Decker wanted to puke.

“Turn here,” Pode said. “It’s on Brooks right before Electric. The garage apartment in the back. Slow…that’s the house.”

It was a tan one-story cube with security bars on the windows and doors. It wasn’t unusual to find prisonlike houses here, because the neighborhood was bad-tiny stucco cells or government housing units spray painted with graffiti. Even the streets and sidewalks were tattooed. This was gang heartland and life was expendable. A jaunt from the front door to the driveway could prove fatal if it was a night for busting.

He drove by and saw a faint illumination on top of the garage. Parking a half block down, he called in for immediate back-up, giving firm instructions to approach without lights or sirens.

“Who’s in there, Cecil?”

“Just the perv and a projectionist.”

“Who’s the projectionist?”

“I just call him Joe.”

“What’s he armed with?”

“He isn’t armed.”

Guy must have a machine gun, Decker thought.

“Mr. Rich Perv have a bodyguard?”

“Not that I know of.”

Figure at least one guard.

Two cruisers arrived in less than a minute.

“Stay put, Cecil. Don’t try anything dumb.”

Decker got out of the Plymouth and briefed the four uniforms. They conferred, and radioed in to their superior. A minute later a bull-necked black cop named Lessing came back to Decker.

“Ordered to go in and take it,” he said. “I’ll lead.”

“It’s your territory,” Decker said.

“You want in?” Lessing asked.

“You bet,” he answered. “Place is probably guarded and armed.”

“Let the insider do the talking,” suggested a six-foot female who reminded him of Marge. Her partner was toting a shotgun.

“Good idea,” agreed Decker. “Pode will get us inside and we’ll make the bust. I need that film. It’s material evidence for a homicide I’m working on.”

“Let’s go,” Lessing said.

“Fourteen-L-six’s here,” the woman said, as another black-and-white pulled up.

“We can use all the help we can get,” Decker said.

Two more uniforms came up, also carrying shotguns.

“I’ll go get our card key,” Decker said. He went back to the Plymouth, uncuffed Pode’s hands and feet, and pulled him out of the car.

“You’ve got to get us inside, Cecil. The place is a barbed-wire camp.”

Pode nodded. “I’ll tell you what to do.”

Decker laughed and pushed the fat man forward. “You’ve got a nutty sense of humor, my man. You’re coming with us. But don’t worry. You said no one’s armed.”

They walked the half block, and Pode led the seven officers up the outside stairs to the garage apartment. They took their positions. The entire rear of the structure was a mesh of steel wires and bars. Sitar music was coming from the inside.

“Get us inside,” Decker whispered to Pode.

The fat man was bathed in his own sweat.

“I lied,” he whispered back. “They have guns.”

“How many?”

“Projectionist and bodyguard. They have Uzis.”

“Get us inside, Cecil.”

“They’ll shoot me,” he sobbed. “They shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Get the door open and we’ll protect you,” said Lessing.

Looking like a condemned man, Pode gave a signaled knock.

They heard a series of knocks and clicks, and then a voice from inside said, “Who is it?”

“Pode. I got another one who was insistent.”

“Show started.”

“He already paid me big for the viewing,” Pode said shakily. “For Chrissakes, just open the door.”

Locks began to snap open. Everyone stepped inside. The minute the door showed light, Lessing kicked it open and yelled, “Police! Freeze!” Instantaneously, he pitched backward as if blown away by torrential wind, his stomach gushing a scarlet river.

Pandemonium broke out. Bursts of machine guns. Blasts of shotguns. The pops of the.38s. Screams, blood splattering all over the walls and floors. The exchange of gunfire lasted less than a minute, but its aftermath left a slaughterhouse. Pode was a crumpled pile at the foot of a free-standing movie screen. Another man was sprawled over a puddle of blood at the base of the projector, a hole ripped through his chest, his left arm blown off and propelled five feet to his left. Still another person had exploded into chunks on the south wall of the room. One man was still alive, hunched into a corner, sobbing.

Miraculously, the movie was left intact and kept on rolling.

Decker saw Lindsey’s face and was stunned into immobility. She was still alive, but barely, having been sliced in the chest, stomach, and genitals. A red-robed man in white face accented with black lines for whiskers, eyebrows, and mouth was drinking her blood. The Countess, also in a red robe, was smearing it over her face. The painted man took a.38 and shot the girl in the breastbone and forehead. She jerked at each bullet, released her bowels and died. Decker saw the Countess pour clear liquid over her from a metal canister and light a match. Lindsey began to melt, the skin crackling and charring against the sound of a deep, resonant chant.

“Jesus Christ!” someone groaned.

“Someone turn that shit off!” the female cop barked. “Jesus!”

“Holy Mother of God,” another cop whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.

The film stopped. Decker threw up.

16

He finished the paperwork at 5 A.M. and went home to catch up on sleep. At first there were no dreams, just blackness. But they came later-the images, smells, sounds. He tossed, ripped the sheets, soaked them in sweat. By ten he knew sleep was impossible. Resolution was the best revenge.

He showered, shaved, dressed, and davened hurriedly. Today the prayers held little meaning-words without content. And for the first time in over three months, he ate breakfast at a nonkosher restaurant. Nothing definable as traif-no ham or bacon-but he didn’t give a flying fuck if the eggs were fried in lard or the bread was baked with animal shortening. He wolfed down three over easy, four pieces of toast, double hash browns, a large orange juice, and three cups of coffee. Afterwards, stomach full, he felt much better and was surprised that his conscience didn’t bother him.

Off to the station.

At his desk, he cleaned up the last bits of paperwork, checked his watch, and headed for the viewing room.

The captain shut off the projector and flicked on the lights. Neither he nor Decker spoke. It hadn’t been any easier for Decker the second time around. If anything, it had been harder to witness Lindsey’s destruction. The scene would be fixed in his memory forever. A curse. But he had to concentrate now on what needed to be done.

The end of the film was the giveaway that Clementine had been right. Something had gone awry. The last few seconds showed a look of horror on the Countess’s face and the widening eyes of the painted man. A moment later the Countess clutched her breast and the film ended. Although Decker saw no firearm, no blast of gunfire, and no blood, he knew what had happened. She had been shot. The terror in her eyes was no act.

“Who’s the man in the film?” Morrison asked Decker.

“I don’t know. I think it’s the Countess’s accomplice. He goes by the street name Blade, but no one I’ve talked to knows a thing about him. Only this pimp Clementine.”

“Then find Clementine and squeeze him,” Morrison said. “Although I doubt if we could make a positive ID based on that film. The guy was painted like an Indian.”

“Captain?”

“What?”

“I think the guy’s dead.”

Morrison sighed heavily.

“It goes like this,” said Decker. “The Countess was whacked at the end of the movie. A last-minute thing, not part of the script. The guy looked just as surprised as she did. Both of them were probably ripped off and burnt just like the Bates girl, then dumped in the mountains.”