Face Value

by Lia Matera

  The stain was wet. Red.

  I looked up in time to watch the woman run from my office. I could only see part of her, my desk was in the way. I couldn’t tell what was in her hand. I caught a glimpse of her brown hair glinting ginger like a lit match as she jerked the door open and fled.

  I was rubbing at the stain, still scooting backward on the floor, still making small grunting sounds, when Pat Frankel, the lawyer across the hall, stepped in.

  “My god! I did hear you scream!”

  She knelt in front of me. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  She stared wide-eyed at the stain. “Blood,” she said.

  She moved my hands aside and pulled the shirt open. Then she rocked back on her heels.

  Under the stain was nothing. My skin, smeared but unbroken.

  “You’re not hurt.” Her voice was husky with relief.

  “No.” Mine was, too.

  She recoiled. “It looks like blood. We should majorly disinfect ourselves. Do you have any cuts on your hands or your body?” She screamed out, “Gayle! Gayle, can you hear me?”

  A moment later, our secretary popped her head in.

  “Oh, my god!” she said.

  “She’s not hurt. But we need alcohol or bleach or peroxide or something. Fast.” She looked at her hands, saying, “Oh, shit. Hurry.”

  Gayle sputtered the beginning of a question.

  “Hurry!” Pat urged.

  Gayle dashed from the room.

  Pat stood, helping me up. “What happened in here?”

  “This woman came in.” I was panting, staring at my belly, at the smooth skin; skin I’d expected to bear a wound.

  “Here, you should sit.” She righted my chair. “What did the woman do?”

  “She asked me about being famous. About the Wallace Bean case.”

  Pat looked surprised. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. She asked me if I had any cases now that would get that kind of attention.”

  “Right—like you’re going to discuss your other clients.”

  “That’s what I told her. Then she asked me about a case I’m working on—which I’m not on record for yet. I don’t know how she knew about it. She said it involved women getting raped, and she said ‘this is from raped women.’ She threw this on me. I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what she was doing. If I hadn’t stood up, it would have hit me in the face.”

  The blood of raped women. The female symbol painted on my living-room wall. I’d been targeted for representing a client viewed as anti-feminist. But Hover’s philosophy seemed independent of gender. And I had nothing to do with it, anyway.

  Gayle was back with a bottle of alcohol. “From the bathroom,” she explained. “And paper towels.” She handed me a stack.

  “I’d clean that off yourself fast.” Pat shuddered, pouring alcohol on towels and handing them to me. Then she poured some over her fingers where she’d touched my shirt. “And we should look around to see if she threw blood anywhere else.”

  “It smells.” The secretary sounded surprised. “I didn’t know blood smelled.”

  “If you’ve got some plastic, you should put that shirt in it and get the blood tested.”

  “I don’t have any cuts. Even if it’s AIDS-tainted, I should be okay.”

  “None got in your eyes, your mouth?”

  I shook my head. “It would have. If I hadn’t stood up.”

  “Then I think you should get it tested. Just so you know how crazy the person was. I really think you should. It gives it a whole different aspect, you know what I mean?”

  I nodded. I represented my clients, I didn’t endorse them. Why couldn’t people understand that?

  “I’ve got some sweat clothes in my office. Want to borrow them? They’re clean. I keep them in case I work late.”

  “Thanks.”

  The minute Gayle and Pat left, I tore my clothes off and rubbed alcohol over every millimeter of my torso. Very little blood had soaked through the fabric of my jacket and blouse. What had, I doused until no trace remained.

  By the time I was done, Pat was back with her warm-up suit. She turned toward the window, giving me privacy as I changed into it.

  I was calmer now. Calm enough to look around the room. Whatever container the blood had been in, the woman had taken it with her. In fact, I could see no trace of her presence, not a slip of paper or a match-book or a gum wrapper.

  She’d left only intangibles: the smell of blood, my outraged fear. And worse, the certainty that, as always, the crazies were out there, ready to misunderstand my actions and punish me for them. The world was a dangerous place, and I was alone in it.

