Seven Suspects

by Renee James

  “Not to worry,” he says.

  We sit down in a conference room with a detective and review the few details of my rape that have survived the thirteen years since it occurred. Then we go over the particulars of the recent attacks on my salon and apartment. If the suspect confesses to the rape charges against him, the detective will ask him about these incidents and let us know if they get anything.

  I ask if one of the men in the lineup went by the street name “Stick.” The detective and Phil share a quick glance. “We’re not sure,” he tells me. “We’ll let you know if we find out.”

  The detective’s reaction is like a confession. He won’t say it outright, but Mick the Stick was one of the men in the lineup and someday, Phil will tell me which one he was. My money’s on Number Four.

  “I hope he’s the guy,” I tell Phil as he drives me home. He’s going to let me know what he finds out. It would make me believe in miracles if the menace stalking me everywhere I go never sees the light of day again.

  27

  THE ONLY WAY this night could have been better is if Phil had accepted my invitation to come in when we got to my place. He was tempted, I could see it, but he begged off. “Let’s get this stalker thing cleared up, then see where we are,” he said.

  I went along with it because I know he’s worried that he’ll get cold feet again and break my heart. Still, I gave him a long, wet kiss goodnight, and he was just as passionate about it as I was.

  I’m reliving that kiss as I soak in my spa. A jazz mix Phil gave me a few years ago is playing on the sound system, filling my world with the clear, soulful notes of Miles Davis, conjuring images of the wee hours in a big city, a solitary person walking silently along an empty street, hearing the songs of the night, contemplating life and loss and possibilities.

  The doorbell interrupts my contemplations. I rise from the tub and try to dry off. It’s late. Whoever it is, it must be important. As I fling on my robe, I wonder if it’s Phil who maybe got home and was overcome by desire and has come back to have his way with me and stay the night and I’ll wake up in his arms tomorrow, my stalker a thing of the past, my lover back, for good. As I run to the door, I adjust the robe to share a little cleavage, just in case.

  My fantasy evaporates as soon as I peer into the peephole. Instead of Officer Phil, it’s Albert Larson at my door. His elephantine form is strangely somber. The energy that always seems to crackle around him is gone. His shoulders are slouched. His face is mournful. He brushes at one eye, as if to remove a tear.

  I open the door wide enough for conversation.

  “Albert?” I say. “Is something wrong?”

  “It’s my uncle,” he says, lifting his chin to look at me. “He died.” He looks down again, does that tear-brushing thing again, looks at me again, his eyes pleading and desolate.

  “I’m so sorry,” I murmur. I am, too. I’m sorry for Albert. I’m not sorry for his uncle. If there was a kind and merciful and interactive God, Andive would have died long ago. But poor Albert is heartbroken.

  “Can I come in?” He shakes his head in apology. “I need to be with someone, Bobbi. I’ve got no one else. Just for a few minutes?”

  The sight of Albert’s pathetic form touches me to the core. His sagging shoulders make his torso look like the middle of a large snowman, his knees bend inward toward each other like failing structures in search of support, his chin has dropped despondently onto his chest. A scene from my childhood flashes through my mind. A stray dog, huge, with sad eyes, showed up on our doorstep on a freezing cold winter night. I begged to take him in, but my parents were horror-stricken at the thought of an unwashed cur entering our spotless home. I brought him some food, but as I closed the door, the food was at his feet and his pleading eyes were fixed on mine. I cried as I closed the door. In the morning, he was dead on our front stoop, frozen solid, the food next to his lifeless body.

  “Of course,” I say. I open the door all the way and gesture for him to enter. He smiles his thanks and comes in, his eyes never leaving me. It makes me feel naked. I pull the top of the robe closed. It’s a summer robe, shorter and cooler than my winter garment. It reaches about mid-thigh on my body and I’m suddenly self-conscious about it, like I’m greeting a male guest in a string bikini.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” I say. “I just got out of the bath. I’ll go change into something more presentable.”

