Nice Girls Finish Last

by Sparkle Hayter

  Dad always said Aunt Mo had never been young, she was born an old woman, but I knew from that picture that there had been a glimmer of youth there, however briefly.

  I asked her about the photo.

  “Oh my,” she said. “Oh my oh my.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Truman Dirk. I almost married him.”

  “Wow. Why didn’t you?”

  “He was shell-shocked, from World War II. He fought in the forest of Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge and it changed him. Oh, he could be wonderful though. He had a charm sometimes, a joy . . . but then something would set him off and he’d drink, he’d get violent. . .”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh it was hard. That’s when I turned to the church, to give me the strength to go on. I really loved him,” she said. “But he wouldn’t have been a good husband or a good father for my children. Archie, he was a good provider and a good father to Raymond.”

  I would dispute that, since Uncle Archie had spent most of his free time alone in the attic making cribbage boards out of firewood, when he should have been guiding his young son toward manhood. But maybe poor Raymond had been better off not spending a lot of time with his dad. Who knew? After all these years, nobody knew much about Uncle Archie.

  “How come you didn’t have more kids, Aunt Mo?”

  “Female problems,” she said. “I miscarried five times before I had Raymond, my miracle baby, and the doctor advised me not to have any after Raymond.”

  “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “It was my faith that got me through that too. And your Uncle Archie. It wasn’t easy for him.”

  I guess not. Back then, before the Pill, the only way you could be sure not to get pregnant was to abstain. Made me think that maybe, when Uncle Archie was up there alone in the attic, he had more than cribbage on his mind.

  “I think that’s why I took an extra interest in you. I thought of you as the daughter I never had,” she said. “What always got me through, Robin, was my faith. I just wanted you to have that same faith to help you through life, because life is hard.”

  “I envy you your faith, Aunt Mo,” I said softly. How comforting to have all the philosophy you want in one convenient book, and not have to pick it up willy-nilly from all over the known universe and then cobble it together.

  “I really do,” I went on. “But I’m just built differently. Blind faith just doesn’t work with me.”

  “Your father used to say almost the same thing to me. It’s funny. I never realized how much you remind me of your father.”

  I saw something of my father in her too. Like my father, she was tenacious, opinionated, and fiercely devoted to her own vision.

  “Let’s read the Bible, shall we?” Aunt Mo said. “It will give us strength.”

  She picked up a huge family Bible, the size of the Complete Pelican Shakespeare in hardcover, from behind the bed. I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “He let you keep your Bible?” I said.

  “Yes. And he made me tea.”

  “You carry that big Bible around with you everywhere?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it’s so heavy.”

  “I like feeling the weight of it,” she said. “It makes me aware always that God is with me. Now, I think this occasion calls for the Old Testament, when the Hebrews were in bondage to the pharaoh . . .”

  “Aunt Mo, we have to get out of here.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well, in the meantime, why don’t we pray for courage and inspiration,” Aunt Mo said, opening her Bible to Exodus and reading from it.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Mo, but would you mind reading that to yourself? I’m trying to think.”

  “The Bible will set you free,” Aunt Mo said, absently.

  I almost didn’t hear her. I was thinking about Elroy, wondering what he’d do to me, to Aunt Mo, to himself. Would he shave his legs with a rusty razor, then sit in an acid bath while we listened to his screams? Would he then lick my feet? Or would he go nuts and just shoot us?

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, the Bible will set you free.”

  “Let me hold that Bible.”

  It was heavy. Five pounds, maybe more.

  “Aunt Mo, we can stay here and behave ourselves and hope this nut lets us loose. Or we can do something. But it’s risky, either way.”

  “Let me take the risk,” she said. “I’m elderly, if I die, I know I’m going to heaven. But if you die . . .”

  “We’ll both be at risk, Aunt Mo,” I said. “Now, one of us will have to have her hands free. It will have to be you, I think. He’ll be less suspicious of you, because you’re an elderly Christian lady.”

