Chapter 8
For the first time in a long time, Laura looked forward to coming home from work. She wouldn't be facing the prospect of a cold, lonely house. Michelle would be there, and though it wasn't as nice as if her husband Alex had returned, it was still better than the previous six months.
It'd be good to have someone to share a meal with, someone to talk to and someone to help get her mind off of police business. She'd been preoccupied with the problem of Fleet Street and what they were going to do about it. It looked like she'd gotten herself into a no-win situation. All of her superiors at the station seemed surprised when she made it clear that she was going to actually go ahead and try to clean up the street-that she was going to arrest a whole lot of people and that she didn't give a shit who they were or who their friends were.
She didn't really care about the mayor's election of the D.A.'s either. But that wasn't the point. She had been given a job to do and she was damn well going to do it. That's just the way she was. And that's the way her husband Alex was too. She knew he would have been proud of her.
She pulled the car into the driveway and parked it. She didn't bother locking it. Their neighborhood had very few problems with crime. She was aware that if a person wanted to get into her car, they could very easily, whether it was locked or not. If she was going to get ripped off, she'd just as soon not have them smash the vent window to get in.
Michelle was doing yoga exercise on the living room carpet when Laura came in. Laura glanced enviously at her young body. Ah, to be 16 again! Though Laura's body was still in great shape-fantastic shape-it didn't rival the perfection of young Michelle's. She was wearing a danskin exercise outfit that fit like a second skin.
"How was your day?" asked Michelle. "Not too bad. Things are really getting hectic at work."
"What's going on?"
Laura, still in her uniform, sat down on the couch, taking off her gun belt and laying it on the table. "Oh, we've got a big problem in this town with prostitution on Fleet Street and yours truly is in charge of taking care of said problem."
"Well, I hope you arrest them all," Michelle was glancing at Laura's gun belt. "Can I ask you something?"
"Go ahead, shoot."
Michelle went and sat down on the couch next to her. "I've never really seen a gun before. I mean close up and everything. And I, uh, was wondering if you'd let me look at yours."
Laura laughed, "Sure . . . " She picked up the gun belt and took the pistol from the holster. She swung the cylinder open and let the bullets drop out, counting as they fell, "one, two, three, four, five six.. . . " She double checked to see that it was empty and snapped it back into place with a loud, metallic click. She handed it to Michelle.
Michelle took the gun in her hand like it was a live hand grenade, staring at it in total fascination. "I can't believe how heavy this is. Wow! Did you ever have to shoot this at anyone?"
"Well, yeah, a couple times."
Michelle's eyes eagerly lit up. "Tell me about it?"
"Oh, I don't think you really want to hear about that kind of thing," said Laura.
"Please.. . . "
"Well, alright. I'd only been on the force for about two months. I was still a rookie, you know, and there was a lot I had to learn. Anyway, I was off duty one night-but we always have to carry our weapon with us whether we're on duty or not.
I had been over to my friend Mary's house for dinner and some cards with some other old friends. Alex was out of town at the time. Now, Mary doesn't exactly live in the best part of town, but that shouldn't bother me because I'm a cop, right?
So when everyone is leaving, Mary's husband walks the other ladies out to their cars-but because I'm a tough lady cop I tell him I can do fine for myself. He was reluctant to let me go off by myself, but I told him I'd be fine. I was parked about two blocks away behind a dry cleaners.
The parking lot was pretty dark, but I didn't think too much about it as I walked to my car. When I put my key in the lock, I felt something sharp poking me in the ribs from behind. I turned around and there was this black guy with a knife. He told me not to say a word or he was going to cut me up."
Michelle's eyes were opened wide. This was the type of thing that only happened in movies or that you read about in books. "Holy cow!" she exclaimed. "What did you do then?"
"Well, what could I do? I didn't say a thing, just like he said. If you're ever in a situation like that, Michelle, and they've got a gun or a knife-worry about your life first and everything else second. It may be the most horrible thing that ever happens in your life-getting raped-but believe me, you'll get over that a lot sooner than you would getting stabbed or shot."
"What happened then, Laura.. . come on, tell me!"
"okay . . . so, he's got this knife in my ribs and tells me to get in the back seat of the car and lie down. It's kind of obvious what he has in mind. He's pretty young and he seems more scared than I am. But he's got the knife and it's sticking in my side, and for the time being, that makes him god. So I climb in the back seat, keeping my purse with me, because that's where the gun is-that's really where my only chance is.. . . "
Laura's eyes grew distant for a moment as she remembered what happened next, she seemed to grow quiet and dressed. "And then, I, uh, shot him, and that was that. . . . "
Michelle didn't say anything for a little while, though it was obvious she wanted to hear the rest of the story. When Laura didn't say anything, she broke into her silence. "How come you don't want to tell me the rest of the story?"
