Date Rape New York (30 page)

Chapter 43

Detective Cargill lay snoring on Stanley’s sofa, coat over his head. He had joined Grazia in Stanley’s office earlier that evening. She had been there all afternoon, watching through the one-way glass for Celestina to cross the lobby and go out. At eight o’clock, she saw Valentino looking straight at her from the other side of the reception desk. Grazia jumped, startled. She nudged Cargill, who sat up.

“He can’t see you through the one-way glass,” murmured Stanley.

Grazia knew from her own experience that Valentino couldn’t see her, but he was looking so directly at her, and she knew how sneaky and clever he was, that she could practically feel his eyes penetrating that glass. Valentino turned to speak to the new reception clerk, who pointed at the house phones.

“He’s pretending he doesn’t know where the house phones are,” she announced, indignantly. “He used a house phone to call me, the swine.”

They watched Valentino pretend not to find the house phones and wave gratefully to the desk clerk when he did. Grazia felt her certainty waver. He did look lost. He chatted with the doorman, who pulled out his cell phone. Shortly afterward, a taxi pulled up and waited in front. Then Valentino wandered into the lounge and looked around. When the elevator doors opened, he crossed the lobby and greeted Celestina with a gallant bow. He helped her on with her lynx coat.

Cargill gave a low whistle. “What a looker!” he murmured, watching the lovely young woman affix her lynx hat.

“Francisco is crazy about her,” Grazia muttered with a tinge of envy. She watched Celestina take Valentino’s arm and walk out to the waiting taxi. “He keeps her under heavy bodyguard in Naples. One bodyguard lives in an annex to their apartment. Francisco makes Miranda send over new bodyguards every month so there’s no attraction problem. She’s got a bodyguard in Harvard too.”

“And here are her New York bodyguards,” said Cargill, with a hint of laughter, as two old ladies in ancient fur coats and snow boots over their support hose emerged from the lounge. They waved at the doorman and hurried out to a waiting taxi. “Now we hope those old ladies have as much on the ball as Mrs. Springer.” Cargill tapped on his smartphone and spoke loudly into it. “Read off the license plate of the taxi in front of you.” He jotted in his notebook. “When you reach your destination, call me your location before you go inside. And no alcohol!”

“Could he have spotted them when he went into the lounge?” Grazia worried.

Cargill yawned. “All old ladies look the same to young men.”

“We should have gone with them,” she fretted.

Cargill opened the mini-fridge and pulled out a sandwich. “Valentino is taking the girl bar hopping. We can’t follow them from bar to bar; he would spot us. Mrs. Springer is dispatching different old ladies every time they change bars.”

“But if we stay with Celestina and Valentino sees us, he won’t attack her. She’ll be safe. She’s only twenty-one, for God’s sake. She has no idea what’s going to happen.”

“We had two game plans, remember? One was we stick with Celestina and let Valentino see us, so he won’t assault her. But you decided against that. You said he could give us the slip and assault the girl, and we couldn’t prove anything without a DNA swab, and he would be on that plane Saturday before the lab could do the DNA identity and the match.”

“I know, Cargill,” she said, wringing her hands. “And I chose our second plan to have these old ladies tail them both until he’s ready to assault her, and then we catch him in the act. But what if he doesn’t come back to the Hotel Fiorella like you think he will?” she wailed. “What if he assaults her somewhere else?”

Cargill bit into his sandwich, then spoke with his mouth full, “He’s got to come back here. She has to wake up in her own bed. If she wakes up somewhere else, she might put two and two together. She might find witnesses. But if she wakes up here, he comes over in the morning to pick her up for breakfast, all smiles, and discovers she’s in terrible condition and he calls the doctor and takes her to the emergency room and tells Francisco that he brought her home, and how awful, she went out alone without him.”

Grazia paced up and down. “We’ll stick to the plan that we stop him as he’s taking her into her room in a drugged condition and get him for drugging her and intention to assault. But what if he gets her inside before we can block him? He’s so sneaky and slick, and he spots us every time we try to catch him up. Besides, catching him as he’s taking her into her room isn’t enough to arrest him, and I’m worried that we’re taking too big a risk.”