  A voice from the doorway boomed, “Laura! What the hell? What happened?”

  In a second, Sandy was beside me. He stared down at my suit, in a heap on the floor. “Is that blood? What happened?”

  “Someone tossed blood on me—said it was from raped women. She mentioned my case. I don’t know what her story is.” I could hear anger in my voice now. She’d made me afraid. Damn her.

  “I think I know.” Pat turned away from the window, stepping toward us. “Unfortunately, I think I know who did it.”

  Sandy scowled at her. I just stared. In her dark suit, she made a featureless silhouette against the window.

  “I’m sorry as hell,” she continued. “But I bet it’s my whiner. I told her you were famous. I really did a hard sell—told her what a great job you’d done for Bean, told her all about Dan Crosetti. I just wanted her off my back.”

  “But how would she know about my current client?”

  Sandy didn’t care about that. “Who is it? What did she do this for?”

  “God, sometimes you just want to slap people.” She stepped closer. Her tan face crinkled in apology. “Her name’s Megan Carter. She’s part of a group called the Women’s Media Project—remember, they were at The Back Door rally? Oh no, you got there after they were kicked out. Anyway, they do lectures and slide-show presentations, with pictures out of magazines to prove the media objectifies women and puts them in subservient roles.”

  “That’s hardly news.” Pat’s sweat clothes were a little tight on me, but they were preferable to the clothes I’d shucked.

  “Do you remember those Minnesota women who tried to pass an anti-pornography ordinance?”

  “That forbid depiction of women in postures of submission or servility?”

  “Like art and literature cause the problem.” A quick grin. “Anyway, that’s the WMP’s trip, except they’re not trying to pass ordinances, not since the Minnesota one got struck down. They give talks, like I said. And actually, a lot of what they say I agree with. Anyone would, it’s so obvious. But they always go too far, saying they’re not for censorship while they pull magazines off racks and try to shut down sex clubs. They do a lot of suffragette stuff—chain themselves to things, picket, throw the blood of raped women.” She looked troubled. “But usually on sidewalks. You know, in front of beauty pageants and things. That’s what her case is about—basically trespass with a First Amendment defense. But I’ve never known them to throw blood on people.”

  “She seemed …” Crazy was too strong a word, perhaps.

  Pat nodded. “I know what you mean. She’s out there. She’s got this kind of angry-fragile thing, it’s a little scary. She draws no line between pornographic images of women and women being raped. Cause and effect, and forget evidence to the contrary. Anyway, they’re a sad group. Most of them have been raped, and life’s very painful for them. You get the feeling they’d go nuts if they couldn’t do something. So they focus on pornography. Even though most of the community’s accepting it. Even reclaiming it.”

  By “the community” I supposed she meant liberals and gay people like the ones at The Back Door rally.

  “Where do they get the
blood?”

  “Group members donate it.”

  “So, literally, the blood she threw on me was from a woman who’d been raped?”

  She dropped into the chair Megan Carter had vacated. “Sorry to say. And I have no idea if they screen for HIV. They’re very sincere and idealistic. But they’re pretty fanatic. I can find out for you.”

  Sandy sounded grim. “If they think magazines made someone rape them, maybe they think anyone into the status quo deserves to take their chances.”

  “I suppose. Since they didn’t have the opportunity to screen their rapists.” Pat looked forlorn. “I’ll find out. I definitely think you should get the blood tested.”

  Sandy was shaking his head. “This is fucked up. Throwing blood in this day and age … Once upon a time, okay. You pour blood on draft files or wherever, you make a point. You don’t put people’s lives—janitors, clerks—at risk. But this is nineteen ninety-four, you know?”

  I took a step away from my bloody clothes. What was it Brother Mike had said? That if they didn’t find a cure for AIDS soon, the nineties would be the craziest decade ever?

