The Creep (7 page)

Arm in arm, Harvey and Anita strolled over to Scallywags Bar. "I know the guy here," she said. "He'll let us take a pitcher away with us." Anita took out her crocodile-skin pocket book.

She gave Harvey the pitcher and carried the frosted glasses herself. Harvey was already carrying a hamper. "Are we nearly there or what? This is heavy, the beer's spilling and I'm starving." He laughed and sipped the ice-cold Budweiser directly from the top of the pitcher.

"We've arrived," said Anita; "Maybe we can grab a little shade under that awning over there. They won't mind if we grab these chairs either." Anita pulled two plastic chairs up to a table that belonged to one of the coffee bars.

She started to lay out a feast of a picnic. First the heart-shaped paper plates, then the heart-shaped napkins. She put another paper plate on the table with heart-shaped sandwiches. Harvey was getting the idea.

He took a long draught of beer, licked his lips and suppressed a burp: "I love it. Let me guess where you got the idea for all the hearts. I bet you went into the heart room at Pinewood." He put his glass down and licked his lips again.

"I did and I fell in love with it. Do you like this, are you pleased?" She passed him the delicately produced heart-shaped sandwiches.

Harvey loved it. He couldn't take his eyes off Anita either.

Up on the promenade, people gathered. In the middle there were two youngsters, a boy and a girl about twelve or thirteen. Everyone se
emed concerned and offered advic
e. Some were creasing up with
laughter,
others were calling their friends to take a look. The unfortunate young couple had started kissing and got locked together by the braces on their teeth. A guy went passed doing the moon walk on roller skates. It all happens in Venice.

Another session, another slice of the past.
Harvey managed to open the doors on lots of the memories Bishman had tried to suppress.

Like Harvey said, the memories unfolded in no particular order. He was right too in the astonishing detail the subconscious memory retains:

Bishman had already spotted his next victim.
A young girl, probably a hooker; then again, maybe not.

It was a warm evening and, although the sun had just gone down, it was still bright. Fishermen had lines out at the end of Santa Monica pier and Bishman was watching them. Suddenly one of the fishermen shouted out with excitement. He had a bite. Something big by all accounts and
everyone rushed over to see him land it. In the crowd was Bishman, closely keeping one eye on a pretty young raven-haired girl, in dark blue jeans, a tight-fitting sweatshirt complete with designer motif and neat little moccasin shoes.

The angler landed an octopus, about the size of a small football; it took some skill to get the lump up onto the pier without breaking the line. He had disgorged the hook and was about to kick the octopus off the pier, back into the deep blue sea. He hesitated as quite a few vacationers were taking photos. They don't have octopuses back in Boise.
They don't have octopussys there either
. Bishman covered his face. He made sure he didn't appear in any photos.

The fisherman addressed his audience. "Ya all look very carefully, because this is the best bit. When I kick this sucker over the edge, with a little luck, it'll ink." He booted the octopus over the edge of the pier and, sure enough, to the delight of the crowd, particularly those from Boise, it
inked
. The surrounding water was completely discolored by the discharge and the octopus made its escape. While the crowd stood fascinated, Bishman made his move, having already caught the girl's eye.

"The last time I saw anything as good as that was about five years ago, when a guy caught a Stingray. I was in Norfolk, Virginia. He called me over as he was reeling it in and told me to watch carefully as the Stingray came out of the water. Sure enough, as the Stingray came out of the water it gave a live birth. A baby Stingray popped out of it. They carry their babies in pouches, just like
kangaroos. If they sense they're in danger they birth them."

Amy loved it. She was bored. All she needed was someone to talk to.
Someone who understood and cared.
Who should pop into her life? Bob Bishman. Arm in arm they strolled back down the pier like long-lost buddies.

They sat on the beach drinking beers and chatting for a few hours, not far from the pier.

"What worries me is the Zuvians. They're on the way here now and it's the Altinium they're after," said Bishman, sipping his Coors.

"Who are the Zuvians, what'
s Altinium?" Amy lit two cigarettes, passing one to Bishman.

He knew she'd fall for it. "Zuvians come from Zuvia - it's billions of light years away from here and it's the Altinium they're after. They use it for decorative purposes. They've just got to have it. It's only found in the heart of our automobile engines. Only they know what it is and what it looks like.

"When they arrive on the planet Earth they'll stop vehicles dead in their tracks. No matter where they are they'll rip the engines out of them and take out the tiny bit of Altinium and leave the rest of the auto where it stands, just a husk. After a few years there will be millions of husks all over America, indeed all over the world. The Zuvians will just keep going, ripping engines out of cars, just to get to the tiny bit of Altinium. There'll be husks everywhere, the car will become extinct."

