House of Skin (5 page)

“Who the fuck’s Gulliver?” the man insisted. He was apparently trying to work loose one of his teeth. “I don’t know any Gulliver.”

Eddy said, “Gulliver. I met him at Maxie’s.”

“Oh, that one. And what are you, one of his fags?”

“No, I’m just someone looking for information.”

“There’s none to be had.” He began to cackle and finally cough more blood. “People like you are always looking for something. What are you? A cop? Are you undercover or are you just another faggot?”

“Are you Spider or not?”

“Yes. Do you have any drugs,
fag?
Something for the pain?”

“No, nothing.” He’d given the last of his coke to Cassandra. He supposed it was sort of a going away present.

“Shit. What good are you?”

“I came for answers.”

“So? What do I look like? A fucking librarian?”

“Gulliver said you knew things. That you could help me.”

Spider shook his head. “I don’t know anything. Who are you?”

“Eddy.”

“Eddy? I thought you faggots preferred more colorful names?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would. So you came here and you want information and you’ve brought no drugs.” Spider laughed. “Dick-sucker.”

Eddy studied him. What he saw before him was probably nothing more than some pathetic masochist. Yet, there was something about him, something that alluded to bigger things.

“I have money, if that interests you,” Eddy told him.

“Money,” Spider spat. “Tell me what you want.”

“I’m looking for my father. Gulliver thought you might know of him.”

“Does he have a name?”

“William Zero.”

Spider’s eyes went wide. He crawled to Eddy’s feet, grasping his legs.

“The Doctor? You’re the
Doctor’s
son?”

“That’s right. Do you know something of him?”

“I know what he did, what he claimed he’d
do,”
Spider told him. “He’s a legend of sorts in this city. But I’m sure you know that. Oh, the media made him into some sort of monster, just another serial killer taking life without any true reason but dementia. But that wasn’t true.”

Eddy helped him to his feet. “Wasn’t it?”

“You’re his son and you can ask that?” Spider shook his head and wiped blood from his lips with the sleeve of his coat.

“He left when I was a boy,” Eddy explained. “All that I know of him comes from books, newspapers, and my mother. None of them very accurate sources, I would think.”

“That’s too bad. Have you something to smoke? A cigarette even?”

Eddy handed him his pack. He watched Spider tease one out with trembling fingers. He was truly excited at the prospect of meeting the Doctor’s son and that in itself was something. It gave Eddy hope. Maybe this search of his wasn’t as crazy as he was beginning to think. Maybe Spider knew. Maybe he knew where his father was and how to get there. Then again, maybe Spider was just another harmless lunatic.

“Tell me what you know.”

Spider nodded. “First thing you must understand, is that your father was not just some maniac with a craving for blood. There was a rhyme and reason for what he did. It took me some time to figure it out, but now I understand what he was doing.”

“Which was?”

“He wanted to escape the stifling boredom of this reality. He wanted to be transported somewhere where there were no limits to anything.”

“There is no such place.”

“Isn’t there? I thought so, too, at one time. But I was wrong. You see these books around us? None of it is light reading, my boy, it is study. All of these books and a hundred others gave me clues to the answer. They all mentioned a place beyond this reality, a plane of existence that was like nothing you could find here.”

Eddy sat on the bed. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m telling you where your father went. Isn’t that what you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Then listen.” Spider lit another cigarette and dug a bottle of whiskey from a desk drawer and pulled off it. “Your father probably studied these same books and others as well. He heard mention of this place, maybe in the writings of de Sade or Crowley, it doesn’t matter. He heard of this place and it was called by many names, but usually simply the Territories. A place where only few could ever go. A plane of beauty and horror. A special place.”

Eddy had decided Spider was mad. But he listened. What did he have to lose? “Go on,” he said.

“There was never any mention in any book of how to reach this place, only that you had to make your own way. Many have tried and most of their names would be familiar to you—Kiss, de Sade, Gilles de Rais … a hundred others. They said the Ripper went there …”

“Killers and Sadists,” Eddy said.

