Maid of the Mist (3 page)

'. . . on the spot despite the fact that she was staring at a fuckin' wall the whole time, and now she has her own room down at Turner.
You
know that place.'

The Turner Women's Refuge. Through police work, of course.
But also.
Nicola had sought refuge there. Once. They'd been rowing for two days solid and she'd needed the break. To the best of his knowledge there were no refuges for men who needed a break from their wives, except for those that served beer. He'd sat outside in his car, but he hadn't gone in, and after a couple of days she'd come home and they were all smiles again. And then she'd filed.

'Yeah, I know it. Easier to get into fucking Fort Knox.' Corrigan's radio crackled. He said: 'Excuse me,' and turned away. Maynard lit a cigarette and listened in.

'You better come down, Frank.'

It was Mark Stirling, down at the station, sounding breathless.

'Tell me why.'

'Just come down, Frank.'

'Mark, stop being so fucking cryptic.'

'Trust me, you'll love this.'

'Trust me, I'm busy.'

'OK, your loss. I'll handle it myself.'

'Handle what yourself ?'

'If you're not interested, it doesn't matter.'

'Mark.'

'Frank.'

'At least give me a clue.'

'I'd give you one, Frank, but I'm not much of a singer.'

'What the fuck is that supposed to mean?'

'I'm being cryptic. Come and see, Frank, you won't regret it.' He cut the line.

Turner House was a three-storey building on Stanley Road. Year round it was a safe harbour for some eight to ten women. That night eight to ten women stared Corrigan down as he was admitted through a side door, then searched. There were jokes to be made about a woman patting him down, jokes about pistols and being pleased to see him, but it wasn't the time or the place so he kept his mouth shut and sucked some more on the breath fresheners he'd found in the glove compartment.

Off to the left he could see a dining table littered with plates and maybe a dozen bottles of wine. 'Celebrating?' Corrigan asked.

'Divorce came through,' said his searcher, a bulky woman with tattoos on her tattoos, who then led him down the hall to a small, cluttered office. 'Wait here,' she said.

Corrigan took a seat. There were piles of folders on the desk, others spilled out of a filing cabinet behind it. One wall was entirely dominated by Polaroids of women. One half of the wall showed them with their black eyes and busted noses and swollen lips; in the other half they were smiling, confident, glasses raised, sisters together. He lifted the cover of the top file on the desk and . . .

'I wouldn't, if I were you.'

He sat back. 'Sorry, just. . .'

'Just leave it alone.'

Annie Spitz was tall, maybe six foot, too thin for her height. She'd a pair of spectacles perched halfway down a slightly bent nose, at the top of which was a thin scar where it had once been split. She wore a man's dinner jacket over a white open-necked shirt and black jeans. He'd seen her talking to the hookers on Ferry Street three or four times and reckoned she was either a pimp or a social worker.

Corrigan stood and extended a hand. 'I'm Frank Corrigan . . .'

'I know who you are.'

'Maynard, of course . . .'

'Maynard, of course. But also –
I know who you are.'
She looked at him over the top of her glasses, patting as she did the pile of folders. She let it hang in the air.

'We're divorced now,' Corrigan felt compelled to say.

'I know,' said Annie.

He glanced at the wall. He felt like there were three hundred bitter women looking at him. Eventually he said: 'Do you mind if I smoke?'

She shook her head. Then she pushed a heavy glass ashtray across the table. 'Do you know that ninety per cent of battered women smoke?' she said.

'Before, during or after?'

'Are you trying to be funny?'

'No. I'm genuinely interested.'

Annie drummed her fingers on the table. 'OK. You're here to see the swimmer.'

Corrigan nodded. 'How's she doing?'

'She's pretty shaken up. She's in her room.'

'Has she said anything?'

'Sure.'

Corrigan leant forward. 'And?'

'And how much?'

'And how much what?'

'How much are you paying?'

'I thought I showed you my badge. Police business.'

She nodded and repeated the question.

Corrigan tutted. 'You'll be looking for a donation to Turner House. How much are you thinking of ?'

'Twenty-five.'

'That shouldn't be a problem.'

'Per cent of whatever you make on the story.'

