Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [95]
He said something to her and the whip flashed down again. The woman reached her hands up to her neck and buckled the collar, the masked man stepped forward and attached a bright metal chain to the collar. He stepped back, hands on hips. Taking the chain in one hand, he jerked the woman’s head, first in one direction, then another. He was showing the camera he could move her head with just a flick of his wrist.
Again he approached and knelt to unfasten the bindings again, all the time talking to the woman. But then he appeared to change his mind and got to his feet. He stepped out of camera range, and the camera came in to a close-up on her face again. Her eyes were dull.
When he stepped back into the camera’s view, he was naked from the waist down, standing out erect. His legs were muscular and altogether hairless. His feet were bare.
The camera went from the woman’s mouth to the man’s groin several times, panning slowly so the viewer couldn’t possibly miss the point. The man held the dog leash in one hand and the whip in the other as he walked closer to the woman. He jerked the leash so her head was yanked toward him, holding the whip ready in the other hand—she was being given a choice. She made her decision—her mouth opened and her nails flashed out and the camera blurred again.
The next shot showed the woman with her fingers still extended, breasts heaving. The screen also showed the man holding his testicles with both hands, bent at the waist. Then it went dark.
I reached my hand toward my cigarettes and was trying to get my breathing straight when the screen flickered into life again and the man approached, this time with only the whip in his hands. It came down, again and again, right through the woman’s upraised hands. Then the man threw down the whip and walked slowly out of the room, leaving her body running with blood.
The masked man returned, erect again. Two minutes later? A half hour? No way to know. But this time he was holding a black Luger in one gloved hand. Again he approached. Cautiously. Slowly.
The gun was leveled at the woman’s face. He must have said something because she appeared to reply. The camera moved in close so all we could see was the woman’s face with the shadow of the pistol across one cheek. The gun pulled back and the camera pulled back with it, and then we just saw the woman tied to the chair, looking straight ahead, her lips pressed tight together. There was a bruise showing in one corner of her mouth. Suddenly she was slammed back against the chair, bounced forward, and lay still. Her head dropped against her chest. Her body jerked spastically, once, twice.
The man in the executioner’s mask entered the picture again—he walked over to the woman’s side and jerked the leash, pulling her head back so it was facing the camera again. Her mouth was open, so were her eyes—there was a starburst hole in her forehead. The screen filled with her face so the viewers would know they had paid for the real thing. And then it went black.
I reached for a cigarette as they pushed the videotape monitor back into the shadows, but my hands wouldn’t work. Pablo came back to the table, looked across at me.
“Lucecita?” I asked.
“Si, hermano. Comprende?”
“He sells this?”
“He sells this, and more like it. We are told he has some in color and some even with sound.”
“How does he get people to film this? It’s a cold-blooded homicide, not some sex rap.”
“He does it himself, compadre—that was Goldor in the mask,”
“Then he’s bought himself a life sentence.”
“How? We cannot prove a thing. We can prove that it was our Lucecita who died, but how to prove that it was Goldor himself? Besides, a life sentence is insufficient.”
“So is a death sentence.”
“I agree, we all agree. We have discussed this and there was debate.