by Daniel Depp
‘We’d both look ridiculous in front of the boy,’ said Spandau, ‘and you know damned well I’d just come back. All I want to do is talk to her.’
‘She doesn’t want to talk to you.’
‘Then let her tell me that.’
‘The woman doesn’t need any more trouble than she’s got,’ said the priest. ‘I’m an old man but I’ll give you more of a fight than you think, you walk past me.’
‘I’m not going to fight you, Michael. But I’ll talk to her now or I’ll talk to her later. I have to know. It’s my job.’
Spandau looked past Father Michael at Rebecca standing behind the glass. Father Michael turned too and Rebecca made a small beckoning gesture. The priest went to the door and they spoke. Rebecca and the boy disappeared into the house. Father Michael returned to Spandau.
‘She says she’ll talk to you,’ said the priest. ‘She just wants this whole thing over.’
Spandau opened the gate and stepped through. Father Michael laid his hand on Spandau’s chest to halt him.
‘Any grief comes to her or the boy as a result of this, and I will do whatever it takes to make you regret it.’
‘I’m not looking to hurt her,’ said Spandau.
FIFTY
He followed the old priest into the house. Rebecca sat on the couch in the living room, a place that was dark and worn in spite of the large glass patio door that looked out across the backyard to the creek. She was drinking coffee. A pot and what had been Michael’s cup sat on the table.
‘Why don’t you take Mikey for a walk down by the creek,’ she said to the priest. When she spoke, you could hear the soft, sliding vowels of Kentucky.
‘Come on, big buddy,’ said Michael, ‘let’s see if we can find that big old turtle again.’
‘Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr Spandau?’ she asked when they’d gone.
‘Please, if it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Milk and sugar?’
‘Black, please.’
She went into the kitchen for a mug, brought it back, and poured from the insulated pot already on the table. She handed him the mug and said, ‘You might as well sit down.’ He sat. ‘You come to talk about Jerry, that it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘How did you find me? I know it wasn’t Jerry. Lewis maybe.’
Spandau didn’t reply.
‘I suppose I ought to ask you how much you know.’
‘I know about you and Jerry. About that trip to San Diego. A little snooping around and it didn’t take much to figure out the rest. I need to hear your side of it though. A lot still doesn’t make sense.’
‘I’m not sure I see why I ought to be talking to you at all. You want to bring up a lot of ugly things I’d just as soon forget.’
‘But you can’t, can you?’ He looked around, a sweeping survey of their surroundings. ‘Right now I could make a pretty good case that you’ve been blackmailing Jerry Margashack for the last fifteen years.’
‘If that’s true, then why would I need to put these things in the papers?’
Spandau shrugged. ‘Maybe you want more and Jerry’s having a hard time getting it to you.’
‘You got it all figured out,’ she said.
‘If I had, I wouldn’t be here now.’
She lit a cigarette from a packet on the table, never taking her eyes off his. She smoked for a bit, then finally said,
‘I’ll answer your questions, Mr Spandau. But you better be sure of what you ask, because I don’t want to see you again. I mean that. You ask your questions and then there’s an end to it, right here.’
‘I can’t promise you that.’
‘You mistake my meaning. This is a promise I’m making to you, not the other way around. Now what is it you think you know?’
He recounted the story as Lewis had told it. ‘How close is that to the truth?’
‘The truth,’ she said. ‘Is that what you want? I’m not sure I know the truth. The Lord does, maybe, but not me. I’m still waiting.’
She smoked, sipped her coffee, crushed the cigarette into the ashtray with more force than was necessary.
‘I’m asking you, is that how it happened?’
‘Yes and no,’ she said. ‘Yes, that’s the way I met Jerry. Yes, we started seeing each other on the sly. He was charming and he was fun and I was a cute little thing then, Mr Spandau, and I liked the attention. And I was cocky and I thought I had everything under control. I liked him but I didn’t want to sleep with him.’
‘You didn’t find him attractive that way?’
