Mean Business on North Ganson Street (16 page)

“Would you mind putting your gun down?” inquired Bettinger, leaning out of the way of the raised firearm.

“Sorry.” Kimmy set the revolver on the couch, directly between the stuffed creature and the armrest upon which she leaned. “So it's beeping—he's just holding it down—and I go to the door and tell the guy to stop pressing the fucking button, I'm not gonna let him in no matter what.

“I was fucking angry.”

“I presumed.”

“So now I'm shaking—keyed up the way you are when you've had too much coffee or done some—” The young woman decided to omit the second mind-altering substance from her narrative. “And so I do a couple of shots to calm me down, 'cause that can help, you know?”

“Of course I do.”

“So I lay in bed, try to fall back asleep, and I put on some music—some reggae, which is the best for going unconscious.

“I'm right at the edge, about to drift off—sort of dreaming about this guy I used to date at Oakfield who was kinda dumb, but really nice and always wrapped everything with Christmas paper—even in the summer when it was like a thousand degrees—and the doorbell rings, scaring the fuck out of me. This door right here—” Kimmy pointed across the room. “Not from the intercom downstairs.

“There's this moment where I'm not sure if it's real—the doorbell—or part of the dream with Stevie and the Christmas wrapping paper. And then it rings again, and I almost fall out of bed.

“I know for sure—

“He's here.

“So I come in the living room and look at the door, which is totally locked and has the chain on and everything. And the bell rings again, and I'm like, ‘Go away,' and he's like, ‘I found a cat outside. It got hit by a car and was trying to get into the building, and a guy I buzzed told me you take care of them,' which is true. There're a bunch of strays me and Melissa feed, and when it gets cold like this, they sleep in the lobby or the basement so they won't freeze.

“So the guy's like, ‘I'm gonna put her in front of your door,' and I hear a meow.”

Kimmy shook her head. “So now I feel bad for yelling at the guy—since he was just trying to help—I thought—and I go over to the door and look through the peephole and see a big guy wearing a dark blue jogging outfit, walking away, and I'm like, ‘Wait!'—mainly 'cause I can't afford to pay for a vet—but he just leaves.

“So I open the door and look at the cat, a big orange one—one of the ones that stays here I named Janet. She's crying the way cats do, but's just lying there, shaking, not going anywhere, and I see a piece of white sticking out of her back and realize it's her spine. That's when the big guy grabs me by the neck and throws me inside. He shuts the door and says right in my face, ‘Scream and I'll kill you.'”

Tears filled the young woman's eyes.

“I was so scared. He looked like he would do it—he was huge. And he had on gloves and a ski mask like killers do.”

A suspicion surfaced within the detective. “Could you tell what color he was?”

“African American.”

“Anything else you remember about him?” Bettinger inquired as he turned the page in his notepad, wondering if Dominic was the assailant.

“Had gold teeth.” Kimmy tapped her upper incisors. “These.”

The detective's partner had no such hardware, though it was possible that he had installed some superficial metal in his mouth as a misdirection.

Bettinger said, “So he's inside…”

“Yeah. And he pulls out a gun that has one of those silencers on it and locks the door and's like, ‘Where's Melissa?' and I tell him she isn't here, but he doesn't believe me. So we go look in all of the rooms and by the end, when he knows for sure she's not here, he's quiet. And I'm like, ‘I told you,' and he hits me with the gun so hard I fall on my ass. There—” The young woman gestured at the paisley rug that was in front of the kitchen. “I've got bruises all over.”

“Please let me take you to a hospital after this. You should—”

“No thanks.”

Bettinger did not want to pester the woman, and as he stifled another yawn, he wondered exactly how safe it was for him to be on the road at all, much less act as a chauffeur. The middle-aged man had slept eighty minutes in the last thirty-one hours, and his collapse was imminent.

“So then he asks where she is,” Kimmy continued, “and I tell him the same thing I told you—‘She's been gone since Monday, I don't know, I haven't heard from her.' So then he's quiet, thinking, and I can hear Janet crying outside—it's fucking awful—sounds like a baby—and somebody says, ‘You get her?' and he's like, ‘Go downstairs and wait. Take the cat.' So I know he has a partner outside helping him.

