Face Value

by Lia Matera

  There was supplication in her tone. She needed agreement. There was also anger. I didn’t know what that meant.

  “It’s complicated, Margaret,” I repeated, playing it safe. “If you think something’s true, then it is true, for you. You can’t blame people for fooling themselves. People do it to survive. Or at least to feel okay about how they make their money.”

  Margaret looked puzzled. “When I belonged to the group, we used to say it was wrong to harass sisters. That our focus was male-dominated media. But I don’t agree with that anymore. Women need to take responsibility for objectifying themselves and other women. They need to answer for what they do to each other. Especially lesbians. It’s like the song ‘Universal Soldier.’ It can’t happen without us, and we have to start blaming each other. It’s dishonest to exempt ourselves. Because if we do, we end up screwing each other. And buying into getting screwed.”

  I imagined this view would play badly to immobilized women. Being forced into powerless haranguing at the end of a workday would be hell.

  But if the Media Project had taped the women, why hadn’t they untied them when they left? Had they known the janitor was due at three? Had they counted on a boyfriend coming soon to pick someone up? They’d left Mike Hover handcuffed, trusting some minion would eventually free him.

  I didn’t want to think about the taped-over faces. I doubted the Media Project had done that. Their object had been to educate, albeit punitively.

  But I couldn’t push the thought away: Margaret was the one who’d resented Arabella’s beautiful “fuck buddies.” Maybe she’d remained there when the Media Project women left. Remained in disheartened jealousy of their beauty. Maybe all she’d wanted was to cover her “competition’s” faces.

  Maybe she hadn’t realized it would kill them. She’d sounded crazy on the phone; at her wit’s end, out of touch with reality. Surely a jury would sympathize, would take into account that her mother had been insane.

  “Let me get you out of this, Margaret. There’s a lawyer called Pat Frankel, she’s right across the hall from me. A criminal lawyer in Dennis Heyerdahl’s firm.” I wished I could represent Margaret, but I’d have to be a witness, probably for the prosecution. “Let us get you out of the trouble you’re in.”

  She giggled. “Oh, gosh. You don’t even know the trouble I’m in.”

  She backed toward the door. Behind her, inside the room, Sandy was squirming, presumably to loosen the tape binding him to the chair. I knew it wouldn’t work. If six women in a panic of suffocation hadn’t been able to get free, neither would he.

  Margaret pushed the door open farther.

  30

  As soon as the door swung open, Sandy’s cry made sense to me. There would have been little purpose in fighting Margaret. I might have gotten hurt. And it was no use hurting her. Because it wasn’t Margaret who’d bound Sandy. It wasn’t Margaret who sat nonchalantly pointing a gun at Gretchen.

  As the door swung open, I watched Arabella de Janeiro turn the gun toward me.

  “Hi,” she said.

  I heard myself reply, with disconcerting normalcy, “Hi.”

  “I’m awfully sorry.” She sounded fretful. “I’m just trying to figure out what to do. Of all the times for a million people to drop by.”

  Her hair was tousled, rich with red-brown highlights. Her cheek and jaw and the skin around one eye showed a swollen mottling of greens and purples. She wore a tight white sweater, a short red skirt, and cowboy boots. Even slumped and splay-kneed, with bruises on her face, she looked like the box of some porn video. I couldn’t decide if it was her extraordinary figure or merely its packaging. She might have been posed under the title Debbie Gets Desperate. “I really need to see Mike.”

  Gretchen sat on a foam mat, glancing at me only briefly. She watched Arabella, her lips in a grim line.

  I didn’t know what to say, what to make of it. “What are you doing?”

  “Thinking, I guess,” Arabella replied. “Waiting for him. He knows how they died, I know he does. He won’t say.” She nodded toward Sandy. “But Mike knows. I can feel it.”

  “You can wait for Mike without the gun,” Gretchen said gently.

  “Oh, right. I heard what he”—again she gestured toward Sandy—“said to you downstairs. That you should call the cops. That they don’t trust me.”

