Stacking in Rivertown

by Barbara Bell

  At some point, I get so overwrought from everything that’s happened that I burst into tears, wrecking everybody’s spirits.

  Happy holidays.

  Kat got sick and disappeared a week before Christmas that year. I’d picked out her gift a couple weeks earlier. It was a bracelet of gold with a single large opal surrounded by small rubies.

  When I got back from shopping that day, Kat and I were alone upstairs. Kat unbuttoned my blouse and started making love to me.

  I can see her so clear as she kneeled over me, her eyes round, and her hair, some of which had gotten loose, falling along her cheeks.

  At that moment, something happened in me, like the morning glories that crawled up along the door of our old burnt-down two-room. They opened like sky come down to kiss you, Mandy said, like the bend of the river when the dead air chokes down the water, turning it to glass.

  Kat folded me in her arms. I stared at her, amazed by her rapture of me. That’s when Kat went flying through the air. She rolled onto her side, curling to protect her head.

  “What did I tell you about this, Kat?” Ben stepped over me to go after her.

  I grabbed his leg. “Leave her alone! It’s my fault.”

  Ben turned on me. But the mask of his face had slipped and I could see into him, like when a ‘gator yawns, and you see all those teeth in rows, but you also see how pink and soft it is on the inside. It wasn’t the teeth that terrified me, it was that unnatural color of pink.

  Ben yanked out his belt in one movement and started using it on me. I curled up.

  He moved on to Kat. “You’ll listen to me, goddamnit.”

  Then Ben grabbed her long braid. “Come on, Kat. Crawl for me.” He dragged her to the door, but had to stop to get out his keys.

  “So,” Kat said between breaths. “Is it my turn now?”

  Ben slapped her so hard she hit the floor. Kat raised on one elbow, wiping the blood off her mouth.

  “I know what you’ve done, Benjamin. It will never be enough. Never.” She said this soft, like it was a dream in my head.

  Ben stood frozen for a moment. I panicked. But then he busted out laughing. “You think you’re so smart, Kat, coming from your fancy background and going to your fancy-ass school. Look at you now. When I tell you to fuck, you fuck. And when I tell you to suck a man’s cock, that’s what you do.”

  He hit her across the back with the belt. “You’re a fucking worm, Kat. Show Beth how you crawl. Come on. Out the door.” He whacked her on the ass.

  I cringed with each hit, edging back from the two of them. And Kat looked up at Ben as she started to crawl out the door. Her eyes were narrowed, but black all through. Ben shoved her out with his foot on her ass. She looked back at me. Her lips formed a kiss.

  She wasn’t at the plays that night. I dragged into bed naked, crying myself to sleep. When Kat showed up the next day, she sat so still in a chair, looking out over the city. There weren’t any marks on her face, but Ben rarely hit her there.

  She tried to keep it from me the next few days, but I saw the burns around her waist, the odd-looking bruises and punctures on her inner thighs and breasts. She was silent for the next two weeks. Then she started throwing up blood.

  When Ben carried her out, his eyes never left her face, and his lips had gone slack.

  For a long time I couldn’t touch the bracelet I’d bought for her. Then one day I dropped it in the box of an amputee sitting near Penn Station. I hoped it would bring him better luck than it brought to me.

  Tom arrives Monday and rides with me in the cab over to Tutti. He holds my hand like Miriam did the day before. I feel like maybe I’m about two years old.

  As I’m getting ready to leave work around eight, Miriam shows up, beaming.

  “Come see what I bought,” she says.

  Out on the street is a very shiny new Rav Four with all the cool extras. It’s forest green. The tires are too clean.

  “Isn’t it cute?” Miriam says.

  I roll my eyes.

  We tool around in the new machine, taking it out on eight eighty for a spin. She hits the Oakland Bridge. I sink down in my seat, still a bit vertigoed on bridges.

  “I’ve got the Taurus,” I say. “What do you need this for?”

  “For all our camping gear. Once we’re in Seattle and we’re hiking like crazy.” She takes a turn too fast and squeals the tires. “We need both cars to get our combined stuff up to Seattle. We’ll sell the Taurus once we get there. Then we can buy something a little less family.”

  I start thinking about what color of Porsche would look best on me. And I notice this “we” thing creeping into her vocabulary.

  “Should ‘we’ buy some rings?” I say, teasing her. “Should ‘we’ register our names at Bloomingdale’s? Which of us gets to wear the wedding gown?”

  She rolls her eyes, but it gets me thinking of Jeremy Arf, Arf again. I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to break that tidbit of news to her.

  On Tuesday, I ride into Tutti myself. I’m a big girl again. And I’m beginning to feel good about leaving Berkeley. I’ve left too much of a trail here. Too many phone calls to New York. And the thought of living with Miriam makes me float in a way that I like.

  It’s Tuesday about noon when I’m checking the Times, even though I’m still pissed at the crumpled Detective Bates. There’s a message for Tut from Beefy.

