The Carma Klown

The Carma Klown 2

z119z (z119z2000@yahoo.com)

© 2013 by the author

Chapter 3

Monday, ca. 6:00 pm, June 6, 2010

Several hours and enough cups of coffee later to leave his mouth sour with the taste of it and his stomach protesting, Michael pushed his chair back and massaged his eyes. He had been watching the six Carma Klown videos for most of the day, examining them for possible clues. He had viewed them at normal speed; he had viewed them at slow speed. He had even run them so that they played for only a second at a time in a stop-frame format. He had examined pixel counts in various segments of the images to see if they had been composed from different sources. He had subjected them to voice analyses and scanned them for traces of extraneous noises. And he had found nothing. He would have to double-check his efforts again and again, and he would arrange for his colleagues to view the tapes in the hope that they might see something he had missed, but he was beginning to suspect that the tapes would be of little help in identifying The Carma Klown. About the only definitive statement he could make at this time was the Klown was careful not to leave any obvious clues to his identity or the location of the taping in the videos.

That would disappoint his colleagues. They were quick to dismiss TV cop shows and cop movies as unrealistic—at least when it came to police procedures—but they still expected him to produce quick results like those of the computer geniuses on television. He was supposed to find the tiny reflection in the victim's front teeth of a gap in a curtain that gave a microscopic glimpse of the cityscape outside the window and then within a few seconds enlarge the few blurred pixels into a sharp picture, find the exact location through image-recognition software, and identify the one room in the one building that would result in that image. He was supposed to discover a tiny hint of an external noise and proclaim, "It's the sound made by a faulty compressor on a rooftop Koolbreeze air conditioning unit, model G17. Here's a list of the forty-seven buildings in Manhattan that use that model."

But that wasn't going to happen. The videos had been made in either an enclosed room or one whose windows had been carefully blocked. They certainly had been made in a sound-proofed room. Within the city and its suburbs, there were easily at least a hundred such rooms—video and music-recording studios, radio broadcasting stations, scientific labs, AV rooms in many schools, even the company Jeff worked for had several such rooms for its computer games business. He could supply the investigators a list of such facilities, but it wouldn't be complete. No one had to register the existence of an enclosed room that could be sealed against outside light and noise. Anyone with enough money could build one himself in his basement or a spare room. No, unless they got very lucky, they would have to find The Carma Klown first before they could find his recording studio.

So what could he conclude from the six videos? He opened a new file and began compiling a list of possible avenues to investigate. Well, the Klown definitely had access to taping and sound-recording equipment beyond the cell phone level. So—

1. Trace CK through equipment? He had to have purchased it somewhere.

2. Check out possible recording sites? Difficult but we might get lucky.

3. Trace the other actors? Each video shows the victim interacting with another man. A different person appears each time. So at least six other people besides CK and the victim had participated in the videos. Did the CK videotape the videos himself, or was there a separate cameraman? Note to myself—check to see if CK's voice always comes from behind the camera or whether the camera is moving around separately from CK. Is there some way of identifying the other actors from the small portions of their anatomies shown? Does each individual have a unique asshole? There is no asshole data base, but if they could find candidates for the other actors, would it be possible to ID them from their asshole? Note to myself—search online for information on this or ask Coroner's Office.

4. Was it possible to get a warrant to force Star in Your Own Porn Video to divulge CK's identity or his IP address? Note: SIYOPV located in Florida. Would/could DA get a warrant for an out-of-state company? Ask FBI or local police for help with this? Possible to appeal to SIYOPV's sense of civic duty now that a death is involved and persuade them to divulge the information? (Michael made a mental note to himself: given the slim chances of finding this information legally, could he find it illegally, using Jeff's and his computers at home or calling on his friends to help?)

5. According to the date and time stamps on SIYOPV, each of the six videos had been uploaded at precisely 9:18 am EST. Significance? Possible to tell how long after the making of the videos they were posted (might give clues to CK's schedule or skill levels, available equipment, etc.)? Did videos posted on SIYOPV appear immediately after being uploaded by the individual responsible or were they posted in batches at set times?

6. What about the victims? Shared qualities? Did the victims know they were making the videos? If so, did they know where and when? Were they under compulsion or were the videos a fetish of theirs that CK had used for his own purposes by tacking on his anti-corporate message? If compulsion, Rohypnol? hypnotized? brainwashed? Were the victims gay? Were the videos their only contact with CK or had they known CK for some time? Search for common associates and links. The money the victims were showing paying for the privilege of rimming the other actors was more than anyone would carry normally (true? or did men that rich carry that much money?). Check the victims' bank accounts for large withdrawals—would reveal if they had planned ahead for the taping sessions and perhaps participated in them willingly. Had any of the later victims been mentioned in the comments on the earlier videos? Check to see if certain people were suggesting more than one victim or making comments that implied some personal knowledge of CK.

