Chapter 1
The girl, a sultry-eyed, pouty-lipped Mexican, had once been a ravishing, exciting thing. But that was before shame and terror had done its ugly work, had eroded and withered that lovely face. Before shock had aged it ten years overnight, had cut a deranged web of lines about that mouth, about those eyes, had turned the velvet flesh into something coarse.
She was only 26, in the prime of her female sensuality; she possessed the kind of body commonly described as opulent. A body to make men clench their teeth, to set their hearts to racing, to twist their stomach into a sick, longing jumble. To cause other telling bodily reactions as well.
Just one night with a dish like that-
Her tawny legs were long and slim, the calves and ankles perfect. Glossed with sheer hosiery, pedestalled by high heels, they would set hands to trembling, they would have exuded challenge, exotic promise-
Her throat was long, graceful, with just a hint of puffiness in the under-chin. A throat that swept to a smooth clavicle-prominent shoulder structure, that zeroed male eyes In on the swollen globes of Anita's breasts. Breasts seemingly paler, more fine-textured, seemingly huge and luminous when emptied from her brassiere, displayed in the unflinching light of day.
The kind of girl who'd go over big in the girlie mags.
But, that was before. Before the psycho had so horribly abused her, defiled her without stop.
For this morning, as the nine o'clock Los Angeles sun felt its way through the drawn blinds, found her sprawled in painful disarray on the studio couch in his living room, Anita Moreno was not pretty at all. Fear had seen to that.
This morning, a Saturday, she wore no alluring stockings and pumps, no seductive gown. There was only the rumpled black slip which had climbed up to reveal her waist. There were only the searing ropes at her ankles and knees, across her lower thorax, beneath her breasts, knotted at her numbed wrists, tied firmly behind her back.
One other accessory: The twisted strip of cloth that dug into her mouth like a bit, creased her cheeks, ended in a tormenting knot behind her head. A gag that turned her bitter moans to animal gibberish.
Now she heard running water, a clatter of pans in the kitchen. Shortly she smelled brewing coffee, and despite her panic and acute discomfort, realized she was ravenously hungry. Still the man made no appearance.
Anita groaned, shifted on the couch, worked her legs and arms as much as possible to induce circulation. Her hands ached and tingled murderously sharp, shooting flames went through her legs. She fought the gag futilely. Water, she thought, if I could only have a drink of water.
Kerne. Was that his name? Yes, Kerne. The rest of it she couldn't remember. It was a funny name, Polish or something. Even when he'd called to set up the appointment, the name hadn't stuck.
Anita allowed her mind to backtrack, tried to figure how, with as much moxie as life had so prematurely forced upon her, she'd managed to fall into so deadly a trap as this. God, why hadn't she been warned right from the first? From the way the scrawny creep had looked at her, his eyes almost bugging out of his head, from the way he'd fought the shakes when she'd gone into the bedroom to strip.
And most especially, why hadn't she smelled something rotten when she'd seen how nervously he'd handled his Leica M-3? The whole layout had reeked right from the start. Every time she'd ever got into one of these home, living room studio deals she'd held her breath all the way through.
But then, she'd rationalized, why all the sweat? After all, if she was a free-lance model she had to cut it, qualms or no. Fifty bucks was fifty bucks. An easy hour's work. Besides, the little twerp would be a pushover for the first small breeze that came along.
She was experienced; she knew how to handle these sick types when they pushed for extras. And if they were too insistent, there was a rate for that too.
She wasn't getting any younger. It was obvious that the TV production companies weren't about to start casting Mexicans. She'd already gone that route with the legit movie firms. Bit parts were few and far between. A gal had to coin it when and where she could.
There'd been photog wolves galore since she'd ditched Kaye and her so-called agency, since she'd gone free-lance. They were all part of the general scene; that seventy per cent of them would make a pass was a foregone conclusion. You put an ad in the Times, sat back and waited, what else could you expect? Every-time they'd gotten anxious hands she'd managed to tame them. Either that or sell them. A shudder sliced her. But this Kerne guy had been something entirely different.
He'd calmed down in time, and Anita had grudgingly admitted there was a certain professionalism in his handling of camera and lights. His poses were almost original, his choice of color unerring. Most important, he hadn't laid a finger on her. Which was radical departure indeed, all things considered.
