Suddenly an idea came to her. "Mr. Grant? Can I ask you something?"
"Yes, I suppose you can."
"What did Ray do all of those years he was away from the United States?"
"Do?" The machine next to Mr. Grant clicked again but he did not seem to hear it.
"Yes. Did he work in the military, did he fight in a war?"
Mr. Grant frowned. "Did he tell you that?"
"No."
"I didn't think so… he did not tell you anything… right?"
How did he know this? She felt humiliated. "Yes, that's right."
"He was saving them… helping… hurricanes and earthshakes, I mean, quakes… hundred of people, many countries.." He closed his eyes, as if better to see what he was describing, and she watched his eyeballs moving to and fro beneath their lids, searching, maybe seeing. "Sometimes I read about it in the newspaper.. terrible things he saw, much worse than anything I ever… saw too much, oh, you can see too much!" Mr. Grant lifted his face upward, his cheeks hollowed as he opened his mouth. "Never would talk about it, broke my heart, you see, I wish he would get… it's good for a man, to have a wife and children… sometimes he went down into.. deep into, where all the dead people were… he was supposed to find the people, the children… very very difficult… sometimes… he… it… my garden, did you see the roses-?"
His head swayed, a man seeing only visions now. "Mr. Grant, how did Ray get the terrible scar on his stomach?"
"Aaah, ha-" He groaned horribly.
"Mr. Grant?"
"— that was… God gave it to him!"
His eyes opened, then rolled up in his head. A foul breath came from him, from deep within him. Then his head slumped to the side. One eye was nearly closed, the other open. Jin Li looked away. Why was she thinking of her grandfather? I must look at him, she thought, I must see this so that I understand Ray.
A minute passed, in silence. Mr. Grant's meager chest continued to rise and fall, and his features were slack now.
The nurse came back in, looking at her watch.
"Did you get a chance to talk?" she asked brightly.
Jin Li realized she was breathing quickly. "Yes."
"And you got a little coffee?"
"Yes."
"He's a very nice man." She lifted the sheet a bit to fix it and when she did so Jin Li saw the half-full urine bag. "He'll sleep now awhile."
"Maybe I should wait for Ray outside-?"
"Whatever you'd like."
Jin Li nodded affirmatively and stood, suddenly wanting to flee the room. But instead she bent down and ever so gently kissed Mr. Grant's forehead.
"You're sweet," said the nurse. "I'll tell him when he wakes up. And he'll like knowing it, too."
Jin Li slipped back down the hall, idly studying some of the family pictures. She hadn't noticed them when she came in. There was a picture of Ray in a football uniform, then another of him in a New York City fireman's uniform, getting a medal in his hospital bed. With his father and mother to either side. And a smiling, bald man whose face she recognized. Mayor Giuliani. " FOR VALOROUS SERVICE TO THE CITY OF NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 " read the gold-script caption.
Oh, she thought, oh. So he was there.
She stepped out to the porch. Why hadn't he told her? How she wished she had known, how she missed Ray now-loved him, even. Everything-everything made sense.
She wandered toward the sidewalk, a little dazed in the bright sun, wondering why she was crying. Perhaps the sight of Mr. Grant, the conversation about Ray, the pictures, it was all a little much…
Too much, in fact, to notice the battered service van that had pulled up next to the sidewalk. A large man in worn laborer's clothes stepped in front of her. His dark eyes fixed on her face.
"What, excuse me-!"
He grabbed her with one dirty hand, flung open the van door, and threw her inside. She hit her head on the metal floor. He reached in and took her purse. She glimpsed a piece of rope and an empty plastic bucket. The door slammed shut, was locked from the outside, and the van lurched forward. She put out her hand to steady herself in the dark.
A sliding sound. The driver's narrow rear window opened into the van body. Behind a metal mesh, she could see the face. "Don't you fucking scream," he warned her.
The van drove a few more minutes. She felt for the side doors and the back door. Locked. Crawling in the darkness on her hands and knees she found the rope and plastic bucket, nothing else.
The van stopped. She heard the driver's door open, then shut, the sound of him walking around the back.
"I'm going to open the door. Don't try anything."
The door opened, flooding the van with light. He stepped in, flicked on the roof light, and closed the door.
"Don't scream, I'm warning you." He was a big man. He grabbed her hand and twisted it, so that she was on her back.
She kicked him as hard as she could. He leaned his knee on her chest and she hit him with her fists. Her blows did not bother him. He pulled out a roll of duct tape, tore off a piece, then put it over her mouth. She punched at him but he was big and heavy and his knee was pressing down on her. He turned her on her side. With the next piece of tape he bound her hands behind her. Then the ankles, even though she kicked at him. When he was done she lay on her back, wriggling, trying to free herself.
He took one more piece and held it over her.
"Close your eyes," he commanded.
She did. The tape went right over her eyes, catching a few strands of her hair.
He seemed to be in no hurry. She could feel him straddling her, so close she smelled the gum he was chewing, something like cinnamon. "You escaped me once," he said, "but not this time."
His hand moved down her blouse, tore it open. She could hear him breathing loudly through his nose. The hand felt her breasts, mashed them. Then it was between her legs, pulling down her underpants, the dirty thumb hooking up inside of her, hurting her. It probed and wig gled, then slipped out. Again she heard him breathing through his nose. She wondered if he was smelling his finger.
She felt herself being turned over and tied up with the rope. It was tight, around her hands, arms, and legs. She could feel him cinching the knots.
Then came the bucket, right over her head, duct-taped to her clothes, her breath echoing in her own ears. Darkness upon darkness. He might have said something to her but she could not tell what it was. She went limp with exhaustion, her clothes soaked with sweat. She felt the van door close again and the vehicle begin to move, and she was jolted backward along the hard metal floor, trussed, helpless, with no hope that anyone knew where she was.
30
"A wheelchair gigolo?"
"Yes, he only-you know-does it with women in wheel-chairs."
Connie lowered her voice into the phone. She didn't want anyone to hear her, including the house staff, who knew too much about her, anyway. "Old women?"
"No, no. Young, thirties, forties, maybe fifties."
"They pay him?"
"Well, yes. They pay him a lot, I heard. But they don't mind. It doesn't seem like much, considering."
"Considering what?" she asked.
"Considering how good he is! You'd be surprised how many women with money there are in New York City who are in wheelchairs. You know, from falls, back problems, multiple sclerosis… hundreds, anyway."
"I never see them, though."
"Most kind of hide. I've got one in my building. That's how I found out about him."
"And your friend, how often does he-?"
"Once a month, about. Her husband never touches her. Not in years."
"Did she tell you about what-oh, God, wait, just a moment." Connie listened for the sound of the men coming down from the roof. Her husband and the funny little Chinese man named Chen whom they'd just had to dinner were up on the terrace having drinks and smoking cigars. They'd been up there awhile already. What could they possibly be discussing now? It had been the absolutely worst dinner conversation ever-stilted and weird, mostly because the guy's English was so bad, not to mention his skills with a fork, with Bill acting as if the man was some kind of high-powered global chieftain. Well, sorry, she knew who all those guys were, especially the billionaires in Hong Kong and Singapore, and this guy didn't rate. Bill said some other men might join them later. She listened again, heard nothing.