“Mr. Null, I can’t do anything with them. These are young ladies, not children. Why did you bring them?”
“I should have told you over the phone—”
“Well, they were singing. I could hardly hear you.”
“Yes, but now that we’re here, you can see the problem.”
“But as I explained, Mr. Null. These are young women, not little children abused by child pornographers.”
“What if I told you that they were, Mrs. Coelacanth? What if I could prove it? What then?”
“I honestly don’t know. I don’t even know where I could place them for the night—and then there are three of them.”
The girls were singing and talking, sitting on a bench in the dilapidated, decaying plaster-walled waiting area. Null had told them to sit there and not move and so they wanted to impress him by being good girls, restless as they were and kicking their legs rhythmically.
“Mrs. Coelacanth, just go out there and talk with them for a few minutes. Look at them closely, then come back and tell me what you think.”
Ruth Coelacanth sighed wearily and got up from her desk sagging with the weight of the day. And it was only two-thirds over. She went out to the waiting area and stood in front of the girls.
“Hello, ladies,” she said with false briskness. “I’m Mrs. Coelacanth.”
They said it together as they had been taught. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Coelacanth!” They were all smiles, with even an occasional giggle.
She saw it then, and the words stuck in her throat. She understood immediately.
The comprehension made her feel dirty, compromised.
A sickness rose up from her stomach and dominated her. She nearly lost her footing.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Coelacanth?” asked Sally.
She cleared her throat, fought for equilibrium and calm. “I’m fine, dear. What’s your name?”
“Sally. And that’s Lisa, and that’s Jaqueline.” She pointed to both with her thumb.
“I’m the prettiest,” said Jaqueline. “Mr. Aldo told me so!”
“Are not!”
“Am too!”
“You’re all so very pretty. If you could please just sit here a little longer, Mr. Null and I will take care of you.”
“We like Mr. Null.”
“Yeah—he took us for ice cream at Baskin-Robbins!”
“I got bubblegum!”
“You just stay right there.” She turned on her heels, hiding her face which she knew then was flushed and lurched back into the office where Null waited unmoving in silence. Mrs. Coelacanth started to hyperventilate.
“This can’t be true! Who would ever do such a thing to women—to women—”
“To women with Down syndrome?”
“It’s monstrous and disgusting. I don’t understand how anyone—how this could be—What kind of person would do this?”
“Don’t ask me, Mrs. Coelacanth. I gave up on humanity long ago.”
Mrs. Coelacanth leaned all of her weight on her desk, still hyperventilating. There were tears. “I can’t—
really handle this. It’s too much. I can’t—”
“Listen to me carefully, Mrs. Coelacanth. These women were raped, beaten and abused on streaming video for a very special brand of dark web customer. Three grown men used them as sex toys for money, beat them bloody for fun, on a live streaming 24-hour camera feed. They enjoyed it and they intended to keep on doing it, until we had a little meeting.”
“Oh, my God, it’s too terrible. I don’t know what to do—how to handle this!” she sobbed.
Lisa’s voice chimed eerily far away: “Mrs. Coelacanth—we’re waiting!”
“Yes, Mrs. Coelacanth. They’re waiting. They’re waiting for you.”
She was full out crying and managed, “They have ligatures on their wrists! What kind of men—?!”
“Ordinary men. Below average men, Mrs. Coelacanth. Just men.”
“It’s beyond me!” she sobbed, red-faced and teary eyed. “I can’t!” It appeared to Null that the weight of all she had to bear was crushing her. He had no way to stop it but with sober fact.
“Listen to me, Mrs. Coelacanth. I’ve done all I can do for them. There’s nothing else I can do to help them. You are the only person who can help them now. These girls need you—they’re depending on you. And you can do it. You have the expertise and the connections.”
“I don’t know—”
“But I know. This is what you do, Mrs. Coelacanth. This is why you do what you do. You have to get yourself together and think of the girls. Think of what has to be done. You’re walking point on this—you’re going to save them. And there is nobody else for them but you. So, breathe, calm down and focus on these poor girls who need you more than they have ever needed anyone in their unfortunate lives.”