  I dash to my bedroom. I get into a pair of jeans and shrug on a hoodie, running the zipper to the top. Albert has given me lecherous looks in the past, and I don’t want anything like that to happen tonight. I start back into the living room and catch a glimpse of the scarlet polish on my toenails. For the first time in my life, I worry a little that my feet might set off a testosterone reaction. It’s crazy. My feet are big, like the rest of me. But it’s not completely crazy because you never know what’s going to get a man’s blood running. I slip on a pair of running shoes.

  “Can I get you a beverage?” I ask. “Wine, beer, soft drink, water?”

  “Will you join me?” he asks. A bit of good manners I didn’t anticipate coming from Albert. Not that he’s a redneck, it’s just he strikes me as that kind of sales guy who’s absolutely fixed on his own agenda and unaware of everything else.

  “I’ll have a glass of wine,” I say. “But, Albert, we need to keep this short. I have a long day tomorrow.”

  “Sure,” he says. He follows with a litany of apologies for bursting in on me, and he follows me into the kitchen.

  I open a bottle of Zinfandel and pour him the taste portion. He swigs it down like a cowboy in a saloon, proof he’s no wine snob.

  “May I?” he asks. He wants to pour the wine. Nice. Maybe he didn’t get to the nose-swirl-slurp lesson in wine snobbery, but he understands good manners.

  “Of course,” I say. “Please do.” While he pours, I put away the corkscrew and take a seat at the dining table. He serves my wine and sits cattycorner from me, a little closer than I’d like, but he’s not crowding me.

  “I’m sorry about your uncle,” I say.

  He looks me in the eye and nods. “Thank you. Will you join me in a toast to Uncle Andive?”

  He raises his glass. I raise mine and we clink them together. I feel guilty for being so two-faced, but try not to obsess on it.

  “When did he pass?” I ask.

  “This afternoon.” Albert says it sadly, but just below the surface I can feel another emotion in his voice. “I tried to call you at the salon, but you were out. Then I tried you here and there was no answer.”

  “I’m sorry. I was out,” I reply. I’m right about his emotional mix. The sadness is tinged with hurt, and maybe an ounce of anger, like a child wanting to blame someone for a disappointment.

  “I made all the arrangements,” Albert says. He drinks his wine and lowers his gaze to the table. “I’m skipping the wake because so few of his friends are left. I have a cemetery plot. We’ll bury him day after tomorrow. I was hoping you might come.”

  “Religious ceremonies aren’t my strong suit,” I say. This relationship with Albert is getting too weird. It’s creepy being around him, hiding the ugly secret I have. I can’t imagine how he’d react if he found out I’m responsible for incapacitating his uncle.

  “I’d really appreciate it,” he says again. “I don’t think anyone else will be there.”

  “That’s a shame.” I sigh. “Sure, I’ll come. But I’ll have to get back to work right away. I’ve missed a lot of time at the salon lately.”

  “Because of that vandal?” he asks.

  I nod, yes. “More than a vandal. He was stalking me, too.”

  Albert reacts with surprise and concern. “Want me to speed up the security installation?” he asks. “I’ll do it.”

  “No need.” I smile. This is the part I like about Albert. It’s nice to have friends watching out for my welfare, especially a guy as big as he is. As my body has become more feminine, I’ve felt more vulnerable to physical threa
ts. Albert may be a bit of an oaf, but he has a good heart and you can never have too many friends like that.

  “Are you sure?” he asks. “You seemed pretty worried before.”

  “The police have arrested the man who did it,” I tell him. It’s not like it’s a state secret or anything, and it feels good to say the words aloud. “They arrested him for other crimes, but he’s going to confess to stalking me, too.”

  Albert’s lantern-jawed face is agape with surprise. “Really?” It’s more an exclamation than a question, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Well, that’s great.”

  “You sound so surprised,” I say.

  “Sorry,” he says. “I was worried you’d cancel the jobs. Very selfish of me. I just really need the business. I’m sorry I was so inappropriate. Congratulations.”

  He lifts his glass for a silent salute. We clink and sip.

  “I’m not canceling anything,” I say. “I should have done something here years ago.”

  He nods. We lapse into silence. Fatigue begins to overtake me. It’s been a long week. Anxiety, poor sleep. Now that I can finally relax, I’m getting limp.

