The Railroad (16 page)

I pulled him up. “Okay, shithead. I’m going to put you in here. I suggest that you cooperate and stand up so you don’t fall down the stairs.”

“You fuckin’ shit! I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you! You’re life wont’ be worth shit!”

“Shut up and pay attention so you don’t get yourself killed.” With that I pushed him slowly forward, my hand firmly under his elbow. He jerked upward and had no choice but to move with me, his feet searching under him for somewhere to stand.

In the end his instincts made it easier; he didn’t want to fall. In a minute or so I had him standing on the third step down, grasping the railing like a frightened child. I ran back up and slammed the door closed before he could turn around. In a few seconds I had all the locks securely in place. Then I stood back to wait for the inevitable explosion.

It took him about thirty seconds before he realized that he was locked in. Then he hit the door and screamed like a caged animal. I watched the door jiggle for a few seconds before I went to the phone. I had Detective Wills’ number in the “important numbers” pocket of my wallet. It occurred to me briefly that maybe I shouldn’t call him at one thirty in the morning. But, if nothing else he’d get an idea of why Eileen had run in the first place. And, in the end, I wasn’t much concerned about his comfort.

I dialed the number and, after about five rings, I heard a phlegmy voice. “Hello?”

“Detective Wills?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry to call you so late. This is Mike Dobbs. You remember you spoke to me about Eileen Benoit.”

“It’s really late.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“Did you hear from her?”

“Not her. Her husband.”

“What? Why are you calling me?”

“Her husband is here, right now, in my basement. He attacked me on my porch and I locked him in the basement. I thought you might be interested.”

“Why didn’t you just call 911 and have them send a patrol car?”

“I thought this was relevant to your case,” I lied.

“Shit. Okay. I’ll come. You say he’s in the basement.”

“He won’t get out.”

“Give me half an hour.”

“Fine.”

After he hung up I walked to the kitchen and poured myself a drink. If I was going to listen to Bob snort, bang and curse for half an hour, I figured I might as well enjoy myself. Sitting on my couch listening to him was sort of like watching a National Geographic special about animal behavior. One moment he would be banging against the wall of his cage, bellowing, the next there would be relative silence as he pondered his prison. Then the banging would begin again.

I had just gotten myself accustomed to his rhythm when the doorbell rang. Detective Wills had serious bed head and a surly attitude; I found both satisfying. I offered him coffee and then a drink, but he declined.

He finally turned his head toward the basement where genus Bob was entering his alpha male phase; he began shouting curses and banging on the door. Despite his bad mood, Detective Wills smiled and shook his head. “I met him once when he came to the precinct. I sort of figured he’d be like this. I assume he’s drunk.”

“Oh yes. Very.”

“So are you.”

“It’s like the difference between a leaky faucet and Niagara falls.” I began to giggle; it was something I would only have said drunk and I’d stolen the line from my brother-in-law. I have to admit that I was enjoying jerking Wills around the way he’d jerked me around hours before. Now I was in control.

He grimaced and pulled out his pad. “Just give me a few details and I can take him out of here.”

I gave him a short version of what had happened. By the time I was finished, I could see he believed me. “He’s going to make trouble but I don’t think there’s a good explanation for why he’s in your house except that he was trespassing in the first place. I wonder what he’ll try to charge you with.”

“Who knows?”

He grunted and pulled out his handcuffs. Standing by the basement door he shook his head before he began speaking. “Mr. Benoit? This is Detective Wills. I’m going to open the door now. I want you to stay where you are and grab onto something so you don’t fall. Do you understand me?”

“Get me the fuck out of here!”

“That’s what I want to do. If you stand back a couple of steps from the door so I can open it, we can leave.”

“What are you going to do about that scumbag?”

“We can talk about that later. Please move a couple of steps back from the door. Let me know when you’re ready.”

“Oh shit. Okay. I’m ready.”

Wills opened the door to reveal a squinting Bob, hunched over and grasping at the banister. I couldn’t help but laugh and neither could Wills. “Come up here,” Wills ordered.

“I can’t fucking see.” He made his way slowly up the stairs. Wills waited until he was clear of the doorframe before he pushed the door shut. “I’m going to have to place you under arrest.”

“What? What the fuck are you doing?”

“You’re trespassing and Mr. Dobbs has made a complaint against you. Now please turn around.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Mr. Benoit, I’m not going to tell you again. Please turn around and put your hands on the wall.”

“I don’t have to do a fucking thing. I can have my lawyer here in...”

“Your lawyer can see you when we get to the precinct. Right now, you’re under arrest.” With that, Wills skillfully took his shoulder and turned him around; amazingly, he managed to keep him from falling over. Almost in the same motion he pulled his left hand behind him and snapped one of the cuffs on his wrist.

“What are you doing?” Bob screamed, shaking his body in an attempt to loosen the Detective’s grip.

“I want you to stop moving around.”

“I’m going to get you fired, you piece of shit!”

Wills jerked his other arm backwards and snapped on the other cuff. Bob threatened to fall over, but Wills had him by the arm. “I don’t want to hear any more crap from you. We can add resisting arrest to your charges.”

“Wait until I speak to your Captain. You’re going to be really fucking sorry.”

“Maybe.” And then to me he said, “You can come down tomorrow and file formal charges, if you like. I’d suggest you do that because he can probably get his lawyer to set him loose if you don’t. Even then I don’t know what will happen.”

“I’ll be by around ten.”

“Okay. Next time call 911.”

“Hopefully there won’t be a next time.”

“Let’s hope so.”

