by A. W. Gray
“Guys that do what I do get this kinda shit all the time. Well you’re looking at one guy doesn’t do any drugs.” “What is it that you do, Mr. Hodge?” Gerald Hodge smirked in pride. “I’m a dancer.” “Yeah? Broadway, I guess. Bet you do those West Side Story numbers.”
“Hey, don’t laugh. I might some day.” Gerald’s posture sagged. “I had an audition at Chippendale’s, out in L.A. Got to do that kind of crap until your career gets kicked off good.”
“An exotic dancer in women-only places,” Sing said, his lids at half-mast.
“Yeah. That illegal or something?”
“What brings you to Texas, Mr. Hodge?”
“I had some time in between jobs. Thought I’d see some country. If you’re writing a book, there’s some chapters I’d want you to leave out.”
“Are you acquainted,” Sing said, “with a Darla Bern? You could know her as Victoria Lee.”
“What, some broad said I did something?” Gerald testily tucked his chin. “I don’t force none of these women.”
“The lady’s been occupying the room down the hall—five-seven-seven,” Sing said.
Gerald slightly averted his gaze. “Oh yeah, her.”
“She says she was with you last night.”
Gerald frowned. “I need a lawyer?”
Sing raised his eyebrows. “You don’t right now. You’re not a suspect at present.”
“A suspect of what?”
“A…suspect. All I’m trying to do, Mr. Hodge, is check out the lady’s alibi.”
“Yeah? Well, who’s going to give me a fucking alibi?”
“I don’t know that you need one. Do you think you need an alibi?”
Gerald sat up, grabbed one of the dumbbells, braced his elbow against his inner knee, and began a series of one-arm curls. His biceps bunched like a cantaloupe. His forearm muscles writhed. “What did this broad say we were doing?”
Sing blinked. “What were you doing, Mr. Hodge?”
Gerald expelled three hard breaths, his lips compressed, and slowly lowered the dumbbell. He looked up. “So I fucked her brains out. What brains she’s got. That a crime?” There was an angry red welt on his thigh, inflamed from exertion.
“It’s not a crime that I know of,” Sing said. “Mmm, where did you meet this woman?”
“By the pool. I need to keep tan. Women come up to me all the time.”
“With regard to last night,” Sing said, “how long were you with her?”
“She come down here about seven.”
Sing wrote something down. “Seven in the evening?”
“Yeah, you know, begging for it. I run her ass off, oh, about five in the morning. Broads are tough to get rid of sometimes. Want to hang around and shoot the shit.”
“That must be difficult,” Sing said. “So she was with you from seven last night until five in the morning?”
“Give or take.”
“Constantly. She never left.”
Gerald shrugged. “If you were a broad, would you?” He launched into another curl.
“That’s something I couldn’t answer,” Sing said. “But you’re sure she was with you the entire time.”
Gerald lowered the dumbbell. “Yeah, I’m sure. Listen, you’re not going to give the broad my name, are you? I got enough women bugging me as it is.”
Both Darla Bern and Gerald Hodge furnished Los Angeles addresses, which Wilson thought quite a coincidence, two L.A. people getting acquainted in a motel in Dallas, Texas. Sing pointed out that, since there were twenty million people living in the Los Angeles basin, the odds of two strangers being from that area were only a little better than ten to one, the U.S. population being 250 mil or so. Each of the interviewees asked if they were free to travel home, Hodge to take a dancing gig, Bern because she had a chance to audition for a speaking part in a movie. The agents made a show of thinking that one over; the truth was, since neither Darla nor Gerald were charged with anything, they could go wherever the hell they pleased. Both provided L.A. phone numbers, Gerald balking until the agents assured him they wouldn’t give the number to the broad. Then the agents left the motel, returning to the office a little before four.
