The Subtle Art of Brutality, page 22
Drop off Jeremiah’s car.
Then: a bar. Tie one on out of frustration. Maybe start a fight. Then: home. Then: sleep it off. The next day: Rail to Three Mile High. Cab to a rental car place. Straight to James Dobbin’s residence. I park, take a photo of Delilah and walk up and down the street.
The entire neighborhood is bitterly cold and drained of color. Dirty snow and shades of pale gray dominate the street. The cold grips at my ankles where my pant cuffs are wet. It sneaks fingers down my collar.
First two houses, no answer. Next seven, answer the door but not the questions. I lose count after that.
Never seen her.
Didn’t know the guy to begin with.
Can’t help you.
Can’t help you but I’ll keep an eye out.
Never seen nobody.
That guy over there is dead. Shot in his own house. Could have been me.
He’s dead now?
I thought he was gay. Always has dudes over. Hmmm...the universe is a strange place.
It goes on and on. I pass Dobbin’s house on both sides and head to my car. Hour and a half. Canvassing goes like that; either people answer the door at every house with something to say or the neighborhood locks down like an airport when somebody whispers bomb.
Beside my car I trod up into the lawn. I light a smoke and just stare at the home, vacant now. Not a FOR RENT sign posted in front of it. The police tape has been taken down. Now, just...a ghost haven.
A neighbor pulls in to the next house north. The first house I knocked on with no answer. Looks more respectable than who I would think should reside in this place. I go over.
“Excuse me, sir?”
Middle-aged, glasses, bald down to his temples, average trench coat, briefcase, designer knock-off dress shoes, suit that cost him a few hundred, placid face.
“Yes?” He sounds stiff. Like he’s readying himself for me to punch him. What the hell kind of neighborhood is this?
“I am looking for a missing young woman. Her boyfriend used to live next door. I was wondering if I could show you her picture? Maybe ask you about them?”
He eyeballs me just enough. A tell: he distrusts any kind of law enforcement look. He doesn’t answer.
“She dated the man next door,” I say. “Her mom wants to speak with her. Like I said, she’s gone missing.”
“Oh,” he says. “Oh...” Eases up just a notch. He looks at the picture as it’s in my hand. I offer it and he takes it gently.
Studies.
“She drives a red, four-door—”
“Taurus. Ford Taurus,” he says, nodding. “She would come by here only a few weeks ago. Never saw her before, never saw her after. Only about a week. Thought she was visiting from out of town. Had plastic bags from a burger joint downtown. Melrose Half-Pounders.”
I write it down. Then: “I’m glad you know the car.”
“I used to own one for years. Hers was a deep red, almost wine. Mine was green. I loved that car.”
“Okay. See her with anybody besides the neighbor?”
“No. Never really saw the neighbor. He’s dead, right?”
“Yes. Doper. What do you mean you never saw him?”
“Well, nothing suspicious, I guess. He seemed like a keep-to-himself kinda guy, really. Left, came back with groceries, usually from a gas station. Never on a regular basis, though. I don’t think he held employment.”
“Did he get any regular visitors?”
“None that I took note of, no.”
“Okay. But you’ve seen the girl here carrying food bags. Last week or so?”
“No. That was yesterday, actually.”
“Yesterday?”
He thinks about it. Witnesses often give scattered testimony. The worse the crime, the worse the scatter. People who aren’t trained to observe every little detail usually don’t take them in very well. And even then, sometimes they’ll have good information but they’ll hold back because when a cop asks questions they didn’t ask THAT question.
Finally: “Yes.”
He motions to the driveway and carves a vehicle’s path through the air. “She drove up, scurried to the front door, knocked, pounded, shouted. I was thinking of telling her he had...you, know, passed. But I didn’t want to be the one telling a complete stranger. She was just making so much noise beating on the door and all. It caught my attention.”
“Make out what she said?”
“No. But whatever it was, she was saying it emphatically.”
