Date Rape New York (7 page)

“Pull yourself together,” she said aloud. “You have handled motorcycle robbers holding you up in rush-hour traffic. You can get over feeling anxious about this room.”

A tap on the door made her shriek. She rushed to the peephole. It was Sophia.

* * *

“What was so fascinating about the conversation?” The pretty young hotel maid was reading the crumbled message slip Grazia had thrust at her. She had listened with dark, sad eyes while Grazia related all that she had gone through in the emergency room. Now she turned her attention to the message.

Grazia shook her head, baffled. “All I remember is holding a glass of champagne. Then I woke up here this morning.”

“You still don’t remember how you got back to the hotel?”

“I had a nightmare about an old lady shrieking, ‘Jacky! Bite!’ then I actually met an old lady and her dog, Jacky, outside the hospital.” She explained about Mrs. Springer’s belief that Jacky could identify the man. “And Manuel must have seen the man who brought me back to the hotel. Manuel could describe him to a police artist, and he could do one of those drawings.”

Sophia gripped her arm. “Grazia, forget finding this terrible man. There’s no way to punish him, not in our world. It could be worse. You could be pregnant. This same thing happened to someone I know and she got pregnant.”

“I’m not pregnant. I took the morning-after pill.”

“Women will always suffer when there’s sex involved. That’s why we’re born stronger than men. We know how make something better from our suffering.”

Grazia paced the room. “Detective Cargill thinks that the man who attacked me could be a Italian tourist or here on business. He thinks he’s staying near the Brazilian Bar because people don’t go far for a drink in deep snow. Once, you told me that a lot of Italians work in hotels around here. Could you ask them to check their registration books? We’re looking for a single man, Italian, medium height, registered Saturday night.”

“You’re hoping for a miracle, but I will ask,” she sighed with resignation.

“And tell housekeeping to take that round table out of this room.”

Chapter 8

After Sophia left, it was four o’clock. Grazia double-locked the door and attached the chain. Feeling shattered, like an explosion had blown her apart, she collapsed on the bed. The muscles in her arms and legs twitched. When she tried to relax, thoughts flitted through her head like frenzied mosquitoes with high-pitched whines: “You were raped. You were drugged.” The whines grew louder. “Lost your memory, no one will want you.” She shook her head to drive them away, but the motion made the room swing. She sat up, rubbing her ears. “Food!” she said aloud. “Eat. That’s what Detective Cargill told you to do. He even ordered you lunch.”

The round table was out of the question; she felt sick just looking at it. She sat on the floor, broccoli wrap between her outstretched legs, drinking the tomato-carrot soup from the carton. Afterward, the headache and nausea were gone, but she felt exhausted. Her eyelids kept closing. But as soon as she lay down on the bed, the mosquito whine came again. Her jaw clenched. Her hands balled into fists; she loosened one and the other tightened. A knot of fear moved from her stomach to her chest. A tap on the door brought her bolt upright. Heart thudding against her ribs, she threw herself at the peephole. A man’s face loomed; the shadow of another lurked behind him.

“What do you want!” she shrieked.

“Housekeeping. We came for the table.”

“Go away! I’ve changed my mind.” She glued her eye to the peephole until they had drifted off, joking in Italian. She jammed a chair under the handle, then her knees went weak and she dropped to the floor, face in hands.

Hot bath—that’s what Cindy had recommended to relax her. Besides, she needed to clean herself. Her body felt filthy and tainted. She opened the bathtub taps, holding her hand under the rushing water. The sound drowned the mosquito whine. Emptying a bottle of liquid soap into the tub, she watched the rising bubbles. They calmed her. She lowered herself into the hot water, at first going all the way under, then only her face above the surface. For a long time, she lay still, feeling the water gently tug her hair and the bubbles tickle her cheeks. When the water had cooled, she scrubbed with the washcloth until her skin was red, shampooed her hair, and stood up to rinse under the shower. Then she scrubbed herself again under the shower and re-shampooed her hair. She just couldn’t feel clean.

As she put on the hotel bathrobe, her eyes caught in the mirror the deep purple bruises marching up her vertebrae. More bruises dotted her shoulder blades and upper arms. Had she fought her attacker? Had he gripped her upper arms to hold her down? The shock that she had felt seeing them this early morning was gone; now she felt numb. 

In bed, she couldn’t lie flat without her heart pounding, so she piled up the pillows.  But the second she closed her eyes, a tsunami wave of anxiety towered and curled to crash down on her. Gasping, she sat upright.