Mrs. Coelacanth straightened up, stopped leaning forward on the desk, went behind it and reached into a drawer for some tissues.
“You’re right, Mr. Null. I forgot myself. It’s just so terrible. I will help these girls—women. These women.”
“You’re right, Mrs. Coelacanth. They’re young women and should be accorded that respect. They’re so like girls, though, it can be confusing.”
“So you stopped it, Mr. Null. Stopped it cold!”
“Right in the act.”
“You didn’t—um—”
“Kill them? No. There were three of them, Mrs. Coelacanth. And I can assure you they’ll never do it again.”
“I’ll need to get a rape kit done and contact the law. See where these women were kidnapped from. Detox is an open question. They could be drugged.”
“Yes, Mrs. Coelacanth. They were obviously kidnapped. It wouldn’t be very hard with how trusting they are. A rape kit likely won’t matter, but for appearances. Detox will, though. They probably are drugged, which is why they’re so docile, easy to handle.” He looked up at her with a dead expression. “You won’t mention me when you talk to the police, though. Will you?”
“No. I won’t. They wouldn’t believe me anyway.” She frowned and looked into Null’s wide, shark-like eyes. “Why wouldn’t a rape kit matter?” It dawned on her why, but she asked regardless. “Where are they now? These men.”
“Trussed up in a dilapidated house in Brockton. They’re not going anywhere.”
She slammed her fist down hard on the desk.
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Do I have to tell you?”
“Will that really solve anything?”
“I think so, Mrs. Coelacanth. I think it’ll address a number of issues. But you don’t have to think of that, Mrs. Coelacanth. Just don’t think about it.” He checked his phone. “I don’t have a lot of time to get back there and do what I have to do, and I have a few errands to run on the way.”
“Alright, Mr. Null. Sure. Just go.”
“Are we good, Mrs. Coelacanth?”
“Yes. We’re good. I’ll make damn sure these women get well taken care of, are placed and protected.”
“I believe you.” Null turned away to leave, hoping to move speedily past the women. He was on deadline. She stopped him.
“Mr. Null, before you go?”
He turned back to her. “Yes?”
“When you do what you have to do, will you do me a favor?”
“What favor might that be, Mrs. Coelacanth?”
“Make it hurt.”
Null’s thin, scarred lips drew back to show clean, white teeth. His eyes opened wide and bore white, unblemished corneas in the fading light.
“My opening move,” he said softly and left her sitting there in the gathering shadows.
* * *
The housepainter nonchalantly sitting in the silver Camry parked at the opposite curb across from the dilapidated cracker box house in Brockton was bored. His semi-automatic Smith and Wesson M&P Shield lay undisturbed in his lap. He was close to dozing. A figure appeared in silhouette quickly from nowhere, and asked him through the open driver side window, “Waiting long?” The housepainter jerked up and grabbed the M&P.
“Nope,” said Null quietly. “Too late.”
He took the Heckler and blew the housepainter’s face away with a single shot. Then he waited for some other response to the shot. There was none.
Null crossed the street.
The second housepainter was standing at the door in topcoat and hat—a parody of Null’s own appearance. He had missed the shot.
“Stop right there,” said the housepainter. “Brockton police! Identify yourself before you go any further.”
Null was faster with his Heckler than the housepainter was with whatever he was packing. He got off two shots into the man’s neck before he could remove his piece from his coat. With great struggle, he managed to withdraw a Glock nine from his coat and hold it, which Null quickly kicked aside into the unkempt shrubbery.
“I really don’t know what you’ve done, so this is you and your partner’s lucky day.”
The housepainter gurgled an inarticulate plea.
Null put two in his head.
“You get to die easy, no torture. But your friends inside, that’s another story.”
Null went back to the flat black Escort and removed a paper bag full of various items and a 12-pack of bottled water. He went back to the dilapidated house. The door was unlocked. He entered with the Heckler drawn and ready.
“No little extra friends to surprise me?”
