by Dane Hartman
Two men took one long step out of the dark mouth of the alley and they had her. Rose had occasionally fantasized about this happening. It was hard to live in the area of town that she did and not think about it. But when she daydreamed she had always figured that if they didn’t kill her instantaneously she could fight and make enough noise to get away. Only she was fantasizing about maddened rapists. The men who took her were professional.
The first one slapped his hands on the top of her head and under her chin. He pushed while the other man stretched a dark, wet band of something across the lower half of her face, just below her nose. The thing was put on her mouth like a big Band-Aid. The man peeled something off both sides as it adhered to her skin. She was caught by surprise. Her body bent backward, and she nearly fell. By the time she found her footing again, both pairs of hands were off her, her mouth was tightly closed, and she felt the moisture around her lips dry and harden.
She was still somewhat off balance when her hands started to move toward her face. Halfway there, the four hands of her assailants smacked into her back and propelled her toward the side of a van parked at the curb. Her hands went out in front of her to serve as protection against the metal vehicle, but just before she seemed to hit the side, it slid away, and she fell into two more pairs of waiting hands. They wrapped around her, torso and pulled her all the way in as the two original assailants hopped in the back, pulling the door closed after them.
Rose was dropped on her back, her head nearest the rear of the van, her feet pointing toward the front windshield. She couldn’t see the dashboard because a curtain separated the cab from the back. Hands were firmly holding her elbows and knees to the carpeted floor. Her mind told her mouth to open and shout but her lips wouldn’t respond. Her brain demanded her mouth to open, but when the muscles attempted to react she felt sharp, needling pain. It was the pain of trying to pull your tongue off dry ice. Her lips were sealed together as if she had kissed cement.
She began to hum in panic. The hands on her arms remained sure, but she managed to pull one of her legs out from under the grip. She kicked out at the van walls, only to feel her toe hit something soft. It made the sound of a penny hitting a bed. Her only accomplishment was to expose her handsome leg from the skirt of her wraparound dress. Her attackers hardly seemed interested. While one hand retrieved her loose leg, another hand began massaging the side of her neck.
“Don’t fight it,” she heard a gentle male voice admonish. “We won’t hurt you. Just relax and take it easy. There’s nothing to worry about. Just keep still and you won’t come to any harm.”
The words sent a chill up her spine. She couldn’t just he there, she had to fight. But try as she might, her limbs wouldn’t respond. She felt her eyes rapidly blinking and the warmth of the hand on her neck. She wanted to see the faces of the people holding her down, but her eyesight was getting fuzzy. She groaned in despair as she felt herself drifting down to a dark, soft cloud.
“There, there,” she heard the male voice from far, far away. “That’s better, isn’t it? Isn’t that nice?”
Rose Ray didn’t lose consciousness. She floated in a tender, silky world inside her head. She felt too weak to do anything but feel. The activity around her body in the van, meanwhile, had picked up speed.
One of the men who had pushed her in jumped on the driver’s seat and propelled the vehicle to an alley three blocks away. On the way there, the van passed the Uhuru house. They had to make their careful way around several news trucks and a small bunch of reporters, but since the van only had two curtained windows in the back besides the cab’s glass, no one was the wiser. And the driver couldn’t resist throwing a sarcastic wave at the front porch.
The alley was big enough to hold the van and the large Cadillac which had pulled alongside. Four black men sat silently in the parked Caddy. Inside the van they were taking off Rose Ray’s clothes. The quartet of kidnappers in the back moved her around like a flaccid Barbie Doll. Occasionally her eyelids would open, but her dark eyes saw nothing. Occasionally she would moan behind the thin seal over her mouth, but the sound was no greater than a sigh.
The red wrap skirt came off to reveal a dark blue spandex bra and panties. A knife suddenly appeared in a man’s hand. He sliced open the bra between her breasts and over both shoulders. The garment fell away.
“Good,” said a feminine voice. “Size 34 and sturdy.”
