Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee by Edward Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

Never. They kept us upstairs for their little pregame show or whatever you want to call it. The men'd all
stand around and watch while we did the scat stuff."
    "And then you'd-"
    She knew what he was going to ask. "No, that's the weird part. Hildreth and his guys never laid a hand on us, never
wanted us to get 'em off. They'd all just stand around, buck
naked, watching. We'd do it with men sometimes, just not
Hildreth's men. They'd bring people in-crackheads, bums,
rednecks all fucked up on PCP-and those guys would do
us. A lot of times it was just plain rape. These guys would
smack us around and rape us, while one of Hildreth's people would film it. It was pretty sickening sometimes, but the
rock was so good-all we wanted when we were done.
You'd have to be hooked to know what I mean. And the
whole time, Hildreth and his guys would watch. Sometimes
they'd say weird shit, like we were being seasoned. We
needed to be debased. How do you like that shit? I remember one night one of these boneheads looked at me and said
`You're not soiled enough yet.' Then he-" Her eyes went
back to the window, as if there were safety out there. "Then
he brought in a goat."

    Yes. Clements knew that he could easily have killed them
all. Just walk in there with the Remington ... and start pumping.
He needed to change topics, for this one, as informative as it
may have been, was making him too depressed. "And the
pay waste
    "A grand apiece, each night, for each of us. And all the
crack we could smoke before sundown. When we were
done doing the scat stuff, Hildreth would bring in a bond
of it, like someone would put out a bowl of fuckin' afterdinner mints. They'd go downstairs for their little devil
party and we'd sit up in the parlor and crack it up till dawn.
Someone'd drive us back in the limo in the morning."
    "But you say you never saw Debbie-" He held up the
picture once more. "-you never saw her doing any of this
freaky stuff?"
    "No."

    Clements had a good feel for this sort of girl. Crack addicts were consummate liars; they could beat polygraphs
sometimes because their devotion to the addiction overrode
physiological responses. But this one's not lying. There's no reason why she should. There's no one to protect.
    A welcome breeze blew through the car's open windows.
Clements looked up when he heard some hollow thunks in
the distance.
    "Looks like those guys are finally leaving," the girl said.
She was rubbing her knees again already.
    One last glance in the binoculars. The fumigation van
was pulling around the estate's great circular entrance drive.
Clements watched them disappear as the road was swallowed by the woods.
    "What now?" the girl asked.
    I want to go in there, the thought popped up instantly. He
had his lock-picks with him, and his gear. But-
    Don't be stupid.
    "You must really want this Debbie girl bad. What is she,
your daughter?"
    "No. Her parents hired me to keep tabs on her. Then I
started snooping around, and the parents wound up murdered."
    "That sucks. So you're a PI?"
    The house loomed in its curtain of floodlights. "I used to
be," he said.
    "So where's Debbie? Is she dead, too? Did that Hildreth
kook kill her like all the others?"
    "Nope. All the bodies were accounted for, and she wasn't
one of them."
    "Then where is she?"
    Clements started the car up. "I can't explain why I feel
this way, but I just feel it in my bones, I can feel it all the way
at the back of my heart, that she's still in that house."

     

Chapter Two
I
    Westmore felt less than confident when he hopped off the
#35 trolley at the Baywalk shopping complex. In the front
of the window of some ritzy designer purse boutique, he
could see himself. Jew Christ, I look like a tourist ... White
slacks, loafers, and loose blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt
with pineapples on it. He'd have worn his suit, but ... he
didn't have one anymore. It was part of his paring down
process when he'd quit the St. Petersburg Times to