The Kept Woman

  Angie wondered if that was true. “Why don’t you help her?”

  “Shit, I’m not getting that girl’s stink on me.” LaDonna drank some water. “Besides, I got kids to take care of. A household to run. A husband who needs me. I’m not going to throw away my precious time trying to save somebody who don’t even wanna be saved.”

  A sound came out of Angie’s mouth, almost a “huh.” LaDonna might not be running whores, but she had the Mama logic down pat.

  “Look at me, sister.” LaDonna took off her sunglasses. “Watch my mouth. Listen to my words. Take it back to Kip. Jo Figaroa likes what she’s got.”

  “She likes being hit?”

  “Why else is she staying with Fig?” LaDonna added. “You ain’t seen the two of them together when he starts to simmer. She don’t lift a finger to calm him down. Shit, she winds him up. Nags on him. Slaps on him.” She pointed her finger at Angie. “Right here at this pool, I saw it with my own eyes. Team party a few months ago. We’re all lounging, drinking cocktails. Fig tells her something real quiet, like go get me something to drink. Jo don’t want to do it. She says ‘get it your damn self.’ Now, Fig, he don’t like that. We can all see him getting riled up. He pushes Jo out of her chair. She still don’t get the drink. She mouths off, punches him in the chest, like she ain’t afraid of him. We all knew what was coming next. Fig ’bout tore out her hair dragging her inside. Don’t know what he did, but she never mouthed off to him again.”

  And apparently, none of the collective three thousand pounds of basketball player muscle did anything to keep a one-hundred-pound woman from getting the shit beaten out of her. “I’m sure Fig was terrified when Jo hit him.”

  “Right?” LaDonna said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, girl. You want out? Take a picture of that shit—the bruises and the fat lip and the black eye. Put it up on TMZ. Call a lawyer.”

  “Call a medical examiner,” Angie said.

  “Maybe.” LaDonna finished her water. She tossed the bottle into the recycling bin. “He’ll put a cap in her ass if she tries to leave him. And don’t even get me started on what Fig would do if she tried to take away his son. That man loves his boy. He’ll blow up the fucking world if Jo even thinks about taking him.”

  “I thought it was easy. Just take a few pictures and get a lawyer.”

  She stared down on Angie. “Tell me again why you’re so worried about Jo.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Then why are you bringing this shit to me?” LaDonna kept staring at her. “Why don’t you help her?”

  Angie shrugged. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Don’t tell Kip, ’cause he’ll put Laslo on your ass if you mess with the team.”

  Angie put it back on her. “So, what, then? Wait for Jo’s funeral?”

  LaDonna gave it some thought. She took out another bottle of water. She twisted open the top. Finally, she shook her head. “Doesn’t matter what we do. Even if Jo got away from Fig, she’d just end back up with another asshole doing the same damn thing. That’s what my mama did. She finally leaves my daddy, she meets this man who’s all sweet on her, gonna take care of her, and the minute they get back from the honeymoon, he’s raising his fist to her. That’s how it’s been happening since Jesus lost his sandals. Some men are born to beat and some women are born to take a beating, and they got these magnets inside of them that always pull them together. Like to like.” She turned to Angie. “Some people are born with a hole inside them. They spend their lives trying to fill it. Sometimes it’s pills, sometimes it’s Jesus, and sometimes it’s a fist.” She threw the bottle cap into the trash can. “We done here?”

  Angie knew they were, but she wasn’t going to let the other woman have the last shot. “This girl in Vegas. Do I need to get Laslo to clean that up?”

  “It’s taken care of.”

  She sounded like a Mafia don. “You make her an offer she couldn’t refuse?”

  “I broke her God damn teeth out of her face.”

  Angie held LaDonna’s gaze. She wasn’t going to be the one to look away first. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

  LaDonna looked out at the pool. “You do that.”

  Angie knew when she was being dismissed. She opened the cold water as she walked back down the corridor. The wives were all atwitter back in the salon, but Angie just grabbed her purse and left. She didn’t need an escort to lead her back to her car. She was backing out of the motor court when she remembered the green phone.

  “Dammit,” Angie cursed, because of course this was how it had played out.

