I sat there for a moment in Melinda’s study, surprised by E-Rection’s assumption that I had already dealt with one I. R. Shroud, the man who “delivers the goods.”
My scalp tightened and my hands felt cold. I had not dealt with I. R. Shroud. So someone else had used my name — Mal — on the kid porn web.
I couldn’t wait too long, or my embarrassment might be inferred.
Maclass="underline" I’m fully intending to, but can’t find my old friend. Have you seen him? Did he take an extended Thai holiday?
The Thai holiday, of course, refers to the places in Thailand where children can be bought for sex. It’s every perv’s dream to stay at Pattaya — the country’s leading sex resort — and have intercourse with children to their heart’s content.
O-Ring: Shroud comes and Shroud goes. There’s other ways to acquire pix of qualitee-hee-hee.
E-Rection: I. R. is still the best. Cream of the cream.
Lancer: Mal-odorous, were you happy with what you acquired from the Shroud-man?
Careful, I thought: you can miss a beat here, and the chat room will empty like a theater on fire. What I needed was the approved way to contact Shroud — more than likely his e-mail box — but I couldn’t just ask without blowing the whole ruse. I had to stay cool, state my interest and get off the lot, like working a car salesman for a better deal.
Maclass="underline" I just need more, more, more.
Lancer: Don’t we all?
O-Ring: Why not post your treasures?
E-Rection: Share and share alike.
Maclass="underline" I intend to. There will be a time for that.
Lancer: Once you squee-gee them off, Mal-e-dick-shun.
Maclass="underline" I may require I. R. again.
O-Ring: I’m sure you will.
Maclass="underline" See you next time through Fawnskin.
E-Rection: Bugger off!
Good enough — O-Ring would pass the word. They were gone and I was alone again in Melinda’s study. It’s such a strange thing to slide into the Web like that, connect down to the underbelly. It feels like you’re geezing into a vein of pure wickedness. And it’s always there, always around and always invisible. It’s like a stream made out of nothing but vapors, evil and endless, and it runs through everything.
The guys were probably happy to have Mal back, another p-phile out there, another pedofreak, a man like themselves, a guy who considers himself a gourmet, an artist, an aesthetician of the world’s daintiest delicacies. They love to riddle and pun. They love anagrams, symbols, innuendo, code. What the hell kind of name is I. R. Shroud, anyway, besides fabricated? IRS? Internal Revenue Cover? I Am Death? It goes on and on. They love word games that make them look bright. They’ll tell you the art and practice of “loving children” goes back to ancient Greece, or the Romans, or to the Egyptians or the Bible. They’ve even got an organization — the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which has a newsletter and a lobby in Washington. Really, that’s no lie. Everything they do — from the children to the verbiage to the little games — is a way of trying to mask their inadequacies. And they’re about as inadequate as men can get. That’s why they’re despised, even in prison — the cons will turn them into bleeding punchcards in no time at all. The cons hate child molesters even more than they hate cops. A child-molester cop? He wouldn’t last long in the big house. I didn’t want to try, though the idea crossed my mind that I might have to.
This guy, I. R. Shroud, had porn for sale. Maybe he was a buyer, too. Maybe a collector. He might even create it himself. Which was an interesting thought, considering my circumstances.
I always get off the kid porn Web feeling like I should take a long bath in acid, or have my skin peeled and replaced. You touch your finger to that invisible stream, and it’ll try to suck you in. It goes right for your soul.
I shut down the computer and wandered the house for a while. I stood for a moment in Melinda’s bedroom — my bedroom until last night — and registered its presence. The furniture was all hers, as was most of the furniture in the house. I’d left “ours” with Ardith; Jordan had left “theirs” with Mel. I’d never fully acclimated to putting my ass onto the same couch that had cushioned Jordan Ishmael’s. It was odd, though. With me gone, the room didn’t seem very different than it did with me in it. The whole house didn’t seem very different. I remembered our brief contentions over what came into the new home and what stayed in storage (mostly my stuff), how things were to be arranged, how the household would be organized. She was particular about what went where — furnishings, electronics, pictures, knickknacks. Melinda had her way on almost every point, and to be truthful, that was fine with me. I’ve got no eye for design. But it was strange to see how little I’d influenced my own home. Take out Terry, his clothes, personal effects and dog, and there wasn’t much left to prove he’d ever lived here. I felt leased.
I drove to the nearest computer store and got a slick new machine set up with a fast modem and plenty of memory to get me into the Net. It was a portable one and quite expensive, about the price of my first new car, a 1975 VW. I paid cash. I considered it a sound investment in reclaiming my life from whoever was trying to take it. I might have bought a powerful automatic handgun too, and learned how to use it, but I already had one and already did.
I really wanted to get to know this I. R. Shroud. Though the other kid-rapers on the Net thought we had dealt with each other before, we hadn’t. I’d know, wouldn’t I? Even during my months of blackout drinking, I’d remember purchasing pornography from one I. R. Shroud. Correct? But somebody on the Web had used my name to get to the Ramblers, and that person had gotten product from Shroud. E-Rection had told me so.
I was walking out of the computer store when an idea hit me. Just one of those little blips of thought that race in from nowhere and slide away forever if you don’t slow them down and make them feel welcome. I wondered if this pretending Mal might have requested images of a certain guy. They’re called customs, where the customer wants his own body in the image. Naturally, the ultimate pornography features yourself. But in this case, Mal had ordered images of someone else — me. Interesting. I locked the new machine in the trunk with a corollary thought: no one except a few of my cohorts at the department knew that I was Mal, or that the name would get him into the Ramblers’ chat room. In fact, I couldn’t think of anyone I worked with outside of CAY who knew my handle. Johnny, Louis and Frances. Oh, and of course, supervising lieutenant Jordan Ishmael.
I got my stitches removed at a walk-in clinic in Laguna — not the one where I took my son, because that one has since gone out of business. Fun. The puncture wounds were ugly and the scars would be small but definite.
Then I stopped by a travel agency and booked a little two-day vacation. I needed it. American Airlines to Dallas/Ft. Worth, Alamo Rental Car. Holiday Inn in Wichita Falls. Just the kind of place where there’s enough to keep you busy, and the rest of the time you can forget the world you left behind, and hope it forgets you.
Seventeen
Wichita Falls is in north central Texas, way up by the Oklahoma border, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from D/FW International Airport. Those are Texas hours, by the way — quite a bit longer than the ones we have in California. The city lies in the Red River Valley, also the name of a tune that is difficult to get out of your head once you hear it. I heard it on the radio. It didn’t matter, because I’ve always liked it. I clipped along in the rental Olds at the speed limit, which — I remember from the stories of friends once stationed out at Sheppard Air Force Base — is strictly enforced.