“Antoine didn’t tell you about someone he thought he saw at the Royal Street house on the morning after Errol died?” She shook her head again.
“Good, good.”
“But his wife, Rose, she came to see you?”
What was she to do? She shook her head slightly.
“Well, now, that sure is commendable. Loyalty while under fire. Want to try that answer again?”
A hand slid inside her top and rose to fondle her breasts. He undid her bra and used both hands to squeeze and push her breasts together.
“Want to try again, Celina?” the voice asked. “Rose came to see you.”
This time she held absolutely still while the beast she couldn’t see handled her with an intimacy that made her feel faint.
“Did Rose tell you Antoine had seen someone that morning?”
She shook her head. The air was cold on her naked breasts, and she realized the one man had lifted her blouse to give his buddy a view.
Please, God, don’t let them rape her.
“Enough!” the voice said. “Give it up now.”
She was promptly released. Her blouse covered her again.
“Okay, I believe you. But Rose did come to you, and I’m sure she showed you one or two things. Don’t bother to deny it. She had instructions about what she was to do. She came to you with some show-and-tell. But you haven’t told anyone, have you?”
Celina shook her head no.
“Good, good. My buddy here and I are going to have to give this situation some thought. That will take some time. Meanwhile, you just stand real still, Celina. If you do, and if we decide we can afford to let you go, we’ll be back for you. But if you get careless and fall off that step stool, well...c’est la vie. Isn’t that what they say?” He fumbled beneath the hood and removed her gag. “Wouldn’t want you choking to death on us. Nο one will hear you anyway.”
Their footsteps retreated.
She swallowed and moistened her chapped lips.
Not a glimmer of light showed through the bag over her head. Her bra had been left undone and rested bunched and uncomfortably taut beneath her breasts. How that kind of man reveled in humiliating people—especially people weaker than himself.
For a long time she heard no sound at all. Then came a sound she wished had stayed away. The scratch and scrabble of rodents. She smelled and felt the dampness. The rodents squealed as they went about their business.
Celina felt the extent of the step with her toes. No bigger than about ten by five inches, and squared off at the edges. Maybe the stepladder was homemade. What if it was weak? What if it broke under her weight...
In the distance she heard a clock strike. She couldn’t make out what time it was. Her darkness was utter, her fear overwhelming. Sweat streamed down her body. She braced her feet slightly apart, hoping to steady herself.
Not a single sound in this place. Even the rats had lost interest here and scampered on to more fulfilling real estate.
It was cold, cold as if she was standing in water that turned the air dank and frigid.
She heard water dripping somewhere. There was nothing but the darkness, and the solitary, measured drip. She was tired. She hadn’t known how tired until now when, despite her horror, she wanted to close her eyes.
A dog barked in the distance.
The bellow of a horn on the river quickly faded.
The drip continued.
They might never come back. Maybe she didn’t want them to. But if she remained where she was, eventually she’d have to sleep. Then would come the fall that went on and on. She would never get up again.
Sing. If she sang, she might keep herself awake. “Didn’t he ramble,” she sang. “Didn’t he ramble Didn’t he ramble Didn’t he...Didn’t...” If she made too much noise, they’d come after her again. She thought of the one who’d handled her, and shuddered so hard, her teeth chattered.
She hummed and hummed. Tuneless humming. When she’d won the Miss Louisiana contest, she’d danced. Tap-danced. She never could sing, but she really loved dancing.
Celina started to move her feet, then remembered, and steadied herself.
Somewhere in the building a door slammed. In the distance. Probably a metal door. It didn’t slam, it clanged. Not that it mattered.
Please don’t let them be coming back here.
Please don’t let that man touch me again.
“Didn’t he ramble Didn’t he ramble. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm. Didn’t he ramble.” She couldn’t breathe and sing. How could that be? “Didn’t he ra-am-ble. All around the town. Didn’t he, hmm, didn’t he, hmm, didn’t he?” She wanted to scream and scream and scream until someone came.
“Shh, shh.” Quiet, Celina. The only ones likely to come were them, the ones who would hurt her.
The beginning of a cramp hit her right instep. She wiggled her toes. Since she’d been pregnant she’d been susceptible to cramps in her legs. Probably because she wasn’t getting enough calcium. Babies took a lot of calcium for their bones and teeth. Their teeth were in their gums already before they were born. And they had fingernails and toenails really early. She’d read a book about that.
“Ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes.”
Drip, drip, drip. Were the walls plaster or metal? Or were they brick? The water might run down the brick in rivulets that switchbacked past uneven spots.
Would the brick be red or that yellow color?
If there was dripping, it must be coming through the roof. A one-story building with holes in the roof.
She must keep thinking, keep awake.
A door smashed shut again. This time a closer door.
“Goin’ back home. Back home to New Orleans. Home, sweet home,” She couldn’t remember more of the words. “Back home...home, sweet home. Go home, go home.” Something about a carnival queen.
The cramp knotted her instep this time. She pressed down on the ball of her foot. Another knot shot out on her calf. It ached to the back of her thigh.
Strength of will could overcome all. Any threat could be ignored.