“Then?”
“She left.”
“Remember which way?”
He points to a pair of fresher-looking tire prints in the snow that run from Dobbins’ driveway through the man’s own yard and into the street. The tires knocked down some kind of sign that was posted in his yard. A roofing advertisement or something.
“She went that way.”
I give him my card. Then: “Anything else?”
He studies my card the way he did her photo. “No. But I’ll think on it and if anything else comes about I’ll call you.”
“Thanks,” I say and turn around. Flick my cigarette butt into Dobbin’s old yard. Get in the car, start it.
The neighbor walks down his yard and rights the sign. Dusts off snow the color of ash and muddy water. His grimace fills his face. Goes in. Just when I start to think about how a decent, respectable man lives in this neighborhood I drive past the sign and see it says he’s a registered sex offender.
It fits the theme today. I leave. More important things right now.
59
Melrose Half-Pounders.
I set the photo on the countertop. French fries crackle in the background and create an omnipresent noise. Like the buzz of a hive, the white noise of fryers boiling and meat cooking fill the ears.
A counter guy walks over: requisite pimples and mottled skin belonging to anyone who shuck and jives in a lard-filled fast food restaurant. Scrawny. Greasy, scraggily hair spilling out in tendrils from underneath his ineffective hair net. Defeats the purpose.
His fingernails are long and dirty. He stares at me with the apathetic look that any adolescent has. I look at him. Push the photo across the counter.
“When was the last time you seen her?”
He looks at the picture, thinks. “How do you know I’ve seen her?”
“Everybody says so. Now spill it.”
He regards me with angst-fueled contempt. As if giving me a pseudo-tough guy routine will earn him street credit.
“C’mon, goofball,” I say, taking the picture back. “Don’t make me punch you so hard the impact pops all your zits.”
He looks at my knuckles and sees they’ve been chewed up with a lifetime of slugging faces.
Instantaneous change in attitude. “She was here maybe a half hour ago.”
Bingo.
“Then?”
“She went across the street.”
I look out the storefront and see a row of non-descript brick buildings. Look like small warehouses or general office buildings.
“Which one?”
“The one with the stone staircase. Double doors.”
“She went in there thirty minutes ago?”
“Yes.”
“With anybody?”
“Just her leftovers.”
I set down my card and look at him. “I’m going over there. If she comes outside without me, call this number. If you do that for me, I’ll come back and leave a bill on the table. If you don’t and I find out she went this way, I’ll come back and leave your teeth on the table. Do we understand one another?”
A nod and I’m out the door.
60
This is what a payday smells like.
Out the burger joint’s door and my cell is dialing. Derne answers.
“Yes, Mr. Buckner?”
“Good news. I’m fairly confident I will be meeting Ms. Boothe in about three minutes.”
“Really? Thank God. Where?”
I tell him.
“Three Mile High?”
“That’s correct. I can ask her if she will come back to Saint Ansgar with me, but if she refuses I can’t make her.”
“Well, at this time of day I guess I could take the Rail up there. Think she’ll be around for another ninety minutes or so?”
“I’ll try. If nothing else I can tail her and we can meet up.”
“Are you near the Rail station?”
“Actually only about five blocks north. When you get off the train just ask a Rail cop how to get to the Starlight Theatre. It’s three blocks south of us.”
“Okay. Train station to the Starlight Theatre, then two more blocks north to this address.”
“Correct. Right across the street from Melrose Half-Pounders. It’s a burger joint. You’ll smell it well before you see it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Buckner. I can’t—I just—” He pauses. “Thank you.”
“Yup.”
“I’ll wire the money while I’m on the train. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds like we’re getting squared up. I’ll see you.”
That’s what I want to hear. Cash up front. Sometimes things like this don’t turn out the way the client likes so they become reluctant to pay. Derne’s case went from a simple missing person to some kind of freak show crime spree. I hope I didn’t blow my wad prematurely but the thought of this being over in the next ninety minutes makes me salivate.
