Chapter 18
At six-thirty that evening, the Brazilian Bar was empty except for a few couples talking quietly over tall glasses of wine. Grazia stood at the door, fighting anxiety. The confidence she had gained from Cindy and Evie had been blown to bits by the discovery that she had spent hours with a lawyer working for opposing counsel—while under the influence of a drug that destroys inhibition and verbal control.
Nick spotted Grazia sliding onto a bar stool and his welcoming grin faded. “You’re the girl who got doped Saturday night, right? Miss, I didn’t put roofies in your champagne, and I didn’t see who did. Detective Cargill is out to nail me and he’s got the wrong guy. You gotta believe me.”
“I was at Beth Israel ER all Sunday morning,” Grazia said accusingly. “They did test after test. I could have AIDS.”
Nick’s shoulders slumped. “Miss, I am so sorry. I couldn’t believe it when Cargill told me what had happened. No offense, but you’re not the usual girl who gets drugged for sex. Not that you’re not good-looking,” he hastened, “it’s just that the usual type is younger and—”
“Was I only drinking champagne?” Grazia interrupted.
“I’ve been running that night through my head and all I come up with is that guy ordering champagne. He made a big fuss, toasting you over and over.”
Grazia opened her journal and showed him the names of the four Italians who had given her their business cards. “Could any of these men have drugged my champagne?”
Nick shook his head. “I know these guys. They have high-paying jobs on Wall Street. They’re Italians on work visas. They wouldn’t risk getting deported by bringing drugs into my bar and dropping them in women’s drinks. They know my policy. The city suspended our license a couple years ago. Two bartenders got arrested for taking money to drop Rohypnol in drinks. That was Detective Cargill’s case, and he got it in his head that I was in on it. But I wasn’t. I wouldn’t do such a thing, Miss, not then and not to you. I know a woman that happened to. She was a real mess for a long time. She still hates men. Anyway, to keep my job I had to promise that I’d bodyguard the women here, watch their drinks. It’s impossible in a crowded bar, I tell you. I started by turning off the music every hour and shouting, ‘Anybody I catch drugging a girl’s drink will talk to the cops.’ Now I say that privately to any guy who looks the type. It worked for two years. Now you show up.”
“If you didn’t drug my drink, how could Detective Cargill accuse you of doing it?”
“He could swipe a napkin I wiped my mouth on and smear it in your hotel room or on your clothes when he’s putting them into evidence. It’s easy to plant somebody’s DNA.”
“He didn’t do that you would be already be arrested. The medical examiner has all the evidence from the hotel room and my clothes.”
“Cargill can still find a way. He’s close to getting fired. He’s got to prove he can get results. Don’t make me lose my job, Miss. I’m not good at anything besides bartending.”
Grazia pulled out the two photos of Laura, one at Lord & Taylor and the other from the office website. “I was with this woman. Do you remember her?”
Nick studied the photos. “Sure I do. She asked me to put her suitcase behind the bar. An airport van was picking her up here. Who could say no to such a beautiful woman?”
“She handed me a glass of champagne. She got it from the man who drugged it. Or you drugged it,” she added harshly, piqued by his comment about Laura’s beauty.
“Oh, Miss, don’t say that to Cargill, or he’ll have me in the back of a squad car. I don’t know who I handed the champagne glasses to. When somebody buys a bottle and I’m pouring, I put the glasses into the nearest hands. Saturday night was a big game night, the TV was blasting, and patrons were jammed up against the bar like sardines. How could I remember . . . ” He paused. “Wait, I do remember. I handed the glasses to the guy who bought the champagne. Yep, that’s it. Because it was real quality champagne, and he paid for it, see? He should be the one who decides who gets a glass. He ordered a second bottle, and we went through the same drill.” Nick ran his bar cloth over the gleaming bar wood. “The US government makes drug companies put blue dye in roofies so nobody gets surprises. Nobody’s champagne went blue Saturday night—the glasses that I could see. Other countries don’t require that dye and whoever drugged you could have brought the roofies with him. Or he could have made the drug himself. The instructions are all over the Internet. I’m assuming it was Rohypnol. Is that what you were doped with?”