“Yes, perhaps. That’s how history looks upon them. But
maybe
they were something more.
Maybe
they were men who wanted to escape and saw that the only ticket to their heart’s desire was through their own perverse creativity.”

“You’re saying that you have to murder, maim, and torture in just the proper way to get into this place?”

Spider clasped his hands together. “Yes! Yes, in a way. You have to impress certain individuals with your talents. They’re lovers of
art,
you know, and the only canvas they respect is the human body. I’ve read bits and pieces about them.
The Sisters.
They’ll let you in if you impress them with your skills, your imagination, your creativity.”

It was madness, a perfect throbbing vein of madness and Eddy happily sipped from it, losing himself in it, intoxicated as Spider droned on and on and on. Murder was much like art, he said. Any fool could grab a brush and dip it in paint, splash a few meaningless strokes on a canvas just as any fool could grab a knife or a gun and commit murder. Both were forms of animal expression. But only a true craftsman, a skilled artisan, a creative
genius
could produce a canvas or a corpse that would take your breath away.

“It’s more than mere hackwork with a knife, Eddy. It’s artwork and only the most promising can even attempt it. Van Gogh used a brush, the Ripper used a knife.”

Eddy listened, drawing slowly off a cigarette. “So this art … it is the key?”

“Yes!”

“And through it you can be invited into …
what?
Another dimension? An alternate universe?”

“Yes, something like that.”

“And this is where my father is? This Territory?”

“Yes!”

Eddy chewed his lip. “And how do you know that?”

“It’s a guess, really. But I’ve read a great deal about him. All there is, in fact. I know what he and his associates were doing. It points in only one direction to me.”

“These Territories?”

“Exactly.”

Eddy didn’t know what to think. If nothing else, it was something. But could such a place possibly exist? It was the stuff of fringe science, very hard to wrap his brain around. “Do you know what has to be done to get there?” he asked. “Can you tell me?”

“I’ll do better,” Spider said. He took out a leather case and opened it. Inside were the tools of a surgeon, a butcher … or perhaps a somewhat eccentric artist. Everything from post mortem knives to bone snips and surgical saws. All gleaming. All meticulously polished and sharpened. “I’ll show you.”

It began.

“Here we are again,” Grimes said smugly. “Brothers of sensation.”

“As every week.”

They were at Zero’s house, drinking and discussing. They called the place the House of Mirrors because Zero had covered every conceivable space with mirrors for reasons he wouldn’t comment upon. The house was bare save for these, a few sticks of furniture, beds upstairs, and hundreds of books describing every possible perversion. No one lived here, not even Zero. It was merely a meeting place. A club of sorts.

Zero refreshed their drinks.

“As I said,” Grimes muttered, “here we are again.”

Stadtler studied his drink. “And what’s our pleasure tonight?”

“Yes, what exactly?” Zero said.

These two bothered Stadtler immensely sometimes. They seemed to communicate on a secret level that he was never able to broach. Theirs was a play of words, a subtle hint, a wink, a nod that spoke volumes to one another and left him completely in the dark. There was always a secret agenda between the two and Stadtler felt he would always remain a stranger to it.

Zero had something in mind tonight. That much was obvious, but direct questioning would only garner unpleasant looks from both he and Grimes. So Stadtler would have to wait until they were both ready to tell him what was on the agenda. He knew from experience it was the only way.

“I often wonder,” Zero said, “what exactly it takes to unhinge the human mind. What factors have to be brought into play.”

“Yes,” Grimes agreed. “A fascinating concept.”

Stadtler said nothing. He needed to hear where this was going before he commented on it. Unlike Grimes, he didn’t worship everything Zero said. He was not a yes-man.

“Have you ever wondered about this?” Zero inquired.

“Sure, I wonder about a lot of shit,” Stadtler told him point blank. “It all depends on the individual. Isn’t that obvious? What drives you crazy may make me laugh and vise versa.”

“Concise, as usual, my friend,” Zero said. “I think you’ve hit on the crux of the entire dilemma. We all have fears, don’t we? Hidden terrors of childhood that have become adult paranoias. It’s only a matter of finding out what they are. Sometimes, I think, we’re not even sure what they are ourselves. And, even if we knew, would we dare admit them? Think of the power it would give another over us.”