  While she was wasting her time playing patty-cake with LaDonna, Jo had gotten a text. More importantly, she had texted back, downloading the cloning program to her phone.

  MR: 1town suites1hr

  JOSEPHINE: ok

  The time stamp showed the text had been sent ten minutes ago.

  Angie woke up the iPad. She pulled up the GPS tracking software. A blue dot beeped on the map, slowly making its way down Cherokee Drive.

  Jo was on the move.

  TUESDAY—1:08 PM

  Angie stood behind the manager of the OneTown Suites. A monitor sat on the desk in front of him. The screen was split into four perspectives from various security cameras around the motel. The lobby. The elevator. A long hallway. The parking lot.

  By sheer luck, the motel was less than fifteen minutes from the Rippy mansion. Or maybe that was by design. Angie had no doubt that Marcus had used the place before. The rooms rented by the week, so you could overpay for a few hours with the understanding that no one would ask questions. The place reeked of bargain-priced discretion. Everything was clean and well kept, but down-market. It was the sort of place a very rich man might take a girl he’d met at one of the strip clubs in the area. Up the street, the St. Regis and the Ritz were for more permanent arrangements.

  Angie stared at the quarter panel of the monitor that showed the parking lot. Jo was still inside her parked Range Rover, the same as she had been for the last twenty minutes. She was sitting on her hands, just like she had at Starbucks. She stared straight ahead. She didn’t move. She didn’t get out of the car. Angie looked at the time. The text from Marcus had come in fifty minutes ago. Anthony’s school would let out in another hour. If Marcus Rippy had scheduled a tryst, it would have to be a fast one.

  The manager tapped the keyboard and scrolled through more angles of the parking lot and hotel. He asked, “How much longer?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “I guess you paid me enough,” the man said, a vast understatement, considering the five grand Angie had put in his pocket. He probably would’ve done it for a thousand, but Angie had been in a hurry and she didn’t have time to negotiate.

  There were two adjoining rooms at the back of the motel, separated by a locking privacy door. Everything Angie needed was in her go-bag. The directional mic was slim enough to fit under the door. The transceiver plugged into the wall. The headphones plugged into the jack. Since Angie had gotten to the motel so quickly, she’d had plenty of time to plant the cameras, but she hadn’t done this kind of work in months. There was no charge left in the batteries.

  The desk phone rang. The manager picked up. Angie gathered a guest was having problems with the television.

  She started pacing. She didn’t want to think about how this could go wrong. Meeting at a motel didn’t mean meeting in a motel room. Marcus drove a Cadillac Escalade. The back was more than adequate to accommodate two people.

  The manager hung up the phone. He asked Angie, “This who you’re waiting for?”

  She looked at the monitor. Marcus Rippy’s black Escalade had pulled into the space beside Jo. Angie held her breath, waiting for her entire plan to go sideways. Jo stayed in her car. Marcus got out of his. Angie followed his progress across the parking lot. His gait was slow, casual, but he scanned left and right, as if he was making sure no one was watching him. He did another scan before he opened the door to the lobby.

/>   A bell rang.

  “Showtime.” The manager stood up and left the room.

  Angie toggled through the security cameras to find the one that covered the front desk. The manager was there, tucking his polo shirt into his shorts. Marcus wore a baseball cap low on his head. Sunglasses covered his eyes. His clothes were nondescript, the chunky three-hundred-thousand-dollar watch missing from his wrist. He seemed to know where the cameras were. He kept his head down. He didn’t look up. He passed the manager a wad of cash because LaDonna monitored every penny that went in and out of their accounts.

  Angie heard the manager talking, but she couldn’t hear Marcus. A key was passed across the counter. Maps of the city and the wi-fi password were offered. Marcus shook his head to both. The camera lost him as he headed toward the door.

  The bell rang again.

  Angie toggled the switch to get back to the parking lot. Marcus was standing outside the front doors. He waved for Jo to come in.

  Initially, Jo didn’t move. She seemed to be deciding something. Was she really going to do this? Should she go into that room with Rippy? Should she drive away?

  Finally, Jo decided. Her door opened. She got out of the car. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her jeans as she jogged across the parking lot.