The pair then collaborated on a report which they attached to the Request for Interview form. They pointed out that Darla Bern had an ironclad alibi for her whereabouts on the night in question, and that the man furnishing the alibi was barely acquainted with Darla and therefore had no reason to lie. Furthermore, Interviewee Bern had indicated that not only was she not involved in the kidnapping, she wasn’t even aware it had taken place. Suspect Frank White, in fact, had attempted to recruit Miss Bern for an operation which she suspected to be illegal, and she had turned him down flat before he could give her the details. The agents omitted any mention of Howard Molly in the report because they considered the Theater Center Director’s absence insignificant. Los Angeles addresses and phone numbers for the interviewees were included as a footnote.
Sing signed off on the form as lead investigator, and gave the form to Wilson for transmission to Agent Turner at the kidnap victim’s family home, via courier. Wilson carried the form and attached report to his own cubbyhole, stared for a few moments at his view of the alley behind the West End Marketplace Cinema 10, and pictured Agent Sing’s view of the shiny ball atop Reunion Tower with Dallas’s majestic skyline stretching out to the east. Then he sat at his scarred government-issue desk and set the form aside as he prepared his report to the agent-in-charge. He pointed out each shortcoming he’d noted in Sing’s behavior during the day, carefully omitting the expense-account lunch which the agents had shared in the West End. When he’d completed the report, Wilson checked his watch, then picked up the phone and punched in a number he’d committed to memory only that day. In the middle of the third ring a click sounded, and a soft female voice said, “Dallas Theater Center.”
Wilson cleared his throat. “Yes, Agent Wilson, FBI.” He paused. “You remember me?”
“You’re the other one. Not the oriental guy.”
“Right, the other one.”
There was a pause, after which the brunette said, “Sure. Can I help you?”
Wilson softly closed his eyes. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “I just wondered what you were doing.”
“In twenty minutes I’ll be going home. At the moment, twiddling my thumbs.”
Wilson felt a tightness in his chest, then blurted out, “I was wondering, I thought you might be free for dinner.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, then, “What is this, a joke?”
“I didn’t mean it as a joke.”
“The other guy’s sitting there, right? You two have a bet? Come on.”
“I’m not sure I—”
“Well, you can tell him,” the woman said, “that the answer was the same to you as it was to him. As in, ‘No, thanks.’ ”
“Are you saying that Agent Sing’s already called you?”
“Not five minutes ago, as if you didn’t already know. And Five minutes ago I told him I already had a boyfriend. Now, five minutes later, I’ve still got one. Goodbye.” There was a click as she disconnected.
Wilson stared in shock at the receiver, then replaced it in its cradle. His neck was red. He slid his daily report back in front of him and added the following sentence: “Agent Sing further displayed familiarity with the receptionist at the Dallas Theater Center, and I later learned that he had asked her for a date.” He signed his name and hustled down the corridor to place the report in the agent-in-charge’s confidential file. So intent was he in snitching on Agent Sing that he completely forgot about forwarding the Request for Interview form to Agent Turner. That document, along with the attached report, was to remain on Wilson’s desk for two more days.
17
Meg felt naked in spite of the pale blue cotton boxer shorts and matchi
ng T she wore. No panties, no bra. Just the gym outfit which, freshly laundered, had been placed in the cage’s food slot about an hour ago. There’d been a note folded in with the clothes, typewritten on plain white twenty-pound bond. She curled her legs up under her and blinked away tears as she read the note for perhaps the fiftieth time.
You will receive clean clothes each morning, along with one fresh towel to replace the one hanging on the rack. The shower is stocked with gentle liquid soap and hazelnut shampoo, for normal hair. The shampoo contains a conditioner. If either the soap or shampoo are not satisfactory, or if you require some other form of conditioner, you need merely speak out. Someone will be listening to you at all times. After you bathe you should lay the spent towel in the food slot, where it will be replaced at the same time your daily allotment of clothing arrives. We apologize that you will have to air-dry your hair, but you will not be furnished any electrical appliances with which you could harm yourself or others. Meals will be furnished twice daily. They will be microwaved frozen dinners, and let us apologize as well for the cuisine, as we were unable to find a chef who met our other requirements for employment. Hopefully your ordeal will not continue for long, and it is our intent to make you as comfortable as possible. If you desire privacy while changing you should step inside the shower and close the curtain or retreat to the toilet area. As long as your behavior is acceptable the portable partition and curtain will remain around the toilet and over the shower opening respectively. If you do not behave, these privacy items will be removed and you will have to bathe and use the toilet in plain sight. Remember, someone will always be watching you.