I walk up the stone steps to the building. In the door. The lobby is nothing special. Plain brown-colored tile. Stairs and blank endless hallways.
On the wall is a directory. Entire floors have the word VACANT next to them. Fifth floor sees a lot of activity.
Friday at 3:00 p.m. AA meets in room 506. Monday at 4:00 p.m. Incest Survivors meets in room 501. Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other Friday, Unity Christian Mission holds prayer vigils in room 503 and 504 starting at noon and continuing until God has listened.
It goes on. No doubt, this building has occupants somewhere.
Today is Monday. Watch says 4:17 p.m. Ben Boothe knocked up his little girl. I make my pick.
61
Elevator out of order: stairs, then.
Five flights later I step out into a dark hallway. There’s one room with a light on and I hear some kind of commotion behind the door. I stand outside and listen for a moment. Women conversing. The room number matches up with the directory downstairs. Delilah is in here. I can smell her food. I push the door open and enter to the sounds of voices.
Open room. Table. Chairs. Dozen or so females from all walks of life, trying to enjoy what is left of it. Knowing they are there to tell stories shunned by normal society and to support each other.
A younger-looking female, maybe thirty-one or -two, doesn’t turn around. From a seated position I can cull her stats: five-six, one-thirty, black and blue, no known tattoos or scars. Not a dead ringer for Abigail Bellview, but I can see where Benny made his mistake, high or not.
“Hello,” one brunette says in a quizzical tone. She’s seen better days. The group tries to smile but there is a palpable weight in the air, heavier than a fart in church. Regret. Shame. Disgust. It clings like lead and oil to the atmosphere.
The seen-better-days brunette stares at me for a moment. “How can we help?”
“Gosh,” I say and do my best to look uncomfortable. “I was looking for room 501. It’s a survivor group.”
“This is room 501,” she says.
“You’re here,” another woman says.
The seen-better-days brunette says: “Please come in. We have plenty of time for you to share.”
Incest Survivors Anonymous. Incredible.
“Great. Thanks,” I say. What the hell. Derne said ninety minutes, right?
62
Almost sixty minutes into it now: “My name is Jennifer and I am an Incest Survivor,” the woman next to me says.
I doubt very much her name is Jennifer. She trembles and will not stop staring at her small hands. She isn’t bad looking but on the same token she’s not great looking either. It could be the situation talking; maybe if I didn’t have an idea about what is going to be coming out of her mouth I might find her more attractive.
But as I study her and decide yes, she’s not bad after all, she goes and ruins it.
“I’d been sleeping with my first cousin for eight months the first time I got pregnant.” A solitary tear runs down her cheek, flushed red as the site around a compound fracture. “I was fourteen.”
That’s how she starts it off. I wish I’d gotten a cup of coffee before I sat down. Delilah’s hamburger aroma is making me hungry.
“The baby was born with several incestual defects. She—it was a ‘she’—lived for almost a week outside the womb. I named her Desiree.”
I’ve heard a lot of terrible stories but I’ve never really been a fan of these types. Listening to ashamed and broken people trying to piece themselves back together, so fragile a sneeze tears them apart; not my scene.
“My cousin never claimed Desiree and my parents never knew about us. They thought I was just a ‘common’ slut.” She adds air quotes around the word common. “It would be years before I told them I was no ordinary loose woman.”
When Derne arrives I’ll pair up the two of them and call my end of the bargain fulfilled. It’s settled: dinner at Melrose Half-Pounders. Then a few days off. Tie one on every night.
“The next one I aborted. I couldn’t live with myself knowing I’d put some terminally handicapped child into the world to suffer and die. I thought the choice would be hard...but it wasn’t.”
Oh God, lady. Finish up already.
“I don’t think I’d make a very good mother.” She sounds very small saying that.
Maybe I’ll stop by that breakfast diner next to the rail station and look for the waitress who gave me the phone book.
