Command of Silence

by Paulette Callen

  If we get out of this one, I’ll be nicer to all of you.

  Thanks Isadora.

  More Coke?

  Sure, Cootie.

  Since Hester couldn’t talk, she thought, Can I dye my hair red?

  As a fire engine.

  Well, that is something to live for.

  Our internal banter ceased as we heard a metallic sound. A click. And then a muffled voice: “You are going to stay here till you admit that you’re a fake.”

  Huh? We all kind of said that in unison. Hester made audible grunting sounds. Two huge hands lifted the bag up above her nose and tied it there so her eyes were still covered. Then the tape was ripped off her mouth.

  “Ow! That hurt!”

  The voice said again, “Start talking. I have a tape recorder here. When I get the truth on tape, I’ll let you go.”

  Don’t say anything, Hester.

  Wasn’t planning to.

  There’s something odd about that voice.

  It’s a recording. That was Lance. The person who is here doesn’t want us to recognize his voice, so he recorded instructions disguising his voice.

  But we know who it is, don’t we? Cootie thought he knew, but wasn’t sure.

  Sure. Don’t tell him we know who it is.

  Why? Afraid of hurting his feelings?

  Noooo, if he knows we know who he is, he might kill us.

  Oh.

  Hester said, “We’re sorry you got canned, Jimmy.”

  Hester! What are you doing?

  Getting on his good side.

  I don’t think he has one.

  Hester started again, “We were really sorry when we heard—”

  “There’s no we you freak! Stop playing movie of the week and just tell the tape recorder you are faking this whole load of crap. Calling you in on special cases. What a load of crap.”

  He seems fond of that expression. ‘Load of crap.’

  “Why do you think we’re faking?” Hester used her warmest, friendliest tone.

  “I saw Sally Field do the same shit in a movie. Then somebody told me that was bogus. Never happened. Any of it. Some shrink trying to sell books.”

  Well, that was true. And we’d heard it all before. So had Ray.

  “But, why should we fake it?”

  Hester was being remarkably reasonable.

  “I know what you are. You were a bad kid who got away with killing her old man. That’s all. And you have to keep it up or they’ll put a murder rap on you. A lot of kids get knocked around and they don’t kill their parents. They wait till they are old enough and they leave home.”

  “Is that what happened to you, Jimmy?”

  “What?”

  “Did your old man beat on you?”

  “He was tough. I was a kid who needed a tough dad. Some kids do. I turned out all right.”

  “Is this all right? Look at what you’re doing here. Think like a cop for just a few more minutes.”

  No answer.

  “Anyway, we were locked up a long time, so we didn’t get away with anything.”

  Still no response.

  “Jimmy, since I already know who you are, could you take this bag off my head?”

  There was a long silence and then a shuffle, and the bag was jerked rudely off her head, almost ripping her nose and ears off. “Ouch! Geez, Jimmy, what’s the point?

  “You will never break Isadora. She is not even here.” Hester knew I was not in the gyre. But I saw where she was going with this. “Jimmy, unfortunately, we are what we are. No fake. No game. You can’t break us because each of us was born in a dark closet, in ropes and gags, down wells and in acts of rape before we could speak. There is nothing that you could even imagine that we haven’t already sheltered Isadora’s mind from. So if you are after her, you won’t get her. And if you do something to us, chances are, more of us will be born. You can’t make us say or do anything.”

  “If I put a bullet in your head, you’re dead.” We heard the hammer go back on a gun. We all hate guns.

  Hester took a deep breath. “You raise a good point. All right, you’ve got us. I’m a fake. A big old fat fake. There. Can we go now?”

  “No, say it like yourself. Not your put-on character.”

  “I am saying it like myself. Oh. You want me to say it like Isadora.” Hester cleared her throat and tried to say it like I’d say it, but she can’t imitate me any more than I can imitate her. She tried. She still sounded like Hester.

  “Do it, bitch, or I swear I will blow your head off!”

