Joey Spelvin thumbed the PAUSE button of the remote control unit. On the monitor, the maniac in the hockey mask froze, his knife mere inches from the bare midriff of his next victim. "This going to take long, Curt?"

      "Just come back here, will you?"

      With the flick of another button, Joey turned the VCR completely off. Damn. He hated it when work impinged upon his movie viewing.

      He clambered down from his stool and padded across the new carpeting to Curtis Patterson's office. At the doorway, he said, "I should be at the counter. In case anyone comes in."

      "We have time before the rush starts," Patterson said. "The buzzer will go off, anyway. Sit down."

      Joey sat in the chair opposite Patterson's desk. "What's up?"

      Patterson, a thin man in his late fifties with a crew-cut and a face like a hatchet, said, "I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. About business." He waited for Joey to say something. When nothing was forthcoming, he continued, "I've been thinking about our image. Patterson's Picture Palace needs an image that fits the Nineties."

      "Sounds reasonable."

      Patterson leaned back in his swivel chair. "I've put a lot of money into sprucing this place up, you know. Bought new carpeting. Installed softer lights. Put together some flashy window displays."

      "Is there a point to all this, Curtis?"

      Patterson opened a desk drawer, removed a flat rectangular box and tossed it at Joey.

      Joey examined the blue and gold tie inside. "Oh, hey, you shouldn't have. How thoughtful."

      "From now on I expect you to wear that while you're working here. I also expect you to get some new shirts, a decent pair of pants, and stop wearing those ridiculous canvas basketball shoes. I pay you a decent wage, Joey. You should be able to dress a lot better."

      Joey sighed. "I'm sorry, but I can't accept this generous gift." He slid the box across the desktop to Patterson.

      "I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist." Patterson slid the box back. Joey made no move to catch it, and it fell onto the floor.

      Patter said, "You've got a real attitude problem, pal."

      "I don't like ties."

      "Let me tell you something, Joey, appearances are important. If you want to do business with a better class of clientele, you have to make that extra effort."

      Joey kept hoping the buzzer on the front door would sound and allow him to escape. No such luck. The working stiffs wouldn't be in for another fifteen minutes or so.

      "What better class of people are we talking about?"

      Patterson gestured toward the empty showroom. "Young urban professionals. Executives on the way up the corporate ladder. The movers and shakers from the top demographic categories."

      "What?"

      "You heard me."

      Joey picked up the tie, wadded it into a ball and jammed it in a back pocket. "This is the Tenderloin, man. Yuppies don't come here unless they've had a full complement of shots. Let's just get on with business and forget this crap about upper demographics."

      "I've put up with your nonsense long enough. I'm tired of running a slip-shod operation. It's time you straightened up and flew right."

      Joey gave this some careful consideration and then said, "Is this conversation over?"

      "As long as you understand you're going to have to make some drastic changes in your personal habits."

      Joey shook his head. "No."

      Patterson squinted at him. "What did you say?"

      "I said no. I'm comfortable in these clothes. I refuse to dress like a cadaver. Forget it."

      "Don't forget who's the boss around here," Patterson said. "I may just decide that I'd be better off without you!"

      "Curtis, you don't know jack shit about this business. You were drowning in red ink until I came along."

      Patterson opened his mouth to defend himself, but Joey didn't give him time. "I'm the guy who got you to invest in the meat and potatoes of this business: teen comedies, slasher flicks and soft-core porn. I'm the one who supplemented the inventory with weird-ass cult favorites that can't be rented elsewhere. I do all the ordering, and when customers want someone to recommend a film, they come to me, Curtis."

      "I can do all that as well as you."

      "Don't bet the lease on it. I know exactly what you do when someone wants a recommendation. You scratch your head and say, `Read the cartons. That's why they're on display.' And you lose a sale. You need me, Curtis. You work me long hours and pay me a salary minuscule even by Third World standards, but you still need me. So, let's have no more of this spruce-up-for-the-customers crap."

      Patterson stood and, like a tyrranical father in a silent melodrama, pointed toward the office door and beyond. "Get out of here, Spelvin! I won't stand for this insolence."

      Joey yawned. "If that's the way you want to play it, Curt. Good luck in accessing your tape inventory program, though."

      That brought Patterson up short. "What do you mean?"

      "Well, since you refused to have anything to do with the personal computer once I convinced you to buy it, I've made some modifications that might make things difficult if you fire me."

      Anything more high-tech than a cash register made Patterson nervous, and now his lip started to sweat. "Like what?"

      "Like an encrypted program that instructs the hard disk to commit hara-kiri unless I feed it a secret password once a week. It's guaranteed to eat every bit of data you try to extract from it."

      This was a bald-faced lie, yet it had its desired effect. Patterson stared at Joey. Joey stared back. Patterson pulled out a handkerchief and scoured the moisture from his lips and forehead.

      "You wouldn't really do that, would you?"

      "In an instant."

      Patterson cleared his throat. "OK, forget what I said about the tie, Joey. Just, I don't know, change your clothes more often or something."

