TWENTY-THREE
It was chilly and a little misty, and light rain fell intermittently. I looked around. At first, all I was aware of was the darkness, which seemed to swallow me up. Then I made out a couple of familiar silhouettes that emerged briefly from the mist and drizzle before vanishing again. In one direction was the Unisphere and the shell of the New York State Pavilion, left over from the 1964 World’s Fair. In the other was the outline of Shea Stadium where, just days earlier, the New York Mets had clinched the World Series. It occurred to me that this was probably the stadium’s parking lot.
For what seemed like a long time I was alone, at least as far as I could tell. I began to feel light-headed, almost groggy. Had the Scotch hit me that hard? Had it been spiked? I figured it had to be the latter and cursed myself for my stupidity. Then, above the distant thrumming of traffic on the Grand Central Parkway and the Van Wyck, I heard the note of a vehicle coming closer. A set of headlights appeared in the farthest corner of the parking lot, then came to a halt some distance from where I stood. Someone was pushed out the door. She fell to her knees—a woman in white.
The vehicle departed with a squeal of tires. The woman in the white dress remained there on her knees. I ran toward her—staggering and nearly falling because the cuffs on my wrists upset my balance and because whatever was in that drink was getting to me—bellowing Sandy’s name at the top of my voice. She got to her feet and stood unsteadily, apparently looking in my direction. As I came closer, she half-raised one arm as if attempting to wave, but apparently didn’t have the strength. Instead, she let her hands fall by her side before kicking off a shoe—the other one had already gone adrift when she was pushed from the car. That steadied her a little, but she seemed unable to move or speak. She just rocked a little on her heels, looking in my direction. I wasn’t sure she saw me. Either she’d been given a dose of sedative that would knock out a gorilla, or maybe had been subjected to a beating, or worse.
Her expression was difficult to read at that distance, but as I got closer it seemed to me that I could make out blood smeared around her mouth—or was it makeup? Was anything real? Now I seemed to be running in slow motion, as if in some half-assed B-movie dream sequence, stumbling every few yards. For sure Garofolo had slipped something into that Scotch, maybe out of kindness. In my imagination, which became more distorted by the moment, Sandy’s lips were moving but no words were coming out. I tried to call her name, but had been struck dumb.
Then suddenly everything became very clear to me. I understood the situation in precise detail. I knew that I was exactly 341 feet away from her—that being the distance from home plate to the outfield fences along the foul lines in Shea Stadium. How did I know that? Because it’s a game of inches, that’s why, and I was in “the zone.” But now, despite the distance between us, I could see Sandy very clearly, as if she was just out of reach. She bit her lower lip in that provocative way of hers, then lasciviously licked both bloody lips. The white dress she was wearing recalled the one she had worn that first day in Little Italy, except that this one was an ankle-length wedding gown sewn with seed pearls. She also wore a token bridal veil and elbow-length satin gloves. As I watched she seemed to regain her strength and, lowering her eyelids seductively, began to move to music that only she and the rain could hear. First she peeled off one glove and threw it over her shoulder, then the other. She reached behind her back to unzip the bodice of the dress, accompanied by inaudible rim shots.
My voice had returned.
“No-o-o-o . . .”
She peeled the dress from her shoulders and, with a lubricious thrust of one hip, then the other, seemed about to step out of it.
I had made a promise I would never watch her strip and I wasn’t about to break that vow. I rushed toward her, prepared to tackle her if necessary, the way I had on Canal Street back in the shadows of prehistory.
Then the screen went blank, as if the film had broken in the projector.
I came to with Sandy kneeling over me. There was no blood on her face and her usual minimal makeup was intact. She was wearing a bridal gown, though there was no sign of it having been unzipped. She cupped my face with her gloved hands and looked down at me, her eyes full of concern.
I asked what had happened.
“You were running toward me,” said Sandy, “and suddenly you started yelling—screaming at me, calling me names I’ve never been called before—filthy names. And then your legs seemed to turn to rubber, and the next thing I knew you were flat on your face. It was a pretty bad fall. You had no way of breaking it because of the handcuffs. You just went down like a sack of potatoes. That’s when you ripped your face open.”