‘Oh I did,’ she said. ‘I would have slept with him eventually. I was no innocent, which of course was the problem. I’d had my share of men. I knew I was pretty, I knew what I had. But I also knew what he was like – or I thought I did – and that if I gave in too fast he’d lose interest. You could see that about him. He liked conquest, he liked a battle. If he couldn’t find one he’d make one up.’
She stopped, stood up, went over to the patio door, and stood looking out at the creek and biting a cuticle.
‘And San Diego? That’s the way it happened?’ he said, as if to remind her he was still there.
‘It started out just fine.’ She spoke without turning around, staring through the glass, worrying the fingernail, half talking only to herself. ‘He was how Jerry can be before the Devil gets in him. You know him well, Mr Spandau?’
‘A little.’
‘Then you see what I’m talking about. He can be the most charming thing on earth. The Devil is like that, Mr Spandau. That’s how he works his business.’
‘You think Jerry Margashack is the Devil?’
‘I think the Devil gets in him,’ she said. ‘I think the Devil’s got a hold of Jerry Margashack and even now I still pray for his soul. It’s hard, you know, trying not to hate, and I make myself pray. I make myself try to understand it all as part of God’s plan.’
‘San Diego,’ Spandau gently prompted.
‘I was going to sleep with him that night,’ she said. ‘I had it all worked out. I was like that in those days. It didn’t make any difference he was older, more experienced. I was in command and I knew it. I wore this little dress, cut down low, tight. Oh, I was something in those days. I’d dangled the bait long enough, I was going to give him what he wanted. Just that one time, though,’ she said. ‘Just that one time though for a while. I’d give it to him and then I’d wait to make sure he wasn’t sure. He was used to women always there, always sure to come back. I wanted to stay for a while, see. I wanted to be the one who stayed in his life for a while and I didn’t want him to feel safe.’ She laughed. ‘Jerry, if he feels safe, he gets bored. I didn’t want him bored, Mr Spandau. I wanted him to need me. I wanted to be like a drug to him. I wanted to be one of his addictions.’
‘Were you in love with him?’
She turned, gave Spandau a surprised look.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve never loved anyone. Not like that. Not like you mean.’
She could see that he didn’t understand. She walked over to him, stood next to his chair, looking down.
‘I’m not a monster,’ she said. ‘I do love. But it came late, real love anyway, God’s love, but there was never the kind you talk about me having for Jerry. All the men I had, I don’t think I ever really felt anything. Not even lust. I knew what they wanted and sometimes I gave it to them because it came easy. But I never felt much. Not even the sex. Sometimes it was nice but I don’t think I ever felt what they say you’re supposed to feel. I don’t know if that makes me strange. But I wonder how many women really feel this way. Maybe all that stuff we hear is just what they want us to think. They want you to think the earth is supposed to move and the skies to clear. It never did for me. It pleased me to do things to a man that made him mine, that gave me a sense of power. All men become children in bed, Mr Spandau. Did you know that? It’s not the same for a woman. In bed a woman just becomes everybody’s mother.’
‘I
think Freud said something like that.’
‘I’m not an educated woman, Mr Spandau. I never read Freud. I’m just telling you what I know.’
Spandau waited. She lit another cigarette and began to pace. When she started to speak again, it was quicker, nervous, in bursts. She walked back and forth, from the glass door to the table, with a gaze that focused only on what she saw in her head.
‘It was nice. He took me to this place in San Diego where he knew everybody. He spoke in Spanish, it was like he was one of the family. He didn’t have to order, they just brought things, like he was some kind of royalty and he was used to it. He expected me to be impressed and I was. They made a fuss over me. I was the belle of the ball. I liked that. We ate, drank. I got a little drunk. More than a little drunk.’
‘He was drinking a lot?’
‘Jerry always drank a lot, and it was hard to tell how much he’d had or when he’d had too much. You never knew until too late. Sometimes you never knew at all. I’m not sure when it turned, or why. Maybe it was something I said. I’ve thought about it and I still don’t know. I was flirting with him, being pretty obvious this time, giving him all the right signs that this was the night.