“After a while, Elliot—my cousin’s name is Elliot—did I say that already? He started dating a girl. A cheerleader. Just a run-of-the-mill high school tramp. Her name was Roberta but everybody called her Bobbi.” She says the name in an airhead, California-girl falsetto. Vitriol drips off her tongue with it.
“Elliot dumped me like I was...I don’t even know. I felt so ugly. So damn used. It was so abrupt. It was an insult after all I did. He paraded around with Bobbi the Cheerleader, taking her to meet the damn family, and I had to just sit there in the background and cry. I had to lie about why I was bawling all the time. I was violated. He didn’t care. I had never felt more violated and used.”
Jennifer starts to cry hard, enraged. I eyeball Delilah and I can see why she had a lot of dudes sniffing around. Even knowing what I know about her she is still attractive. Already you can see the first faint marks of her hard life wearing on her, like a car left sitting in the desert. It won’t take long to start to see the sandblasting and the sun blisters on her.
Jennifer stabs one bolt-straight finger onto the table. “I gave him my virginity.” She stabs it again. “I let him finish inside me.” A third time. “I carried his babies. I went through all the humiliation of the first pregnancy.” A clenched fist now. “I lost the baby...he never even consoled me. Why does that surprise me? He wasn’t even there. Just started fucking me again a few months later.”
I shift in the seat. The air around Jennifer is boiling with heat rising from her scars. I start to build the gall to excuse myself and leave the structure altogether. I’m the only dude here anyways. I’m starting to think this is a women’s only group and they just don’t have the heart to tell me. I’ll just stakeout the building for Delilah’s exit and just when my mouth opens Jennifer cuts me off with her continued rant.
“You know what they say, a woman scorned...”
Her face sets hard, decided. “I found them one night.”
I hadn’t noticed until now that Jennifer has tats up and down her arms. She has long sleeves but in her confession she’s been fidgeting, rolling them up to her elbows. She gathers her hair in one fist and her neck is inked as well. I like tattoos but these are ghetto. Looks like prison ink to me.
Prison ink: melted KY jelly mixed with soot, rubbing alcohol and water. They burn candles and collect the soot, then scrape a handful of KY off of their cellmate’s ass. Little bit of toilet bowl water and some rubbing alcohol, stir, do whatever it is they do. You get Jennifer’s artwork.
The confessor’s face settles into a tranquil daze. “I didn’t kill them. I didn’t tell the court this but I was going to. Instead I made Elliot admit to Bobbi the Cheerleader that he’d been with me for years and we’d made babies. I made him cry and tell her that his dad and my dad were brothers. We weren’t ordinary lovers. Our babies weren’t ordinary babies.”
Well, she knows who she is. A lot of people can’t say that about themselves anymore. Not honestly they can’t.
“That’s what Bobbi the Cheerleader was sleeping with. That’s what she was parading around with. Whatever she’d done to him I’d done first. I wanted her to think about that and then see how pretty she felt.”
I look at Delilah and she just has her small chin resting in one of her small palms. Her eyes wet with sympathy for Jennifer the Incest Survivor. Jennifer the arch enemy of Bobbi the Cheerleader. Delilah’s eyes flick over to me. She must feel the weight of my stare. She gives me a smile and drops it the way someone does when they’re not really smiling but do it anyway. I look back to Jennifer.
“Bobbi the Cheerleader puked. Three times. At gunpoint, I made Elliot call me his first lay. I shot him in the leg. I was aiming for his dick but the gun jumped. He almost died. I already had. I died a long time ago. But I still breathe. That’s what he gets for how he treated me. I got eight years for it.”
Probably served her time in Happenstance State Prison. It’s about forty miles out of town, north. It’s a shithole of a women’s prison. I bet little, scorned Ms. Jennifer here is much harder than she looks. Eight years in that prison will sharpen a kitty’s claws. She might just be hot again, ghetto tats or not.
