Shade of Pale (15 page)

He'd replayed that scene at the boat dock over and over in his mind for years. The boy, his sister, his failure to react in time, his fear.

He wondered if Cathy remembered it. He wondered if it had the same meaning for her as it did for him.

He wondered what the boy's life had been like. What had become of him? Had he become another Bobby? Was he out there now, somewhere in the world, doing the kinds of inhuman things to women that Bobby did?

Had he confronted the boy, what would have turned out differently?

Questions that had no answers swirled in his befuddled mind.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Heroin. Cathy and Bobby had been doing heroin.

She'd done it before a couple of times, and it didn't seem like anything that could kill you. Everybody did it, at least everybody Bobby knew. Cathy's friends had fallen by the wayside. She never saw them anymore.

But Bobby had the junk. And now Cathy wanted some more.

She woke up from a nightmare, about a weeping woman with red hair, to face the mother of all hangovers, except it wasn't really a hangover at all; it was the first stage of withdrawal. It was the surreptitious discomfort that somebody who has only done heroin a few irregular times, and thinks it can't possibly be
that
, experiences.

Cathy sat up slowly, nauseous. The room yawed and tilted. She felt her face as if the dimensions of it had shifted and swollen during the night. But numb fingers touched numb flesh and felt nothing.

She and Bobby had gotten really fucked up last night. He had started to do things.

Bobby was funny like that. He did strange things. Cathy convinced herself it was art because he photographed it. But sometimes he went beyond the normal bondage games and provoked real pain.

“Real pain for real art,” he told her without a hint of irony. “If it hurts, it hurts good, because it hurts for art; it hurts for beauty.”

Now, with Bobby gone and Cathy alone in his secret studio, she felt the gnaw of opiate addiction and the remorse of the night before.

She meant to call Jukes. She meant to help herself, but she only succeeded in making her way to the toilet and throwing up.

Outside, somewhere far away, a chorus of sirens wailed. The sound seemed strange to her. She became claustrophobically aware that there were no windows in Bobby's studio and only one heavily locked metal door.

A loud sound made her jump, startling her heart into an adrenaline palpitation. She fell to her knees as the room shook and the walls vibrated.

“Oh, shit!” she cried. “Oh, God!”

The floor beneath her knees pulsed with the sound. It assaulted her for a few seconds, smashing her eardrums with anarchistic noise, then throbbed into a regular pattern.

Then she realized it was music.

Music! Jesus Christ, that's what it is. Really loud, frantic, distorted music
.

A rock band was playing next door.

Cathy acclimated herself to the sound and stood up, brushed off her knees, and lit a cigarette.

Jukes would kill me if he caught me smokin
, she thought, then laughed.
Forget the cigarettes; how about some junk?
Smoking a cigarette would be the least self-destructive thing she'd done to herself the past few days.

The band plowed forward, cranking out mindless, repetitive ska instrumental riffs, all at the height of frenzy. Cathy thought they sounded bad.

Unpleasant music filled the room. The drummer pounded out fills that made her jump and the bass vibrated her internal organs. She considered banging on the wall, but that would have been fruitless. The noise coming from their side was overwhelming.

She crossed the room and went into the studio, smoking desperately.

Bobby's photography studio and living quarters were buried in the corner of a warehouse that had been converted into rehearsal spaces for bands.

At night the building throbbed with a dozen heavy metal bands, a few blues groups, and a large contingent of ganja-smoking Rastas.

But it was afternoon now, she thought. Without a visible clock there was no way of knowing for sure. It seemed like afternoon.

She thought about going outside to see, but she knew without checking that the door was locked. Bobby always kept it locked when he went out. She was a prisoner until he returned.

She closed the door between the two partitions and it muffled the sound of the rock band somewhat, but it still would have been impossible to carry on a conversation.

The studio was large and high-ceilinged. In the far corner Bobby's computer monitor glowed.

The light caught Cathy's eye and drew her across the room. She sat down unsteadily at the terminal and stared at the big rectangular screen. Bobby's Power Mac hummed imperceptibly before her, the menu open to a list of files.

