He actually looked sad.
CALVIN ROBERT WILKINSwas still wearing the Saddam Hussein mask.
He had the rifle in his left hand.
Nothing in his right hand.
No key, no nothing.
He closed the door behind him.
Came limping across the room to her.
“He wouldn’t give me the key,” he said.
She could swear he was grinning behind the mask.
Standing not a foot away from her, he unzipped his fly.
THIS, NOW, was what it was really like.
There was no vorpal blade this time.
There was no slow strip tease, no musical accompaniment, no claws catching at her garments to tear them tantalizingly to shreds. This was her top being violently ripped from her breasts, this was rough hands reaching under her already tattered skirt to tear her panties open over her crotch. There were no biting jaws, he did not bite her, he simply slapped her again and again, kept slapping her as she tried to pull her manacled hand free of the radiator, slapped her until her face was aching and bruised, her free hand flapping on the floor where he had rested the rifle, trying to find the rifle with blind seeking fingers while he kept slapping her till she felt dizzy and weak, murmuring “No, please don’t, please don’t, please don’t.”
But still he had not raped her.
Still he seemed to derive pleasure from the incessant slapping, his hand rhythmically hitting her, the back of his hand, the palm of his hand, the back of his hand again until she collapsed against the radiator, murmuring soundlessly no please don’t, no please please don’t.
This time, there was no vorpal blade to save her.
This was merely rape.
Viciously, he spread her legs and forcibly entered her, tearing tissue as he plunged inside her. She screamed at the forced penetration, screamed again when he slapped her again and told her to shut up, and then slapped her again and again and again. And then his hands were on her breasts, squeezing her nipples hard, thrusting his over-powering rigidity into her below, grunting, his hands seeming not to know where to hurt her next, her face, her breasts, her buttocks, squeezing, slapping, punching her now, pinching her, punching her breasts, punching her face, blood suddenly bursting from her nose, until at last she screamed in agony, “Pleasestop! ” and he ejaculated in that instant, and the door flew open and Yasir Arafat came into the room and shouted, “You stupid fuck!” and she lost consciousness.
12
THE SQUADwas somewhat perturbed. One might even say they were quite blaxitomed! Special Agent in Charge Stanley Marshall Endicott had just learned from his superior at Division Headquarters that the Police Commissioner had ordered the 87th Squad to stay on the Valparaiso kidnapping case!
“A shitty little squad uptown,” he complained, visibly hummered.
The agents and detectives in the big conference room at Bison Records all shook their heads in solemn agreement. All except Lieutenant Charles Farley Corcoran, who was pacing the floor, quite red in the face, even for an Irishman.
“Dismissed my complaint,” he muttered, all visibly perscathed. “Said Carella wasn’t under my command and therefore could not have been insubordinate.”
“What do we do now?” Feingold asked. “Whose case is it, anyway? Do we dismantle here, or what?”
“It’s oursand theirs,” Endicott said.
“A horse race, you mean,” Feingold said sourly.
“I mean a horse race we’d betterwin! ”
“Suppose a motorcycle cop on the fuckinstreet insulted me?” Corcoran asked the air, still fuming, still all dejebbeled. “Would that be insubordination?”
“Damn right,” Jones agreed, kissing a little ass, not for nothing had he learned to make his way in the white man’s police department.
“Son of a bitch said he’d call again at three,” Endicott said.
“The Commissioner?” Lonigan asked. He was none too bright, even though he’d been credited with smashing a big heroin ring in Majesta. But that was ten years ago.
“The perp, the perp,” Endicott said, getting more and more perplexed himself. “This time we zero in,” he said, visibly afumitaxed. “If Loomis can’t keep him on the phone, I’ll personally cut off his balls.”
“The perp’s?” Lonigan asked.
Endicott merely looked at him.
THE TELEPHONE CALLcame at precisely threeP.M. The kidnapper was nothing if not punctual. Though she recognized the voice at once, Gloria Klein asked who was calling. When the kidnapper said, “This is personal,” she asked him to hold one second, please, and then buzzed Loomis’ inner office.
“Hello?” Loomis said.
“He’s back,” she said.
“It’s him,” Loomis told Endicott. He was already walking toward his isolation booth.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Endicott said, putting on the ear phones. “Keep him talking.”
Sitting in the booth, Loomis picked up the extension phone.
“Loomis,” he said.
“Have you got the money?”
“I’ll have it by six tonight. I’ve had to sell…”
“Seven-fifty in new hundreds?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Put Carella on.”
“He’s not here.”
There was a silence on the line.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t realize you’d need him again.”
“I don’t.”
“First tower’s on him,” Jones said.
“Is there another detective there?”
Corcoran nodded.
“Yes,” Loomis said.
“Is he listening to this?”
Corcoran shook his head.
“No,” Loomis said.
“You’re lying. Put him on.”
“Second tower’s got him. He’s in a moving vehicle,” Feingold said.
Corcoran picked up his extension.
“Hello?” he said.
“Who’s this?”
“Detective-Lieutenant Charles Corcoran.”
“May I call you Charles?”
“Is the girl still alive?”
“I’ll ask the fucking questions, Charles!”
Corcoran’s mouth tightened. Endicott was scowling.
“Go down to the limo at sevenP.M. sharp,” the caller said. “You, Mr. Loomis, and the money. Get on the River Dix Drive and head east. Rush hour should be over by then. I’ll call again at seven-fifteen. Any tricks and the girl dies.This phone is stolen, too,” he said, and laughed.
There was a click on the line.
“Son of a goddamn rotten son of a bitch bastard mother-fuckingcock sucker!” Jones yelled. “He always gets off a second before we triangulate.”
“You want this printout?” Feingold asked.
“You heard him, it’s stolen,” Endicott said.
“Will you have the money by then?” Corcoran asked Loomis.
“It should be here by six,” Loomis said.
“This time we play it our way,” Corcoran said.
THEY’D BEEN WAITINGoutside the building since a quarter past one, but the landlady didn’t show up until almost three-thirty. She was dressed for Marrakech.
No burkah covered her from head to toe, but instead she wore a modest black abayah that billowed out like the sail on a Sumerian galley, covering everything but her face and her slender hands. She had extraordinary brown eyes, almost as black as the abayah. With all that protective clothing, neither of the detectives could tell her exact age, but they guessed she was somewhere in her mid-forties. They also guessed the eyes were a bit flirtatious.