She nodded. “The other tests aren’t back yet—like the diseases I might have got from that bastard.” The bitter taste of disappointment filled her mouth. “I thought it would be easy to find him. I thought people would remember me and who I was with. Why doesn’t anyone remember!”
Nick set a glass on the bar and ran some cola into it through a hose. He pushed it toward her. “In my opinion, the guy who bought the champagne drugged you.”
“What was his name?” she asked eagerly.
“Dunno. Never saw him before. I remember faces, not names. He was talking Italian when he made that toast to you. Big gold neck chain. You Italians like gold, don’t you? Even guys wear gold chains with big gold crosses. Your girlfriend wore a gold bracelet and a gold cross.”
“Did he use a credit card?”
“Cash, like I told Detective Cargill. New fifties. I ran them through the checker.”
“Did you see me get sick?”
“I saw your girlfriend take you to the toilet. It flashed through my mind that you might have been drugged. Champagne doesn’t affect people that fast, even small women like you.”
“Why didn’t you do something?”
“Because, except for Mr. Gold Chain and your girlfriend, I knew the four Italians you were with. They’re good people. Your girlfriend was looking after you, too. And right then a fight broke out between two guys who get into it from time to time. By the time I took care of that, you were gone.”
“Did you see who I left with?”
“No, Miss. It was football night. I couldn’t see the door for the crowd.”
“Did Laura come with anyone?”
He lifted his hands. “I caught a glimpse of her talking to the four Italians is all. She’s a stunner; they tried to pick her up right away.” He put both hands on the bar and looked at her with pleading eyes. “I need my job, Miss. Detective Cargill will pin this on me if he has to trump up evidence. Tell me how I can help find this son of a bitch, and I’ll do it.”
Grazia scribbled her phone number on a napkin. “Phone me if any of those Italians come in. They may know the man who bought the champagne. If I talk to them in person here where I was drugged, the evening might start coming back to me. I’m at the Hotel Fiorella a few blocks away; I can get here quickly. I need to know who did this to me, Nick. I’m leaving Friday. I only have four days to help Detective Cargill.”
Nick nodded, running the bar cloth around. “That’s why they kept digging up bodies from under the rubble after Nine Eleven. The families of the people who died knew their people were dead, but they needed to see the remains. Something about our eyes need to see something before our minds can believe it and rest.” He went off to serve another patron, then returned.
“What’s Cargill done for you so far?”
“He got the medical examiner to send a criminalist team to my hotel room to look for fingerprints and DNA. He’s getting the hospital to send over the rape kit and—”
Nick finished her sentence. “The medical examiner will run a match with a suspect’s DNA and with the NYPD criminal database. I know the procedure, personally. But if you can’t find the Italian who bought the champagne, you don’t have a suspect. And no Italian tourist is going to be in the NYPD criminal database.” He refilled Grazia’s cola with the hose. “Hey, I just remembered, you were taking photos with your smartphone. You asked me to take one. Show me. I’ll point out the guy who bought the champagne.”
“Some
body erased them,” she said, dejected.
Nick gave a low whistle. “This guy knows how to cover his tracks. Like he’s done it before. You’re sure he was operating in my bar? You didn’t go anywhere else after here?” he added hopefully.
She explained about Mrs. Springer and Jacky seeing her at ten-thirty. “A man has called my hotel twice and left anonymous phone messages about a fascinating conversation and how I won’t find him.”
“What a sadist. No wonder Detective Cargill wants to get him. What about your girlfriend? Does she have a likely candidate?”
Grazia shook her head. “Detective Cargill thinks she knows more than she is saying, for some reason. Now she’s in Italy and there’s no way to make her talk.”