Now I felt the stinging sensation below my right eye. Sandy showed me a lace handkerchief soaked with blood, and I saw that there were bloodstains on the wedding gown—like the bloodstains that spattered the white dress when we were attacked by the maniac in the deli.
“Your blood this time,” said Sandy.
“Garofolo must’ve slipped me something,” I told her. “It didn’t hit right away.”
“Just take it easy,” said Sandy. “We’ve got to find help.”
It was about then that I took in that we were both alive. We’d been abandoned at night in a parking lot in the depths of Flushing Meadows, but nobody had put bullets through our brains. We had not been garroted or had our throats slit. Nor did there seem to be anyone around who intended to do us harm. Had we served out our punishments? It didn’t seem possible, yet what was there to stop us walking out of there unharmed—give or take a few cuts and bruises and a white satin shoe with a broken heel?
“So what now?” asked Sandy.
As if on cue, I heard a distant rattle of metal against metal and looked up to see the illuminated windows of a subway train running on elevated tracks perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Before it was swallowed by the mist, which was thicker than ever, it tripped a switch in my addled brain. More than once, I had travelled to Mets games aboard the Number 7 train on the Flushing Line, disembarking at Willets Point, which provided direct access to the stadium. That station had to be close by. I had no idea if trains stopped there at that time of night, but it was somewhere to aim for.
I laid this on Sandy and we set out in the direction where the subway cars had disappeared. The problem was that, when I got to my feet, I found that my knees were still weak and my head was still spinning. Sandy gave me her arm to lean on but progress was slow, and for some reason I suddenly felt angry at her.
“It’s time you told me who the fuck is behind all this,” I said.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“Listen,” I warned her, “you told me about the sex change thing, but I’ve been doing my homework—I know there’s more to it than that.”
Sandy looked shocked.
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“Ever hear of a joint in Paris called Elle et Lui? High-end drag show?”
She said nothing.
“Is that where Yari spotted you?” I asked. “Or was it Langham who did the scouting?”
“Alex—don’t talk like that!”
“And somebody paid for the work to be done. You know what I’m talking about.”
She refused to look at me.
“Listen—I don’t care what you used to be,” I said. “I just want to know who’s behind all this.”
“I don’t know.”
“If it’s going to cost me my life, I deserve to know.”
“But that’s the truth—I don’t know. I really don’t know. Yes, it was Yari who came to me with a proposal. I found out since then that he was acting on behalf of his mother’s boyfriend—but Mr. Debereaux is not the client. He was just some kind of go-between who negotiated the deal. I don’t know who he was working for—honest.”
“You went for this without knowing who you were going to end up
with?” I said. “Didn’t it bother you that it might be the ugliest man alive? Or the most evil?”
“That’s how bad I wanted it. I had known all my life I was in the wrong body. I sold my soul to the Devil, but when the time came to surrender myself I couldn’t go through with it. And that’s when you showed up. Sorry.”
It was then that we heard the snarl of a motorbike kick-started to life. We couldn’t see it at first, but a headlight flickered on far away, near the stadium. The engine was revved and the bike lurched forward, headed directly for where we standing. It sounded like one of those hopped-up Japanese items that had begun to muscle-in on the Harleys and the hot limey sleds. Fat lot of difference it would make whether we were run down by a bike built in Tokyo or Birmingham or Milwaukee. Whatever its pedigree, it bore down on us relentlessly.
“What do we do?” asked Sandy, grabbing one of my cuffed hands.
I don’t think she expected an answer.
At first the bike gathered speed but then, as it approached, the biker throttled back and passed by on Sandy’s side, close and at low speed, before heading out into a broad loop. It headed back, now with the throttle wide open, this time passing me with only inches to spare.
