The Schwarzschild Radius

by Gustavo Florentin

  The requests gradually became orders. He had to correct her repeatedly, like a music teacher, and she repeated the moves again and again until done to his satisfaction.

  “Very good. You need some work, but you have a lot of potential.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Come here and sit next to me. No, don’t dress.”

  Rachel noticed that she had lost her self-consciousness. It had become a source of power.

  “You’re really pretty, Rachel. Why are you forcing a smile? You haven’t had a real smile since you got here.”

  “I guess I’m just nervous.”

  “Why? You have nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I’m just new to all this, people’s homes and all.”

  “I understand. I’d like you to come back, but I need you to relax and be more playful. We’re all here to have fun, after all. Do you mind if I kiss you? On the forehead?” His lips traveled down her neck and it was all she could take. She craned her neck upward as if trying to break the surface of a pool.

  “Do you want to get dressed?”

  “Yes, sir. I do.” That seemed to take Sartorius to another level.

  She struggled free and picked up the clothes.

  “Wait,” he said. “This is yours. You did well.” He handed her three hundred dollar bills.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I appreciate that.”

  “Now you can get dressed.”

  She paused at the top of the stairs to put on the panties before entering the room.

  “How’d it go?” asked Sonia.

  Rachel said nothing.

  Sartorius appeared at the door. “Sonia.”

  “I’ll see you later, kid,” said Sonia.

  “And what are you going to do now?” he asked Rachel.

  “Would you mind if I read one of your books downstairs?”

  “Read. Just don’t touch anything.”

  Even in a rich man’s house the walls could be painfully thin. Rachel sat in Dr. Sartorius’s living room which was directly below the bedroom and could hear every grunt and blasphemy going on upstairs. The contempt in the man’s voice when he said ‘don’t touch anything’ killed her―the arrogance that denied others the right to touch, yet gave him license to fondle everything. Rachel hoped she didn’t hate all men before she learned to love one.

  Yesterday, she was at the Forty Second Street Library and stroked Patience and Fortitude―the lions which guard the entrance. Those were precisely the qualities she was running out of as this charade went on. At what point would she tell Sonia that she’s not really on the streets? Was that a betrayal? She’d never betrayed anyone. Rachel had to remember what she was really here for: to find Olivia.

  There was plenty to touch. Aside from medical books, there were many others about fly-fishing and skeet shooting and sporting clays. There was a catalog of rare shotguns from Sotheby’s. The man was eclectic all right. Rachel searched through every drawer and cabinet. In one she found cognac that was dated 1921, never opened. Proceeding to the closets, she went through every pocket of every piece of clothing.

  The doctor was a meticulous man. Everything was neat and categorized. National Geographics with National Geographics. American Journals of Medicine with American Journals of Medicine. The grass and shrubbery outside were maintained with clinical attention. The house spotless. The fish, colorful and happy. It was as if this exaggerated outer order was needed to counterbalance an unseen derailment.

  The house was immense. Rachel proceeded from one room to the next, rifling through drawers, opening coffee tables, sticking her hand down sofa seats. There had to be an office and she prayed it was downstairs. She wandered barefoot until she found the study. There was a PC under the desk, powered on. She quickly reached into her pocket and removed the flash drive.

  It was dark back there. Damn, she should have brought a flashlight. In order to be sure she was plugging the drive into an active port, she followed the mouse cord to the chassis and pulled it out. After some work, the flash drive went in. She stopped breathing and listened to the sounds on the second floor. There was nothing. One minute. God, hurry. Kneeling in the darkness, she would have no excuse if he walked in on her. Two minutes finally passed and she pulled out the flash drive and held her finger on the USB port in order to guide the mouse cable back in. Done. She put the plastic cap back on the flash drive and slipped it in her pocket. Silently, she padded out the study, then downstairs to the guest bedroom.

