Peaceable Kingdom (mobi) Read Online Free PDF Page B

private.

    Whoever invented bubble-wrap, Howard thought, must be worth a fortune.

    He made a mental note to check it. Just for amusement’s sake. It was far too late for any investing.

    The cover art was strictly cheap, a black and white drawing of some girl screaming bloody murder while shadowy male figures loomed around her—one of them raising a badly executed piece of cutlery in what was vaguely supposed to be her direction.

    The video’s title was the only word on the box, in big block letters across the front.

    Offed
.

    There was nothing on the back at all.

    No credits. No copyright.

    Nothing.

    That was when his hands began to shake—turning over the box, seeing nothing.

    Because this just might be . . .

    . . .
the honest-to-God real thing
.

    After all these years.

    He slipped the cassette out of the box and into the VCR and hit the power button. Then
Play
. Sat back in his big brown leather custom-made Lazy-Boy in his oak and mahogany study and watched empty black leader tape roll hissing by.

    There was an awful lot of leader. Howard didn’t mind.

    Anticipation was half the fun of it.

    He’d waited six and a half weeks since sending his check to the Los Angeles address listed in
Video Nasties
.

    And maybe half his life for this tape.

    If it was what it purported to be.

    He’d been buying, collecting since college—and that was ten years ago now—starting with the classics like
Blood Feast, Last House on the Left, Mark of the Devil
, and good old
Chainsaw
, then graduating to lesser-known back-shelf items like
Make Them Die Slowly
and
Faces of Death
, both of which included real life footage of maiming, torture, and killing by the way, though mostly what were killed were only animals. And finally, to the truly obscure stuff you could only find in fanzines like
The Film Threat Video Guide
and
Video Nasties
—he subscribed to both. Movies with titles like
Gorgasm, Twisted Tissue
and—his favorite—
Shut Up and Suffer
.

    By now he had a closetful. Literally. Right over here behind him.

    It was one of the benefits of investing for a living. You had the cash and the modem hooked up to Wall Street. You just stayed here in your suite and used the phone. You had privacy and no secretarial snooping. You remained in the shadows. And in the shadows was right where he liked it. Investing through an investor who invested through investors sometimes. As though he didn’t exist at all in a way—unless he wanted to.

    And made money like there was no tomorrow.

    The paper-trail always led here, no matter how he did it. With checks attached. And he was able to retain his treasured privacy. Which, he reflected, was probably linked to this hobby of his somehow. Way back when.

    But he certainly wasn’t ashamed of it.

    He liked gore. He liked to hear the screams.

    So what.

    He was . . . different.

    So what.

    Outside the New York traffic snarled, bleating up at him through the light spring rain.

    The TV screen flickered.

    The word
Offed
appeared and disappeared again.

    There were no titles.

    He was aware of the sweat beading on his upper lip, of the tremor purring through his body. It was always the same.

    He leaned forward.

    Surprisingly, the print was wonderful.

    35mm, he thought. Film originally. Not video. And no grain. Good and clear.

    And they got down to it too. No preliminaries. Just a medium shot of a motel room, Anywhere USA but not too terribly shabby, bed and mirrored bureau and a bathroom off left—and a girl being led through a door, her back to the Tricky Dick Nixon masks, teeshirts and jeans, one massive belly outdoing the next for gutspill.

    The girl looked stoned, drugged-sort-of drifting over to the bed, head lolling, with one man on each arm practically holding her upright while the third disappeared out of frame, presumably to check the camera.

    She was blonde and slim, dressed conservatively, wearing a navy blue skirt and a trim white blouse, looking like a stewardess