Damage Control: A Novel

by Denise Hamilton

  “He that athlete raped some girl?”

  “Well, that’s the question. Salazar says it was consensual.”

  “I heard his wife just had triplets. He’s probably not getting any at home.”

  “Mom! When did you become such a brazen hussy?”

  “When did you become such a prude?”

  My face fell. She reached out and touched my arm. “I shouldn’t have said that, hon. It’s not true, anyway.”

  But she’d hit a nerve and I started to sniffle. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll never feel a man’s arms around me again. It scares me.”

  I didn’t want to tell her about my botched date.

  “Of course you will,” Mom said soothingly. “You’re beautiful and funny and smart and kind.”

  For some reason, that just made me more melancholy. “Thanks, Mom. But I work around the clock. Look, it’s after midnight. Again! How will I ever meet anyone this way?”

  “At work, maybe?” Mom said. She slapped her book closed. “Now tell me about this baseball player. They’re all overgrown kids, you know. They’re paid to be aggressive on the field and they’re indulged and pampered and showered with money and they never grow up. Raping girls! He could get any girl he wants, good-looking guy like that.”

  “Salazar says the girl came on to him.”

  “Oh?”

  “We just met with him, in his lawyer’s office. Luckily for us, he’s the poster boy for clean living. When his teammates go out carousing, he stays in the hotel and Skypes with his wife. On the night in question, he says the waitress at the hotel restaurant struck up a conversation when she brought his salad. Said her eleven-year-old nephew idolized him and was there any way she could get an autographed baseball. Salazar said the best he could do was an autographed photo. She said she’d come up to his room to get it when her shift ended.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Mom.

  “So at eleven fifteen she walks into Salazar’s room. He asks for the nephew’s name and signs a photo: ‘Dear Brandon. Stay cool and live your dreams. From your pal, Art Salazar.’ He hands her the photo, and from there, the stories diverge wildly. Salazar claims she started kissing him and pretty soon they moved to the bed and had consensual sex.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Mom.

  “The girl claims that Salazar threw her on the bed and raped her.”

  “Did she scream? Did anyone in the other rooms hear any signs of a struggle?”

  “The girl said she feared for her life. Salazar’s six two, a professional athlete. She’s five three and weighs one hundred ten pounds.”

  Mom made a clicking sound with her teeth. “In my day, if you went up to a guy’s room, you were asking for it.” She looked at me. “So what do you think? Did he rape her?”

  I stretched out, feeling the nubby chenille of the bedspread through my silk blouse, and recalled the meeting.

  Salazar’s attorney had been fidgety and nervous, like he was on coke or something. He kept interrupting his client to say, “What Art means is . . . What Art’s trying to say is . . .” until Faraday turned to the attorney and asked him to please shut up and let the guy talk.

  But he’d done it in Spanish. Then he’d looked at Salazar and winked, and that broke the ice.

  After that, the baseball player opened up. Salazar seemed filled with anguished guilt for betraying his wife. He’d been deliberate in his choice of words, backtracking at times to correct himself as he described what happened. The story didn’t seem pat or rehearsed. He was very specific about some details, while Faraday had to prompt him about others.

  There was none of the coiled grace, the laser intensity that I’d seen on TV clips of Dodger games. Salazar was strikingly handsome, but I was struck more by his angry bewilderment. Sitting in a high-backed chair in his attorney’s plush office, he looked like a small-town boy who’d been plucked up by fate and deposited into a different dimension.

  “My wife,” he groaned at one point. “The mother of my children. She curses me and hangs up each time I call.”

  “Here’s what you do,” Faraday said. “Tomorrow morning, you go down to Beverly Hills and you buy the biggest diamond you can find. You have them wrap it in a fancy box, then you get on a plane and fly home. You get on your knees and you apologize and promise it will never, ever happen again.”

  A ray of childlike hope lit up Salazar’s eyes. “You think she’ll take me back?”

  We all nodded.

  “She’s got three babies and she wants them to have a father,” I said.

