Date Rape New York

by Janet McGiffin

  Edmondo shook his head. “I was attending to a matter in a guest’s room. Manuel must not have thought your situation looked unusual, Miss Conti. Otherwise he would have paged me.”

  “Not unusual!” Grazia was shocked. “I could hardly walk! I had mascara and lipstick smeared over my face. An old lady and her dog saw me and the man I was with. She thought I was drunk.”

  Edmondo looked startled. “You have a witness? Did you tell the police?”

  “Of course. But the man was bundled up. The old lady couldn’t see his face. Her little dog, Jacky, would recognize him. Jacky bit him.” Grazia forced a smile.

  Grazia zipped her coat up over her chin, pulled on her knit hat, and tightened her fur-lined hood. Snow was blowing off the rooftops in billowing clouds. She wrapped her wool scarf around her face and caught up with two women laden with groceries. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being followed. When the women entered an apartment building, she latched onto an old lady moving at snail’s pace. After a few steps, Grazia felt foolish. She set her sights on the lighted pharmacy and hurried down the slippery sidewalk.

  The pharmacy was packed and overheated. By the time Grazia had spoken to the pharmacist and made her choice, she was having dizzy spells. She stood half-dazed at the refrigerator, finally dropping each kind of juice into her shopping basket. At the chocolate display, she closed her eyes and grabbed one.

  “Take a taxi, lady. You don’t look good.” The checkout clerk looked worried. Grazia shook her head. The driver might be a man.

  Outside, the blowing snow cut like a knife, but it pierced the haze in her brain. By the time she had bucked the wind to the Hotel Fiorella, she felt alert, warmed by the exercise, and exhilarated by the clarity of her thoughts. Fresh air was indeed what she had needed!

  It was eight-thirty by her smartphone’s blue panel. Surely the Brazilian Bar couldn’t possibly be crowded during a winter storm warning. Nick would have time to tell her if he remembered her and the man she had left with. Besides, a meal of tapas beat tepid takeout in her hotel room. She handed Luigi her pharmacy purchases and explained she was walking to the Brazilian Bar. Against his fervent protests, she headed back into the night. After pausing in the foyer to review the directions in her journal that Manuel had given her. Halfway up Nineteenth Street, she crossed the street for no reason she could think of. Had she crossed here the evening before? Were her feet unconsciously tracing her steps?

  A monk in a dark cassock with a long white beard and a black cap over his white hair emerged from a stone building and stepped into the street—right in the path of an approaching taxi. The driver hit the horn and brakes at the same time, and went into a slide, stopping right at the monk’s heels. The monk didn’t even turn his head. Grazia froze, bewildered. This seemed so familiar! She quickened her steps. Maybe the monk would remember her. Perhaps he had seen the man who had been with her the night before. But the monk quickly out-paced her into the dark. She pulled out her smartphone and dictated the number of his building. She would talk to him later.

  She continued slowly, peering between the shadows, cautiously opening her senses, and fighting anxiety. The snow-laced fence around a tree seemed vaguely familiar, as did stumbling over the broken sidewalk near Menno House. She climbed the salted steps of Menno House. Her guidebook said volunteers working in local nonprofits got cheap lodgings here. Mrs. Springer had said that they could contact her. But the reception clerk was new and didn’t know the old lady’s address. His eyes lit up when Grazia mentioned Jacky, though; the little dog was everyone’s favorite.

  Turning left at Irving Place, she recognized the boutiques, cafés, and bars still decorated from Christmas. Another left on Eighteenth Street and she was looking into the narrow windows of the Brazilian Bar.

  A young couple stood outside, smoking. With a drunken flourish, the man opened the door. The pounding music and roar of voices hit like a blow. Grazia had underestimated New Yorkers’ love of trendy bars. The noise precipitated a dizzy spell. The young man gripped Grazia’s elbow to steady her. Instantly she snatched at his fingers.

  “Let me go!” she shrieked.