'Whatever I make? Lady, I . . .'

'And I wasn't born yesterday. Anyone survives going over the Falls, it's a licence to print money. We're a women's refuge. We need money to survive.
She
will need money to survive. I'm sure we can come to some arrangement.'

Corrigan smiled. 'I suppose it's not unheard of for a few dollars to be offered for my co-operation. The question is, how would you ever know what I make from the story?'

'Because I have the best lawyers and accountants in the state, because I've had all their wives in here at one time or another. They can't afford not to work for me. Do we have a deal?'

She led him up two flights of stairs.

Nicola had been seven months pregnant. He'd come home and found her in bed with Born Again Bobby. Seven months pregnant, and he had a bigger stomach than she did. And she could never explain it, certainly not while he sat staring at the TV, while she walked round and round him, trying to say something, but not saying anything; as Bobby languidly pulled himself into his circus- tent trousers and sauntered out the door like he'd just fucked a $10 whore. Even later, when things had quieted down, she couldn't say how or why Bobby had talked her into bed, although she muttered a lot about hormones.

The whore moans.
He'd thought it, but hadn't said it.

When they reached the top floor Annie led Corrigan to the end of a narrow corridor. She produced a key and slipped it into the lock, and, guessing what he was thinking, said: 'For her own protection. There are bars on the window too. They're supposed to stop you lot getting in, but if you're prepared to go over the Falls, jumping out a window isn't going to faze you.'

They stepped into the room. The light was already on. On a single bed opposite the window a woman lay with her back to them. She'd thrown off her bedclothes, exposing tawny skin. A dress was draped over the back of a chair, water dripping from it on to the floor. It looked suitably
native.

'You asleep, honey?' Annie said quietly. There was no response. 'Poor dear,' she said after a few moments.

Corrigan wasn't impressed. 'Can't you poke her, or something?'

Annie glowered at him. 'Sure. Why don't I just go up and punch her?'

He stepped back. He took hold of the door handle. 'Is it my imagination,' he said, 'or is there a bit of a draught in here?'

'Don't you . . .'

He slammed the door.

The Indian came rearing up out of the bed, naked.

Later, analysing it, he thought his jaw hung down like a fool because she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

While Annie hurried her into a nightie and Corrigan looked diplomatically half-away, the words just flowed from her. As she spoke her long black hair danced about her shoulders the way long black hair had danced about shoulders back in primeval times, around the campfire with wolves howling in the background, and warriors and stuff. With the nightie in place she stood and stepped towards him, brushing Annie off as she tried to restrain her. She stared into his eyes and he stared helplessly back.

Her words were tough yet lyrical, guttural but somehow poetic, all aided and abetted by rapid hand movements and little spastic jerks of her head. There was an anger about her, a pleading intensity that threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted to grab her, hug her to him, whisper words of reassurance, but he stood stiff and awkward and embarrassed as the tears began to cascade down her cheeks. She turned from him, disappointment etched on her face like broken stick bridges over a flooded land, and turned her imploring eyes on Annie, who stared back, bewildered. Then she threw up her hands in frustration and sank slowly to her knees.

Annie knelt by her side and put a consoling arm around her. She looked hopefully up at Corrigan and gave a little shrug.

'Have you any idea what the fuck that was all about?' Corrigan asked after a few moments. 'What language?'

Annie shook her head.

The woman – girl, whatever, he reckoned she was pretty young, early twenties maybe – was shivering in Annie's arms, looking at Corrigan and whispering something simpler now, just the single word, over and over.

'It sounds like
sahon. . . waddy. . .
' Annie said, '. . .
sadhon. . . wadi . . . ?'

The girl looked at her, as if there might be the beginnings of some communication, then pointed suddenly at Corrigan.

She yelled, 'Sahonwadi? Sahonwadi!'

Corrigan raised his palms to her. 'What can I do . . . ? Sahon . . . wadi. . .' he said.

She started to try and raise herself, but her legs had been sucked by the great Niagara and would no longer work for her. Annie tried to help, but her own legs were too long for her to manoeuvre comfortably with such a weight in her arms. They began to splay like a baby giraffe's. Corrigan shot out a hand to help.

