Act of Revenge (7 page)

Sweety offered a shrug and a sympathetic look.

“Do I put my fucking
body
on the line? Do I actually protect
women
from
men
? I do. And what do I get for it, huh? I'll tell you what I don't get. I don't get no respect. My husband hates what I do. My daughter just hates me
whatever
I do,
poor Marlene
, and after today I doubt I'll be invited to sit on the dais at the NOW meeting, and I bought the most darling little black dress. . . . Sweety! Talk to me! I need advice.”

In response to this, Sweety dropped his massive head on her lap and dispensed a half cup of saliva directly onto her crotch. Marlene hooted maniacal laughter and made a dramatic turn across two lanes to catch her left onto 14th.

Marlene was about to meet (speaking of her peculiar problems with feminism) a woman who made Ms. Reiss-Kessler look like Nancy Reagan. This person lived and worked in a five-story tenement-plus-storefront on Avenue B in the neighborhood called the East Village, if you were placing real estate ads, and Alphabet City if you were a resident, or a cop. Unlike other poor and crime-plagued sections of New York, most of which had declined from better days, this one had been designed as a slum in the previous century and was a slum still. Marlene parked her car behind a burned sofa across the street, and walked blithely away with the window open and the doors unlocked. A 200-pound dull black, red-eyed, attack-trained Neapolitan mastiff in the front seat is the sort of car alarm that still works in Alphabet City.

The building had a small sign over the door that said
east village women's shelter,
and the door itself was a steel industrial model in a steel frame. In the center of this door was a bell button and a small notice:

ring. we are always open.

If you're looking for shelter,
you are welcome,

and if you're looking for trouble
we have that, too.

The former shop windows had been replaced by bolted-on galvanized sheets backed by thick plywood. Marlene rang the bell. A whirring noise from above. She looked up and waved to the camera.
Buzz
.
Ke-chunk
. The outer door opened, and Marlene walked through and down a short blank entry corridor faced by a windowed door, behind which was a steel desk, behind which was a fullback-sized brown woman with beaded hair. This person ascertained that Marlene was really Marlene and not the spearhead of an invasion, and clicked her through the glass. The EVWC was hard to get into. Its clientele consisted exclusively of women and children under credible threat of death from that small class of men who will not be deterred from expressing their devotion to their loved ones in this unusual way even by the full pressure of the law. Almost all women's shelters are at secret locations, to prevent the loved ones from coming by and trying to get in. This one was blatantly public, because its proprietor rather hoped the loved ones would try something, and especially that they would engage in the sort of behavior that entitles the invaded party to use lethal force.

“What's up, Vonda?”

“Besides the murder rate? Not that much. We got a rare one last night. Buck-ass naked and beat.”

“Really? Anyone I know?”

The woman shrugged and shifted the Remington 870 on her lap. “She'll tell you about it. I just got on.”

Marlene went through another door into the shelter proper and was hit first by the smell—cooking and disinfectant and too many people—and second by a four-year-old on a Big Wheels. A thin woman chasing the child apologized in heavily accented English and dragged the child away to the play area that took up much of the first floor of the building. The children who lived here did not get out much.

The owner was in the kitchen, dressed in her usual black jumpsuit, supervising the preparation of the evening meal, which, like most meals at the EVWS, was highly spiced, hearty, and well balanced, if plain. Marlene often reflected on the medieval aspects of this establishment: noise, squabbling, gouts of steam, the sound of a slap and a wail, hectic activity under the command of a benevolent tyrant. It must have been so in the castle when the knights were away at war. Mattie Duran was a strong, stocky Mexican woman with a fierce
indio
ax face set off by two thick black braids tied with red wool. She looked up, saw Marlene, nodded, settled the business she had begun, and walked out of the kitchen, Marlene following.

Duran had a tiny office off the dining room fitted with a steel desk, industrial shelving holding what passed for her record system, a swivel chair for her, and a ratty armchair for guests. She drew a couple of cups of black coffee from an urn, sat behind the desk with a grateful sigh, and gave her guest the once-over, focusing on Marlene's soaked crotch.