Meg let the note flutter down to the mattress and peered through the heavy wire mesh and out the door. Someone watching. In the outer room, the bathroom entry cast a parallelogram of light on worn brown carpet. Beyond the doorway outline, Meg’s world ended in blackness.
She sat on the edge of an iron cot. The mattress was thin plastic stuffed with rags, supported by metal slats that were welded to the bed frame. Around each individual leg of the cot the tile was chipped from the floor, and the metal legs were sunk several inches into freshly poured cement. So she couldn’t move the bed and she couldn’t slide one of the slats from under the mattress to use as a weapon. They seemed to have thought of everything. She wondered if indeed they had.
Her hair was still damp from the first bath she’d had in her prison, and the bath itself had been an eye-opener. They’d done a makeshift plumbing job on the shower, removing the hot- and cold-water handles, and in their place installing spring-loaded buttons. It had taken her a few minutes to get the hang of it; in order to keep the water running she had to hold the button in with her thumb. She’d been worried about scalding herself, but apparently they’d thought of that as well; the hot water was diluted with cold, and never was more than lukewarm. The removal of the handles made it impossible for her to leave the water on and flood the place.
Someone watching. She shI’vered and hugged herself, then stretched out full-length on the bed.
A chest-high cloth hospital partition blocked the commode from outside view, the toilet itself a scant six inches from the far side of the cage. Lysol bowl cleaner sat on top of the tank along with a nylon toilet brush. So great. Meg could threaten her captors with the brush while forcing them to drink the bowl cleaner. If she drank the cleaner herself, thus committing suicide, she doubted if they’d care
The cage was made of cyclone fence wire, flexible but unbreakable. The supporting frame was steel, riveted to the walls. One corner of the cage was arranged so that it half blocked the bathroom door, and so that someone could wedge through to stand in the two-foot corridor between the cage and the window. That’s where the hooded man had stood and held the recorder while she’d spoken her message to Mom and Dad.
The chloroform jolt in her bedroom had zonked her pretty well, but she did have one foggy memory of the trip from the school to wherever the hell she was now. She recalled the sack-of-flour sensation as the big blond man had carried her from the backseat of a minivan and had transferred her into a second man’s arms. The second guy had worn a ski mask as well. He was short, squatty, and strong as a bull. As he’d deposited her in the trunk of a second vehicle, she’d caught a whiff of cheapo aftershave. Within seconds after he’d slammed the trunk lid, she’d been off in dreamland once more. When she’d come to she’d been inside the cage, lying on the bed.
Her gaze rested wearily on the ten-foot wooden pole propped in one corner of the bathroom, outside the cage. They’d shoved the pole in through the mesh and prodded her awake to make the recording. The squatty guy and an older man, both wearing ski masks, had stood side-by-side in front of the window and held the recorder up for her to talk into the mike. The older man had worn shorts and a flowered shirt with the tail out, and had had skinny white legs and a middle-aged paunch. His speech had been clipped and precise, with a faint New York accent and he’d talked’ in a grating falsetto to disguise his voice. She supposed the older man had written the note she’d just read, but only because he’d sounded educated. As yet she hadn’t heard the squatty guy say a word. After she’d said her little ditty to Dad, they’d handed her her first set of gym clothes and ordered her to change. She’d slipped into the shower stall and done so.
Frightened and disoriented as she’d been, the thought of worrying her parents had practically made the words she’d spoken stick in her throat. The folks would do anything they could to get her out of this mess, Meg had no doubt about that, but her independence had been a bone of contention between her and her family—especially her father—for quite some time. She had a standing lunch date with Daddy, Casa Dominguez Mexican restaurant every Tuesday, eleven-thirty on the dot, and only last week they’d gotten into it.
