you do stuff for Rick. When was the last time you did a snuff filmr
The last one I did was in seventy-eight or nine.'
'What was that ofY
"A boy. A runaway. Maybe thirteen, fourteen years old."
"You ever do girls? Women?"
"Oh yes"
"And you still like to eat people?"
"Oh yes." Mabel grinned at him. "I haven't lost that passion"
"And you haven't been caught because nobody will believe that an old fuck like you can be a sick fuck, too."
"Look who's talking, doughboy."
They were approaching the secondary road. Tim checked his rearview mirrors, made a right, and they trundled down the road. Now it was time to start watching traffic around them. He couldn't afford to be spotted by cops now. "Doughboy. That's a good one. Nobody's ever called me that before."