The bedclothes were rumpled, the sheets were stained with blood. A leather-thonged cat-o'-nine-tails was on the floor near the footboard. The window was wide open. Grundy went to the window and looked out. The ground was some four feet below the sill. He carefully tented his handkerchief over the leather-wrapped handle of the whip, and then tagged it for identification and subsequent transmittal to the police lab in nearby Allenby. A girl's handbag was resting on the seat of a straight-backed chair near the bed. Grundy opened the bag.
'Remember that the unexpected is the best approach. You are flat on your back, and this man is about to rape you. Instead of trying to twist away, instead of trying to shove him off you, begin to fondle him. That's right. Fondle the man. Fondle his genitals. And then drop your hand to his testicles and squeeze. Squeeze as hard as you can. You are going to hurt this man, but you are also going to end the rape that very minute. You may wonder whether he will be able to chase you afterwards, perhaps hit you harder than he did before, perhaps even kill you. I can guarantee that you can run clear to California and back, and that man will still be lying on the ground incapable of movement. This is one way of stopping a rape, if you do not choose to become a victim. There is another way, and I suspect your reaction to it will be "I'd rather get raped." That, of course, is up to you. I can only offer you options.'
The girl's handbag contained three lipsticks, a package of Kleenex, two sticks of chewing gum, four subway tokens, three dollar bills, forty cents in change, and a card showing that she was a member of the Student Organization of Whitman High School in Riverhead. The name on the card identified her as Margaret McNally. There was nothing in the house or on the grounds outside that in any way identified the two boys who presumably had killed her.
'Again, do the unexpected,' Meyer said. 'Put your hands gently on the rapist's face, palms against his temples, cradle his face, murmur words of endearment, allow him to think you're going along with his plans. Your thumbs will be close to his eyes. If you have in yourself the courage to push your thumbs into a hard-boiled egg, then you can also push them into this man's eyes. You will put out his eyes, you will blind him. But you will not be raped. There is never a moment, during a rape in progress, I can guarantee this, when you will not have the opportunity to fondle the man's genitals or to put your hands on his face. These are his vulnerable areas, and if you behave unexpectedly and do not seem to be preparing an attack, he will not suspect what is coming until it is too late. Squeezing his testicles will incapacitate him, but may not permanently injure him. Putting out his eyes is a drastic measure, and you may feel with some justification that doing this is worse than what the rapist is trying to do to you - that the means of preventing the rape are worse than the crime itself. The choice is yours.'
Meyer wiped his brow with his handkerchief, and then asked, 'Are there any questions?'
Chapter Seven
The way them Scarlet niggers got hold of Big Anthony and Jo-Jo was pure accident, and it was what started all the later trouble. I wouldn't be up here now, if it wasn't for what happened yesterday.
I had got a call late Thursday night, it must've been three or four o'clock in the morning, it got me out of bed. My people know that I'm available at all hours of the day and night, that's what being president means. You serve the people. I am always cheerful and courteous on the telephone, no matter what time it is. The phone in my house is in the kitchen, and I went out there in my undershorts, and it was very cold, they cut off the heat in the building at about eleven o'clock each night, that's to discourage the rats from coming out of their nice warm hiding places. I'm making a joke, but it's true there's no heat from eleven at night to maybe seven or eight in the morning, those cheap landlords. Anyway, I'm standing there freezing in my underwear, and Big Anthony tells me he's calling from a phone booth outside a diner on Route 14 in Turman and that he had to take very severe measures with Midge. That's a code thing we have in the clique, the 'severe measures.' It means, you know, that he had to like kill her.
I remained very calm, I am always calm. I told Big he had probably done the right thing, if in his judgment the thing had to be done, and I asked him if there had been any witnesses, and he said No, he did not think so. I told him in that case he should go back to his aunt's house and just keep cool, stay out of the city, we would keep close watch on the situation and see what developed. That was on Thursday night - well, really it was Friday morning already. On Saturday you guys came around and talked to me in the ice cream parlor, with your phony story about first a hold-up of a gas station and later you changed it to wanting Midge for a mugging, all of which I knew was absolute bullhenge. You guys thought you were being so clever, but there's nothing gets by me. Actually, you were doing me a favor. Because you were letting me know the truck was hot, and that you were looking for Big Anthony in connection with Midge's murder. That's all you accomplished by your little visit. I gave you the name of Big's girl because I couldn't see no harm in your going to see her, especially since I planned to phone her the minute you left. Which I done, of course, and warned her to keep her mouth shut, to tell you she didn't know where Big was, and she never heard of nobody named Midge. The minute I hung up, I called Big at his aunt's house in Turman, and told him to get rid of the truck, as it was hot. I also told him to get out of Turman and get back here to the city, because I knew all the heat would be there, you dig, and nobody would think of looking for him back here. That was smart thinking. I'm always on my feet and looking how to outfox the other guy.
So it gets to be Sunday, yesterday, and no word from Big. At first I thought he was playing it extremely cool, that he had got back to the city with Jo-Jo, and the two of them were holed up someplace and didn't want to risk even making a phone call, because like who can tell what's bugged and what isn't these days? The way I figure it, if we can put in a bug, why then, anybody in the whole United States can put one in. What's to stop them? And maybe Big was thinking the same way, and was afraid to call. I was watching the football game on television, just me and Toy. My mother was across the street, visiting her sister. My old man was out drinking, as usual. He's on welfare, and he's got tuberculosis, but that don't stop him from putting away the sauce. He can't pass a bar without marching in there and drinking himself into a stupor. He's very proud of me because he knows I'm president of an important clique. I respect him and honor him except for the drinking. I can't abide anything done to excess. He is foolish to drink so much, and to lose control of himself. Control is the important thing. To be in control all the time is my watchword. Anyway, I was glad he was out of the house because it gave me some time to relax with Toy and to watch the football. The game was a very exciting one, and it took my mind off why Big hadn't called yet. I didn't want to think that something had happened to him, that maybe he had been picked up by the Turman fuzz before he'd made it back to the city.
The telephone rang about three o'clock in the afternoon, just at a very exciting play in the game. I went out in the kitchen to answer it, hoping it would be Big. Instead, it was Mighty Man, the war counselor of the Scarlets.
Hello, he says, how's every little thing up there on Dooley Avenue?
Just fine, I tell him, to what do I owe the honor of this call?
We got two of your boys, he says.
What boys? I ask him. What are you talking about?
Well, he tells me what he's talking about. What he's talking about is that by the craziest freak accident, Big and Jo-Jo stumbled into a party of Scarlets and they took them both prisoner. Now this is the way it happened. The Scarlets will tell you all kinds of bullhenge about how Big and Jo-Jo had defected, but that ain't the truth. It was accident, pure and simple, they are both loyal men.