“Yeah.”
“Most of them come home in a day or two.”
“Some don’t ever. I’ll keep in touch, Dom.”
“Don’t I know that,” he said.
Julie went upstairs to see the Rodriguezes as soon as they got home. Juanita’s father was sitting in the kitchen, his head in his hands. He looked up at her when she laid her hand on his shoulder. His eyes were wet. “Why she do this to us? Why?”
Julie, to reassure them of the girl’s resourcefulness, told them how Juanita had confronted the boys who were taunting her. Mrs. Rodriguez turned and stormed at her husband, “Men are pigs. You’re all pigs!” It ought to have been funny, Julie thought, but it wasn’t.
Juanita sat on the bathroom stool in a silk robe that was much too big for her. She had taken a shower she hadn’t wanted and washed her hair on the woman’s command. She hadn’t wanted to take off her clothes, but she was afraid the woman might make her, and might come into the bathroom with her. She hadn’t done that. She only made Juanita hand out her jeans, jacket, and sweat shirt, her bra, panties, and socks. She hadn’t seen her sneakers since they brought her here.
She knew now that this was a loft. The bathroom was fancy-new. So was the kitchen, which didn’t have any doors. The living room ran all the way from the studio-the room with the big bed and the statues-to what must be the front of the building. Street noises seemed to come from there, and there must be a very big window with heavy curtains covering it. Threads of light showed at the top and at the floor. A Castro convertible bed, where they must have slept, was open. The woman, who said she must call her Dee, told her the big door was to the elevator and was kept locked. Juanita was pretty sure there had to be a fire escape. But where?
“Come out now, Juanita. I want to fix your hair.”
“Could I have my clothes, please?”
“You’ll get dressed later. Come on now.”
She went out to where the woman motioned her into a chair in front of a mirror. “Can’t I get dressed before he comes back?”
“First I want to do up your hair.” Dee had a dryer in hand. “Little dark pom-poms might be nice. You could look Japanese. Like a geisha girl.”
“Please. I hate this.” Juanita tugged at the robe.
“Just be patient. You’re going to have beautiful new clothes.”
Dee blow-dried her hair to where she could work with it, making little round buns she fastened and then let loose, then fashioned again. “Very pretty, my little geisha.”
Juanita’s fear was getting bad again. She almost wished the man would come. They might have another fight, a long one. When her mother and father fought, she could run away and hide. Where could she run and hide here? She’d make a dash for the big window and pound on it. She would jump up and down. But people would point and laugh and wouldn’t do anything. Unless the man came and tried to give her the needle and she fought him right there in the window. Maybe then,
“A penny for your thoughts.” Dee smiled at her in the mirror and then looked at herself. “How I wish I was young like you again.”
“Don’t let him stick the needle in me anymore.”
“Over my dead body.”
Juanita felt a little more secure and tried once more, “Couldn’t I have my clothes back now?”
“No, dear. I’ve already put them in the garbage disposal.”
In the early afternoon, with the help of Vendor Licensing and Traffic Control, Detective Russo located the Greystone Puppets truck. It was impounded in the Twelfth Avenue lot for illegal parking overnight. According to the gatekeeper, the owner had arrived early that morning, but without enough money to pay both fine and storage. He was due back within the hour. Otherwise he’d owe the city another hundred dollars for storage. Julie took what money she had in the house and waited outdoors for the squad car to pick her up. Where she had used to carry a pocketful of coins for blind beggars and street musicians, she now carried dollar bills for the homeless.
She and the two precinct officers Russo had commandeered examined the truck. It was locked up tight, but that didn’t mean much, given its condition. As one of the cops said, it was hard to tell what breed it was. They could see the skeleton of a stage set on a platform that probably rolled out onto the tailgate. There was a trunk marked COSTUMES and some painted scenery scaled to the stage. But no puppets.
Very soon a little man with a wisp of a moustache, hollow cheeks, and great melancholy eyes, came up lugging a duffel bag. He showed the cops his receipt from the city. “I had to hock my puppets. They’re my kids! My goddam living.”