  “I’m in your town,” it says. “Need to talk. Meet me in front of University Art Museum at four on Tuesday.”

  The creep. The little snake. I want to iron his face.

  I arrange with Burt to leave work for a couple of hours, then have a cab drop me off in front of the museum.

  Too bad. Bates won’t have that stupid Chevy Caprice. I’m working myself up to give Detective Bates a big piece of my mind.

  That’s when I notice her. She steps out of a black Benz with dark windows and stands beside it on the curb. She’s dressed in blue, which is what attracts my eye, a blue I would have chosen. And as I keep looking at her, I go weak. She’s wearing my blue skirt and blouse. The clothes I left at Ben’s that last weekend there. I begin to back up, but someone puts an arm around me from behind, poking something into my side.

  “Be careful, Beth,” a man says. I look up into his face, all smiles. “Let’s walk over to the car.”

  Another man takes my other arm. They lead me toward the Benz. As we approach, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. She’s standing there perfect as you please, alive and well and wearing my clothes.

  It’s Kat.

  She opens the rear car door and they usher me in. The door slams. I see there aren’t any door handles in the back. Kat sits in the other side of the backseat with me and one of the guys sits in front, turning around to keep his gun pointed at me.

  I stare at Kat, trying to clear my head. Her eyes are tired, but her lips are flushed, the color of roses. Her long hair is braided and wound up on top. It seems impossible, but the lines of her neck and chest have grown more lovely through the years.

  Kat leans over and kisses me strong, just as I would have wished a thousand days since she’s been gone. Then she settles back, turning to face me. She taps the driver on the shoulder, and he pulls away from the curb.

  Kat holds out her hand, each finger flawless, as though she could not be alive, rather the idea of beauty created by an artist. “We know you’re carrying a gun. Give it to me.”

  I reach behind and take out my precious Walther. I hand it to her. She gives it to the nice man in the front seat.

  “You were there that night,” I say. “I thought I was delirious. The night I was stabbed.”

  Her face goes gray. “That was a terrible night. I thought we were going to lose you. It would have been like losing a child.”

  “Where was everybody? Why didn’t someone come in sooner? Where was Ben?”

  She looks down, arranges the skirt over her knee. “We made mistakes that night. We’ve never made those mistakes again.”


  I sit in silence. “So you were there all the time, watching the plays.” Bitterness creeps into my voice.

  “I helped him run things. I still do. The business was getting too big for Ben, and he never liked messing with the money. I take care of the money and scheduling for him. And now you’ll help, too.”

  It hits me then, and I almost lose my piss again.

  They’re taking me to Ben.

  I lie my head down in my hands, resting on my knees. “Why did he let me marry Jeremy if he wanted me so much?”

  Her hand runs along my back. “He had his eye on you the whole time, Beth. The night Violet was killed shook him up. He was worried about you. But he was ready to get you back.”

  I turn my head, taking her in, feeling how my love for her never faded. I put it away for a time, that was all.

  Kat acts like she’s going to say something, but stops. She looks away instead. “I’m sorry, Beth. I’ve tried to talk him into leaving you alone. He won’t hear of it. You should have seen his face the night you jumped off the bridge.”

  “You were there.” I lift my head, leaning toward her. “You were in the room when Ben was beating Jeremy. I heard your voice, but I couldn’t place it. How could I? I thought you were dead.” My body feels a hundred miles away somewhere. “And you were in the van. You saw me go over the side of the bridge.”

  “I thought I’d lost you, Beth. It was terrible.” She reaches toward me, but I push her hand away.

  “He brought you that night because he knew how I loved you. He was using you like bait.”

  “Yes .”

  “And that’s why you’re here now.” I watch the buildings go by, then turn back to her.

  “Don’t you ever feel a little bad about all of it, Kat? Don’t the dangers ever start fucking with your mind? God. You’ve helped him do so much damage.”

  Her eyes flash. I think she might slap me. But then she goes blank.

  “I don’t know how to get out, Beth. I tried once. I applaud you. Jumping off that bridge was pure genius. And if you hadn’t called Bates, Ben might have never found you out.”

  “Bates,” I say.

  “He’s been after Ben for years, so we kept an eye on him. It became obvious he had some big card he was working with. Ben got one of his connections in the force to tap Bates’ phone. We listened in on your last two calls. Ben went nuts when he heard your voice.

  “We traced your second call to the bay area. Ben sent out a couple professionals to find you. It didn’t take long. Rebecca Cross was receiving paychecks from Tutti. We knew about Rebecca Cross because we got a good look at Bates’ files.”

  I sit in shock, knowing I won’t last. I’ll find a way to kill myself. And I gaze down at the floor, feeling like a totally screwed sixteen-year-old, a prisoner in a warehouse somewhere in New York and out of my head with terror, not letting Kat get more than five feet from me.

  “Why didn’t you come back? My heart broke. I thought you were dead.”