‘It was fine, then suddenly it changed. Just like that. I think he was nervous. I think he was going to get what he wanted and he was nervous about it. He could be like that sometimes, shy. Or maybe he just got angry because he knew he was going to get what he wanted and the game was over for him. I don’t know.
‘Suddenly, snap, it turned, it was like the sky fell. He got quiet and dark, then mean. Started snapping things at the restaurant people in Spanish, I don’t know what he said, but they backed off and tiptoed around him like they’d seen it all before. He ignored me, just drank, acted like I wasn’t even there. I said maybe we should go, it was a long drive back to LA. He gave me a look, my Lord, if looks could kill. Then he turned away and went back to his drink.
‘I don’t know what time it was we left. By this point I’d had too much to drink myself and I just wanted to get home, get the night over with, get home safe. I hated him, hated the thought of him touching me. Made a promise I was never going to see him again. If I hadn’t been drunk myself I’d have never got into the car with him.
‘I don’t know where we were, somewhere between Pendleton and Laguna. He said there was a motel he knew nearby, a real nice place, right on the water, let’s go there. I said I just wanted him to take me home. He said he was sorry, apologized over and over. I said I just wanted to get home. He began to cry. Quietly. But I could see these tears on his cheeks in the headlights of oncoming cars. I felt, I don’t know, I felt sorry for him. He said he wanted to talk.
‘He pulled off the road, down toward the beach. I didn’t want him to. He pulled off the road and I said I wanted to go on but he just started talking. Crying and talking, talking not like a drunk but like a man who’s been possessed by a spirit, all these things kept coming out. Told me he needed me, told me he desired me. Told me he loved me. I knew then he wasn’t drunk. It was something else. It was something that was inside him.
‘I said, just take me home, we’ll talk about all this tomorrow. He said he loved me and touched me and I pushed his hand away and then it happened, then I saw his face, the face of the Devil, Mr Spandau, and he lunged at me. I got the door open and fell out onto the sand and he come around the car after me and pulled me down into the sand, had his hand around my throat …’
She stopped, wiped away the tears, went back to the door and stood with her back to him.
‘He cried after, tried to tell me how sorry he was. I got loose from him, got up and ran down the beach. He come after me calling but I ran and ran and when I stopped and turned around he wasn’t there. I don’t know how far I ran. Maybe he just gave up, maybe he went back to the car to drive ahead and catch me, maybe he just left me. I never did know.
‘I got back up onto the highway. I was drunk, half crazy, I didn’t know where I was. Started walking on the side of the road. I think maybe I was going to walk to LA. I don’t know. I tried to flag down some cars but nobody stopped. I was dirty, my hair was full of sand, my dress was torn, I kept pulling a piece of it over my breast. God had wanted it, the police would have stopped. But that’s not what He wanted.
‘This van pulled over. I looked in and there was this boy driving, practically not much more than a boy, he had this sweet blond face and I was so glad to see him, so glad. I got in and he drove me back to LA.’
‘You lied about the second rape?’
‘I needed the money. To be honest I wasn’t sure anybody would care what Jerry did to me. I was afraid they’d think I had it coming.’
She paused, stopped pacing long enough to look at him, look deep into his eyes.
‘People do the strangest things, don’t they, Mr Spandau? Except it’s not people, Mr Spandau, they don’t have nothing to do with it except when we’re weak. It’s just God and the Devil, battling for souls, and the Devil just waits for you, just waits for the opportunity to ask you to dance.’
‘You didn’t hear from Jerry after that?’
‘Oh of course I did. He called, tried to come round the very next day, hung around outside my apartment, called my friends. I wouldn’t see him. Wouldn’t see anybody, couldn’t leave my apartment. I just lay there, didn’t wash, didn’t eat. People say it was shock. I don’t think it was. It was just anger. Anger and helplessness. I lay there thinking of all the ways I could kill him, ruin him, make him pay.’
‘You never saw him again?’