  She locked the door of the bedroom and put the drive back in her knapsack, tying it to an inside loop by its lanyard. Back to those college notebooks. There were twelve of them with every page dated and the subject of each lecture underlined. Everything organized and ordered.

  Around the beginning of his third year, she noticed a change. Subtle at first, then more marked. He was seeing a girl called Layla. At first, the remarks were filled with the joys of incipient love. Her gestures when she used a fork in a restaurant, the loveliness of her skin, the joy of her company. A few weeks later, the comments became more clinical. Her body parts were described in precise detail, every mole and dimple. He devoted two pages to describing her private parts and the sounds she made during intercourse. Her oral technique was analyzed. There was mention of photos taken of her in bed. Her last name never came up. It was just Layla. Petite brunette with narrow hips and upturned nose. No mention of whether she was a fellow student or where they had met. After a while, her name was no longer mentioned; she was “the specimen.” The foreplay now consisted of clinical examinations conducted with Sartorius fully dressed and the specimen lying on a table, not a bed. There were detailed descriptions and drawings of her body cavities, the inside of her mouth, the strength of her PC muscles. It began to resemble Da Vinci’s notebooks, the writer’s voice detached and objective.

  Then one note marked the end of the relationship and Layla was not seen again: Layla is gone.

  artorius dropped them off at the train station later that evening. Rachel rode in the back and saw him constantly looking at her in the rear view mirror. What would he be writing in the margins tonight?

  “Thanks,” said Sonia. Sartorius just nodded to them and they were out of the car.

  Before Rachel could comment on the night, Sonia said, “I have another stop, but this one doesn’t pay any money.”

  “You do charity work?”

  “Sort of. You may not want to come along. I have to visit a friend of mine. She’s got AIDS. She’s in a hospice and I may not see her again.”

  “I’ll go. If you don’t mind.”

  Christa House was a twelve-bed hospice for patients in the last stages of AIDS.

  “You can wait here if you want,” said Sonia, outside the building. “I won’t be long.”

  “I’m okay.”

  Outside every room was a box of disposable latex gloves. Rachel considered the tons of literature she had studied about this disease during her research. She knew she couldn’t contract it through casual contact, but she wanted to put on the gloves, mask, and gown, and breathe different air than they breathed.

  The room was suffused with the light of a red bulb.

  There were three women with advanced AIDS. They were all young, under twenty-five, clinging to life. The air reeked of vaginal infection and diarrhea. Rachel wanted to vomit.

  “Maureen, it’s me. It’s Sonia.” The woman extended her arms to embrace the visitor. “This is my friend, Rachel.” The patient nodded at Rachel.

  “Would you like to sit down?” asked Maureen, showing that what was killing her had not taken away her manners.

  “Sure, I’ll sit down,” said Rachel.

  “You can bring that chair over here. And this is Adele and Louise.” They waved from their beds and Rachel waved back from her chair.

  “Why is the room red?” asked Rachel.

  “Chromatherapy,” answered Louise. “An hour of red, two hours of indigo. I researched that.”

  “Louise is
our miracle researcher,” said Maureen. “She looks for cases of spontaneous remission.”

  “Alexander Solzhenitsyn was terminal with pancreatic cancer―he was even put aside into the death room. Then he recovered,” said Louise. “There are lots of cases like that.”

  “How’s things?” asked Sonia. “You look like you’ve gained weight.”

  “Thanks for lying. I’ve lost three more pounds.”

  “They’re going to close us down,” said Adele.

  “What’s this?” asked Sonia.

  “They have no funding, so we only have four more months and they close the doors. We’re the last hospice in Long Island.”

  “Is that so?” asked Sonia.

  “That’s what we heard,” answered Maureen. “We can’t focus on that. We have to focus on ourselves. And you? You look good.”

  “I am good.” Maureen glanced at Rachel just long enough for Rachel to realize that Sonia was HIV positive.

  “Well, maybe some good guy will step forward and make a donation,” said Sonia. “Look, we brought you guys some strawberries, just picked right here in Melville.”

