“I know about the movies,” I said to Mo.
He gaped at me. Panicky. Still not believing. I rattled off his list of credits. Asserting my dominance. Letting Mo know that the game was over.
Mo pulled himself together and raised his chin a fraction of an inch. A defensive posture. “Well, what of it? I make art films involving consenting adults.”
“Consenting, maybe. Adults is questionable. Does Reverend Bill know about your hobby?”
“Reverend Bill is one of my most devoted fans. Has been for years. Reverend Bill is a firm believer in corporal punishment for bad behavior.”
“Then he knows about this house.”
“Not the location. And it's not a hobby. I'm a professional filmmaker. I make good money off my films.”
“I bet.”
“You don't expect me to retire on the money I make selling ice cream cones, do you?” Mo snapped. “You know what the profit is on penny candy? The profit is nothing.”
I hoped he didn't expect me to be sympathetic. I was having a hard time not grimacing every time I thought about my picture on his kitchen wall.
He shook his head, the spark of indignant fire sputtering out. Mo collapsing in on himself. “I can't believe this is happening to me. I was making a good living. Putting money away for retirement. I was providing entertainment to a select group of adults. I was employing deserving young people.”
I did some mental eye rolling. Moses Bedemier paid street dealers to recruit fresh blood for his porno movies.
The street dealers knew the runaways and street kids. They knew the teenagers who still looked healthy and would do most anything to get a new high.
“I made one mistake,” Mo said. “One mistake and everything started to unravel. It was all because of that awful Jamal Brousse.” He paced to the window, clearly agitated, peeking around the shade, clasping and unclasping his hands.
“I hope you were careful not to be followed,” he said. “Bill is looking for me.”
“I wasn't followed.” Probably.
Mo kept going, wanting to share his story, I guess, looking slightly dazed that it had all come to this, talking while he continued to pace. Probably he'd been talking and pacing for hours before I arrived, trying to talk himself into calling the police.
“All because of Brousse,” he said. “A drug dealer and a purveyor.
I made a single unfortunate transaction with him for a young man to model for me. I just wanted some photographs.”
He held up and listened. “Bill will kill us both if he finds us here.”
There was no doubt in my mind. As soon as Ranger showed up we were moving out. “What about Brousse?” I asked, more to distract myself from thoughts of Reverend Bill arriving before Ranger, than raw curiosity.
"I honored my agreement with Brousse, but he kept coming back at me, making more and more demands. Blackmailing me. I was desperate. I didn't know what to do. I might not make much money from my store, but I have a certain position in the community that I enjoy. Brousse could have ruined everything.
"And then one day Bill stopped in at the store, and I got an idea. Suppose I told Bill about this guy, Jamal Brousse, who was selling drugs to kids. I figured Bill would put a scare into him. Maybe punch him in the nose or something. Maybe scare him enough so he'd go away. Trouble was Bill liked the idea of community justice so much he killed Brousse.
“But Bill made a mistake on Brousse. Dumped him in the river, and Brousse bobbed in to shore two hours later. Bill didn't like that. Said it was messy. I wanted to stop there, but Bill pressed me to give him another name. I finally caved in, and next thing, Bill had killed another dealer and buried him in my cellar. Before I knew it my cellar was full of dead drug dealers. Even after I got arrested, Bill kept up the killing. Only now it was harder to get to the cellar, so we just hid the bodies as best we could. Cameron Brown, Leroy Watkins.” Mo shook his head. "Bill was obsessed with the killing. He organized a death squad. And that was so successful Bill started killing not just dealers but hard-core drug users. The death squad learned how to kill the addicts with ODs, so it'd look more natural.
“That's why I hired an attorney. I couldn't be part of all that craziness anymore. They were even talking about killing you. And you wouldn't believe who was taking part in this. Cops, shoe salesmen, grandmothers and schoolteachers. It was insanity. It was like one of those cult things. Like those militia people you see on the television out in Idaho. I even got caught up in it for a while. Carrying a gun. And then that police officer discovered it, and I panicked. It was the gun that had killed Brousse. What was I thinking?”
“Why did you hire a lawyer? Why didn't you just turn yourself in?”
“I'm an old man. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in jail. I guess I hoped if I was cooperative and had a good lawyer I might get off easier. I didn't kill anyone, you know. I just gave Bill some names and set up some meetings.”
“You were still participating after you'd gotten a lawyer. You set up Elliot Harp.”
"I couldn't get out. I was afraid. I didn't want anyone to know I was talking to the police. As it is, every time I hear a car on the road out there I break into a sweat, thinking it's Bill, and he's found out and come to get me.
“I just wish I'd had some other choice right from the beginning. I feel like I started this in motion. This nightmare.”