“Wow,” I said.
“They beat me up,” she said. “They came to my room and beat up my boyfriend and me.”
“Where’s your boyfriend?”
“He ran off.”
“And who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“No. I came right over here. I’m scared. I thought they were going to kill me or something.”
I closed my front door, and, mostly for effect, pushed the bar on the slide bolt into place. Then I went to my bedside table and got my gun, and brought it back and laid it near me on the countertop. That was for effect, too, mostly.
“Would you like some coffee?” I said.
“No... yes... yes, I would.”
She took out a cigarette and lit it. She didn’t ask if I minded. It didn’t seem the right time to say “Thanks for not smoking.”
“Did anyone follow you here?” I said.
“Follow?”
“Yes. Might your assailants know you’re here?”
“Here? My God. I don’t know. Can they get in?”
“No,” I said.
She went to the window and peeked out at the street.
“I don’t see anybody,” she said.
“You take cream and sugar?” I said.
She continued to look down at the street, standing to the side so that she wouldn’t be seen.
“Just sugar.”
I brought the coffee over and put it on the breakfast table.
“The building is quite secure,” I said. “And my loft is quite secure. And we have a phone to call the cops. And I’m quite a good shot.”
“I don’t see anybody,” she said.
“Good,” I said. “Have some coffee. Tell me about it.”
Sarah left the window and sat across from me. Rosie came over and sat at my feet in case we were planning to eat something. Sarah looked around the loft.
“You have a nice place,” she said.
“So what happened?”
“Well...” She drank some coffee and lit another cigarette. “My boyfriend and I were partying in my room.”
“At the dorm,” I said.
“Yeah, sure, at the dorm.”
Partying could mean Hawaiian Punch, or beer or dope or sex or all of the above, though I was skeptical it meant Hawaiian Punch. On the other hand, the details of that could wait.
“And?” I said.
“And these two guys came in without knocking or anything and told my boyfriend to beat it, and he said, like, ‘Why?’ And one of the guys punched him out.”
“Can you describe these guys?”
“Sort of,” she said. “One of them was straight-looking, like a lawyer or an accountant, you know? Slim. Thick glasses. Dark suit. Tie. The other guy was bigger. He had on a leather jacket.”
“Was it the bigger man who punched out your boyfriend?” I said.
“Yes. He was so quick. Poor Woody.”
“Then what?”
“Then the guy in the leather jacket put Woody in my closet and told him to stay there, and shut the closet door. And the slim guy said to me I should stop investigating my parents. And I was so scared I couldn’t talk and all I could do was shake my head, like, you know, I don’t understand. But he musta thought I meant no, I wouldn’t, and he, like, nodded his head to the guy in the leather jacket, and the guy hit me twice and knocked me down. And the slim guy said something like, ‘It can get a lot worse than this.’ And I said, ‘I’ll do whatever you want.’ And he said, ‘I told you what I want. Do it.’ And the leather-jacket guy put his foot on my, ah, between my legs, and he gave like a little shove and winked at me. The fucking guy winked at me! And they left.”
“And Woody?” I said.
With the remainder of her cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, away from the bruise, she poured herself some more black coffee and dumped in maybe six spoonfuls of sugar. Then she dragged on the cigarette and took it from her mouth and exhaled and drank some more coffee.
“As soon as they left,” she said, “Woody came out of the closet and ran away.”
“Well,” I said. “I guess it’s important to know one’s limitations.”
She shrugged.
“Do you remember anything else about the two men?” I said.
“I think the tough guy had some kind of tattoos on his hand?”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “Just some blue letters, like on his knuckles.”
“Would you recognize them if you saw them again?”
“I don’t want to see them again.”
“We could show you a lot of pictures,” I said.
Sarah shook her head.
“I want out,” she said. “I want you to stop.”
I looked at Sarah for a moment. Then I got up and walked the length of my loft to the bedroom end and looked out the window at the warehouse next door. Rosie followed me and sat down. Finally, I stopped looking at the warehouse and turned and walked back to Sarah. With what sounded like a small anthropomorphic sigh of annoyance, Rosie stood and trotted back down behind me.
“I can protect you,” I said to Sarah.
“You? You’re a girl. What are you going to do if these guys show up?”
“I could shoot them,” I said.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Of course I would.”
“You ever shoot anybody?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me. “I don’t believe you,” she said.
I shrugged.
“Did you really shoot somebody?”
I nodded.
“Do you think you’ll all of a sudden stop wondering whose kid you are?” I said.
“I don’t care. I’m scared.”
“Of course you are scared. But doesn’t this make it even more necessary to find out what’s going on? Doesn’t this tell you that someone doesn’t want you to find out anything?”
“Jesus,” Sarah said.
“And if you don’t find out now what the truth is, it will destroy your life.”
“She wouldn’t hire somebody to beat me up,” Sarah said.
“She?” I said.
“My mother.”
“Mrs. Markham?” I said.
“Yes. She always used to yell at me when I was bad that she wasn’t my mother.” Sarah’s eyes began to tear. “And then, you know, later, she would come and tell me never to tell anyone, because if I did, they’d send me to an orphanage.”
Sarah started to cry.
“What did your father say?”
She had some trouble talking between sobs, but she got it out.
“I never dared tell him.”
“Did she ever say it in front of him?”
“Once,” Sarah spoke haltingly, struggling for control, “they had a big fight... and I heard them and I went... and sat on the floor outside... and listened... and she said, ‘It’s not like she’s my blood’... and my father shushed her... ‘She might hear you.’ ”
She stopped trying to talk and put both hands over her face and bent forward and simply cried. I was quiet. Rosie looked a little uneasy. Finally, the crying slowed. I waited. Finally, it stopped.
“I think you should go wash your face with cold water,” I said. “It’ll make you feel better.”
She nodded and didn’t move.
“Down past the bedroom area,” I said.
She nodded again.
“Go,” I said. “Then we’ll talk. You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Sarah stood slowly and walked down the length of the loft as if she was drunk.
“There’s makeup in there,” I said. “Feel free.”
She went into my bathroom. While she was gone, I emptied the saucer she’d been using as an ashtray, and made some more coffee.
20
We were on our third pot of coffee. She’d drunk most of it. But I’d drunk enough to make my nerves jitter. Sarah was through crying for now. She was smoking.