Jerry clicked on the spider. At this point the suspense had me on edge and I wanted Jerry to just get to the point, but I realized knowing the hows and whys had some value.
The hidden link was a plain white page with the following web address: briefcase. yahoo. com
Under the address there was a simple line of directions that said:
Username: Webster
Password: 4#crackgirls
Jerry went to the briefcase webpage and put in the instructed username and password. It immediately went to a page with a series of folders marked simply with dates.
“This is where it gets bad.” Jerry’s voice got low.
“Open it up, Jer.”
Jerry clicked on the folder and it opened to a series of photos. They were young girls, in various forms of undress. Many had tears coming down their face. In each of the photos was a black guy I guessed was Tyrone, Walanda’s ex, the pimp. He was smiling and had his arm around the girls in some pictures. In others, he had their shirts lifted up, and in others he had skirts and pants pulled down.
Jerry took me through a bunch of the folders showing what women and girls were available. On the “Newcomers Page” there was a photo of a pretty young black girl and under it was the name Shony. Tyrone the pimp was next to her. Shony was crying.
I almost got sick. Jerry was silent and a hush fell over the office.
Jerry clicked out of the folder and went to the folder labeled “instructions.”
He clicked on it and a white page with simple lettering appeared. In part in read:
Young daughters of crack hos available for your pleasure. Do the mother and daughter at the same time, if that’s what you’re into. E-mail us, we’ll send you the details: Webmaster@xcracksterweb. com.
Don’t miss our upcoming video feed.
“Jerry, close it out.”
Jerry closed out of the site and went to his desktop. Neither of us spoke or moved for what seemed like a long time.
“All right, Jer, tell me: once one of these assholes gets the passwords, what keeps him from telling all his asshole friends so everyone could get in free?” I asked.
“The webmaster has it set up on a randomizer so that the password changes probably every couple of minutes or seconds. You would have to go through this process every time you wanted access,” he said.
“Why did they bother with the briefcase piece?”
“A briefcase is sort of like an extension of e-mail. It won’t be picked up by search engines. That way, if the FBI or whoever is scanning the Internet for child porn, it won’t be recognized.”
“Someone who knows this stuff went to some trouble to do this, didn’t they?”
“Yeah. I think the pervs who get nailed are the idiotic ones who put their stuff out there in the open. Either that or they’re so brazen they don’t care.”
“Do these guys make serious money doing this?”
“Are you kidding, Duff? You’re the addiction expert. Porn might as well be crack, and when it comes to something forbidden like children, I’m betting these guys just can’t stop,” he said.
“That and they have all the women hooked on crack so they can’t do anything. What they’re doing to those kids is the devil’s work,” I said.
I thanked Jerry and headed home. Jerry had suggested that when I had time that I should go through some of the links listed on the page because they might give me some more information. I really couldn’t stomach any more at that point, so I left that project for another day. I had a sick feeling in my gut, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. According to Kelley, I could call the FBI or the local authorities and they’d do an investigation, but that would take a lot of time. In the meantime, Shony was about to be turned into something that could ruin her for life. I didn’t like the sound of this upcoming “video feed” thing, either.
I was going to do something, I just didn’t know what.
24
Al greeted me with his usual flair at the Moody Blue. He brought me the chewed-up remote and I couldn’t tell if he did that to flaunt how he wounded it, to present me with a gift, or just as some sort of pacifier he employed to calm himself when he felt overcome with joy at the sight of me.
Smitty was on the machine, wondering where I was. He had some sparring for me with some young heavyweight and it sounded like there might be some money in it. Monique called from the office, checking on me, and someone else called wanting to sell me some aluminum siding, which was interesting considering I lived in an all-metal Airstream.
I wanted to give Hymie a call, but realized, when I gave it some thought, that my story might not be believable. In a few days, things might sort themselves out and a call wouldn’t be necessary. I had no idea how that actually could happen, but I decided that’s what I wanted to believe.
Lifetime was showing a movie about a pair of pathological twins who seduced women and stole their money. Meredith Baxter Birney was resolving to not let them get away with it when I left the couch to change the station. ESPN Classic was showing Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta and even though I’d seen it a hundred times, it was the best thing on and I didn’t feel like getting up to change the channel anymore. Tomorrow, I’d get a new remote.
It was after ten and between the day I’d had and the fact that the TV didn’t hold my interests, I faded off on the couch. Some nights I stayed on the couch, never making it to bed, which I usually regretted the next day when my back was all twisted into knots. Tonight, I didn’t care about what the morning was going to bring; I was content letting the day end quietly on the couch.
I was jarred out of sleep by a series of loud bangs followed by the sound of my side door flying open and banging against the wall. Next, I heard Al barking and growling like I’ve never heard him before. I was trying to get my bearings, still bleary-eyed from sleep, when I saw this huge form in front of me swing something. The form, which developed into man, was standing over Al and whacking him with something short and black.
I leaped off the couch and right into the swinging arm of whatever or whoever had invaded my home. In one motion, he whacked Al with the object and backhanded me right on the left temple. I saw a flash of white and a fiery pain went all through my head. I was on my knees. I could hear a half howl, half cry coming from Al when I felt a kick in the ribs. The guy was wearing steel-toed boots, and he kicked me hard three or four times in the floating ribs and a couple of times in the gut.
I rolled over on my back, struggling to breathe and not being able to, with a searing pain in my head, when whoever my visitor was knelt on my chest. The knee sent a convulsive flinch through my body. He was wearing a leather vest, old jeans, and big motorcycle boots, and he also wore a stocking mask over his bald head. I noticed tattoos on his arm. Everything was coming in and out of focus.
“Stay off the fucking Internet. You hear me?” He adjusted his stance and kicked me one more time for good measure. “Stay off the fucking Internet or the next time you’ll get more than a beating,” he said.
The beating stopped and he went out the door. I heard a car start up and I got up in time to see a white pickup truck pulling out of my front yard. Parked on the other side of Route 9R was the Crown Vic, and when the pickup pulled out, the Crown Vic fell in behind it. That was all I saw. I leaned into the wall, coming to the realization that it hurt to breathe. My mouth was full of blood and I was bleeding from the head. My concentration was rattled by the sound coming from the back of the Blue.
I found Al in the bedroom. He was shaking, convulsing really. He had blood coming out of his mouth and when he saw me, he let out a moan like I’ve never heard an animal make. He was in trouble and in a lot of pain.
I scooped him into my arms, which sent an excruciating pain into my ribs and a rush to my head that made me stagger. He cried harder from the pain of being lifted. I struggled to the car and laid Al down on the front seat. The moving around made his pain worse and he let out another one of those sick, pained howls.