      The buzzer sounded. Joey stood, stretched and said, "No problem, Curtis. Glad to do it. Talk to you later."

      For the next four hours, Joey attended to the day-to-day business of selling and renting videocassettes. Around eight, two black teenagers came in with $3.50 in nickels and dimes, wanting to rent Night of the Ninja Vampires. Unfortunately, they didn't have a Visa card for the fifty buck deposit. Joey regretfully sent them on their way. They promised to come back as soon as a Visa card turned up.

      Just as business was beginning to slack off, giving Joey the opportunity to return to the tape he'd been watching before his talk with Patterson, Ed Curley came bustling in. He marched to the counter and threw a boxed videocassette on it.

      "Hah, hah," Curley said mirthlessly. "What a laugh riot, Joey."

      Not at all sure what was going on, Joey regarded Ed Curley. The little man certainly had his shorts in a bunch over something. Curley drew himself up to his full five feet, three inches and stood, hands on hips, ready to spring into violent action.

      Joey picked up the box. Cartoon Fun Fest Vol. Four.

      "What's the matter, Ed?"

      "You gave me the wrong tape."

      Joey opened the box and inspected the cassette. "As advertised, it's Cartoon Fun Fest. What's the problem?"

      "You almost got me fired, you little shit! That's the problem!"

      People were staring. "Hey, hey. Let's keep it down, OK? Now how am I supposed to have done that?"

      Ed Curley worked for one of the city's least respectable accounting firms and seemed in perpetual danger of getting the sack. Two-three times a week he came into the store and complained to Joey about how his boss had it in for him. Joey put up with his whining as long as he actually planned to rent something.

      Ed loosened his tie and rested an elbow on the countertop. "Yesterday was my son Markie's seventh birthday, Joey."

      "Uh huh."

      "My wife, Helen, organized a party for him. Had the neighborhood kids over for dinner. I invited Loeb and his obnoxious son, Wendall."

      "Loeb is your boss."

      "You got it, that rat bastard. I figured, hey, here's a chance to earn some brownie points. Brother, was I wrong.

      "All the kids and their parents come over, and Helen serves them hamburgers, cake, soft drinks and stuff. After Markie opens his presents, I herd all the kids into the living room, set them in front of the TV and put on what I think is Cartoon Fun Fest.

      "Us adults stay in the kitchen and have a few drinks. Loeb and I are actually talking like two human beings. Everything's going great until Missy Brightman comes in and says, `Mommy, I don't like the show we're watching.'

      "Helen says, `You don't like cartoons, Missy, honey?' And Missy says, `But it's not cartoons. It's naked people!'

      "So a bunch of us go into the TV room. Can you guess what's on the screen when we get there?" Ed paused for dramatic effect and hollered, "Two guys screwing a cheerleader!"

      A patron standing ten feet away from Curley jumped, dropping the cassette carton he'd been reading. He retrieved it and sidled away quickly. Joey said, "That's a long way from Looney Tunes."

      "You're telling me. The kids are sitting there, in trances, like. They don't know what the hell to do. Helen screams. The kids figure out they're doing something they're not supposed to, and they start crying. Mrs. Brightman goes crazy, makes a mad dash for the VCR, trips over the coffee table and lands on top of poor little Don Luk Sang. All the other parents start hollering at me.

      "I pick up the remote and turn everything off. I start to say something like, `Sorry about that, folks...,' but everybody's too busy panicking to listen. Danielle Ortmann, scared out of her freaking mind, blows dinner all over our new sofa. Richie Peterson runs upstairs to hide in the clothes hamper. People start grabbing their kids and heading for the door. I hear one broad mutter something about child abuse, even.

      "So, thanks to you, my boss and half the neighborhood thinks I'm some kind of pervert who shows skin flicks to second graders. Today in the office, Loeb spots me and makes a face like he smells something bad. A fifteen-year accounting career right down the crapper. Thanks a whole hell of a lot, Spelvin."

      Joey coughed a few times and tried to adopt a suitably somber mien. "That's, uh, quite a story, Ed. But I swear I had nothing to do with it."

      Ed eyed him suspiciously. "Then who did?"

      "Some absolutely brilliant practical joker. But not me."

      Curley tapped the cassette gingerly, as if expecting it to explode in his face. "Maybe I believe you. But what I want to know is, what are you going to do about this mess?"

      Joey turned toward the personal computer and typed the film's title on its keyboard. Reading the data and noting the name of the last renter, C. William Hartinger, he said, "I don't know what to tell you. This isn't one of our most popular titles, but it was last rented two weeks ago. No complaints when it was returned."

      "So how did that stuff get on there?"

      "Is your VCR hooked up to one of the adult cable stations? Could you have replaced the original programming on this tape with something from the Playboy Channel, say?"

      "No way. No one opened that tape box until Helen was setting up for the party. Besides, you won't find what's on that tape playing on any commercial cable station. It's far too twisted."