“Take the sleeping pills and anxiety pills your friends gave you!” she said aloud, but a calmer voice in her mind took over. “Janine told you not to take sedatives with your brain so drugged.”

Instead, Grazia reached for her journal. She would follow Detective Cargill’s advice. She would write down everything she could remember starting Saturday morning. The very act of recording her activities leading up to getting drugged might help find a connection to the man who had drugged her. She decided to write down what she remembered, what she learned from other people, even what she told them. Her journal would become a trail leading to her attacker. She would prove she was sexually assaulted, and then she would take legal action. She was a lawyer, after all.

Grazia gazed at the lovely Gucci handbag that Francisco had given her. She ached for his encircling arms to make her feel safe. She longed for his voice to promise he would find the man who had raped her and bring him to justice. But that would never happen. Grazia could never tell Francisco what had happened to her. Like she had told Cindy this morning, in Francisco’s eyes, Grazia was damaged goods. No, if she wanted to know who had attacked her, she had to find him herself. She turned to a clean page in her journal.

Grazia had developed a decent memory in law school. But when she got the job at Francisco Pamplona Law Offices, she realized that to rise to the top positions she needed to set herself above the male lawyers who outnumbered her. So she decided to develop a powerful memory. A razor-sharp memory would let her respond quicker during conferences, make her faster with facts, and more accurate with advice. A stronger and broader memory would help her manage the vast amount of information and knowledge that she must master to rise as a corporate contract lawyer.

So Grazia studied memory-training books. She learned that you needed seven seconds of focus and concentration to create a short-term memory. Then you needed to review it over and over to make it a long-term memory. She began paying more strict attention to everything she saw or heard at work. She forced herself to hold facts in her mind for seven seconds. She concentrated on people’s faces and repeated their names aloud in sentences three times. She visualized locations and drew pictures of them to practice retrieving visual memories, then compared them to the location. She recorded client interviews and, at night, repeated what she remembered, confirming her retention by playing the recordings. 

Gradually her memory deepened. She became known for her uncanny ability to retrieve information heard only once, including phone numbers. After glancing at a face, she could later address the person by name. She could cite the details of a contract after reading it once, and she could reconstruct entire meetings, including body language—vital skills for a contract negotiator.

But all this was doing her no good at all now, she realized, throwing down her pen and pacing the room. She had lost hours of her life Saturday night, and there was no way she could recall them because no memory of them existed in her mind. Worse, the drug kept her feeling groggy. No wonder Detective Cargill had told her to take notes. She must have seemed like a half-wit!

Grazia sat down on the bed, feeling depressed. She had to wait for more drug to leave her brain and hope that she would be able to remember what happened before she was drugged. She picked up her pen.

Propped against the bed pillows, she wrote, “Saturday. Breakfast at usual café. Back at hotel, reviewed the Kourtis contract draft. Received telephone confirmation from Kourtis. Called international courier to deliver to Francisco for review. Handed over document in hotel lobby. Went shopping at Lord & Taylor. Laura was browsing through dress racks.” She stopped, her legal mind demanding accuracy. Not true. Laura had been sitting in the tiny coffee and sandwich bar by the dress racks, smartphone to her ear, when Grazia had come up the escalator. Grazia had recognized her and was drawing breath to call out but Laura had disappeared. A few seconds later, she had appeared at Grazia’s elbow, astonished at running into her.

Was she remembering correctly? Frustration washed over Grazia. She used to trust her memory; now she wasn’t sure she had one! She kept writing.

“Laura and I had a sandwich. I told her I was quitting my job and breaking off with Francisco. Laura suggested we meet at the Brazilian Bar at nine-thirty before she left for Milan on a midnight flight.”

Grazia relaxed as pictures and words floated into her brain. “At nine o’clock, I went down to the lobby. I asked Manuel for directions to the Brazilian Bar. Manuel said the place had a bad reputation, that I should keep my hand over my drink. It was snowing hard. I felt lost. I started up the steps to Menno House to ask for directions. Then I met Mrs. Springer and Jacky.”
Grazia smiled, feeling Jacky’s pink tongue licking her hand when she pulled off her glove to pat his snow-covered hood. She paused. Nothing more.

She left a space. “Opened door to Brazilian Bar.” This she couldn’t remember but she must have opened the door, so she used it to prompt the next memory, which it did. The memories were flowing now. Detective Cargill was right when he said she would remember more when she felt rested and safe. “Saw Laura talking to some young Italian men. Music loud. Couldn’t hear names.” She closed her eyes and tried to picture the young men, tried to picture walking to the hotel and into the lobby.