“You sure you have to leave Friday? You could get yourself a lawyer and file a request to view our security camera videotapes.” He pointed to CCTV monitors at the end of the bar and at the entrance. “I’m not saying it will help. The place was dark and crowded; the images will be shadowy. And if the guy kept his face down, you get nothing.”
“Could you watch the video yourself?”
He shook his head. “Only the security company has access.”
“Twitter!” Grazia said, with a thin smile. “I’ll send out a Tweet query asking who saw me leave here Saturday night as a Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault victim.”
Nick groaned. “Oh, lady, don’t do that! I’ll be out of a job by morning. Okay, fine, I’ll look at the video. My buddy works at the security company. He owes me a favor.”
“Around ten-thirty is when I left, probably hanging onto Laura. The man must have followed us out of the bar because he walked me home. The old lady saw us about then on Nineteenth Street.”
“Come in tomorrow, same time. I’ll tell you what I saw.”
“I can’t wait that long. Call me tomorrow morning.”
Chapter 19
Thai food or Russian? Grazia sat cross-legged on her bed, trawling her laptop for online menus of Midtown Manhattan restaurants. She had closed the curtains against the evening blackness and turned on every light in her room. She still felt breathless from her scrambled rush down the icy sidewalks from the Brazilian Bar.
She had willed herself not to look behind her for her imagined attacker. Instead, she had controlled her whirling thoughts by identifying what was triggering her fear. By the time she had reached the Hotel Fiorella, she had concluded that the trigger was simply walking alone down a dark street—a common panic trigger for many women, Cindy had said. Identifying triggers to emotional reactions took practice, she could see. Perhaps a lifetime. The thought was discouraging.
She ordered Beef Stroganoff. In Italy, she ate more meat than in New York, and the lack of it might be part of her weak feeling. Then she phoned hotel security and made Edmondo promise to bring up her dinner himself. Grazia was still convinced that the rapist could reach her room any time he chose. He had done it under Manuel’s very nose.
Where was Manuel? He hadn’t replied to her emails. She tapped in his cell phone number again, but it was still out of service. Suspicion poisoned her mind. Could Detective Cargill be right? Had Manuel taken her to her room and assaulted her? Had he looked the other way while someone else took her upstairs? She stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower. She couldn’t feel clean—in body or mind. As she was drying herself, her laptop chimed—a video call from Francisco. She pulled on her yellow silk dressing gown, slapped on lipstick, pinched her cheeks to bring up color, pasted on a smile, and connected.
“Where have you been?” snapped Francisco. “Bar hopping again?”
“Your bodyguards follow me even in New York?” If his bodyguards had been tailing her, she wouldn’t be in this mess, she thought wryly.
Francisco rubbed his hand over his face. The diamond in his wedding ring winked under the desk lamp. He leaned forward, his face distorted as it filled the screen. “Where did you get the idea to write in the contract proposal that Kourtis would repour the cement?”
“It shows intent to meet new earthquake standards,” she lied. “Did you talk to him?”
The screen went black without his reply.
Grazia wiped the perspiration from her forehead. She hadn’t told Francisco the real reason she put in that clause about repouring the cement, and she wasn’t going to until she found what the anonymous caller meant by “fascinating conversation.” Laura had said that Grazia had talked about her job successes. Grazia was praying she hadn’t talked about Kourtis.
A tap on the door made her jump. She peered out the peephole. Edmondo was bringing her takeout supper. She waved him inside.
“Edmondo, does the hotel keep a record of phone numbers called into the reception desk?” Grazia asked, sliding the container into the microwave.
“Those phones do have call history. But the memory only goes back five calls.”
“So the call that Luigi took yesterday evening for me was saved in the call history.”
“Yes, but it was erased by the following calls. We get hundreds a day.”
“Did Luigi write down the caller’s number? He had time to do it if the number was saved for the five succeeding calls. Luigi was concerned enough about the message to notify you; surely he would write down the number. It was on the caller ID panel.”
“Luigi didn’t tell me the number, no.”