7. Try to reverse the impact of the voice-distortion software CK had used. Process CK's voice to change it from a whisper to a normal speaking voice and play tape for victims to see if they recognize the speaker. (Note to myself: create a non-threatening passage by editing words and recombining them into innocuous sentences.)

8. What sort of person was CK? He certainly was careful and meticulous. The tapes were unedited. Everyone involved had been carefully rehearsed or trained, and the tapes had been produced in one take, with only one camera. The level of technical knowledge needed to make the videos wasn't a clue. Whatever skills and knowledge CK had needed were easily acquired. No special training was involved. There was probably ample information on the Internet. And the expense involved, though not cheap, was not prohibitive, particularly if CK had access to an existing sound-proofed room and equipment. Even if he didn't, the costs would not be great. $10–15K at most; probably much less. Check lists of known anti-corporate protesters? Necessary but probably useless—I don't think we're going to find CK among them. He's too careful—I suspect we'll find out that no one knows he's a protester.

9. Ask for a psychological profile of CK? I agree with Phil. I don't think he's gay. He's someone who feels that rimming another man and being exposed as gay are humiliating. Of course, there are gays who think like that, but my impression is that CK is straight. If he's gay, I'm willing to bet that he's deeply closeted. Which means this won't be much of an avenue for investigation.

Michael thought about the last point. Phil had a chip on his shoulder about being slighted or singled out because he was gay. He was in his early fifties now, and he had been a cop when being gay had meant he was exposed to a lot of harassment within the department. He didn't want the Klown to be gay, and he would see everything they found as proof that CK was straight. Confirmation bias in action. I'll have to watch for that in myself, thought Michael. So should I leave this in or not? Might as well. These are just notes for the guys.

1. Finally, in the cartoon at the end, where CK drives off in the small car—the logo on the side of the car is a horse. The Chinese word for "horse" is ma. So we have car + ma. Cute. But this probably isn't much of a clue. The horse is one of the animals in the Chinese zodiac. Practically every cheap Chinese restaurant and takeout hands out those paper placemats with the animals of the Chinese zodiac around Chinese New Year's. Many of them give the Chinese names of the animals and the pronunciation. So this doesn't mean that CK is necessarily Chinese or knows Chinese—it just means that he is one of several million people in the metro area who's run across the signs of the Chinese zodiac.

I hope he isn't Chinese, thought Michael. The last thing the world needs is a deranged Chinese clown who can't spell.

He re-read the list. It would do for a start. He copied it to a new file, prefaced it with a summary of his thoughts on the videos, including the lack of visual and audio clues, and then emailed it to Altmann, Baker, and Redding. It was past 6:00 already and his shift had officially ended an hour earlier. He emailed the files of the six videos he had processed to his personal account so that he could watch them later at home. Time to go home to Jeff. Maybe Jeff would see something he had missed or have an idea about tracing the sources of the videos.

Chapter 4

Monday, ca. 6:45 p.m., June 7, 2010

The man caught the end of the story. He had just walked into his apartment, dumped his tool case in the closet by the entrance, and tossed his keys into the tray on the hallway table. As he went into the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea, he grabbed the remote and clicked on the TV. He was measuring tealeaves into the pot when he heard, "Leading the investigation into what many are now calling `The Carma Klown Capers' is Captain Stephen Altmann, head of the Midtown Major Crimes Division." There was a pause, and then another man spoke. "We are pursuing several promising leads, but we cannot discuss them . . . ." Several people began shouting questions even before the speaker finished. The last words of his meaningless pabulum were overwhelmed by the din of a hundred voices.

As that noise faded into the background, the first voice spoke again. "There you have it, Angela. In response to complaints from the business community, Mayor Beveridge Zuckermann today announced the formation of a special task force to find and stop the man calling himself The Carma Klown. This is Bob Starling for WHM News."

"Thank you, Bob," a woman's voice said. "We'll have more on The Carma Klown on WHM Local News at 11, and of course we will continue to keep you updated on this shocking story, which has taken a tragic turn following the apparent suicide last night of The Carma Klown's latest alleged victim, John Rossiter, founder and CEO of Rossiter Investments. Next up, a heart-rending story emerging in the Southport district of Renton. Early this morning a train severed eight-year-old Cathy Parker's pet boa constrictor into three pieces as it crawled across the tracks. The grieving family demands an investigation and new safeguards to prevent further occurrences of pet slaughter on metro area railways. This story and others after these words from our sponsors."

The man quickly cycled through all the local news broadcasts trying to find more on the investigation. When that search proved unsuccessful, he turned to his computer and found the WHM website and a clip of the entire press conference. He watched it several times. They have nothing, he thought to himself. They have nothing but the videos and the bare fact of Rossiter's suicide.