Laura looked closely at Michelle, as if to see whether she could really handle hearing the rest of the tale.
"All right. I think you're old enough to hear this, but it isn't very nice and it isn't very pretty. But this is the real world and this kind of thing goes on every day-I just pray to God that this never happens to you. . . .
So I climbed into the back seat like he told me to. He made me take off my slacks and my panties. And I did-there was nothing else I could do. He was right there, holding what looked to be a very sharp knife. I knew where my purse was all the time-I just kept in mind where that purse was, waiting for my chance to get at it. I wasn't going to take any chances, though. I wanted to get out of here alive.
"God, this is embarrassing . . . So, I was lying there with my pants off and my panties off-still wearing my blouse and shoes-he didn't seem to care too much. His eyes were bugging right out of his black face though. And I still remember how he popped a sweat on his forehead as he looked at me.
Now, my purse was in the floor of the car, in the back, right next to where I was. I could easily reach down and get the gun, but I had to wait until he didn't see what I was doing.
"Well, he dropped his pants and I was just so disgusted you wouldn't believe it. He climbed in the back seat, spread my legs and lay down on top of me.. . . "
Michelle was just transfixed by the story, as if she'd never heard anything like this in her life-and she hadn't. She was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.
Laura continued the story. "He was really clumsy. And he's uh, trying to put it inside of me and it, well, it really did hurt.. .because he didn't know what he was doing or how to go about doing it. And he starts cussing to himself trying to figure it all out-I actually felt kind of sorry for the poor bastard-but not too sorry. I could tell he was distracted; he almost acted like I wasn't there, like I was some dead piece of meat.. . . "
"So, I let my hand drop down by the seat to where the purse was. I opened it, reached inside and took hold of the gun-the very same one lying on that table there. He was grunting and cursing away and trying to get it in-and now I have the gun in my hand.
Now, my problem is, what do I do with the gun. Kill him or wound him? I could just shoot him in the ass or the leg, but then I don't know what he might do-he might just go ahead and do me in with the knife. Or I can kill him-it's not something I want to do, the thought of killing another human being is pretty serious. But my life is on the line here, too-and that's what has to be more important.
"He still hasn't gotten the damn thing inside me yet and if I'm going to blow him away I'd rather do it before hand than after. I can see he's really concentrating, that his eyes are shut and he can't see what I'm about to do. And it's important that he doesn't see-because he's never let go of the knife.
I pull the gun up behind his back so that he can't see it and I point it at the back of his head. I hesitated for a second-I mean I was going to kill someone; I was going to take a human life and whether he lived or not depended entirely upon whatever motion my little finger made.
"Then a thought passed quickly through my head If it wasn't me, it could be someone else here in the back of this car. It could be a girl like you.
So I pulled the trigger. The bullet took the back of his head right off. And he was dead. Real dead. I pushed him off me-god! it was horrible, it was so horrible. I was covered with his blood and little pieces of hard white bone and some gray stuff that looked like scrambled eggs. God, I wanted to scream, I just wanted to run and run and leave. But I couldn't. I was a lady cop and I had just killed a man. I'm supposed to be able to take it. So I took it. I pulled myself out from underneath him, dragged my blood stained clothes out, got dressed and waited for the other police to arrive.
Michelle just sat there, a look of complete amazement and horror on her face. She kept glancing at the gun as if it might jump up and bite her, as if the gun had done the killing and not the person pulling the trigger.
Finally Michelle spoke, "Gee, Laura . . . what a horrible story."
"You don't think you'd ever be able to kill someone?" asked Laura.
"I don't know. I really don't know," replied Michelle.
"I think if someone was trying to rape you, you might be a little more inclined to do it."
"Well, maybe."
"Michelle," asked Laura, "have you ever been in a situation with a man or a boy where you weren't uh, in as much control as you would have liked to have been?"
"Do you mean has a boy ever tried stuff that he shouldn't, even though I tried to stop him?"
"Yes, but you don't have to tell me unless you want to."
Michelle thought about it for a moment and then began' hesitantly, "Well, when I was a freshman, last year in the 9th grade-well, really the year before last, I went to a party at David Nathan's house. He was a junior and his parents were out of town. So a lot of kids were over there and so was Rick Marcus. I had had a crush on Rick for a long time-he was on the varsity basketball team."
Laura's thoughts traveled back to the summer of her 16th year and the boy who had ravaged her in her grandmother's backyard-he too had been on the basketball team.