“You’re supposed to be dead!” squealed Tony.
“Some say I am dead,” replied Null.
“I need a hospital!” Seymour moaned. “My arm’s gone numb!”
“We can’t have that,” said Null studiously. “I think if I give it a little massage we can restore some sensation. It’s important that your feelings remain intact.”
Aldo made incomprehensible sonic eruptions from the floor where he still managed to flop about in a puddle of his own blood.
Null opened the door again and dragged the late housepainter inside, closing it softly.
He carefully removed his coat, still holding the Ruger, a Glock nine, and multiple phones in its pockets. Lastly, he took the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle off his shoulder where it had hung from a strap, then gingerly put his hat on top. It had left a wide, red welt on Null’s bony shoulder. The Heckler and suppressor went next to it. He removed the machete and lanyard from around his neck and leaned them up against a leg of the chair.
“Fuck, you got weaponry, boss!” whined Tony.
“Just prepared. Like a boy scout.”
“But you ain’t no boy scout!”
“A perfect tautology.”
Null removed some cheap, blindingly white cotton coveralls from the paper bag and stepped into them, covering his clothes. He revealed himself clearly in the light as he changed, scars everywhere; emaciated, sunken looking, haggard. Not much of a threat at first appearance. But he was all muscle and sinew drawn taut and poised to spring at any time. He was a danger, camouflaged by the past evidence of injury, distress, and torment.
He was relentless; he would not stop.
Neither would Aldo and Seymour with their wretched noises. Null had to speak above them to communicate with the still-coherent Tony Spilotro.
“What—what the fuck are you doing?” asked Tony, struggling against the ties.
“Fucking cut me loose!” screamed Seymour.
Null quickly snapped face pictures of the three with his phone, placed it gently on top of his hat, and approached Tony, holding the machete and a bottle of water.
“You’re fucking taking selfies?” Tony asked, incredulous.
“Just a memento mori,” replied Null, kneeling down.
“What the fuck are you gonna do?”
“Where are the cameras, Tony?”
“Cut me loose and I’ll show yez!”
“Just tell me.”
“Two left-hand corners opposite each other on the ceilin’.”
“Great. Mic’s working okay?”
“They are. They saw and heard everything. You shoulda been dead by now. Front office sent the fucking housepainters for yez.”
“I expected as much, as you can see.”
“I can’t see shit. You killed both of ‘em?
Null ignored the question. “So, they can see and hear everything clearly at the user’s end?”
“It’s what the goofs are paying for.”
“Just making sure.”
“What the fuck’s with the bottled water, for Christ’s sake?”
“To lubricate your throat.”
“What the fuck for?”
“You need to be able to scream.”
“You’re fucked!”
“That might more aptly be reversed here. Anyway, having you rendered mute might obscure my point. You should be able to scream out in agony as much as you can until you can’t anymore. They need to hear as well as see. The Hebe people. Whoever’s left.”
“Are you out of your freakin’ mind?”
“Clearly. But that’s not really the question you should be asking.”
Tony shouted defiantly: “They’ll find ya, ya know! They’ll get you, fuck you up good and proper—kill you, you stupid, motherfucking freak!” He was breathing hard.
“We’ll see who finds whom first.”
“You’re gonna die, bitch!”
“So must we all. But I believe you’re going first.”
“Cut me loose, goddamn you!”
“Why’d they leave you tied up? You could’ve lent them a hand, you know. The housepainters.”
“I guess they were using us as bait.”
“I get it.” Null paused and blinked—dead shark eyes aimed straight at Tony’s face. “Did you ever hear of the expression, “to cut bait?”
“Ya. So?”
“Well, here’s a new dimension to it.”
At first, Tony had no time to scream.
Null swung up the newly sharpened machete and came down both hard and deep into Tony’s torso. That was when his screaming began and did not stop.
Tony’s screaming continued for hours—Null forcing his mouth open and pouring water down his throat, until it died down to nothing but a crackle and Null could finally get to the others.
They didn’t last nearly as long.