“Then he gets an idea or something and goes in the bathroom and turns on the light. He puts the stopper in the bathtub and starts running the water—the hot water—and he looks over at me and's like, ‘Where's your cell phone?' And I point to my bedroom and am like, ‘In there,' and he's like, ‘Let's get it.'

“So we go into my room and there it is—on my nightstand—and he's like, ‘You're gonna send a text message to Melissa,' and that's when I remember that I forgot to plug it in last night. I open it up, and it's totally dead—no juice at all.

“I tell him I need to charge it, and he's like, ‘Go ahead,' and as soon as I plug it in the wall, he smacks me across the face.”

The detective frowned, looking at the swollen skin around the young woman's right eye. “I don't like this guy at all.”

“Me neither! I thought he broke my whole head, it hurt so bad. And so I'm on the carpet—dizzy, seeing lights—and all I can hear is the water running in the bathtub.

“He grabs me by the hair, stands me up, looks at me, and's like, ‘Take off your clothes.' And I get numb. Cold. This guy's a rhinoceros—he rapes me, he'll turn my insides into pesto.

“So I just stand there, shaking—in shock, I guess—and he slaps me and's like, ‘Do it now,' and while I'm taking off my socks and nightshirt, I'm thinking of that cat with the broken back and the jewelry store I work at and that Christmas wrapping paper. I don't have a bra on, so I cover my boobs—which aren't that great anyways—and he points his gun at my thong and's like, ‘That too.'

“I take it off, but keep my legs pressed together—I'm totally sure he's gonna rape me.” Kimmy shook her head. “But then he's like, ‘Sit on the bed.' And I do.

“I just sit there, naked, watching the phone charge like it's a rock concert or something.

“It feels like forever.

“One of those little black bars appears, and I tell him I have some power. He nods his head and's like, ‘Let's take it to the bathroom.'

“The water's still running in there, and he shuts it off, puts the toilet lid down, and's like, ‘Sit.' So I sit on the toilet, and I'm naked and shaking hard. ‘Text Melissa,' he tells me. ‘Get her to come home right now.'

“So I ask him what I should say to get her to come home.

“And he leans over to the bathtub, puts down a razor blade, and's like, ‘Think of something good.'

“It isn't easy to think of something good when you're like that—naked with a stranger in your own fucking bathroom, and he's telling you that. So I start crying—really crying—hard—and he's like, ‘You've got forty-five minutes to get her here. Probably shouldn't waste too much time blubbering.' He's calm like my driver's ed teacher was. Or like guys who play bass guitar.

“It takes me about five minutes to think of something, and I'm like, ‘I have something,' and he's like, ‘What is it?' and I'm like, ‘I'll tell her that her mother's here and wants to see her about something.'

“So he asks me if Melissa likes her mother, and I say, ‘Like the way most people do—not really, but you sort of owe her everything, so you do your best.' And he's like, ‘What if she calls her mother?' and I'm like, ‘Why would she do that if she's right here?'”

Kimmy gestured at Bettinger. “Right?”

The detective nodded his head.

“But then he was like, ‘Is there a chance that her mother will call her in the next forty minutes?' and I was like, ‘Not much.' So then he was like, ‘You'd better hope not' and points at the razor blade in case I'd forgotten about it. In case it'd fucking slipped my mind.

“Asshole.

“So I text Melissa and tell her that her mother came over, wants to see her about something private—and the guy takes my phone and tells me to sit in the bathtub. I almost scream when my fruit touches the water—it's fucking hot.

“My skin's still red from that.

“The phone beeps, and he shows it to me. Melissa had texted back, ‘I'll be there soon,' and he's like, ‘Should I reply, “See you?”' and I nod, and he asks, ‘You do it with two letters—
C
and
U
?' and I'm like, ‘How else?'

“So he sends her the text, and I know Melissa's on her way here—where a giant scary African-American guy in a ski mask and gloves has got me naked in the bathtub, and who knows what he's gonna do.

“So I start to feel guilty.

