Termination Man: a novel (30 page)

Shawn Myers had Alyssa pinned up against one wall. He was trying to kiss her—well—more than kiss her: He held her head back with one hand. His other hand was on her breast. All the while, he was forcibly kissing her, and—by the looks of it—biting her on the neck, face, and ears.

Alyssa was struggling against Myers; but it was a fruitless effort. Shawn easily outweighed her daughter by a hundred pounds, and he was a foot taller.

Donna didn’t even think to call out for Shawn to stop. Her first impulse was to attack; and she quickly looked around for an item that could be used as a weapon. The most obvious one was right there in the utility closet with her: the mop inside the rolling buck.

The mop’s wooden handle was detachable from the mop head.  Donna plunged her hands into the steaming, acidic water and found the clip that freed the handle. Thus armed, she bolted out of the closet.

Shawn did not see her coming. Alyssa did not see her coming, either, buried as she was by the man who was pressed up against her, running his hands over her legs, buttocks, breasts, and crotch.

Donna raised the mop handle like a sword, cocking it over her right shoulder to create momentum. Then she swung the mop handle forward in a downward arc, putting as much of her weight into the swing as possible.

When the mop handle struck Shawn Myers’s back it produced a loud popping sound. Shawn released Alyssa and arched his back reflexively. He whirled on Donna, and she immediately delivered another blow to his abdomen.

He leaned forward, grabbing his abdomen now. Donna did not hesitate: She gave him another whack on the shoulder.

She was vaguely aware of Shawn going down, at least momentarily incapacitated by these three considerable blows. She dropped the mop handle—a mistake that she would not recognize for another minute.

Alyssa was seated on the floor, her body scrunched back against the wall, her face between her raised knees. She was sobbing.

“Are you okay, Alyssa?”

It was a stupid question, of course; and Donna regretted it as soon as it was said. Alyssa was alternately crying and gasping for breath. She swayed to one side, then made as if to keel over. She closed her eyes.

She’s going to go into shock if I don’t do something to prevent it
, Donna thought.

“Honey, listen to me,” she said. “I’m going to get you home now.”

That was when Donna heard Shawn say, “
You bitch!
”

He was clambering to his feet, simultaneously clutching at the discarded mop handle. Donna jumped up and kicked the handle away, snatching it away from the man who towered over her.

Then she began to beat him again. He fell back down onto the floor, placing his hands and forearms protectively over his head.

“
Stop it, bitch!
”

But she did not stop. She did not stop until finally he grabbed the mop handle away from her. She felt splinters tear the skin on her palms as the handle slid through her fingers.

Shawn used the mop handle to right himself as if it were a walking stick. Then he raised it over his head.

“Now let’s see how
you
like this, bitch!
”

“Try it, you bastard!”

For a split second she almost wished that he would strike her with the confiscated weapon. Because then, she was quite sure, she would kill this man. She would find a way.

Shawn, however, seemed to be rethinking what he was about to do—and who knows, perhaps what he had already done. The mop handle hesitated in the air. Then he dropped it to the floor, placed it under his foot, and slid it behind him. The wooden handle rolled backward until it struck the far wall.

“Don’t even think about going after it,” he said.

Then she imagined for a moment that Shawn was going to strangle her with his bare hands. A single vein was standing out on his forehead. He glared at her with unmitigated, implacable hatred. Incredibly, Shawn considered himself to be the affronted party in this exchange.

“This isn’t over,” Donna said.

But it seemed to be over for the moment. They had reached a stalemate—Donna and this much larger man, who had taken her only available weapon.

“You know,” he said, suddenly smiling. “I ought to cram that mop handle up your ass. Or no—maybe you would enjoy that.”

His remark unleashed a fresh fury in her; and the blatant sexism in his words was not their most offensive aspect. By making light of the situation, Shawn was effectively stating that he considered Alyssa and her to be nothing more than mere trifles. He would get away with what he had just done. In the end she needed this cleaning contract; and there were no witnesses but the two of them.

She leapt at him, feeling ugly and unfeminine—determined to tear that smug smile off his face.

But this time he was ready for her. He effortlessly batted her aside with one hand. She collided with the wall and slumped down beside Alyssa.

Laying on the floor now, she looked up at him. She was not hurt—not seriously—though she would probably have a nasty bruise on her shoulder. Shawn was still smiling, and shaking his head now. He was looking down on her in more ways than one.

“Finish up,” Shawn said. “And get the hell out of here.”

Donna and Alyssa left immediately. There were still tears in Alyssa’s eyes as they passed through the service entrance, where contractors and the company’s factory employees entered and exited.

Donna noticed that the guard who was usually on duty was absent.
Strange—but maybe not so strange
. Shawn might have had the foresight to summon him away from his desk, so that he would not take notice of the distraught fifteen-year-old girl who was shambling out, supported by her mother.

Once in the parking lot, though, Alyssa seemed to recover. “I can walk just fine by myself, Mom,” she said.

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” Donna said.

“And tell the doctors what?” Alyssa asked. “That I got my boobs felt?”

Donna felt her cheeks turn red.

“Did that man—”

“Mom. He didn't remove any of my clothes. And not any of his, either.”

She helped Alyssa into the van, and once again the girl protested. “There’s nothing wrong with me!
Please!
”

Alyssa had now climbed up into the van.