  He lifted his hands in mock surrender and backed away. The abrupt release unbalanced her. She fell to her hands and knees on the snow. Two young women rushed to help, but she brushed away their hands and, turning away, retreated as fast as she could toward the Hotel Fiorella. A car passed. Tree shadows moved. She whimpered. At last, the lights of the Hotel Fiorella and the silhouette of the doorman salting the sidewalk came into view. Grazia broke into a run.

  Chapter 10

  “Would you mind stepping into my office, Miss Conti?” Edmondo had found Grazia in the lounge where she was drinking hot chocolate to calm her quivering nerves. His Italian calmed her more than did the sweet drink. What a relief to speak her native language! Edmondo seated her on a small couch in the security office and patiently listened to her babble about her failure of courage at the Brazilian Bar.

  “You should stay in your room until you leave for home,” he cautioned. “Stanley says you’re looking for the man who assaulted you. Not wise. Why don’t you order takeout dinners until you leave? Make early nights of it?” He brought her a stack of takeout menus and watched her phone in an order. Her grateful smile faded when she saw what he was holding up.

  “Another phone message?” she whispered.

  “Luigi took this one a few minutes ago. Luigi informed the caller that you were in the lounge and could take the call at the reception desk, but the caller said he knew where you were. He preferred to leave a message.”

  “He knows where I am! He’s following me!” Her voice shook. She made herself read the words out loud. “Give up. You won’t find me.” Panic hit like an oncoming train. “A message this morning and now another one! He’s stalking me!” Grazia’s heart was pounding so hard that her whole body seemed to shake.

  Edmondo’s voice was calming. “He may have been bluffing, trying to frighten you. Luigi didn’t see anyone in the lobby who wasn’t a guest. He looked around the second he heard the message.”

  Grazia wasn’t listening. “He was in the elevator, then! Or the stairwell!”

  “Do you want me to inform the police?”

  “No, no. I’ll call Detective Cargill myself. Listen. When my supper arrives, you bring it to my room. Only you. No one else comes to my room tonight—not housekeeping, not the nurse, not anyone. If anyone phones my room, tell Luigi to take a message. I can’t take this anymore. And walk me to my room. He could be hiding in the hallway near my door!”

  For the second time that day, Grazia stood nervously in the hallway until her room was searched so she could feel safe going inside. After Edmondo left, she looked under the bed. Then, heart pounding, hands shaking and sweating, she upended her handbag and pawed through the jumble of pens, receipts, and candy wrappers for Detective Cargill’s card.

  “Detective Cargill is out,” a calm police voice informed her. “What’s the problem, Ma’am?”

  “When will he be back?”

  “Tomorrow morning, eight o’clock.”

  Panic made her voice hoarse. “Tell Detective Cargill that the man who assaulted me left another message at my hotel. He said, ‘Give up. You won’t find me.’ He knows the police are looking for him. And he was following me! He knew I was in the lobby! Edmondo said he didn’t see anyone, but Edmondo doesn’t know what he looks like!”

  “Your name, Ma’am?”

  “Grazia Conti. I have to talk to Detective Cargill. I’m very frightened.”

  “Do you want a female police officer to come talk to you?”

  She hesitated. “What could she do?”

  “The officer would advise you on what information to obtain the next time this man calls you. Certain information will help us trace him.”

  “Talk to him? No. I couldn’t do that. Impossible.” She hung up and pawed through the mess on the bed for Cindy’s card. She was startled to hear herself panting. She
found the card and forced herself to place it deliberately on the bedside table. Then she went to the minibar and drank a carton of juice. Next a piece of chocolate. More in control, she dialed the crisis center.

  “He knows I’m trying to find him,” she told the on-call counselor after she had read aloud both messages and explained about the police investigation. “He’ll attack me to stop me. I can’t defend myself because I don’t know what he looks like!”

  The counselor’s matter-of-fact tone steadied her. “The caller is trying to frighten you so you will tell the police to stop the investigation. He is leaving messages because he thinks you will recognize his voice if he speaks to you directly. You are safe in your hotel. And drug-facilitated offenders don’t attack their victims on the streets of New York. It’s not the typical profile.”

