by Ed McBain
Anita’s eyes welled with tears. She was visibly trembling, the memory so upset her.
By this time Skatskill detectives had questioned everyone on the school staff except for Mikal Zallman, thirty-one years old, computer consultant and part-time employee, who wasn’t at the Skatskill Day School on Fridays.
FEEDING MY RAT
It was an ugly expression. It was macho-ugly, the worst kind of ugly. It made him smile.
Feeding my rat. Alone.
IN CUSTODY
Alone he’d driven out of Skatskill on Thursday afternoon immediately following his final class of the week. Alone driving north in his trim Honda minivan along the Hudson River where the river landscape so mesmerizes the eye, you wonder why you’d ever given a damn for all that’s petty, inconsequential. Wondering why you’d ever given a damn for the power of others to hurt you. Or to accuse you with tearful eyes of hurting them.
He’d tossed a valise, his backpack, a few books, hiking boots and a supply of trail food into the back of the van. Always he traveled light. As soon as he left Skatskill he ceased to think of his life there. It was of little consequence really, a professional life arranged to provide him with this freedom. Feeding my rat.
There was a woman in Skatskill, a married woman. He knew the signs. She was lonely in her marriage and yearning to be saved from her loneliness. Often she invited him as if impulsively, without premeditation. Come to dinner, Mikal? Tonight? He had been vague about accepting, this time. He had not wanted to see the disappointment in her eyes. He felt a tug of affection for her, he recognized her hurt, her resentment, her confusion, she was a colleague of his at the Skatskill School whom he saw often in the company of others, there was a rapport between them, Zallman acknowledged, but he did not want to be involved with her or with any woman, not now. He was thirty-one, and no longer naive. More and more he lived for feeding my rat.
It was arrogant, was it, this attitude? Selfish. He’d been told so, more than once. Living so much in his own head, and for himself.
He hadn’t married, he doubted he would ever marry. The prospect of children made his heart sink: bringing new lives into the uncertainty and misery of this world, in the early twenty-first century!
He much preferred his secret life. It was an innocent life. Running each morning, along the river. Hiking, mountain climbing. He did not hunt or fish, he had no need to destroy life to enhance his own. Mostly it was exulting in his body. He was only a moderately capable hiker. He hadn’t the endurance or the will to run a marathon. He wasn’t so fanatic, he wanted merely to be alone where he could exert his body pleasurably. Or maybe to the edge of pain.
One summer in his mid-twenties he’d gone backpacking alone in Portugal, Spain, northern Morocco. In Tangier he’d experimented with the hallucinatory kif which was the most extreme form of aloneness and the experience had shaken and exhilarated him and brought him back home to reinvent himself. Michael, now Mikal.
Feeding my rat meant this freedom. Meant he’d failed to drop by her house as she had halfway expected he would. And he had not telephoned, either. It was a way of allowing the woman to know he didn’t want to be involved, he would not be involved. In turn, she and her her husband would not provide Mikal Zallman with an alibi for those crucial hours.
When, at 5:18 P.M. of Friday, April 11, returning to his car along a steep hiking trail, he happening to see what appeared to be a New York State troopers’ vehicle in the parking lot ahead, he had no reason to think They’ve come for me. Even when he saw that two uniformed officers were looking into the rear windows of his minivan, the lone vehicle in the lot parked near the foot of the trail, because it had been the first vehicle of the day parked in the lot, the sight did not alarm or alert him. So confident in himself he felt, and so guiltless.
“Hey. What d’you want?”
Naively, almost conversationally he called to the troopers, who were now staring at him, and moving toward him.
Afterward he would recall how swiftly and unerringly the men moved. One called out, “Are you Mikal Zallman” and the other called, sharply, before Zallman could reply, “Keep your hands where we can see them, sir.”
Hands? What about his hands? What were they saying about his hands?
He’d been sweating inside his T-shirt and khaki shorts and his hair was sticking against the nape of his neck. He’d slipped and fallen on the trail once, his left knee was scraped, throbbing. He was not so exuberant as he’d been in the fresh clear air of morning. He held his hands before him, palms uplifted in a gesture of annoyed supplication.
