Then something else began to happen. It started in such small ways that I didn’t see the pattern until much later. When you’re very close to something, you see only the fragments, the isolated incidents, not the patterns.
The first thing I noticed was that the bar was suddenly becoming much looser, much more risque. One night I was there counting out the register—Chuck had turned most of the bookkeeping over to me—when one of the barmaids stripped off her blouse and her brassiere and started serving the drinks topless. She must have been doing this for some time because none of the customers made any comment.
That was the beginning. Sometimes we’d be home late at night, getting ready to go back and close up the bar, and we’d get a call from one of the barmaids telling us not to come over yet. I asked Chuck what was happening and he said not much; the barmaids were just dancing naked for some of the regular customers.
Chuck took delight in passing along information of this nature. He’d throw out some tidbit like that; then he’d study my reaction. I seldom disappointed him because at the time I was easily shocked. My major reaction to all the changes at the bar was to stay away.
“It’s just as well you don’t go down there so often,” Chuck said.
“Why’s that?”
“Well, I wouldn’t want you hanging around Roxanne,” he said. “It turns out that Roxanne’s bisexual.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, how about that? Could you tell that she was bisexual?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “What’s bisexual?”
“She’s into other chicks as well as men,” he said. “She’s got a girlfriend she goes to bed with.”
When Chuck told me something outrageous like that, I never knew whether to believe him. Roxanne couldn’t have been much older than seventeen, and she seemed very sweet.
Late one night we went over to close down the bar. From the outside it looked as though it were already closed down. No lights were showing. Inside it was almost completely dark. We couldn’t see a thing, but we could hear the music coming from the juke box.
Then I saw Roxanne, the young barmaid. She was totally naked, standing on top of the bar and twisting slowly to the music. While she was dancing, a man at the bar reached up and put something—it looked like a dollar bill—into her vagina. She saw us coming in but she didn’t stop dancing.
The second barmaid—this was a very cold girl with black raggedy-looking hair—was lying on top of a table in the back of the room. One of the customers was hunched over on top of her, making love to her with his trousers down around his ankles. A second customer had his thing in her mouth, and a third customer was rubbing her breasts very hard.
Even while I saw this, I couldn’t accept it. This went beyond my wildest imagination. The amazing thing was that no one even missed a beat when we walked into the bar. I wheeled around and reached for the door. Chuck grabbed my arm but his eyes never left the action.
“Where you going?” he asked.
“Out of here.”
“Okay,” he said, “have it your way.”
“I don’t want to see any more.”
“Ah, it’s no big thing,” he said. “I guess I should’ve called first.”
“Chuck, this is sick!”
It wasn’t the fact of the sex that upset me; it was the nature of the sex. I couldn’t imagine anyone—even prostitutes—doing something so incredibly personal with other people around. That was beyond my reach. It never occurred to me that Chuck might have staged the whole thing for my benefit.
“I guess you’re right,” he said to me. “I’m going to have to check out these girls a little more closely. They’re getting a little out of hand. Too much of that and the cops’ll close the place down.”
A couple of days later, Chuck had a visit from an old friend named Theresa. Theresa was very sweet, with a pretty heart-shaped face and long black hair. She told me how lucky I was to be living with a wonderful man like Chuck. She said that she had always looked upon Chuck as a big brother. Later Chuck talked with me about Theresa.
“You know, she used to work for me.”
“At the bar?”
“No,” he said. “That was before I got into the bar business. She used to work for me as—she was a working girl.”
“A working girl?”
“A hooker,” he said. “She was one of the best prostitutes that ever worked for me.”
I was startled by that bit of news. I thought prostitutes always wore fishnet stockings, high heels, too much makeup, and hair teased up to the sky. I was shook-up to learn that Chuck once ran a house of prostitution. This completely decked me.
Chuck began having financial difficulties. He no longer bothered to open the obvious bills and he stopped using credit cards. The telephone disappeared and then the electricity was cut off for a few days.
“The bar’s not doing so good,” he explained.
As his finances waned, Chuck reminisced more and more about “the good old days” when he ran a string of prostitutes. He talked about what nice girls most of the hookers were, just like Theresa, and how well they had done for him.
“You know what we could do?” he said. “We could start it up again. You could answer the telephones—just make the appointments and we’d get out of hock once and for all.”
“I could never do something like that.”
“Sure you could,” he said. “There’s nothing to it. Once you get the hang of it, it’s like any other job.”
“It would be okay for some people, but not me. If someone else wants to do it, fine. But I just couldn’t do it.”
“A woman has a product,” he said, “and she should use it.”
That bothered me. All his talk about prostitutes and starting up a new business didn’t bother me as much as that. But he said those same words several times—“A woman has a product and she should use it”—and that was always very offensive to me.
