by Rex Miller
“You don't know him,” Stacey Linley whined. “He's not gonna care about a piece of paper. It'll just make him mad.” Even through the discolored meat of her face, Sharon could see she was attractive. So many who came into the Kansas City Emergency Shelter were good-looking, bright, decent women. But they'd been called whores, ugly sluts, tramps, worthless, stupid bitches, and no-good mothers so many times they'd begun to believe it themselves. It was what her father termed the concentration-camp mentality, the breaking down of one's esteem, the first step on the road to domination.
Sharon Kamen was a caring and loving woman. She'd been part of the shelter since it originated. She was twenty-nine, and it was really the only job she'd ever held. She loved it and, at times, hated it for the frustrations. The Linley woman had been a referral from the Missouri Coalition's crisis team. They'd recommended Sharon immediately house this outpatient in the domestic violence ward they maintained for the extreme abuse cases.
“Thing is, we hit him with that ex parte and if he so much as looks like he's going to cross the line the police will drop him like a rock for us. We'll have all the law working in our favor. Right now this bozo is out and, for all we know, stalking you. I'll go there with you when we file. We'll come right back here so you'll be safe tonight. They're empowered to serve him as soon as we go over there."
“Serve him? What do you mean?"
“I tell the judge, they drop the ex parte on him, somebody from KCPD or County serves him with it. That's his formal notice. One violation and they'll have to lock him up and throw the key away."
The younger woman didn't bother to conceal what she felt.
“But why don't they ... why didn't they keep him in jail? They had him locked up."
“He posted,” Sharon said. “But he won't be running to the bail bondsman next time to post some nickle-dime bond. It won't go that way. I'll see to it.” She could hear a commotion in the hall.
“I'll go with you, but can't I stay here for a few weeks until he gets tired waiting?"
“You can spend the night tonight but, no, Stacey, I have a full house. We have battered wives with children. Child abuse cases. But don't worry, I'll try Safe Haven for you, and we have some private homes, too. This happens to be our busy time,” she smiled.
“Your busy time?” Stacey Linley at the moment looked all of fourteen.
“Believe it or not, battering seems to be seasonal. Stress and whatnot, I suppose. Partying, things like that."
“Merry Christmas,” she muttered.
“Knock, knock,” a large, powerful man said. He had a lopsided grin on his unshaven face.
“You'll have to leave.” Georgia, the shelter's secretary-receptionist, was trying to hold his left sleeve, hoping to restrain him. He jerked his arm away from her grasp.
“Telling more lies about me, Stacey?"
“No, baby.” The young woman began whimpering, begging him, “I wanted to—please, baby—” The hard fist failed to catch her fully but it smacked the side of her head, knocking her from the chair. He shoved the receptionist backward and as Sharon tried to grab the telephone to dial 911 he reached over and tore it from its connection, throwing it across the room, where it came apart in a crash of glass, wood, and broken plastic, the phone and a picture frame exploding like a gunshot.
“Georgia, call the police—” she tried to say, springing up to try to protect Stacey Linley, but he was strong and fast. He backhanded her and she fell across the desk.
“You're coming home where you belong,” Duane told the sobbing, bruised woman on the floor.
Sharon pushed herself up, her head abuzz, vision cloudy, fists balled to fight. “Don't you touch her again. Georgia!"
“Shut your loud mouth,” the man shouted, threateningly. “Come on, baby,” he reached for Stacey, “this bullshit's over. Let's go."
“No, Duane, Don't—"
"Shut up. Move it!” He yanked Stacey up by her hair, pulling her toward the door, shouting for Sharon and Georgia to stay back. Stacey was screaming. Georgia was screaming. He was screaming.
“Stop! Let her—” Sharon never saw the fist.
Once, when she was nine, the boy down the road had thrown a chunk of wood and it had hit Sharon in the forehead. It had stung badly and frightened her, the sudden pain, the stars from the blow, the momentary absence of vision and equilibrium. But with that exception the worst pain she'd ever known had been a terrible sunburn one year, or a toothache. Childhood accidents. The thrown piece of wood. Never in her wildest dreams would she have been able to imagine what it felt like to be struck in the face.