What did these men want with him? It had to be a mistake.
. . . staring into the back of the minivan. He’d consented to a quick search. Trunk, interior. Glove compartment. What the hell, he had nothing to hide. Were they looking for drugs? A concealed weapon? He saw the way in which they were staring at two paperback books he’d tossed onto the rear window ledge weeks ago, Roth’s The Dying Animal and Ovid’s The Art of Love. On the cover of the first was a sensuously reclining Modligliani nude in rich flesh tones, with prominent pink-nippled breasts. On the cover of the other was a classical nude, marmoreal white female with a full, shapely body and blank, blind eyes.
TABOO
It was Taboo to utter aloud the Corn Maiden’s name.
It was Taboo to touch the Corn Maiden except as Jude guided.
For Jude was the Priest of the Sacrifice. No one else.
What does Taboo mean, it means death. If you disobey.
______
Jude took Polaroid pictures of the Corn Maiden sleeping on her bier. Arms crossed on her flat narrow chest, cornsilk hair spread like pale flames around her head. Some pictures, Jude was beside the Corn Maiden. We took pictures of her smiling, and her eyes shiny and dilated.
For posterity, Jude said. For the record.
It was Taboo to utter the Corn Maiden’s actual name aloud and yet: everywhere in Skatskill that name was being spoken! And everywhere in Skatskill her face was posted!
Missing Girl. Abduction Feared. State of Emergency.
It is so easy, Jude said. To make the truth your own.
But Jude was surprised too, we thought. That it was so real, what had only been for so long Jude O’s idea.
Judith!
Mrs. Trahern called in her whiny old-woman voice, we had to troop into her smelly bedroom where she was propped up in some big old antique brass bed like a nutty queen watching TV where footage of the missing Skatskill Day girl was being shown. Chiding, You girls! Look what has happened to one of your little classmates! Did you know this poor child?
Jude mumbled no Grandma.
Well. You would not be in a class with a retarded child, I suppose.
Jude mumbled no Grandma.
Well. See that you never speak with strangers, Judith! Report anyone who behaves strangely with you, or is seen lurking around the neighborhood. Promise me!
Jude mumbled okay. Grandma, I promise.
Denise and Anita mumbled Me, too, Mrs. Trahern. For it seemed to be expected.
Next, Mrs. Trahern made Jude come to her bed, to take Jude’s hands in her clawy old-woman hands. I have not always been a good grandma, I know. As the judge’s widow there are so many demands on my time. But I am your grandma, Judith. I am your only blood kin who cares for you, dear. You know that, I hope?
Jude mumbled Yes Grandma, I know.
THE WORLD AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT
Has vanished.
We are among the few known survivors.
. . . terrorist attack. Nuclear war. Fires.
New York City is a gaping hole. The George Washington Bridge is crashed into the river. Washington, D.C., is gone.
So the Corn Maiden was told. So the Corn Maiden believed in her Rapture.
Many times we said these words. Jude had made us memorize. The world as we have known it has vanished. There is no TV now. No newspapers. No electricity. We are among the few known survivors. We must be brave, everyone else is gone.
All the adults are gone. All our mothers.
The Corn Maiden opened her mouth to shriek but she had not the strength. Her eyes welled with tears, lapsing out of focus.
All our mothers. So exciting!
Only candles to be lighted, solemnly. To keep away the night.
The Corn Maiden was informed that we had to ration our food supplies. For there were no stores now, all of Skatskill was gone. The Food Mart was gone. Main Street was gone. The Mall.
Jude knew, to maintain the Rapture the Corn Maiden must be fed very little. For Jude did not wish to bind her wrists and ankles, that were so fragile-seeming. Jude did not wish to gag her, to terrify her. For then the Corn Maiden would fear us and not trust and adore us as her protectors.
The Corn Maiden must be treated with reverence, respect, kindness, and firmness. She must never guess the fate that will be hers.