“Have you heard from Manuel? He may be the only witness who can identify the man who brought me back here Saturday night.”
“No word from Manuel, Miss. He’s in Italy with his mother.” Edmondo lowered himself into a chair and leaned forward with his hands on his thighs. “Miss Conti, let me ask you a hard question.”
Grazia drew back slightly. His posture was a typically threatening male one. She had faced it across negotiating tables plenty of times in her career. She had faced it when she was doing legal work at the Naples women’s shelter when men came wanting to bring their wives or girlfriends home. It amused her to watch men trying to intimidate her, but now the room felt too small, the door too far away.
“What question?” she said. She meant to sound authoritative, but her voice sounded insignificant, and she was appalled to hear it tremble.
“Are you sure you want to find this man who attacked you? Taking him to court in the US is complicated. Let’s say that your detective locates a suspect and actually gets a positive DNA match. That’s only the beginning. You will have to come back to New York and file an accusation. You will have to decide whether to file a criminal charge or a civil suit. You will have to describe every painful detail to a prosecuting attorney and the defense attorney and a lot of strangers.”
“I can handle that.” She forced strength into her voice.
“You think you can, Miss Conti, but the accused will have a good lawyer. He will claim that his client didn’t assault you. He will say you consented.”
“But I have bruises! And the medical tests will show I was drugged.”
“The lawyer will tell the court that his client was drinking alcohol. That means he had impaired judgment. So he couldn’t have intended to rape you. No intent, no assault. He will also claim that you had been drinking, so you had no control over your judgment. Therefore you can’t say that you didn’t consent. In fact, he will say that you consented. It will be your word against his.”
Grazia’s legally trained mind quickly understood, but she pretended she didn’t. “So what?”
“You need independent proof that you were forced to consume the drug against your will.”
“One of those Italians may have seen him drug my drink. Or maybe my friend, Laura, saw.”
“You also need a witness who saw him force you to have sex against your will.”
Grazia tried to hide her dismay. “It happened here, in my hotel room! No one saw.”
“See how hard it is to prove you were attacked? Miss Conti, whoever this man is, he can attack it again—easily. You don’t know what he looks like, so you can’t protect yourself.
That kind of man will punish you for trying to find him. He will do far worse than rape. You could have permanent scars on your face, for example. Give up this search, Miss Conti. Change your flight and go home tomorrow. Put this all behind you.”
Anger filled Grazia. Before now, she had been afraid—afraid that her attacker was stalking her and afraid he would attack her again. She was the hunted. Edmondo’s words brought anger instead of fear. In her legal career, especially when she was working at the women’s shelter in Naples, she had handled plenty of threats. And this was a big one. “I’ll do what I choose to do, Edmondo,” she replied evenly. “And my choice won’t be made because of fear.”
After she locked the door behind Edmondo, Grazia went to the window and stood looking at the snowy street and the people bundled up against the cold. Her heart pounded, and her body shook, but this time it was anger. In her country, many assault cases that women brought against men went nowhere because the men called the women delusional, hysterical, liars, even prostitutes. Now she was in the same position, with no witnesses who saw her get drugged or assaulted. She didn’t know her attacker’s face so she couldn’t spot him. Should she give up and go home tomorrow like Edmondo told her?
At the women’s shelter, one of her clients had been a secretary who had been sexually assaulted by her boss. No one would believe her. Grazia had urged her to persist in her lawsuit. “Your silence is the perpetrator’s defense,” she had told the woman. “Speak up!” Now Grazia herself was considering silence.
On impulse, she called Beth Israel Hospital. After a few minutes, Janine picked up the phone.
“My memory is coming back,” Grazia told her. “I’m sure I’ll find this man.”
“Memory is slippery,” cautioned Janine. “You think you remember, and the next day you remember it differently. The police detective may never find this guy. So what? You’re still you. You aren’t a victim, unless you decide to be a victim. You can’t be a doormat unless you lie down.”
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