“You ashamed to be a Carpenter or something?” he’d said, dipping a corn chip into chili con queso.
“Don’t be silly,” she’d said, mashing guacamole with her fork, “if it was that I’d change my name. I’m getting a kick out of supporting myself, Daddy, watching budgets and all that, so let me play if I want to.”
“Supporting yourself, that’s one thing. I just don’t want people knowing a daughter of mine’s eating beans to get by.”
She’d laid down her fork and looked at him. “You did.”
“That was different. We had to. Now you’ve got people thinking I’ve cut you off.”
“They don’t think any such thing, those that have any sense. Most people I know don’t know we’re related. I like it that way. Makes for real relationships.”
He’d frowned at her then. “Don’t think anybody that wants to can’t find out who your family is, Meg. It’s not just you supportin’ yourself. There’s people out there could be dangerous.”
Right again, Daddy, Meg thought as she looked around at her prison. Being rich sure does have its advantages.
She’d slipped in the references to “plays” and “acting” as a hidden message while making the recording, but didn’t have much hope that her cutesy idea would alert anyone that the chick in the ski mask was none other than that Victoria Lee/Darla Bern person. God, Meg thought, why did the silly woman bother to disguise herself? Frank and Mrs. Helen Dunn were the only ones likely to make the connection, but Meg doubted Frank would ever hear the recording, and thought that Mrs. Dunn was too dense to get the hint if it walked up and pulled her hair.
Mom and Dad would come across with the money, Meg knew, so at least she wasn’t going to die. That was one comfort, that she was going to live to see another day.
Or was she?
Basil Gershwin tried to remember where he’d ever seen such a succulent fucking broad. Maybe on a movie screen, never in person. If Randolph Money thought a guy could spend time with this broad twenty-four hours a day and never try to strike up a conversation, Money was crazy as hell.
Basil sat unmoving in the dark, where he’d been for going on ei
ghteen hours. He’d gotten up twice, once to stand by while Money did the recording, and once to put clean clothes in the food slot. He was mesmerized, wide awake. Basil hated sleep, had hated it in the joint, and hated it even more since he’d been a free-world guy. Anytime you snooze, Basil thought, you’re likely to miss something important. Such as this absolutely luscious fucking broad.
It was the overall view, something about her. Darla had better wheels and a better ass, but to Basil’s way of thinking Darla couldn’t hold a candle to this woman. Basil thought he could spend the rest of his life hiding here in the dark just watching her. He’d like it even better if he could do something to her, of course, but Basil thought for a guy like him, getting next to this broad was out of the question. Basil Gershwin was one guy who knew his place, and his place definitely wasn’t with a woman had any class.
He was sprawled out in an easy chair, facing the bathroom and the cage within. His ski mask lay in his lap, and he wore surgical gloves. The thick black curtains he’d hung over the windows worked perfectly; from within the room it was impossible to tell if it was day or night outside. It was four in the afternoon. In another two hours he’d get the broad her dinner, which tonight would be Salisbury steak, peas, and mashed potatoes.
Something people would never understand about Basil—he wasn’t any wild man. He’d raped four women in his life, two of the broads he’d held hostage in the bank and two before that, but those were certain kinds of women. One bank teller he remembered really good, a pouty teenager with a big ass and short, tight skirt, and that broad had definitely been asking for it. The woman inside the cage wasn’t like that, she was something special. Something which a guy would like to take to dinner, be seen in public with.
Basil was proud of the changes he’d made to the cage. Jesus, the dumb Gerald guy, Darla’s guy, he’d just hauled the collapsible kennel pen into the bathroom and unfolded it. During the time since he’d left Money at the airport and come to the hiding place, Basil had done some remodeling. He’d riveted the cage to the bathroom walls, anchored the bed to the floor, and installed the shower buttons. Guy who’d spent as much time in jail as Basil knew how to keep a prisoner. Wasn’t nobody in the group could fix up a cell the way that Basil could.