Sharon could not see. She had started crying before she could stop herself, bawling like a kid struck on the nose in a schoolyard fight, tears streaming down her face, fighting to see. Trying to get her eyes to focus. It had been like being struck with a hammer. The pain was almost overwhelming. The only advantageous aspect was that, after the first couple of seconds of numbness, the terrible pain of the fist to the face cleared her vision, which was still cloudy from when he'd slapped her.
She broke a long nail fumbling the desk drawer open, taking the gun out, the revolver her dad, the famous Nazi hunter and firearms buff, had given her years ago over her protestations.
It was heavy and unfamiliar. She knew what kind it was but had long forgotten. He'd taken her to the river and made her fire two loads, ten or twelve shots. She'd hated the noise and her wrist had ached from the kick of the recoil.
Now it weighed a ton in her hand as she staggered out into the hallway, tasting blood in her mouth.
“Let her go,” she said, very afraid, as she pointed the barrel at him, head pounding, the screaming voices and the fear and the horror of the moment all one terrorizing tactile overload.
She was as afraid of the thing in her hand as she was of the man dragging Stacey by her hair, shouting his violent curses into the cyclone of the women's fearful screams. She hated guns and everything they represented, but in that first fleeting reaction, her eyes desperately searching for a blunt office object to stop him with, a cane, a paperweight, whatever, her fear for Stacey's life overcame her revulsion for the instrument of destruction she now clenched in a death grip.
From the moment Duane had barged into her office, to the backhanded slap, to the hard fist, everything had led to her reaching into the desk drawer for the iron executioner, and these events climaxed as her finger squeezed the trigger beyond the point of no return. Sharon Kamen's penultimate act of violence.
30
Months later Sharon was still haunted by the shooting. Innumerable times, in sweaty dreams, she'd prayed for the moment back, rewriting the scene each time. Once or twice, to punish herself more, in the recreation of the event she'd let the man take Stacey. There were other haunting moments.
Sometimes, especially in the shelter, shadows would loom in an ominous form, and the absence of real security would do nothing to alleviate her anxiety. They'd installed an alarm, but the one-way-view access entry, with locked door and video monitors, had gone the way of other good intentions, victims of the usual budget crunch. She felt vulnerable, both for herself and for ones like Vonetta Jackson, a black version of the Linley woman, who sat across from her recounting a tale of woes sadly familiar to Sharon.
“I'm sorry if I'm trouble,” the woman said. Vonetta, unemployed and unemployable, very pregnant, had twice been the target of ghetto bangers looking to steal, or when there was nothing left to take, to rape and brutalize.
“You're no trouble,” Sharon smiled. “Soon as we get you fed we'll find you a place to sleep tonight, okay?"
“I can go back to the project tonight."
“You don't want to do that.” She felt herself getting angry, not with Vonetta so much as with the shadow of a man filling the open doorway inside her imagination. She was suddenly reliving the damned thing again. Seeing every indelible detail, even the trivia, like the plastic name tag of a kind young cop as he leaned over to reassure her.
�
�—all I got to do is fix the door—"
He had leaned over and whispered to her.
“—and I be fine.” Poor Vonetta.
“Sure,” Sharon said, “you'll be fine."
“You'll be fine,” he'd said it just that way as the police were finishing with her. “Don't change the way you tell it. Remember what he said: ‘I'll kill all you bitches dead!’ Just stick to that.” Chill bumps covered her arms.
“But that is what he said,” she'd whispered back, very scared again, but frightened for herself this time.
“Yeah, I know,” he said, in what she thought was a slightly matter-of-fact tone. “I'm saying don't change your story around."
Why would she change her story around? She snapped out of it as the phone on her desk buzzed. She picked it up and learned she had a call. Her father was on the line.
“Vonetta, hang on a second will you please? I've got to take this quick call.” The girl sat patiently. “Hello.” Sharon spoke into the phone.