But still, she should have been warned by the psycho glitter in his gaze as he'd asked her to breathe deeper for a more provocative angle.
And then, when the hour was almost up-
She'd shrieked softly, her cry one of disbelief and surprise, appalled that such a small man could be so strong, as he'd wrestled her onto the same divan upon which he'd just finished posing her. Flashing stabs of light, like pearls on a string, had exploded in her brain as he'd brutally open-handed her across the face.
As if in a surrealistic nightmare the lengths of rope had appeared. And with an effortless, uncanny efficiency the man had tied her arms behind her, bound her ankles, had clamped the strip of cloth between her teeth.
Then, never once taking his eyes from her body, a silky, seething flow of vile words spilling from his lips, he had gone to his camera again clicked a picture of her in this trussed up state. Minutes later he'd quickly undressed before her stunned eyes. He'd taken gleeful delight in displaying himself, his readiness, to her.
His serpentine fingers had manipulated the rope at her ankles; the knot had dissolved. She tried kicking him, but he was too quick.
Until finally, her limbs feeling like they were on fire, her helpless, choking sobs battering the coiled rag, she'd lain in docile surrender. Her hands had twisted and wrenched painfully, ground into her back as his weight had come upon her.
And there, under the blazing eyes of the tandem flood-lights, the pain unbelievable; "Tramp," he'd hissed, dropping his hands, hurting her breasts, pinching and twisting her nipples. "You deserve this, you deserve to be punished...." He'd hurt her more brutally, had taken her with one animalistic surge.
He'd giggled at her muffled shriek. "Good, baby?" he'd mocked. "The way a man should treat street pigs like you. Here, more. More...."
He'd gone clean out of his mind then, had worked ruthlessly, delighting in the pain he'd inflicted. The barbarisms had dripped more vilely from his lips, he'd called her every rotten name in the book. Had added some that even Anita, in her years of rough experience, had never heard. Until it had seemed she must void her stomach, strangle. But in the end she'd managed some sort of control.
Afterward there'd been even uglier games. Incredibly vile games, the man pressing a gleaming stiletto to her throat when she'd balked. Games in which removal of the gag became mandatory. He'd knelt beside her face, he'd leered at her, mocked her. As Anita had gagged, forced herself to submit to his perverted desires.
Again, as he'd chuckled and groaned his demented pleasure and finally, announced his second release, she'd verged on heaving.
The deviations were watched and preserved by the Leica's unblinking eye (courtesy of the delay timer), the man often running between tripod and divan with deranged glee, seemingly deriving greater charge from recording her debasement on film than from the debasement itself.
He had shot picture after picture.
Until at long last, tiring of his sport, he'd killed the lights in his impromptu studio, had untied her momentarily, generously returned her slip to her. Then, re-tying her, checking his knots a last time, he'd slammed her back onto the couch, dismissed her for the night. "Fun, huh, pig?" he'd taunted at the last. "More tomorrow. You can hardly wait, can you?"
But now, abruptly, Anita's grisly reverie was shattered. For the man had entered the room. She shuddered anew at the smug smile on his face. She saw the camera hanging about his neck. What now? she quailed.
"Morning, sweetie," the man smirked, his eyes glittering as he appraised her rumpled condition. He went to the window, partially opened the blinds. "Sleep good?"
Anita rolled her eyes upward, saw the man studying a light meter. No, she thought. It won't start all over again. He focused the camera, framed his shot. In the only defense left her, Anita hid her face.
"Baby, " he murmured menacingly, "hold your head up. Unless you want some more bumps."
He took three shots, let the camera hang. "You wanna talk, kid?" He stood over her. "You gotta promise not to yell though. Not that it matters, the neighbors all took off already." He half raised her, cruelly squeezed her left breast in the bargain. "No screams? Promise?"
The woman nodded wearily.
When the gag was removed, she stretched her jaw, worked it sideways, tried to rout the anesthetized feeling in her cheeks. She was silent, her eyes conveying deadly hatred.
"Hungry, kid?" he asked.
After all this time her voice sounded strange. "Water. Could I have a drink of water?"
Moments later he was back, a glass in one hand, a sweet roll in the other. "Here we go," he smiled. He held the glass for her, and Anita drank greedily, almost choking.
She turned her head away. "That's enough."
