The Convulsion Factory Read online

  Sandra’s trick: She focuses not on the camera lens, as do so many lesser-talented competitors. Instead, she focuses two feet beyond the lens, a starmaking quality that plunks her firmly inside the living room of an entire city.

  In truth, Darryl Hiller has yet to be sentenced. Sandra and her crew — cameraman, sound recordist, and film editor — are taping the segment in advance. If they’re wrong they’ll reshoot later. But no one in his right mind expects the Tapeworm to get slammed with anything less than the max. Pre-hearing is simply less congested outside the Municipal Court. Less background clutter to detract attention from Sandra Riley. And it will give them more time post-hearing to scrounge reaction footage of the principle players in the Tapeworm’s final day as a newsmaker: attorneys, police officers, victims’ families.

  As well, she has her own press conference to give, and the anticipation is delicious. Her contemporaries and competitors citywide — from network affiliates, network O&Os, local indies — have already accused her of grandstanding. She can afford to laugh off such accusations, knowing they’re born of professional jealousy. All of them report the news; only Sandra is an insider on this, making the news as well as distilling it for consumption. She had no say in the manner it plummeted into her lap.

  “But even as the city breathes a collective sigh of relief,” she continues, “this day of justice cannot be considered a total victory. Police still have no leads in the copycat killings patterned after the Tapeworm’s methods of rape and murder, which began two months ago…”

  Sandra wraps it, packages it, and Kevin the cameraman bags it. She reaches around her back and unclips the Sony from her skirt’s belt, draws the earphone line from beneath her jacket. Every word was taped informally from a written script so she could listen and repeat verbatim — no TelePrompTers on site — and be free to concentrate on projecting through the lens.

  “Let’s get set up outside Courtroom C,” she tells her crew as they pack it up. No cameras allowed inside the courtroom.

  Sandra lights a nervous cigarette and the nicotine rush calms her empty stomach. She’s eaten nothing today but a handful of peanuts gulped for breakfast, and the cigarette helps her forget.

  Kevin straightens from his camera, a tall and handsome black man with a moustache and a hightop fade. “You oughta give those up. Give you those pucker lines around your mouth, look like hell on camera someday.”

  She smiles, considers grinding the cigarette with a shoetip but doesn’t. “By the time I get the lines, my airtime days’ll be over.” She’s on a fast-track rise, gunning for network anchor by thirty-five. Only the youthful need apply. There are no female equivalents of wise old Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace. Her biological clock is ticking, and it has nothing to do with children.

  Gear is packed for mobility and Sandra pitches in to help lug it along. No off-camera star demeanor for her, and the crew loves her for it. She’s one of us. But in her heart she questions the purity of her motives. Even altruism can be self-serving.

  As they reach the court steps they realize something is wrong. Pandemonium and harsh voices rebound along marble corridors. Sandra and her crew break into doubletime and gear is readied on the run, and they find themselves in a swarm of confusion. Civilians are herded away by police. Courthouse deputies speak frantically into walkie-talkies. A custodial type flanked by two cops aims a fingertip along a ceiling path, as if following ductwork. A pudgy, weeping, red-haired man in a rumpled jailhouse jumpsuit is escorted from a men’s bathroom, wearing handcuffs, but these are quickly removed. Moments later a uniformed deputy is stretchered out of the bathroom, a bloody mask for a face, and a police sergeant is screaming for everyone to get back, back —

  “Are you getting this?” she snaps to Kevin.

  His camera is balanced on one broad shoulder. “Oh yeah.”

  The sound tech feeds her impatient hand the microphone and they wade into the fray. Sandra digs in for internal focus, that center of calm, grace under pressure. They battle chaos to find someone who can tell them what’s going on, but deep within she knows it’s all about this man who vowed he would do no hard time.

  Thrusting the mike into official faces, she’s rebuffed time and again, until at last she shanghais a young uniformed cop trying gamely at crowd control.

  “Can you tell us what’s happened?” she asks again.