Panic hit. She gasped for breath. She paced the room. Cindy was right. Trying to remember being raped was no path to recovery. But she had no choice if she wanted to find her attacker.

Back in bed after a cup of tea, she left three pages blank for what had happened at the Brazilian Bar. She would fill those in later—somehow.

She started in again. “Sunday morning. Seven-thirty. Woke up in a nightmare. Dizzy, sick. Threw up. Looked in mirror. Sophia came into my room. Cleaned my face. Called Stanley Johnson.” She frowned, remembering. “Sophia came before her usual time. Stanley asked why she was there so early and working on this floor.” Grazia drew a question mark in the column to ask Sophia later.

“Beth Israel Emergency Room.” As she recorded the morning, she realized how kind these Americans had been. Janine and Cindy had guided her so carefully through the process. The lab tech had tried to make the blood-drawing as painless as possible. Americans really did care about other people. Gratitude surged in her heart. Her spirits lifted thinking about them. Her confidence grew. Writing was indeed bringing back memories, little by little waking up her brain.

She ended by writing her fear of the male taxi driver, meeting Mrs. Springer and Jacky, and their walk back to the Hotel Fiorella. Mrs. Springer had chatted with her nephew, the doorman. She noted what Detective Cargill and Stanley had told her. She pulled the phone message slip from the side pocket of her journal and copied it. “Fascinating conversation.” What had she said?

After another half hour, she had finished. She felt lighter, stronger. She made herself   herbal tea and took it to bed, sipping it slowly as she watched the silent snow piling on the windowsill.

Chapter 9

The chime of Grazia’s smartphone woke her. The room was dark. Where was she? She fumbled for her phone. The blue panel read three o’clock Sunday; the caller was Francisco. She collapsed back against the pillow, mind racing. Ah, New York. Hotel Fiorella. She opened her phone.

“We need to video talk,” Francisco snapped. “Log on.”

She turned on the bedside lamp and dimmed it so Francisco couldn’t see her haggard face and the smudges under her eyes. She set up her laptop on the round table and logged in to the firm’s video communication system. Francisco was shouting before his image cleared.

“Are you crazy?” He slammed a document down on the desk. The diamond in his wedding ring flashed under his desk lamp. “These are the terms you want negotiate for Kourtis’s new cement subcontract? These have nothing to do with my instructions! They have to be completely rewritten!”

Grazia’s drugged brain scrambled for how to handle Francisco. Kourtis was a cement subcontractor who had been Francisco’s client for decades. Kourtis was negotiating the renewal of his contract with a major construction company. Grazia had drafted the terms in her hotel room. Thursday she had set up a video call with Gerasimos Kourtis at his Naples office to discuss them. Kourtis had listened silently while she explained how the new terms she was proposing would save him from arrest, criminal charges, and crippling fines from the Naples Building Safety Department. Sophia had been cleaning the room at the time and had brought her cups of tea during the long, tense conversation. Ultimately he had agreed to her terms and on Saturday morning, had confirmed his agreement by a quick phone call.

She had immediately called the international courier company that would deliver her draft to Francisco’s private security agency, Miranda Security Systems, in Naples on Sunday morning. A Miranda courier would take it immediately to Francisco’s Naples apartment for him to review. On Monday he would discuss the terms with Kourtis. Grazia had planned to call Francisco early Sunday morning to explain why she had drafted those particular terms. But Sunday morning Grazia had been at Beth Israel Medical Center.

“Who do you think you are, head of this law firm?” Francisco slammed his hand on the desk. The diamond in his wedding band flashed. “Kourtis will never approve these terms!” Agitated, he flung himself out of his chair and paced the room.

“He already has. He said to courier you the draft and he would discuss it with you on Monday.”

Francisco dropped into his chair and stared at her in disbelief. “When did you talk to him? You’ve been in New York shopping and bar hopping.”

Grazia frowned. How did Francisco know what she had been doing? Were his bodyguards in New York, following her? “I spoke to him by video call on Thursday and by phone on Saturday morning,” she replied, keeping her voice calm.

Francisco’s face flamed red. “You broke security protocol!”

Another crime on her rap sheet. Francisco only allowed vital information to pass between client and attorney during face-to-face meetings. No electronic communication was safe from hackers, Francisco believed, especially email, phones and cell phones. Documents for clients had to be delivered by hand via Miranda Security Systems couriers.

