Chapter 17

Ann had prepared herself for the worst. After receiving Dave's cable about arriving home in ten days, she had tried her best to convince Julia that she shouldn't be forced to attend anymore parties but she had insisted she come tonight anyway. She had at last conceded that she and Max might give the photographs back to her. Both of them had promised her, several months ago, that she could have them back when she had either worked off the twenty-four hours, or, when Dave came back. She knew after the first few times with Max that she could never do it with that hateful clock. In the several months that had passed since he first hung the pictures up, (and God only knows how many visits), she had only been able to use up a little over three hours. He always found some reason for turning it off, despite all her agonizing efforts to please him or the many clients he allowed to use her.

Ann had often wondered about these clients. They always had eastern accents and looked almost like the characters out of old gangster movies. Max had some kind of dealings with them and she was certain it was not legal. He wasn't making all of has money on that store. It would have taken ten of them to support the way he lived. At any rate, this was none of her business. Her business was to get those pictures back tonight.

The taxi let her off in front of the now familiar house and Ann climbed the steps dejectedly for what seemed like the millionth time. She rang the bell and waited for Sidney's familiar face to answer. No one came. She tried again several times and could hear absolutely nothing from the inside of the house. She felt a momentary sense of panic. Suppose they had decided not to see her again until after Dave arrived and then demanded she make some excuse to get her out here. She had to get those pictures tonight.

Ann walked around behind the house to the swimming pool in hope the large glass divider separating it from the living room might be open. It was closed tight, and so were all the other smaller doors leading into the house from the back. She would just have to wait until someone did come, she had to talk to one of them tonight.

As she picked her way back around to the front of the house, Ann was suddenly frozen into immobility. The most blood-curdling scream she had ever heard pierced the cool night air! It seemed as though someone were being tortured horribly. Ann wanted to run but she couldn't, her feet were frozen to the ground in fear. Several dark figures stepped from the shadows surrounding the house and grabbed her. She was dragged kicking, into the house and up the stairs into Max's playroom.

Her eyes bulged and she had to place both hands over her stomach tightly to keep from vomiting at the horrifying sight that greeted her.

Max was chained to the wall next to the racks, his arms and legs stretched wide apart. Carlos was standing in front of him holding a glowing hot poker several inches from his stomach. Almost every inch of his nude body was covered with swollen black marks where the poker had seared into his fat flesh. The room stank of burned flesh. There was a pitiful pleading in hit eyes, not for salvation, but for death. He showed no sign of recognition when Ann was brought in, his eyes remained immobile, staring straight ahead as if seeing nothing.

Julia was shackled to the bed where Ann herself had undergone so many degrading experiences the last several months. A Mexican was standing over her with the cat-o-nine-tails in his hand. Her body was covered from her face to her ankles with nasty open gashes that had been inflicted by the murderous instrument.

"Make them stop, Ann, please--please--please!" Julia whispered through swollen lips.

Ann jumped as Julia's pleas were cut short by the whistling smack of the multi-leathered whip biting deep into her bared breasts. A low, heart-rending groan replaced the pleas.

"Shut up slut," the Mexican spat at her. He was obviously enjoying the torture and pain he was inflicting on the helpless girl. The whip snaked through the air again, this time between her wide-spread thighs. Ann choked back the sickness that was building in her throat, as Julia faded into unconsciousness.