William didn't want to consider that. It was absurd. Completely against the character of the man he knew. Frank Miller was a good guy. He was successful, he had a good family, and Billy had never known Rank to be even a purveyor of mild SEEM pornography. There was no way that Rank would have commissioned a snuff film. And for what purpose?
What did William Grecko know about snuff films, anyway? Not much. Like most people who worked along the fringes of law enforcement, he was of the opinion that they were urban legends. In all his time as a criminal defense attorney, he knew of no case in which a snuff film had been found. There had been a case ten years ago in Anaheim in which a furniture maker had been convicted of murdering two prostitutes; it had been suggested they had been slaughtered for the purpose of producing such a film. However, no snuff film ever surfaced during the investigation. From what William remembered about the case, the killer had lured the two women out to the desert where he had stashed video-camera equipment and various items of torture. Their bodies had been found a few months later, scattered across the desert. A pair of undercover female detectives, who had been hoping to bust the man in an undercover sting, had testified that the suspect told them numerous times that he'd wanted to produce a snuff film to sell to the underground extreme hardcore market.
The underground extreme hardcore market. The very name conjured images of black leather and whips, people tied to chains in basements or empty warehouses, strung up by their wrists as they were flogged or burned with cigarettes or cut with knives or razor blades. Brad had told him that the people who were into this stuff took their S&M fetish way beyond the extreme into bizarre torture and mutilation, near death. William knew that there were people into auto-asphyxiation, where they achieved orgasm at a near-death state. What he found hard to grasp was the inflicting of extreme pain and torture for sexual gratification.
Well, didn't serial killers get their kick from killing? Wasn't it all a power trip for them? Isn't that what rape was about? It wasn't so much about sex-that was a part of it, but it wasn't the primary focus. Rape was the fantasy of the perpetrator who sought to achieve a feeling of power over his victims. Taken to the extreme, wouldn't it be safe to guess that one who got their jollies watching somebody being raped was a rapist by proxy? And weren't snuff films nothing more than rape films in which the victim was later killed?
William drained the bottle. He set it down on the desk with a clink and sighed. There was no way that Frank Miller was involved in snuff films. The man had a good life; he had a loving wife, a successful child. He had a great job. He wasn't like those assholes William defended in court, those sexual psychopaths who-
Stop it! he thought. You were going to equate Frank with the dichEd image that the public has of a rapist, the seedylooking guy with the stubbled chin, the low-wage common day laborer, the animal who can't control his sexual urges. Tat's bullshit. fbu know that a lot of these perpetrators look like the guy next door: Hell, you just defended a kid a few months ago who was accused of raping his neighbor. The defendant in question was a nineteen-year-old student at Fullerton College who had broken into his neighbor's home and raped the thirty-eight-year-old victim while the woman's infant son slept in the next room. The defendant had been convicted of first-degree sexual assault. William's client hadn't come from the wrong side of the tracks. If anything, he looked like a model citizen, the kind of kid any parent would want as a son.
In a way, he resembled the man Lisa described who had attacked and mutilated that woman Debbie Martinez. The guy she had called Animal. She'd said the guy looked like he could have been a lawyer or a young executive.
And if that was the case, then why do you find it so hard to believe that Frank Miller couldn't be involved in this shit?
Because Frank Miller isn't a fucking pervert! I know the guy! ff f had known he was into weird pom, f would have known! ff f had known he got off on watching women being raped and killed, f would have been tipped off years ago. Jesus fucking Christ, we talked about our sexual conquests enough times and leafed through those pom-shops on Harbor Boulevard enough after work for me to get an idea of what turned him on. And not once did f see him venture into the leather-andchain crap in the back of the store. Not once!
So what to do?
His private investigator was waiting for a call back. William had told him he had some thinking to do before he made his next move. The cops and the reds were looking at Rick Shectman and a few other individuals he was connected with in the illegal pornography world. His FBI contact hadn't been able to tell him much, just that they were chasing down leads, talking to people in the S&M world about the extreme hardcore element, hoping to get a lead on that. Most of their leads kept returning to Rick Shectman as a man who had a hand in producing specialty product: mutilation films, some specialized fetish stuff, usually by commission. So, naturally, the focus of the investigation was centered on him.
William knew that if Rick Shectman was involved, he'd be crafty. He'd have to be if he was involved in producing snuff films. How else could he have been involved in this underground world and not be caught? He'd be very careful now in the next few months, William was sure of it. Therefore, he wasn't going to do anything to tip the cops his way. What was the phrase Phil told him? q be guys that partake in this stuff, both the sellers and the buyers, they stay as far away from each other as possi ble." William believed that. Therefore, if Rick Shectman were involved in any way in the snuff pornography market, he'd be living a double life. He wouldn't be associating with anybody in the extreme hardcore scene, especially with any possible customers.
That decided it for him. William picked up the phone and dialed Phil's number. The detective picked up on the third ring. "Yeah." "
"Phil, it's Billy."
"What's up?"
"I'm gonna give you an address," William said, reaching for his address book and flipping through it. "I'm also gonna give you a name and a description. That's gonna be the guy I want you to tail."
"So you don't want me to look at Rick Shectman?"
"No" William found what he was looking for. "The guy I want you to tail is named Frank Miller. He lives at 3589 Snow Lane in Irvine. He's in his late fifties, five foot seven, one hundred and seventy pounds or so, dark hair turning gray, thinning a little at the top. He wears glasses, has a ruddy complexion. Favors slacks and polo shirts; conservative business attire Monday through Friday. He drives a tan BMW, late model. I don't have a license-plate number, but you should have no trouble getting that. He-"
1sn't that Brad's father?" Phil asked.
The realization of what he was asking Phil to do settled in the pit of his belly and burned a fire. "Yes," he said, closing his eyes, hoping to God he was making a big mistake in this. "Yes, it is."
Rick Shectman was pissed.
He was sitting in the living room of his sprawling ranch home, perched in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It was a warm day, in the mid-eighties, typi cal weather for Southern California, especially the San Gabriel valley. The windows were open, allowing a cool breeze to blow through. Rick had been reclining in his La-Z-Boy flipping through the cable channels blindly, waiting for the confirmation that the job he had given to Tim Murray was completed.