Miranda Security Systems bodyguards also escorted Francisco Pamplona lawyers to clients’ offices, they monitored the main lobby and parking garage, and provided bodyguards for Francisco’s family. Francisco’s wealth and the status of his clients made him, his family, and his staff, targets for ransom. Miranda Security Systems bodyguards either followed Belinda when she went out or drove her. They did the same for Francisco’s daughter, Celestina.

Francisco hired his own two bodyguards, however, not through Miranda Security Systems. Grazia had discovered this when she had phoned the Miranda Security Systems office one night, angry because she had spotted a Francisco bodyguard watching her play tennis at her club. 

“I’ll straighten this out with Kourtis. Consider yourself fired,” Francisco snarled through clenched teeth. The screen went dark.

Grazia crawled back into bed, shaking, but not because of Francisco’s rant. Francisco’s temper was legendary. He had fired her before. He always relented, conceded that her decision had been right, and gave her back her job. That’s why Grazia still led the contract negotiating team and drew the highest salary. 

She was shaking because Francisco could destroy her. In his present fury, if he learned that she had been raped, he could spread the news that she was unsuitable for working for wealthy, powerful clients. Her law career would become working at a women’s shelter.

Grazia curled up in the fetal position, sick with the sense of loss. Francisco’s handsome face on the screen and the peach Polo shirt that set off his perfect tan brought back those heavenly weekends at his beach house before he married Belinda. They had made love every night, even under the bright stars on the sand, letting the dark Mediterranean waves flow over their bodies.

Then, like a cloud of dust, other memories floated in: Francisco’s old man’s skin, thin and spotted, his terror of becoming impotent, and his fear that Viagra was affecting his heart. Only ten days ago, she had happily said good-bye to his sorrowful face at the Naples airport, then stretched her legs in Alitalia business class, wine glass in hand; ready to swap Francisco for a younger man.

She frowned. Something bothered her about the call. Her brain was so foggy, she couldn’t grip it. She covered her eyes and brought up the image of Francisco as he had cut off their video call. Again she saw the glint of light on his diamond. She moved her mind’s eye to the room behind him and let the scene flow.

Grazia saw Francisco pacing the room. His polished mahogany desktop caught her eye. On it was a brass library
desk lamp with a green shade. Beside that were three photos—the same three that graced all Francisco’s desks. One showed Francisco on his yacht, another showed Francisco with Celestina at her university graduation, and the last showed Francisco at the opera with Belinda. Francisco’s offices and studies were identical—at the law offices, in his Milan and Naples apartments, and at his beach house. Every pen and notepad sat in identical positions so he wouldn’t have to search.

Grazia opened her eyes, realizing what niggled. Francisco was wearing his peach polo shirt that he only wore at his beach house. Why was he at the beach? He had explicitly told her to courier the document to his home in Naples so that Monday morning he could review it with the other attorneys handling the Kourtis contract. Then he would take the document personally to Kourtis at the subcontractor’s Naples office.

She opened her journal and recorded the interchange, including her puzzle over Francisco being at his beach house. After that, knowing she could avoid it no longer, she got a mineral water from the minibar and made a video call to her mother.

Even though it was Sunday, Grazia’s mother was at her computer managing the details of a client’s adventure travel excursion. Her driver was supervising the cook preparing their Sunday meal. Her mother and the driver always looked so smug when Grazia and her grandmother arrived for the mandatory Sunday gatherings that Grazia suspected there was more to their relationship than transportation.

After two minutes, Grazia wished she hadn’t made the call. “I’m not coming home before Friday!” she outshouted her mother, whose scarlet fingernails were furiously clicking her keyboard while she read off the night flight to Naples that she was ready to book for Grazia. Her mother broke down in sobs, but Grazia didn’t give in. She got her mother off the phone by asking her to ferret out who was in the Italian consortium that owned the Hotel Fiorella. If Grazia knew someone in the consortium personally—possible since her law firm had clients among the ultra-wealthy of Italy—she could use insider pull and obtain permission to see the CCTV tape for Saturday night. Grazia collapsed on the bed and slept.

The clock read seven o’clock when Grazia woke up, ravenous. She felt more alert but she had a dizzy spell when she sat up. She leaned back against the pillows. The trouble with being alert was that the horror of being raped no longer lay masked under a veil of drug. A nameless anxiety came over her. She was afraid, but of what? The feeling was foreign to a woman who had never acknowledged having nerves. A door down the hall closed, and Grazia jerked. Her lips and fingers tingled. She took a deep breath but couldn’t get enough air.

