Survivor: 1 (35 page)

Now if he could only dial the operator.

Brad stared at the keypad for a moment, the dial tone
echoing in the room. Then he reached out and moved
his face over the buttons. He moved his nose over the 0
and felt his stomach roll as he pushed it, hoping he was
pushing the right button. Hoping and praying that this
would work.

And then the hotel operator came on and Brad felt
such a rush of relief at the sound of her voice that he almost sobbed. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, but he knew that every second counted.

He did the only thing he could do. He grunted through
his duct-taped gag.

The operator's voice was clear and questioning. "Can I
help you?"

Brad screamed through the gag; his voice, though muffled, sounded panicked to his ears. He hoped he was
loud enough to convey this over the phone.

"Is there anybody there?"

"MMMMmmmmmmm!"

A short pause. Muffled conversation in the back-
ground.'ihen: "Do you need help?"

MMMMmmmmmmm!"

"I'm sending hotel security up," the operator said, all
business now. 'Ibey're on their way."

And with that, Brad Miller collapsed on the bed and
sobbed in relief and fear, hoping against all odds that
time was on his side.

They had been on the road for only ten minutes before
Mabel Schneider started getting on rim's nerves. Her
presence was irritating; she smelled of dusty mothballs, sour sweat, and bad breath. Did this old bat ever
take a bath?

"Have you ever eaten pussy?" Mabel asked him innocently. She had put on a pair of glasses and was looking
out the passenger-side window, looking very much like a
grandmother.

"Lots of times," Tim answered, reaching into his breast
pocket for his cellular, not even thinking about what she
meant. Then it hit him, and he shook his head. "No" he
said, trying not to sound too grossed-out.

'Raw pussy can be quite good," the old lady said. "All
of a lady's parts are good. So are all of a man's parts. You
know, the testes ... the nuts."

"Um-hm' Tim said, dialing Rick Shectman's number by memory. Listening to this old bat was driving him
crazy.

"Testes are nice. They have a nice crunch to them. Especially if they're deep-fried. I like to batter them in flour
and seasonings and and fry them in a vegetable oil-"

"You know, I don't want to listen to your culinary tastes
right now," Tim said as the line on the other end began to
ring. Come on, pick up, you fuck.

The old woman looked at him, realization dawning on
her face. "Oh, don't wont', young man. I have no interest
in you. I like my men young. The best age for nice
crunchy man-balls is boys that are teenagers. You know,
boys in their sexual prime, when their balls are full of
spunk. Eighteen-year-olds are the best!"

"So are eighteen-year-old girls,"Tim said automatically,
trying to be funny.

"I agree. Eighteen-year-old pussy is tender and sweet.'

Rick Shectman answered the phone, and Tim Murray
got his reprieve. "Yeah?"

"Are you shittin' me that you told this old bitch that she
could watch?" Now Tim was letting his anger out and he
couldn't help it. He had been looking forward to dumping the old crone off at her hotel when she insisted on
coming along to the shoot, informing him that Rick had
told her she could watch.

"I get the eyes!" Mabel chimed in.

"Shut up!" Tim barked.

Rick laughed. "I see that you've made Mabel Schneider's acquaintance," Rick said, chuckling. "Very good.
She's good at what she does, yes?"

"You won't get any argument from me about that," Tim
said. 'This old bitch killed both those guys in less than
two minutes."

Rick sounded pleased. "I knew she would work out.
Nobody was expecting her."

"Where the fuck did you find this old cunt?'

"It's a long story, and I already told you the short version yesterday," Rick said. He sounded bored. And I
don't have the time to go into great detail of how dear,
sweet Mabel Schneider came to my acquaintance."

"1 know she flew out from the East Coast, so what's her
story? She know the outfit in New York or what?"

"You've just answered your question," Rick said.

"She's tied in to the scene in NewYork, then?"

In a way, yes" Rick murmured. "She was around when
the scene in New York was fucking invented." Beat. "Listen, I gotta go. Why don't you let Mabel Schneider illuminate you to her sordid history. Let her watch Animal
work, and when he's done she can have an eyeball if Animal hasn't completely fucked any up. Make sure she eats
it there, though. We can't risk her boarding a plane with
body parts."
"

Tim felt his stomach flop in his belly. "So she wasn't
shittin' me, then? She really gets off on eatin' people's eyeballs and shit?"