*

Oddly, I woke clearheaded and determined the next day around 9 A.M. Wills was at the precinct looking somewhat annoyed and perhaps a little frightened. So be it. I didn’t hate the man, but I did hate the callous nature of his job. As far as I was concerned, he was another nail in Eileen’s coffin; just another functionary doing his job while a child was raped and terrorized.

“Bob Benoit has already been to see my boss.” Wills told me. “He’s the kind who can make trouble just by getting his lawyer working. He doesn’t need evidence or corroboration to back up what he says. I’d be careful if I were you.”

“What can he do to me?”

“You didn’t hear me say this, but he can get a detective and find something nasty on you. Or maybe he can make it look like you did something wrong. It’s not that easy to make something like that stick, but he can tie you up in court and eat away at your savings. He likes to see people dangling from a stick.”

“Well I have some money as well and also some very nasty lawyer friends. I can do some damage.”

“I suppose you can. It’s just that he's probably more ruthless than you. He keeps on coming.”

“This is based on experience?”

“Second hand experience. But I trust the people who told me.”

“I appreciate the advice. And now I guess we should do whatever paperwork I need to do.”

I was out of there and home in a couple of hours. When I gave it some thought I realized that I might have a lever in my new criminal charges against Benoit. So I did what I had dreaded doing since I started my downward slide in the City: I called one of my old fast-track friends.

It felt odd to be dialing a number I had dialed frequently back when I was a true New Yorker; I felt a strange pang in my stomach as the phone rang.

“Peltzer and Michaels,” I heard a familiar voice say.

“And which are you sleeping with?” I answered.

There was a pause and then, “Mike!! Oh shit! Oops! Not supposed to say that. Where have you been?”

“Upstate,” I told her. “How are you, Karen?”

“Fine. What happened to you?”

“I’m okay. Just not in the City anymore.”

“Oh.” I could see that she wanted to say more, but my brusqueness made her uncomfortable. “I guess you want to speak to Jeff.”

“It’s important.”

“Okay. Take care of yourself.”

“You too, Karen.”

“I’ll get Jeff for you.”

“Thanks.”

I listened to canned music for a few seconds before the phone clicked. “Mike?”

“It’s me.”

“I thought I’d never hear from you again. The only news I get from you is the occasional bit from Barbara. And that’s colored by her anger.”

“I don’t know what news she’d give you. I haven’t spoken to her since I moved up here. How is she?” I found that I was suddenly slightly concerned now that a door back to my old world had opened.

“How is she ever? She’s a force of nature. I met her by accident the other night at El Gato’s and she didn’t want to talk about you, but you kept coming up in conversation anyway. She’s not happy with you.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Forget about her. Is it okay if I tell you I never liked her?”

“That was pretty obvious. I guess she started going out with Phil.” I immediately regretted saying it, but I found that I was jealous. Phil was a successful plastic surgeon who Barbara had used as a weapon whenever she wanted to knock me off my perch. There was no secret that he was interested in her. I played over what I’d just asked in my mind and I was appalled. Eileen was my concern right then.             

“No. But she’s been conspicuously seen with a few men in places she could expect to be recognized. She told one of my friends that the best revenge is looking good. Isn’t that precious?”

“Ugh. Look, Jeff, I didn’t call you for information and I shouldn’t have asked any questions. I have something legal to discuss with you.”

“Okay. Whatever I can do…”

“It’s an odd situation. I have a friend who is running. If she gets caught she’ll be arrested.”

“For what?”

“I guess for kidnapping or maybe violating a custody agreement. She took her child and went underground because she accused her husband of abusing her daughter, and the judge on the case gave him unsupervised visitation. So she ran.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t sound very encouraging.”

“I’m not trying to sound like anything. But she’s not in a very strong position.”

“I know. I’m trying to find a lawyer in Rockland or Westchester who’s experienced with this kind of thing. You know: custody, child abuse. The whole thing.”

“That’s a tall order. But I think I know someone who can help you. He’s actually a divorce lawyer, but he’s dealt with the kind of stuff you’re talking about in his practice.”

“I’d appreciate it if you gave me his number.”

“You know I’ll do anything I can. Is there any chance that we’ll see you? Paula misses you.”

I thought of his wife Paula and her Chicken Marsala. “It’s not that I don’t miss you guys. It’s just that my life has changed so much. I can’t just go back there right now.”

“We didn’t make 9/11 happen, Mike.” He sounded hurt.

“I’m not blaming you. I just can’t come back right now. I don’t think I can make you understand. But it’s not you or any of our friends.”

“Okay. Look, I’ll give you this guy’s number, but can I have yours, just in case?”

“In case of what?”

“I don’t know. It’ll just make us feel better.”

At that moment it hit me that not everyone in my New York life had been selfish and greedy. I guess I hadn’t been able to tell the wheat from the chaff, and maybe I hadn’t been such an asshole after all.

“Okay, Jeff. Say hello to Paula.” We swapped numbers and I hung up.

*

Later that afternoon I made an appointment with Bruce Byers for seven P.M. at his house in Ardsley. From speaking to him for a while I’d gotten the impression that he was just the type of piranha lawyer I was looking for. His clientele read like a who’s who of Westchester society.

He fit the mold perfectly; he looked just like I expected his clients to look. He was a little less than six feet tall and had a “fashionable” tan. I had always wondered why people of his sort didn’t realize that each of them was sporting the same tan so they could impress each other.

He greeted me at the door of his outsized house and immediately offered me a drink. On some perverse impulse I asked for Metaxa 7 Stars, a relatively obscure Greek liqueur. I suppose I was hoping to stump him in the alcohol department, but it turned out he was well equipped.