“You’re right. We are taking a big risk with this guy. And no, stopping him at the door won’t convict him of anything. He’s got to attempt assault, and we have to witness it. But I can enlighten the US Immigration authorities, and they might put his name on their no-admit list. And you can tell Francisco what he tried to do.”

“Francisco would kill him. I could never live with that.”

Cargill’s phone rang. He wrote down another license plate. “They’ve moved to Greenwich Village,” he reported. He reached for his newspaper.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang again. This time Cargill jumped to his feet. He grabbed his coat and threw Grazia’s at her. “They’ve gone to a private address, probably a party,” Cargill called over his shoulder as they ran out the door. “I was afraid of this. I hoped it wouldn’t happen because he’s a stranger in New York. You and the old ladies will have to go into the party and pull her out. I can’t walk in; I’m a cop.”

The address the old lady had given was on Christopher Street, a narrow, one-way street off Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village. Both streets were choked with traffic. It had taken Cargill nearly half an hour to get there. Friday night in Manhattan meant everyone was out on foot or in cars and the snow was slowing traffic further. After circling the block for a place to park, Cargill left the car in a loading zone two blocks from the address. They ran.

The two old ladies were clutching their handbags on the sidewalk in front of an old four-story brick building—chic tea shop below, apartments latticed with zigzagging fire escapes above. They pointed to number thirteen in the rows of apartment buzzers. They had watched Valentino ring it. Cargill leaned on the brass knob for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the door clicked open. Music and talking poured down the narrow stairs, gaining decibels as they climbed. The apartment door was open with a stream of young people going in and out. Cargill pointed at the door.

“I can’t go in; I’m a cop. Find her and get her out.”

Grazia plunged into darkness. All around her were loud voices, tables covered with bottles, and rooms heavy with pungent, sweet smoke. Celestina and Valentino were nowhere to be seen. It took a few minutes of asking before she got an answer.

“They left practically as soon as they arrived,” Grazia panted, when all four had met again in the hall. “Everyone remembered the lynx coat.”

“What do we do now? Put out an APB?” demanded the old ladies.

Cargill’s phone rang with the answer. It was Nick at the Brazilian Bar. Cargill put it on speakerphone and stood in the hallway with his phone resting on his palm, the three women crowded around in concentration.

“They’re here,” Nick shouted, barely audible over the din in the Brazilian Bar. “She’s young, not underage—I carded her—but innocent. Foreign student probably. I served her a glass of red wine, and she collapsed inside of two minutes. I didn’t see him do it, but no question, he did it. He’s putting her fur coat on her now. She can’t stand up. I hope you’re on the way because there’s nothing I can do; they’re out the door. You gotta nail this guy, Cargill. He’s giving me and this bar a bad name.”

“He tricked us!” Cargill swore.

Grazia was already running for the stairs. The steps were clogged with partygoers, chatting and waving aromatic hand-rolled cigarettes. Cargill’s green Plymouth was parked in by two double-parked cars. The old ladies tried to flag down taxis, but one after another was either full or kept driving. Cargill put on his siren and leaned on his horn. At the same time, he got on the phone to Stanley.

“They’re on their way to the Hotel Fiorella,” he said. “Coming from the Brazilian Bar, either walking or taxi. He’s drugged her. She can hardly stand. Keep them in the lobby somehow. Stop him from taking her upstairs. We’re on our way, but the traffic tonight is awful.”

He listened, then relayed the news. “The guy is a registered guest now. He checked in by phone half an hour ago.” Cargill spoke again into the phone. “Call the hotel nurse, call housekeeping to bring new towels, call room service, go upstairs with them, do whatever you can to prevent him from getting into her room.” Cargill leaned again on his horn.

After a few minutes, the driver of one of the cars arrived and moved his car; shortly afterward, the second driver did the same. Cargill put on the alarm again, but the traffic was against them.

“Do you think he really will rape her?” Grazia dared to ask as Cargill wrenched the Plymouth through the narrow streets. “He must know we’re following him. He did that party manoeuver.”