  What was she afraid of? What did she think Sandy would tell the police if she let him go? He knew less than I did—or so I’d thought.

  “You’ve been beaten and traumatized,” I said. “You’re not thinking clearly. Sandy can’t hurt you. And Gretchen’s told you you’re free to wait here.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you don’t know everything.” She grabbed a crownful of her hair, scrunching it as if to ensure it didn’t lie flat. “Maybe they won’t let Mike see me—maybe they’ll warn him. You don’t know how Gretchen is. Mother hen. Number-one wife.”

  Gretchen sounded weary. “I’ve told you and told you. If Mike meets someone interesting in Silicon Valley, he could be gone for days.”

  “But you don’t know that’s where he went.”

  “No, I don’t. But come on. He’s been out of the area for a while. Of course he’s going to go play with computers.”

  “He’s still got some in boxes,” Arabella pointed out. “In the other room. I saw them.”

  “But those are the ones he has.” Gretchen’s tone was patient. “He’ll want to play with ones he doesn’t have.”

  Arabella’s chin quivered as if she might cry. She held a gun. I tried to think of her as dangerous.

  But I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel hostility, or even the kind of crazy energy I felt from Margaret.

  “Why did you tape Sandy up? He doesn’t mean you any harm,” I repeated.

  “He’ll do something—he’ll turn me in. I won’t be able to wait for Mike.”

  Turn me in. I finally understood: this was an admission of guilt. “Turn you in for what? For taping the women in the theater?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gretchen shake her head.

  “What do you mean, ‘taping’? Videotaping?” There was a quality in her voice, a practiced ingenuousness, that reminded me of the sexy little pout plied by The Back Door sex workers. The question contained too much eroticized infantilism to sound genuine.

  Behind me, Margaret laughed.

  I caught my breath. If Margaret had indeed taken mad advantage of a situation created by the Women’s Media Project, would she laugh about it? If she’d taped the women’s faces, could she really laugh?

  I shifted slightly, so that Margaret was in my peripheral vision. I didn’t want to turn away from Arabella’s gun.

  “Those six dancers died of suffocation,” I said. “I doubt if Mike knows that. But if you put the gun down, I’ll give you details.”

  I heard Sandy’s muttered protest. He believed the police plan was a sound one: wait for Arabella to blurt out something she shouldn’t know.

  But she might never do that. And telling her the truth seemed the quickest way to free Sandy.

  “Don’t be silly.” Arabella looked annoyed. “How could they suffocate?”

  Again Margaret giggled. I glanced at her. Then stared in open surprise. She looked radiant.

  I’d worked with her on several debt-collection cases. She was a smart woman. A garden-variety yuppie, I’d have said before learning of her video.

  What did her laughter mean? I’d hoped she hadn’t understood the consequences of her action, if she’d taped the women’s faces. Now I wasn’t sure.

  “Let it go, Laura,” Sandy begged. “Would you please not do this?”

  The loud caw of a door buzzer startled me. Arabella gasped. She jerked the gun toward the front wall as if to take aim at the front door, a story below.

  “Who now?” she demanded. “Who’s that?”


  I noticed she was shaking. She stood creakily, her free hand going to her ribs. An abrupt intake of breath betrayed her pain.

  The rest of us remained in place as the buzzer rang again, several times sharply. She looked out the window.

  “Oh, shit!” She stood there, gun dangling for an instant. Before I could persuade myself to lunge for it, she turned, aiming at me. “It’s the police. Did you call them?”

  “No.”

  “I saw you on the phone.”

  “I was calling my office. 1 didn’t get through. Margaret interrupted.” It was a quick lie, one I hoped wouldn’t get me into trouble.

  The buzzer rang again and again, accompanied by pounding. Thank god for 91l’s computer.

  “You did call them!” Arabella handed Margaret the gun. “Take this. You’ve got to keep everyone up here.” She grabbed Margaret’s arm, aiming the gun at Sandy. “Just keep it pointed. Don’t blow this, Margaret.”