The girl cowered back. Annie and Corrigan exchanged glances.

'I guess,' Annie said quietly, 'a refuge is a refuge in any language.'

Downstairs, Corrigan said he was going to the casino.

Annie said: 'Well, that's helpful.'

'I know someone might understand all that crap. And maybe recognize this.'

He held up the girl's dress. It looked black, with the water, but was probably a dark blue. It was elaborately embroidered with light blue, white and pink beads in the shape of a tree. At the front it was buttoned by a series of silver brooches, each around six inches across. Besides feeling damp, the dress smelt
old.
Corrigan suspected that it was either a tribal heirloom, or something that'd been salvaged from a '70s disco.

'Not tonight,' Annie said. 'She's been through enough.'

Corrigan pulled his collar up. 'Just remember, the longer we wait, the quicker it becomes old news, the less money we make for the shelter.'

'If I thought for one moment you were interested in making money for the shelter, Inspector,' Annie said, folding her arms across her chest, 'I'd welcome you back tonight with open arms. As it is, I think you're wasting your time. I've seen cases like this before; women from ethnic backgrounds often revert to their native language when in trauma. You come back tomorrow, I guarantee she'll be speaking perfect English.'

Corrigan stepped out into the rain.

Annie said: 'Well, good luck anyway.'

'Thanks.' It was nice. He stopped, nodded back. 'Incidentally, the scar on your nose. Did a man do that by any chance?'

There was a sharp intake of breath and her face reddened. 'What scar?' she said.

Pongo shivered. He cried. He lay on the bed. He stood in the corner. He pummelled his head against the cell door. The police officer with the little Hitler moustache, the one who'd arrested him and hit him with his nightstick when he'd started screaming uncontrollably at the little girl's nose and wouldn't shut up, came in to the cell and started taping up the glass panel in the door.

'What're you doing?' Pongo sobbed.

'Fuck up and sing us a song,' Officer Mark Stirling said.

Pongo sat on the bed and started singing.

The girl's nose, left, right, left, right, left, right.

Or was it right, left, right, left, right, left?

His life was over.

The cop was right. In the squad car he'd said: prison and fucked up the arse by an enormous black man. A beautiful boy was a prized asset in priz. He'd be singing one notch higher by Friday.

He couldn't control his knees. They were popping up and down like he'd been whacked with a reflex hammer. He needed Colombian.

'FBI,' he said again.

'What the fuck is this fixation with the FBI?' Stirling asked again.

'FBI,' Pongo said.

Barry Lightfoot was a member of Egg Scramblers Synonymous
(Synonymous with what? Shit work, man, shit work)
Corrigan knew from his early mornings at the Clifton Diner. Like most short-order cooks, he had another job as well, working overnight as a slot technician at Casino Niagara, the new gambling emporium overlooking the Falls.

Corrigan arrived at a little after 1 a.m., dank and tired, and hurried to the elevator. He rode to the second floor, ignoring the atrium waterfalls and the babble of the high and low rollers. He found Lightfoot, with some difficulty, wedged behind a slot machine; there were fifty one-armed bandits in this particular bank of machines, all but one being played. A low roller, shorts, Hawaiian shirt, three chins, was waiting for Lightfoot to finish repairing his machine. Corrigan tapped him on the shoulder and said: 'Police.'

The guy went to find another machine. Corrigan loved the power of that word. There were others too.
Lawyer, heroin, terrorist
and
hippopotamus
usually got them moving too. Lightfoot didn't look impressed; he watched the gambler depart, then glanced at the ceiling. Corrigan followed his gaze. Video cameras.

'Thanks,' Lightfoot said. Like all of the employees, he was not only immaculately turned out but had also undergone a lengthy indoctrination in customer relations. Rule number one was not to piss them off. His smile remained in place, but his eyes told another story.

'You're working long hours, my friend,' Corrigan said.

Lightfoot turned back to his slot. 'You sound like the Lone Ranger.'

'What do you do, go direct from here to the scramblers?' Corrigan asked.

'I'm working,' Lightfoot hissed in response, 'I've three warnings over my head. Now what the fuck do you want?'