  I outlined the rudiments of a plan and we discussed it. Before we had it nailed down, we heard a door opening in another room, and then heavy boots. He was back.

  It wasn’t Hector.

  It was Franco.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Franco was standing in the doorway, wearing his uniform and a hunting cap with ear flaps, which explained how Aunt Mo had missed those hairy ears in her description.

  But how had he ... ? Well, of course. During Hector’s shift, Franco must have called him from a nearby pay phone, had him call me. When I got into the car with Hector, Franco shot Hector and knocked me out. Franco could have taken my bag very easily. Franco could very easily switch the freight elevator tapes in security.

  Franco was not named Franco, and so he needed fake ID to work at ANN. That’s where Joey Pinks would have come in.

  Franco had flown below my radar.

  “Elroy,” I said.

  Elroy said nothing for a long time. After untying my mask and removing it, he gave us each a paper bag from McDonald’s, then sat down on the armless sofa, peeled a nicotine patch off his arm, and lit a cigarette. Then he just stared at me.

  “Are you going to let us go?” I asked.

  Stupid question, but it was worth a shot, anyway.

  “No,” he said.

  “Are you going to keep us?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “For how long?”

  He shrugged, continued to stare.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  “I just want to make you happy,” he said.

  You know, you pray for a man who will see all your finest qualities, and none of your worst ones. A man who will look on you adoringly, treat you like a queen.

  Be careful what you pray for ...

  “I would be so much happier if you’d let me go,” I said. “I can’t be happy like this.”

  “I know her,” Aunt Mo said. “She’s telling the truth.”

  “Shut up!” he said, suddenly angry. He pulled out his gun and pointed it at Aunt Maureen. “You shut up! I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “She’s tired,” I explained. “And she’s been in leather for a long time. Can’t she just take a shower? It would make her feel so much better. She’s elderly. Please.”

  “Eat first,” he said.

  I did eat, but I also took careful mental notes about Elroy. He had keys on his trouser loops. Presumably one of those keys fit the lock on the chains around my hands and feet. He had a gun holster. Black scuffed shoes.

  “Okay,” he said to Aunt Mo, suddenly sweet now. He unhooked her from her harness, unchained her, and took her at gunpoint to the bathroom. “Knock when you’re ready to come out. Take your time.”

  When he heard the shower going, he came back, reholstered his gun, and sat at my feet. The Bible was just out of reach.

  “We’re alone,” he said, kneeling at my feet, which he began to massage.

  Hurry up, Aunt Mo, I thought. It was disgusting. Not that I wouldn’t like it if someone else were doing it. He looked up at me, and I smiled politely, pretended I was enjoying it. I just knew at any moment he was going to start sucking on my toes and licking my feet.

  He
had it all set up now. He could make me spank him. He had my aunt as a hostage, he had me in harness, and he had a gun. By now, the cops had to know who Joey’s half-brother Vern was. Maybe they had prints. Maybe they had a photo. Still, all Franco had to do was cover those ears and he could move pretty easily around a big city like New York without detection. The New York Post says there are seventy thousand fugitives from justice—most of them felons—hiding out in New York.

  They might not find us for months. Years. A happy threesome, me, Aunt Mo, and Norman Bates. I have died. I have gone to hell.

  I was trying to figure out how I was supposed to react to all this. You know that old joke? A masochist and a sadist are sitting on a bench. The masochist says, “Hurt me,” and the sadist says, “No”? Did he want me to beat him? I’d beat him all right. Did he go both ways, S and M? By killing Kanengiser and shooting at all those others, he’d demonstrated the same corollary violent streak Joey Pinks had. Would he try to beat me?

  Before he could suck my toes, Aunt Mo knocked. He took his gun out. When he went to let her out, I inched closer to the Bible, and pulled it toward me.

  “You’re dressed?” Elroy asked before letting Aunt Mo out.

  “Yes.”