  “Well, one thing …” Sandy sounded calmer than he looked. “I’d say you found the person—the group, anyway—tore your place up. We better find out what else is in the works.”

  “I thought she was pulling out a gun.” My voice was still faint with relief.

  “Laura.” Sandy’s tone was bracing. “You need to know how fanatic they are, for your own security. Throwing your stuff around is one thing. If they’re tossing unscreened blood, then they don’t mind putting your life in danger.”

  I looked out my window. A stalled car clogged the best route to the freeway. The stench of exhaust mingled with rubbing alcohol evaporating from paper towels. I missed the smell of pines and rain.

  “You okay, Laura?”

  “Yes.”

  “I say don’t take it lying down. Call the cops on them.”

  It took me a second to realize he meant the Women’s Media Project. “They’d probably love the publicity. And they might use it as a forum to attack my client.” And I was client-positive, wasn’t I?

  He sighed. “What’s with you? You got to deal with this.”

  I saw six silver-taped faces staring blankly up at me. I felt scared. And guilty: I should have told the police what little I knew. I could hardly face them now with my own small problems, could hardly meet them with lies of omission.

  Sandy watched me. “You been messed with too much, maybe. It’s burning you out.”

  He pulled me into his arms. I let him think what he wanted.

  25

  I returned to the office after lunch and a long shower and a change of clothes. I found a telephone message waiting: Judy Wallach called to say her client has withdrawn claim against your client.

  My case had gone up in smoke before I’d done anything but bank the retainer.

  I wondered why.

  I worried that it had something to do with the attack on Arabella de Janeiro. Maybe with the murder of her coworkers.

  I worried that she’d been frightened away.

  I wondered what might have happened to Margaret if she hadn’t decided not to sue Mike Hover.

  I phoned Margaret’s house. I drove there again and rang the bell several times.

  I wasn’t ready to quit. I’d seen a lot of things I could have lived my whole life without seeing. My place had been wrecked. I’d had blood thrown on me.

  I couldn’t just drop it.

  I drove to the hospital and asked to visit Arabella de Janeiro. She’d withdrawn her claim against my client, so I could speak to her without her lawyer present. I couldn’t bill my client for it, but what the hell. I didn’t have anything better to do, not until Monday. And my questions seemed urgent.

  De Janeiro looked terrible. Her face was mottled red and purple, beginning to fade to decayed-meat green. One eye was swollen half shut. Her lips were puffy, especially on the left side. Her hair was lank and without luster, a chestnut that now looked merely brown. Her inner elbow was stuck with IV needles and bruised blue. She sipped something through a bent straw, squirming under a sheet lumpy with (I supposed) bandages.

  I stepped into her line of sight and introduced myself. “I represent Mike Hover,” I explained. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  She froze. Said nothing.

  “I represent Mike Hover,” I repeated. “I’m a lawyer.”

  “What are you here for? To talk about the murders?” Her eyes reddened, spilling tears. “I won’t talk about it. I don’t know anything. I already told the police: I don’t know anything.”

  “I’m here to ask what happened to you.”

  “I don’t know what happened at the club.” She seemed tensed for contradiction. “I don’t even know how they died. I watch the news, but they never say. Do you know?” The question was clipped, breathless.

  “No.” I tried to ignore the merciless image of taped faces. “You’d have been with them if you hadn’t been attacked.”

  “Yes.” The word was tight, small. “It trips me out. They did me a favor. I never would have believed it. I think about it every time it hurts.”

  “They?”

  Her fingers jerked to her lips. “Gay hookers, I mean. The ones who slapped me around.”

  “Why? Why did they do that?”

  “Hired.”

  “By who? Why?”

  She stared at her drink. “You should know that.”

  I watched her face, wondering if I saw hostility or merely the results of her battering.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, who else could it be?” A sudden frightened glance. “What have I done different lately except make hassle for Mike Hover?”

  “You’re saying Hover had you beaten?”