He found the mayor's bluster and the police chief's bravado amusing. Obviously this had been a PR exercise for them, a photo op to reassure the voters that they were on the job. The police chief had worn his official uniform, with his badge pinned to the left lapel. A dazzling array of ribbons and medals adorned the left breast of the jacket. The chief could almost be a general for all the citations he had won. The epaulettes on the shoulders of the jacket were made of gold braid, and gold chevrons and stripes adorned the sleeves. He wore a hat encircled by more gold braid, and a copy of his badge was embroidered in the center of the crown at the front. And they think I'm a clown, thought the man.

The mayor was dressed more soberly, in a black suit and subdued tie. He spoke earnestly and decisively, the very image of a man to be taken seriously as he promised the quick apprehension of The Carma Klown. "I will not tolerate cyber criminals in my city," he thundered as his clenched fist struck the podium on the steps of City Hall.

Wrong, Mr. Mayor, thought the man. First, it's not your city and, second, you will learn to tolerate what I do because you can't stop me. But I like "cyber criminals"—a step up from "clown." So much more classy. I wish I had thought of that—the Carma Cyber Criminal, Nefarious Nemesis of No-goodniks. Absurdist Character Assassinations of the Asinine. Additional alliteration at no extra expense. He grinned wryly at the screen and chuckled to himself.

Chief Bronson removed his hat as he stepped to the podium and tucked it under his left arm. The breeze ruffled his silver locks. He must have had his hair trimmed that morning just for the occasion, thought the man. And a shave as well. His pink cheeks were as smooth as a baby's bottom. "My men," he said, "will diligently pursue every avenue of investigation until we put The Carma Klown behind bars, where he belongs."

There was more, but the man tuned the chief out. Instead he concentrated on a man standing quietly behind and to the right of the chief. As the mayor and the police chief spoke, his eyes focused intently on them as if every word they said was worthy of note, but his carefully bland, emotionless expression suggested that his thoughts might not be as respectful. At first glance he might have been anyone in the mayor's or the chief's entourage, one of the many bodies enlisted to stand behind the two principal speakers and lend the weight of numbers to their boastful assertions. Like many of the other men and women clustered behind the two officials, he was dressed in a dark suit. But the man's bearing and manner drew the eye. He stood out even before Chief Bronson said, "Heading the investigation will be Captain Stephen Altmann of the Midtown Major Crimes Division" and the camera zoomed in on him.

Unlike Chief Bronson, Captain Altmann didn't have to wear a uniform to make the point that he was a cop. His body was compact and solid—he appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties, but he looked like he could still chase someone on foot and run them down, pinning the crook against a brick wall and, in one assured motion, pulling the miscreant's arms behind his back and cuffing them. The captain's hairline had receded in the front. He had his graying hair cut short and kept it brushed flat against his scalp. It was so disciplined that it was impossible to imagine that a breeze would ever disturb it. His eyes looked tired—not so much from lack of sleep the night before but from a general exhaustion over many years. He had seen too much to be comfortable. He appeared to be a man who rarely smiled and almost never laughed. His face was a guarded mask of disciplined, squared-jawed aloofness and weary cynicism that marked the distance he imposed between himself and others.

Altmann stepped forward and spoke very briefly. Several promising leads indeed, thought the man. You've got nothing, Altmann. Nothing, and that's all you'll ever have. Nothing.

The man watched the clip again, just to make sure that he hadn't missed anything. It all added up to a lot of bullshit, he concluded. A show of force and resolve to placate the big donors to the mayor's re-election campaign. We're doing everything we can. Stay tuned for more news. It would be interesting to see what tidbits they would feed the media to tantalize viewers and keep them satisfied. How long would it be before reporters started writing stories about the lack of results? Perhaps I can do something to speed that process up, thought the man. But first I need more information.

He opened the backdoor he had installed in the central police department computer and called up the personnel file on Altmann, Stephen. Altmann was stationed at One Police Plaza and had headed the Major Crimes Division for the midtown area for the past six years. The man hadn't known that such a division existed. Now I'm a major criminal, he thought. It was oddly flattering. They were taking him seriously now. So I'm a threat. Good. That's part of the program.

Altmann's personal data had little of interest for him. His age, height, weight, hair color—none of that mattered. He scrolled down through the list of investigations headed by Altmann over the years. Later, he would read all those files and analyze Altmann's strategy and tactics. For now, he was interested in just one case, the final one on the list. He clicked on it and found the case number.