  She’s quiet, but reaches over and takes my hand. I stare at her fingers, and I touch her lightly, remembering. “I wanted to, Beth. He was jealous. Ben wanted you to himself. My heart broke, too. And after I recovered”—now she hesitates, looks away—”it hurt me to stand behind the mirror and watch you.”

  “What was it, Kat? What happened?” I feel a “shiver,” as Mandy would have said. “Why did you get so sick?”

  Kat won’t look at me. She moves a strand of hair back from her cheek. “I took some rat poison.”

  I think I make a sound. And a pain starts in my heart and spreads through my chest. I clutch her hand tight.

  She turns back to me. “I thought I’d eaten enough.” She shrugs.

  “Ben kept me locked up in a play room. He hired a couple of Ekker’s girls to nurse me back to health. After I recovered from the poison, they kept me in a straitjacket. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me screaming. When Ben visited me in my psycho ward, I begged him to kill me. After awhile, I got better. I guess a person can get used to anything.” Her eyes drift away.

  We drive for a long while, both of us silent.

  Kat closes her eyes and takes a breath. “As for the business at hand, we talked a lot about how to take you. Ben wanted to grab you and be done with it. I’m always the more reflective one of us two.”

  I’m not listening very close. I’m thinking about the stacks, the allowances that have to be made, the shifting around of corpses. I’m hoping that someone thought to save a space for me.

  She continues. “Goddamn Bates got the FBI interested in Ben, but Ben never crossed that line. He’s strictly a local problem. However, if we kidnap you, they can jump in with both feet. And it seems you’ve been associating with someone that is very visible and could make a lot of trouble.”

  Miriam! She’s talking about Miriam.

  Kat’s face becomes a mask. She leans forward and reaches to the front seat. “Give me the bag, Jim.”

  He hands her a small black zippered shoulder bag, just like the kind Ben uses to carry around his devices. She places it on my lap.

  “Open it, Beth.”

  I pull the zipper, looking in. I know what it contains.

  “Take out each piece. I want you to do it slow. Really look at these things.”

  I reach in, taking out the first item. It’s a hood.

  “Slow, Beth.”

  The next thing is a gag.

  I begin to shake. I can’t do this again.

  Under that are two pairs of double cuffs, one for wrists and one for ankles.

  The basement. They’re going to put me in the basement again. And when I gaze at her, I see a stranger beside me, the one that looks like Kat, but isn’t.

  “Why make me look at them, Kat? Just put them on me. I can’t stop you. Is this some new foreplay for you? Are you getting off?”

  She smiles a Ben kind of smile. “Keep looking.”

  I take out the last thing in the bag. It’s a whip. But it isn’t my whip, not the one that says BETH on the handle. It’s not as thick and long. It’s meant for someone with thinner skin.

  “Read the name on the handle.”

  I look. It says MIRIAM.

  Now I start crying. Without knowing what I’m doing, I leap on the guy in the front seat, grabbing his gun, trying to aim it at myself and push his finger on the trigger. He gets the gun free and hits me with it on the side of my face. I crumple.

  Kat draws me down, putting my head in her lap. She smells of lilac and of a breeze come off the sweetbush. And I pick up that other scent I’d forgotten, of melon and ripe cheese. “What we need you to do, Beth, is break it off with Miriam clean. Make everyone believe you’ve left town of your own free will. Fake a suicide again, I don’t care. We don’t want any reports to the police from your friends about your disappearance. Do you understand?”

  They’re going to let me go. Again. Are they stupid?

  “If Miriam makes a problem about this, we can get to her. You don’t want that. And this time, we’ll be watching you, and we’ll be watching Miriam. If there’s any sign that you’re skipping out, we’ll grab Miriam.” She leans closer. “You don’t want Ben to get his hands on Miriam, Beth. You don’t know what he can do. What you’ve seen is just scratching the surface.”

  Her fingers tremble as they run along my cheek.

  “You’ve got until tomorrow to make the break. Call this number before five. We’ll tell you where to go.” She hands me one of Ben’s fabulous cards.

  “Also, Beth, I wouldn’t try to call Bates. He’s in ICU with tubes coming out of him every which way. He had a car accident. Hit and run. These things happen.”

  She holds me there, still caressing me, and she leans down, kissing my cheek and neck. “I like your hair like this, Beth. I’ll be glad to have you back. I’ve missed you.”

  Kat removes her scarf and ties it around my eyes, keeping my head in her lap. And she moves her fingers over my body, all the while whispering verse, Shelley and
Dickinson. Then she whispers to me again of one clover and one bee and I am transported.

  “I read your book, The River, several times, Beth. I was so proud of you.”

  She kisses me long and knowing, then sits me up, untying the scarf from around my eyes. We’re back at the museum. The guy in the front seat jumps out, opening the door for me.

  “Beth,” says Kat.

  I turn around, catching her scent one more time.

  “See you tomorrow.”