“He’s certainly being brazen!” put in one old lady from the back seat. “Going back to the Brazilian Bar where he knows Nick will recognize him. He’s taunting us.”

“That’s him all over again,” muttered Cargill. “He knows the DNA that we have on file for him is wrong and it’s official. He knows that to prove it isn’t his, we have to get a cheek swab from him and get the lab to do another DNA identity. By then he will be on a plane to Italy. The girl won’t even be awake from the drug.”

Grazia flung up her hands in despair. “He’s done it again!”

It took them nearly half an hour to cross Manhattan from Greenwich Village to First Avenue and then to the Hotel Fiorella. Stanley was pacing up and down at the reception desk, his normal calm shattered.

“They went up ten minutes ago. I did everything I could think of to delay them. He refused the nurse and room service. I called housekeeping while they were right here and told them to send a maid to turn down the bed, but they told me it had already been done.”

Stanley keyed the elevator, politely asking two groups of guests to take the next lift. Inside, they stood silently watching the elevator light blink the floor numbers. At last Grazia was running down the hallway toward Celestina’s room.

Grazia rapped on it with her knuckles. “Room service!” she called out. She put her ear to the door.

“No, thanks,” came a male voice. Desperately, she hissed at Stanley. “Open the door before he puts on the chain.”

“Sorry, Miss, I can’t. The guest has to invite me to in.”

She looked wildly around. “Open the maid’s closet. I’ll be a maid and bring more towels. Open it, Stanley! You’ve got a passkey!”

Stanley opened the maid’s service closet. Grazia ripped off her coat and sweater and pulled on a maid’s uniform over her jeans. She grabbed up a pile of towels. “Now open the door, Stanley.”

“Miss, I can’t. I told you. The guest has to let me in.”

“Excuse me, sir.”

Grazia whirled turned around. Sophia had come up in the service elevator. She was wearing her white maid’s uniform and pushing a service trolley loaded with a silver pot of aromatic hot chocolate next to a round silver plate cover.

“Sophia!” Grazia gasped in relief at the sight of the maid. “Celestina is in there! Francisco’s daughter! Valentino’s in there with her! He’s the one who drugged me and raped me. Now he’s doing it to her!”

Sophia spoke calmly. “I know who Celestina is. That’s why I’m here, working late, past my shift. I have been that girl’s private servant since she was born. I was seven years old, and except for the hours I was in school, all I did, every day of my life was take care of little Celestina.”

“And you can take care of her again! Valentino is about to rape her. She’s drugged. She can’t take care of herself. We’ve got to open that door and stop him!”

Sophia didn’t move. “Francisco called me yesterday,” she said in a calm voice. “He told me Celestina was coming and that I should look after her while she is in the hotel. He told me to give her everything she needs—any whim to add to her rich life. So here I am, fifteen hours in this maid’s uniform, bringing her hot chocolate because ever since she was little, Celestina has to have hot chocolate to sleep.”

“Open the door, Sophia!” hissed Grazia.

“Do I get to bring hot chocolate to my son—who is Francisco’s son? No. Instead, I have to give him away to be adopted. Francisco makes me look after his daughter while Belinda makes my son sleep with a new mother.”

Grazia turned away from her and again rapped on the door. “Room service!” she called. She faced Sophia. “Give me your key!” she hissed. “Stanley won’t let me inside.”

Sophia shook her head. “Why do you care? Francisco raped you. He got away with it. He will never be punished for what he did to you and the other women he has raped, and there are more than a few. At least you were unconscious and you didn’t suffer. And you didn’t get pregnant. Now his precious daughter is being raped—the girl he prizes more than his life. Francisco can find out what heartrending grief is all about.”

Grazia made her voice calm. She was negotiating against a hostile opponent. At stake was a twenty-one-year-old girl’s innocence. Grazia took a deep breath. She relaxed her arms and legs, made sure that her hands and wrists were resting loosely, and dropped her jaw to allow an easy inch between her upper and lower teeth. She loosened the muscles of her neck and up the back of her skull. She looked into Sophia’s eyes.