As the money situation worsened, so did Chuck’s temper. He never put any money in the bank anymore. He would take the cash from the bar, put it in his pocket and carry it around until it all disappeared. Although I was supposed to be his bookkeeper, Chuck stopped talking to me about money. I understood what was happening. One day we were going to the bar, and the next day there was no bar to go to. One day we were driving a new Jaguar, and the next,day we were in an eight-year-old Volkswagen.
“Linda, I’ve got to start up the old business again and I want you to run it for me.”
“I can’t!”
“You’d be the madam, nothing more than that.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing more than that’?”
“I mean, you’d be arranging things for other chicks, that’s all.”
“Chuck, I can’t. I don’t even want to talk about it anymore.”
“Maybe you don’t want to talk about it,” Chuck said, “but you’re going to do it. One way or the other.”
That was the first of many threats. I began to pick up a new tone in Chuck’s voice, then a new phrasing. It started as, “Would you want to?” It became, “This is important to me.” And, finally, “You’re going to wish you had said yes.”
“You can do whatever you want to,” I told him. “But I don’t want anything to do with it. Just leave me out. The whole business is dirty to me. I can’t stand the thought of a girl going to bed with a lot of guys just to get paid for it.”
“Linda, this is no big thing,” he said. “There’d be nothing to it. I’d call up my old customers and tell them I’m back in business. You won’t have anything to do with the men at all. You’d just be on the phone. I’m telling you, there’s only one thing you’d be handling and that’s a telephone.”
“Chuck, don’t talk that way. I’ve been thinking everything over and I know that it’s time I got back up to New York and—”
That sentence was never completed. He hit me on the side of the head and everything went bleary. Then I was lying on the floor and he was kicki
ng me with his Frye boots, hurting me in a way that I had never been hurt before. At first, as he was kicking me, he seemed quiet and cold-blooded, very methodical about it. But when I started to scream, he became excited, sexually excited. For the first time, I saw him fully aroused. Somehow the beating concluded with him raping me on the floor. Then he was through with me, and I didn’t dare move.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “You’re not fucking going anywhere without me.”
The hurting stopped but the fear wouldn’t go away. The fear and the questioning. Why me? Why would he come down so hard on me? Why didn’t he just use one of his hookers? Now I can guess at the answer; it’s because an experienced hooker would have been too smart for him. It’s because a streetwalker would not have been stupid and naive and gullible and scared.
four
One day it was my home, the next day it was prison. The following morning when the telephone rang, I reached for the receiver and Chuck removed it from my hand. He answered it and then turned to me.
“It’s your fucking mother,” he said. “Take it on the extension and tell her you don’t want her to call anymore.”
“Chuck, I’m not going to—”
“I’ll tell you what you’re not going to do,” he said. “And what you’re fucking going to do. I’ll be listening to every word and you’re going to tell her not to call anymore. Tell her you’ve got nothing more to say to her.”
“What’re you saying?”
“Do what I tell you,” he hissed. “Just fucking do it! If you know what’s good, kiss momma goodbye. Kiss her off now or you’ll get another sample of last night.”
“Hello, Mother,” I heard myself say. “Look, I don’t want you to call me anymore.”
From that moment on, Chuck didn’t let me out of his sight. Instead of asking me to do things, he told me. And as if to back up his words, he was always playing with his guns. One was a .45 caliber Walther pistol, an eight-shot automatic that had once belonged to a policeman. Chuck also had a semi-automatic machine gun.
Every day, while he played with his guns, we went through the same sequence. He would tell me he was going to resume his prostitution business and I was going to be his new madam. I would tell him no. He would hit me. Before too long, I learned to keep my opinions to myself. I didn’t change them but I no longer bothered expressing them.
My only honest conversations those days were with God. I was praying all the time, praying for help, praying for something to make it all go away, praying for Chuck to slip up and leave me alone for a few minutes. I knew what I would do then—run for my life—the very minute I could get away from him and his Frye boots.
This went on into July, a typical Florida July with the temperature up over ninety degrees every day, the shirt always sticking to your back and never enough air to go around.
“Let’s go for a ride.”
For a change, Chuck seemed to be in a good mood. He was wearing his yellow-and-black shirt and that was generally a reliable indication that he was feeling all right. Although his Volkswagen had no air conditioning, I was happy to go for the ride. For a few hours I’d be away from the prison.
Chuck never bothered to tell me our destinations and I had learned not to ask. Our conversation, not much to start with, had pretty much come to a stop by this time. Since he was heading south, I assumed we would be going to Worth Devore’s house for more pot. But then Chuck took a different turn and pulled up in front of a Holiday Inn in South Miami, a sprawling two-story building not far from the University of Miami.
A sign outside the Holiday Inn advertised a big buffet lunch—all you could eat for $2.95—and that prospect cheered me up. It was lunchtime and I was famished. But Chuck drove past the entrance to the restaurant and stopped at the motel. Now I was curious.
“Where are we going?”
“To see a couple of people,” he said.
“Business?”
“Yeah, business.”
All that meant to me was no buffet lunch. It also meant that Chuck was going to try to con some businessmen into taking part in one of his scams, probably his new prostitution business, since that was all he ever seemed to talk about anymore.