"Jeeeezus H. Christ! They must be fuckin'
mad,
nobody in their right minds would do
such a thing." Amy crushed her beer can as if it was a Zuvian's head.

"Well that's exactly what we did to the buffalo, ha ha ha ha." Bishman lay on his back kicking his feet in the air, hooting with laughter. Amy howled too. She'd never heard anything so funny. She le
a
nt over and gave him a kiss. They got more beers at the Seven-Eleven and sat under the pier drinking. There was no-one else there, which was unusual. Maybe it was too early.

Bishman
laid
on his back, by the girl's side. Fifty yards away, the sea was slowly edging up the shore, wearing away the resistance of the sand. Amy lent over, kissed him again, and pulled back a few inches from his face, watching to see Bishman's reaction. His eyes seemed filled with something. Some sort of emotion. For a girl like Amy, that was enough. It was a hell of a lot more than she usually got. She bent down to kiss him again - this
time,
it would be a longer kiss. His hands reached up to her face, pushed her hair away from her throat
...
and squeezed.

Amy struggled like crazy, humping, bucking and kicking, trying to free herself from the bug-eyed monster that had been her friend just moments before. He noticed that every time he released his grip she would get more oxygen and struggle harder and when he increased the pressure around her wind-pipe she went limp and stopped struggling. He couldn't help thinking it was like playing bagpipes and he played a game with her neck, increasing the pressure and letting her kick and struggle then cutting off the air supply and
making her go all limp. Eventually the game came to an end. She went limp permanently.

Bishman decided to fuck her. He pulled off her dark blue jeans and her white lace panties, but try as hard as he may he couldn't mount her. He tried again and again and couldn't penetrate her. He decided to investigate; Bishman thought
Fucking Robin's on the nest
, as he found the mouse's tail and pulled
out a tampon. It was messy, it came out more easily than he anticipated and he got blood all over his hands.

For some reason, he tried to stuff it back up inside her, but couldn't, so he left it
draped
over her forehead like a bandanna. By this time he'd lost his erection and gave it up as a bad job. If they're young enough to bleed, they're young enough to butcher.
I wish I'd never met the slut in the first place,
thought Bishman as he washed his hands in the sea. He didn't even go off humming.

Bishman stopped talking, but remained motionless in a deep state of relaxation for twe
nty minutes. Harvey took note: f
requently Bishman would abruptly end his dialogue at what seemed conspicuously like the end of an episode, the snuffing out of a victim's life, which it usually was. Bishman took great delight in the chase and capture, the killing was the anti-climax.

Harvey was developing a love-hate relationship with this guy and he knew it. At times he was fascinated, other times repulsed - even sickened. He felt he had to keep going, as though he was driven.

Unbeknown to Flackm
an and Martinson, Mainwarring had many methods of generating hunches. He knew he had to create his own breaks, and apart from copious supplies of claret he also went to psychic mediums, tarot card readers,
séances
, spiritualists and palm readers to enlist help, feedback and stimulus. He also dabbled in
Satanism
and the occult
...
anything to get into the mind of a serial killer.

Mainwarring had his own private motto:
science and intuition
.

One hundred and thirty-seven franchisees from Chicago had enro
l
led to take the special I.O.H. course at
Springfield, that
had Harvey as the key speaker. As usual, Max Hatfield stayed in the sidelines. He never tried to compete with the master. He did
however,
make sure everything ran like clockwork, to alleviate any administrative strain on Harvey.

"You've seen it on the videos and heard it on the audios. It's also a case of reading it over and over again. As with all hypnotherapy you don't
know
a thing until you
know
a thing. The only way you really get to
know
a thing is by using it over and over again - whether you're ready or not." The gray-haired master pushed his
spectacles up his nose and mopped his brow with a large, white linen handkerchief.

"Getting back to the cancer cure, the most important part of the exercise, from our stand-point, is taking the client into hypnosis and getting them to
visualize
something attacking the cancer cells and diseased tissue. That something is what I want to talk to you about today. To create success you must come at the problem from the viewpoint of your client. Maybe you have a youngster who has a cancer - you get him to visualize playing Pac-Man, gobbling up all the cancer cells as fast as he can go. The more cells he gobbles up, the more points he wins. Kids have fantastic imaginations, your job is to fire your client's imagination with something they, as individuals, can relate to.