The next house was a cracker box ranch in Brockton, in Clifton Heights on North Quincy Street. Null got there in the late afternoon. The neighborhood was quiet and even conventionally suburban. The increasing urban rot and deterioration hadn’t encroached yet, but it plainly—even starkly—defined the borders of the place. The house was a bilious yellow with white trim, faux wooden shutters decorated windows. Blinds were drawn and before he could think to ring the bell, Null heard noises coming from behind the door.
The door was oak and bolted securely from the inside.
The noise was plain.
Screams.
Girlish screams.
There were squeals that had nothing to do with pleasure.
The deep laughter of men.
Null was sure he had the right place.
He circled the house, the Heckler drawn and clasped tightly in his hand. He tried the windows. They had no give at all, so he went back and tried each again. One of the curtains moved as if by a breeze. Then he glimpsed it. The scene: a shaven headed, paunchy man bending a half-naked young woman over a couch, who was fighting and struggling awkwardly, ineffectually, screaming.
It wasn’t just rough sex. Not from the look of the woman; there was something not quite right about her face he could see even through her squalling.
He kept it in mind.
Even through the filthy double windowpanes. Null could see it was a rape.
Null drew back a few feet and ran, throwing himself at the window feet first, landing awkwardly on a soiled carpet amid broken glass, protected by his long coat, weighed down by the Bushmaster, the Glock and machete. He sat there for a moment and blinked. What was it about the woman?
And what did this have to do with pedophilia? She was obviously a woman, not a little girl.
The shaven headed rapist let go the woman and jerked back. Another shaven headed man just like him entered the room just as Null landed.
“What the fuck is this?!” he hollered. Who the fuck is on the floor?!”
“We got a fucking break-in? Kill the son-of-a-bitch!”
Null sat, processing.
“Look at him! He’s paralyzed!”
Sweaty and fastening his pants as the half-naked woman curled up on the couch, sobbing, the first shaven-headed man ordered, “Throw him a fucking beating then throw him out the fucking door!”
The second shaven-headed man in soiled tee shirt and sweats moved toward Null, who suddenly raised up the Heckler, silencer attached, and said, “I know what you are.”
“Put the pop gun away, faggot, before I shove it up your ass!”
Null answered him with two quick Heckler rounds, one for each leg. He howled, going down to the filth-ridden rug.
The first shaven headed man eyed a Ruger 45 semi-automatic resting on an end-table. He lurched toward it, then stopped.
“If you go for that gun, I’m going to have to kill you. And I’m really not ready to do that yet. So, please back away from the gun, take the girl, get her dressed, and give me the tour.”
“You want I should get her showered too?” he asked, thinking he was playing for time.
“No. They’ll probably want to do a rape kit on her. Not that it’ll make any difference.”
“You a fucking cop?” he said, bewildered.
“No. You don’t have to worry about that. It’s not a problem.”
“What about Aldo there on the floor?”
“We can let him bleed there for now. But get me his phone, and I’ll take yours too.”
“My goddamn life’s in that phone. His too.”
“Don’t worry about that. Neither of you are going to need them.”
He fished through his brother’s bloody pants pockets for the phone, produced it, wiped his bloody hands on his pants, then grabbed his off the credenza, Null’s eyes following him intently as he sat placidly amid a pile of broken glass on the rug. He tossed both phones at Null in an attempt to rattle him and make a move. Null didn’t react, still pointing the Heckler straight at him. He feinted toward the Ruger.
“Don’t do it. I’m not quite ready to shoot you yet, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to get shot and lie there bleeding like big brother over there on the rug.”
The brother, who had been moaning throughout, began to whimper. It was a sound Null was accustomed to—the weak yielding to physical suffering.
“Little brother, you mean.”
Null hoisted himself off the floor jerkily, somewhat unsteady on his feet. Despite this, he held the Heckler steady.
“Now,” he said. “Show me around.”
The shaven-headed man, whose name was Tony Spilotro, took the woman into the bathroom, washed her face, made sure her jeans were fastened and tee-shirt smoothed while Null supervised, grave. Something about the woman—whose name was Lisa (Spilotro couldn’t give him a last name)—was very wrong. Null couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Her face is telling me something. What is it?