“It's me.” Her father was calling from southeast Missouri. “Could I ask a favor?"
“Sure."
“Would you go over and get my mail, please?"
“Glad to,” she said.
“Wait a day. Go over day after tomorrow and see what all I have. Put it in a bag and mail it to me here at the motel, you mind?"
“No problem, Dad."
He told her he was trying to find someone who'd called him and then apparently vanished. Sharon had his extra keys.
“You looking for anything particular?” she asked.
“No. Just get it for me one time. Leave everything after that because I'll be back after next weekend, one way or the other."
“Oh, good.” She brightened.
“Monday at the latest. I'm going back to St. Louis and take care of business and I'll be back home no later than Wednesday week."
“How's Bayou City?"
“Wet. Is it raining?"
“Um, it wasn't,” she said, turning to glance out a window. “It's kinda grungy looking, like it could mist or something. I think they're predicting rain tonight, though.” She turned back and noticed Vonetta was gone. Her sigh of exasperation was audible on the other end.
“You sound tired,” he said.
“Not really,” she said, not wishing to explain. She knew how concerned he was about her since the shooting incident.
“What's the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing. Really. Just the blahs."
“Well, perk up and get peppy."
“Okay."
“I'll talk to you later. Thanks for the mail and be a good girl, all right?"
“Hug and kiss."
“Hug and kiss.” The line went dead. Your little girl loves you too, Daddy.
What's the matter? Oh, Vonetta Jackson is pregnant again and she has the mind of a houseplant. I'm almost thirty, unmarried, and every guy I've ever dated probably thinks of me as a ball breaker. I have a police record. My father is a professional Jew who hunts Nazis as a hobby. I'm depressed, foolish, ungrateful, and have a problem interfacing with my software. It's going to rain. Other than that...
On the other hand, as Mom used to say, she thought, look at the bright side. In most places it is legal to make a right turn on red.
31
Bayou City
Aaron Kamen was rather tired, somewhat confused, and acutely headachey. His face felt pouchy and swollen as if he were coming down with something. Ordinarily he'd never have stopped. But fate chose the moment to intervene.
He wanted to take something, perhaps find a nice glass of orange juice and ingest some vitamin C, but his immediate concern was street signs. He was looking at streets with the names of trees, looking for the road the nursing home was on, and the street a Dr. Troutt lived on as well. Was it a tree or a flower? He'd forgotten the address.
Carefully pulling over onto a side street he looked for the list, which he'd temporarily misplaced, cursing himself for possibly leaving it in the voluble Dr. Fletcher's office in New Madrid.
Rubbing his eyes, yawning, and stretching, he flipped through the Bayou City phone directory that he'd brought with him from the motel. It was a massive thing of some thirty or forty pages, and he flipped through it looking for a street map, such as directories often include in the front or back sections. He learned that when it was ten degrees Celsius it was a warm winter day, that you should hang up if you get an obscene phone call, and that B.C. Auto Is Your Collision Doctor. No map. He found the Troutt address on Cypress, looked up at a street sign, marked West Vine, and put his foot back on the gas pedal, eyes in the rearview mirror.
Cypress was the name he was looking for, he repeated to himself, as he drove by a building with a large sign out front that said Royal Clinic, and instinctively he wheeled into the parking lot, pulling behind the building. Might as well go in and talk to them as long as he was here.
Kamen put the loose papers and phone book in his briefcase, glanced back in the back seat to make sure his umbrella handle was where he could reach it, pulled his raincoat collar up and forced himself out of the vehicle and into action.
The rain was really coming down again and it felt cold. He hurried in under the protective archway and was glad for the warmth of the anteroom, even if it wasn't all that cool outside.
He felt chilled to the bone suddenly, and he realized he was on the verge of succumbing to a flu bug or some other dastardly virus.
The waiting area was full of people waiting to see the doctors. He went over to a window where a busy woman finally was able to ask him what he wanted.
“I would like to see Dr. Royal if I may."
“And your name?"
“Aaron Kamen from Kansas City."
