Savage Nights

by W. D. Gagliani

  Ralph had lost his nerve to face anything, especially his family and specifically his daughter. But he loved her, Brant knew that, no matter what his own personal feelings about his brother might have been.

  Brant pushed open the door and stood framed in the doorway. The bedroom was dark, but he saw movement on the bed.

  He flipped on the light.

  Ralph lay spread-eagled on the crusty bedspread.

  At first Brant thought he was dead. But Ralph's chest moved with shallow breathing, and he could hear quiet sobbing.

  He had to steel himself to enter. The odor of unwashed clothes, stale booze and sweat, and something else... Brant wondered for a second if it was too high-brow to label it hopelessness. The room smelled of Ralph's hopelessness — with life, with money, with his family. Most likely even with himself.

  He stepped into his brother's private hell. "Ralph?"

  When his brother rolled over, Brant thought he was looking at a reanimated corpse. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin had wasted to an unhealthy pallor as if he'd been locked in here for years, and his hands shook visibly as he attempted to prop himself upright. He tried to stand, nearly sliding off the sagging bed.

  Brant watched, offering no help.

  Eventually the man who looked twenty years older than he was reached an upright position.

  "Rich, I —" Even his voice shook like a palsied limb.

  "Jesus, Ralph." It was all Brant trusted himself to say.

  "I know, I know." A hint of a smile showed the kind of person Ralph had been, but only for a second. "This is like last-stopsville, man. I know that. I'm sorry you had to see it. And me, like this. But —"

  "What's going on with Kit?" Brant wanted to skip the sorries and regrets, skip the reality in front of him, and return to the reason he was here.

  Because if Kit was in trouble, she couldn't count on her father, that was clear.

  As if to underscore this reality, Ralph sagged back onto the bed with a wheezy sigh.

  Brant crossed the clothes-strewn room and swept more clothes onto the floor. He sat gingerly, as if afraid the chair legs would suddenly turn into serpents and strike.

  "Ralph!"

  Sniffling, Ralph rolled on his side and faced his brother. He was a giant fetus still clutching a drenched tissue, his eyes puffy and his lips twisted in self-pitying grief.

  "Jesus, tell me what's going on."

  "Rich, all I know is she's gone. Gone forever. When you see this on TV they never come back. They're just a picture with a name and a date. They're just gone. Sometimes — usually — they don't even find the body..."

  Brant suppressed his rage. He tried wheedling. "Come on, Ralph, get yourself together and let's go to the cops. You can tell me as we drive." He stood and offered his brother a hand, dreading his touch.

  Ralph's clothes were soiled, stained with food and who knew what else. He stank of cigarettes and body odor.

  Brant grabbed his brother's limp arm and pulled him off the bed, then dragged him across the floor to the bathroom. Ralph's protests were half-hearted and Brant ignored them. A minute later, water sluiced off Ralph's sobbing face and clothes while Brant searched about for wearable clothes. He settled on a sweatshirt and a pair of wrinkled khaki pants. Underwear he left to his brother to find. He waited in the bathroom door until Ralph came to his feet slowly in the shower, shucked off the drenched clothing, and stood in the spray, his bony aging frame testament to some kind of misery that had overtaken his life. Brant wanted to feel pity, wanted to feel sorry, but every minute wasted was a minute counting off of some sort of timer against him and against Kit and he couldn't let Ralph drag his daughter into the depths with him.

  "Damn it, Ralph," Brant whispered. He made a fist and smacked the side of his own thigh until Ralph finally shut off the water and stepped dripping out of the shower. Brant tossed him a questionable towel, then the newer clothes, then went back to the living room to wait.

  Ten minutes more and Ralph appeared, minimally more presentable. His thin hair had been toweled dry and combed flat over his knobby skull. His stubble was still there, but at least he no longer smelled like a refuse bin. His wrinkled clothing hung on him, but looked almost fresh by comparison. Brant smelled a hint of aftershave and toothpaste.

  Maybe there was hope yet.