  “Oh, that’s great. Could you wash them over there?”

  They all ate some strawberries.

  “I look for passages in the Bible and the Upanishads that have power,” said Adele. “For inspiration I find hopeless battles in history that were won by the underdog. Agincourt. Five-thousand English defeated twenty-thousand French. At Thermopylae three-hundred Spartans held off a million Persians for days before they were overcome.”

  “Adele, it’s time for the whales,” said Maureen. The other woman slid a tape into a cassette by her bed.

  There was the moaning of whales and the surf.

  “We’re investigating every avenue to save ourselves,” resumed Maureen.

  “I’m sorry, what’s your name?” asked the searcher of battles.

  “Rachel.”

  “Rachel, could you do something for me? Could you turn my sheet around so the butterflies are flying toward me?”

  She was so thin that her outline beneath the covers looked like the bas-relief of a person. Rachel and Sonia spun it around, altering the flight of butterflies, but that would be the only miracle today.

  “In the battle of Midway,” said Adele as though that conversation hadn’t ended, “we were against overwhelming odds. Eighty-six Japanese ships to our twenty-seven. Two-hundred-seventy-two planes against our hundred-eighty.

  “At 4:30 a.m., a squadron of Japanese bombers hit Midway Island, wiping out two-thirds of the U.S. planes on the ground, and returned to their carriers without losses. By 9:36 nearly all of our torpedo bombers had been shot down. All our fighter escorts ran out of fuel and fell into the sea. Then the Yorktown sent up torpedo bombers and seven out of ten were shot down by Jap zeros––”

  “Adele,” said Maureen.

  “This is the moment of hopelessness. This was the darkest hour. When our entire fleet was at the brink of destruction. Then―”

  “Adele.”

  “Then one of the Enterprise’s dive bomber groups, which was lost, finally found their way and got to the Japanese fleet. Then a miracle happened. Within five minutes, this small squad of planes sunk four Japanese carriers. The enemy fleet was destroyed in the most decisive battle in naval history.”

  The room was silent for a moment. Rachel thought of another battle she hoped Adele would never know about―Masada.

  “Can I have the nurse bring you anything, anyone?” said Rachel.

  There was silence, but for the droning of the whales.

  “Sorry for making you feel sorry for us. We just like to talk,” said Maureen.

  “No, please don’t apologize to me. Is there―”

  “There’s nothing. Nothing at all. But thanks for staying longer than you had to.”

  “We’re gonna be going,” said Sonia. “You guys get some rest.”

  “Good to see you again, kid. It really is.” Sonia kissed her good bye.

  “I’ll be on the other side soon. Rachel, is there a message you’d like me to give a friend?”

  Rachel looked into the eyes of the doomed woman.

  “I have a message,” said Sonia. “Tell Kirsten Schrodinger that I loved her.”

  cKenna had turned over the photo of Belinda Knights to the Cyber Crimes Unit to check if she had appeared in any child porn seized over the last twelve months.

  Steve Stultz of CCU reported back that the photo had been passed to the NCVIP. Using facial recognition utilities, they located a ten minute video of Belinda dancing nude. The National Child Victim Identification Program had the largest database of child porn in the world, confiscated from suspects on and off the Web.

  “So where do we go from here?” asked McKenna. “How do I see this video?”

  “You don’t. Not even cops are allowed to look at them. I’ve got contact info for an FBI agent who has clearance. He can answer questions.”

  McKenna got in touch with the agent, who was very polite, like the CIA guys McKenna had known in Afghanistan.

  “What are you looking for, Detective?”

  “I’m trying to determine where the video was made and who might have made it.”

  “I’m afraid there isn’t much in this video. It consists of the girl dancing naked against a blank wall. There’s a Christmas tree that comes into view a couple of times, but that’s it. No one else appears in the shoot.”

  McKenna had no patience for this.