Jukes had taught Cathy to use his Mac and gave her his old one when he upgraded. Cathy knew her way around the Apple.

She read down the screen. “Cat 41, Cat 42, Cat 43 w/flash, Cat 44 w/flash, Cat 45 …”

Across from the list was a corresponding list of applications. They were all PhotoShop. Cathy realized that these were pictures Bobby had taken of her with his digital camera. She knew enough to understand that these were file names for different images: “Cathy 42, Cathy 43 wo/flash …”

“Cat 51 w/whip.” She shuddered when she recalled the terrible things he made her do, the poses and the disturbing props.

The damn music blotted everything out, disorienting her, making everything seem strobe-lit.

Her eyes wandered down the list. There were hundreds of files, many of her, but other girls' names appeared as well. Using the mouse she scrolled down and scanned the names, recognizing none.

“Dolly 16, Dolly 17, Dolly 18 w/rope …”

She leaned back in the chair and rubbed her face. Her fingers felt like she was wearing gloves.

Then, she leaned forward and double clicked on the “Dolly 18 w/rope” icon.

The software application opened itself and a blurred image appeared on the screen.

Cathy squinted at it. PhotoShop worked on the image; the machine hummed. Then, a moment later as the photo sharpened, she gazed in horror at the dead face of Dolly Devane.

Cathy knew Dolly was dead because no one could have survived having that thick black rope wound so tightly around their neck. And there was the glazed, lifeless stare of Dolly's eyes, so chilling.

Cathy uttered a terrible, weighty sob and shrank back in the chair, shuddering violently. She sat there, with the computer presenting Dolly's image before her like an unholy altar. She couldn't stop shaking.

“Oh, my God …,” she said. “Oh … no.…”

A sound in the hall, a thump that didn't sound like part of the music, startled her, and she looked around frantically.

Thump
.

She heard it again. Another thump, followed by a high rachetting sound that stood out against the muffled din of the rock band next door.

“Shit!” she whispered and moved her fingers back to the mouse. She struggled to overcome the shaking and moved the pointer up the little box in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Her hands moved like clumsy slugs.

She heard the door open and the music leap out suddenly from the open door.

Bobby was back!

She frantically moved the mouse, bearing down too hard and making it unresponsive. The sensitivity was set too high and she kept missing the little box. She clicked and clicked again, and kept missing. She heard Bobby close the door and lock it behind him.

Her heart was pounding like the hooves of racehorses, the pulse in her ears nearly blocking out the ungodly din of the music. Using all the willpower she could muster, she held her breath and steadied her hand. And tried again.

This time her hand left the mouse and went to the keyboard. With incredible luck she managed to strike “COMMAND Q,” quitting the program. A box appeared asking if she wanted to save changes to “Dolly w/rope” and she clicked “no.” The image winked and disappeared.

She got up and moved away from the computer, shaking and weak. The music pounded on.

Bobby entered the room and his eyes went directly to the computer. The screen was as he had left it.

“Were you fucking around with the computer?” Bobby shouted above the music.

Cathy forced herself to speak, even though her voice sounded like it had been pushed through foam rubber. “No, baby … I didn't go near it.”

Bobby fixed her with a malevolent stare. Cathy looked back, blinking and shuddering. Bobby scared her more than she knew how to react.

Can he sense it?

Cathy sniffed her runny nose and scratched her forearms.

“What's wrong with you?” Bobby asked, stepping to her and reaching out his hands.

She looked at the hands and contemplated. If she didn't go to him and act like nothing was wrong, he'd suspect that she knew his secret. But to go to him, to touch him, was now as repugnant as touching a corpse.

“C'mere, Cat,” he said.

The music stopped abruptly and the room decompressed into sudden silence. Cathy's heart seemed as loud as a cannon in the new subsonic environment. She shivered, part with fear of Bobby and part with the misery of her own withdrawal.

She willed her hand to reach out and touch his. He grasped it and pulled her roughly to him. She fell against him like a broken marionette.