  “And you tell her the truth, that the girl set you up,” Faraday said. “One of my staffers did a little research and this girl has a history of mental instability. She dropped out of college. Spent time in psych wards. Drifted for several years before landing this job. This isn’t the first time she’s made a rape accusation. The previous time, the police declined to make an arrest. So it was like a loaded gun, you walking into her waitress station that night.”

  Now I watched the shadows move across the coved ceiling and considered my mother’s question: Was Art Salazar guilty of sexual assault? How could anyone not in that room ever truly know what had happened?

  “I think he cheated on his wife,” I said. “But I don’t think he raped the girl.”

  I explained what Fletch had dug up.

  Mom was silent for a moment. Then she said softly, “Maggie. Do you ever think about the girl who made the accusation? The possibility she might be telling the truth?”

  “Yes I do. But you’re the one who pointed out that she went up to Salazar’s room late at night. She put herself in a vulnerable position. Was that wise? I mean, I’d never do something like that.”

  But I had, at sixteen. I’d been naïve. Stupid. Trusting. Me and Anabelle, in Playa del Rey.

  Later, as I tossed and turned in my own bed, the aroma of night-blooming jasmine invaded my room, thick and cloying as fog. In the Angeles National Forest, an inferno was raging, adding the barbecue smell of smoky ash. Up in the canyon, a coyote yipped. Several more answered, their high, lonesome cries veering into shrieks as they closed in on something.

  The smell of panicked skunk wafted slowly into the room.

  Behind closed eyelids, I saw the skunk turning in desperation, saw the leering muzzles reflected in the whites of its eyes.

  Jasmine with its carnal, charnel-house reek. Skunky animalistic musk. Bonfires that rained ash flakes and rust. My brain supplied the salt sea tang and, once again, I was back on that beach in Playa del Rey where part of me would always remain, when the true face of the world was revealed to me at sixteen.

  17

  AUGUST 1993

  I came back to consciousness, shuddering from a nightmare where dark shapes moved below the surface, waiting to devour me. Already their icy tongues lapped at my feet.

  The sand was cold beneath me. Fog blanketed the dark beach. The invisible sea crashed and hissed and I cried out, scooting back as waves surged over my legs. How had I gotten here? My mouth felt sour and dry, my head buzzed with static. There were voices nearby, the red cherry of a cigarette. If people were that close, why didn’t they help? An image came, unbidden. I was running through the dunes with a guy. David? Darren? Dan!

  “Dan?” I called.

  “She lives,” said a voice.

  “Dan went back to the house. But I say, not so fast. Mermaids like you don’t wash ashore every night.”

  There was coarse laughter.

  “Only every other night. When there’s a par-tay.”

  Another wave came. I crawled farther up the beach and hunkered on all fours.

  “Help me,” I croaked.

  The voices grew silent, but I felt them in the darkness, like disembodied spirits, watching. Their breath quickened, the air tightened in anticipation. I grew afraid.

  I scrabbled upright, kicking sand as I edged away, bleating more loudly as my voice returned. I looked around but the beach was empty.

  I began to scream.

&
nbsp; From up by the house came an answering shout, then a flashlight playing across the dunes.

  “Over here,” I called, staggering toward the light.

  And then Luke was running to meet me.

  “Maggie! What happened?”

  His panicked eyes switched from my face to my clothes and back in disbelief.

  I looked down. My breasts hung out of Anabelle’s lacy top, encrusted with sand and salt water and God knows what else.

  Luke was already whipping off his shirt and draping it over my shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  Mortified, I tugged the sides of Luke’s shirt together and tried to make my trembling fingers push the buttons through.

  “Let me,” he said, averting his eyes and doing up the shirt. “Now talk to me, Maggie. What happened?”

  “I went for a walk on the beach with a guy named Dan. The last thing I remember was lying on the sand looking up at him. He was going to kiss me.”

  Then it hit me, and I felt very stupid. “The drinks. They were spiked.”

  “Aw, Christ. Did anything happen? I mean, did he . . . ?” Luke broke off.

  Gingerly, I ran my hands over my body. I still had my panties. I slid my hand inside, feeling for wetness, for blood, but there was only damp, chafing sand.