  He whirls, irritable, ready to tell her to get lost. But the recognition is instantaneous — it’s her — and his will dissolves in a giddy rush of celebrity proximity. Putty in her hands. He will later be reprimanded for his poor judgment and big mouth.

  “He got away! Darryl Hiller got away!” he says, breathless.

  Sandra doesn’t let the hammer blow of distress register one flicker across her face. “How did this happen, do you know?”

  “He … he told his guard he had to go to the crapper, and … and I don’t know what happened! Slipped his cuffs and beat hell out of his guard and cuffed that poor asshole” — a quick finger-jab toward the plump red-haired man — “and stole his clothes. And then he just … disappeared!”

  “By disappeared, you mean —”

  “He’s gone, but there was no place for him to go.” The young cop is white-faced. “Miz Riley … that bathroom doesn’t even have a window.”

  *

  Seven months earlier, November:

  She came home, near midnight, and the day had been typically long and exhausting. She sorted mail in the sixteen-story elevator ride up to her floor, some addressed to Sandra Riley, the rest to Shanna Riley. The latter was technically correct. Some long-ago news consultant down in Dallas had suggested a change in her pro name. Shanna sounded too close to Sheena, as in Queen of the Jungle, which some female viewership might find threatening. Management backed him, but at least she got to pick her replacement moniker.

  Her feet ached, and she wore L.A. Gear tennies instead of heels toward the day’s end, when spit and polish were less crucial. She closed her apartment door, triple-locked it. Shed her overcoat and collapsed onto the sofa, a single lamp on for company. Home was a jumbled contrast to her immaculate video image, everywhere stacks of current magazines and nonfiction books, a hamster-in-wheel race to keep abreast of all matters financial and political, scientific and cultural.

  A few tears, then, and cramps. ActioNews 8 was a battleground of mammoth egos and managerial shufflings. In “The Waste Land” T.S. Eliot had deemed April the cruelest month, but she knew better. It was November. November saw the year’s most crucial Arbitron sweep, and ActioNews 8 was currently ranked fourth in a nine-station market. Unacceptable. As reporter and weekend co-anchor, she didn’t have the most to lose, but it seemed that the less you had the more viciously you had to fight just to hold onto it.

  The whole city was, of course, abuzz over the murders. Some whackout who assaulted women in their homes, bound them with vinyl tape so they couldn’t flee, taped over their mouths so they couldn’t scream … then taped over their noses so they couldn’t breathe. He raped them as they convulsed into suffocation, then left them for someone else to come home to.

  After victim number three, when a police captain was quoted as saying, “We’ll catch this worm,” media pundits were quick to christen the killer the Tapeworm, for a populace preferring its more murderous aberrations to be packaged with readily-identifiable labels. Sandra hated the name, had no choice but to use it. Over drinks, the more battle-hardened reporters even hoped that the Tapeworm would send the police taunting notes. Given the vinyl and the rape, the notes could then, in a morbid nod to C.S. Lewis, be called “The Screwtape Letters.”

  A little requisite tube-time before bed. Sandra reached for the remote control for the TV and VCR, always stationed on the coffee table, and only then realized something was wrong.

  It wasn’t there.

  When the TV winked on as if by telepathy, she whirled in sudden panic. Saw him strolling out of hallway shadows, remote in one hand and cutlery in the other. There was never a
ny doubt as to who he was. The roll of tape braceleted over one wrist was mere confirmation.

  Sandra scrambled for the door but he was quicker, lithe as a gymnast, and blocked her way. Back to the sofa, he motioned with the knife, and she obeyed against her will. Ridiculous — compliance hadn’t saved his sixteen priors. The sense of invasion brought a wave of nausea.

  “I’m not here for that,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”

  She poised on the sofa like high-tension wire while he took the nearest chair. She looked for weapons, escapes. Nothing in this room, at least, looked as formidable as the blade. In the bedroom, however…

  He pointed at the TV and its outboard gear. “You record the competition’s newscasts to watch later, don’t you.” He appeared pleased with this deduction.

