The Black Stiletto: Black & White

by Raymond Benson

  Her beautiful face was bruised. Not only by the large one covering her left cheek, but also by the dark rings around her left eye.

  Her body was also covered in cuts and abrasions.

  She had apparently put up a vigorous fight.

  That bastard.

  If I could get my hands on him, I’d kill him. I really would. I’d beat his head in with a baseball bat. That always works.

  The good thing, it turned out, was that she wasn’t raped—but the guy had tried. The crime was interrupted before the deed was done. But that didn’t make the ordeal any less traumatic for my darling daughter.

  We sat with Gina for an hour, and then she went to sleep. An Indian doctor assured us that from a physical standpoint she’d be fine. He expected her to be released tomorrow or the following day. The jaw would heal in six to eight weeks and cause no permanent damage. With some physical therapy over the next few weeks, she’ll be okay.

  Her emotional wounds were a different story. Dr. Rahman outlined a counseling and rehabilitation plan that Gina must follow. According to him, many victims have found it extremely helpful. In time, he predicted, Gina would move on and put this terrible incident behind her.

  Bullshit. I knew better. Just look at my mom and how she reacted to being sexually assaulted.

  Then we met with NYPD Detective Ken Jordan in the hospital cafeteria. Carol and I hadn’t eaten a thing and we were starving. Jordan, who wore plainclothes and a gun belt, had coffee. I was all set to berate him for not catching the black guy who was seen running away from my fallen daughter.

  It turned out Detective Ken Jordan was black too.

  The guy was in his late forties, I think. He started off explaining how the crime went down. It was Sunday night and Gina was out with some friends. It was a pleasant evening, so she decided to walk home along Riverside Park. It was 10:00 at night and normally this would have been a perfectly safe thing to do. A lot of people were still out and about. Still, wouldn’t Gina have known better? What was she doing walking alone in the park at night?

  The perpetrator simply approached her on the park sidewalk in the vicinity of West 75th Street and Riverside Drive. Gina said the man had a knife and forced her into the trees. There he beat her and started to do his business, but he was startled by two joggers who luckily appeared out of nowhere. The culprit grabbed her purse and ran. The joggers saw he’d left a white clump on the dark ground, went to investigate, found my daughter, and called the police.

  “So you’re personally gonna catch him, right?” I asked, pointing at the detective.

  Jordan looked at me sideways. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, he is black, right?”

  “Sir, I’m not sure I know what that’s supposed to mean. As a matter of fact, the perpetrator is white. Your daughter told me so.”

  Boy, did I feel foolish. I looked at Carol and back at him. “We were told a witness saw a black man running from the scene.”

  Jordan nodded. “The two joggers both thought he was black, and we were going on that until your daughter regained consciousness. She said he had a dark scarf covering his face. Perhaps that’s why the witnesses thought he was black. She saw his eyes and the skin around it. He was definitely a white man.”

  “I see.” I felt like crawling under the table. I hadn’t meant anything racist by what I’d said, but I’m sure it came out that way.

  “Do you have any leads?” Carol asked.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Talbot—”

  “We’re not married,” she said. “I’m Carol Wilton.”

  “We were married,” I explained, but that was probably information I didn’t need to add.

  Jordan nodded. “Your daughter’s case is very similar to some other assaults we’re investigating. We believe it’s the work of an individual who’s done this more than once. What your daughter was able to tell me jibes with some of the details of the other cases. We think they’re all related. In fact, your daughter knows one of the other victims—she attends Juilliard as well.” He paused a second and then added, “In those crimes the sexual assault was completed. Gina was very lucky.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better. “You’re talking about a serial rapist.”

  He nodded. “Could be. We’re not sure yet.”

  “So what do you want us to do?” I asked.

  Jordan seemed surprised by that question. “Do? All you need to do is take care of your daughter. See her through this tough time.”

  Carol suppressed a sob and asked, “Should we plan to stay in New York for an extended period of time?”