A few keystrokes later and he was into the master file for The Carma Klown case. My case, he thought. I am now a case. It's official. I've even got a case number. He noted the names of the principal investigators and quickly perused their personnel files. The only things that struck him immediately as unusual were the names typed after the headings "spouse and/or next-of-kin" and "emergency contact" for two of the officers: Mark Webster (Dr.) was listed as Phillip Redding's spouse and emergency contact; Jeffrey Neville Corelli was Michael Chang's RDP and contact. He had to think for a moment to untangle RDP to registered domestic partner. So, Steve, you've picked two gay men to co-head the investigation. How revealing. That gives away your assumptions about The Carma Klown. It shows the line of thought you are pursuing. Set a gay man to catch a gay man. This will be easier than I thought. Their basic assumption is wrong. And why had Jeff's parents given him that silly middle name? I bet he kept that secret when he was a kid. The playground bullies would have loved "Neville." I have to find some way to use that. It's too good to pass up. His thoughts lingered over the mug shots of Chang. The photos didn't do him justice. They definitely revealed his handsome face, but they didn't show Michael's long elegant body. And someone, probably Michael himself, had made sure his hair was combed and oiled into a disciplined mass for once and pulled off his forehead. Which was a pity. Michael was one of those people who looked better when his hair was ruffled and his clothes in disarray.

The file already held a report from each of the three lead detectives on their day's activities and thoughts. It was so much easier to follow an investigation now that the police department was requiring all its employees to file reports electronically. Every report was tagged by a case number and automatically added to the master file for that case as the writer saved it.

1. Detective Sergeant Jerome Baker had met the grieving widow and son at the airport and escorted them to her mother's apartment on Central Park West. On the way he had interviewed them. The upshot of his report was that they knew nothing. Rossiter had called his wife around 7:30 p.m. California time the day before he died. He had seemed fine. Nothing unusual. Nor, as far as the wife knew, had Rossiter received any threats. He had never mentioned The Carma Klown. The wife had given Baker a number of names—business associates, his assistants at work, friends—who might be able to help. Baker said that he would begin interviewing those people tomorrow. The sergeant indicated that he had in turn given the widow of list of grief counselors for herself and her son. He noted that he would assign a pair of female detectives to contact her the next day and conduct the follow-up interviews with her and other family members.

2. The report of Detective Phillip Redding, who had evidently been in charge of the investigation at Rossiter's home, was mostly an inventory of "evidence" removed by the crime scene technicians and a record of the coroner's initial comments on cause of death (suicide by a single gunshot wound to the right temple). Redding noted the presence of three computers in the house. His team had removed the one in Rossiter's home office as well as a laptop they found in its case in the hall closet, but recommended asking Mrs. Rossiter if her husband had used the other computer in the house, which was located in the son's bedroom. Rossiter's car had GPS and the techs were trying to trace his movements from that, as well as checking phone numbers he had called recently and the texts he had sent and received. The computers and all such data had been sent to "MC" for checking. Redding noted that the first cops on the scene had confiscated the cell phone of the man they found snapping pictures of Rossiter's body, and he suggested that MC search the web to see if any of the people who had visited Rossiter in the wake of the posting of The Carma Klown video had taken pictures or videos with their cell phones and then posted them. This, he said, should help in reconstructing a time-line of Rossiter's day following the uploading of the video. Redding had sent out teams of patrolmen to conduct door-to-door interviews with the neighbors. Their initial impressions were that no one had seen anything of value, but different teams would interview the neighbors again over the next few days.

3. A report by Detective Michael Chang, evidently the "MC" referred to in Redding's report, who had spent the days watching the six videos released so far. The man was gratified to note that Michael had found no leads to his identity in The Carma Klown videos. He was equally certain that none of the methods Michael proposed would help the cops identify him.

He made himself another pot of tea, using decaffeinated green tea leaves this time, and microwaved his dinner. He had a full evening ahead of him—lots to read. And then a new video to plan. Something that would really capture the media's attention. With some red herrings for the cops. The next video might contain that reflection in the victim's teeth that Chang had failed to find in the earlier tapes. Or a glitch in the voice-distortion software that would allow Chang to reconstruct a voice. It was shaping up to be a fun evening.

Chapter 5

Monday, ca. 7:00 p.m., June 7, 2010

"Do you think I should get my hair cut?" Michael regarded himself in the mirror in their bedroom. He was wearing only a pair of lo-rise black briefs, cut square around the thighs. They clung to his well-rounded buttocks and narrow hips. His long-waisted body, the caps of muscles over his shoulders, the flaring triangles of his deltoid and trapezius muscles, the crisp definition of his legs owed everything to years of disciplined exercising and jogging. The pair of jeans and a T-shirt he intended to wear that evening were tossed on the bed. When Jeff entered the room to ask if he wanted to go out for dinner or order in, he found Michael bent forward at the waist peering at the top of his head in the mirror and plucking at his hair. His posture made his ass stick out even more, and Jeff took that as an invitation to place his hands on Michael's hips and press his groin against Michael's butt.

"Didn't you just get a haircut last week? Here, let me see." Jeff grabbed Michael by the shoulders and turned him half way round and examined his hair judiciously. "Nah, you look fine. You should be good until next week at least." Jeff patted Michael's shoulder with his right hand and then let it slide down Michael's back and inside Michael's briefs. He cupped a buttock and squeezed it lightly, enjoying the feel of Michael's smooth taut flesh in his hand. He often did that.