*1 do like shit," Mabel said matter-of-factly. "1 like fresh
shit out of a nice tight asshole."

"Shut the luck up!"Tim barked at her.

Rich Shectman laughed. "Oh, you crack me up, Tim.
You act as if the grotesque acts you've participated in the
past five years are morally repugnant to you now"

"Animal doesn't eat people's shit!" Tim yelled into the
phone.

"No, he doesn't," Rich Shectman said. "You telling me
that you'd rather watch Animal skull-fuck some bitch to
death or side-fuck 'em rather than eat the shit out of her
ass?"

Tim didn't know how to answer to that. The question
pissed him off. "Forget it. Okay, so I take this wrinkled-up
old Miss Hannibal Lector fuck with me. Then what?"

"When she's finished, take her back to her room to get
some sleep. Old people need their sleep, you know. Animal has his own transportation. Put Mabel on her flight
tomorrow morning at 8:30 A.M. sharp. She leaves on US
Air into Philadelphia, flight 135. Your own flight leaves
two hours later into LAX. I'll meet you back here at my office for the transfer of the product."

"You'll have my money for me then?" Tim had gotten
Rick to advance him twenty-five grand for the next job,
which was already lined up. What he didn't know was
that Tim already had his bags packed at home and was
leaving for parts unknown that afternoon as part of
Phase One of his plan to blow the whistle on Rick and
the whole scene.

"I'll have your money, you greedy fuck. Just make sure
you have the tape. You fuck this one up, your ass is mine."
He chuckled. "I might even feed you to Mabel Schneider."

Mabel cocked a look of revulsion at Tim. "I heard that.
You don't look like you'd be very good. You'd be too fat
and buttery-tasting."

"Fuck you!" Tim barked at her.

Rick Shectman laughed and hung up.

Tim Murray jabbed the oFF button on the cellular, and
when he braked for a red light he replaced the phone in
his breast pocket. Mabel Schneider was grinning. She
looked excited. "It's been a long time since I've seen anybody get done live."

"You've done plenty yourself, right?"

"Oh yes. Of course!

Tim didn't want to talk to this old crone. Not realty. But
he was dying of curiosity and he couldn't help himself.
"How many people have you done?"

"I don't know," she said, looking out the window as they
drove through the city to the outskirts. "Thirty maybe. I stopped keeping count around then, so it's probably been
more like sixty."

"You've killed sixty fucking people?" Tim would have
found it hard to believe that this old woman killed the
two people at the Luxor this morning if he hadn't seen
her results, let alone sixty. Still, Rick Shectman wouldn't
have sent her if there wasn't some verifiable truth to her
claims. "How long you been killing people? Howd you
meet Rick?"

"I've known Rick for ten years," Mabel said, not looking
at him. Tim stole a quick glance at her. No wonder she
fooled a lot of people. She really did remind him of a
grandmother-the kind that baked pies and knitted
blankets and kept all the pictures of her grandchildren in
nice little frames perched on a shelf in her living room.

"You in the New York scene, then? It's true what Rick
said?"

Mabel Schneider turned to look at him, and now she
bore a different expression. Now she was all business. All
trace of the meek little old lady were gone. "I was first introduced to the pleasures of pain from my father, back in
the 1920s. He used to whip me and my brothers. I grew to
like it. He was a Catholic, and he felt guilty every time he
beat us, so he would get us to punish him for his sins. My
brothers and sisters, they were too scared to do it. I
wasn't, though. I grew to like whipping my father. We had
a ... relationship." She smiled. Tim got the message and
nodded. "By the time I was twenty, I was working a dungeon in Philadelphia. 'chat's where I met my first husband. We went into business together and did very well.
He ... he misused me too much and I left him in '43. 1
had saved up some money, though, and met my second
husband a year later. We married, and that's when he
tried to force domestic life on me!

"He forced domestic life on you?" Tim chuckled, shook
his head. "What, he knocked you up or something?"

"Yes. I bore that sonofabitch three stinking kids." Mabel's tone of voice had taken on a tinge of disgust at the
mention of childbirth."I never did adapt to motherhood."