  “Well, it’s kind of coincidental, don’t you think? The day my lawyer talks to Roy and Rhonda, I get ambushed.” Her tone was oddly petitioning. “Lucky it saved my—” She swallowed several times. “You know, the whole time they did this, I dreamed about getting revenge on Mike. And after, at the hospital, all I could think about was revenge. But it turned out it saved my life. Not going to work saved my life. Funny, isn’t it?”

  Her voice, even slurred and slowed by thick lips, had a seductive lilt. I’d clerked in a department store for a while to pay my college tuition. I remembered how the Can-I-help-you chirpiness lingered in my voice after work, maddening me.

  “If Hover had this done to you, I’ll withdraw as his counsel.”

  She shrugged. “You really think this is worse than what he did with the videos? That’s pretty naive.”

  I hesitated. If she ever decided to reinstate her claim, her lawyer would crucify me for talking to her today.

  “No,” she continued. “The way it worked out... saving my life, I don’t know. I’ll probably drop it completely. Forever. You tell my sweetie I’m going to let him off the hook.”

  “Your sweetie?”

  “Didn’t he tell you that? Didn’t he get all poetic and transplendent about it?” A rasp afflicted her speech. She pressed her hand to her rib cage. “Son of a bitch, it hurts. Cracked rib.”

  “You had a relationship with Mike Hover? Besides guru-devotee?” I pulled a molded plastic chair away from the wall, closer to the bed. Behind her, a drawn blue curtain cut the room in two, separating her from another patient. It also deprived her of light from the window. But perhaps her swollen eye was photosensitive.

  “Crazy in love. You know how it feels to think someone’s crazy in love with you? If he’s somebody really special?” She put her glass down, moving slowly. “And I’m used to gurus. I grew up in Berkeley, the original Birkenstocks-and-overalls kid. Free-thinking parents, a houseful of intense people, a lot of heavy conversation, new ideas. All that. I’m saying I’m not that
easily impressed. But Mike hooked me. I used to feel like he could see right into me. Like I was in this perfect telepathic universe, and I could finally relax and be myself. I was flying when he fell for me—him with a jillion people looking up to him. And me your basic slut.”

  “Do you mind telling me about the relationship?”

  Her tongue poked through her lips, moistening them but also, I thought, probing to see how swollen they were. She must not have liked what she felt. The tongue went back in quickly.

  “What’s it to you? No offense.”

  Why not? “Someone broke into my apartment and sprayed— Well, trashed the place. And someone came to my office this morning claiming to have a libel case for me. It turned out she was from the Women’s Media Project. She’d heard—I don’t know how—that I was representing Brother Mike, and she took out a container of blood and threw it all over me. She said it was from raped women.”

  “Yuck.” What her reaction lacked in polish it made up for in feeling.

  A shudder shook my spine. “I’ll be honest with you. I saw The Back Door show Tuesday night. The night after, I sat in on one of Brother Mike’s sessions. And I’ve seen the videos.”

  She waited a few seconds for me to continue the thought. “I have a feeling there’s a punch line.”

  “I don’t know. This person threw raped-women’s blood on me. Just because I represent Hover. I don’t really understand the connection.”

  “It’s in her mind.” She pushed a long lock of hair off her face. Under her bruises, she could be anyone, beautiful, ugly. But her gestures, even the simple pushing away a lock of hair, were done with practiced glamour. “I’ve got my problems with Mike’s videos, obviously. But not with videos, period. You know what I mean? Those women are nutsoid. They don’t see a bit of difference between fantasy and reality. And they don’t see a bit of difference between depictions of sex and actual rape, even if the depictions are loving and consensual. They come and hassle us at the club …” Her face grew pinched, ashen. Perhaps she realized that “the club” would be a different place now, full of strangers. “Anyway, they come on like uptight Christian ladies. It boils down to the same old bullshit: sex is dirty, men are brutes. And women are fragile little angels who need protecting from hairy beasts who—heaven forbid!—look at naked bodies and come in their hands.”