"Here, take a bite of this roll."
"No, please. I'm not hungry. I'll be sick."
He slapped her lightly, gleefully. "Take a bite, I said!"
The woman forced down small bites of the roll, the sweet stickiness almost gagging her. By sheer will power she managed to finish, to keep the roll down.
While she ate, the man, using his left hand, pulled open her slip, darted his fingers inside, began to clutch and roil her breasts. And when Anita made no notice of the demeaning humiliation, concentrated on her eating, he became angry, let his fingers turn sadistic. He transformed the already raw nibs into searing aches.
"Please...." she choked.
"Please what, baby?"
"Please don't hurt me any more."
"Please don't hurt what?"
"Don't hurt my ... breasts...."
"Dig that refined tramp, will you? You can talk plainer than that." He pinched even harder. He prompted, "Don't hurt my boobs."
"Don't hurt my boobs," she hurried to repeat, the pain almost doubling her over.
Chuckling thickly, immediately tired of his sport, he said, "That's more like it." He removed his hand.
"Coffee, doll? You gotta have some coffee. Help you keep your strength up, put hair on your chest. We got a damned busy day head of us."
An eerie humming began in Anita's ears. "What are you going to do to me? You won't get away with this. You know that, don't you?"
The child-like slyness creased his face again. "I don't know anything of the kind. I don't care anyway. If they catch me okay; if they don't, okay too. I had my fun. It was worth it." It was obvious to the woman that in his deranged philosophy he was perfectly sincere about the statement.
Again she repeated her question. "What are you going to do? You can't keep me here like this forever."
He smiled too quickly. "You ever been to Anza? That's where we're going. A little picnic. You like picnics?"
"Anza?" she said. "Where's that?"
"It's a place. About a hundred miles south. You'll like it. A million acres of room all to ourselves."
Fresh, stunning panic hit Anita. "Please, no. You're not going to ... you won't kill me?"
"Kill you?" he said in teasing singsong. "Can you imagine a nice guy like me killing anybody?"
"Please," she started. Then seeing the weird, flickering expression in his gaze, she let it drop.
"We better see about getting you dressed," he said. "Can't go on no picnic like that."
The woman flushed, tried to form the words. That she should have to ask this filth, "Please, could I...."
"Could you what?"
"Won't you untie me for a minute? I'd like to use the ... bathroom."
This man snickered, stared directly into her face. He kneeled before her, fumbled with the ropes at her ankles. Then her knees. "Sure thing. Anything for a lady."
He helped Anita to her feet. "In there," he said.
She almost fell as the pain ripped her legs. For long moments she stood frozen, swaying. Her legs felt like a million red ants were swarming over them, biting and tearing. Gradually the pain lessened, and she could walk. "Please?" she looked down on him. "My hands?"
"Not a chance, honey. Here, let me help you." Crudely he lifted her slip tucked it into the coils of rope circling her abdomen. Then he stood back, appraising her with an ugly leer. "Go on, kid." He broke into cackling laughter.
A laughter that never let up all the while she was in the bathroom.
Anita was dressed now, the ropes on her wrists temporarily removed to facilitate the amenity. She wore the flashy black dress she'd arrived in last night, the sheer hose and needle-toed pumps. As final concession the man even let her comb her hair, touch her lips with lipstick.
Then he was twisting her arm, replacing the ropes at her wrists. "You can't take me out of here like this," she said. "People will...."
He drew the ropes painfully tight, knotted them briskly. Throwing her onto the couch again, he grappled with her ankles. "Can't I? People will nothing." Futilely she fought the replaced gag.
The desperation became a clawing, unhinging thing as he carried her through the house, into the connected garage. Where he laid her on the floor in the back seat of a late model Buick, covered her with a blanket.
In that instant before the dusty quilt came down she saw that there was no picnic impedimenta whatsoever in the car. Only the mocking glitter of the camera on the front seat. The dread crushed and smothered her. There was no doubt now, he was taking her some place to murder her.
The Buick picked its way through myriad side streets, lurching her cruelly. Then abruptly, the ride smoothed out, the car gained speed, and Anita sensed that her captor had turned onto a freeway. The Santa Ana most likely; it was closest to his house. She felt more than heard the rumble of traffic careening south beside them. Now and then the blare of an auto horn cut through her agonized torpor.