  “Not at all, depending on how Gina is cared for, that is. You two can go back to Chicago any time you want.”

  “Wait,” I said, “you mean there’s nothing we can do? I want this bastard caught.”

  “We do too, Mr. Talbot. And we’ll catch him. Eventually he’ll screw up and we’ll get him.”

  It was mid-afternoon when Carol and I took a cab to our hotel, which was just a few blocks away. Hotel Empire on West 63rd Street was a decent two hundred dollar-a-night New York hotel, a reasonable rate for its prime location near Lincoln Center. Divested of bags, we could easily walk from the hotel to the hospital.

  We checked in to separate rooms, of course.

  Once I was alone, I found myself juggling an odd mixture of moods. I felt sorry for Gina and dreaded what she would have to go through to get better. I spent a few good minutes crying. The tears stopped when I realized how extremely angry I was. I was mad that it happened at all, mad at the bastard that did it, mad at the police for not catching him, and mad that I was helpless and couldn’t do a thing about it.

  I started to unpack and noticed my cell phone was still off. They made me turn it off on the airplane, and I didn’t remember to turn it back on. I did so, and found a voice message waiting for me.

  It was my new boss, Konnors. Oh, shit. I never told him I had to take an emergency trip to New York.

  The call was short and sweet. Konnors said he’d already replaced me. He thanked me for wasting his time.

  I phoned him back, waited a minute or two, and he answered. I explained what had happened to my daughter. He expressed sympathy, just as he had when I had to deal with Mom in the hospital. But he also said he had a job to do.

  Konnors told me, “You seem like a nice guy and I’m sorry for all the bad stuff that’s happening in your life, but I needed a guy last week. I can’t afford to wait for you. Sorry, Mr. Talbot.”

  I told him he was insensitive, which was another example of me acting on impulse and saying the wrong thing without thinking first. I guess I burned that bridge.

  Carol and I had planned to have some dinner together and then go see Gina again that evening. We could’ve gone back to the hospital after checking in, but a nurse suggested that Gina needed to rest. Too much excitement this soon was probably not a good idea. So there I was in my Manhattan hotel room and I had a couple of hours to kill.

  And I thought—somewhere in the city was that shithead, Johnny Munroe.

  If I only I knew someone in New York. A cop. A lawyer. Someone I could trust. I needed help if I was going to take on Munroe. I had very little money, so paying him was not only absurd, it was impossible. Should I go to the New York cops?

  I sat and thought through the ramifications of doing so. I would have to tell them I was being extorted and then they’d want to know what Munroe was threatening to reveal. Cops don’t have to keep anything secret. They can gab to their wives or friends. The media often sniffs out the sensational stories from talkative policemen. I rejected going down that avenue.

  Then I glanced over at my open suitcase. My mom’s 1959 diary was sitting in there, nestled between the folded clothes.

  John Richardson. The FBI agent. Was he still alive? Was he still in New York? Would he remember my mother? If they were really sleeping together back then, then he’d be a total jerk if he’d forgotten about it.

  On a whim, I called information and
asked for the nonemergency number of the FBI’s New York Field Office. Surprisingly, I got it. I dialed it, but didn’t expect a live person to answer. A woman.

  “FBI.”

  “Oh, hi, I’m trying to find the whereabouts of a former agent who used to work here in New York in the nineteen fifties. I’m a friend of the family.”

  “Hold on, please.”

  I was transferred to another department. Another woman answered. “Human Resources.”

  Again, I explained what I was after. She asked for the former employee’s name, so I told her. I heard some typing and she said, “I’m not allowed to give out any contact information. If you would like to leave a message with us, we’ll see to it that he gets it.”

  So he was alive.

  After a moment’s hesitation, I said it. “Tell him Judy Cooper’s son called. My name is Martin Talbot.” I gave her my cell phone number.