The Corn Maiden’s diet was mostly liquids. Water, transparent fruit juices like apple, grapefruit. And milk.
It was Taboo Jude said for the Corn Maiden to ingest any foods except white foods. And any foods containing bones or skins.
These foods were soft, crumbly or melted foods. Cottage cheese, plain yogurt, ice cream. The Corn Maiden was not a retarded child as some of the TV stations were saying but she was not shrewd-witted, Jude said. For these foods we fed her were refrigerated, and she did not seem to know.
Of course, finely ground in these foods were powdery-white tranquilizers, to maintain the Rapture.
The Corn Maiden of the Onigara Sacrifice was to pass into the next world in a Rapture. Not in fear.
We took turns spooning small portions of food into the Corn Maiden’s mouth that sucked like an infant’s to be fed. So hungry, the Corn Maiden whimpered for more. No, no! There is no more she was told.
(How hungry we were, after these feedings! Denise and Anita went home to stuffstuff their faces.)
Jude did not want the Corn Maiden to excrete solid waste she said. Her bowels must be clean and pure for the Sacrifice. Also we had to take her outside the storage room for this, half-carrying her to a bathroom in a corner of the cobwebby cellar that was a “recreation room” of some bygone time Jude said the 1970s that is ancient history now.
Only two times did we have to take the Corn Maiden to this bathroom, half-carried out, groggy and stumbling and her head lolling on her shoulders. All other times the Corn Maiden used the pot Jude had brought in from one of the abandoned greenhouses. A fancy Mexican ceramic pot, for the Corn Maiden to squat over, as we held her like a clumsy infant.
The Corn Maiden’s pee! It was hot, bubbly. It had a sharp smell different from our own.
Like a big infant the Corn Maiden was becoming, weak and trusting all her bones. Even her crying when she cried saying she wanted to go home, she wanted her mommy, where was her mommy she wanted her mommy was an infant’s crying, with no strength or anger behind it.
Jude said all our mommies are gone, we must be brave without them. She would be safe with us Jude said stroking her hair. See, we would protect her better than her mommy had protected her.
Jude took Polaroid pictures of the Corn Maiden sitting up on her bier her face streaked with tears. The Corn Maiden was chalky white and the colors of the bier were so rich and silky. The Corn Maiden was so thin, you could see her collarbone jutting inside the white muslin nightgown Jude had clothed her in.
We did not doubt Jude. What Jude meant to do with the Corn Maiden we would not resist.
In the Onigara ceremony Jude said the Corn Maiden was slowly starved and her bowels cleaned out and purified and she was tied on an altar still living and a priest shot an arrow that had been blessed into her heart. And the heart was scooped out with a knife that had been blessed and touched to the lips of the priest and others of the tribe to bless them. And the heart and the Corn Maiden’s body were then carried out into a field and buried in the earth to honor the Morning Star which is the sun and the Evening Star which is the moon and beg of them their blessing for the corn harvest.
Will the Corn Maiden be killed we wished to know but we could not ask Jude for Jude would be angered.
To ourselves we said Jude will kill the Corn Maiden, maybe! We shivered to think so. Denise smiled, and bit at her thumbnail, for she was jealous of the Corn Maiden. Not because the Corn Maiden had such beautiful silky hair but because Jude fussed over the Corn Maiden so, as Jude would not have fussed over Denise.
The Corn Maiden wept when we left her. When we blew out the candles and left her in darkness. We had to patrol the house we said. We had to look for fires and “gas leakage” we said. For the world as we have known it has come to an end, there were no adults now. We were the adults now.
We were our own mommies.
Jude shut the door, and padlocked it. The Corn Maiden’s muffled sobs from inside. Mommy! Mommy! the Corn Maiden wept but there was no one to hear and even on the steps to the first floor you could no longer hear.
OUT THERE
HATEHATEHATE you assholes Out There. The Corn Maiden was Jude O’s perfect revenge.