  The Company was in a panic. We all knew if I took the body, under these circumstances, I couldn’t keep it. I’d black out. I thought it was a miracle I was still out of the gyre. I felt a sort of mental pushing and shoving and Olive was on the floor. Maybe she thought she could sound more like me. She did, in a way. Her voice was lower. Unfortunately her face is quite different.

  “What do you care if I’m a fake or not? So I’m a fake. Who cares? I’ve done time in a cell. A cell in an asylum isn’t better than a cell in a jail. Believe that.”

  Jimmy was not saying much, but he was sweating and breathing hard. His agitation was full of rage and frustration. He lifted the barrel of his gun to the wall above Olive’s head and fired. Olive jumped. “Are you going to kill me, Jimmy?”

  He cocked the gun again.

  “Would you do me a favor? Kill me if you must. It’s not much of a life, living in her head. I can admit to that. But, I’d like to have sex first.”

  Are you nuts? What are you doing?

  Trust me, came back a whispered thought.

  Jimmy Stokes was as surprised as we were, because he lowered the gun for a minute and stared at her.

  “I never get any. Isadora has a thing about it, as you might imagine, so the rest of us are supposed to live her meager little life. I can’t hurt you. I have no weapon. Just untie me and we can have a little fun before I...well, kiss you goodbye. It’s no trick. You have the recorder on, so people will know it’s consensual. And then if you don’t shoot me, and we don’t press charges, then no foul. It’s your way out, and my way to a little satisfaction. What do you say?”

  Jimmy put the gun on a high shelf. He came to Olive and untied her legs, warily, expecting her to kick, but she didn’t. Was she waiting for Hawk?

  No! Olive. Not again. Not again! Don’t let Hawk…

  The Company shushed me, for a change, as he gingerly untied her hands, again, ready to shove a fist into her mouth if she made a suspicious move. She didn’t. She laid back down, flat on the floor, and gave a good imitation of Dora at her most appalling. Jimmy unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants and lay on her and started moving himself around on top of her. My panic was rising to a white noise in my head. I thought I was going to explode. Then Olive slipped her right thumb under the neck of his shirt on his right and crossed her hands, slipping her left thumb under the left side of the shirt neck and just raised herself up, her forearms closing like a scisors against his neck. Her movements were so swift and easy, he didn’t see it coming. Neither did we. In seconds the blood was cut off to his brain. He was out cold. She held her arms tight against the arteries in his neck for a moment or two longer. Then let go and heaved him off her.

  Olive! How did you know to do that?

  “Ray showed me once,” she said, brushing herself off.“That’s the classic Judo choke. Now let’s find a way out of here. I don’t know how long he will be out.”

  Shouldn’t we kill him?

  I think we should just run.

  I wonder where we are.

  “I don’t know. Let’s find stairs and a door or an open window.”

  The basement was not large, and we quickly found a stairway that led to a service entrance. Olive pushed through the door and was met by Leo Gianetti pointing his gun at us. Feeney, on the sidewalk to our right, suddenly took a flying leap and pushed Olive down on the sidewalk as two shots rang out. One shot smashed the windshield of the car parked at the curb,
passing through the air where we had just been standing, and the other shot ended in a grunt and a heavy thud.

  “Get off me, Feeney. You’re a married man.” Olive was once again pushing a man off her.

  Leo was standing over Jimmy Stokes’s inert body. Olive went to his side. “I thought Feeney said the captain took his gun?”

  “This is another gun.”

  Leo was shaken, and breathing hard. “Stupid son of a bitch. What the hell was he up to? Are you all right? We were just about to bust in there when you busted out.”

  “I’m fine. Is he dead, Leo?”

  “I didn’t aim to wound him. He had a cocked gun in his hand.”

  We were all afraid he was going to have a heart attack right there. Olive tried to get his eyes off the dead cop and on to her. She touched his sleeve. “How did you know where to look?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Olive.”

  “Have we met?”

  “No. Nice to meet you, Lieutenant.”

  “Ehhh…”

  “How did you find us?” she asked again.

  “His partner…ex-partner told us he moonlights as a night watchman here and has the key.” Olive turned and looked up. We were looking at some kind of warehouse. The river was to our right. “What street is this?”