“And what are you afraid of, Zero?” Stadtler asked.

“Of death, of course. Isn’t that what we’re all afraid of?”

“It’s a universal fear,” Grimes said as if he knew it all too well. “The end of physical existence. Nothingness. What can be more terrifying?”

Stadtler grinned. “You tell me.”

Zero said, “What are your fears, Stadtler? Tell us.”

“Boredom. It’s the only thing that’s really dogged me all my life. Sheer boredom. Nothing else even comes close.”

“Really?” Zero obviously didn’t believe him.

“Really. Don’t try and dig in my head. There’s nothing you’d like inside.”

Zero smiled. “I think there are only two subjects worth our study, gentlemen: fear and death.”

Grimes and he exchanged a secret look.

Stadtler lit a cigarette. “Explain that.”

“What’s to explain?” Zero asked in his typically evasive way.

“That pretty much says it all,” Grimes chimed in.

“Then humor me. What are you two getting at? Scaring people? Killing them?”

“Would that bother you?”

“Yes,” Grimes said, “would it?”

Stadtler took a slow, even drag from his smoke. “Not in the least.”

Zero grinned like a cat. He had chosen his partners in crime well and it pleased him that they were willing to travel any road he selected. Stadtler saw the content, self-indulgent look on his face and wondered for a moment just how far this could possibly go.

“Are we going to take life?” Grimes asked.

“Yes,” Zero assured him. “How else can we study death before and after?”

“And what about fear?” Stadtler said. “How are we going to go about studying that? If I might ask.”

“There are ways. Let me tell you what I’ve been thinking,” Zero said. “As I said, I’ve always been intrigued by what it would take to completely snap an individual’s mind. And I don’t mean just terrify them or give them a garden variety psychosis. I mean totally destroy their psyche, totally destroy what makes them a person. Wipe the slate clean, so to speak. Reduce this person to a basal level where he or she knows and remembers nothing but terror.
Then,”
he said in almost a whisper, “we could re-learn this person to our own fancy. Re-engineer their psyche.”

“I’m not following you,” Stadtler admitted.

“It’s simple. Reduce this person through fear, strip their mind away, propel them backwards into a state of psychological infancy.”

“Exactly,” Grimes said.

“To what end?”

“Enlightenment and pleasure, if you will. Pleasure in the satisfaction we’ll derive from destroying their will and life programming; enlightenment in that we’ll ultimately understand the nature of horror itself.”

“How do we go about it?”

“First we need a volunteer,” Zero said.

“Who?”

“The streets are full of them,” Grimes said.

“Then let’s go find one.”

It was the beginning of the end.

“I’m afraid you’ll think I’m crazy, Mr. Fenn.”

Fenn attempted a smile, but it was a bad one. Dr. Lochmere hadn’t meant it as a joke, he supposed, but as far as he was concerned, all psychiatrists were crazy. They were no better than the loons they kept like pets. Maybe he was cynical, but he preferred to call himself a realist. And if ten years of homicide could do nothing else, it could certainly mold a man into a student of realism.

“You’re a professional, Dr. Lochmere. I’m always happy to listen to a fellow professional. In my line of work, I rub noses with head doctors all the time. We can be of valuable assistance to one another.”

Lisa nodded, sensing his dislike of her profession. “It just seems odd for me to ask your help in finding a man who
may
commit a crime. This is all very … vague, you understand. The man I’m searching for might not even be here at all.”

“Maybe you’d better just tell me and let me decide.”

“Fenn,” she said. “Is that Irish?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.” He laughed, but there was little humor behind it.

She looked amused. “An Irish cop.”

He found himself grinning and it looked positively out of place on his hardened features, yet his blue eyes sparkled with mirth. “It runs in the family.”

“I bet it does. My dad was a cop as was his,” she chanced.

“And you broke the chain?”

“My brother Jeff works bunko in Vallejo. Same precinct as dad. He’s terribly proud of him. He wanted me to go to school.”

“Sounds like a good man.”

A darkness crossed her face. “He is. You’d like him.”