“I’ll help you if you can help me,” Julie said. She didn’t look as though she had much to help with, in sneakers and raincoat. But as soon as she started to describe Juanita she was in charge. She soon had the puppeteer wagging his head. He remembered the girl, all right. “She kept asking me questions-did I make the puppets myself, did I make them out of old dolls. Could she make them. She wanted to know where I was going next. ‘Florida,’ I says. ‘I don’t want them to catch cold.’ When she saw I was putting her on-the saddest look I ever saw.” Then he was jolted aware. “She’s come up missing?”
“Since five o’clock last night.”
“I was there on the street till ten. But listen: there was this woman I thought at first was the kid’s mother. She was telling her about puppets. I was changing the act, see. I got three different acts….”
Julie waited out his setting the scene. One of the cops activated a pocket recorder.
“Somewhere in there I got the idea this dame was a con artist. I don’t mean I thought it exactly. It just crossed my mind. She was like playing to me too. That’s what kept the youngster interested. She watched to see if I was interested. That kid’s no fool. The redhead was telling about this old theater she was renovating and how she was collecting puppets that could make like singers….”
“Where? Did she say where it was?”
“No, ma’am. Not to me, she didn’t, and I’ll tell you this, she knew about as much about puppets as I know about King Tut. But that’s where I lost touch. I got a hand puppet that’s my buddy. Whenever we get enough people around, Andy and I pass the hat. It’s a living. I guess you could call it a living.”
“What else about Juanita?”
He shrugged. “One minute they were there, gone the next. That’s how it is when you’re playing the street.”
The police pressed him for a description of the redheaded woman. Then Julie asked him if he thought the theater she spoke about might be a real place.
“Could be.”
“Nearby?”
Again he shrugged. Then: “I don’t think that kid would go with her anyplace she couldn’t walk to.”
A buzzer signaled Danny’s return. While the elevator groaned its way up, Juanita glanced toward the heavily draped window at the front of the loft. Dee clamped her fingers around the girl’s wrist. “Don’t you even think of it! Do you want to get killed?”
Juanita, still in the silken robe, gathered it tighter in front of her. It didn’t have any buttons. She tried not to see herself in the mirror because it wasn’t really her. Dee had made her up to look oriental. But she watched in the mirror for the elevator’s arrival. When it stopped, Dee had to unlock the door to let Danny in. He took the key from her and locked it again.
“So?” Dee wanted to know.
He didn’t answer. He came near and stared at Juanita in the mirror. He made a face like he was going to throw up. “What’ve you done to her? And what in hell is she doing out of the studio?”
“We needed a bath.”
“Then we need another bath. She looks like a midget’s whore.”
“Fun-nee. Did you get what you went for?”
“No. The answer is no. Dee, she’s supposed to look like an angel. That’s why you fell in love with her.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“I got a contact. That’s all I got and I’m going to go see him as soon as you an
d I straighten some things out.”
“Danny, how much time do you think we have?”
“Maybe we don’t have any. This town ought to be the best. But it’s the worst yet. Get her inside there so we can talk.”
Confined again in the studio, Juanita put her ear to the frame of the door, then to the keyhole. Then she lay down on the floor and tried to hear from under the door, but only the sound of their voices reached her, going away as though to the front of the building. A new sound startled her until she realized it was her stomach growling. She’d promised Dee she would eat. She knew Dee liked her. That’s what made Danny mad. But there wasn’t any food. Dee looked in the cupboards and the fridge. How could they live someplace with no food in the house? They didn’t live here. It was like a hotel, only it was a loft they rented. Their suitcases were on the floor, open, with clothes falling out of them. They’d rented from an artist, which was why Danny wasn’t supposed to touch anything in the studio.