"No, I meant should I wear my hair cut shorter? Maybe like a buzz cut?" Michael ran his fingers through his hair, lifting a strand so that it stood straight out from the top of his head. It was about four inches long and a thick, lustrous black. He moved his fingers down until there was only a small fraction of an inch between them and his scalp. "Like this."

"A buzz cut? Why would you want to do that? You have great hair. You could be a model."

"That's what I mean. Do you think I look too pretty?" Michael scowled at his image in the mirror again. He swung his head from side to side, pursing his lips at it.

"Michael, there are millions of men out there who would kill to have your looks. You're gorgeous."

"That's what I'm talking about. Gorgeous doesn't go with police work. I need to look more butch. I think I'd look more serious if I wore my hair shorter. You know, like maybe I was getting old and going bald, like Jerry Baker."

"If you got a buzz cut, your hair's so thick it'd look like you were wearing a black brush on your head. Nobody's going to think you're going bald. And it would make you look even younger—like a kid with short hair. Why would you want to look older anyway? Ask me again when you get to be sixty."

"You said it yourself. I look like a kid. I'm trying to develop a different image. They don't take me seriously at work."

"Aargh," Jeff sighed in protest. "I didn't say you look like a kid. I said you would look younger if you wore your hair short. Michael, I swear sometimes you are determined to have a poor self-image." He held up his hands, palms up, in a theatrical gesture of dismay and addressed the ceiling. "What am I going to do with this guy? He's great looking. Okay, maybe he's not perfect. He could work on his calves a bit. Maybe put in more time on the treadmill and doing calf raises on the machines, and I'm not saying I wouldn't like his pecs even more if they were a bit more prominent, but . . . ."

Jeff shook his head and wrapped his arms around Michael from behind. He pushed his nose and mouth into his partner's hair and nuzzled his neck for a few seconds. Then he rested his chin on Michael's shoulder and looked into his eyes in the mirror. "So what's really wrong? What brought this about? It's not about your hair."

"Oh, we got a new case today. Altmann sends Jerry Baker and Phil Redding out to interview witnesses and check the crime scene. Then he orders me to sit in front of the computer all day doing research. I'm just a good an investigator as Jerry and Phil, yet I get stuck sitting at a desk in the office with the computer crap. I'm just a technician to those guys. So I was thinking if I looked older, maybe people like Altmann would take me more seriously."

"Yeah, but you know more about computers than anybody else in your office. Nobody else could do what you do. Besides, it's the future of policing—that's what you and everybody else keeps saying."

"I know. But people like Altmann don't really believe that. They think real cops solve crimes by getting out there and interviewing witnesses and intimidating crooks. They think that what I do is just pushing paper around, even though there's no paper involved. I'm just a desk jockey to them, not a real policeman. All I'm good for is helping them with their computers when something goes wrong. And even when they do solve cases with my help, they never give me any credit. It's like they think I'm cheating when I find evidence online rather than by bullying people into confessing. I graduated from the Police Academy just like the rest of them. And I'm in better shape than most of them. The only time I get sent out into the field is if they need someone to unplug a computer without destroying evidence. Jeez, they can't even do that. Just once I wish Altmann would say, `Mike, get your butt out on the street and bust some ass.' "

"Hmm, I would start worrying if Altmann noticed your ass. If he ever does, tell him I'm the only one who gets to tell you where to put your butt." This was followed by another hug and a kiss and several squeezes of Michael's rear. "Hey, I saw Altmann on TV earlier—before you got home—The Carma Klown investigation."

"Yeah, that's the new case I've been assigned to."

"Michael, that's great." Jeff pounded Michael's back and hugged him. "That's got to be the most important case going now."

"Yeah, I suppose. I brought the video files home. Of the six Carma Klown tapes, I mean. I was sort of hoping that maybe you could look at them with me. Maybe you'll see something I missed. I've also got a couple of ideas I want to run past you. We'd better wait until after dinner, though. Some of the things on the tapes are guaranteed to make you lose your appetite."

"Sure. Be glad to help. Oh, that reminds me. Carson and Will asked if your nephew would like to come back and record some more green-screen and motion-capture shots and vocals for the new edition of the Five Worlds game."

"Like to? Mikey would love to. His friends are so jealous of him because he's the voice and body of the Eagle Scout of the Ice Sickles, or whatever it's called. You're his hero now because you got him that work. He even likes you better than me."

"It's the Eagle Prince of the Ice Imperium. And they'll need him for about five days, but once school's out, time shouldn't be a problem. And they can schedule shots on the weekend until school is over. I think they're kind of hoping that your mother will chaperone Mikey again. The entire production crew likes all the food she brings. Plus I think they want to persuade her to be the Empress Dowager of the Fire Heptarky—that's a new character I've written. Don't tell her, but I sort of had her in mind when I came up with the idea." Jeff's facial expression gave away that he was being a bit disingenuous. He, and not his boss, wanted to persuade Michael's mother to play the role.