  I hung up and picked up the diary. I suppose I should feel icky reading about my own mother’s love life, but actually I found it fascinating. She was a very progressive young woman for her day.

  When Mom mentioned the location of Richardson’s apartment building, I wondered if there was any chance in hell that he still lived there. Most likely not. He could have gotten married, had kids, and moved to the suburbs or to Florida or to Timbuktu. It was a highly unlikely possibility that he was in New York.

  I still wanted to see the building. In fact, I wanted to see all the locations my mother’s mentioned in her diaries and walk in her footsteps. Were the East Side Diner and the Second Avenue Gym still there? Now that I didn’t have to get back to Chicago by tomorrow, I could stay a while. Carol had a job, so I could volunteer to hang around for Gina, and Carol could go on back. She probably wouldn’t want to, but I could make the offer.

  And then I’d find the time to explore Mom’s haunts, as well as find a way to derail Johnny Munroe.

  32

  Judy’s Diary

  1959

  JULY 7, 1959

  It’s the wee early hours, around 2:00 a.m., and the Stiletto has struck back against the forces of greed, slimy blackmail, and revolting perversion!

  Yesterday evening I went to 36th Street and 3rd Avenue, near Munroe’s apartment building, dressed in civilian clothes. My Stiletto outfit was in my backpack and I looked like an ordinary college student trekking home from classes. I stopped at a pay phone and called Munroe’s studio. He picked up and I immediately put the phone down. Good.

  With lockpicks in hand, I stepped into the inner foyer of his building and easily gained entry through the security door. I went upstairs to the third floor and found the door marked “12.” Luckily, no neighbors saw me. Once again, a lockpick got me in the door. He had a dead bolt on it along with the regular lock in the knob, so it took a little more time and effort to finally get inside. But I did.

  Once I was there, I did a quick look around. The apartment reeked of tobacco smoke. The bedroom was a mess, clothes were scattered here and there, the bathroom was equally disgusting, and the living room appeared as if three bachelors lived there instead of one. The guy was a real slob at home.

  I proceeded to make my preparations. First I closed all the window blinds. I straightened up the bedroom enough so I could walk around the bed. He had one of those barlike headboards, which would suit my purposes just fine. I laid out my tools—rope, a gag, and a pair of heavy wire cutters I’d borrowed from the gym. Then I donned my Stiletto outfit, mask and all, and waited. And waited. And waited.

  It was around 11:30 p.m. when I heard Munroe’s key in the door. I quickly moved to a position against the wall behind the door just as it opened. As soon as he was within reach, I grabbed the bastard by his greasy slick hair, pulled back his head, and pressed the stiletto against his neck.

  “Don’t make a sound, you creep,” I said.

  I scared the heck out of him. He immediately started shaking and whimpering, trying to say, “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me—”

  “Shut up!” I said.

  I kicked the door closed behind us, let go of his hair so that I could turn the dead bolt, and then marched him into the bedroom. As soon as we were in there, I whirled him around and gave him a solid right hook to the jaw. He fell back on the bed, dazed. In five minutes I had him securely tied down, his arms affixed to the headboard, his legs to the box springs.

  The little guy wasn’t so tough and cocky now.

  “You took a lot of precautions to protect yourself at your studio, didn’t you?” I said. “Big ol’ bodyguard walking you to and from home. Plenty of metal gates on the windows and reinforced steel locks on the studio door. What is it you’re hiding in there, Munroe? Why do you need so much security for a photography studio? Is it because you’re a stinking, no-good blackmailer?”

  Sweat was pouring from his forehead. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. We can call the whole thing off. I—”

  “Shut up, I’m not finished! Didn’t you think someone like the Black Stiletto could find out where you live? Who do you think I am? Some loony girl who puts on a Halloween costume for fun and games? Are you really that stupid to think you could get away with blackmailing me? And where do you get the right to film me in private, in your dressing room, taking off my mask? I ought to slice off your nose right here just for doing that. Is that what you do to all your models? You secretly film them undressing? Are you some kind of pervert? What do you do with the pictures and film? Sell them? What, do you have a clientele of other perverts who buy that sort of thing?”