"You ever whip your kids?"

"No" Her fingers closed over the clasps of her purse.
"For a while there, I ... I tried to be a good wife to Marlon. Even though he was a whipped dog"

"So what happened?"

"When the kids were in school and Marlon was at work,
I started entertaining clients again," Mabel resumed. "It
started innocently enough at first. I had a couple of affairs
with people in the neighborhood. I got involved with a
man who liked to be beaten. He introduced me to the
scene in New York. There wasn't much of a scene in the
town we were living in at the time."
"

"Where was that?"

"Lititz, Pennsylvania"

"Where the fuck is that?"

"Lancaster County TWo hours west of Philly"

Tim nodded for her to continue.

"My husband didn't suspect a thing for three years. I
never left Lancaster County; my lover brought people
from New York with him, submissives who were into
whippings. We played out scenes in my basement, or in
his. I started to make some money." She paused. 'Men it
happened"

*What happened?"

"I accidentally killed a client" Mabel looked at him,
her features calm, serene. "A salesman had paid me to
whip him and then mutilate him. He was overweight
and ... well, he had a heart attack. Jerry, my lover,
freaked out. The guy's eyes were bugging out of their sockets and I was still wrapped up in the scene. I
plopped one of his eyes out and ate it!

"You fucking ate the guy's eyeball?"

*Yes."

Jesus, luck me! Tim gripped the steering wheel tighter
as they reached the outskirts of the city. "So that's how
you got the taste for it."
"

Mabel nodded."A few months later, I almost got caught.
I lured a high school girl to my house for a scene. I'd seduced her a month or so earlier. She was sweet. And her
eyes were beautiful. I ... I couldn't help myself."

*You ate hers, too?"

"Yes." Mabel's fingers were clasped over her purse protectively She looked out the window, reflective. "I couldn't
control myself and I just gave in to my urgings. Jerry had
to come over the next day to help me get rid of the body.
He was scared. He was afraid I was..."

A lucking psycho?Tim thought. "So what he do? He talk
some sense into you, or what?"

"Jerry made a deal with some of the NewYork people,"
Mabel said. "He emphasized that I was ... special. That I
wasn't like other dominatrices. He made it clear that I
could play out extreme hardcore scenes, that I had the
stomach for them. Believe it or not, there were just as
many hardcore freaks back then as there are now. They
were just harder to find in those days. The ones we did
find ... well, they paid handsomely."

Tim nodded. "You do snuff films back then?"

"No. The technology wasn't available. We didn't even
think of snuff films back then. What we had were live
shows.*

"Live shows?"

"Yes" Mabel looked at him, an elderly grandmother instructing the young. 'If you wanted to watch, you paid two thousand dollars. We'd get around ten people, maybe
twenty tops. And they would sit around and watch while I
tortured some kid until they died. We'd do a show like that
maybe once ayear."

"Fuck! Your husband know?"

"No. He never knew about the live shows. He did find
out about the lighter S&M, though. At first he was furious.
Then I showed him the money I made and he had a
change of heart."

"How much you make?"

Mabel looked at him, grinning. "For the regular S&M?
In one year I'd made ten thousand dollars."

Tim nodded. Ten grand in the fifties would be like sixty
now "What was the scene like then?"

"Same as it is now," Mabel said. "Rich businessmen wanting to explore the forbidden. Pain freaks that got off on
having pins being inserted in their scrotums or having
their penises split in half and pierced. Same sick fucks."

Tim chuckled. "Aren't you a sick fuck?"

Mabel snorted. "And you aren't?"

Tim shrugged. "1 just do this shit for the money."

"You don't enjoy it?"

"No"

Pause. Mabel turned back to the passing scenery. They
were on the outskirts of the city now. "Waste of time if you
don't enjoy it. You don't know what you're missing."

"What am I missing?"

Mabel looked at him. "If you knew, you wouldn't be
asking me."

Tim glanced at her, turned his attention back to the
road. He had asked Animal the same question once. The
sadist had remarked: "l like the feel of brains on my dick
when I'm skull-fucking 'em." That had been his answer.
He wondered what Mabel's answer was. "I'm asking you now," he said. 'You ain't got a dick, so I know it's not a
sexual thing the way it is with Animal.'