“That’s fine,” said Null. “Now sit her down somewhere and show me what I came to see.”
Emerging from the bathroom, Tony pushed the woman away, making her lose her balance and almost fall over. Then he kicked open the nearest door at their end of the hall and another chunky man—this one with a full head of hair and a goatee—emerged holding an ancient shotgun.
“Let me show you this, motherfucker!” Tony screamed.
Null reflexively blasted the shotgun out of the new man’s arm, blowing off several of his fingers before he could pump out a shot. The man curled up on floor, crying, “My hand, my hand!” over and over, blood saturating his pants and shirt. Null turned the Heckler on Tony.
“Another brother?”
“From another mother,” said Tony carefully, adding, “Please don’t kill me.”
“Don’t worry, Tony. The plan is not to kill you now.” He paused, looking at him, the Heckler cocked and ready. Tony froze, not knowing when to move, the man with the goatee’s sobs and whining filling out the silence. “We have some work to do.”
“Kill me later?” asked Tony nervously.
“Let’s go into that room your friend just came out of and see what’s there.”
Tony moved forward into the room, followed by Null, who kicked the sobbing man aside as he moved past him. There were two women who were approximately the same age as Lisa. They too were crying like scared toddlers, wrists and ankles zip-tied.
“What were your plans for these two, Tony?”
“Just the usual, boss. Nothing fancy.”
“Cut the ties, Tony, then get me enough extras for you and the brethren.
“You’re gonna tie us? What about Aldo and Seymour? They need to get to a hospital.”
Something stopped Null like a hard punch to the chest.
He understood.
How could he have missed it?
Of course, the place was wired up for cameras. This strange foray wasn’t a result of bad data but led to a verifiable playhouse. It was pedophilia alright, but of a more sinister and repulsive kind—the kind you don’t whisper about, the kind that makes you feel ashamed just for being human, for having anything in common at all with the men who did this. Null processed it, but registered no emotion, no outrage, no hate, no anger.
His sense of purpose, however, had within him become somehow explosive.
Down syndrome.
They were raping and torturing Down syndrome developmentally disabled young women, as vulnerable and innocent and sloppy as toddlers.
They were serving this perversion up—putting it out pay-per-view on the deep dark web, streaming live, cameras in every room. They enjoyed their work for all to see, delighting in the abuse of presumably kidnapped, terrified young women who were barely more in thought, deed and personality than little, vulnerable, sensitive and frightened children. Toddlers, in fact.
This was like raping toddlers.
Null was cold.
“What am I doing again, boss?”
“Cut those girls loose and get me those ties.”
“You can put the piece down. I’m doin’ it!”
“The piece stays up and cocked. Better hope I don’t slip and loose a few rounds by accident.”
“Please don’t hurt me!” cried one of the girls so pathetically it sounded like a parody of pathos.
“I want to go home,” said the other.
“Shut the fuck up!” barked Tony.
“Be civil, Tony. Speak that way to the girls again and I’ll put one in your brain.”
“Okay, boss, okay. Calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“Please help me!” the first girl pleaded, bursting into tears.
Tony disappeared at the opposite end to get the ties and presumably to get something to cut the ties. He was out of sight and silence was disturbed by the girls crying zip-tied in the bedroom, not knowing what was going to happen to them.
“Try and hold court with me here, Tony, and you die on the spot.”
“No worries, boss.”
The screaming from the bedroom mixed with the sounds of despair from Seymore on the floor merged to become incomprehensible.
“Girls, I’m here to help you. I’m going to take you someplace and you’ll be alright. You’ll be safe.”
“Mister, you promise me?”
“I scared!”
“I definitely promise you. It’s all going to be okay. Just hang tight. The nice man will set you free.”
“He’s not nice!”
“No, he’s not. But he’ll do what I say. Right, Tony?”
“You got it, boss,” he grunted, sidling by Null, feeling the solid edge of the suppressor as he did.