  “We’re in the teens.”

  “How did he get me here?”

  “He must have just taken you out the back to his car. You’re probably missing some blankets that he wrapped you up in, or a rug. When you didn’t come out I went in and found the phone knocked off its table and you gone. I put two and two together and it came up Jimmy Stokes.”

  “You’re not a detective for nothing, Detective. Excuse me—Lieutenant.”

  “Feeney.” Leo’s voice was not in its usual whip-cracking register when he spoke to his junior officer. It was low, flat.

  “Yes, sir.” Feeney stepped forward, his voice low as well.

  “Make the call.” Leo handed Feeney his gun, butt first. Feeney took it, sadly.

  “We’ve got to get back. What time is it?”

  Leo eyed me carefully. “Isadora?”

  I looked down at the blood spreading in a dark, warm circle on Jimmy’s chest. It’s just blood Isadora. It doesn’t MEAN anything. You don’t live in some primitive tribe where drinking blood means that you take on something of the enemy, or the animal...it’s just a biological substance that you destroyed in your stomach and pissed away in a few hours. It’s gone. And you didn’t exactly drink it. You were trying to keep from choking on it. But it doesn’t matter. It’s gone. And there is no meaning attached to it.

  “Isadora?”

  Ray’s voice faded and Leo’s voice held me in the moment. I raised my eyes to him. “I’ve got to see Claudia. What time is it now?” More wasted time because of…well, no, this time was not my own system chaos that delayed us, but the nutcase lying still warm and dead at my feet. I would shed no tears for him, but for Leo, I said, “I’m sorry you had to do this, Leo.”

  He gave a little shake of his head, not quite an all-in-theline-of-duty-ma’am gesture, because I knew killing a fellow officer would have its ramifications, both officially and in his own head.

  “What time is it?”

  He checked his watch. “Two o’clock.”

  “I really need a shower before I see her.”

  “I’m coming in with you this time. Even if you turn into a head of cabbage. You aren’t going into your apartment alone.” He turned to Feeney who was closing his cell phone. He said almost gently, “Those strings I’m always ragging you about Feeney, if you can pull a few to keep them off my ass till I finish this thing today…”

  “Yes, sir.” Feeney’s expression betrayed no feeling about the request.

  “Tell the Captain I’ll be in as soon as I wrap this up today. In just a few hours I imagine.”

  “It was a good shoot, Boss. I’ll tell them that.”

  “So will I,” I said.

  Leo nodded but said no more.

  Leo, as good as his word, came into my apartment with me, gave the place a thorough check, and then seeing I was really uncomfortable with his presence there—only Ray had ever been in my apartment—left.

  I stepped out of the shower, dried off and pulled on some clean clothes, the first things I grabbed, which turned out to be a purple shirt, black pants and black jacket. I took a deep breath and called Vin.

  “Hey, Miss Thing!” he said. “You did it! I swan—”

  “Vin, are you at the apartment?” He said he was. “Is Claudia there?”

  “In the next room. I’m fussin’ in the kitchen.”

  “Who else is in the apartment?”

  “Nobody. The boys are kickin’ a ball around in the park with their Uncle Mike. Miriam is still in Nutley. How are you? I heard you—”

  “I need you to do something for me. Lieutenant Gianetti and I will be there in a few minutes.”

  “Well, sure I’ll take care of that.” I had the feeling that Claudia had just walked into the kitchen. I told him to meet me in the lobby and not tell her I was coming and to not let anyone else upstairs. He didn’t ask me any more questions.

  Chapter 25

  Leo was drinking coffee out of an I Love New York paper cup. He’d had plenty of time to walk to the corner deli and back. He was leaning against his double-parked car, his tie loosened around his neck. The late afternoon breeze was whipping his too-long hair around his head. He had had some sleep the night before. He had told Cootie, when he could get a word in, that he had stayed at the hospital with me till Ray got there.Then he and Feeney drove back to New York. Leo had come back to Nutley alone in the morning. Hence, the clean shirt. It was probably a clean suit too, but all of Leo’s suits were the same. Dark gray. Goes with the badge, he always said. Most of his shirts were white. Hester was right, Leo in a blue shirt constituted a fiesta.