  Margaret nodded, stepping closer to Sandy.

  “Good. Stand close and keep it steady on him. They won’t try anything if you keep it on him.”

  A shout rose from downstairs, the police either announcing their presence or threatening to beat the door in.

  Arabella winced as she crossed the room.

  Margaret stood inches from Sandy. Arabella had been smart to position her there. As high-strung as she was and as close as she was, rushing her would be risky. She might pull the trigger without even intending to.

  I edged closer to the window.

  Gretchen rose from her tailor’s squat. “Margaret,” she said, with a quick glance at me, “what’s going on?”

  Margaret, focused on her, didn’t notice me sidling toward the window.

  Below, we heard the front door open.

  The window was directly above it. I was close enough to hear Arabella exclaim, “I’m so sorry! I was having trouble with my boyfriend, but he’s gone now.”

  “Get away from there!” Margaret snapped. “And you sit back down.”

  I could hear the rumble of male voices.

  Arabella’s voice, higher in pitch, floated to me. “He’s gone now. I’m sorry I bothered you. But he’s gone now.”

  I held my breath, hoping to make out what they said next. Surely they’d investigate further? Surely they’d be suspicious of lies, even from a beautiful, sweet-voiced woman?

  When I heard the door close, I felt my shoulder muscles knot.

  A moment later, Arabella returned. Alone.

  She crossed to me, lips pinched in rage. I thought she was going to strike me. Instead, she began to shake. She turned away, taking the gun from Margaret.

  “She called nine-one-one,” Arabella told her. “But I got rid of them.”

  “We’ll have to tape her,” Margaret said.

  I backed closer to the window. My horror of restriction overrode every other emotion: I wouldn’t let them tape me. No matter what.

  Especially after having seen the women at the theater. There was no way I’d let myself be bound. Not when that might happen to me.

  I glanced frantically over my shoulder, as if the window offered egress. I noticed a man down at street level, jaywalking toward the house.

  With little visual detail upon which to rely, I trusted it was Brother Mike. The man was heading this way, and Hover was expected.

  If he’d arrived before the police, I’d have trusted him to defuse the situation. But I’d changed the dynamic. Arabella had been sure from the outset that Sandy—and I, by extension—could incriminate her. And I’d inadvertently compounded her fear by calling 911. She might not let us go just because Hover walked in. She might sequester him, too.

  I had to warn him. I had to alert him to call the police. If I could just get the timing right.

  He would be on the sidewalk now, climbing the steps … how? At a bound? Slowly?

  He’d open the door and shut it. Quietly? Or would he bang it?

  I took no chances. At what I judged to be the proper moment, I slammed my fist against the window frame. “No!” I said. I pounded a few more times. “I won’t be tied up. I want to know what this is about.” Another thump in case Brother Mike had dawdled.

  Surely he was inside by now. If I could alert him before Arabella became aware of his presence, we might stand a chance. He was supposed to be in tune with our “energies,” wasn’t he?

  I had little experience with being telepathic, but I tried. I also raised my voice. “I won’t be tied up! I don’t understand why you’re holding us at gunpoint. I don’t understand what this is about. Margaret! For godsake.” I wasn’t much good at creative ranting. “You’re a bank lawyer!”

  Arabella scowled at me. “Shut up! Just—”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Margaret looked flustered. “She doesn’t get upset.” She turned to Arabella. “Laura doesn’t get upset.”

  “Calm down, everyone,” Gretchen begged. “Laura, why don’t you sit—”

  “Of course I get upset!” I said, and meant it.

  “Something’s not right.” Margaret began to look around the room. “She’s talking so loud.”

  “Everybody, please,” Gretchen pleaded, eyes on the gun. “Chill out.”

  I thought I heard a creaking in the corridor. I wished the door were fully, rather than partially, closed. But so far, Arabella and Margaret had their backs to it. And in spite of Margaret’s insight, the two women remained focused on me.

