CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I didn’t expect to see her again so soon, so I was actually asleep when Yelena appeared outside my window and knocked. I woke and let her in. It was past three in the morning and I wasn’t only sleepy, I had little energy. This time she told me to take anything I wanted to keep and that she would explain later. I didn’t care about the explanation or how fatigued I was, I just wanted to go with her. I told her all I wanted were the art supplies she gave me and my pig slippers. We fled into the night sky like we had before. We descended to her car and soon we were driving in the Hollywood Hills, though I didn’t see the hills at the time. I had fallen asleep again.
She tucked me in my bed and then sat with me until it was nearly dawn and she became tired herself. Hisato and his girls would also be retiring so she did too, entering her secret chamber through her wardrobe and laying herself to rest in her coffin.
*
Very early in the morning, I woke and didn’t know what to do with myself. The house was dark. I didn’t know if the sun was up. All the window coverings were down. I knew I shouldn’t go outside, but I wasn’t sure if I could make noise or watch TV. I walked around the house but didn’t see Yelena asleep anywhere, but I figured she would sleep all day, wherever it was she slept. I went into the kitchen and couldn’t find any sugary cereal but I found blueberry pie in a tin and brought that to the table and ate it instead. The phone rang a few times but I didn’t answer it. I knew better than that. But then I heard the garage door open and shut. It was followed by the sound of a key being inserted in the lock of a door I guessed led into the garage. I was scared and jumped off the kitchen chair where I was sitting and ran back to my bedroom and hid under the bed. The house was so quiet that even from under my bed I could hear the door click back into the latch. Someone with loud shoes was walking through the house. The footsteps went into the kitchen and then came out; they came down the hall, coming closer to where I was hiding. From under the bed, I saw them. They were men’s dress shoes and the pants looked like a suit. They didn’t look like cop pants. Whoever it was stopped and stood in my doorway. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe.
“Orly, you can come out. It’s okay. I won’t turn you in.”
I still didn’t make a sound in case it was a trick.
“My name is Berthold. I’m Yelena’s lawyer. I arranged Yelena’s meeting with Sigrid. Yelena told me she brought you from the hospital last night.”
I still didn’t move.
“I imagine you’re either under the bed or in the closet. I assure you I’m not going to turn you in. I’ve been instructed to take you someplace safe. Yelena said she told you about that.”
I began to remember. As I slept last night, I could hear Yelena’s voice: “Berthold will come in the morning. You must go with him. He will keep you safe.”
“I’ll be in the kitchen. You need something more nutritious than pie for breakfast.” And I saw the shoes turn on their heels and leave.
I waited until I could smell something cooking to come out from under the bed. I went into the kitchen. A suit jacket was slung over one of the kitchen chairs. A tall man stood at the stove with his back to me. It was the first time I had seen Berthold. “How many pancakes would you like?” he asked without turning around. I thought I had been quiet but he knew I was there.
“Where is Yelena?” I asked.
“Sleeping.”
“Yeah, but where?”
“That I cannot tell you.” He finally turned around to face me. He was very handsome. I wanted to draw him immediately. “Just one pancake,” I said and I went back to my room to get a pen and paper.
I was still sketching him when he placed a plate beside my drawing. It was one pancake but it was big enough that it should have been three. I looked at him.
“You should eat. I don’t know when lunch will be.”
I didn’t finish drawing him, but I knew from what I did draw that he was the one Yelena used to clean up the bodies she left in her wake. I ate my pancake.
*
He did the dishes while I got ready. I had my own bathroom and it had brand new everything—toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soaps. The shower floor had little colorful rubber fish stuck to the floor so I wouldn’t slip. Inside the shower there were bottles of shampoo and conditioner. They reminded me I had no hair. After my shower, I dried off and went back to my room in a towel. I looked through my closet. All the clothes were black. I picked out a black dress with straps, but wore my hoodie over it, the one that I left behind the night the cops came with Sigrid. Someone had hung it in my closet. I put on a pair of black Mary Jane shoes. While I was brushing my teeth, Berthold came to get me.
“All set?”
I nodded and spit out the toothpaste and rinsed my mouth and turned to follow him.
“Just a second,” he said. He went to my dresser and took the long brown wig Yelena bought me off of a pewter wig stand. He held it out to me.
“I don’t know how,” I said.
Berthold slipped the wig over my scalp and, with a difficulty Yelena had not had, he put my hair in place.
*
We went through the garage. He opened the back door of a shiny black four-door car for me and told me to get in. The windows were tinted dark, but he told me I needed to lie down as we drove, at least until he said I could sit up.
“I could ride in the trunk,” I said, trying to sound helpful. But the real truth was that I always wanted to ride in the trunk of a car.
“No. That won’t be necessary,” he said.
I got in back and lay down. He shut the door and then opened the driver door and got in. I heard the garage door roll open and the garage filled with early morning light. I could feel the car backing out and watched him press a button to close the garage again.
As we drove, I stared up at the ceiling, and tried guessing when we were turning right and turning left.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked him.
“To one of Yelena’s other houses.”