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like it. But I was passed out. I mean, he could have done anything . . . anyone could have.”

  I leaned into him, sobbing.

  His arms wrapped around me. And all the oomph went out of me. My legs buckled. I clung to his neck and he swept me up like I was made of goose down instead of blood and bone and cartilage.

  His arms were warm and strong, and he smelled like bleached cotton and barbecue smoke and sharp rye bread. And that part was just like I’d imagined so many times in my dreams. But what followed was not.

  His voice rose, urgent and muffled against my shoulder. “Are you sure nothing happened? It’s important that you tell me. Please don’t be embarrassed.”

  “I’m okay,” I said in a small voice.

  “Good.” Luke breathed heavily, then gave a loud moan. “Where’s Anabelle?”

  “Back at the house.”

  “She wasn’t with you?”

  “She wanted to stay with this guy Ivan,” I said, trying to piece the shards of the evening back together. “They were making out in a bedroom.”

  He gripped me tighter and began to jog uphill, back to the house.

  “Why didn’t you stay with her?” he demanded between gulps of air.

  “She didn’t want me to.”

  “Come on, Maggie! You’re her best friend. How could you leave her?” He was huffing now from the exertion of carrying me. And from anger.

  I was glad I couldn’t see his face.

  “I don’t know,” I wailed. “She practically ordered me to leave and I was feeling so strange and floaty and my brain wasn’t working right.”

  Luke jogged faster.

  “And when Dan and I left the bedroom,” I went on, “there was this creepy old guy in the hallway . . .”

  I didn’t get a chance to finish.

  Luke’s arms went slack and I tumbled unceremoniously onto the sand.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “I’ve got to get up there.”

  And he was sprinting away.

  I started to cry.

  Still running, Luke turned and shouted, “Don’t cry. It’ll be okay.”

  But that just made me sob harder, because it wasn’t okay.

  Sitting there on the damp sand, I knew that something had ruptured. A crack had appeared in our world, sucking us into a black abyss. Nothing would ever be the same again.

  * * *

  There were dozens of kids on the ocean deck, smoking and drinking and talking, and they barely looked up when I stumbled in.

  “Hair of the dog?” said an older guy by the keg, taking in my disheveled state and offering me a beer. I ignored him and walked inside, finding my way to the bedroom where I’d left Anabelle.

  Someone had kicked the plywood door open and it hung by one hinge.

  Inside, Luke had Ivan up against the wall. Anabelle lay huddled on the futon, grinding her face into the pillow. Luke seized Ivan by the collar and lifted him straight up.

  “Let go,” screamed Ivan, trying to wriggle free.

  Luke kneed him and flung him down. “That’s for my sister.”

  Ivan crawled away, making a strange, inhuman sound. For a moment, he crouched, panting in the corner.

  “Chill out, man,” he said at last. “Your sister’s fine.”

  Luke crossed the room and bent over Anabelle.

  “What happened?”

  Anabelle’s face was streaked with tears and her eyes were dilated. Her pretty dress was hiked halfway up and a viscous white substance trailed along her inner thigh. As Luke touched her shoulder, she turned her face away.

  “And the Barracuda got his taste.” Ivan smirked. “So everyone’s . . .”

  Luke leaped up, running at Ivan. “You animal. I’m going to kill you.”

  “But, Luke,” Ivan whined, cowering.

  Luke began to kick him methodically. “Shut the fuck up, asshole.”

  Three guys who looked like beach volleyball players appeared. Two pinned Luke’s arms back and the third hustled Ivan out of the room.

  “You wanna fight, take it outside, yo,” said one.

  The volleyballers threw Luke into the wall and left. He landed with a thud and slid down. For a moment, he sat with his head lowered. Somewhere out front, a car started, revved, and tore off.

  Luke reached for the overturned mirror where Ivan had laid out lines a lifetime ago. A speckled residue dusted the glass. Luke ran a finger along the mirror, lifted it to his mouth, and licked it.

  “Shit.”

  “What?” I said.

  Luke didn’t answer.

  With great gentleness, he scooped up Anabelle in his arms. “Belle,” he said, and his eyes filled with hurt confusion. “I’m sorry.”