While two men sat Rose up and held her arms above her head, the other two men pulled off her shoes and quickly measured her waist and inseam. Incongruously, one man then measured her shoe size. And while they toiled, a woman was meticulously wrapping tape tightly around the black girl’s chest.
The men working below her waist moved over to a small box against the van wall. Out of it they pulled a dark, man’s shirt, a cap, a pair of sneakers, and some straight-leg jeans. They laid the jeans out on the floor next to Rose. One man used a needle to punch a small hole behind the knee of the right denim leg, then punched a hole above the knee of the left pant leg. The other man picked at a special flap of cloth just under the jean’s waistband to reveal a zipper alongside both pockets. He then unzipped both pockets so they opened like doors on either side of the pants.
By then the woman had finished taping down Rose’s breasts. The tape had pressed them out against her chest, not flattening her, but greatly diminishing her femininity. As the woman cut away the last piece of sticky stuff, a man strapped a pad across her stomach, evening out the torso girth somewhat. The dark shirt was passed over and put on the woozy girl. When it had been buttoned down the front, she looked several inches wider—almost mannish.
She was laid back down, stomach up, as the men nearest her feet pulled out a roll of thick, rubber-coated wire. They tied a loop around both her wrists, then tied those to both her thighs. The woman then taped the rest of her hands flat against the side of her thighs. The men tied a double loop of wire just above her right knee, letting a double strand hang down off it.
Then the jeans were pulled on. When they got to her knees, a man pushed the two hanging ends of the wire through the hole in the pant leg. He then pushed it through the other hole in the top of the other leg. Before the jeans were pulled up any higher, he tied the long double strand tightly around Rose’s left leg, just above her left knee. He pulled it tight so one leg was above the other. Finally he pulled the jeans all the way up. The pockets zipped back over her bound hands so none of the wire or tape showed. They tucked the shirttail in and sat Rose up again.
The woman went to work on her hair while one man held her head still and another man took out a makeup kit and approached her face. The woman pinned the loose curls back while the man smeared her face with a uniform base color. He was careful to blend the edges of the dark tape in with the rest of her skin. Then, taking out a delicate brush and some pots of color, he began drawing over the seal on her mouth.
Rose Ray awoke completely in the back seat of the Cadillac. She turned her head to the left. A black man smiled at her. She looked forward, her vision clearing. Two more black men in the front seat were turning around and smiling. She looked down at someone else’s body. An unobtrusive seat belt held a man’s waist firmly against the plush seat. The man’s knees were folded over each other. As much as she tried, Rose couldn’t get these alien legs to uncross.
The Caddy was a mediumly expensive one so there wasn’t much leg room. It kept her from kicking out with the bottom of these strange legs. On her feet were high-rise sneakers. Her hands were in the pant pockets. She couldn’t pull them out. She couldn’t even wiggle her fingers. She looked to the right. A tall woman with streaked brown hair and loop earrings stared back at her and smiled.
“I see you’re ready to go,” the woman said. “We just couldn’t drive off with you lying against one of your friends here. That would defeat the whole purpose of the exercise.”
Rose tried to reply, but no sound came out and the stabbing, rending pain came back.
“No, no
, dear,” the woman cautioned. “Be quiet. Your lips are sealed by a plaster-chloroform mixture. Just enough chloroform to keep you weak but not enough to affect those near you. And more than enough plaster to serve. Only we have another mixture to get it off your face. If you tried, all your skin would be ripped off with it.”
The woman placed her hands on Rose’s arm and shoulder and moved her against the man to her left. “So just sit up straight, dear. It would be too dangerous to move you to your destination all bound up in the back of a van. It would look too suspicious when Mohamid finds you missing. We’re going to get you out of the district right before their eyes. And they won’t even see you.”
To prove her point, the woman reached into her large pocketbook and pulled out a mirror. She held it before Rose. Someone else’s face stared back. Her hair had been pushed under a cap and the back had been cut off to a boyish style. Her skin was a darker color. And worst of all, there were a pair of dark, male lips painted exactly where her full, rosy lips should be. To anyone looking in the car there would be just three black guys in the back seat, one with his hands nonchalantly in his pockets.