  "Now, then, tell me what's going on and hurry." Brant's voice betrayed more than simple impatience. The anger threatened to bubble up.

  "Rich, you know I love Kit," Ralph began, waving off any interruption with a hand motion. "But you also know that she would never call me if she needed anything. There's her mother... And there's you. Plus she has a much better chosen family than a natural one, you know, with good friends and—"

  "Get on with it," Brant said with a growl.

  "Okay, what I'm saying is that, well, I haven't been much in touch with her. But she must have my number written down somewhere. Kit's roommate called me. Her name is Irina — she's Russian or Ukrainian or something. Has a little bit of an accent. She called me with this tiny little voice and she said she thought something had happened to Kit, that they went to the mall together and at some point Kit just disappeared. She thought Kit would maybe show up at home later, like maybe she met some boyfriend, but hours went by and she never did. And she remembered some guy, some mean guy who had cursed at Kit when she stumbled into him tripped him or something like that..."

  "So then what?" Brant wanted to slap his brother, but he held his temper in check.

  "So then when this Irina got worried she called me. I told her I would call the cops, but she said no no, she would do it, and to come over to her place tomorrow — Kit's place and her place — and we could figure something out. I said sure, but then I thought about it for a while and called the cops anyway. Then this cop, Zimmerman, called me back..."

  Brant couldn't help himself. He groaned.

  "You know him?"

  "Yeah, I know him. Go on."

  "Zimmerman, he called and wants me to go in. Irina never called them, as far as he knows. He wants a report filed before anything else can happen."

  "He would. He's by the book. Once he has a report, he'll follow up like a pit bull. But the report comes first. Let's go." He moved toward the door.

  Ralph brightened up. "To see Zimmerman?"

  "No, to see this Irina."

  "But Rich, Zimmerman said I have to see him or his partner before anything else."

  "I don't have to see him first. Who's his partner?"

  "Uh, Danny Col- I think Colgrave."

  "Him I don't know. Get moving, Ralph. We may not have much time." He pulled the door open and checked the hall briefly, out of habit.

  "Why?" Ralph's voice shook. His eyes widened in the dim lighting of his shabby living room.

  "This girl said she'd call the police, but then she didn't. Why would she call you, but not them?"

  "I— I don't know."

  "Right, we don't. But it sounds suspicious to me. Whatever's going on, there's no doubt Kit's in trouble. You can go see Zimmerman, if you want, but I'm checking in on this Irina chick first, to make sure she'll still be there when the reports are filed."

  "Oh." Ralph stood slowly, testing his legs.

  They left the flat without locking the door.

  KIT

  When she heard the bolt turning in the cell door, Kit cowered in the far corner of her bunk.

  She hated herself for it.

  But the fear that gripped her insides was too great. She had heard and seen too much by now to expect any sort of reprieve, so her primal instinct made her flinch and try to melt through the cinderblock wall. Her wrist throbbed where the cuff chafed it.

  The bolt's double turn took an eternity. When the door finally swung open, Kit's body tensed for a spring. A defensive attack might be possible. (Why didn't she keep her nails long and sharp, like Irina's? Why?) She made her hands into claws, hiding them in the shadows. Kit had already noted that the reinforced door opened outward, whi
ch meant she had no access to the hinges. Not that she had any tools, either. And the chain was too short — she'd checked. She wondered if there was a hidden camera.

  She decided. Whatever opportunity presented itself, she would take. Maybe she could strangle someone with the chain.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  A shaft of bright hallway light probed the dimmer room and picked her out of what she'd hoped were shadows.

  Like a bug trapped in a spotlight.

  Then a girl entered on her own two feet. It had to be the same girl Kit had heard briefly —

  (she was the one who listened to me when I pretended to sleep...)

  — when they'd brought Jill back, when Kit had first awakened. A hairy forearm ending in a giant's paw held the door open, and the girl, a bright redhead, walked straight in and went for the third bunk — not the one Jill had occupied until her disappearance. A metal toilet sat in the fourth corner.

  The hand and forearm closed the cell door and turned the bolt.

