Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer Read Free Page A

least as long as Tracie was there. Tracie, in turn,
respected the other girls' territory most of the time.
    Tracie, who had been coached by her
boyfriend/pimp to treat the sale of her body as a business, came to
value her spot along the busy avenue. They had chosen it carefully
a few weeks earlier after deciding that the downtown core area of
the city was not for her. There were too many cops downtown, and
the streets there seemed to attract a greater cross-section of
Portland's "weirdos" and "creeps," as she called them, the enema
freaks, torture aficionados, bestiality enthusiasts, and other
deviants with whom she didn't want to do business. Not only did the
82nd Avenue location hold greater potential for scoring a number of
customers on any given night due to the volume of traffic, but
most, she mistakenly believed, were of a more respectable nature.
She also saw fewer young boys, the "punks," climb into lawyers' and
businessmen's Mercedes and Jaguars there, and she seemed less at
odds with others in the trade on 82nd. She also liked her location
because she could easily duck inside Bob's Big Boy if she spotted
police cruisers coming down the block, or she could simply slip
inside, where she was becoming well known, to sip on a cup of hot
coffee and warm up in the unlikely event that it turned out to be a
tough night. She could also occasionally proposition a lone male
customer, as long as the management wasn't watching. However, she
knew it was best to keep her business outdoors. That way she could
avoid running the risk of getting eighty-sixed from Bob's.
    It was a Friday, payday for many, she knew,
as she walked and danced up and down the block, twirling her
now-opened umbrella and feigning happiness, waving and smiling at
the passing motorists, each a potential john. Tracie made no
pretense, particularly to herself, of her simple objective: she
needed to earn enough money to keep her and her boyfriend supplied
with a motel room, a little food, crack cocaine, and liquor for at
least a couple of days, or risk having the shit beat out of her at
the end of the night. But her slim figure and petite build had
helped make her a hot, profitable item, so she never worried too
much about encountering a sudden downturn in business or meeting
her objective.
    It was a few minutes past 7 P.M. when she
first noticed the light-colored silver-blue Nissan pickup pass
slowly in front of the restaurant. The driver turned his head
toward her and peered out of the passenger window as he drove by,
and Tracie thought she detected a smile through the darkness. As
her gaze followed the pickup's taillights, she momentarily recalled
conversations with other hookers in which she had been warned of a
man driving just such a vehicle. The other girls had said that he
liked kinky sex and bondage and was especially attracted to women's
feet. But he sometimes became violent, even savage. He liked
knives, they said, and often cut his victims. The girls who had
unwittingly accepted his offers said he was sexually aroused at the
sight of their blood, and many came away from their encounters with
him scarred for life, both emotionally and physically. Although he
was known to pay as much as $150 for a "date," they advised Tracie
to stay away from him. Even for that kind of money, they said, a
girl would have to be desperate, crazy, or both to take a chance on
him. Paying little heed to their warnings and concluding that such
a thing could never happen to her, Tracie tried to put the guy out
of her mind.
    The pickup turned off the busy thoroughfare
at the next block and stopped. Leaning over onto the passenger
side, the driver opened the door, beckoning Tracie through the
downpour to come over to his truck. Eager to earn whatever money
she could and thinking that he was looking for what she was
offering, Tracie went to him without hesitation. This was looking
better than she had expected. It had taken less than ten minutes
for her to get picked up.
    "Hi! Wanna