Heat built up beneath the blanket, causing her body to prickle maddeningly with sweat. Fear drove her body temperature up, while heat seeping up from the car's muffler intensified the torture. Her panic raged. I'll suffocate, she thought. She felt very dizzy.
When she awoke she realized they were a long way from Los Angeles. She had no way of knowing how long she'd slept, how far they'd come. The heat was intolerable now, her back was raw with pain from her cramped position. Her breasts ached. Viciously she tossed her head, attempted dislodging the blanket. She sobbed and pleaded against the gag.
"Easy, kid," the man acknowledged her stirrings. "We're almost there now. Another hour at the most. Then we'll have a nice little picnic."
The insane pressure built up in her brain. She'd never known such insane hatred. God, she wailed, I have to have a chance to get even with this filthy, rotten scum. To hurt him like he's hurting me.
Finally she forced her face free, she could gulp the clean dry air, she could savor the coolness bathing her forehead. The sun, even in October, was glaring, and she squinted against the sudden brightness. All she could see was blue sky, clouds, the automobile's interior. Idly she studied a puncture in the headliner near the passenger's door. How had that happened?
The man pushed the Buick hard; she could tell by the engine's roar, the way the car rocked on the curves, by the constant, whining acceleration as he swung out to pass slower traffic. Thinking of what would happen when they reached their destination, Anita wanted desperately to scream, to cry.
Perhaps, an hour later her hopeless lethargy was pierced by the man's gloating announcement. "Here we are, baby. Welcome to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park."
He braked the car and Anita imagined they were passing through a gate of some kind. Now the Buick slowed to a more sedate pace, she felt the road get rougher, more winding. Each time the car slowed her heart lurched up into her throat.
Not yet, she wailed inwardly. Please, not yet.
Finally, after a half hour more of tortuous passage through the park, during which time they went ten or fifteen miles into its most deserted heart, the man stopped the automobile. Killing the engine, he sat in tense silence, watching, waiting.
When no other auto appeared and he was positive they had the desert to themselves, he finally got out, walked around the Buick, and opened the trunk. Anita heard a dull, metallic clang.
"Shame on you, baby," he sneered as he opened her door, regarded her. "Your skirts worked up." He sadistically pinched her legs, hung on. "But nice, too, in a way." Now he, hastily undid the knots on her ankles and knees, pausing often to peer down the road, make sure they were still alone. "We got some walking to do," he shuffled childishly. "Shame you didn't bring some more comfortable shoes along. Instead of those spikes of yours...."
He flung the blanket aside, pulled her to her feet, steadied her briefly against the car. It was then she saw the snub-handled shovel, a length of rope caught in its handle, leaning against the fender. Another detail: The .32 caliber revolver in the madman's right hand.
"C'mon," he rasped, his lips twitching, "over there. Toward those ridges, baby."
Anita had no inclination to study the scenery. Her mind paralyzed with terror, it was no time for nature observations. The desert stretched endlessly away from them in all directions, shimmering and sliding before her eves. The dazzling white sand, the scrubby vegetation, the outcroppings of mud and rock formed a crazy patchwork quilt of color. The towering, apparently impassable bluffs in the distance, weird round-shouldered, convulted humps and planes, reminded her of white, plaster-of-Paris hams, the pinyon bushes and cac-it becoming clove stakes on their glaring surface.
Anita shuddered uncontrollably at the errie vista, at her plight.
The reflected sun blinded her as she stumbled forward, the rocks and shifting sand tore at her pencil-thin heels, twisted her ankles. A spiny cover of yucca snagged her stockings. Organ pipe cactus, purple tinge pear, cane cholla grew in profusion on the treacherous plain. The sudden heat seemed to have substance, seemed to be hammering her into the ground. Once her leg brushed a pincushion cactus and she lurched away in pain.
Perspiration drenched her clothes as she struggled forward. Twice she fell when the man shoved her too hard. Her legs felt disconnected. Still she pushed on, stealing sidelong glances toward the road, praying for sight of another car approaching. But there was nothing: only the silence, the snake-like ribbon twisting away across empty sand, here and there obscured by pinyon and smoketree.