She sucked in a breath and blew it out, worked her foot, sucked, and blew.
Light-headed. Oh, she couldn’t be light-headed. Light-headed and nauseated. Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed and gagged.
Fuzziness closed in around the edges of her brain. A misty picture at the center, a picture of nothing in particular, but framed with thick fog.
“Stay awake. Stay awake, please. You can’t go to sleep here. You have to wait till you go home. No sleeping. You’re not tired. Oh, no, you’re not tired.”
She forgot what she was saying and brought her lips together. Inside the darkness of the hood, her eyes closed. A quiet place inside her. Curl in and seek the silence. Inside you can be where no one can touch you.
The distant clock chimed again.
Celina sang some more, sang songs she couldn’t remember, but it didn’t matter. When would they come back for her? “Didn’t he ramble.” Maybe they would just pull the stool away. Maybe that’s what they’d planned from the start. They might try asking her some more questions, but only to give them an excuse to misuse her some more if they decided she was lying.
Drip, drip, drip. What if there were a pipe leaking and the room was filling up with water? Soon she might feel the cold and wet covering her feet. She sniggered. Twice dead, that’s what she’d be. Hanged and drowned. Would she hang first or drown first? Maybe it wouldn’t matter. Kind of like Errol. She might hang before the water went over her head.
Her eyes wouldn’t stay open. Her head ached and didn’t do what she wanted it to do. She couldn’t hold it up anymore.
Her left foot slipped and she jolted upright. “Didn’t he ramble. Didn’t he...Didn’t he...Didn’t...” Don’t fall asleep.
Just close your eyes. Lock your knees. It’s okay. Lock your knees and close your eyes. There, feels good. My head wants to rest somewhere. My neck hurts.
The cramp struck her calf once more. Celina crie
d out and lifted her foot. She stamped it down, curled up her toes, stamped again, and missed.
Her shoulders were birds’ wings. Trembling. Ready to fly. Α noose around her neck, like they put a line on a bird’s leg when they train it. The rope tightened. She fell. No way to stop the fall. My baby. She opened her mouth and yelled Help, but no sound came.
Slowly her legs buckled, and then she was on the floor, spread on her belly, her bones hurting, her flesh stinging.
The rope fell about her. She felt it like a long snake killed in midair and left to fall in coils. It hadn’t held, hadn’t hung her. They would be angry.
Consciousness began to slip away.
Laughter.
“Clumsy girl.” The voice of the man who hadn’t touched her. “Clumsy, clumsy girl. Good thing you didn’t have far to fall, hmm? Sit up, please.”
She opened her eyes.
“Sit up, please. Now.”
Celina scrambled to do as she was told.
“How was that? Have fun, did you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He coughed. “I’m askin’ if you liked your peace. Everyone needs space. Isn’t that what they say? We gave you some space and quiet. What did you fall off for?”
“Tired,” she mumbled.
“Time for you to go home, then.”
He was teasing her. Torturing her.
“Did you hear what Ι said? Time to go home.”
“Yes, yes, time to go home.”
“How about, yes, thank you?”
Celina said, “Yes, thank you. I thought you were going to—”
“Hang you, maybe? Well, we were practicin’ this time. Here, you can take this as a memento. Look at it anytime you’re tempted to say something you shouldn’t say. To someone who doesn’t have no business knowing.”
A hard object was thrust in her hands, shoved into her ribs.
“You don’t say anything’ about Rose, you got that?”
“Yes,” Celina said, whispering, feeling what he’d given her. “The top step of the ladder. It broke off.”
A high giggle to her right sent shivers over her body. “What?” she asked. “What did you say?’
“You’re holdin’ your ladder, baby. All of it.”
She passed her hands over it again. Anger all but made her throw the piece of wood she held.
“Two inches off the ground,” she was told, “and with a rope around your neck that was just draped over a beam with a little bag of potatoes weighting the end. Not tied to anything. Ain’t that rich?” He laughed, and his companion joined him. They laughed and snorted and coughed.
Celina dropped the wood on the floor.
The hands she hated hauled her to her feet and she was pushed forward. Her legs hurt so she could scarcely walk. Through the building again, lifted over high thresholds.
“You’re sick!” She shook her arms, tried to dislodge them. “You tried to terrify me to death. Sick!”
Their renewed laughter shattered the last morsel of her composure. One of them held her while the other replaced the gag. She sagged, but they held her up between them and half dragged her until she heard the van doors open again. She landed on the hard bed of the vehicle. Once more the floor sagged as one of the men joined her. Then they drove away.
It seemed a long time before they came to a stop. She waited for the second man to join them in the back, but he didn’t. Instead, the man who was with her opened the van, climbed out, and unleashed her ankles. Then he pulled her out.
“Now, you keep quiet, okay? Keep quiet, lean on me, and walk. We’re lovers out for a walk in the rain. Nothing unusual about that. It’s not far. Nod if you understand.”
She nodded
“Good girl. And while we walk, you listen.”