At Skatskill Day we saw our hatred like scalding-hot lava rushing through the corridors and into the classrooms and cafeteria to burn our enemies alive. Even girls who were okay to us mostly would perish for they would rank us below the rest, wayway below the Hot Shit Cliques that ran the school and also the boys—all the boys. And the teachers, some of them had pissed us off and deserved death. Jude said Mr. Z. had “dissed” her and was the “target enemy” now.
Sometimes the vision was so fierce it was a rush better than E!
Out There it was believed that the missing Skatskill girl might have been kidnapped. A ransom note was awaited.
Or, it was believed the missing girl was the victim of a “sexual predator.”
On TV came Leah Bantry, the mother, to appeal to whoever had taken her daughter saying, Please don’t hurt Marissa, please release my daughter I love her so, begging please in a hoarse voice that sounded like she’d been crying a lot and her eyes haggard with begging so Jude stared at the woman with scorn.
Not so hot-shit now, are you Mrs. Brat-tee! Not so pretty-pretty.
It was surprising to Denise and Anita, that Jude hated Leah Bantry so. We felt sorry for the woman, kind of. Made us think how our mothers would be, if we were gone, though we hated our mothers we were thinking they’d probably miss us, and be crying, too. It was a new way of seeing our moms. But Jude did not have a mom even to hate. Never spoke of her except to say she was Out West in L.A. We wanted to think that Jude’s mom was a movie star under some different name, that was why she’d left Jude with Mrs. Trahern to pursue a film career. But we would never say this to Jude, for sure.
Sometimes Jude scared us. Like she’d maybe hurt us.
Wild! On Friday 7 P.M. news came BULLETIN—BREAKING NEWS—SKATSKILL SUSPECT IN CUSTODY. It was Mr. Zallman!
We shrieked with laughter. Had to press our hands over our mouths so old Mrs. Trahern would not hear.
Jude is flicking through the channels and there suddenly is Mr. Z. on TV! And some broadcaster saying in an excited voice that this man had been apprehended in Bear Mountain State Park and brought back to Skatskill to be questioned in the disappearance of Marissa Bantry and the shocker is: Mikal Zallman, thirty-one, is on the faculty of the Skatskill Day School.
Mr. Zallman’s jaws were scruffy like he had not shaved in a while. His eyes were scared and guilty-seeming. He was wearing a T-shirt and khaki shorts like we would never see him at school and this was funny, too. Between two plainclothes detectives being led up the steps into police headquarters and at the top they must’ve jerked him under the arms, he almost turned his ankle.
We were laughing like hyenas. Jude crouched in front of the TV rocking back and forth, staring.
“Zallman claims to know nothing of Marissa Bantry. Police and rescue workers are searching the Bear Mountain area and will search through the night if necessary.”
There was a cut to our school again,
and 15th Street traffic at night. “. . . unidentified witness, believed to be a classmate of Marissa Bantry, has told authorities that she witnessed Marissa being pulled into a Honda CR-V at this corner, Thursday after school. This vehicle has been tentatively identified as . . .”
Unidentified witness. That’s me! Anita cried.
And a second “student witness” had come forward to tell the school principal that she had seen “the suspect Zallman” fondling Marissa Bantry, stroking her hair and whispering to her in the computer lab when he thought no one was around, only last week.
That’s me! Denise cried.
And police had found a mother-of-pearl butterfly barrette on the ground near Zallman’s parking space, behind his condominium residence. This barrette had been “absolutely identified” by Marissa Bantry’s mother as a barrette Marissa had been wearing on Thursday.
We turned to Jude who was grinning.
We had not known that Jude had planned this. On her bicycle she must’ve gone, to drop the barrette where it would be found.
We laughed so, we almost wet ourselves. Jude was just so cool.
But even Jude seemed surprised, kind of. That you could make the wildest truth your own and every asshole would rush to believe.
DESPERATE
Now she knew his name: Mikal Zallman.
The man who’d taken Marissa. One of Marissa’s teachers at the Skatskill Day School.