Victims (34 page)
Miranda pulled herself up, her hand automatically touching the throb of pain across her forehead, then the stab of ice at the pit of her stomach.
“What message?”
O’Connor put on his battered old reading glasses, held the sheet of paper at a distance from his face and read:
“TELL MIRANDA NOT TO WORRY. WE ARE FLYING HER MOTHER AND HER SON UP TO J.F.K. FIRST CLASS. TOMORROW MORNING. PAN AM FLIGHT #611, ARRIVING 11:15 A.M. WE’LL TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING.”
Captain O’Connor once again avoided her direct stare.
“Miranda, we’ll protect them. I promise you. They will be safe. And I’ll find the leak: I’ll find out who the hell let it out that you’re alive and here. I... promise you. He left you for dead, and no one, absolutely
no one,
outside of a very tight group of people I’d vouch for with my life, knows you’re here.”
He was so upset that
she
tried to comfort
him:
It’ll be all right. Do not worry. My family will be safe. Yes, you will protect them and protect me. Yes. Yes, I shall sleep now. Do not worry, Captain...
There is nothing to worry about. Carlos Galvez will not hurt me or my family. He has no reason. Captain O’Connor would never understand this. She wasn’t sure that she did herself, but she knew it was true.
Finally alone again, Miranda lay very still and carefully, systematically shut out all sounds and sensations. Her eyes closed lightly, her jaw muscles relaxed, she slowed her breathing to a deep, deliberate, carefully modulated exercise requiring great concentration. Within minutes, she felt disembodied, freed of her injured and aching flesh and growing despair. She drifted downward, toward a silent familiar place: her refuge, the very center of her being, the most private and inviolate dwelling place of her essential self, where there was room only for honesty. It was here that memory was stored, waiting.
It was here that she returned to Carlos Galvez and heard now what had been muffled to a soft meaningless stream of sound, the words lost against his body, obliterated by the strange, almost comforting pressures he had exerted on certain nerves by his knowing fingertips. He had not meant to kill her, or she would be dead. He had not meant to destroy her brain, or she would now be beyond thought.
He had meant to preserve her: to keep her. For himself and for his own reasons.
“Not all the money, not all the gifts offered to you, nothing tempts you, then so be it. For me, for my pleasure, you will accept the gift of your life. You have no choice, Miranda, you have nothing to say about this gift.
“But, you see,
now
you are mine. Giving you life, I own you. You have no other life, for that life is over. Can be finished forever with the smallest pressure here
—
but instead, I touch you with love. Because you fascinate me: what you are is new to me and exciting and maddening. You did not bargain for your life with me, you remained as you have been and it is as I wanted you to be. Miranda, I whisper this to you, you can no longer hear me, perhaps, but you will know this: I am intrigued and fascinated, you have something I
must
know and understand and possess. I cannot buy you: that is part of it. But your life on your terms is over, because it rests on my fingertips, within the pressure
I
choose to exert, oh so carefully, so very carefully, and with love.
“We are not finished with each other, Miranda. There are things about me you do not know, that I must share with you. The time will come. I will see to it. I will claim you and I want you to be just as you are, but I want to teach you things you do not know yet. You know so much, and yet so little. You are a woman and a child, and now you belong to me. I own you, Miranda. You are mine.”
And then, the pressure on the back of her neck: his lips, a kiss and his words:
“Remember me, Miranda. Remember this.”
Then the sliding away, the slipping down, the darkness of nothing and...
Miranda felt her fists tighten; her body returned instantly. Pain recalled her to where she now was from where she had just been.
He had actually said those words to her. “I own you Miranda. You are mine.”
She breathed quickly now, allowed herself to feel the pain in her ribs where she had been held by a booted foot; in her neck and throat which had been bruised by his strong though careful hands.
She was alive because of the absolute arrogance of Carlos Galvez. Her life was a tribute to his unshakable belief in his own omnipotence.
Miranda’s anger turned cold and hard. How
dare
he assume the power of decision over her life? She felt a surge of strength and resolution, the dissipation of all remnants of despair. Her own reality returned, as exhilarating as a rush of adrenaline.
He had been wrong, this Carlos Galvez. He
had
made a mistake, and he would one day come to realize this. She would grow strong in every way possible. Patience was one of her greatest gifts. It was a matter between the two of them now. It had nothing to do with the great amorphous, untouchable power structure which controlled and devoured and bought and sold and destroyed anyone who tried to change things.
For all his worldly wisdom, for all his strange and terrible knowledge, Carlos Galvez had made a mistake many others before him had made. He had underestimated her.
She relaxed now. Gently, she slid into a soft, untroubled, dreamless sleep. It was just between the two of them now, as it should be, and he would find out the extent of his mistake.