She sat on the edge of a chair and wound her feet around its legs. The dressing gown smelled of perfume and sweat. She wished they’d start fighting again so she could hear them. If they didn’t have any time, would they go away and leave her locked in this room with the bucket and the big bed? She hated beds more than most things. Her mother and father fought a lot about beds, and her mother had boyfriends she didn’t think Juanita or Papa knew about. Papa didn’t. She did. She knew that was why her mother let her go when she said she was going to Elena’s. She had a date with a boyfriend. Juanita thought of the kids getting on her about the flyers-“What’s pornography, Juanita? how come you know so much about it?” She knew it was dirty pictures, but she wasn’t going to say it to them. She felt herself going sick again, scared. She tried to think of Julie. Julie would really try to find her. Maybe she’d find the puppet man. He could tell her about Dee. But what else? She hadn’t seen Danny before she walked into the old building with the hand-painted sign on the door: PUPPET SHOW INSIDE. Julie walked a lot and she might find it.
Juanita began to walk then, too. Round and round the room she went, barefoot, the silk gown dragging the floor. Finally she entered the alcove where the statues stood around like people at a funeral. There were other things, half-finished bodies, heads. She recognized the smell of clay. Tools and brushes and tubes of paint lay on a table. There was a painting on a three-legged stand, and other paintings were stacked in racks. This was where Danny wasn’t supposed to touch anything. She came on several camera cases then, and something rolled up with metal legs sticking out. There were two flat boxes with straps that were marked FILM. These things belonged to Danny, she felt sure, not to the artist. Danny said the light wasn’t any good. He was going to take her picture, and he wanted her to look like an angel. That didn’t sound like Danny. She’d have thought he would want her to look like a whore.
Julie was in luck when she reached the Actors Forum. A session had just ended. Nobody there knew much about pup-pets, but when she’d given the actors and apprentices the story, most of them volunteered to organize a street-by-street search of old West Side buildings in which a puppet theater might now be playing or where appropriate renovation might be under way. They would all go first to precinct headquarters and coordinate with the police. “Mind you,” Julie cautioned, “the real puppeteer said the woman didn’t know anything about puppets. It was probably a story made up to lure the youngster. She’s eleven years old and she’s pretty. What else can I tell you?”
“We’ll find her, sister,” Nuba Bradley, a tall, black actor who seemed to have grown three inches with the current hair style, bent almost in two to kiss her cheek.
Reggie Bauer hung back to talk to Julie while the others got under way. Slight, blond, and brittle, Reggie knew New York society from the Bowery to the bridge tables; these were where, it was said, he made enough money to support himself as an actor. “You don’t think for a minute it’s got anything to do with puppets, do you?”
Julie waited,
“Do you want my scenario?”
“Not if it’s too far out. Of course, I want it.”
“Kid porn.”
“What does that mean?” She knew well enough. Or thought she did, but she hoped it wasn’t so.
“Child pornography. The lady was shopping for innocence, the real thing. In the meantime, either she’s got a partner for her or somebody’s out there looking for an experienced young dude to match her up with.”
Julie didn’t question him on his expertise. She thought she knew how he came by it. Except that Reggie was gay. The thought must have shone through her eyes. He said, “A lot of it’s faked, you know, especially the pleasure.”
“How would they find a boy like that? Where?”
“Through somebody in the business, Somebody knows somebody who likes boys. A certain amount of trust is involved in the transaction.”
“Oh, my God,” Julie said. “Maybe I know someone myself.”
Juanita stood beneath the skylight and turned around slowly. On tiptoe she could see what looked like the top of a barrel. Bringing one of the chairs to stand on, she could see that it was a water tower. She could see other buildings and a lot of sky. She could also see where water leaked in around the skylight. If she could get up there, she might be able to push the window out.
She went back to the door and listened. She couldn’t hear anything except faraway car horns and the rumble of the city much as it sounded when she was home alone in the daytime. Maybe they’d both gone out. Maybe they’d already gone and left her. And left the camera and everything? She didn’t think so. She wasn’t going to let them photograph her without her clothes on. Not unless he used the needle again. This time she’d kick it out of his hand or kick him where she knew it would hurt most. “Over my dead body,” Dee had said. But Dee was afraid of him too.