  She came out and looked at me.

  “Back to the wall,” he said, taking her by the arm back to her harness. It took both hands to hook her back up, so he reholstered his gun. His back was to me. I stood very slowly and raised the Bible. Just as he was about to lock her padlock, I brought the Bible down on his head.

  At the same time, Aunt Mo punched him right in the balls. She nailed him good three or four times, while I grabbed his gun and held it on him. Aunt Mo threw off her chains and went for his keys.

  Once she unshackled me, she said, “Give me the gun, dear. I’m trained in firearms.”

  It didn’t surprise me in the least that Aunt Mo knew her way around a firearm. I gave her the gun.

  Aunt Mo put the gun right to his head, and said, “Up against the wall, you son of a bee.”

  “Didn’t anyone teach you that thou shalt not kill? That murder is a mortal sin?” she said.

  That’s Aunt Mo. Misses no opportunity to give a stern lecture and witness for the Lord.

  “Thou shalt not kill!” she said again.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Elroy wept. “I love her. I love her. I’m worthless!”

  “I could blow you away right now,” she said. “You know what keeps me from blowing you away right now?”

  Unfortunately for Elroy, Aunt Mo wasn’t the real forgiving type of Christian.

  “W-what?”

  “Because it’s a sin, you blithering idiot! Didn’t you hear a thing I said? Murder is a mortal sin.”

  Jeez, give this woman an action movie.

  Once I was free of my harness, I chained Elroy’s hands. There was nothing to hook the harness onto, though—he was not wearing the convenient angel-of-death black leather number Aunt Mo and I had on, and he wouldn’t fit into mine or hers.

  “Keep the gun on him,” I said. “I’ll look for a telephone.”

  “Look for our clothes too, dear,” she said.

  There was no phone in the other room. I noticed an electricity cable coming in through a crack in a locked, painted window. A quick check of drawers and the closet produced no rope, no clothes, but quite a few guns. I saw my purse on the table. Next to it was my glue gun. Elroy had apparently examined it, determined it to be useless, and put it aside.

  I had an idea.

  It took fifteen minutes and a whole big glue cartridge, and Aunt Maureen had to sit on him while the adhesive set, but we managed to glue him to the broken-down sofa. Just to be on the safe side, I hit him several more times with the Bible and knocked him out. Once I got started hitting him, I could hardly stop. I was angry. He wanted punishment, I’d give him punishment. It was Aunt Maureen who stopped me from bludgeoning him to death with the Bible.

  “He’s out,” she said.

  “We’ll have to leave like this since I can’t find our clothes. Let’s grab our handbags and get out of here. Find a phone. Call the cops.”

  Beyond this makeshift squat was nothing but a decrepit warehouse. A long hallway led to an exit. It was deadly quiet, until we opened the door and rats scattered.

  “Oh good Lord,” Aunt Mo said. “That stairway does not look safe.”

  “Come on, Aunt Mo,” I said.

  “I can’t. I ... you don’t know this, dear, but I’m terrified of rats. I ... I ...”

  Suddenly, a door opened behind us. I turned. There was a flash of chintz and a gunshot.

  It was Elroy, weaving down the hallway, stuck to a sofa, his hands chained, waving one of his other guns.

  Aunt Mo was through that door and down that stairwell like God himself pushed her. We had got down one flight when we heard him come into the stairwell above and thunder down. He was a strong boy. It couldn’t have been easy to come down those stairs with a sofa stuck to his back. And after that thorough thumping I gave him too.

  We came out on the street. I didn’t even have time to take note of where we were. It was somewhere on the Lower East Side, judging by the bombed-out-looking buildings. I grabbed Aunt Mo by the arm and we ran down the street.

  “He’s behind us,” Aunt Mo said.

  We were being chased by a man with a sofa on his back. Two women in black leather, being chased by a man with a sofa on his back.

  “Can you run faster?” I asked her. We were almost at the corner.