Tony cut the girls loose with pinking shears and they ran toward Null, huddling about him, frightened. Somewhat chubby women with little girl haircuts holding close to Null, if for no other reason than he was not one of the three that had kidnapped them.
Tony stood looking at Null holding the zip-ties, evaluating him for an opening to flip the situation to his advantage. His nostrils flared and acid sweat ran down the sides of his torso under his “Misfits” tee shirt. Null seemed encumbered by the women grabbing at his pant legs.
His attention must be divided. I could rush him now and get that gun.
“You’re moving things ahead of schedule, Tony. Don’t push it.”
“Okay, boss. What next?”
“Bind up the brethren. And do it quick.”
“But they’re bleeding and in pain.”
“Bind them or you’ll join them bleeding and in pain.”
Null patted each woman perfunctorily in a poor, insincere imitation of comfort and helped them get up with one arm, training the Heckler on Tony with the other without a second’s lapse. He brought them to the living room where a bleeding Aldo was rolling around on the rug. They sat down nervously next to Lisa on the debauched couch, clutching at each other in fear. Tony followed and bound his brother with the zip-ties as Null instructed.
“Don’t be scared. You’re going to be protected. You’ll be okay.”
“We wanna go home!” said Lisa.
The others assented.
“I wanna be p’tected!”
“I’ll get you there. I promise.”
Tony was creeping up on him, but Null had the Heckler on him pointed backwards without looking, so he stopped short.
“Now do Seymour.”
Tony took his time complying, but did it, nonetheless, impeded by Seymore’s flailing and crying.
“Get down on the floor, on your knees.”
Null bound him quickly with the zip-ties, wrists to ankles.
“What’s next, boss? My brother and Seymour there are gonna bleed to death. Get ‘em to a hospital, turn us in to the cops, whatever you have to do, but please.”
Null got up from the floor, turned, and spoke to the girls.
“Now ladies, we’re going to go out for a ride and we won’t ever be coming back here. That sounds good, doesn’t it?”
They agreed it did and quickly they were all smiles, not so much actually being happy, but hoping to be happy. Their faces were all in a squint with smiles. It was as if nothing terrible had happened to them. Kindness, an errant joy, something you might even call sweetness, was in their expressions, all with that same, quasi-Asian seeming Down syndrome estampment. Their condition had deprived them of intellect but had left behind in each of them a base humanity that was not wild and bestial, greedy and fierce, but mild, nice and childlike—filled with innocent goodwill and a hope for goodness.
There was no meanness, spite, hatred, or distrust.
They were still trusting and there was a strangely powerful, eerie dignity to it.
Null recognized it, and it evoked a low memory in his brain.
“Young ladies, please, if you would close your eyes and please sing me a song, that would make me very happy. Can you do that for me?”
“Sure we can!”
“Let’s sing Frere Jacques!”
“I don’t know the words.”
“Hum what you don’t know, silly.”
“That sounds good girls, why not do that one?”
“Are we girls or are we ladies?”
“You, my dear, are both. Now close your eyes and sing.”
They did just that, sitting beside each other on the couch like dolls. “Louder, girls, with feeling!” Enthusiastically, they obliged him. Null pocketed the Ruger on the end table, which made his coat even more awkwardly weighty. When he was satisfied they were singing loud enough, Null nodded his approval, got down to Tony’s level on the rug and beat him persistently with both fists until he fell unconscious.
Null led the three girls out of the house to the flat black Ford Escort parked just outside by the curb. It was bright mid-day. He coaxed them gently but firmly into the backseat, started the car and pulled off, his cellphone in his left hand.
Before he could dial it, Lisa asked from the backseat, “Can we stop for ice cream?”
“Yeah, we want ice cream!”
“I like Baskin-Robbins!”
“I like Baskin-Robbins too!”
“Okay girls, Baskin and Robbins it shall be.”
He dialed Dapper O'Neil Shelter and Service Group on his cellphone.
“I like bubblegum flavor!”
“Chocolate!”
“Mrs. Coelacanth? Null. That’s right. I have to tell you: Things have not gone exactly as planned.”