  The manager knocked on the door. Angie opened it.

  He said, “Is that who I think it is?”

  “Not for five thousand dollars it’s not.” Angie started randomly pulling plugs from the back of machines. She had already taken the CD-R out of the video recorder.

  “Hey.” He held up his hands. “I know how to take a payoff. I work at a motel by the interstate.”

  Angie thought about the gun in her purse. Unloaded. Probably a good thing. She cracked open the office door. Jo and Marcus were getting into the elevator. She ducked down behind the counter as the doors closed.

  Angie waited until she heard the motor sending the elevator up. She took the back stairs slowly because she couldn’t beat them up to the second floor. She heard them talking as she got to the top landing. A key was put into a lock. A door opened. A door closed.

  Angie went into the hall. She walked briskly toward the adjacent room. She’d oiled the lock with a can of WD-40 from her go-bag. The key silently slipped in. The tumblers engaged. She pushed open the door on oiled hinges and held on to the knob so that the automatic arm would not slam it shut.

  The door between the two rooms was thin. Marcus and Jo were already talking in the other room. His deep baritone vibrated the air. Jo’s voice was softer, more like a hum.

  Angie sat on the floor by the transceiver. She held one of the headphones to her ear.

  “—anymore,” Jo said. “I mean it.”

  Marcus said nothing, but Angie could hear his breath, a steady in and out. Angie adjusted the sound. She cursed herself for not keeping the batteries charged in all the cameras.

  Marcus said, “What do you want me to do, Jo?”

  “I want you to look at this.”

  There was a rustling sound, then a tinny whine that Angie thought was feedback. She adjusted the knobs on the transceiver. It wasn’t feedback. It was a woman’s voice, chanting the same word over and over again.

  “No-no-no-no-no . . .”

  Angie turned up the volume. The chant was faint, distant, as if it was being filtered through a cheap speaker. Had Jo turned on the television?

  Marcus said, “Jesus, Jo. Where did you get this?”

  “Just watch.”

  Watch.

  Not the TV. Maybe a video. Angie closed her eyes, focusing on the ambient sounds. A wind noise, someone breathing, a rhythmic tapping.

  The woman’s voice again.

  “No-no-no-no-no . . .”

  “Fuck.” A man’s voice, out of breath.

  “No-no-no . . .”

  “Fuck.” The same man again, excited.

  A second man, even deeper voice: “Shut her up.”

  The first man: “I’m tryin’.”

  Angie sat back on her heels as it dawned on her what she was listening to.

  Jo had a video of two men fucking a woman who kept saying no.

  Marcus said, “Turn it off.”

  The first man. Marcus Rippy was the first man.

  “Please,” Marcus said. “Turn it off.”

  Angie listened to the silence, her stomach clenched like a fist. What the fuck was Jo doing? She was all alone. Nobody knew she was here. She’d just shown a two-hundred-pound slab of muscle a video of himself forcing himself on a woman who kept saying “no.”

  Marcus asked, “Has LaDonna seen this?” Jo must have shaken her head, because he said, “You better be damn glad.”

  Jo said, “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

  Angie heard footsteps across the room. A curtain was raked across a rod. Silence. More silence. Angie quietly upended her purse onto the floor. She had to load her gun. She had to be ready.

  Marcus said, “What are you going to do with that?”

  Angie froze, waiting.

  “I just want out.” Jo’s voice sounded frail. “That’s all I want. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

  “Jo-jo.” Marcus sighed. He didn’t say anything else. He was trying to figure out how to handle this.

  Angie tried to put herself in Marcus Rippy’s shoes. He was a smart man. He had probably been blackmailed before. He had used the motel before, too. He knew to look for the security cameras. He knew that the footage would show Jo and he knew that the manager had recognized his face.

  Angie took her hand off her gun. She kept waiting.

  Marcus said, “Fig’s not gonna let you take his son.”

  “He will if he knows I have a video showing him raping a girl.”

  No, Angie mouthed the word through the closed door. Marcus was in the video, too. Jo couldn’t be this stupid. You couldn’t show a man a video of him gang-raping a woman alongside your husband and expect for either of them to let you walk away.

