violent when he encountered him in person. What he did find to be an odd fit was the idea that Wentz, the man who could calmly wield a phone as a weapon and wore pointed boots for better bone crunching, could be the man behind a sophisticated Internet empire.
Pierce had seen Wentz in action. His first and lasting impression was that Wentz was muscle first and brains second. He seemed more the caretaker of the operation than the brains behind it.
Pierce thought of the aging mobster mentioned in Zeller's report. Dominic Silva of Winter Park, Florida. Was he the man? The intellect behind the muscle? Pierce intended to find out.
He went to the next page and found a summary listing Wentz's criminal record. Over a five-year period in Florida he had a variety of arrests for pandering and two arrests for something listed as felony GBI. There was also an arrest for manslaughter.
The summaries did not include final disposition of these cases. But reading them -arrest after arrest in five years -Pierce was puzzled as to why Wentz was not in prison.
More of the same questions came up when he went to the next page and reviewed the arrest summaries of Grady 'Grade A' Allison. He, too, seemed to have a recurring pandering pattern. He also topped Wentz in the GBI category with four arrests. He also had an arrest labeled 'sexbat-minor,' which Pierce interpreted to be a charge of having sex with a minor.
Pierce looked at the mug shots of Allison. According to the attendant information, he was forty-six years old, though the photos showed a man who might be older. He had grayblack hair greased back on his head. His ghostly pale face was accented by a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once.
He picked up the phone and called Janis Langwiser again. This time he did not have to wait as long for her to take the call.
'Couple quick questions,' he said. 'Do you know what pandering is, in the legal sense of the word?'
'It's a pimp charge. It means providing a woman for sex in exchange for money or goods. Why?'
'Wait a minute. What about felony GBI? What is GBI?'
'That doesn't sound like anything from the California penal code but usually GBI means 'great bodily injury.' It would be part of an assault charge.'
Pierce considered this. GBI, as in hitting someone in the face with a phone and then hanging him off a twelfth-story balcony.
'Why, Henry? Have you been talking to Renner?'
He hesitated. He realized he shouldn't have called her, because it might reveal that he was still pursuing the very thing she had told him to stay away from.
'No, nothing like that. I'm just looking at a background check on an employment application. Hard to figure out what all of this means sometimes.'
'Well, it doesn't sound like anybody you would want to have working for you.'
'I think you're right about that. Okay, thanks. Just go ahead and put this on my bill.'
'Don't worry about it.'
After hanging up, he looked at the last page in the report from Zeller. It listed all of the websites that he had been able to link Wentz and ECU to. The single-space listing took up the entire page. The sexual permutations and double entendres contained in the site names and addresses were almost laughable but somehow the sheer volume of it all made it more sickening. This was just one man's operations. It was staggering.
As his eyes scanned down the list they held on one entry -FetishCastle.net -and he realized he knew it. He had heard of it. It took him a few moments and then he remembered Lucy LaPorte telling him that she had first met Lilly Quinlan at a photo shoot for the FetishCastle site.
Swiveling his chair to face the computer, Pierce booted up and went online. In a few minutes he arrived at the FetishCastle home page. The primary image was of an Asian woman wearing black thigh-high boots and little else. She had her hands on her naked hips and had adopted a stern schoolteacher pose. The page promised subscribers that herein were thousands of downloadable fetish photos, streaming videos and links to other sites. All free -with a paid subscription, of course. The coded but easily decipherable list of subject matter contained within included dominants, submissives, switches, water sports, smothering and so on.
Pierce clicked on the JOIN button and jumped to a page with a menu offering several different subscription plans and the promise of immediate approval and access. The going rate was $29.95 a month, chargeable each month to a credit card of your choice. The menu was careful to note in large letters that the billing record would appear on all credit card statements as ECU Enterprises, which would of course be easier than FetishCastle to run by the wife or boss when the bill came in.
There was an introductory offer for $5.95, which allowed access to the site for five days.
At the end of that period your credit card would not be charged further if you did not sign up for one of the monthly or yearly plans. This was a one-time offer per credit card.
Pierce pulled out his wallet and used his American Express card to sign up for the introductory offer. Within minutes he had a pass code and user name and he entered the site, coming to a subject tab page with a search window. He went to the window and typed in 'Robin' and hit ENTER. His search returned no hits. He got the same result with a search for 'Lilly' but then had success with 'girl-girl' after remembering that it was how Lucy had described the modeling session with Lilly.
He was connected to a page of thumbnail photos, six rows of six. At the bottom of the page was a prompt that would allow him to go to the next page of thirty-six photos or to skip ahead to any one of forty-eight other pages of girl-girl photos.
Pierce scanned the thumbnails on the first page. They were all photos containing two or more women, no men. The models were engaged in various sex acts and bondage scenes, always a dominant female and her subservient subject. Though the photos were small, he did not want to take the time to click on each and enlarge it. He opened a desk drawer and took out a magnifying glass. He leaned close to the monitor screen and looked for Lucy and Lilly, able to work his way quickly across the grid of photos.
On the fourth screen of thirty-six he came across a series of more than a dozen photos of Lucy and Lilly. In each photo Lilly played the dominant and Lucy the submissive, even though Lucy towered over the diminutive Lilly. Pierce enlarged one of the thumbnails and the photo took over the whole computer screen.
The set had an obviously painted backdrop of a stone castle wall. A dungeon wall, Pierce guessed. There was straw on the floor and candles burning on a nearby table. Lucy was naked and chained to the wall with handcuffs that looked shiny and new rather than medieval. Lilly, dressed in the apparently requisite black leather of a dominatrix, stood in front of her holding a candle, her wrist cocked just enough for the hot wax to drip onto Lucy's breasts. On Lucy's face was a look that Pierce thought was meant to convey agony and ecstasy at the same time. Rapture. On Lilly's face was a look of stern approval and pride.
'Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were gone.'
Pierce turned to see Monica coming through the door. As his assistant she had the combination to his office door lock because Pierce was often in the lab and she might need access. She started to put a stack of mail down on his desk.
'You told me you were only going to be -'
She stopped when she saw the computer screen. Her mouth opened into a perfect circle.
He reached to the screen and killed the monitor. He felt lucky that his face was discolored and scarred. It helped hide his embarrassment.
'Monica, look, I -'
'Is that her? The woman you had me impersonate?'
He nodded.
'I'm just trying to…'
He didn't know how to explain what he was doing. He wasn't sure what he was doing.
He felt even more stupid holding the magnifying glass.
'Dr. Pierce, I like my job here but I'm not sure I want to work directly for you anymore.'
'Monica, don't call me that. And don't start with the job stuff again.'
'Can I please transfer back to the pool?'
Pierce reached up to the monitor for his sunglasses and put them on. A few days ago he wanted to get rid of her, now he couldn't bring himself to look at her disapproving eyes.
'Monica, you can do whatever you want to do,' he said while staring at the blank computer screen. 'But I think