By then they'd scrambled halfway up the hogback ridge, the man obviously having been here before. Once behind it, they'd be lost forever. Anita saw the Buick, looking like a small toy, in the distance. Even if someone came now they couldn't see the rope around her chest, binding her wrists, they wouldn't see the pistol.
She and her abductor would be taken for picknickers. Maybe rockhounds. Or even worse, lovers seeking isolation. Their adventurous bid for privacy would be honored.
There was absolutely no hope now, and her pulse thundered, maddened her. She wanted to fall, to burrow into the sand, to hide from the maniac in any way possible. But when she lagged, the pistol jammed cruelly into her back, hurrying her on.
Now finally, they started down the far side of the rocky ridge, the heel on one of Anita's pumps snapping off as she caught her foot in a craggy fissure. She limped on with only the indifferent, vacant-eyed desert as witness to her last moments of life.
Then, shuddering from a stupor, she heard no herding footsteps behind her. She turned slowly, to see the man standing in frozen pose, a dreamy smile on his lips, the shovel in the sand at his feet, the pistol tucked in his belt. The ropes he'd bound her with dangled from his pocket, the remaining rope was wound about his hands, the strand in between going taut, relaxing, going taut. There was something almost mesmerizing about the way he handled the rope.
Even more unnerving was the opaque cast to the man's eyes, indication of the supreme lunacy gripping him. He was wallowing in the perverted power he held over her, getting a tremendous wallop from toying with her, tormenting her during these last moments.
Then the graceful, writhing hands went still, the rope hung slack. The camera came up, was focused. "Hold it, kid," he slurred, "just like that." She heard a slight click, knew her terror had been registered for posterity.
He advanced. "This is it," he said. "Where we have our picnic." His hands came up, snaked around her head, undid her gag.
Instantly and impulsively, on the verge of crackup, Anita loosed a shrill scream.
Which bothered her captor not at all. "Go ahead, honey. Scream all you want. Maybe I'll make you scream another way after while. There's nobody here, only us. Let 'er go. Get it out of your system."
Anita sank into a dumb impassivity, her senses numbed beyond recall. She sagged, the burden of her terrible resignation too great to bear.
"Sit down," he said. "Make yourself comfortable."
"Sit down? Right here?"
"Yes, right here." His smile broadened. "You can watch me dig. I said sit down!"
Awkwardly the woman fell to her knees on the sand, curled her legs under her, sat with sloped shoulders, staring at the ground. Until she heard the sound of the shovel crunching into the sand. Like a lode-stone the noise drew her head up. And she contemplated the shape of her grave. , It was terrible what this final, unmistakable confrontation did to her. She straightened, threw her head back, strained at the ropes winding her wrists. "No!" she called, and broke into babbling sobs, in supreme panic. "Please, don't kill me. Dios mio, no!"
It was the final, intolerable torture, to face her grave like this, to watch it being dug, spade by spade, and it drove her over the brink, robbed her of any last vestiges of strength and dignity.
What happened then was ugly beyond description. As she fell forward, groveled and crawled toward him, digging her knees into the sand. "Please don't kill me," she implored, her face shining with tears, her eyes great, black holes burned into her head. "Please, I'll do anything, only don't kill me. I won't tell anyone what you did, I swear. Just let me go, right here even, and I'll never tell anyone. I'll forget it ever happened, I'll forget everything. I swear...."
She shuddered, went still.
"Anything?" the man said, a sick smirk on his face. "If I let you go?"
The hope that transfigured her face was pathetic to see. In her panic she tore at straws. Avidly she clutched at any last shred of chance left her. "Anything," she moaned fervently. "Anything you want. Only let me go, let me live."
The man helped her to her knees. Then he stepped back; raised the inevitable camera again, captured her frenzied expression with an indolent click. Then he came behind her, undid the ropes at her wrists. "Don't try to run," he warned. "I'll shoot you full of holes."
He helped her to her feet. "All right, kid," he said. "Get undressed. I'll let you go. But only if you promise you'll never tell anybody."
"I promise, I promise," she babbled. "Oh, thank you...."
When Anita got to her black panties he stopped her. "That's enough," he said, lowering the camera.
"C'mon over here. In the shade."
In reality, down deep inside her, Anita must have known she was deluding herself, that she shouldn't do the rotten things he ordered, that the fiend wasn't a-bout to spare her. But she was beyond ration now, running, staggering, falling into a limbo of terror and confusion, instinctive self preservation shutting out everything else.