  “Of course I get upset when someone points a gun at me.” I all but shouted the word “gun.” “I get upset when someone tapes my partner to a chair. Especially when six people were murdered that way.”

  I hoped Brother Mike was in the hallway. I hoped he understood.

  “You keep talking about getting murdered by being taped.” Arabella’s voice rose in pitch. “What are you talking about? All we did was tie them—” She stopped, looking rattled. Then grim.

  “Something’s wrong,” Margaret insisted. “She’s not acting like herself.”

  “What’s she talking about? About the suffocating? Margaret? Do you know?” Arabella extended the arm holding the gun as if to stress she still meant business. She did a slow sweep, aiming at each of us in turn, settling finally for Sandy, in his ashen helplessness. “Margaret? Why is she saying that about the women? They didn’t die taped up?”

  “I don’t know!” But it sounded like a childish lie. “I told you that.”

  Arabella squinted at her sometime lover. “All we did—” She closed her lips tight.

  The lawyer in me applauded. Offer no detail; it can only be used against you.

  All we did … was tie the women up?

  Had it been she and Margaret who’d taped the women to their chairs?

  Alongside the Women’s Media Project? Or the two of them on their own, for reasons of their own?

  But Arabella seemed genuinely confused by the references to suffocation. Did she think the women had been left alive, duct-taped to chairs? Didn’t she realize they would suffocate with their airways covered?

  Or had their faces still been exposed when she left? Had Margaret gone back later, after dropping Arabella at the hospital, with the tape remnants?

  “Gretchen says it’s part of the Hollywood formula to kill sex workers,” I rambled. “Because they don’t count as real people. But it’s funny how I keep talking about six people dead when it’s really seven.”

  “What are you going on about?” Arabella’s pitch climbed to a near shriek.

  “At The Back Door. Six women suffocated because their faces were completely taped over. And a man—”

  I stopped when Arabella’s mouth widened to a horrified circle. Her breath became audible, a chugging hyperventilation.

  “A man in the corridor was killed, too. He was shot. And I’m treating him like a no
nperson. I keep talking about the women, about six people. When it was really seven.”

  The blood had drained from Arabella’s face. She was eerily still, in a rigor of shock. “Margaret?” she said. “What’s she talking about?”

  I glanced at Sandy. A glaze of sweat covered his face. His hair clung damply to his forehead. He watched Arabella.

  “I don’t know. How should I know?” Margaret backed away from her, tears brimming in her eyes.

  She’d been a relatively undynamic lawyer, merely smart, merely good enough, with the usual wardrobe and refinements. I watched her now, reminded of television interviews of dumbfounded neighbors insisting serial killers had seemed so “regular.”

  Whatever Arabella’s purpose in taping up her coworkers, she’d apparently meant to leave it at that. She’d apparently meant to walk away from their squirming anger.

  She hadn’t counted on her lover’s jealousy exploding into a last-minute fit of cruelty.

  “Or was it just because they were so beautiful?” I asked Margaret. “Were you just covering up their beauty?”

  “Making everyone equal.” She pinched her sweater. It took me a second to realize she was pinching her nipples. “Without implants.” Not a half second later, in a firmer voice: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Arabella’s eyelids drooped. Her gun arm went down.

  I could see Gretchen moving slowly forward. She looked almost feline in her focus on the gun.

  But Arabella took a resolute step backward, shaking herself out of her stupor.

  “Tape them up,” she said curtly. “Margaret, do it.”

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Gretchen soothed her. “The only person in here big and strong enough to hurt you is already taped, Arabella. Just calm down. We’re not a threat to you. We’re just waiting together for Brother Mike. Like we’ve done a hundred times.”

  Arabella was blinking rapidly, taking shallow breaths, the color flooding back to her bruise-mottled face. “No, tape them, tape them. I need time to think.”

  “That’s right: don’t trust them,” Margaret urged. “They don’t care about you.” But she didn’t seem to be talking about us. The pleading in her voice seemed of long standing and about something at the heart of their relationship.