‘Of course.’
‘Markowitz warned me, said I didn’t have to sit through the entire thing. He told me I’d regret it if I did. But I was so confident in my own professional detachment, I took it for a challenge. I had to view the film because Riker had made such a mess of the man’s face, Markowitz couldn’t identify the victim from the driver’s license photo, and there were no prints on file. He asked me to make the ID based on the scar from a wound the victim received in that film.’
‘Tell me about the film.’
‘After I tell you, you will wish I hadn’t. I guarantee that. Shall I go on?’
This was his last chance to be an honest man, the man Edward Slope thought he was dealing with.
‘Yes, go on.’
‘Do you know what a snuff film is?’
‘No.’
‘It’s a film of the torture and murder of a human being. A little something for the ultimate film buff – the freak. Most of the victims are children. Any child you see on the streets of New York can be turned into some kind of currency.’
Slope waved down a passing waiter to order a double scotch. He turned back to Charles. ‘I can’t do this sober. Are you sure you want to hear all the details?’
‘Quite sure.’
Not at all sure. I have nightmares enough. No. Go on. I deserve this.
‘When the film opened, the children, a boy and a girl, were asleep on the floor of a cage. It wasn’t a fancy production. It was shot in a warehouse with only one set. I believe the children were drugged. The little boy was just coming out of it. Maybe that’s why they took him first. The little girl wasn’t moving at all. It was Kathy, of course. You knew that.’
Charles nodded.
Another lie, and another bad dream due for penance.
‘She could only have been eight years old when the film was made. She’d apparently been on the street for a while by then. She was wearing a grimy T-shirt and jeans that were miles too big for her. I remember her telling me once, that she’d always stolen the jeans closest to the door of the shop, so she didn’t always get a great fit.’
A waiter hovered over the table to deposit a glass which Edward grabbed up at once. He drank quickly.
‘She was only wearing one shoe, and one foot was bare. Well, they took the boy out of the cage and started to work on him. I made Markowitz turn off the volume, but I can still hear the child screaming. You don’t need to know what they did. But he lived quite a while before they were finished with him. And all the while, the cage was in view to one side of the screen. Kathy never moved, never opened her eyes. I watched her the whole time they were torturing the little boy.’
Oh, God. No, wait. I’m a visitor in Mallory’s church tonight, and God is not here.
‘Then it was Kathy’s turn.’
I don’t want to hear any more of this.
‘One of the men opened the door of the cage and lifted her out. She was dead weight in his arms.’ Edward ran one hand through his hair, and then drank from the glass as though with a terrible thirst.
‘You know what I remember most vividly? The one small shoe and the little bare foot. Isn’t that absurd? Kathy slept on as he laid her down on the mattress that was bloodied from the body of the little boy. They had just rolled him off to one side. So much blood.’
Charles watched the rapid movement of Edward’s eyes and realized that the man was watching the film all over again. Edward’s hands covered his face for a moment, and his next words were muffled.
‘Oh, Christ! Isn’t it just a wonderful world for children, Charles?’
Charles began to rise from his chair, leaning toward his dinner companion. Edward put up one hand.
‘No, I’m all right. Sit down, Charles. I’m sorry.’
And after another moment, the reel in the doctor’s eyes rolled on again.
‘And then the man bent over her. Suddenly, Kathy was awake. Not just coming around from the drug, but wide awake. She’d been shamming sleep – that was obvious – waiting out the murder, picking her moment. And then she was all over the man and all teeth and snarls like an animal. Her little thumbs stabbed at his eyes. That one veered off with both hands to his face. Blood was streaming out between his fingers. You can guess at the damage she did there. And then the cameraman was on her. She closed her mouth on his bare arm and bit off a chunk of the flesh. A chunk of flesh, Charles. And she spat it out on the floor.’
Charles looked into the shattered lenses of Edward’s eyes. The doctor was in the moment. It was happening all over again.
‘And now the men are screaming, lights are being overturned, the camera is lying on the floor. The closing shot is Kathy hightailing it down a dark hall and away from the light, running like the devil, with one shoe off and one shoe on.’
He had liked that stupid look of surprise in the moment she realized she would die. Best of all, he liked the look of her when she was dead, all lines of hostility smoothed out. The only good bitch was a dead bitch. Mallory would be no different.
The two grapes were squashed beneath his thumbs, but slowly in the delicious destruction of the orbs, the breaking of the skin, flattening of membranous flesh therein, the feel of the cold destroyed tissue. Each was a green eye to him. And now he drew his thumbs back from the cutting board. Staring at them, mashed, split, she was blind to him.
‘She wouldn’t press charges,’ said Betty Hyde, setting her coffee mug on the counter top in the Rosens’ kitchen. ‘I don’t suppose you have any more proof on the beating of his mother? I’ve got a very vague column for the morning edition. My editor won’t let me use any names till we exhume the body – and that’s in the works. I also have a young reporter waiting to ambush the judge outside the building tomorrow. You know the sort of thing… “Is there any truth to the rumor that you beat your elderly mother to death?” ’
‘Did Pansy give you anything?’
‘No. Poor Pansy. I’ve never seen that kind of pain close up. She’s gone back to him.’
‘She’s up there now? She’s crazy.’
‘She says he’s always very contrite after he beats her. She’s not afraid of him right now. She thinks she can work this out.’
‘You know he’s going to kill her the next time.’
‘Does she have to file the complaint? Couldn’t you do it? In addition to the humane aspects, I’m thinking of libel laws. An editor won’t touch it without a police report, and there isn’t one.’
‘I didn’t witness the beating. If she says she fell down, the law agrees with her.’
Mallory’s face was devoid of all expression as she folded her arms and looked down at Betty Hyde. Hyde fought off the startling illusion that Mallory had grown taller in the passage of seconds. Now Mallory leaned down, and Hyde stepped back until she was pressed against the kitchen counter.
‘You’re holding out on me. What have you got on Eric Franz?’
It was late to be calling on the neighbors. But then, she had taken Eric in on the night Annie died. It was late then too. Tit for tut, my dear.
When Eric answered the door, he was pulling his robe closed about his waist, and staring into the air over her left shoulder.
‘Eric, it’s Betty. Can we talk?’
He stepped back from the door and waved her into the room. It was black until he said, ‘Oh, sorry,’ and pressed the light switch. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see the room unchanged. It had been little over a month since Annie died. Although gone was the bad joke of their framed wedding portrait with crayon cuckold’s horns drawn on the head of his likeness.
They were hours and bottles into the wine rack when Eric lost control.
‘Are you crazy? Annie would never have stayed with me those last three years if not for the blindness. No, actually it was the insurance money that changed her mind about divorcing me. And then I had the success of the books and the prizes. But if I had been sighted, she would have left me in a minute and taken a large settlement. But she couldn’t leave a blind man, could she, not a socialite like Annie. What would the neighbors think?’