  “If Fig sees that . . .” Marcus gave a heavy groan. “Jo, he’ll fucking kill you.”

  Jo didn’t answer. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that her husband was going to kill her.

  “You want money?” Marcus sounded angry. “That’s what this is about? You’re trying to blackmail me?”

  “No.”

  “You show me a video of me and Fig having a little fun and—”

  “That girl was raped. She was almost beaten to death. She had the GBI investigating—”

  “You know that ain’t on me.” He was obviously trying to control his temper. “Come on, girl. We were just having some fun. That’s all.”

  “She looks drugged.”

  “She’s a junkie. She knew what she was doing.”

  Jo was silent again. Angie’s ears hurt from straining so hard. All she could hear was her own heartbeat. Fast. Scared. This was too dangerous. The girl on the tape had to be Keisha Miscavage. This was Will’s case that Angie had made go away. She’d paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. If there was a video, then Jo was sitting on a gold mine.

  If she made it out alive.

  Marcus said, “I can give you money.”

  “I don’t want money”

  “Then what the hell do you want?”

  “My son.” Jo’s voice wavered. “I want my mother to be safe. I want to get a job somewhere and make an honest living.”

  “How are you gonna do that without money?”

  Jo started crying. Angie couldn’t tell if the sobs were for real.

  “Come on,” Marcus said.

  “You can talk to Reuben. Tell him he’ll be off the team if he doesn’t let me go.” Jo’s voice had cracked on the last word. “Please, Marcus. We have a history together. We have love between us. I know that. I’m not trying to exploit you or take advantage of you. I’m asking as a friend. I need you as a friend.”

  Silence.

  “Marcus—”

  “
You know that isn’t my decision.”

  Angie waited for the girl from Starbucks to show up, to tell him that he was full of shit, that he was Marcus Fucking Rippy, that he could do whatever the hell he wanted to do.

  Jo said nothing.

  “Come on now,” Marcus said. “Sit down, girl. Let’s talk about this.”

  Angie heard the springs in the bed flex.

  Shit. He could rape her. The security footage showed Jo willingly going into the motel. Marcus could call it cheating. He could threaten to tell Reuben Figaroa and Jo would be even more trapped than she already was.

  Marcus said, “All that video shows is me having a little fun.”

  “I saw the end. She was begging for her mama.”

  Marcus didn’t respond.

  Jo said, “I heard her say it, Marcus. ‘Mother.’”

  “That’s not what you think it is.” His voice had an edge to it that Angie prayed her daughter noticed.

  “Marcus—”

  “I couldn’t even finish, okay? I had too much to drink. There was a lot going on that night. I just left. Whatever happened next, that ain’t on me.”

  Jo didn’t respond.

  He asked, “Is this the only copy?”

  Angie tensed. She silently willed words into Jo’s mouth: I made copies. I sent them to a friend. If anything happens to me, the police will get it.

  Jo said, “The only other copy is on the laptop at home.”

  Fuck.

  Jo said, “Reuben’s laptop. He leaves it in the kitchen. He wanted me to find it.”

  Marcus muttered something she couldn’t make out. Or maybe Angie was distracted. She had the rabbit-eared iPad in her car that contained a copy of every single file from the kitchen laptop. Why hadn’t she looked at it before?

  Jo said, “Reuben doesn’t care what I see, because he knows I’m too scared to do anything about it.” She gave a sad laugh. “I am too scared. I was terrified to come here. Those two times we were together, I couldn’t think about anything but him coming into the room and shooting us both in the head.”

  Marcus kept silent.

  “I can’t get a cup of coffee without showing him on my phone where I am. I can’t drink water at night because I’m not allowed to leave the bed to go to the bathroom. I can’t leave the house without his permission. I can’t eat food that he doesn’t approve of. He checks the logs on the treadmill to make sure I run my three miles every day. He’s got cameras inside the house, the bedrooms, the bathrooms. I cut myself shaving my legs the other day and he knew about it before I even got out of the shower.” Her voice sounded raw, desperate. “I’m kept like a damn animal in a cage, Marcus.”