The man undid his clothes, let them sag, stood before her. Cruelly he pulled her hair, brought her to her knees. "Go to work, pig," he chuckled thickly. "This'll be the greatest. Right in broad daylight. Give Daddy his kicks." He twisted her hair as she hesitated. "C'mon, damn you!"
Anita breathed a childhood prayer for forgiveness, let her eyes fall shut. Then she stiffened, held the man, guided him. The abomination began again. And desperate, fighting for a chance to live, she executed the caress with all the skill and sham enthusiasm she could muster. She made her captor groan and writhe and shudder.
Once she opened her eyes, caught him taking a close-range snapshot of even this. Then she returned to her extorted, ugly labors. And when the man squealed, when he held her head in a murderous, punishing grip, affected her direction himself.
At that most shameful of moments she almost wished she was already dead.
It was only a reprieve, not really a pardon For now, emerging from his trance, the man pushed her back, jammed his foot at her breasts, slammed her to the ground. "Thanks, pig," he spat, "for nothing." Giggling thinly, he retrieved the shovel, resumed scraping out the shallow grave.
Anita shrieked hideously. "You promised!" She raised herself on her hands. "Don't, oh, don't! Please let me go. I swear I won't tell...."
She made a sudden move, and the gun flashed in the sun. "Don't try anything," he hissed, his face demonic. "Just lay there like a good girl."
Anita collapsed into hysterical sobs, buried her face in her bruised, swollen arms. The click of the camera brought her alert again, and she paled to see the grave-her grave-finished.
Then he was upon her, his hands scrabbling for the rope, seemingly tying her hands all in one fluid motion. Then her ankles.
There was no time for further pleadings. For suddenly he was anxious to have it over. She screamed without stop as he jerked her hair, brought her up. "Dios...." she keened to indifferent skies. "Ayud me! Dios sagradot"
But God, much less the animal psychopath, wasn't listening. This man's breath coming in hoarse, sick groans, he looped a noose about her ankles drew it tight. Then, teeth bared in idiot grimace, he flung the rope about her neck, pulled back on the loose end, bent the woman's body back.
It took only a little while. Efficiently, almost as if he'd practiced the execution dozens of times before, he tightened the rope, exulted, all but slathered at each gulping, gagging yelp.
The body arched, swayed, fought with reflexive ferocity, the magnificent breasts rose and fell wildly, seemed on the verge of exploding. But trussed as she was, her spine drawn into a grotesque bow, the woman never had a chance. Soon the convulsions lessened, then ceased altogether. When he finally released the rope the body sprang forward, fell face down in the sand. And moved no more.
Agitatedly the man lifted the body, dropped it into the grave. He turned the face so the light hit it. Then the camera was poised again.
For a long time he prowled about the grave, an expression of ghoulish glee upon his features.
Then he was gathering her clothing, her shoes. Carelessly he dropped them into the grave, the tangled ball fluttering open, settling over her bare feet. Now a rain of gravel and sand cascaded upon the lifeless form.
Her shoulder-length hair, jet black and fine, had twisted at the last, a hank of it plastered against one wall of the grave. Too late the man saw it, casually hacked at it with the shovel blade, tucked it under the sand. A dozen more scoops of gravel, and the body was completely covered.
Minutes later the ground was level, gave no clue to the grisly secret it harbored. Before the day was out the wind would have raked and sifted the sand to fine, smooth consistency. Even if someone stumbled on this spot, but no one would.
Now the man started back, the gun concealed, his shovel in his hand, the camera banging his chest. A tag end of rope dangled from his pocket. As he cleared the rise he saw that the desert was still empty, cloaked in sighing stillness.
Kerne arrived home at 6:10 that afternoon. He was quite drunk. And yet not too drunk to remember what he'd done with this lazy, autumn Saturday. Already he was looking forward to the long Sunday yawning before him, a day he'd spend in his makeshift basement photo lab processing the five rolls of film, two color, three black and white.
In preparation for the glossy enlargements he'd make he went to a drawer, brought out a large manila envelope. With exaggerated care he ball-pointed an inscription on it.
Finally he held the envelope away, studied his unsteady printing.
Anita Moreno, it read October 14.
It was the first envelope.