  We got in his car. “Leo, you put cream and sugar in that didn’t you?” Hester eyed his light, thick-looking brew. “You don’t pay any attention to me, and when you are hooked up to a heart monitor and it starts flatlining, I will be there to say I told you so, Leo. I told you so.”

  “Something to look forward to, Hester. How you doin’ after the…”

  “The train wreck? The mental train wreck that was Isadora’s breakdown? If she let us do more, it wouldn’t have happened. Olive and I tell her, but nobody listens. She has to do it all herself and that’s what happens. Train wreck!”

  You abandoned me, I reminded her. She squirmed a little and was quiet, but it didn’t last. “Sugartime could help, but she won’t.” She was talking to me more than to Leo. “She minds the little ones, but then so does Lance. Why do they get so much attention? Why don’t they just GROW UP? Or go away. You know, on that ONE SINGLE POINT I agree with Evildora. On everything else, well on everything else she’s a homicidal sociopath. But still.”

  “Actually, I didn’t mean that. I meant your kidnapping and near murder by Jimmy Stokes.”

  “Oh, that. We had that under control. We were escaping when you found us, weren’t we?”

  “He was about to shoot you in the back.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, it all worked out,” Hester finished vaguely.

  Hester, you little twit! Olive was almost screaming in her head. Leo just killed the man. Unusual for Olive to take the sensitive role. These were unusual times.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Leo. Are you going to be in trouble?”

  “There will be an inquiry. Isadora will have to be questioned. Will she be okay with that?”

  “As long as they don’t do it in an elevator or a cab, she’ll be fine.”

  Leo had to smile. A little. “Feeney will take care of things till I get back to the station. Then a little hell will break loose, I expect. I have a good record. They’ll put me on administrative leave, send me to the department shrink. It’ll be all right. Eventually.”

  “Did you ever kill anybody before?”

  �
��Never even fired it at a human being. Just target practice.”

  “Well, we are very glad you practiced, Leo. Very glad.”

  He smiled again.

  Hester was quiet after that. Unusual times, indeed.

  Leo waited till we were out of the car and I was back before he asked, “Are you sure you want to do this by yourself?”

  “I don’t think she’ll talk to anyone else. I hope she will talk to me.”

  Vin had been leaning against the building smoking a cigarette and chatting with Victor. When he saw us he ground the cigarette out with his foot and met us halfway. “What’s goin’ on? Hi, Lieutenant. Guess I’m not a suspect anymore, huh?”

  I heard the phone ring just inside the lobby door. Victor ducked inside to answer it.

  Leo just shook his head. He’d never seriously considered Vin Parrish a suspect anyway.

  “I need to talk to Claudia,” I said. “Alone. It might take awhile. Can you kind of stick around here and make sure we aren’t interrupted?” I addressed myself to both Leo and Vin, who looked surprised that Leo agreed to be consigned to waiting in the lobby with him.

  “Does this have to do with Charlotte? Is she…” Vin looked about ready to cry.

  “Lieutenant Gianetti will explain.”

  I sprinted past Victor and took the stairs.

  The Jack Russell began to bark as soon as I hit the bell. Claudia opened the door. “Oh, I tried to—Bungee, hush—I tried to see you at the hospital when I went out with Miriam, but they said you were…uhm…I’m so glad you’re...are you all right? Please come in.”

  While Miriam had been like someone come back to life, Claudia was hollowed out. Ghostly.

  “I owe you the balance of your fee.” Her voice was thinner, even breathier than before. “Vin made his special Mississippi mint tea. Please come into the kitchen.”

  I sat down at the table and watched her open the refrigerator door and take out an oversized pitcher of sparkling tea and two glasses from the freezer. There was a tremor in her hands that I hadn’t seen before as she filled the glasses and then set them on the table. “I’ll get my checkbook.”