  She nodded, studying him, fighting for self-control. He was remarkable only for his look of being so totally ordinary. The Tapeworm’s identity and appearance had been matters of great speculation, since he hadn’t left anyone behind to provide a description. He was young, mid-twenties, with limp blond hair and the pale pallor of someone who holed up with too much late-night TV. His eyes were devoid of feverish madness, touched instead by an intelligent gaze of intense curiosity.

  Stronger than he looks, though, she had to reason. He could not have broken in through her front door. Which meant this bland lunatic had scaled sixteen floors of balconies to meet her.

  “That’s smart, taping the others’ news. I’m sorry, I had to take your tape out, but I rewound it for you. It’ll be okay. You have to know your competition.” He nodded, toyed with the knife.

  “What do you want, then?” Her voice, so tight, so wired, was not at all what she heard when reviewing her own newscasts.

  “I brought my own tape. I edited it myself. It’s called Sex, Death, and Videotape. Let’s watch.” He hit the remote again and the VCR kicked in. She felt his eyes never leave her, couldn’t trust her, no, couldn’t trust her yet.

  She watched a moment of snow, then

  herself Sandra Riley rapidfire edited images of her at scene after scene of the crime change of seasons noted by change of wardrobe her professional sympathetic concern always the same “This is Sandra Riley” crying families frustrated cops whirling red lights and yellowtape crime scene cordons “We’ll catch this worm” victim profiles black and white and color photos of young women who breathed no more “This is Sandra Riley” academic post-Freudian graybeard spouting psychological murderer’s profile then footage of older murders older crime scenes shootings knifings bludgeonings strangulations never connected never related because of wildly varying M.O.’s frightening cavalcade jumpcut montage “This is Sandra Riley” herself at weekend anchor desk “For ActioNews 8, this is Sandra Riley” same closing image on flashcut repeat Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley —

  Snow, and white noise.

  “What is this?” she managed to choke out.

  “Don’t you get it?” He looked at her in earnest. “It’s my résumé.”

  Sandra Riley, numb and blank. A media first.

  “Don’t you see?” he asked. “I want to work with you.”

  She staggered inside, trying to convince herself, This is not personal, this is nothing personal. Survival depended on divorcing personal from professional. Professionally she was unflappable. Last fall she’d done a live Special Olympics report while wearing a jersey. Of numerous airtime mandates there was but one unforgivable sin: Thou shalt not lose control on the air. She’d done ninety seconds of live feed with calm, warm, caring composure for these handicapped children. After handing it back to the studio she had astonished her crew by shrieking and twisting until she dislodged two squirming grasshoppers from inside her jersey.

  “Work together,” she repeated, now steady. “How so?”

  “There’s so much information I could feed you. So everyone could know me. They’ve barely scratched the surface. It’s like admiring the painting without knowing the artist.” He rose, grew more animated, gesturing with the knife. “I mean, look what I’ve done for your career already. Look what you’ve done for me.”

  She met him eye to eye. “I’m not the only one, by any means. Everyone’s covered you.”

  He dismissed the rest with an irritated flip of the blade. “Hacks, they’re all doing hackwork, assembly line journalism.” He lowered to one knee, imploring her as if proposing marriage. “You’re the best. I watch my coverage every night — every night — and you’re the only one who can take me back there. I watch you standing there where I’ve been and I can smell it, I can taste it, I can feel myself right back there … ‘cause you step right out and take me by the hand and pull me back through the screen with you.”

  A moment’s flash: What have I created?

  “You understand, I can see it in your eyes on the screen. You know what it takes to get noticed, you’ve got the formula down. I was too smart for my own good at first, I never killed quite the same way twice … and nobody thought to connect them. But then I wised up.” He tapped his temple. “I developed a trademark. And now the whole city knows me. Just like they know you.”

  “So, this work arrangement.” Keep him talking, keep him on his own twisted agenda. “What’s in it for me?”

  He wet his lips like a child at Christmas. “I can call you, tell you where I’ve just been. You’ll get the jump on everyone else. You understand, you know what it takes.”