  “I’m going to have to turn in pretty soon,” I tell Albert. “Please don’t take offense.”

  “Of course not,” he says. “But before I go, would you tell me again how you knew my uncle?”

  “Oh, Albert.” As I say it, I put my elbow on the table and hold my head. I want to dodge the question again and I’m trying to find the right words, but nothing is moving through my brain. My head feels like a lead weight.

  “We weren’t friends,” I start. But my tongue isn’t working. My voice sounds like a tape recorder playing at a slow speed. I’m slurring words. My vision is closing down, as if someone is pulling a curtain shut. I collapse before I lose consciousness. The last thing I see is Albert catching me. Thank goodness for Albert.

  It takes a minute for me to identify the faint noise I hear. It’s an airplane, taking off or landing, the noise muffled by many barriers. I open my eyes, but it seems like they don’t open because even when I think they’re open, my world is black, completely devoid of light. I blink my eyes many times in rapid succession to confirm that they are open, I’m not dreaming. I have awakened in a dark place.

  I try to move a hand to my face but I can’t. Panic surges through my mind. Why can’t I move? Where am I? How did I get here?

  Gradually, the feeling comes back in my body. I’m lying facedown on something, a bed I think, and I’m horribly uncomfortable. My hands are bound behind my back by lashings that feel like plastic handcuffs. There’s no play in the cuffs. I can barely move my hands at all. When I try to roll on my side to get on my feet, I discover my feet are bound and the restraints seem to be tethered to something else so I can’t move my feet off the edge of the bed or couch or whatever I’m on. I think I’m naked, and my head is racked by a sharp pain, as if there were a hot needle stuck in my brain.

  I try to move again. It’s so quiet my grunts assault my eardrums like thunder, and the little yips I emit from the pain in my shoulders pierce the air like a squeaking wheel. As loud as they seem, my sounds are muffled. I realize there’s a gag in my mouth. My mind hopscotches in and out of coherence. I can’t tell if I’m blind or in a dark room. I can’t fathom how I got here. I wonder if Bobbi Logan was a dream I had, if maybe I’m in a mental institution because I can’t keep myself in the real world. I’m right on the edge of panic, my breath coming too fast, my heart throbbing. Some primitive instinct demands that I slow down everything. I make myself breathe slow and deep. I train my mind on what I know.

  The air I’m breathing has a vague musty quality. I might be in a basement. Where? Near an airport, maybe. What was the last thing I remember doing? I remember kissing Phil and him kissing back and me wishing the doorbell was him wanting to come in and restart our affair. I remember how my body felt when I thought that. I remember opening the top of my robe a little to try to seduce him with some cleavage.

  I remember finding Albert at my door. He was sad about his uncle’s passing. We drank wine. And then I passed out, and he caught me. I swish the scene around some more. Albert didn’t seem surprised when I collapsed. He was right there, ready to catch me.

  Albert drugged my wine. The thought arrives in my consciousness just in front of a string of obscenities. Then the question: Why?

  Panic seizes me. He’s a mass murderer who’s going to rape me, then kill me. It goes with the paste-eating façade, a guy who plays the nerd to get your guard down, then takes you home and skins you. I sob like a child, filled with self-pity. This is not how my life was supposed to end. I’m finally almost where I want to be and I’ve worked so hard to get here, gone through so much grief. My sobs echo in the room. The echo makes me realize the room has hard walls and not much carpet to absorb noise. Basement. My thoughts get rational again. It’s probably a basement. My imagination starts to paint the room in instruments of torture, especially a sink where he’ll cut up my remains for final disposal. I panic again, rapid heartbeat, panting breaths, tears and sobs.

  Another question emerges from the dark: Why me? Why not a genetic woman? Why not a pretty transwoman?

  The answer is obvious. Albert knows about my history with his uncle. This is payback.

  I can’t find any solace in that realization. He’s going to kill me. He can’t let me go now. But he’s going to take his time killing me, he needs to get revenge, and he won’t be satisfied with a quick bullet in the head or even a one-swing crushed skull. I’m going to suffer. I will suffer until he feels sated, and then, if I’m not already dead, he will kill me. Visions of him splattering my head with a baseball bat send me into blind panic again.