  “Come on,” he told me curtly. “We’re getting out of here.”

  We walked out, me trailing behind like usual. Luke deposited his sister in the backseat and covered her with a Mexican serape from the trunk.

  For a moment he stood there, staring at her. He ran a hand through his golden hair, muttering, “What now? What do we do?” Then he leaned over and cradled Anabelle’s chin. He tapped lightly on her cheek.

  “Anabelle? This Ivan guy. Is he the one who . . . ?”

  Slowly, Anabelle shook her head.

  “Okay. It wasn’t Ivan. But you can identify who did this, right? You want to call the police, report what happened? We’ll go straight there.”

  Anabelle shook her head again.

  “What about you?” Luke turned to me.

  “I-I don’t think anything happened to me,” I said, still fuzzy from the drugs. Luke rolled his eyes like I was the village idiot.

  “What I mean,” he said, “is would you be able to ID the guy to the police? For Anabelle’s sake. She may be too out of it to remember.”

  He examined me, and in that moment, I knew that he despised me, that he held me responsible for everything that had happened.

  If I hadn’t left Anabelle alone, she wouldn’t have gotten raped. And we wouldn’t be standing here right now, our lives cracking into fragile eggshell pieces.

  I struggled to shake free of the mental fog. Could I pick Ivan and Dan out of a police lineup? The roofies had melted their faces into carnival fun house fragments.

  “Ivan and Dan,” I said. “Yeah, maybe. But I don’t know their last names.”

  Luke sighed with exasperation.

  We were driving now, me cuddled around a comatose Anabelle in the backseat, the soft woven serape pulled over both of us.

  “Not Ivan and Dan. The guy in the hallway. Did you get a good look at him?”

  For a moment, I stared stupidly at the back of Luke’s golden head. Then I understood. And the thought of th
at degenerate aging beach boy violating my gentle, ethereal friend sickened me beyond words.

  “The Barracuda?” I asked.

  Luke said nothing. His mouth tightened and a muscle along his jaw twitched.

  I took a deep breath. “It was dark. I saw only half his face, in the light of a match. I don’t know if I could identify him, like, in a police lineup.”

  Luke groaned.

  “I think we could both identify Ivan,” I said carefully.

  “He took off, didn’t you hear his car?” Luke said bitterly. “And I doubt his name is really Ivan. As to the Barracuda . . . .” Luke’s voice trailed off in despair. “I think he’s some kind of drug dealer, if it’s the guy I’m thinking of. I’ve never actually met him, but his reputation . . . he likes young girls. He likes to get them hooked so he can . . . Oh, God! I knew I shouldn’t have let Anabelle talk me into this.”

  I leaned forward to touch his shoulder. “We begged you to take us to parties. We were relentless.”

  “You’re just kids. You think it’s all cool glamour. You have no idea what goes on. I should have watched out for you. I should have known better. I should have warned you.” His voice rose in despair and he punched the dashboard.

  Even through my haze, I realized what an uphill battle we faced. Anabelle and I had been drugged. We’d make unreliable witnesses. Ivan would say Anabelle had kissed him willingly and asked me to leave. If questioned, I would have to confirm this. Who could say Anabelle hadn’t engaged in consensual sex with Ivan and the Barracuda and anyone else who’d wandered in?

  And the questions wouldn’t end with Anabelle. I imagined the defense lawyer cross-examining me, asking why I’d agreed to walk down to the dark dunes with Dan. Why I’d left my friend alone in a volatile situation. Was it because I was a slut too?

  And then there was Corvallis. People would whisper and judge us as we walked by. Everyone knew Catholic girls were the worst.

  I dreaded facing my mother. She’d be sympathetic, but I could already see the disappointment on her drawn, overworked face. She’d pull the plug on my friendship with Anabelle. She was already suspicious of the time I spent there; she’d heard that the Paxton kids ran with a fast crowd. If I had just stayed in the Valley and come home at a decent hour, none of this would have happened. And now my senior year was about to start. I had college applications to fill out. Scholarships to hunt down. I had to study and focus as the last difficult lap came into sight.