  She kept him talking about particulars: timetables she kept, ethics of cooperation, randomly touching on anything she could think of to make him believe he was being taken seriously. At last, when fantasies of lasting stardom had gotten the better of him, she sunk the vital hook:

  “Why don’t we do a background piece. Right now.” Shaking inside her shell, Sandra pointed to her camcorder in a jumble of electronics beside the TV. “Tell me more about yourself.”

  “Okay. Yeah. Good idea.” He grew rigid, as if scenting an ulterior motive. “But keep me in shadow. I can’t have anyone else knowing what I look like. You’ll have to backlight me. That’s how they do it on TV.”

  She crossed the room and knelt beside her camcorder, went through the motions of loading a cartridge and checking the battery pack. She breathed a quick prayer, then stood and hurled the camera at the Tapeworm’s head. Plastic cracked, and he roared in surprise and rage.

  She was running then, full-tilt toward the bedroom, thanking the gods of aching feet for her L.A. Gear shoes, then falling to the bedroom floor by the nightstand, opening the drawer and pulling out the .32-caliber Colt, aiming back down the hallway as he bled and raged a slashing path after her.

  Aiming for his head…

  Not believing herself when the professional shell refused to submit to the personal core. Kill him now and here’s where the story ends. Let him live, and the arrest, trial, sentencing, the publicity … these would go on and on. Play it right, parlay it into a weeknight anchor slot, then a ticket out of bush league local into a network correspondent’s position. She saw it all.

  And aimed for his leg.

  *

  Sandra Riley and her crew and their peers hover around the Municipal Court for hours, like buzzards, until every last scrap is devoured and there’s nothing more to glean. Of Darryl Hiller there is no trace. The only reasonable theory — that somehow he got into the building ductwork from within the bathroom — is invalidated. Darryl Hiller has pulled a Houdini of stupefying proportions.

  The day’s best footage is of a man who gives his name as Reggie Blaine — the stocky redheaded fellow who was assaulted in the bathroom after Hiller somehow freed himself and smashed his guard’s face into the porcelain sink. Blaine tells an upsetting tale of being forced to trade clothes with the madman, then submit to the indignity of his handcuffs inside a stall so he couldn’t see where Hiller went next.

  That night, Sandra and her crew go for badly-craved drinks at a favored watering hole called Turnstiles. The mellow wood
and brass are comforting, but tonight there is no quick wit and cynic’s banter. Tonight there’s only morose reflection.

  “Why don’t you let us take you home tonight?” Kevin suggests. His dark face, usually amiable, is pinched with worry.

  Sandra shakes her head. “Thanks. But that’s okay.”

  “Supposing he shows up again at your place. Sand, you’ve got to be number one on his list.”

  She steadies her hands around a margarita. “The police called me at the station this evening. I’ll be safe. They’ll have people all over my building.”

  Kevin shrugs. “Still might need someone to talk to. Come on. You got a comfortable couch, I can last it a night there.”

  She touches the back of his hand across the table. He’s probably the best friend she has in the world, and all she can professionally aspire to is to give him cause to watch her dust while she heads to New York. Sometimes she has to wonder who the true worm in all of this really is.

  “He won’t be back,” she says with certainty. “He won’t.”

  “How you know? Sick twistoid like that, you can never tell.”

  “He won’t.” The margarita is cold, salty, anesthetizing. “I already gave him what he wanted all along. He got what he wanted.”

  “What’s that, Sand?”

  She bows her head with the shame of a fool duped by an elaborate con game of heart and soul and wallet. And she sighs.

  “A public forum.”

  *

  Four weeks earlier, May:

  Darryl Hiller was as anxious to break the silence of his jail cell as the city was to learn what made him tick. One catch: He would talk only with Sandra Riley. His mentor. ActioNews 8 gained clearance from the police and the prosecutor’s office, whose primary stipulation was that the interview be conducted after the verdict, so as to fuel no claims of publicity interfering with his right to an impartial trial. Post-trauma stress behind her, Sandra set about the task of producing a week-long series of special reports on the mind of the Tapeworm.