No way could she make it through the night without the sleeping or anxiety pills her friends had given her. Grazia went online and found the nearest pharmacy. The pharmacist explained that there were herbal alternatives to prescription anti-anxiety drugs but she would have to come to make her choices. Grazia flicked on the weather channel. A winter storm would hit New York in an hour with heavy snowfall and high winds. She yanked open the curtains. A few flakes were already drifting over hurrying people carrying grocery bags.

Watching the passersby calmed her. Stanley and Detective Cargill had assured her that men who drugged women for sex weren’t muggers. As long as Grazia didn’t go drinking in bars, she was safe. And the walk to the pharmacy would do her good. Exercise released tension, and Grazia had missed her usual morning workout in the hotel gym. She pulled on heavy trousers, a warm sweater, and her new down coat.

Luigi was staffing the reception desk, doing double shifts to fill in for Manuel, he explained, speaking Italian. And no, Manuel hadn’t called in. Luigi looked worried. He buzzed Edmondo, the night security officer, when Grazia asked if someone could accompany her to the pharmacy.

Edmondo was sympathetic but regretful. He couldn’t leave the hotel premises, he explained, also speaking Italian. So many staff spoke Italian in this hotel, Grazia felt like she had never left home.

“Did you see me come in last night?” Grazia inquired hopefully. Detective Cargill had said he would talk to the hotel staff, but she wanted to know for herself. “It was shortly after ten-thirty.”

Edmondo shook his head. “I was attending to a matter in a guest’s room. Manuel must not have thought your situation looked unusual, Miss Conti. Otherwise he would have paged me.”

“Not unusual!” Grazia was shocked. “I could hardly walk! I had mascara and lipstick smeared over my face. An old lady and her dog saw me and the man I was with. She thought I was drunk.”

Edmondo looked startled. “You have a witness? Did you tell the police?”

“Of course. But the man was bundled up. The old lady couldn’t see his face. Her little dog, Jacky, would recognize him. Jacky bit him.” Grazia forced a smile.

Grazia zipped her coat up over her chin, pulled on her knit hat, and tightened her fur-lined hood. Snow was blowing off the rooftops in billowing clouds. She wrapped her wool scarf around her face and caught up with two women laden with groceries. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being followed. When the women entered an apartment building, she latched onto an old lady moving at snail’s pace. After a few steps, Grazia felt foolish. She set her sights on the lighted pharmacy and hurried down the slippery sidewalk.

The pharmacy was packed and overheated. By the time Grazia had spoken to the pharmacist and made her choice, she was having dizzy spells. She stood half-dazed at the refrigerator, finally dropping each kind of juice into her shopping basket. At the chocolate display, she closed her eyes and grabbed one.

“Take a taxi, lady. You don’t look good.” The checkout clerk looked worried. Grazia shook her head. The driver might be a man.

Outside, the blowing snow cut like a knife, but it pierced the haze in her brain. By the time she had bucked the wind to the Hotel Fiorella, she felt alert, warmed by the exercise, and exhilarated by the clarity of her thoughts. Fresh air was indeed what she had needed!

It was eight-thirty by her smartphone’s blue panel. Surely the Brazilian Bar couldn’t possibly be crowded during a winter storm warning. Nick would have time to tell her if he remembered her and the man she had left with. Besides, a meal of tapas beat tepid takeout in her hotel room. She handed Luigi her pharmacy purchases and explained she was walking to the Brazilian Bar. Against his fervent protests, she headed back into the night. After pausing in the foyer to review the directions in her journal that Manuel had given her. Halfway up Nineteenth Street, she crossed the street for no reason she could think of. Had she crossed here the evening before? Were her feet unconsciously tracing her steps?

A monk in a dark cassock with a long white beard and a black cap over his white hair emerged from a stone building and stepped into the street—right in the path of an approaching taxi. The driver hit the horn and brakes at the same time, and went into a slide, stopping right at the monk’s heels. The monk didn’t even turn his head. Grazia froze, bewildered. This seemed so familiar! She quickened her steps. Maybe the monk would remember her. Perhaps he had seen the man who had been with her the night before. But the monk quickly out-paced her into the dark. She pulled out her smartphone and dictated the number of his building. She would talk to him later.

She continued slowly, peering between the shadows, cautiously opening her senses, and fighting anxiety. The snow-laced fence around a tree seemed vaguely familiar, as did stumbling over the broken sidewalk near Menno House. She climbed the salted steps of Menno House. Her guidebook said volunteers working in local nonprofits got cheap lodgings here. Mrs. Springer had said that they could contact her. But the reception clerk was new and didn’t know the old lady’s address. His eyes lit up when Grazia mentioned Jacky, though; the little dog was everyone’s favorite.