The biker was dressed in skintight black leathers, boots, and a shiny black helmet with a tinted visor that covered his face. There was no clue to his identity—he might have been the Creature from the Black Lagoon. At first it seemed he was intent on teasing us. For what seemed like a long time, he would simply circle at a distance of about twenty feet before roaring off into the mist, after which he would turn and head back directly toward me at speed, veering away at the last moment. Next he repeated the maneuvers, this time making Sandy his apparent target, but slowing down almost to a standstill long before he reached her, holding the clutch in the friction zone and weaving very slowly and with eerie precision, as if navigating an obstacle course made up of precious antique teacups. Before accelerating off into the mist once more, he came so close to Sandy that his visor was almost in her face.
Now he circled us several times in ever-widening loops, then once again opened the throttle and came straight at us. This time, though, he didn’t veer to the left or right—he was clearly intent on splitting us apart. It worked. Sandy dived one way and I went the other. Even though the adrenaline rush had restored some of my strength, I couldn’t move fast enough to avoid contact. A glancing blow sent me sprawling.
Sandy rushed over.
“Are you all right?”
I told her nothing was broken—at least I didn’t think so—and with her help scrambled back to my feet.
The biker had halted a few feet away, boots planted on the deck—revving his motor, making it talk, using it to taunt us—then he made a close pass, looped out into the gloom, and came right back at us. Again the idea seemed to be to split us, and again Sandy dodged to one side. This time I held my ground as long as I dared, then, as he swept by, swung my two fists—still manacled together—like a poleax, with all my strength. I caught him at throat level. The contact sent me reeling, but I had achieved my goal. The bike pitched onto its side and spun away, trailing sparks and narrowly missing Sandy. Spilled from his saddle, the biker ate asphalt and slid along on the wet tarmac, howling with rage as his helmet flew off. With his back turned, he climbed to his feet and slowly, deliberately swiveled toward us.
Sandy let out a scream that must have been audible in the Bronx. It wasn’t hard to see why. The biker had a hideously scarred face, as if it had been burned or perhaps seared with acid. It was the maniac who had been stalking Sandy, and who had attacked the pair of us that first day in Little Italy. The same anger now flared in his eyes as he glared at me, furious at the humiliation I had inflicted. I anticipated him metamorphosing into the attack dog we had experienced in the deli on Mulberry Street, but instead he visibly took hold of his rage and assumed an icy cool. He even managed a nasty sliver of a smile.
“I’m disappointed,” he said, addressing himself to Sandy. “I thought you’d be happier to see me.”
It was the voice of the man in the confessional, the man in the Pierrot mask who had raged from the pulpit—the voice of a forty-a-day man who had grown up somewhere in the five boroughs but had gone to school someplace else.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“Who am I? Don’tcha know? I’m your benefactor.”
Sandy looked as if she was about to faint. Her mouth fell open in disbelief.
“Why the surprise?” the man asked. “Who did you figure? Marlon Brando?”
A single tear trickled down Sandy’s face. The man laughed and walked toward her, stopping a couple of feet away. I tried to struggle to my feet, but the maniac pulled a wicked-looking knife from a sheath sewn like a pocket into his leathers and flashed it for my benefit.
“One stupid move,” he said, “and our lovely Sandra feels the edge of this blade.”
I stayed where I was.
“She’s so beautiful,” he said. “In a way I can’t blame you for fucking her, Novalis—but I can never forgive her. She had pledged herself to me—you know that? She made a sacred fucking vow.”
“I didn’t know . . .” Sandy whispered.
“Didn’t know what, babe? Didn’t know your benefactor’s identity? That was careless of you, my sweet. You should think things through. You’ll never see your dreams come true unless you think things through—all the way through. Didn’tcha learn that at the movies?”
“I just wanted . . .”
“Just wanted? That’s the problem with this world—everybody wants something, but when it comes to the big-ticket items not many people are prepared to pay the price.”
He studied her, his face a few inches from hers. She closed her eyes.
“Yes, shut them,” he said. “I am fuckin’ hideous to look at—unlike you, my sweet Sandra. You are so lovely. I’ve seen you many times before, of course. I watched you on stage in Paris when you were still a boy, and I watched you at Aladdin’s Alibi, and I’ve watched you on the street—more times than you know. Then there were those special photographs that Yari Mendelssohn took for me—the before-and-after pictures. I don’t suppose you told this sad jerk about those photographs?”