  “My problem,” Grazia blurted, horrified to make the confession, “is that I’m having panic attacks. I’ve never had them before. Even when I was held up at gunpoint in Italy, I didn’t panic. When I was threatened by construction foremen who were cutting corners and didn’t want me to discover it, I wasn’t afraid. But now leaving my room terrifies me!”

  “You are having a normal reaction to an abnormal situation,” explained the counselor. “Many women who have been raped experience the same thing. Your instincts are telling you, ‘It’s dangerous out there, you were injured, and you need to hide in a safe place.’ Follow your instincts. Stay in your hotel room and rest. Eventually your panic feelings will fade.”

  “But I panicked just seeing a taxi!”

  “Perhaps the taxi reminded you of your assault. We call this a “trigger.” I see on the clinic schedule that tomorrow you have an appointment with Cindy. She will teach you how to use these triggers to reduce your panic and anxiety.”

  Grazia hung up, feeling better. Cindy had been right—talking helped. “You are having a normal reaction to an abnormal situation,” she told herself aloud. “You are safe in a lovely hotel room with three locks on the door and a direct line to the security officer.”

  She looked at her watch. Three-thirty in the morning in Italy. She made the call anyway. She let Laura’s cell phone ring until the message request came; then she cut the connection and tapped the number again. This time Laura picked up.

  “Grazia! It’s the middle of the night!” Laura protested, sleepy voiced.

  “Have you remembered any of the men I was talking to at the Brazilian Bar?” Grazia demanded without preamble.

  The sleep disappeared from Laura’s voice. “How are you feeling? You must be exhausted from talking to the police.”

  “More exhausting were the five hours at the hospital emergency room this morning.”

  “Emergency room?”

  “They did all sorts of blood and urine test including for HIV. I took the morning-after pill. I’m taking drugs to keep myself from getting AIDS!”

  “Dio!”

  “The nurse even scraped the skin between my legs and under my nails.”

  “Why?” Laura sounded bewildered.

  “To get the skin cells or sperm from the man who raped me so they can get his DNA. She did a pelvic exam, too, looking for sperm. But Detective Cargill says the man used a condom. Men who drug women for sex don’t like to leave traces.”

  “You weren’t drugged, Grazia,” Laura asserted, but her voice less uncertain.

  “It was Rohypnol, the nurse says, by the symptoms. The crisis counselor agrees. I’ll know when the blood tests are back.”

  “Crisis counselor?” Laura’s voice was faint.

  “Laura, what hotel were you staying in?”

  “I travel a lot; how can I remember every hotel?”

  “Do these names sound familiar? They’re the four Italians we were talking to. I found their business cards in my purse. The detective is tracking them down.” Grazia read the names from her journal.

  “What makes you so sure this man was Italian? There were Americans there, too.”

  “The detective says that women are usually raped by men they know. The only men I know in New York were those four Italians you introduced me to. I’m going to get him, Laura. The hotel has CCTV. The detective has to get a court order, but once I see the video, I’ll recognize the bastard. Then all the detective has to do is get his DNA.”

  “Grazia, you’re babbling. Calm down.”

  “He deleted the photos I took at the bar from my phone. That was calculated. The bartender told the detective that he remembered me, but he didn’t see who I left with. I’ll talk to the bartender at the Brazilian Bar tomorrow. Maybe he’ll remember who I left with if he sees me in person. I know what the man was wearing. I have a witness.”

  “Witness?” Laura’s voice rose.

  “An old lady out walking her dog saw me last night walking toward the Hotel Fiorella with a man. He was wearing a black down jacket and a dark knit cap. He was shouting in Italian. Her dog bit him. Oh, I almost forgot. The detective is going to phone you.”

  “No!” Laura shrieked.

  “Laura, I have a dark hole in my—”

  “Oh, Grazia, who remembers everything in our lives? Even when our parents tell us, we don’t remember all our childhood. We can’t change the past. Why remember it?”

  “Because the man who assaulted me telephoned my hotel. He left two anonymous messages. The last was half an hour ago. I was in the hotel lobby at the time. He told the desk clerk that he knew I was there but would leave a message anyway.”

