afternoon.”
“Really?” Dennis felt his stomach clench. “What did he want?”
“To talk to you,” Carrie turned over. “He sounded surprised, like he thought you would be home.”
“Bob gets confused sometimes,” Dennis said, the lie springing to him easy. “He must have forgotten I had that meeting at our West LA office and thought I’d gone home early.”
Carrie didn’t say anything. Dennis waited for a response, and when none came he rolled over on his right side, facing the wall. He waited until he heard the calm breathing of his wife sleeping beside him, and then he closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep himself. But it was a long time in coming.
He had a meeting on his calendar the next morning but he skipped it, stopping by Carl Grossman’s instead. He’d gone to the bank on the way and had the fifteen hundred dollars for the necrophilia magazine; he simply couldn’t get it out of his mind. He’d woken up in a good mood so why not splurge? Carl shook his head as Dennis asked for the magazine. “Sorry. Shoulda bought it yesterday. I sold it last night right after you left.”
Dennis felt his hopes deflate. “Oh. That’s too bad.” He didn’t know the magazine would sell so quickly.
“But you’re in luck,” Carl said, moving to a corner of the living room that he referred to as his “office”; it was crammed with a small desk and filing cabinet. He rummaged around on the desk for a business card and copied a name, address, and phone number on it. “You might want to talk to the guy that bought it. He’s a big collector. You and he have similar interests. Maybe he can help you find another one.” He handed the card to Dennis, who slipped it into his pocket.
“Thanks,” Dennis said.
Dennis took a look at the card in his car. The name on the card — Harvey Panozzo — was unfamiliar to him. At first he wasn’t going to place the call; after all, he had to get to work and start giving his employers the impression he gave a shit about his job. But he finally succumbed to his desires and punched Harvey’s number in his cell phone.
The phone was picked up on the other end. “Panozzo here.”
Dennis quickly introduced himself and told Harvey how he came by his number. “Carl suggested I call you since we have similar interests.”
“Are you busy later today?”
“Not at all.”
“Why don’t you stop by? We’ll chat then. You have the address?”
“Yes.” Harvey was in Monrovia, just down the freeway from Pasadena where Dennis lived. He jotted down the directions and hung up, his nerves on edge at the thought that he was going to see more of the type of material he was becoming enamoured with.
The next few hours were spent at work. He made phone calls to various business contacts, did some work on the CPM spreadsheet. Bob Lansing poked his head in his cube and asked where he was yesterday. Dennis told him he’d been stuck in traffic, which was why he was late to the CPM meeting in West LA. Bob nodded, then asked him how the meeting this morning was. Dennis made something up and Bob left, seemingly satisfied with his answer.
He spent the remainder of his day cruising the internet, always making sure to keep a spreadsheet open, and to be on alert in case anybody came by. There’d been a few close calls when Dennis had fumbled with the icon at the bottom of his screen for the spreadsheet, thus blocking out whatever porn website he was on. Thank God for quick fingers.
He visited ten porn sites that afternoon including his favorite: the rape page. He also did some searches on Google for necrophilia pages. He couldn’t find any.
He left the office at his normal time and arrived at Harvey’s house ten minutes early. Harvey Panozzo lived in a nice neighborhood with tree-lined streets and ranch homes. He met Dennis at the front door dressed in tan slacks and a white shirt; he looked like he’d just come home from work. He appeared to be around Dennis’s age — early forties — and had thinning black hair and a dark mustache. He also looked like he spent a lot of time out in the sun.
“Nice to meet you,” Harvey said, holding out his hand.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” Dennis said, shaking his hand. “I really appreciate it.”
Harvey invited him inside the house and Dennis followed the man, his nerves twitching. One time he’d met an extreme hardcore fetish enthusiast in the hopes of scoring some bloodsport videos and was tackled from behind by another character who was lying in wait. Looking back on it now, Dennis realized that they were going to rape him, probably torture him to fulfill their own desires, but Dennis was lucky. Working out at the gym every day gave him an advantage a lot of guys his age lacked, and he was able to fight off his attackers ruthlessly. He was careful in meeting like-minded freaks, and now as he followed Harvey Panozzo down the hall toward a rear bedroom, his senses were on heightened alert.
“Carl is a trusted friend and ally,” Harvey said, motioning for Dennis to have a seat. “I knew you were okay when you mentioned Carl sent you. I don’t trust people that are referred to me by people other than Carl.”
“Neither do I,” Dennis said.
“You said you were going to buy the necro publication Carl had?” Harvey asked.
Dennis nodded. “Yes. He said you bought it last night, that you’re a fellow …”
“Enthusiast?” Harvey smiled. “I suppose I am.” He paused for a moment. “I take it you are interested in similar material?”
Dennis nodded. “Very much so.”
“I think I may be able to help you.”
Dennis felt a burst of excitement. “That would be great.”
“Tell me something,” Harvey said, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. “What do you do for a living?”
Dennis hesitated a moment, then plunged on ahead. “I’m a financial analyst.”
Harvey nodded. “I see. The reason I’m asking is that the group has pretty specific membership requirements. They like for fellow members to be professionally employed.”
“Well …”
Harvey smiled. “Don’t worry. I take it that with your job title you have at least a Bachelor’s Degree and that you make at least fifty k a year. Correct?”
Dennis nodded. Actually he made quite a bit more than that but he wasn’t going to tell Harvey.
Harvey rose to his feet. “Come with me. I think I have just what you’re looking for.”
Dennis followed him to the next room, which appeared to be an office. Harvey opened a file cabinet with a key and rifled through it. He extracted a glossy paged magazine wrapped in plastic and handed it to Dennis, who took it in trembling hands. “Is this the kind of material you’re looking for?”
Dennis looked at it. The dead girl with the severed throat glared at him, her eyes lifeless. Dennis nodded. “Yes.”
“If you’d like, I can give you some time alone with it. Perhaps thirty minutes?”
“That would be great.” Dennis tried to keep his excitement at bay.
“After that, all I have to ask of you are three things,” Harvey said. “The first: make sure you stay employed. We have our reasons for insisting on this policy, the main reason being that when you begin to acquire a taste for the type of material we’re into, it can get rather expensive. We’d rather have you indulge with money you are making honestly. We have no desire to have the police come poking around should you resort to a life of crime in order for you to pay for your habit. Agreed?”
Dennis nodded. “Yes.”
“Good. Number two, your being employed is actually a benefit. It automatically separates you from a lot of the other hardcore freaks out there. We have no desire to associate with drug addicts, ex-porn stars, the homeless, or other degenerates. What we do is in the privacy of our own homes. We don’t hurt anybody. We are simply working professionals with similar interests. Agreed?”
Dennis nodded. “And the third?”
“That when you are finally admitted to our group you bring us some materials. An offering, if you will.” Harvey smiled. “It doesn’t matter what it is … a loop of some junkie getting fucked by a Doberman … a torture flick … some chicken hawk stuff for the pedophiles in our group. But you’ll score big points if you can procure some necro flicks or