“Won’t they look for me there?”
“No, they won’t.” I was skeptical at the time how he knew they wouldn’t think to look for me there. I know now the title to the house wasn’t in Yelena’s name.
“Is it far away?”
“It’s in Thousand Oaks. Do you know where that is?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Well, we’ll be there soon enough.”
“Are you going to stay there with me?” I asked.
“I can’t, Orly. I have other business.”
“I don’t want to go to Thousand Oaks.”
“There’s nothing that can be done about that. Those were Yelena’s instructions.”
I rolled my eyes up and looked out the window above me. I could see the morning sky and freeway signs and the occasional overpass. I had no idea in which direction Thousand Oaks was. “Can’t I go with you instead? I’ll be real quiet.”
“I’m sure you would. But that just isn’t possible, Orly.”
“Can I sit up yet?”
“A little while more, okay?”
I remembered I had the half scribble of Berthold on me. I had folded it up and put it in my hoodie pocket, thinking I would finish it later. My hoodie was a little twisted with the way I was lying in the back seat. I squirmed to get it out of my pocket. I unfolded it and stared at it for a little while.
“Who is Marcel?” I finally asked.
“What? ‘Who is Marcel?’”
“Yeah. Who is he?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. The name is in your scribble. Is he your brother or something?”
“I see. You scribbled me. No. He is not my brother. He is…he was a friend of Yelena’s.”
“Uh-huh. Does Yelena know you hate him?”
He adjusted the rear view mirror so he could see my face.
“Can I sit up now?” I asked again. He nodded and replaced the mirror to its original position.
; “Do I hate him?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“I don’t know what Yelena knows. But my feelings aren’t important.”
“I thought everybody’s feelings were supposed to be important. That’s what they told us at my first group home.”
He didn’t answer.
“Does Yelena know you love her? Like boyfriend-love her?” I didn’t actually see this in his scribble. There’s never love in the scribbles. I just guessed that he must love her. Yelena is so beautiful and his job makes him close to her, so how could he not?
“I told you, my feelings aren’t important.”
That made me think I was right. He loves her, but I sensed he didn’t want to talk and so I stared at the scribble again and eventually saw something I didn’t notice while scribbling. “Holy shit! You put bodies in the trunk?”
He looked at me again in the mirror. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“You don’t have to pretend. I know she kills people. How many are in there? I can’t tell ‘cuz I didn’t finish the drawing.”
“There aren’t any bodies in the trunk.”
“You’re lying. You’re supposed to bury them. Is that what you have to do after you drop me off at Hundred Oaks? I want to go with you.”
“I told you. There are no bodies in the trunk and I told you you can’t go with me.”
I could tell he knew I knew he was lying. I wanted to go with him desperately. I don’t know why, but I really wanted to see the bodies. I would have thought it was the sex tourist but there was only one of him and the scribble told me there was more than one body in the trunk. “If you don’t take me with you, I’ll tell Yelena you love her.”
He paused for a moment, looking at me again in the mirror. Finally he said, “Tell her, then. If I took you with me I’d have to tell her myself anyway. And I’d have to also tell her that you used it to blackmail me.”
“What’s ‘blackmail’ mean?”
“Usually it means demanding money from someone in exchange for not revealing injurious information about them. But in your case, instead of demanding money, you’re demanding I do something I shouldn’t do, like taking you with me on my business. Blackmail is a criminal offense, Orly. Any other questions?”
“What does ‘injurious’ mean?”
“Injurious means that it’s something that can harm someone else.”
“Oh,” I said and thought about it for a while. Berthold’s eyes went back on the road and my eyes went again to the scribble. Finally I asked, “Does she pay you lots of money to be her lawyer?”
“Yes. She does.”
“But that’s not why you’re her lawyer, right? You want her to make you like her. Like a vampire, I mean.”
I think by this time he knew there was no use in denying anything I saw in the scribble.
“You’re a smart girl, Orly.”
That made me feel good and I smiled.
“Can I ask you one more thing?”
“Go ahead.”
“Would it be injurious of me if I told Yelena you jacked off to me?”
“You know that’s not true.”
“I know. But I’d say it’s in your scribble.”
Before I threatened him, I didn’t know how much he feared Yelena, or if he feared her at all.
“You know she has the power to demand the truth out of someone. She would force the truth out of me and know it’s not true.”
I knew he was right. She would do that to find the truth. But I really wanted to go with him so I’d have to think of something else. I folded his scribble back up and tucked it into the pocket of the seat before me. I pressed the button on the door to lower the window. The air rushed in and instantly my hair was a mess. It was blown over my face, shielding my eyes. Ordinarily one would find that annoying, but it made me laugh. It was something I hadn’t experienced in such a long while. I unzipped my hoodie and removed it so that I could feel the surging air cascade over my naked arms.
I took off my glasses, removed my seatbelt and then pulled my dress over my head. I had never needed a bra and so I was topless.
“What are you doing?” Berthold asked, perturbed, staring at me in the rearview mirror. “Put your dress back on, now!”