  “Please. . . I. . .”

  “Shut up!” I unbuckled his pants and pulled them down. He was wearing boxer shorts. Then I picked up the heavy-duty wire cutters.

  “You think you’re a real tough guy. Hanging out with the mob, blackmailing clients, strutting around like you’re Napoleon.”

  “What are you gonna do with those?”

  I worked the cutters in the air—snip, snip, snip—for effect. “Back on the ranch where I’m from, we’d take the troublesome bulls out of the pen and teach ’em a lesson.” I was making this stuff up; I never lived on a ranch and had no experience with cattle or livestock. “My daddy taught me how to castrate ’em with a tool just like this. And believe me, them bulls are a lot bigger than what you have down there. So I figure these snippers will do the job nicely.”

  “No! What do you want? Please?”

  He was terror stricken. Good. I had him where I wanted him.

  Snip, snip, snip. I lowered the cutters down to his shorts, and then I made as if I was about to pull ’em down. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to go that far! I had no desire to see that disgusting man’s willy-willy.

  “I’ll do anything! What do you want, please?”

  So I stopped and considered. “All right, for one thing, I want to know who has seen that film.”

  “No one! I swear!”

  “You haven’t shown it to your gangster buddies?”

  “No!”

  “Not your big fat bodyguard?”

  “No!”

  “You and I are the only ones who know the contents of that dressing room scene?”

  “Yes. I swear. Please!”

  Dear diary, you know how I can determine if someone is lying or not. He was too scared to lie. I believed him.

  “Does anyone know it exists?”

  He hesitated. Someone did.

  “Who knows?”

  “Franco DeLuca and a couple of his men. But they haven’t seen it. I swear!”

  “So you told him you have it and were negotiating a price for it?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “So you were gonna get ten grand from me, plus a lot of money from him? And maybe more from the media?”

  He nodded furiously.

  “How much was DeLuca gonna give you?”

  “Ten grand.”

  “And you’re absolutely positive no one has seen it? If you’re lying, I can tell. I have super Black Stiletto powers that can s
ee through liars. They’re part of the special abilities I picked up when I came down from outer space.”

  His eyes grew wide then. I wanted to laugh, but I successfully stayed in character. I think he actually believed I was from Mars or something, ha ha.

  “All right,” I said. “I want all the copies of the film, any photos you developed from it, and the negatives. We’re gonna make sure they’re destroyed. Okay?”

  He nodded. “Sure. But there’s one thing.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve already set a plan in motion. If anything happens to me, the film will automatically go to DeLuca—and the police.”

  I studied his eyes. The bastard was lying.

  “Really?” I picked up the snippers again and pulled down his boxers. Ewww, his thing was all shriveled and ugly. I opened the cutters and placed the sharp edges right against his scrotum. It was sickening, but I tried not to let it show how gross it was for me. “Guess what. I can tell you’re lying.”

  “No! Please no! Don’t do it!”

  I applied a little pressure. He could feel the blades.

  He screamed.

  “Shut up! Am I gonna have to gag you? Now, I’m gonna snip one off and see if you’re willing to comply with my demands. If not, then, well, I’ll have to snip off the other one.”

  “All right! I was lying! The film is safe at my studio!”

  I pulled away the cutters. “There is no ‘plan in motion’ to send it to DeLuca or the police or anyone?”

  “No!”

  “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.” I pulled up his boxer shorts and then his pants. “Right, so now you’re gonna let me have the keys to your studio, and you’re going to tell me exactly where all these things are kept. I’m gonna go over there while you rest nice and comfortable here. Once I find what I’m looking for, I’ll come back and release you. Easy as that. You can live to shoot film another day.”

  At that moment I saw something dark cross his face. Something in his eyes.

  There was something at the studio he didn’t want me to see.