Rose’s face crumbled and tears welled up in her eyes as she looked in supplication at the woman.
“Ah, now for the final touch,” the woman remarked as she put the mirror back in her purse. When her hand came out, it was holding two cotton balls. “Close your eyes,” she instructed. Rose pulled herself back, her eyes widening with fear. “Close your eyes,” the woman said again, quieter. Rose felt a male hand on the back of her head. She closed her eyes.
The woman placed one specially treated cotton ball each over her eyes. They stuck her lids closed and also absorbed any moisture that leaked out. The woman then pulled a large set of sunglasses out of her bag. With a flourish, she placed them over Rose’s eyes.
“We’re all set then,” she concluded, stepped out of the Caddy and waved a black man holding the door for her in. “Have a nice ride,” she breathed to Rose. The frightened black girl felt the two men on either side of her press in. One put his arm around her shoulders.
“Act naturally,” he warned. “A sudden move and you’ll never see how you died.”
Rose sobbed silently, drily, as the car drove out of the alley and into the night.
It was Saturday afternoon and ABC-TV was waving a tit in Harry Callahan’s face. The cop was recuperating from yesterday’s classroom attack by re-creating the dream of every red-blooded American male. That is, he was sitting around in his apartment, wearing an undershirt, drinking beer, and watching a football game. The only thing marring this classically macho tableau was that Harry was fifteen minutes early. The pre-game show was not set to commence until 1:30. So Harry was stuck with the last quarter of American Bandstand.
Dick Clarke was there, looking about the same as he had for the past three decades, and the set was more or less as Harry remembered it from his teens, but the dancers were completely different. Harry couldn’t help but marvel at the teens and cameramen’s almost total lack of taste and innocence. These kids didn’t want to dance, they wanted to shake whatever they had the most of, and the photographers wanted a close-up of whatever that was.
Harry stared in quiet awe at the bouncing breasts of young girls dissolving into high-heel, ankle-strap stiletto shoes dissolving into thrusting pelvises dissolving into heavily painted faces winking and licking their lips. Harry had to get another beer after a cameraman shot from the floor up a girl’s dress as she spun around in place. Whatever happened to the freshness of Kenny Rossi and Carol Ann Scaldeferri and Frankie Lobis and Arlene Sullivan, he wondered, and the other regular dancers on “AB’s” golden age twenty-five years ago?
The telephone rang in reply. That was the only answer he was going to get for the moment. Lieutenant Bressler was on the other end of the line, and he wasn’t interested in pubescent flesh.
“Harry, get down to Uhuru headquarters,” he demanded without so much as a hello. “All hell has broken loose.”
“What’s the matter?” Harry wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” cried the lieutenant, “but for some reason, Mohamid boarded up all the entrances and opened fire on the reporters.”
“Opened fire?”
“Guns, Callahan! Weapons. The Uhuru headquarters has become an armed camp!”
When Harry got to the Mission District, things were already in full swing. An impressive police cordon was around the Victorian house, and cops were coming out of the woodwork in every dwelling nearby. There were snipers on the roofs across the way, SWAT teams crawling all over the trees, and a platoon of uniformed men behind a fleet of squad cars lining every street on four sides of the Uhuru house.
Mohamid’s place was tightly closed with planks nailed to the inside of the windows and not a soul was to be seen in the yard or garage. For the present, all guns were silent. The area birds and assorted wildlife were taking the opportunity to sing and buzz their heads off, as if absolutely nothing was happening that sunny San Francisco afternoon.
Harry was waved over by a uniformed man. He flashed the cop his badge as he got out and asked where Captain Avery was. Callahan was sent over to the captain, who was holding court behind his big Cutlass Supreme, which was parked in the front yard of the house across from the Uhuru residence.
When Avery saw Harry approaching, he sent the collected officers on their way. He turned to greet Callahan full front, with a satisfied smile on his face.