Bobby's arms encircled her and she began to shake violently. She imagined those arms like pythons, able to crush the life out of her in a second. Tears streamed down her face.

Bobby broke off his embrace and held her by the shoulders. He peered into her face, now wet and desperate.

“What the fuck's wrong with you?”

“I'm sick, Bobby. I'm real sick. I been throwing up all morning.”

Bobby smiled as if he were a demon in human skin. So evil was his expression that for a moment Cathy was unable to take a breath. That smile was a joyless parody of the one she knew.

“The China flu, eh? Looks like you need some of Daddy's medicine.”

Cathy came alive at the sound of that word. “Medicine? You got more?”

Bobby pulled a plastic bag of white powder from his pocket and dangled it in front of her face.

“Just scored big-time.”

Cathy changed. “Oh, Bobby, yeah.… Yeah, I need some—”

“You're strung put, bitch. You went and got yourself strung out on this shit and now you expect me to just give it to you for free? Like a fuckin' prescription?”

“No, Bobby, I … I … I'll pay for it.”

“With what? You ain't got a pot to piss in, let alone the kind of dough you need for this.” He shook the bag.

Cathy sweated. “My brother's got money; he'll give it to me. I know he will.”

Bobby clucked and turned away. “You look like shit; you know that? You've really let yourself go. Look in the mirror.”

Cathy stood. Bobby spun around and grabbed her.

“Look in the fuckin' mirror!” he shouted and pushed her to the wall where a full-length mirror hung.

She looked. The person looking back was a stranger. Cathy's once-rosy face now appeared ashen and hollow. The discoloration around her eyes from Bobby's last beating still showed, and her swollen lip refused to heal. Her hair hung limp and dirty in her face. She slumped like a hunchback.

Cathy said nothing.

“You're no good to me like that. What should I do? Kick your sorry ass out right now?”

“No, Bobby, don't,” she heard herself say. Her voice now belonged to that stranger in the mirror. “I'm just a little sick, that's all. Give me the medicine and I'll fix myself up real nice for you.”

“I told you to be careful with this shit. You didn't listen.”

“I'll listen now, Bobby.”

Cathy's tears had salted her lips, and she spoke now with the bitter irony of someone who didn't know good from evil. She hated herself for groveling to Bobby, but her craving for the drug overcame her fear. She rationalized it.

Maybe the picture was a fake. Isn't that what PhotoShop is for? Maybe it was just a well-done fake
. She cleaved to that idea desperately.
And if it's not a fake, then maybe Bobby didn't kill her, maybe somebody else did, and he just took the pictures
.

Bobby stood behind her tortured face, looking into the mirror at her. Now he was the heroin messiah; the photography monster was gone.

“Please?” she sobbed.

“I hate it when you beg.”

Bobby slapped the back of her head and sent her crashing into the mirror. Miraculously, it didn't break. She bounced back into his python arms, and he carried her to the couch and threw her down.

She cried piteously.

“All right, I'll cook some up. But this is the last time; got that? After this you're drying out.”

“Yes, yes.…”

The music started again, loud, muffled, and relentless.

Bobby got up and walked over to the wall and beat on it with his fist. “Hey! Give it a break, huh?” he shouted.

After Bobby had injected the heroin into both of them, he decided he wanted to hear some real music. The crap that the band next door had been pumping out unrelentingly for the past hour was getting on his nerves.

A concert sound system stood against one wall of Bobby's studio. He stored it for a friend who rented the equipment out for rock concerts. The friend owed Bobby money, so Bobby had suggested the sound system be stored at his place, just in case.

A mammoth thing, it consisted of six huge speaker cabinets, high-frequency horns, several banks of amplifiers, and a stack of four monitor speakers.

Bobby had it rigged to his CD player.

He smiled, stoned and mischievous, and proceeded to turn on the power amps. They hummed to life.

The band next door needed to be taught a lesson.

“Cat! Bring me the sacred CD!” he shouted over the muffled din.

Cathy went over to the rack and hunted down
Procol Harum's Greatest Hits
. Walking unsteadily, she delivered it to Bobby's hand.