I didn’t listen. I kicked off my Mary Janes and stood up on the back seat and slipped off my panties. With the exception of the kaleidoscope key studded with diamonds hanging around my neck, I was completely nude. I saw Berthold’s hand reach for the button on his own door panel but I stuck my head out the window before he could roll it up. We were driving so fast that my wig was ripped off my head and I watched it blow away along the side of the freeway like litter.
Berthold yelled something but with my head out the window, I didn’t hear him clearly. I pulled my bald head back inside, but immediately pressed my hand down over the window slit. Berthold tried again to roll up the window and my hand started to rise, but I kept my hand firm and bent my arm at a ninety-degree angle so that my elbow was quickly pushed up against the top of the door. I screamed, signaling that it was about to hurt, and he let go of the button.
“Put your clothes on!” he yelled.
With my other hand I reached for my hoodie and threw it out the window. Any passing car would see me, a child, standing completely disrobed and screaming.
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded with a shout.
“I wanna see the bodies! I wanna see what you do with them!”
He didn’t answer.
“Tell her the truth then! You can tell her you seen my little girl pussy!” I cried.
He was stunned and muttered something that was drowned out by the rushing air.
“What?”
“Okay!” he yelled.
“Promise?”
“Yes!”
I pulled my arm off the door and he quickly rolled up the window and pressed the child lock.
I sat back down.
“Please put your clothes back on,” he said calmly.
I pulled my panties back on and then slipped the dress over my head but left my shoes on the floor.
“Your seatbelt too,” he said, and I buckled myself back in.
He looked back to the road. He was thinking again, but not for long. We exited the freeway on the next offramp. We pulled into a gas station. He shut the car off and turned around in his seat to look me in the face. “You’re something else, Orly,” he said. “Promise me you’ll never tell Yelena I took you with me.”
“I pinky-promise,” I said, and kissed my little finger and held it out to him. But he didn’t know what to do. He got out of the car and began to refill the gas tank. I climbed into the front passenger seat. At the time I thought I was a great manipulator, since I manipulated a lawyer, but now, when I look back at things, I see that he wanted me to see the bodies all along. He thought and hoped their lifeless, decaying forms would scare me away.
*
When we got back on the road I was pretty sure we were driving in the opposite direction. Berthold didn’t speak much and we drove for what felt like hours. Forgetting to blink, as I looked out the window at all the cars and the buildings and the street signs, it eventually put me to sleep. When I opened my eyes again, all the things that made a place look like a big city were gone. Now outside my window the world had become serene. We were in the desert. Cars were fewer, structures on the side of the road were intermittent, and the street signs seemed to appear only every few miles.
I thought about what a risk it was for Berthold to be driving around with dead bodies. Maybe it was riskier in the daytime, maybe less so. I really don’t know. I wondered what he would do if a policeman stopped us. Nothing would happen to me—I was a child and would be seen as a victim. But his life would certainly be ruined. How precious immortality must be to him to take these kinds of chances. And for how long had he been doing it? Personally, up until that day, I never thought of immortality because by the time I was old enough to think of such things, I was already
dying.
The car suddenly slowed and Berthold crossed the double yellow line that bisected the road, turning left onto a narrow dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The road was bumpy and we drove on it for a long time. We went over a small hill, and after we were over it and I looked in the side mirror I could no longer see the highway. But through the windshield there was finally something unnatural to look at.
It was a large structure that looked like big barn made out of tin siding. We drove up to it and Berthold opened his door and got out with the car still running. He went to the barn and unlocked a large sliding door and slid it open. It appeared dark inside. He came back to the car, got in and drove inside the barn. He turned on the headlights. It was empty inside except for a piece of heavy equipment. I didn’t know what it was called at the time, but it was a backhoe. He drove the car close to the opposite end of the barn and killed the engine. He jogged back to the sliding door and closed us in. I climbed back into the back seat and put my shoes back on. I got out of the car. The headlights were still on, and through vents in the upper parts of the walls thin shafts of sunlight crept in. He didn’t jog back to the car. He walked. And while he did, he began to unbutton his shirt. He asked me to turn around, which I did and I heard the trunk pop open. I heard the rustling of what sounded like a plastic bag. From the sounds of things, I was pretty sure he was undressing and redressing. I heard the car door open and shut. He told me I could turn around. His suit was gone. He was now wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and work boots.
The trunk of the car was still open. I stepped closer to it and looked inside. There appeared to be three bodies. One of them was much shorter than the others. They were all wrapped in plastic so I couldn’t see their faces.
“Excuse me,” Berthold said. It struck me as odd that he was being so polite in front of a trunk full of dead bodies.
He hunched over the trunk and, with a grunt, he pulled the first plastic-wrapped body out and it hit the dirt with a thud. It was hard to know for sure, but from what I perceived, I was pretty sure it was a woman. He grabbed a second body and dragged it out. This one was taller and broader than the first. Probably a man. When I looked back in the trunk, expecting to see one last body—the shorter one—I was surprised. There was a fourth, even smaller than the third. It dawned on me then that they were both children.
The Scribbled Victims Page 14