Michael smiled for the first time. "Give Mom a chance to cook and boss lots of people around, and she'll be there. She'll love it. And you don't need to worry about me telling her that she's your inspiration for the Empress Dowager. She'll figure that out herself."

"Do you think she'll be upset?"

"Tell your bosses to be very diplomatic and ask her if she wouldn't mind helping them out for a moment, just to block out a scene. They can explain the character to her and maybe she'll think up the idea on her own. As long as she thinks she's doing them a favor—maybe if Carson and Will tell her it's to help Mikey be more relaxed by having her in the scene—she might not realize you're behind it."

"You think?"

Michael shook his head. "No. She'll know."

Both men sighed.

Monday, ca. 9:15 p.m., June 6, 2010

"This is disgusting." Jeff had laid his head on Michael's shoulder and insinuated an arm between Michael's back and the sofa when they began to watch The Carma Klown videos. He had watched the first three videos in silence, occasionally nodding or humming assent to a comment of Michael's. But as the victim in the fourth video began crying and sobbing because he didn't have enough cash on him to pay for more minutes of torment, Jeff sat up, pulling his arm out from behind Michael, and grabbed the remote. He paused the video, but when the picture stalled on a shot of the man's tormented face, he impatiently clicked the TV off. "How could you stand to watch these all day long? I felt like I need a shower after watching the first one. It's not that we haven't done the same things and enjoyed it, but this is all wrong. I can't watch this. That last bit was horrible—the way the guy clawed his buttocks apart so that his anus opened up and the camera looked down into it and this Carma Klown idiot taunting the victim with `Isn't that inviting? You just want to stick your tongue into his asshole, don't you? Just imagine the tip of your tongue digging into that.' The guy's a bastard."

"I know, but I have to watch these tapes. It's for my job. I'm sorry I made you watch them. But did you see anything I can use to help trace this guy? I've looked at these a half-dozen times each, and I still don't have a clue. I can't find any extraneous sounds or any visual indications where these might have been shot. I assume they're made somewhere in the city. None of the victims was reported missing. There aren't even any long absences they can't account for. None of them admits to traveling recently. So the tapes have to be made locally."

"Maybe it's some sort of humiliation-for-pay club or service."

"Baker thought of that. All the men are carrying large amounts of cash. So they must have expected to pay for the service. I mean, even rich guys like that don't go around with that much money on them, do they? I suggested to Altmann that we ask around about such clubs and check Rossiter's bank account to see if there are frequent withdrawals of large sums of cash. But he's the only one whose bank account we can check without a warrant, and the others won't give us permission to look into their finances. Maybe Vice knows something about pro doms who specialize in humiliation."

"What else have you thought of?"

"Well, all of the videos were uploaded at 9:18 am. The time must be significant, but I can't see why, can you?"

Jeff shook his head. "Google it and see if anything happened at that particular time. Or 9:18 could be 918 or maybe September 18. It's also the start of that strange series."

"What strange series?"

"9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90—the digits in each number add up to nine, and they also happen to be 9 x 1, 9 x 2, 9 x 3, etc., up to 9 x 10. It doesn't work for 9 x 11, which adds up to eighteen, but then the numbers start adding up to nine again with 9 x 12, 9 x 13, up to 9 x 20. Then the next two items in the series add up to eighteen again, but then starting with 9 x 23 through 9 x 30, the digits add up to nine again. It keeps going like that, with one more number whose digits add up to eighteen and one less that add up to nine in each decade of numbers. Or something like that. Carson was talking about it last week. He thought maybe I could work it into a story. You know how he likes to use math puzzles as part of the challenges in the games for people to solve."

"That seems unlikely."

"Yeah. There are just too many possibilities. It would take forever to track them all down. It might even be meant to be divided as 91–8 or 9–1–8 rather than 9–18."

"Right. It's the type of thing that gets explained only after you find the guy—if you're lucky. Sometimes you don't find reasons for everything. And who knows? It might be nothing more than one of the times each day Star in Your Own Porn uploads videos. In which case, it has nothing to do with The Carma Klown. I have to check on that."

"What else have you got?"

"The other thing I thought of doing is appealing to Star in Your Own Porn and see if they will reveal the IP address from which the videos were uploaded. But the only contact I can find for them is a post office box in Florida. And it's at one of those private mailbox outfits. We'd have to get a warrant to make the owner of the mailbox store reveal the name of the person who rents the bod, and then we'd have to persuade the local police to serve it, and even if the owner didn't take us to court to dispute the warrant, we'd probably find that the box was rented through one of those remailers that guarantees anonymity or by somebody in Russia who paid for it in bitcoins."

