turning her back and cocking her hip. Moving slowly, seductively. Vamping. Smiling as she turned to look back.
Saying, 'How'm I doing-sexy enough?' just before her head disappeared in a flash. No designation on the list. Perhaps Derrick Crimmins had conceived her as 'coke whore,' or maybe he had yet to dream up a designation.
Creating characters, killing them off.
Folded in a pocket of Crimmins's black silk shirt was a copy of the Blood Walk title page we'd found in his night-stand. On the reverse were several handwritten paragraphs in the same sharp-edged hieroglyphics used for the production notes:
The Monster: combenation of extreme evil-madness and supernatural psychic ability s to tell the future and to get into peoples heads. Locked up in the high security asylem just like Haniball Leckter he also cant be stopped like Leckter, can go through walls, beam himself around change his moleculs like a StarTrek alien. Exits at will, goes around killing at will. Various people, all types just cause he likes it, gets off on it, not crazy all the time this is just what he does, his job, his callin in life, no one will ever understand it because theyre not in the same dimension. And he canot be stopped anymore than Jason or Freddie Kruger or Michael Meyers.
Except by The Daredeveil Avenger. Who understands him cause He grew up with him and Hes also got the psychic powers but for good not evil. Once Hhe was a kid now He's a man, tall and muscular and silent, a real John Wayne Dirty Harry type but with a sense of humor. True Lies meets James Bond. Doesn 't waste action except whem it counts. Women love him the same as James Bond but He has no time for them because only He knows what The Monsters really capible of, so only he can stop The Blood Walk which otherwise would be inevatable.
He wears Black but He's the Good Guy. Keep it different, creative. The actions in the end always between him and the Monster. Prime-evil battle. Only at the end can we know how it turns out. In the last scene the Monster dies the worse death of all. Maybe burning, maybe grinded up in some kind of hamburger machine. Or acid. Either way, he's dead.
Or maybe not.
If it works there's always a sequel.
Chapter 42
'What the hell was he planning to do with it?' said Milo. 'Take a meeting with some studio scrote?'
He stuffed pretzels into his mouth. No answer expected.
We were sitting in a bar on Pacific Avenue on the south end of Venice, not far from the Marina. Jimmy Buffett on tape, sun-roughened faces and zinc noses, sports talk, the pretzels. Mostly calls for beer on tap.
It was Thursday. I'd spent the afternoon just as I had every day this week. Out in Bellflower with Suzy Galvez, trying to break through. Milo had offered my services right after the rescue. Mr. Galvez, a landscaper with a vicious scar running from his left ear to his shoulder blade, had turned him down, growling, 'We handle our own problems.'
Three weeks later, I got the call from Mrs. Galvez. Meek, halting, slightly accented voice. Apologetic when she didn't need to be. Suzy was still waking up with screaming nightmares. Two days ago, she'd started wetting her bed and sucking her thumb; she hadn't done any of that since the age of six.
I drove out the next day. The house was a brown box behind freshly painted white pickets, too many flowers for the space. Mr. Galvez greeted me at the door, a scar-faced, muscled keg of steam. Shaking my hand too hard. Telling me he'd heard I knew what I was doing. Handing me a mixed bouquet, cut fresh from the garden, when I left.
Marvelle Haas was rumored to be seeing a therapist in Bakersfield. Neither she nor her husband had returned anyone's calls. The task force was still looking for bodies, contacting departments in other cities, other states, trying to figure out how many people Derrick Crimmins had murdered. Cases in Arizona, Oklahoma, and Nevada seemed promising. Evidence on Derrick's brother's motorcycle accident was sketchy, but Cliff Crimmins's name had been added to the victim list.
Milo snarfed more pretzels. Someone shouted for a Bud. The bartender, a black-haired Croatian with four rings in his left ear, palmed the tap. We were drinking single-malt scotch. Eighteen-year-old Macallan. When Milo asked for the bottle, the Croatian's eyebrows lifted. He smiled as he poured.
'What the hell was it all for?' said Milo.
'That's a real question?'
'Yeah, I've used up my ration of rhetorical.'
I was sorry he asked. I'd thought about little else, had answers good enough for talk shows but nothing real.
Milo put his glass down, stared at me.
'Maybe it was all for fun,' I said. 'Or preparation for the movie Crimmins convinced himself he'd write one day. Or he was actually going to sell the tapes.'
'We still haven't found any underground market for that kind of crap.'
'Okay.' I sipped. 'So eliminate that.'
'I know,' he said. 'There's an appetite for every damn bit of garbage out there. I'm just saying nothing's turned up linking Crimmins to any snuff-film business deals, and we've looked big-time. No cash hoard, not a single bank account, no meetings with any shifty types in long coats, no ads in weirdo magazines. And the computer Crimmins had in the house wasn't hooked up to the Internet. Nothing but basic software, no files. Our guy says he probably never used it.'
'Technologically impaired,' I said. 'No sweat. Video's as good as film.'
'All I'm saying is it doesn't look like he was after the money. Stole all that gear but never tried to sell it. We figure he was probably living off dope sales.'
'And Heidi's salary,' I said. 'Till she became superfluous. No bank accounts means the two of them spent everything as it came in. They weren't living like royalty and they avoided paying rent, so a good deal of it probably went up her nose.'
'His, too. Coroner found some coke in his system. A little meth, too. And something called loratadine.'
'Antihistamine,' I said. 'Doesn't make you drowsy. Maybe Crimmins was allergic to the desert, needed to keep his energy level up for the big shoot.'
Milo refilled his glass. 'Blood Walk.'
'Whatever his specific motivation,' I said, 'and he may have had several, in his head it was a major production. It was the process he loved. He got hooked on playing God sixteen years ago.'
He downed the scotch. 'You really think Crimmins did the Ardullos by himself.'
'By himself or with his brother. But not with Peake. Peake was set up. I'll probably never be able to prove it, but the facts support it. Think about Peake's blood test: just a residue of Thorazine. Heidi'd been weaning him off his meds for a while. Just as Claire probably had. But Claire's motive was to get Peake to talk about his crimes. And, unconsciously, she wanted to find some virtue in his soul because that might say something about her brother. Heidi wanted Peake sufficiently coherent so he could cooperate in the escape and-more important-perform on film. Killing Marvelle and Suzy on camera-the Monster finally reveals itself. But it didn't work. He didn't perform. You saw his condition. With or without Thorazine, he's extremely low-functioning, has been for years. At his prime, he had no more than a borderline IQ. Adolescent paint- and glue-sniffing and alcohol knocked off a few more points. Thorazine and tardive dyskinesia numbed him further. He was never in any shape to plan and conduct a crime spree, even the disorganized massacre Jacob Haas found at the Ardullo house. He had nothing to do with Heidi's death or Frank Dollard's. No motive, no means. Same for the Ardullos.'
'The Ardullos were your basic senseless crime,' he said. 'Maniac on the loose, no need for a motive.'
'That's what Derrick wanted everyone to think,' I said.
'And he got his way. But there's always some kind of motive. Psychotic or otherwise. Peake's no criminal superman, just pathetic. Derrick plotted it all out. Good against evil; Derrick gives, Derrick takes away.'
Another drink poured. Milo said, 'Daredevil Avenger.'
'On some level, Derrick probably started believing his own P.R. Peake as surrogate monster, Derrick as angel of deliverance. But Peake just doesn't fit any type of psychotic killer. He's never shown any indication of a delusional system, bloody or otherwise, never acted violently before the massacre or since. He's a retarded man with