“What happened, you piss yourself or are you just glad to see me?”

“The dog.”

Mattie raised an eyebrow. Then they both guffawed. Mattie had a deep, wet laugh, like an old man. Marlene had worked with the EVWS for a couple of years. Their clientele overlapped to some extent, and they more or less agreed on the principle that guys who persisted in trying to kill women should get their lumps. They were both unindicted felons, but Marlene was guilty about it and Mattie was not. Marlene related her recent experiences at the Chelsea clinic. Mattie was not sympathetic.

“That's what they get for having glass windows. Uptown assholes!”

“I think they were trying to make the place more inviting. Not everybody likes to work in a fort.”

“Let 'em open a goddamn yarn shop, then. Speaking of uptown assholes, your pal Brenda Nero is back with us.”

“How nice for you.”

“You got to help me out, Marlene. The bitch is driving me crazy.”

“Uh-huh. The solution is simple. Walk up to her and say, ‘Sugar, get your young white ass out of my shelter.' ”

Mattie frowned, taking on even more of the aspect of a Toltec idol than she normally carried. “Marlene, hell, you know I can't do that.”

Marlene did know. “What's she done now?”

“Oh, you know. Nothing you can put your finger on, but I got three women threatening to leave if I don't get rid of her. That's a laugh, huh?” She laughed dully to illustrate. “They're threatened with death and dismemberment, and they'd rather skip than hang with Brenda.”

“That's Brenda,” said Marlene, and looked long at her pal, and observed that she was genuinely suffering under the hard-girl mask. Blaming the victim was one of the three remaining cardinal sins among the liberati of New York, along with littering and smoking in restaurants, and Marlene struggled daily to resist it. That it was always the Man was not, however, an article of faith for her, as it was for Mattie. In many cases it turned out to be an unconscious conspiracy between a man and a woman to continue mutual torture until they were both dead. Thus she could see Brenda as a mere problem and not as a holy cause.

“You've talked with her, naturally.”

“I've talked with her, I yelled at her, I made her cry. I came
this
close”—Mattie held thumb and index finger a pea-diameter apart—“to punching her face out.” She snorted. “That'd be rich, huh? Shelter operator pounds victim.”

“Why's she here?” asked Marlene with a surreptitious glance at her watch.

“Oh, the usual. Chester's acting up again.”

“She says.”

“She's got a big bruise on her jaw, goddammit!”

Marlene adopted the calming tone she used with dangerous fanatics, of which there were some few in her life. “Okay. Well, why don't I go and have a little talk with Chester this afternoon? Maybe we can work things out.”

“Break his legs.”

“It's an option. Was that why you wanted to see me today?”

“No, it's this new one. Won't talk, won't say who she is. Looks like she's been pimp-beat, but don't look like a hooker.”

“What, with a wire hanger?”

“Some kind of thin whip anyway. Looks like it's been going on for a while, the scars. She says he put his cigar out on her ass.”

“And she won't say who she is?”

“No, but—”

“But me no buts, girl. You got rules, I got rules. You know I don't touch a client unless she goes for the whole legal business . . .”

“Marlene, just see her . . .”

“. . . naming the abuser, prosecuting for assault . . .”

“Marlene, five minutes. She asked if she could see you.”

“. . . and so on. What is this now, the cute puppy school of bodyguarding? If I like her looks, I'll waive the rules?”

Mattie turned up her glower a notch and thrust forward her heavy jaw. “Don't be a bitch, Marlene.”

“Oh, that's delightful, coming from you.” She rose and gathered up her bag. “I have to go. I will drive out and see Chester, and then I will go home. I have children. And a husband.”

Mattie's face darkened to mahogany, and her heavy brows almost met in the middle. An interesting moment passed, during which both of them realized that, manlike as were some of their doings, they were not in fact men and didn't have to carry on so. The big woman sucked in breath and said, “Marlene, please. For me. Just see her and maybe she'll talk to you. If she don't, no harm. You can just forget her, okay?”