"You could always hack the mailbox service or even Star in Your Own Porn and find out what you need."

Michael shook his head. "I thought of that, but we can't use information unless we obtain it legally."

"What if someone else, I mean someone who's not the police, found the information for you? Sort of a public-spirited citizen. And it just kind of showed up in your inbox with a return address for Star in Your Own Porn as if someone there had secretly supplied the information to you." Jeff grinned.

"That might work. At least it would give us a start. I'd have to see. I'm sure the DA's office could figure out some way to use the addresses that would be legal. But we couldn't know that the addresses came from a hacker. It would have to look as if they came from someone at the website."

"Well, it's a quandary, isn't it?" Jeff smiled. "Of course, this is all hypothetical. I mean, neither of us knows a public-spirited hacker, do we? Or any hacker for that matter."

"Right." Michael squeezed Jeff's thigh and laughed. "It's all just hypothetical." He reached for the remote. "Now, I've got to finish watching these. Unless you want to be completely turned off, you'd better leave. They get worse. The Carma Klown is learning from his earlier efforts."

"I've got some work I need to get done for tomorrow. Carson wants me to work up some sketches and dialogue for new characters. I'll be staring at my computer screen for a couple of hours. But tonight I've resolved to get to bed by 11:00."

"Don't work too hard then. You need to conserve energy for later."

"Why, Detective Chang, what do you have in mind?"

"Something to put your talents to good use and continue what you started this morning." Michael patted the back of Jeff's thighs as his lover stood up. "See you later, handsome." Then he sighed and picked up the remote.

Monday, ca. 11:30 p.m., June 6, 2010

Jeff's body was warm and smelled faintly of soap. Jeff always showered before he came to bed, and over the seven years they had been together, Michael had come to associate that warmth and the slight tackiness of Jeff's damp skin and the smell of soap or shampoo with being in bed with Jeff. Often the combination alone was enough to arouse him. He would lie in bed listening to Jeff brushing his teeth and gargling and then the long silence while he flossed, followed by the variations in the sound of the water striking his body as he turned beneath the shower. And finally the metallic squeak made by the mixer as he turned the shower off and then the click of the shower door being opened. In his mind's eye, he watched Jeff towel himself dry and then drape the towel over the rack. He opened the medicine cabinet over the sink and retrieved his comb. Sounds of bottles being moved, uncapped, used, and then restored to their proper places on the shelves. Finally Jeff would switch off the fan and turn off the light as he opened the door. A few steps would bring him to his side of the bed. He would lift the sheet and slide in next to Michael. That was one of the rewards of being married, or as good as married, he thought. I know everything about Jeff. There are no secrets.

Sometimes they would talk and then have sex. Sometimes they had sex and then talked. Sometimes they fell asleep almost immediately. Sometimes they spent an hour talking. Sometimes they just embraced and snuggled close. There were also those nights when Jeff stayed up late working and didn't come to bed until he was asleep. That seemed to be happening more and more often of late. Poor Jeff. Carson and Will were taskmasters, and they dumped too much work on him. I have to find some way, Michael thought, to get Jeff to be more assertive and refuse all the extra work his bosses were piling on him. It wasn't as if Jeff couldn't find work elsewhere. He had turned down plenty of attempts to lure him away from Jacoby and Greene Games.

And I have to do something, thought Michael, to pay him back for this morning. It had been months since Jeff had done anything like that. It was great that Jeff still wanted to surprise him. God, it had felt so good just to stand there and be made love to.

Finally Jeff finished and emerged from the bathroom. Michael turned toward him and lifted the covers. "Hey there, lover." He tried to conjure up a sexy, sultry voice.

Jeff barely nodded in response and then got into bed, grabbing the covers away from Michael and pulling them up over his body. Unusually for him, he turned onto his side, facing away from Michael. It had been Michael's experience that he did that only when he was angry with Michael or upset about some issue that didn't involve Michael directly. In both cases, experience had taught him that it was a sign that Jeff wanted to communicate his distress and talk it through. When Jeff was angry with Michael, he tended to position his body at the far edge of the bed, and hold it rigidly straight. Usually he kept both arms outside the covers and drooping over the side of the bed. Sometimes he would even extend a leg outside the covers. It was as if he wanted to ensure he could escape from Michael easily. When he was upset with someone or something else, he tended to back his body closer to Michael when he got into bed, keep all of his limbs under the covers, and, best of all, form his body into a V-shape that put his buttocks closest to Michael. It was meant to be an invitation to embrace. If Michael didn't react quickly enough to suit Jeff, he would turn his head and look at Michael over his shoulder.

Since they hadn't argued and since Jeff had positioned his body invitingly close, Michael chose to interpret Jeff's back as indicating that he was upset about something. He reached up and turned off the reading lamp on his side of the bed and then spooned his body around Jeff's and pulled himself closer. He had to admit that it did feel good to be so close, even if the ensuing discussion might make it necessary to deal with a problem.