“Still think Mohamid is an innocent dupe of a frame-up, Callahan?” the captain barked.
“Maybe,” Harry said slowly, deliberately. “What happened?”
“Nothing!” Avery proclaimed. “Everything was exactly as it was. People were coming and going, when, suddenly, for no reason at all, Mohamid shuts the place up and starts firing upon the police guards and members of the press.”
Harry ignored Avery’s dramatic rhetoric for the most part. His flowery regular conversation was born of years facing those very same members of the press. “For no reason at all?” Harry repeated. “Did anyone ask Mohamid?”
“No one can get near Mohamid!” Avery declared. “If anyone goes near the place they’re shot at.”
“From where?”
“Everywhere.”
“Did you actually see a shot from every single window,” Harry asked purposefully, “or are you guessing?”
Avery bristled at that, drawing himself up to his full height, which was still two inches shorter than Harry. “Might I remind you, Inspector, that I’m the captain and not the other way around?”
“No, that’s OK,” said Harry, squinting across the street at the silent Uhuru home. “Don’t go out of your way.”
“I won’t stand for any more of your insubordination, Inspector!” Avery shouted in Harry’s ear. “I only had you called here to show you how wrong you can be. If you had arrested Mohamid when we found the Steinbrunner girl, none of this would have happened!”
“How do you figure?” Harry asked, looking down at the captain’s flushed face.
“Mohamid knew you’d do some more investigating, so he sent three of his men to kill you at the university.”
“What for?” Harry interrupted.
“So you wouldn’t find the link between him and the girl,” Avery contended.
“What link?”
“The link we are sure to find if we look hard enough,” Avery maintained. “And when he failed to kill you, he decided to make a stand here.”
“I don’t understand,” Harry said flatly. “If he was guilty, why not just make a run for it?”
“These aren’t rational people!” Avery exclaimed. “These are people who’d kidnap, gang-rape, and murder a beautiful blond girl!”
Avery looked up at Callahan in triumph, as if his logic was unimpeachable. Harry looked down, pasting an expression that said “Why didn’t I think of that” on his face. He waited until after the captain had turned to face the Uhuru house to shake and hit the side of his head as
if there were water in his ear.
“Hand me that megaphone,” Avery told a subordinate. “I’m going to give Mohamid an ultimatum.”
“Uh, excuse me, Captain,” Harry said as the bullhorn was handed up to his blond boss. “But may I try to talk to Mohamid before we do anything final?”
Avery smiled at the inspector. “Know when to admit your mistakes, eh, Callahan?” he smirked. Harry looked at him through narrowed lids, as if the sun were in his eyes. His top lip curled up. “Well,” Avery continued, “you two go back a ways.” He handed Harry the megaphone. “Go ahead. Give it a shot.”
Callahan took the device and walked slowly toward the picket fence around the Victorian. He stopped when the top of the barrier touched his thighs. The rest of the cops watched and waited. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut.
“Mohamid,” Harry called through the speaker. “This is Harry Callahan. I don’t know what’s the matter, but this is only making it worse. You know you’re not going to get out of this alive the way things are. If you force them these guys will rip you up like so much paper. I don’t care how many guns you have or how many men you have. I don’t care if you have a box of grenades in there. There’ll be no fighting your way out.
“A couple of guys might die out here, maybe, but all you guys will die in there for sure. You start it . . . you even look like you’re gonna start it and these boys will be ready to send you to hell. And if you think that’s going to make you a martyr to the cause, forget it. All these reporters out here will be happy to film every second of the destruction in slow motion and from twelve angles and it won’t change a goddamn thing. They’ll put it on the six o’clock news tonight, and nobody’ll give a shit. You’ll be sandwiched between a Charmin commercial and a report about talking parrots and none of your brothers or sisters will even care.”
Harry lowered the bullhorn for a second, licked his lips, and went back to it. “I’m going to come in now, Big Ed. I’m going to walk to the front door and get in any way I can. I would appreciate it if you would meet me there. I give you my personal guarantee of protection.”