‘He called me and I finally talked to him, told him if I ever saw or heard from him again I was going to the police, the newspapers, television, I’d sell my story to the whole world. I’d ruin him, I’d see him in hell. He knew I meant it and he stopped calling.’
‘You got money from him before you left LA?’
‘No, Jerry’s lied about that, he needed to say something to Lewis, him and Lewis were friends. Lewis is a good man, he was my friend too, and that’s why I went to him for the money. I knew he’d help me. There was nowhere else to go. And he did. I always thank him for that in my prayers. Not many people would have done that.’
‘Where did you go when you left LA?’
‘Back to Bowling Green, for about fifteen minutes. I was there for a few weeks. I had some thought I wanted to be with my family. It’s the sort of thing you do, you hope while you’ve been gone they finally found something to give you, but they hadn’t. Nothing had changed. A woman I knew invited me to Portland. I went there. She was gentle with me and I know what we did was against the scriptures but I was alone and I couldn’t look at a man, couldn’t think of a man without getting sick to my stomach. It was like that until the baby came.’
‘Jerry’s child.’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘There was no other man after Jerry. There hasn’t been since.’
‘What made you decide to keep it?’
‘The voice of God, Mr Spandau.’
She saw the look on his face and laughed.
‘You’re not a Christian, Mr Spandau?’
‘I’m not quite sure what I am these days,’ he said.
‘I thought about getting rid of it, I truly did. Thought about it all the time. Sally wanted me to, asked me how in the world I could even think of it, after the way it happened. Said it would ruin my life, would be nothing but a constant reminder of a terrible thing.
‘I don’t know if I can explain it,’ she went on. ‘It just felt wrong, and I knew it was wrong. I knew I wanted to have the baby. I didn’t know what I would do after. I wasn’t thinking about that. By that time I’d started reading the scriptures too, finding my way back to God. The closer I got to God the more I knew He wanted me to have it, that He knew what He was doing.
‘Poor Sally was shocked, she thought it was horrible, she didn’t want any part of it, didn’t want to raise a rapist’s baby. I don’t blame her, I don’t blame anyone. She had her own issues and God
hadn’t touched her yet. She was a good woman and good to me but there was no way to make her understand that I knew I was doing the right thing.
‘There was no insurance, we were living off what Sally earned as a waitress. I did what piecework I could, made Lewis’ money stretch as far as I could. I didn’t do the usual tests, they probably would have shown me there was something wrong with the baby. I didn’t know. I had no idea.
‘Mikey was born, I knew there was something wrong, they took a long time bringing him to me in the hospital. Sally was there, when they told me. I didn’t know quite what it meant, I was expecting something horrible, something like a monster, but they brought him in and put him in my arms and I knew I was holding an angel. I knew what it was all about then, I knew why I’d had this child.
‘It was different for Sally. It was more than she could handle and I needed to find a home for myself and the baby now. There was no choice but to contact Jerry. There was nowhere else to go.’
‘How did he react?’
‘Quiet. Serious. I explained about Mikey. He asked me if I was okay, what I wanted to do. I told him I needed money. He wired some that day. A few days later I got a call from Michael. He said he was a friend of Jerry’s, and that Jerry had asked him to help me out. He promised that everything would be fine. And it has been.’
‘Did Jerry try to see you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You refused?’
‘I haven’t seen Jerry since that night in California, and I haven’t spoken to him since that phone call to tell him about my child. He’s never seen Mikey and he never will. The only contact either of us have with Jerry is through Michael.
‘As far as blackmailing him, I don’t have a need for it. We live simply and my business is good and the Lord provides us with everything we need. Jerry has always seen there’s enough and if we ever needed more he’s sent it. I never had to force him.
‘As for trying to hurt him, well, that would take more time and energy than he’s worth to me. I try not to hate him, Mr Spandau, and I work daily on trying to forgive him. I confess I haven’t quite managed that yet, but I keep trying. And I also remind myself that he did give me a couple of important things. He gave me my child, and it was my child that has taught me love, real love, and he has given me Michael. Through him God has given me the only real family I have ever known, the only things I have ever really loved.