James Swain - Midnight Rambler

Bash's footsteps were measured, his hands gripping his gut. Turning down a street called Majesty Lane, he went to the last trailer. It was newer, with bright aluminum siding and a giant satellite dish on the roof. He unlocked the front door, then faced us.

“I need to tell you guys something,” Bash said.

We waited, the midday sun burning our faces.

“I was never there when the girls died,” he said emphatically.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“I was here , in my trailer,” Bash said.

“So what's your point?” Cheever asked.

“I never laid a finger on any of them, or did anything horrible to them, or made them suffer or cry,” Bash said. “I just watched.”

“Is that your thing?” Cheever asked.

“Yeah,” Bash said. “I like to watch. My heart don't work so good anymore, so I never went down on them like Coffen and Jonny and Skell did. I didn't hurt them, either. I just stayed in my trailer and watched.”

His words sounded like a confession. Only something was missing. Guilt. His eyes were empty and soulless, and I wondered what event in his life had caused him to participate in the deaths of so many innocent young woman and not regret it.

“Did you watch them die?” I asked.

Bash stared down at his scuffed shoes.

“Most of them,” he said quietly.

“Not all?”

“I missed a couple,” he admitted.

“What happened?”

“Skell killed them when I was on the air doing my show.”

“Which ones did you miss?” Cheever asked.

“I don't know,” Bash said.

“What do you mean, you don't know?” Cheever said.

“I never knew the girls' names,” he said.

Cheever threw a right hand into Bash's face. The DJ let out a muffled yell and tumbled backwards into the trailer. Cheever looked around to make sure no one was watching, then followed him inside.

I glanced down at Buster, who was glued to my leg. My dog wanted no part of this. I made him go inside anyway.

The interior of Bash's trailer was like a cave. The walls and ceiling were painted black, the curtains tightly drawn. Natural light was not welcome here. An oversized leather chair with a TV remote on its cushion sat in the room's center. On the floor in front of the chair was a plastic bowl half filled with buttered popcorn.

Bash's throne.

Across from the chair, a wide-screen plasma TV was mounted on the wall. I stared at the TV, slack-jawed. On its screen, a bikini-clad Melinda Peters hung by her wrists inside someone's closet, her manicured toes scraping the floor. A cell phone lay by her feet, and I thought back to last night's call.

Bash staggered around the trailer, clutching his face. Cheever grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him into the leather chair.

“Please don't hit me again,” the DJ begged.

“You gonna behave?” Cheever asked.

“I didn't do anything.”

“Answer me, asshole.”

“Yeah, I'll behave.”

Cheever pointed at the screen. “Is that live?”

“Yeah, it's live.”

“They're playing voyeur cam with her, aren't they?”

Bash hid the smirk forming on his face. “Something like that.”

“When are your buddies going to kill her?”

“Tonight, after Skell gets back to Fort Lauderdale. He wants to see it.”

“Were they going to broadcast it to him?”

“No. He was going to Jonny's place to watch.”

I could not take my eyes off Melinda. The voyeur cam turned, and the Cuban who had shot out my windshield on 595 appeared on the big screen. It was Jonny Perez, wearing a bright red bandanna around his head and clutching a can of beer. He smiled and waved at the camera while doing a crazy little dance.

“Why is he dancing?” I asked.

“He's playing ‘Midnight Rambler,’” Bash said. “It's what we play when the girls are being tortured.”

“We?” I asked.

Bash nodded. Sensing that I wanted a more complete answer, he used the remote to start a CD player sitting on the floor beneath the TV. Out of its speakers came the opening harmonica riff from the live version of “Midnight Rambler.” The music was like a demonic chuckle.

I took a deep breath. If I saw any more, I was going to explode.

“Where's your address book?”

“In my bedroom. I'll get it for you.”

He started to get out of his chair, and Cheever shoved him back down.

“I told you not to move,” Cheever said.

“I was just going to get the address book for him,” Bash said.

“Don't you want Jack to go in there?”

Bash shook his head. “No.”

“Why not?” Cheever asked.

“He won't like it,” Bash said.

Bash's bedroom was in the rear of the trailer and reeked of cigarettes and a decayed conscience. There were no real furnishings, just a water bed and an upturned orange crate that served as a night table.

The address book lay on the crate. I found Jonny Perez under the J's. He lived in West Sunrise, which was as close as you could get to the Everglades without falling in.

As I slipped the address book into my pocket I realized I wasn't alone. The bedroom's ceiling was papered with photographs of naked women. It looked like pervert heaven, only with a twisted difference. The photographs were not torn from an X-rated magazine or copied off a pornographic website. They were real. They were the victims.

I choked up. The poses were sexual, the women smiling through clenched teeth. All eight were there. I silently recited their names as I pulled them down.

The last photograph was of Lola, a pretty Jamaican prostitute whose story I'd never known. I'd talked her into making her johns wear rubbers and getting doctor's checkups, and she'd lasted twelve years without getting sick. As strange as it sounded, I took a lot of pride in that.

I let Lola's photograph float to the bed. It flipped over as it landed, revealing writing on the back.

#7.

I checked the backs of the other photographs. They were also numbered. I realized this was how Bash and the rest of the gang saw their victims, as nameless objects. In their eyes, they were not worthy of proper names or identities, just numbers.

I gathered up the photographs. They were evidence, but a part of me didn't want anyone to see them. The victims had suffered enough, and having these images passed around a police station or at a trial seemed one more senseless indignity. As I weighed what to do with them, a man's screams shattered my thoughts.

I ran into the next room, and found Cheever punching Bash. Cheever outweighed me by forty pounds, and it took all of my strength to pull him off the struggling DJ.

“What are you trying to do?” I asked.

“Kill the son of a bitch,” Cheever said.

“Why? What did he do?”

“Look at the goddamn TV.”

I looked across the room at the giant screen. Jonny Perez and a second Hispanic were dancing naked around Melinda while using pieces of paper to cut her arms and legs. Each time she screamed, they cut her again. They seemed to be feasting on her fear.

“I caught Bash laughing under his breath, getting his rocks off,” Cheever said.

“I need to talk to him, Claude.”

“Wasn't the address book in the bedroom?”

“I've got the address book,” I said. “I need to ask him something.”

Cheever walked across the trailer to where my dog was sitting in the corner. He crossed his arms and stared murderously at Bash.

“Go ahead,” he said.

I knelt down beside Bash's oversized chair. The DJ was red in the face and was having a hard time breathing. I grasped his arm and pinched it.

“You said something on your show that I want explained,” I said. “You said Melinda had more dirt on me. What was she going to say?”