One of the principles taught in the Police Academy for interviewing friendly witnesses was to put them at their ease by beginning with questions that had easy answers. The idea was to relax the person by giving them something familiar to deal with before moving on to the real questions. His first questions inadvertently plunged right into the heart of the matter. "How did your writing go tonight? Come up with any good ideas?"

"Well, I produced a couple thousand words, but I don't think any of them will be usable. We'll see how things look tomorrow." Jeff shifted his body about, pushed at his pillow until it was a tight roll wedged against the headboard, and pulled the sheet and blanket up under his chin. It was his usual routine when he finally settled down to go to sleep.

Michael had always wondered if the sequence was a conscious series of actions that Jeff associated with sleep or if it was just something he did automatically. "I'm sure it will look fine tomorrow." Michael began lightly stroking Jeff's chest and stomach.

Jeff caught Michael's hand and interlaced his fingers with Michael's. He held it tightly, preventing Michael from moving it, and pulled it away from his body. "I don't know. I kept seeing images from those videos. Some of their nastiness crept into the sketches as I was writing. Parts of it got very dark."

"I thought Five Worlds was supposed to be a dark saga."

"Yeah, but not mean-spirited. It's a coming-of-age saga. The Eagle Prince is being challenged by various tests and strict teachers, but they're not cruel. He and his friends are supposed to be proving themselves worthy of leading the Ice Imperium. Tonight I crossed the line in creating the scenario for the next challenge. I introduced an evil demon and then wrote myself into a corner. The devil kept taunting and tempting the Eagle Prince and his companions. Some of them even began to give way to temptation."

"There are evil demons in the real world. Even Eagle Princes of the Ice Imperium have to face them at some point." Michael pushed his body up in the bed and lifted his head so that he could see Jeff's face.

"I know that. I just want to keep them away from my life. I don't want any Carma Klowns in my work." Jeff rolled over, still within the circle of Michael's arms and buried his face in Michael's chest. "I'll probably have to delete everything I wrote tonight and start over tomorrow."

"I wish I could do that in my job. At least your evils are fictions."

"You want the real evils to be as easy to conquer as the fictional ones."

"Yeah. I'd like that. Can you write that into my life? It would make my job easier."

"I'd would if I could."

"I know you would." Michael pulled Jeff even closer and kissed his forehead. "And that makes my job bearable and my life worthwhile, O Eagle Prince, king of my heart."

"You wish." Jeff laughed and snuggled in even closer. "Oh, I did think of two things. In those videos, at least in the ones I saw, there is a point when the victim counts out a stack of money."

"Right. That happens in all the videos."

"You'd have to look at them again and check me on this, but I think each time the victim holds the first bill so that the camera can see it's a $100 bill, but then he holds the rest of the bills so that they face away from the camera. It all looks natural, but I was thinking that maybe only the first bill is a hundred and the rest are just ones or pieces of green paper. You know, so it looks as if the victim has intentionally brought a large sum of money to pay for sex. Well, not sex, you know what I mean. So there might not be any large cash withdrawals from their accounts. It could be a deception to mislead you."

"That's a good point. Thanks. I'll check into it. What's the second thing?"

"Some of the people in the video are wearing watches. At least in the videos I saw, most of the time they're shown from their right side and the watches aren't visible, but I wondered if maybe at some point a watch was shown clearly. You might be able to get a time from that. You wouldn't know a.m. or p.m., but you could check their schedules and see if you could eliminate one or the other."

"That's great. I hadn't thought of that. It would really be a help to know when the videos were made."

"Well, it's just a thought." His message delivered, Jeff took a deep breath and relaxed. Within a minute, he was sleep, his chest pressed against Michael's torso and their feet and legs intertwined. Michael lay there, the images from The Carma Klown videos circulating through his mind. The scenarios Jeff wrote for the video games produced by Jacoby and Greene often featured carnage and destruction. But for Jeff, and for Carson Jacoby and Will Greene and the other employees of their company, they were games, stories. The side of Jeff's personality that allowed him to imagine all those horrors seldom appeared in his life outside work. Occasionally there were grandiose comments accompanied by villainous mwa-ha-ha laughter. "Die the death of a dozen cuts, you cheesy pie-shaped monstrosity," as he sliced a pizza, or "Prepare to be eliminated, foul stain from mouth-watering source on the Grand Stud of the Universe. Queen Bleach, the ruler of Laundryland, is here to zap you away," as the sheets went into the washer. But melodrama was usually the only intrusion he allowed into his real life—or at least what I hope he thinks is his real life, thought Michael. A real life where there are no magic swords or wise wizards or saints or virtuous princesses. Just demons and deadly dragons. All we can do is hold each other, thought Michael. I hope that that will always be enough to make the demons disappear and keep people like The Carma Klown from contaminating us.