  When I have no more energy for panic, I stare into the darkness and wonder when people will start looking for me, and whether anyone will think to check out Albert. I conjure a vision of Phil sweeping in and dropping Albert with a few well-placed blows, then cutting my bonds and holding me in desperate arms. It’s a beautiful image. It’s my ultimate fantasy. But I don’t believe it. No one will think of Albert for days, weeks maybe. I’ll be long dead if I can’t save myself.

  I force myself to do something, anything. I start by rolling onto my back. It’s laborious because my body is stiff and almost as achy as my head, which is hungover from Albert’s dope. I shuffle my torso toward my feet, moving like a caterpillar on my back, trying to get slack in the tether attached to the bonds on my ankles. I have a vague plan to roll off the bed or couch or whatever it is I’m lying on, and getting to my feet, then trying to explore my prison.

  It doesn’t work out that way.

  Just as my feet reach the void at the end of the bed, the world explodes in light as bright as a blowtorch, and an angry, deafening noise fills the air like an assaulting army of demons. The otherworldly glare forces me to close my eyes, and I scream out in mindless terror and strain against my bonds to shield myself from the monster.

  Before I can open my eyes to the light, I realize the demonic noise is some kind of alternative rock and roll, played at an earsplitting volume. I’m still trying to adjust to the light enough to open my eyes when I feel hands on my breasts. I try to brush them away, a reflex, but my hands are bound behind me and I’m helpless. The hands massage my breasts in deliberate, circular motions. I can just make out a voice in the terrible din of the music. I can’t tell what he’s saying. I squint to see his face. It’s Albert. He smiles.

  “Wake up, Bobbi Logan!” He screams it in the din. I glimpse his thin-lipped smile just as he squeezes both nipples with all his strength. I cry out. I don’t want to, but it hurts like nails being driven in my flesh. He twists them. I cry out again. Tears flow without control. I open my eyes. He looms over me, his hulking body like a boulder ready to crush me, his face a nightmare in real life, lit up in hate and loathing. His lips mouth something, his eyebrows raise. He expects me to answer. I shake my head, I don’t understand. He bends closer. I can smell his skin
and see a small bead of sweat trickling down his cheek. He mouths the words slowly.

  How do you like me now?

  I shake my head from side to side, unable to scream because of the gag, trying to shake myself awake and out of this terrible dream. The demonic music pounds my senses. He forces my legs apart and jams something inside my vagina. I scream and writhe but the movement of my hips brings shooting pain. I open my eyes and stare in horror. Albert bends over me, his obese body strangely powerful looking, that fiendish smile on his face, holding a broom in his hands. One end of the broom is in me. He wiggles the other end, and I scream and cry, just what he wanted, but the pain is like being impaled by an iron rod and the humiliation is just as bad. I thrash even though it makes everything worse. I thrash because I can’t stop myself from it. I scream even though it does no good, even though it makes Albert happier. I can see it. I wonder how I missed this part of him before, and then I pass out.

  When I wake up, I’m lying on the floor on my back. The noise from the sound system is gone. The room is quiet. Albert is wiping the mattress of the sofa bed next to me. A sheet lies in a pile nearby. I can smell the urine from here. The cement floor is cold and gray. Albert works with the placid expression of an evil moron until he sees my eyes open.

  “You wet the bed, you skank whore!” He screams it and hits me flush in the face with a hand that feels like a slab of beef. Drops of blood fly across the room. I cry. I don’t want to cry but I’m so terrified I can’t help myself.

  “You go to the toilet when I say to,” he says. He puts his face so close to mine I can pick up the faint aroma of fried food, McDonald’s maybe. He doesn’t have to get this close. He’s in my face because he wants to intimidate me.

  “If you soil this bed again, I’m going to splatter your face all over that wall.” He points to a whitewashed concrete wall opposite the sofa bed. It’s my first glimpse of the rest of my prison. The area he points to has a bench press set up and a barbell array. I can see stairs ending just in front of it, and a utility room next to the stairs. I can’t see what’s behind me.