  "You're awake!" the redhead said, big discovery tone. "You're scared and wondering where you are, what's happening, and why you're here."

  They weren't questions. Kit said nothing.

  "Don't worry, that's normal. My name's Marissa."

  She might have been a receptionist: Take a seat, I'll be right with you. She was perky enough. Or a tour guide. Large, wide-open eyes gave her an overenthusiastic expression, as if she were leading senior citizens through a museum she loved.

  "And you are?"

  Kit whispered her own name. Why did she feel wary? This girl was presumably in the same trouble —

  danger! her mind screamed

  — as she was, yet there was something different about her whole demeanor.

  Comfortable.

  She seemed at ease with the bunk, the cell, Kit — and their predicament. But how could she be?

  Marissa wore striped gym shorts and a red halter top which was about to slip off one breast.

  Kit studied her face. Strong jaw, high cheekbones, a slightly hooked nose framed by a sprinkle of freckles. Cupid's lips curling up in a bright smile marred only slightly by a single crooked tooth. Eyes that dominated it all, however, with their almost outrageous width.

  Was this girl as crazy as Kit had first thought?

  When Marissa next spoke, Kit decided that yes, she was.

  "Please don't scream again like you did before. It really won't make any difference. The walls are soundproof. No one can hear you, and nobody cares. Except me. Hurts my ears."

  Kit felt her own eyes widen at that. Shocked, she said nothing.

  "I hope you're gonna like it here, Kit," she said in her perky tone. She indicated Jill's empty bunk. "Jill didn't like it at all. It made things a lot worse for her. I told her, if you just give in to it, you'll like it. But she wouldn't listen."

  Kit whispered her question. Her throat still hurt from screaming. "What happened to her?"

  Marissa seemed puzzled. "Happened? I guess she got rejected."

  From what I heard, it was worse than that. Kit thought carefully before speaking. "You don't know what happened to her?"

  Marissa shook her red curls. "I guess they sent her home."

  "They?"

  "You know, the men who run this place. It's like a gym, but there's all this fun stuff instead of exercise."

  "Fun stuff?" Kit thought she would throw up again if Marissa didn't stop.

  "Yeah, you know. If you like it..."

  "Marissa, don't you know what's going on? What they're doing? Do you know what happened to Jill? I think — I think she may be dead. Raped and — and murdered. Aren't you—"

  Marissa's eyes seemed to glaze over in the half-light, as if she'd thrown a switch behind them. "Okay, whatever. Don't talk to me." She rolled over on her bunk, sulking.

  She looked like a well-practiced sulker.

  Kit almost sputtered, shocked. What was wrong with this girl? Had Marissa so blocked reality from her own psyche that she thought this was summer camp? Or was there an even scarier principle involved? There was something — what was it, that chick who'd been kidnapped in the Seventies and changed her name to Tanya. Wasn't there some sort of medical thing that went on when people were kidnapped? Kit dredged in her mind for the term. Helsinki Syndrome? Stockholm? Copenhagen? Someplace like that, Scandinavian.

  Jesus, she'd been kidnapped. The crystal-clear thought cut through the trivia that cluttered her brain.

  What the hell could she do?

  And ever worse, had Kit's questions turned her only possible ally against her?

  Before she could catch herself, she was heaving again.

  FOUR

  There wasn't much to talk about between them, so they sat in uncomfortable silence as Brant drove to the East Side, where Kit lived near the University. Further north lay a fashionable northern suburb, but surrounding the state school was a ring of homes and apartment buildings that had, over the years, continued to accommodate larger numbers of college students, along with the bars and liquor stores and fast-food storefronts that would take care of their immediate needs. Some of the houses were rambling American gothics and Victorians, a prelude to the Tudors and Cape Cods that increased in frequency as one followed the lake's coastline north. Many were midwestern bungalows, some updated but most still in their original, highly Germanic state. And the apartment buildings tended toward characterless blocks of red brick with the occasional update, many of them sporting long, narrow balconies kept private from their neighbors by wooden partitions. Kit's place was in one of these, an L-shaped mini-complex of two smaller buildings joined at the hip. One faced Belleview and the other Prospect, a major thoroughfare which bisected the residential area to lead directly to the large campus.