They walked. His shoes clattered on stone. Her softer shoes made little sound. “We’re almost there,” he said. “Now, you’ve been a good girl. And I’m not talking about tonight. This was necessary for a number of reasons. There are people who have to find out we mean business. You’re going to help us make that clear to them.”
She let her head fall forward and hung back. She’d pass out at any second.
He shook her gently. “Almost there. Then you’ll get some sleep. But listen to me. So far you’ve kept quiet about Rose’s visit. And if Antoine said anything to you, you’ve kept quiet about that too. I’d prefer to make certain you won’t ever be tempted to change that, but for now we need you alive.”
For now. They could come for her again. Of course they could.
“So this is what you tell your new friend. The one you’re so close to. You don’t tell him anything about Rose or Antoine. Got that?”
Yet again she nodded.
“Uh-huh. That’s it. That’s the way.”
He pushed her to her knees, gripped the cloth at the back of her neck, and pressed her face into something soft. “What you do tell Jack Charbonnet is that if we get wind of anything that’s against our interests, you’ll die. So will that nice little girl of his.”
Chapter 27
Sally let herself into the house through the kitchens. Everything was in darkness. She’d stayed at the hotel until night finally fell, then hailed a cab in the street and told the driver to drop her a block away from the house.
She didn’t want to see or talk to anyone.
After Cyrus left her at Maison de Ville, she’d cried. Why hadn’t she seen him for what he was before it was too late, and the Church had him. If she’d married Cyrus rather than Wilson, her life would have been different—better.
The book Cyrus had left with her was in her purse. She’d read it at the hotel, but it hadn’t made her laugh the way he’d promised. The Screwtape Letters. Letters from a lesser devil on the subject of winning humans. Maybe she’d laugh if she didn’t see herself in every weakness written about in those pages.
Tomorrow they’d talk about it and he’d make her feel better about herself.
When she reached the vestibule she made no attempt to stop in at any of the main-floor rooms. She wanted to sleep again.
“Took your time gettin’ home, didn’t you, sweetheart?”
At the sound of Wilson’s voice, Sally jumped and spun around. “You’re supposed to be at a meetin’, aren’t you?”
He lounged against the wall just outside his study. “Over a long time ago. And where was the lovely wife who was supposed to be at my side?”
She didn’t want a fight. “I’m tired, Wilson.”
“I asked you a question.” He straightened. “Where have you been?”
He had no right to order her about or to demand. “I’ve been out.” She took the black scarf off her head and looked straight into his face. “I need more time to myself. I’m sick of meetings, and smilin’ at people I don’t like, and being nice to people who twitter at me, then talk about me behind my back. It’s shallow. I’m about fed up to the teeth with shallow people, and shallow talk, and selfishness.”
Wilson sauntered toward her. “Why, that was quite a speech. I didn’t realize you knew that many words. You’d better be careful. If too many people hear you going on like that, they’ll start thinkin’ you’re not just a pretty face.”
“Good night, Wilson.”
“You’re not going anywhere until I tell you I’m through talkin’.”
“I am not your dog,” she told him. “Do you understand me?”
“Why are you wearin’ that ugly thing? You look like an Italian grandmother in mournin’.”
She smiled sweetly. “I wonder what some of your constituents would think if they knew you’ve got a nasty comment to make about every ethnic group on the planet.
“As long as I’m not with the group in question, what I say about them can only serve me well. My motto, beloved, is ‘Know thine enemies and scorn them when they’re not around.’ In other words, I’m a consummate politician—in all things. And don’t you just love me for it?”
“I hate you for it.” She
stopped with her mouth still partly open. Those were words she’d thought often enough, but never intended to say aloud.
Wilson’s smile evaporated. He narrowed his eyes and closed in on her. “Finally you tell the truth. People have suggested that you aren’t the faithful, supportive little wife you pretend to be, but I’ve always defended you. I’ve been a fool. Get in my study.”
She turned away from him and said, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“We’ll talk tonight,” he told her. He strode beside her and took hold of her hand. “We’ve got a few things to get straight.”
Sally had to run to keep up with him. He rushed her into his study and shut the door.
“Don’t manhandle me, Wilson. You forget, bruises show, and you can’t afford to have people wondering why the little wife looks as if she’s been beaten up.”
“I’m not into beating women,” he told her. “But if I were, there are plenty of places that don’t show.”
She sat down, but wouldn’t let herself look away from him.
“What were you doing at the Hôtel Maison de Ville?”
The breath she took choked her, and she coughed. She kept on coughing and got up to get some water from a carafe. Drinking gave her a chance to regroup.
“Well?” Wilson said.
Clearing her throat, she wiped at her tearing eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll make it plainer. Why did you meet Cyrus Payne, Father Cyrus Payne, at a hotel?”
She shook her head.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“You always had a soft spot for him. You wanted him when you were a kid. You were always oversexed. I haven’t forgotten what you did to him at the prom. He’d die if he knew you told me about that.”
“I doubt it.”
Wilson fastened a hand on her arm and swept her against him. “I guess you figured the poor, frustrated father would be ripe for you to pick, huh? How was it? Was it the ultimate kick for you—fucking a priest?”