Because Miranda Torres’ life belonged to herself and to no one else.
H
E HAD BEEN ON
Barclay Street many times. A lot of people did that: drove through, walked along, looked around, stared at people who came in and out of the buildings. They were angry, the people who lived there: What are you looking at? Get lost, get outa here.
There was that stupid ceremony on the television. The Governor and the Senator and a lot of important people, all saying about that girl who got killed last year with all those people watching. The Anna Grace Bill, they called it, and that was going to make people get involved and help. Sure.
It was a whole year ago and people stopped coming just to look. It was nice now, for him, to just sit in his parked car in the middle of a line of parked cars, across the street from the tennis courts, with the L.I.R.R. tracks to his right. Quiet and sort of settled down. He could look straight ahead and see the sides of the buildings where those Barclay Street people lived. Whole sides of the end buildings on both sides of the street: lights, shadows, grayish flicker of TVs, hum of air conditioners, sounds of music. Even people laughing sometimes. Or arguing.
He checked his watch. He knew she would come along in a few minutes. She was like clockwork. That little fat dog must rule the roost. He didn’t care about dogs, big or little or any kind. Not one way or the other.
It was funny the way she talked to that dog all the time, whether it was taking a crap or a leak or just trotting along. Fat little dog. She looked like her dog, that lady.
“Come on, now, Pudding, let’s get this over with, there’s nice cookies upstairs and...”
That dame must have a house filled with cookies. No wonder the dog was fat!
He watched. He watched. Tonight. This time. The feeling, the strange exciting angry happy feeling of becoming invisible, of disappearing into the dark air of...” He came out of his car without a sound, crept around the back of the car, the stupid little dog too busy grunting, then yipping finally at him. It didn’t matter. He didn’t care.
The lady started saying, “Pudding, come back now, dear, and—”
He was clumsy and overweight and all the other things he knew he was, but he was also fast and strong, and he exploded with his power and her helplessness. He felt the dog at his ankle, and without thought he kicked backward, felt the impact, heard the grunt.
The woman was more worried, at first, about the dog, then she realized she was worried about herself.
The litany began: the words, the pleading. Why the hell did they always use the same words in the same whining begging nagging goddamn tone? Why didn’t she just shut up? The power of his own deep strength lifted her, fat, heavy, into the back seat of his car, her legs hanging out toward the L.I.R.R. A train actually went by, people at the windows staring blankly, or reading, or whatever. Seeing? Seeing him and what he was doing? What he could do whenever he wanted to.
Something new happened. He had thought it might, sitting there night after night, watching the windows and the lights of the buildings on Barclay Street, watching them, wondering how it would be if
they
watched
him,
and what he could do whenever he wanted to. They couldn’t see him inside the car.
He dragged the woman out, dumped her on the grassy dirt patch, mounted her. She screamed. The dog tried to bite him, but he just shoved it away with one hand while she made a lot of noise and he watched the windows on Barclay Street. He had never felt such power, such ecstasy, such excitement, in all his life. It was different this time, better. Not hidden: let them see, let them hear the lady scream!
He held the knife to her throat at the right spot, and as his force rushed from him the point of the knife plunged and her life force shot a red fountain on him, on his face, warm and thick.
When he was finished, when it was over, when she was dead, he crouched over her, pressed a nice small silver-colored key into her hand, rolled her fingers into a fist so she wouldn’t drop it. He picked her head up a little so he could talk to her without crouching all the way down again, which was hard—he was much too heavy, he knew that—and he whispered to her, with a grin, “Hey, look,
I
don’t know why the key, so how the hell can I tell you?”
He shrugged good-naturedly, turned, pulled his hand away when the dog growled and showed its teeth. He shrugged again. Poor dumb dog. No cookie tonight. He left it. He had no interest in killing dogs.
He got into his car and drove down toward Barclay Street and looked up at the rows of windows that faced the parking lane opposite the tennis courts. He knew they had been watching. He knew they had seen and heard.
But no one on Barclay Street did anything, as if they had not heard or seen or known a thing. For some reason, that struck him funny, and as he drove down Barclay Street he glanced up at all the apartment lights on both sides of the street.
He thought about that other guy: “Yeah, I’m the Beast of Queens.” What a jerk! Why would he say a thing like that? Why would he take credit for all those women? It made no sense.
He wondered what the newspaper guys would call him now: Son of the Beast of Queens? He felt a little dizzy, a little high, a little hilarious.
He felt as if he had just settled something once and for all. But damned if he knew what.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1985 by Mighty Minkey Production Company, Inc.
cover design by Kelly Parr
978-1-4532-8358-5
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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New York, NY 10014