She took the painting off the three-legged stand. Even if she could step on the stand, it wouldn’t be high enough. Again she listened at the door. They’d gone out to lunch, she decided, and Dee would bring back something for her. It had to be after lunchtime. As quietly as she could she pulled the table under the skylight. The stand just fit on top of it. The dressing gown made it hard for her to climb, and she knew it was going to get in her way if she got high enough to try to move the window. But it had pockets. She found a paint-smeared knife and a chisel, which she pocketed. She also took a hammer and tied it around her waist with the sash of the robe. She tried not to think of Danny, but in spite of herself she imagined him unlocking the door just as she stepped from the chair onto the table. She began to melt again with fear.
“No!” she cried aloud without meaning to. She waited. Nothing happened. She could not climb up on the stand. The ledge she wanted to step onto was too high. She pulled the chair up onto the table, but in doing it she nudged one of the legs of the stand and the whole thing clattered to the floor. Not a sound came from the other side of the door. This time, after she’d set up the stand and placed the chair beneath it, she boosted herself up without tumbling the works. She waited and listened. There were sounds she hadn’t heard before in the building, noise like heat coming up in the pipes, machinery sounds that might be the elevator. But it never seemed to arrive. Her heartbeat was too loud to hear much else. She made it safely up onto the chair. She could see the twin towers of the Board of Trade Buildings. She was in lower Manhattan. SoHo. Of course: where the artists were. She got one foot sidewise onto the ledge and tested to see if it would hold her. It seemed to, but when she tried to lift the other foot the stand wobbled and collapsed. She missed the chair and fell and, flailing, brought the chair down after her. Before she knew whether or not she was hurt, Dee threw open the door and came running to her. Juanita tried to pull the robe close around her.
“I wouldn’t’ve believed it! He was right, I shouldn’t’ve left you alone. Let me look at your face.” On her knees, Dee examined her face, touched her eyes, nose, lips. “Say ouch if it hurts.”
Juanita determined not
to say ouch no matter how much it hurt. She managed to loosen the hammer and tie the sash around her. Dee felt down her arms and pulled the robe open to see her middle. Juanita closed it again. She knew there would be bruises where she’d hit the table, but she didn’t make a sound when Dee touched the sore spots.
Dee got to her feet and pulled the girl up. “You’re lucky in more ways than one, you little fool. Let’s put these things back where they were. I promise I won’t tell Danny if you promise to do what you’re told from now on. Promise me?” She gave the girl a shake.
Juanita was trying not to cry. She did hurt, but she forced a big smile and nodded what could be taken for a promise. She had lost the chisel on the way down, but she could feel the knife stuck deep in the pocket of the robe.
Julie stopped at the shop to see if any message had come through her service. Most of the calls pertained to business. She put them on hold. Several Women Against Pornography members had joined the neighborhood search. Mrs. Rodriguez had called twice. Julie ran upstairs. The woman had heard nothing. Her husband had gone to the police station to wait. There were a lot of Perdidas in her lamentation.
Julie walked the four blocks to Kevin Bourke’s electrical shop on Eighth Avenue. Mr. Bourke was one of the first people she’d met after moving into the shop. He loaned a friend of hers some lamps to help decorate it. He had lived in the neighborhood all his life, he attended St. Malachy’s where the Catholic actors went, supported the Irish Theater, and looked a bit like Sean O’Casey, whose plays he admired fervently. He had been in trouble when Julie met him, on the complaint of a boy who turned out later to have been a prostitute. Julie might not have been so direct if her mission had been less urgent.
Mr. Bourke looked at her sadly over the top of his rimless glasses. “I’ll not waste your time asking why it was me you came to. Do you know how many years I’ve been in therapy to amend that fall from grace?”
A Woman’s Eye Page 9