Well, that didn’t concern me and I had resolved that it never would concern me. Maybe it was the sunshiny brightness of the day or just being in a Holiday Inn, but I found myself beginning to relax. For at least a couple of hours I couldn’t be beaten or threatened.
We walked down the central corridor of the motel, up one flight of stairs, down another hallway all the way to the end. We stopped at the very last room and Chuck rapped on the door three times. There was a long narrow window beside the door. The curtain jerked to one side and a man’s face stared out at us. The curtain fell back into place and the door opened.
There were five men in the room, all businessmen and all distinguished in appearance, at least distinguished in comparison to Chuck’s normal associates. They were wearing ties and jackets; their hair was receding or graying; their ages ranged from thirty-five to fifty-five. I couldn’t imagine how Chuck was going to be able to con this type of man, but I was much more concerned by my hunger pangs: When were we going to eat?
We were in a large room with twin beds separated by a small table. A second table was near the door, and two of the men were seated there, within easy reach of the room-service setups. Over at the far end of the room there was a combination bathroom-dressing room with a fold-up partition. One of the men greeted Chuck like a long-lost friend.
“Hey, Chuckie, it’s been a long time between times.”
“Sure has,” Chuck said. “Too long.”
“Got anything new goin’ on?”
“You’ll see. This is Linda.”
“Well, hel-lo, Linda.”
The others came over then and introduced themselves. Although they all seemed to be respectable businessmen, they weren’t above giving me the old once-over.
“Would you care for something to drink?” one of them asked.
“I don’t drink.”
“That’s very commendable,” he said.
“But I wouldn’t mind some ginger ale.”
“No sooner said than done.”
One of the men was the president of a bank, and a second was his chief executive officer. The other three ran small businesses. Although they had all been drinking, they were neither raucous nor loud.
Chuck was busy talking with the bank president when I excused myself to go to the bathroom. I found it slightly odd that Chuck hadn’t yet come to the point. We had been in the room a quarter of an hour and I still had no idea what Chuck was trying to sell. Well, there was no rush. The air-conditioned room had cooled me off nicely and I was finally feeling comfortable.
When I came out of the bathroom, the partition separating the dressing room and the rest of the room had been closed. Chuck was waiting for me and there was a look on his face that I hadn’t seen before. It was a sneer—no, more intense than a sneer.
“You know those five guys out there,” he said.
“Well—”
“You’re going to fuck all five of them.”
“Chuck, don’t talk crazy.”
“Oh, you’re gonna fucking do it all right,” Chuck said. “Believe me, you’re gonna do it. I’ve promised these men. I’ve given my word. You tell me you don’t want to run my business. I give you every chance in the world and you tell me no. Okay. You don’t want to run it, then you can be part of it.”
“No, Chuck.” He smiled at that. “I mean it, Chuck, I’m not doing anything with anyone.”
“You got no fucking choice,” he said. “I already got their money. And that’s something I want you to remember. The first thing you do is get the money. I’ve taken care of that for you this time, but in the future you’ll have to be responsible for that. Now strip off your clothes.”
“I’m not taking off my clothes.”
I tried to sound strong but that wasn’t the way I was fee
ling. I suddenly realized that Chuck was crazy, really insane, that he actually expected me to take off my clothes and go out there to have sex with five strangers. When he took his hand out of his trouser pocket, he was holding his pistol and pointing it at me. It was the first time anyone ever pointed a gun at me but it wouldn’t be the last time.
“I’m going to shoot you right now,” he said. “Unless you get out there and do what I’m telling you.”
“I can’t.”
“Are you sure about that?” he said. “Are you really sure about that? You want to know what I think? I think you’re going to take off your clothes, all of your clothes, and then you’re going to go out there and fuck those five guys. And if you don’t, I’m going to put a bullet into your head right now.”
“Chuck, you’re crazy!” I could hear a change in my voice —weakness—and I despised it. “You would never shoot me in front of five witnesses.”
“Linda, don’t con yourself,” he said. “Those guys aren’t going to say nothing to no one. They have wives and families and they’re all fucking influential businessmen. You think they care what happens to some nickel-and-dime hooker who has an accident in some motel room? You think one of those guys would say he was out there waiting for a prostitute?”
“Don’t do this, Chuck.”
“Say your prayers,” he said. “Those guys out there got everything to lose and nothing to win by saying anything. And that about sums it up for you, too. Take off your clothes or you are one fucking dead chick!”
Suddenly I didn’t doubt him. I knew he would shoot me. I was numb as I removed my clothes and put them on hangers. Then tears started to flow out of my eyes. I was trembling, really shaking, too scared even to pray. One thing I already knew about Chuck, he was not someone who’d be moved by someone else’s tears. When he realized he had triumphed, his attitude went from menacing to superior and condescending. He reminded me of a little boy saying, “Ha-ha, I’ve got you now.”
Ordeal Page 3