“Okay. One moment please.” She took another phone call and then began looking through an appointment book.
“How would nine-thirty be?"
“You mean in the morning?"
“Mm hm.” She nodded expectantly.
“I'm not a patient. I just need to see him for a second."
“May I ask what it's in regard to?” He didn't took like a drug salesman but you could never tell anymore.
“It's a personal matter.” He leaned forward, suddenly conscious that the people there in the waiting room were listening with all ears. “I'm looking for an individual and was told he might be able to give me some information."
“Let me see if he's in, sir,” the busy nurse told Aaron Kamen, touching a control on the call director and speaking to someone. He heard her say, “A gentleman is here to see him,” and, “No, he doesn't.” She turned to face him across the counter that separated the lobby from the rest of the clinic's interior. “Who did you say you were with?"
He told her again who he was and, satisfied that he was neither a prospective patient nor a drug salesman, she told him to take a seat and Dr. Royal would be with him in a moment. The moment was about twelve minutes. A nurse came and told him to follow her please, and escorted him through the length of the building to a corner office, depositing him in the presence of his quarry.
“Mr. Kamen, how can we help you?” He was not the man Kamen had expected to find. It's conceivably a fallacy that we wear the face we've earned, the face we've come to deserve in our years of living. This was the face of a benevolent, kindly man. More Jean Hersholt than Erich Von Stroheim, to be sure. Yet without a hint of any sinister elements, without the infamous Tear-of-Satan birthmark, still Kamen chilled with the sure knowledge of the evil confronting him. Maybe it was in the eyes. He'd have been unable to articulate how he knew, but this was his quarry.
It was Dr. Solomon Royal, to be sure. Not Shtolz of the forties’ passport or fifties’ driver's license photographs, but on a visceral, intuitive wavelength Kamen knew the kindly, questioning face studying him through bifocals was the elderly Butcher of Lebensborn a lifetime later. Unexpectedly, though his feelings were a puzzle, he knew he'd found Emil Shtolz.
He made up his mind instantly not to
play games. “I'm here about Alma Purdy,” he said, putting all his contempt into the words, letting this human monster know that his freedom had finally run its course.
“Pardon?” A saintly smile. Inside the genius mind of Dr. Royal a shadow moved from under a corner of the brain and the other one who lived inside slithered out of the darkness.
“You know her, Alma Purdy. I fear for her safety. She did a foolishly brave thing.” He watched the man pretending innocence, playacting, raising white eyebrows in feigned ignorance. Smooth, this one was. “Don't pretend you don't know what this is about, Herr Doktor Shtolz!" He spat the words out with the authority of a death camp survivor.
The man was very good, he'd give the devil his due. Not a flicker of recognition found its way into the sympathetic face. One shoulder went up slightly. The aging, handsome head shook again, but the eyes remained flat and unchanged. “I'm sorry, but I just don't ... Oh! Yes!” He reacted convincingly, smiling. “The woman with the prosthesis. I'm sorry. It just didn't register for a moment. I couldn't place who you meant.” Kamen listened for Munich in the consonants. Just a touch of something, a guttural quality. His own accent was thicker than this man's.
“Shtolz, what have you done with Mrs. Purdy?” In his right pocket he felt the weight of the hammerless revolver that he carried as a precaution. He was strong. More powerful than this old Nazi. He would fear nothing. Nonetheless, he wished he hadn't stopped. Wished the local law-enforcement people had found him. He wished Randall or Pritchett were here now. “The police know about you, by the way; they're on the way here.” He sensed his tactical mistake as the words came out.
Shtolz turned and reached for the telephone, his face hardening into a question mark. This was what Kamen expected. He'd call a lawyer, or perhaps the cops. Try to have Kamen thrown out of his clinic. But instead, the doctor surprised him.
“Would you pull a file for me, please? I need the file on Alma Purdy. P-U-R-D-Y. She was a referral from Dr. Levin. The lady with the prosthetic hand, remember? ... Okay.” He hung up. “She'll have it in a moment."