"Well, anyway," Michelle continued, "I had never even dreamed that he knew I was alive. I mean, I had never really even talked to him-I was always too shy to at school. I just looked at him as he went by-he was so cute!
So I went to this party and there was a keg of beer and everything and I know that I'm too young to drink, but all the other kids were, so I thought it'd be okay. Some of the other kids were even smoking pot, but I didn't do any of that.
Well, Rick came over and started talking to me. I was just blown away! Rick Marcus was talking just to me and he seemed like such a nice guy. Pretty soon, I don't really even know how we got there, we ended up talking in one of the back bedrooms. At first there were other kids there, but pretty soon we were there all by ourselves.
"I was really nervous, but excited too, I guess. He put down his beer and looked at me-I kinda knew he wanted to kiss me, so I put mine down too and looked at him. And then he kissed me-I was about to die. I couldn't believe that it was happening. Rick Marcus was kissing me. I was in heaven! But I was scared, too. I mean, no one had ever kissed me before like that-he was putting his tongue inside of my mouth . . . I thought it was kinda gross, but it felt pretty good too, and I guess the beer I had drunk made me feel a little freer than I should have too.
He stopped kissing me and sort of stood back and looked at me, in the eyes, and I felt just like melting. I could hardly stand it. The light switch was one of those with a round dimmer thing on it and he dialed it down low so that it was real romantic and everything in there. He went and sat down on the edge of the bed and I just stood there-I didn't know what to do.
"He just kept looking at me and then he patted the edge of the bed and said 'Come over here, Michelle.' It was like he commanded me, I mean it wasn't a question or anything. So I did. I sat down on the bed and he put his arm around me and started kissing me again and I just melted in his arms. Laura, it felt so good. I'd never ever felt anything like it at all.
"I don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden we were laying down on the bed and I felt him put his hand on my . . . chest. . . and I knew that was wrong and so I told him 'please, don't" and put my hand on his to pull it off. I mean, I just wanted to kiss him and hold his hand, I mean, that's all I wanted.
"But he kept putting his hand back up there and, Laura, I couldn't help it, I let him keep it there because it felt so good and he started rubbing my . . . breasts . . . and I knew that he shouldn't, but I thought I could trust him.
"I don't know how he did it, but before I realized what was going on, he had his hand underneath my blouse and had pushed my bra up and he was kissing me all over my chest. I tried pushing him off, but I guess he was just too turned on. It was like he wasn't hearing anything I was saying or paying attention to anything I was doing. He just kept going. Maybe it was my fault for getting him turned on . . . I don't know. But he was all over me. I mean his hands were everywhere!
"Then he started pulling down my pants . . . Oh, Laura, he was just like an animal. I started crying and he didn't even care. I was trying to hold my pants up and he was trying to push them down and his eyes were all glazed over and he was a lot stronger than me.
"I don't know what would have happened if some of the other kids hadn't walked into the room just then. I was so embarrassed! But that made him stop for a minute-they left right away, but they saw me with my sweater all pushed up around my neck and my bra off and my pants halfway down. I wanted to die.
But when Rick stopped-he was really surprised when they walked into the room, I slid right out from underneath him and ran into the bathroom and closed the door. I put all of my clothes back on.
"Rick was on the other side of the door and he kept talking to me trying to get me to come out, telling me he loved me and a lot of other stuff like he wanted to take me to the prom that year and other stuff. I wouldn't open the door though. I must have been in there for two hours before I was sure that he was gone. "When I finally went out, I left the party and went straight home. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want anybody to see me. I just wanted to leave. And, Laura, this was really horrible. The next week at school a story got around that Rick had 'done it' to me and all these sleazy guys started asking me out-I was so mad."
Laura pui an arm around her. "You know, Michelle, that sort of thing happens to most girls at one time or another in their lives. You did nothing wrong. And I think you learned a lot from that experience. The same thing happened to me when I was your age. There are men out in the world who are good and decent and kind. But you have to look a long time before you find one-and when you do, don't let him go for anything."
Laura was thinking of Alex when she said that. Wondering where he was, if he was alive or dead, if he was being held prisoner in some jail in Chili-maybe being tortured.
"Look kiddo," she said to Michelle, "it's getting late and I think we'd better grab some shut-eye."
Laura turned off the light and they retired to their respective rooms.
Outside, across the street, crouched down low in the front seat of a parked car, Washington lit another cigarette and made a mental note of how many houses in the immediate neighborhood were still up at ll:30 pm. A dead neighborhood, he thought, as he noticed that almost every house was dark by that hour. He started the motor, taking one more look at Laura Davis' home, and then drove off.