      "Oh, yeah?"

      "Starts out like some kind of horror movie, you know. A rip-off of Friday the Thirteenth or something. Then, all of a sudden, it turns hard-core porno. Some of the nastiest stuff I've ever seen. I couldn't watch it to the end."

      Joey regarded the tape with renewed interest. He said, "Look, there's been some sort of screw-up. You have my apologies. What else do you want?"

      "You're lucky I don't sue you and Patterson for everything you've got. I'm liable to lose my job."

      "It can't be that bad, Ed." Joey reached out and patted Ed on the shoulder. "What do you say I give you five free rentals. How does that sound?"

      "It stinks."

      "Ten free rentals."

      Ed shook his head. "Twenty free rentals and a copy of The Oral Majority for my private library."

      "Patterson's not going to like that."

      "Patterson won't like being slapped with a lawsuit."

      "You drive a hard bargain, Ed, but I suppose you're entitled to some compensation." Joey filled out a gift certificate in Ed's name, gave him a personal copy of the requested tape and sent him on his way. He then slipped Cartoon Fun Fest Vol. Four into the VCR. He turned the volume way down. No need to agitate the remaining patrons.

      The first five minutes of the tape were devoted to the antics of Bugs Bunny and friends. But just as Elmer Fudd was loading up to blast that wascally wabbit, the opening credits for Razor Cut interrupted the program. A Crossroads Films Productions. Starring Tiffany Wellington, Dawn McCambridge and Terry Avery.

      The name Tiffany Wellington rang a vague bell, but Joey drew a complete blank on the film's title and its production company. He prided himself on his encyclopedic knowledge of the exploitation market, and it irked him slightly to find this chink in his expertise.

      Like a hundred fright flicks before it, Razor Cut opened with an escape from an asylum by a major league psychopath. Instead of the usual repetitious synthesized soundtrack, this movie featured repetitious drum cadences. Joey found the odd rhythms surprisingly effective, both compelling and creepy.

      The murderous nutcake immediately set off for the peaceful community of Bishop's Dunes, where he began wreaking gory havoc with a variety of kitchen utensils and garden implements. A kindly old night watchman at the local shopping mall was the first to buy the farm, the masked lunatic planting the blade of a hoe in his skull.

      The film then cut to the bedroom of the town's current prom queen. The prom queen was entertaining two members of the football team on her waterbed, doing a half-naked pom-pom routine.

      Joey recognized the woman right away. He'd seen her in Firewomen in Heat, one of the shop's more popular soft-core titles. Big-busted with gorgeous black hair and startling violet eyes, Tiffany Wellington had enough stylish good looks to make it as a legit actress. Unfortunately, she also had an intensely grating voice, topped by a stutter that would doom her forever to the skin trade.

      Watching Tiffany have at it with the quarterback and the fullback, Joey was totally mystified. Slasher films, like Noh plays, followed certain long-revered rules. One rule was that, beyond a bare boob here and there, there was no explicit sex shown. But Razor Cut featured full frontal nudity and a number of very personal close-ups.

      Another rule of the genre was that girls who have sex get killed quickly, while virgins always survive. And here was the top-billed actress committing multiple perversions in her very first scene. It didn't make sense.

      Regular as clockwork, Razor Cuts switched back and forth between Tiffany's bedroom adventures and the masked killer's path of destruction through town. Tiffany and her friends would get themselves off in an interesting way, and then the maniac would brutally torture and kill another unsuspecting innocent. After a while, it become clear Tiffany and the lunatic were fated to meet.

      "Who do I have to sleep with to rent a tape around here?"

      Joey snapped his attention away from the film and found an elderly woman staring at him, a Jane Fonda work-out tape in her liver-spotted hand. "Sorry," he said, handing her a rental form.

      She stole a glace at the monitor. "Sick. This world is full of sickos, I swear."

      Joey nodded. After completing the transaction, he fast-forwarded Razor Cut, deciding to study it more closely in the privacy of his own apartment.

      He was onto something strange and unusual here, something he'd never encountered before. On one level, the film intrigued him -- excited him, even. The ultimate slice and dice picture. But another disturbing thought niggled at the back of his mind.

      He punched the play button and watched the climax of Razor Cut.

      The disguised maniac, having dispatched Tiffany's two lovers, finally cornered her and forced her to submit to his twisted desires. At a crucial moment, he removed his mask, and the camera pulled back to reveal his face for the first time.

      Joey froze the frame and scrutinized the killer's features. Put him in a white tee-shirt. Place mirrored sunglasses over his eyes. Wrap earphones around his blockish head.

      Still unsure but fearing he was right, Joey set the action in motion again. Enjoying himself, the blond maniac grinned, his teeth gleaming brightly. Except for one dull tooth in the middle, it was a smile any dentist would love. But one purple, diseased tooth spoiled the picture.

      No question. It was him.

      Joey felt his stomach flip-flop as the Walkman produced a straight razor and slit Tiffany Wellington's throat with one deft motion.