“We’re going to the police, then.”

Donna saw that her daughter’s cheeks were flushed red. “I wasn't raped, Mom! I am not going to the police. Please—just leave me alone for a few minutes.”

“Honey, I’ve got to drive you to the police—or home. Somewhere.”

“First you need to get the equipment that we left inside the building.”

This was an obvious attempt at distraction; but it was true nonetheless. This much had not occurred to Donna. Most of the equipment belonging to the Chalmers Cleaning Service was still inside the UP&S facility. She would need to retrieve it.

“I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”

“Mom, please! Do you really think he is going to come out here and try that again? After what you did to him? Look—over there: The security guard is right there in his office.”

Alyssa was correct: The security guard who had been so mysteriously absent a few minutes ago was now seated behind his desk inside his little glass-walled office. His name was Pete something-or-other. Shawn might be bold; but he would not be brazen enough to attack Alyssa in the full view of a witness who would be sure to intervene.

Then she heard the sound of a high-performance car roaring to life. She glanced up to see Shawn Myers speeding by in a silver Audi. He kept his gaze straight ahead as he drove by them.

“That was him, Mom. Now, please—just go in and get the equipment. I don't want to talk about this any more right now!”

Maybe Alyssa was right. Still—it seemed wrong to leave her here by herself. Even briefly.

On second thought, Donna decided that it might be a good idea to give Alyssa a few minutes by herself. But the truth was that
she
was the one who really needed a bit of time alone to think about this. During her married life, her husband Todd had been the one who had handled confrontations with outside forces, when it had come to that. Now that she was both father and mother combined, she would have to take on
that
role, too.

She wondered if she was up to the task. She recalled how Shawn Myers had swept her aside so easily, as if she was nothing.

“Wait here,” Donna finally told her daughter. “I’ll be right back.”

They arrived home less than half an hour later, though it seemed like much longer. When the van pulled into the driveway, Alyssa practically jumped out. The girl had said nothing the entire drive home, despite Donna’s repeated attempts to persuade her to talk.

Donna made sure that the cleaning van was locked
,
and
then
headed inside the house. She found Alyssa in her room, reading a novel: apparently one of the
Twilight
series.
Why did so many young girls seem to take an interest in vampires,
Donna wondered.
There were real enough monsters made of human flesh and blood
.

“Alyssa,” she said.

“What, Mom?” Alyssa looked up from her book; and what struck Donna as odd was how normal her daughter looked.

“Nothing,” Donna said. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine,” Alyssa said brightly. “It was tense for a moment there, but I actually enjoyed watching you hit him with that mop handle.”

“We’ll talk later,” Donna said.

“Whatever.” Alyssa shrugged and returned her attention to her book.

My God
, Donna thought.
She can’t be
over it
already.
If something like that had happened to me at her age, I would have been catatonic for days.

It was possible, though, that her daughter was more resilient than she had been at the same age. Kids nowadays grew up hearing terms like “hooking up,” “date rape,” etc. Sex was everywhere—on the Internet, in their conversations over lunch in the school cafeteria, and of course on TV. Even history itself was no longer the sanitized topic that Donna had known at the same age: When Alyssa was much younger, the mainstream news reports had been filled with accounts of Bill Clinton’s romps with a young White House intern, the intern’s semen-stained blue dress, and the president’s phallic cigars. Donna couldn't imagine a similar spectacle occurring during the Carter or Reagan days of her own youth.

So times had changed; and even the “good” kids were far from naïve.
But what about Alyssa?
Donna knew that her first duty was not to respond to her own anger. (
That course would have led to her scheduling a rematch with Shawn Myers—armed this time with one of Todd’s old golf clubs rather than
a wooden
mop handle.
) Nor should she make the situation more disruptive for Alyssa than it had to be. If Alyssa possessed the capacity to quickly put this unpleasantness behind her, would her daughter be served by dragging out the drama and the trauma?

She also had to consider the economic issues that were at stake—as tempting as it was to focus only on the emotional ones. Their issue was with Shawn Myers—not TP Automotive, the corporation whose money was making it possible for her to keep the cleaning company for at least a few months longer. The checks from TP Automotive had formed most of the seed money for Alyssa’s college fund—which Donna had only recently begun adding to for the first time since Todd had left.

Shawn Myers had no right to take that from her—to take that from Alyssa.

She would continue her cleaning work at UP&S until someone on the company’s management team decided to fire her. And she didn’t think that they would do that.
No
, the company’s first impulse would be to try to smooth things over, to make the incident go away, pretend as if it had never happened. In fact, no one at the company was likely to even know about tonight’s confrontation, unless she brought it up.

But she couldn't simply keep silent. She could not simply take what Shawn Myers had dished out. Shawn Myers had laid his hands on Alyssa, with the apparent assumption that he could do whatever he wanted to her.

That realization steeled her resolve. She would make sure that Shawn Myers was punished. However, she would work within the system: She would go to the police.

The legal route might be difficult, though. Donna was no legal expert; but she knew that criminal cases required evidence. As Alyssa had said, the older man had done little more than feel her up; and there had been no other witnesses. Would that survive legal scrutiny, and the highly paid legal counterattack that Shawn Myers was sure to mount in his defense?

She didn't know; but that didn't matter. Shawn Myers had laid his hands on her daughter.
Her daughter.
That offense could not go unanswered.