  “I’m working the Olivia Wallen case. She disappeared here last week. She and Belinda have a shelter in common―Transcendence House. One was a guest and the other counseled there. I’m dead in the water. Is there any way you can PhotoShop the girl out of the video or something so I can see the rest?”

  “We could. That’ll take time. Again, it’s just a nude underage girl against a beige blank wall. No doors or distinctive markings are visible. There’s only a Christmas tree that comes into view on two occasions for about two to three seconds each time. That’s it.”

  “Is it one of those small artificial trees or a large one?”

  “It’s a large one.”

  “Can you cut out the girl?” McKenna could hear the guy swallowing.

  “I’ll arrange it.”

  McKenna received the email later that night. It could be sent over the Internet since now it contained nothing criminal. It was eerie. The sanitizing process removed graphic material, leaving intact the background and the children’s faces. In this case, Belinda Knights’ head floated in space as she danced from side to side, foreshadowing the disembodied ghost she would soon be.

  The FBI guy was right. Just a blank beige wall. The camera didn’t move much to the left or right. That would have shown more of the room. The Christmas tree came into view for about two seconds and again near the end of the video for about four seconds. Another dead end.

  he Webmaster had been waiting online for two hours for his next prospect and now she arrived.

  I’m here, he typed.

  Sorry I’m late, replied cindy2di4.

  That’s OK. You’re worth waiting for. I didn’t know if you’d show up.

  Sure I would.

  I have a photo of me I’d like to send you, he typed.

  OK.

  He sent a picture of a young man, early twenties, handsome and dressed in a plaid shirt.

  That you?

  Yup.

  U R really handsome.

  Thx. How about a pic of you?

  I scanned it at the library today, said the girl. Gimme a sec to send.

  As the photo began to resolve on his screen, he became aroused as he always did. She was about thirteen with brown hair and beautiful legs. She was sitting on a basketball, wearing shorts and a pink halter top.

  WOW! he typed. All the guys must stare at you in the street.

  No. I don’t have a lot of friends. I’m new in town and there are a lot of clicks in school.

  Cliques.

&nb
sp; Right.

  He “listened” with infinite patience to her discussing her day, her thoughts, her anxieties. He listened and took notes.

  I really like talking to you, she wrote.

  I love talking to you, Cindy. You are a really interesting girl.

  I hope I don’t bore you with my day. It’s pretty ordinary, I guess.

  It’s not boring to me. I like listening to you.

  It’s just that I don’t have a lot of friends. I’m sort of lonely.

  I want to be your friend. I don’t have many friends either.

  But u r so handsome, she wrote.

  That has nothing to do with it. There aren’t a lot of good people out there. And I’m very busy these days with my business. So I don’t get out much, he said.

  What’s your business?

  I’m setting up a website where I can sell imported stuff from South America.

  That sounds so neat. What’s the link to your site?

  It’s still under construction, so you can’t get to it. I’ll let you know when it’s finished.

  k

  Let’s get online again tomorrow. Same time?

  Sure.

  Bye :)

  Bye :)

  After closing the chat session, he launched the intruder program. The file he had sent Cindy contained a Trojan horse which enabled him to take over the PC and inspect its contents.

  hat am I bid?”

  Only one bidder raised his paddle this time and it wasn’t Armand Greyson. The Guston was overpriced at $2.6 million and the buyer’s premium would push it way over his budget.

  And budget was important these days. Sales were declining at his gallery and he had a nasty divorce on his hands. But his dictum in life was “for every problem, there is a solution.”

  And Armand Greyson had a problem.

  Since the discovery of Kirsten Schrodinger’s body, he was just going through the motions of his daily routine. Get up, shave, shower, coffee, dress, get down to the gallery.

  At least a dozen times a day he got online to follow the Olivia Wallen disappearance. No Clues about Honor Student Disappearance, was the Yahoo headline this morning. Police were baffled. There were now rumors that she had been prostituting herself to pay for college. If they knew that, they might know a lot more.