  "You remember where Kit lives?" Ralph spoke for the first time since they had closed the doors.

  "I helped her move in."

  Ralph closed his mouth with an audible snap.

  "I'm afraid," he said a few moments later, softly.

  Brant nodded. Not happy to admit it, he felt the same sense of doom. But he had thought it was his own doom, not that of someone he loved.

  They were forced to circle before Brant found and claimed a tight parking slot on Belleview, a half block away. The building's lobby showed signs of former glory — white and black marble panels clashed with the cheap indoor-outdoor style carpeting laid across the floor and onto the creaking wooden staircase. Brant noted that there was a buzzer system, by which one would have to be buzzed past the lobby door, but the inner lobby door lock swung slackly and secured nothing. Brant didn't bother to buzz the third floor, and instead they headed up the stairs. A dingy skylight above them had been painted over, and now the paint peeled in long strips, some of which they ground underfoot.

  "This place wasn't so run-down when she moved in," Brant whispered. "We'll pay the manager a visit sometime, I think."

  Ralph nodded and followed his brother up the stairs to the third landing, where two apartment doors faced each other. One was painted black (like the song, Brant thought incongruously, something Kit had said), while Kit's hand was obvious in the other, the one closest to the top of the stairs — it had been painted a vibrant royal blue and its old-fashioned filigrees highlighted in gold. A beautifully rendered gold Eye of Horus surrounded the peephole.

  After knocking twice, they heard shuffling sounds behind the door just before it was thrown open by a striking young woman with long chestnut hair tucked into a hastily donned nightgown.

  Brant reassessed her in an instant. This had to be Irina. She was not quite out of her teens, and yet she exuded a sexual charm that was well beyond her years. She could almost be an Egyptian princess, framed as she was in Kit's fanciful doorway. Her eyes were lined in black and lids shaded in dramatic blue and gold that extended to points below her temples. Her lips, pursed in a smile, were full and lush and glowed sparkly violet.

  "Yes?" she said. Her voice was deep and full of mys
terious sexuality.

  This is Kit's roommate?

  Brant could only guess how she and Kit managed to get along. He knew well that the vision who stood in the doorway was diametrically opposite to just about everything Kit stood for and believed in. If anything, Irina should have been the brunt of Kit's wicked sense of humor and not her roommate. Go figure.

  "I'm Kit's uncle, and this is her father," Brant said without preamble.

  A shadow might have passed over her eyes, but then she smiled timidly. "Yes! Please, come in!"

  She stepped aside and Brant caught a strong hint of musk as he and his brother squeezed past, almost forced to brush against her lithe body.

  The flat was lit by occasional ceiling-mounted spots and candles, which flickered in a dozen corners, atop shelves and end tables. Brant smelled strong jasmine blended with something else, some incense aroma he couldn't place. Framed Nagel art hovered in the bright spots' glare. A bookcase held more matrioshka dolls than books, their lacquered rounded bodies reflecting the candlelight eerily.

  Brant's first thought was that this was not a college girl's apartment. Or at least it wasn't Kit's style. But then, what did he know of this beauty who stood before them? For that matter, what did he know about Kit now that she was grown up? He hadn't seen her in months. Plenty of time to allow for maturing tastes.

  Irina smiled nervously. "Have you found Kit? Has she called? Is she all right?" Her voice was breathless and the questions ran into each other.

  But Brant noticed that her eyes shifted slightly and he followed them to her left, where a French-style double door stood open. Inside he could see a brighter bedroom, a large made up bed dominating its center. The colorful bedspread was mussed, but not turned down. A modern bedside lamp threw shadows on the cream walls.

  Ralph attempted to answer her questions, but he stuttered and the sentence came out unintelligible. He opened his mouth to start over, but Brant leaped into the gap. He cast a warning gaze at his brother and shut him up.