A request in these terms from Mattie Duran was so unusual as to stun Marlene's normal prudence, and, of course, she was intrigued.

“Okay, I'll see her.”

Mattie smiled, brightening the room with a show of gold and bright enamel against her dark skin. “Great! You're a pal,
chica
. She's in 37.”

She would be. Room 37 was the only single room for clients in the EVWS, tiny, in the center of the building, windowless, its doors and walls heavily reinforced. It was the most secure place in the shelter, and was reserved for people that Mattie had determined were under threat from people who knew what they were doing when it came to dispensing lethal violence. Some time back, the shelter had been attacked by a group of actual international terrorists, who had made off with a young girl, and Mattie wanted to make sure it would not happen again.

Marlene climbed the stairs against the flow of women and children descending for the evening meal. She greeted those she knew, a substantial proportion. Marlene's role at the EVWS was to represent clients in court, to move them to (they hoped) safe apartments, to train them in self-defense, and to provide her brand of counseling to the significant others. Given Marlene's rep around town, this often sufficed. Marlene had not lost a client in some years, and her clientele was selected from among the most endangered women in the city, or rather those of the most endangered who had the sense and the nerve to get out.

The woman who opened the door of 37 to Marlene's knock was still lovely in the frozen way that some wealthy women adopt, a look that peaked in the Kennedy years. Not a mark was visible on the face, which didn't mean much. A lot of guys were careful about the face, wanting to preserve the trophy value of the arm piece. Her eyes, a nice china blue, and big ones, showed more mileage around the edges than one might gather from a first look at the face and body. A well-preserved forty, was Marlene's thought, three days a week at the gym, a few surgical tucks maybe, strict diet, winters in the Islands. She was dressed in a ratty purple sweatshirt and jeans several sizes too large for her, and a pair of cheap tennis shoes, all clearly out of the shelter slop box.

“You wanted to see me,” said Marlene, and introduced herself, extending a hand. The woman's grip was soft and hesitant, and her eyes, which Marlene now observed were fuzzy and unfocused, slid away from contact. Oh, pharmaceuticals! thought Marlene. She loved these types.

The woman did not give her own name, but turned away and sat on the narrow bed. Marlene shut the door and sat beside her, there being nowhere else to sit. The room was tiny, a cell eight feet on a side, holding only a steel cot, a varnished deal bureau, a rag rug, and a rickety night table.

“So, what do I call you?”

The woman paused, as if trying to remember. “Vivian,” she said.

“Last name?”

The woman shook her head and looked down at the rag rug.

“Look, I can't begin to help you unless you talk to me.” Nothing. “I have to have your name at least.” Marlene waited. She observed that the woman had fragments of nail polish still clinging to her nails, which bore the signs of having had the frequent attention of a manicurist. Her hair, too, though lank from a recent washing, showed the mass and shaping of a first-class cut. Marlene felt a pulse of irritation, which she knew she would not have felt had the woman been poor. She stood up and announced, “Okay, sorry, but I'm leaving.”

“Fein,” said the woman.

“Fine? You don't want help? You want me to leave?”

“No, Fein is the name. My name is Vivian Fein.” The crying started.

Marlene always said that she was one of the few women in New York for whom both Kleenex and bullets were a deductible business expense. She gave over a wad of the former to stem the drench and waited, making soothing sounds.

“I'm sorry,” said Vivian Fein, after some minutes. “It's hard to explain. I was thinking about my father.” She paused, glanced at Marlene in a way that seemed to demand some recognition, as if this father were so well-known as to require no further explanation, and then she blushed and said, “Ah, shit, you must think I'm crazy”—here she uttered a shrill laughlike sound. “Oh, yeah, why would you think that, just because I ran out of my house dressed in a blanket and a pair of panties? Of course, I assume you know all about my father, just because that's what's rattling around in my head all the time. Isn't there a disease where people think they're transparent? That everyone can see their thoughts?” A spate of silent shaking laughter, dissolving into liquid weeping.