Everyone in the room agreed that the names sounded familiar.
“They’ve all been contributors to A.I.M. at one time or another,” Annie said. “Isn’t that right?”
None of the staff knew if that was why the names sounded familiar to them.
“How many contributors do you have?” Annie asked.
Everyone on the staff looked at Polly Floyd.
“I’m sorry, but that’s our business,” Polly said. She was still standing just inside the doorway. She had not yet taken off her raincoat. Her arms were folded across her chest.
“Do you keep a list of your contributors?” Annie asked her.
“Yes, but the list is confidential.”
“Who has access to that list?” Annie asked.
“All of us. Everyone on the staff.”
“But you say the list is confidential.”
“Limited to staff access,” Polly said.
“Well,” the black man with the fringe of white hair said, “that isn’t quite...”
“In any event,” Polly interrupted, “the list is not available for police scrutiny.”
Annie turned to the man.
“I don’t believe I caught your name, sir,” she said.
“Eleazar Fitch,” he said.
“I like biblical names,” Annie said, and smiled.
“My father’s name was Elijah,” Fitch said, and returned the smile.
“You were saying, Mr. Fitch, about this list...?”
“Whatever it is you’re investigating,” Polly cut in, “we’re not interested in involvement.”
“Involvement?” Annie said.
“Involvement, yes. We don’t want A.I.M. linked in any way to the stabbing of a policewoman.”
“Which happens to be a Class-C felony,” Annie said, “punishable by three to fifteen years in prison. Rape, on the other hand...”
“Rape?” Polly said, and her pink face went white.
“Rape, Miss Floyd, is a Class-B felony, and you can get twenty-five years for that. This police officer was raped last night. Cut and raped, Miss Floyd. We have good reason to believe that her assailant is also responsible for the rapes of nine other women, eight of whom were contributors to A.I.M. What I want to know...”
“I’m sure their donations to A.I.M. had nothing whatever...”
“How can you know that for sure, Polly?” Fitch asked.
Polly Floyd turned pink again. Fitch stared at her for a moment, and then looked at Annie again.
“We sell our mailing list,” he said.
“To whom?” Annie said at once.
“To any responsible organization that—”
“Polly, you know that isn’t true,” Fitch interrupted, and turned to Annie again. “We’ll let anyone who makes a sizable donation have the list.”
“What do you consider sizable?” Annie asked.
“Anything over a hundred dollars.”
“So if I sent you a hundred dollars and requested your mailing list...”
“You’d get it in a minute.”
“Provided,” Polly said, “you also told us how you planned to use the list.”
“Is that true, Mr. Fitch?”
“We’ll send it to anyone interested in the pro-life movement,” Fitch said. “Express a sincere interest in the movement, request the mailing list, and send us a check for a hundred bucks. That’s it.”
“I see,” Annie said.
“We’re not Right To Life, you know,” Polly said defensively. “We don’t have giant corporations and trust funds making contributions to us. We’re new, we only started two years ago, we have to support our efforts by whatever means possible and ethical. There’s nothing wrong with supplying mailing lists to interested contributors, you know. You can buy or rent a mailing list for anything!”
“How many mailing lists have you distributed since the beginning of the year?” Annie asked.
“I have no idea,” Polly said.
“No more than ten,” Fitch said.
“All here in the city?”
“Most of them. Some of them were out of town.”
“How many in the city?”
“I don’t know, I’d have to look at the files.”
“You have the names and addresses on file?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I’d like to see them, please.”
“Giving you those names would be tantamount to invading the privacy of people who may not wish their privacy invaded,” Polly said.
Annie looked at her. She did not mention that telling a woman what she could or could not do about her own pregnancy might also be invading the privacy of someone who might not wish to have her privacy invaded.
She said only, “I guess I’ll have to get that court order, after all.”
“Give her the names,” Polly said.
She was sitting up in bed, her hands flat on the sheet, when Kling entered the room. Her head was turned away from him. The window oozed raindrops, framed a gray view of buildings beyond.
“Hi,” he said.
When she turned toward the door, he saw the bandage on her left cheek. A thick wad of cotton layers covered with adhesive plaster tape. She’d been crying; the flesh around her eyes was red and puffy. She smiled and lifted one hand from the sheet in greeting. The hand dropped again, limply, white against the white sheet.
“Hi,” she said.
He came to the bed. He kissed her on the cheek that wasn’t bandaged.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, fine,” she said.
“I was just talking to the doctor, he says they’ll be releasing you later today.”
“Good,” she said.
He did not know what else to say. He knew what had happened to her. He did not know what to say.
“Some cop, huh?” she said. “Let him scare me out of both my guns, let him...” She turned her face away again. Rain slithered down the window panes.
“He raped me, Bert.”
“I know.”
“How...?” Her voice caught. “How do you feel about that?”
“I want to kill him,” Kling said.
“Sure, but... how do... how do you feel about me getting raped?”
He looked at her, puzzled. Her head was still turned away from him, as though she were trying to hide the patch on her cheek and by extension the wound that testified to her surrender.
“About letting him rape me,” she said.
“You didn’t let him do anything.”
“I’m a cop,” she said.
“Honey...”
“I should have...” She shook her head. “I was too scared, Bert,” she said. Her voice was very low.
“I’ve been scared,” he said.
“I was afraid he’d kill me.”
She turned to look at him.
Their eyes met. Tears were forming in her eyes. She blinked them back.
“A cop isn’t supposed to get that scared, Bert. A cop is supposed to... to... I threw away my gun! The minute he stuck that knife in my ribs, I panicked, Bert, I threw away my gun! I had it in my hand but I threw it away!”
“I’d have done the same...”
“I had a spare in my boot, a little Browning. I reached into the boot, I had the gun in my hand, ready to fire, when he... he... cut me.”
Kling was silent.
“I didn’t think it would hurt that much, Bert. Getting cut. You cut yourself shaving your legs or your armpits, it stings for a minute but this was my face, Bert, he cut my face, and oh, Jesus, how it hurt! I’m no beauty, I know that, but it’s the only face I have, and when he...