He gestured toward me.
“And I’m sure,” he continued, “that you didn’t mention to this sucker that so imaginative and so sensual painting that Stewart Langham made for what was supposed to be our nuptial bower. Didn’t you just love the masterly way—the passion—with which Langham evoked your flesh, your sensuality? Renoir? No. Rubens. It was as if the dirty old fucker could make love to you just by looking at you. I thought of having his eyes plucked out after it was finished, but he would just have gone on having filthy thoughts about you anyway. It hangs over my bed—I can look at it for hours on end—but I’ve never really seen you before, not this close. I’ve never seen you this naked before—this exposed.”
He mocked her by biting his lip.
“Do you know how many times I’ve seen you chew your lip like that? You do it in the act, of course—it brings the creeps in the audience to the edge. Oh, and it was so generous of Joey to hire you at the Alibi—though in fact the bastard had no choice. I could destroy Joey Garofolo with one word—you know that? Forget him, though. When you returned from Casablanca, beloved Sandra, I was aware how sensitive the aftermath of the surgery was—I knew that it would take time before you would be ready to engage in full wifely duties, ya know what I mean? I was prepared to wait—even relished the anguish of the wait—but I saw no harm in providing myself with the opportunity to look. And I liked to watch other men watching you. To have you available for inspection at the Alibi was the perfect solution.”
He turned to me.
“Did you ever see the lady strip? Too bad if you didn’t—she has a remarkable talent, although to call it striptease is dis respectful to a performance of such
subtle artistry. Fuckin’ Sam Beckett ain’t in it. Let me set the scene. The curtain rises on a stage that’s empty except for a few bales of hay. Sandra enters with a small dog. She’s wearing a cheap gingham pinafore dress, white ankle socks, and lace-up Oxfords from Filene’s Basement. Her hair is gathered at the back in two bunches—an orphan down on the farm, just like Dorothy. She crouches to play with the dog, to tickle its stomach, then sends it off into the wings where its handler is waiting. Already the audience is tingling with anticipation—you can feel it. The aura of innocence and the anticipation of the loss of innocence is electric. Men feel a twitch of horniness. Women squeeze their thighs tightly together and hunger for an intimate touch. Sandra looks out at the audience—disdainful at first, then unsure of herself. She bites her lip. All around the room, in the energized darkness, moisture seeps from secret places, glands become engorged.
“There was piano music when Sandra first appeared—a gloss on something by Harold Arlen—but now it’s wall-to-wall silence. You could hear a pinafore dress drop in a tender heap on the floor, but our Sandra keeps hers on. She doesn’t dance, no hint of bump or grind—she just stands there fucking forever, gazing out into the darkness, making every man there—and many of the women too—believe she’s looking at him and him alone, teasing delicious fantasies. She bites her lip again, and sucks her thumb—but only for a second—snatches it out of her mouth as if she has been told to break the habit. Who knows what dirty, perverted practices thumb-sucking leads to? The silence is shattered by a cough from the house. Sandra feigns shock, covering her tits with her hands as if she has been discovered in a compromising situation, though she’s still fully dressed.
“A frown tells us that her shoes are pinching, poor girl. She sits on a bale of hay to take them off and finally she shows some flesh, even allows a glimpse of panties—girlish white cotton panties, the antithesis of the tacky lingerie favored by the other strippers. Men self-consciously adjust the paper napkins on their laps, maybe sip their martinis to moisten their gullets. Now Sandra seems lost in thought. She smiles to herself. She touches herself on the inside of her thigh, again permitting a tantalizing glimpse of white cotton. Is this the beginning of something? She lets her fingers rest there on her skin, looks down hungrily at her knees, her thighs, pulls her skirts up a little higher, hesitates, looks out into the audience—and bites her lip—guiltily this time.
The Girl From Nowhere Page 20