  “Surely someone will see this and call the police,” she said.

  “Not necessarily, Aunt Mo. We’re downtown.”

  Elroy took a shot, and Aunt Mo wheeled around and shot back at him, just as I yanked her around the corner, almost giving her whiplash.

  We were on Avenue C and Third Street now. Passersby stopped and glanced at us.

  “Call the police, call the police!” Aunt Mo screamed.

  Nobody made any move to call the police.

  Elroy came around the corner shooting. Bystanders hit the sidewalks and covered their heads.

  I pulled Aunt Mo into a little Korean grocery. As soon as the guy behind the counter saw us, he whipped out a gun.

  “Lock the door,” Aunt Mo said. I did. She turned to the man behind the counter. “Call the police!”

  I saw a dark-haired woman slip into the back. She’d be calling the police, I expected. A young man in front of the beer cooler had his hands up.

  “Get outta my store,” the man behind the counter said. “I shoot you!”

  “Don’t shoot! We’re not trying to rob you,” I said, huffing to catch my breath.

  Elroy was banging on the glass door.

  “He’s trying to kill us,” I said.

  “Holy shit,” said the Korean man. He started screaming in Korean.

  The door broke and Elroy came flying through in a shower of shattered glass, roaring like the crazy person he was and waving a gun.

  A shot was fired.

  Elroy’s body slumped and fell to the ground under the sofa.

  We looked up. The Korean man put his rifle down on the counter.

  “You saw,” he said. “It was self-defense. You’re witnesses.”

  Aunt Mo and I were both, by this time, hysterical and having trouble getting out an intelligible story, and the store owners, the Lees, were pretty hysterical too. You can imagine this poor Mr. Lee’s shock. One minute, he’s organizing the ginseng-extract display by his cash register, and the next a man with a sofa glued to his back comes flying through his door brandishing a gun.

  When Bigger and Ferber arrived, we were almost coherent. In fact, Detective Richard Bigger and Aunt Mo bonded, and she was able to get out her version of the story, which was riddled with inaccuracies about me that I felt it necessary to dispute point by point. This forced Bigger to split us up, banishing me to an orange crate by the steel beer refrigerator.

  I sat down and Detective Mack Ferber put a hand under my
right elbow to steady me. It’s a funny thing, but my elbows are big erogenous zones for me and I got a thrill when he did that. He smelled good, too, like clean cotton and soap.

  “Tell me everything,” he said.

  I did. Then I made him tell me everything he knew.

  Just as Aunt Maureen had theorized, Elroy Vern had spent the last five years in a series of mental institutions in three states. He’d been committed by his mother shortly before her other son, Joey, tried to kill her.

  “Elroy wanted to watch ANN all the time,” the administrator in one institution had said. “Sometimes he became disruptive when other patients wanted to turn the channel in the rec room.”

  Just like Louis Levin’s monkey, I thought.

  A fellow patient had said, “All he talked about was this reporter, a redhead, like his mother when she was young.”

  Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with extreme sadistic and extreme masochistic tendencies, Elroy Vern had been shuttled about to several hospitals. Then, due to government cutbacks and institutional overcrowding, he had been medicated and released. With forged papers from Joey, he had made his way east and applied for work at ANN, where Pete took a liking to him.

  (“I was impressed by his obedience,” Pete said later.)

  The cops recovered my Filofax from Elroy Vern’s squat in the abandoned building, which he kept in addition to a legitimate address, a small efficiency in Queens with an answering machine and nothing else. The Filofax was mine all right. The only change that had been made were the red X’s through the names of men who had come in contact with me.

  Hector was an innocent party, Ferber told me, and he was now in a coma after taking a bullet in his neck and then being dumped on Avenue D when Elroy was making his getaway. Poor Hector.

  Several hours later, when I got to the office, Jerry Spurdie’s first comment was, “See, I told you that doctor’s murder had something to do with S&M. Didn’t I tell you I had a hunch?”