  Long silence. “What were the messages?”

  Grazia read them off.

  “The bastard!”

  Grazia was startled by the venom in Laura’s voice. She pressed on. “What if he comes to my room pretending to deliver my takeout dinner? What if he attacks me when I open the door! You need to help me find him so the police detective can arrest him!”

  “I wish I could help you. I really do.” Laura’s voice was tight with strain.

  “Then tell me what I was talking about last night. The detective says if I knew that, I could make a connection to someone.”

  “It was too noisy to hear what anyone was saying.”

  “What hotel were you staying in?” demanded Grazia again. But the line was dead.

  Grazia flung down her phone in frustration. Laura said she wanted to help but she wasn’t answering any of Grazia’s questions; she couldn’t even remember the name of her hotel!

  A tap on the door made Grazia’s heart race. She threw herself at the peephole. Edmondo held up a takeout carton. He handed it through the narrow opening she provided, and she quickly closed and triple-locked the door. Rejecting the round table, she ate her supper on the floor.

  Feeling steadier with food inside her, she turned her attention to the new clothes that she had shoved into the dresser drawer. The designer jeans and red silk blouse were at the medical examiner’s lab. She never wanted to see them again—for that matter, she no longer had a desire for any of these new clothes she had bought the day she was raped. Sophia might want them. The kind young Italian maid had told Grazia that she worked part time at the Hotel Fiorella and studied English four hours a day at a New York language school. Sophia could come back to Naples with her, Grazia thought. She could be Grazia’s live-in housekeeper and cook. Grazia had never been one for cooking.

  Grazia looked stonily at her new clothes. How happy she had felt bringing them back from her Saturday shopping spree. She had lined up the shopping bags so as to try her purchases on again on Sunday morning. If only she could remember those Saturday night hours when some man had kicked her clothes around the room. If only she could see him in her memory. She put her hands over her eyes and waited.

  But as she stared into the dark hole of not remembering, panic grabbed her heart with its icy fingers. She opened her eyes. Cindy was right. It would be better to recover psychologically before she delved into what memories she had of her attacker. Grazia ran the taps for another bath, emptying in the rest of the tiny bottles of hotel shampoo
. Was this her second bath of the day or her third? She just couldn’t feel clean.

  In bed, she thought about the small plastic bottles of chemically induced serenity in her cosmetics case. Instead, she reached for her laptop. She would research Rohypnol and the other drugs that her attacker might have used on her. Learning how these affected her brain might help her gain control over this panic.

  An hour later, she sat back, appalled.

  As Janine had explained, Rohypnol caused anterograde amnesia. That meant the “lost” memories would never come back because they never formed. She would never remember anything that happened after she took the drug. First came drowsiness and confusion, then clumsiness, difficulty walking, dizziness, disorientation, and slurred speech. No wonder Mrs. Springer thought she was drunk. The amnesia lasted for eight hours. Eventually, the drug caused unconsciousness. Rohypnol taken with alcohol or other drugs could drop blood pressure dangerously low and impair breathing. She could have gone into a coma! Or died!

  Worse, Rohypnol caused victims to lose their inhibitions and judgment. That meant that the “fascinating conversation” could have been about her work. Grazia felt the blood drain from her face. What if she had talked about the Kourtis contract? What if she talked about the terms that she had practically blackmailed Kourtis into approving!

  She went on reading about other high-potency benzodiazepines and other drugs that were used to incapacitate women before forced sex. Their symptoms didn’t match hers, but their effects were equally devastating. Grazia felt a surge of dark anger. What kind of disgusting man would administer a possibly fatal drug to a woman so he could rape her! She would find out who did this to her, she vowed with rising determination. She would bring him to some form of justice, using whatever measures she had to take.

  Grazia turned to researching the anti-anxiety and sleeping pills that Janine had warned her not to take. They were powerful and addictive. The side effects were deep drowsiness, confusion, and lapses in concentration. If Grazia wanted her brain to recover quickly from the Rohypnol, she couldn’t take them.