“I tell myself all of what's happening—all this crazy fucking shit—has to do with her boyfriend Sebastian, and I don't have anything to do with him except sometimes watching cable when he's over … but still, I feel like shit. 'Cause who knows what he's gonna do to her if she doesn't know what he wants her to know.

“And I'm right here too—a witness—and maybe he's gonna kill us both.

“I was thinking this kind of stuff for a while—it felt like a week, but was probably like twenty minutes—when the phone beeps. He reads it and doesn't look happy.

“I ask if it's Melissa, and he says it isn't, so I ask who it is, and he's like, ‘Says anonymous.' He's tells me to get out of the tub and walk into the living room, and I do. I'm shaking and have no idea what the fuck's going on, and I ask him, but he just tells me to go to the door.

“So I go to the door and he gets over there—” Kimmy pointed at the closet beside the entrance. “And he aims his gun at me and's like, ‘Put the chain on the door,' and I'm like, ‘How's Melissa gonna get in if I put the chain on?' and he tells me, ‘Ask another question and we're going back to the bathroom,' and I knew what he meant.

“So I put the chain on the door.

“And then he tells me to look through the peephole, and I do. He's like ‘Anybody out there?' and I'm like, ‘No, there isn't,' and there isn't.

“So then he says, ‘Leave the chain on, but undo the other locks and open it—see if there's something on the ground,' and I figure this is what that anonymous text was about.

“I'm soaking wet and shaking, and the places where he hit me feel like they're filled with fire ants, but I do the locks and crack the door and look in the hall and there's a pile of clothes laying there. Sweatpants and a sweatshirt, underwear and some socks. There's a ski mask too—like his. And I tell him what's there, and he's like, ‘Get it.'

“My arm's real skinny so I can without undoing the chain. After I get it all in, he has me close the door and lock it.

“He takes the sweatshirt out of the pile, and there's blood on it, and when he picks up the ski mask, he feels something inside. He puts his fingers in the eyeholes and pulls out some dark things that look like cat turds.

“They're toes—from an African American.”

Bettinger guessed that the young woman employed the cumbersome (and often erroneous) politically correct term for his benefit … and possibly whenever she was in the company of other people whose toes resembled cat turds.

“My cell phone dings, and he pulls it out and looks at it. I know better than to ask who it's from.

“The guy looks at me and's like, ‘Get a trash bag and a baggie with ice,' and I go to the kitchen and get them. He puts the toes in the ice, shoves the baggie in the sweatshirt, and stuffs that and all his partner's clothes in the trash bag.

“He looks at me and's like, ‘You have one minute to get dressed.'

“We go to my bedroom, where I pull on some jeans and a sweater and boots, and he hands me the trash bag and slides his gun in his pocket, but keeps holding it tight. He grabs my arm with his other hand and's like, ‘We're going to the lobby.'

“So then he asks me to look outside and make sure nobody's there. I don't see anybody, and we go to the elevator. It comes and has this old woman who's on her way down, but the guy's standing off to the side so he won't be seen or anything. And he's still got the mask on.

“So we get in the next time it comes, and he presses the lobby, and I tell him I want my phone back. For a second, I think he's gonna punch me like the good old days, but instead, he just gives it over and's like, ‘I wasn't gonna kill you. I just had to scare you.'

“I'm pretty sure he's telling the truth.

“Then the elevator stops, and he's like, ‘Sorry.'

“I say ‘Fuck you,' to him 'cause … well … I'm still pissed, and he killed that cat for real, which was fucking hateful.

“The door opens, and I can't see much. The lobby's dark—somebody turned off the lights—and there're four guys standing there. Waiting for us.”

“Did you know any of these men?” the detective inquired as he rubbed a cramp in his right hand.

“I don't think so—but it was dark, and they were wearing hoodies and had scarves over their faces like old-fashioned bank robbers or something. Seemed like white guys or Hispanics.” Kimmy wrinkled her face. “Maybe some of both.”

“So one of them points a long knife at the African American and's like, ‘The keys are in the ignition and your friend's in the trunk. Take him to the hospital.'