Aphrodisiac (7 page)

Hearing tires on the pavement behind me, I turned. There it was. I stared into the headlights of the black Hummer. I prayed it would simply keep going and drive on by. Instead, it cruised down the street alongside of me. I looked around for company, but saw only empty sidewalks and tall, shadowy buildings. Not consoling.

I walked faster. The Hummer matched my speed. I stopped, pivoted and jogged in the opposite direction. The car screeched to a halt and shifted into reverse. Heart pounding, I broke into a fast run and turned onto Adams Street, thinking they wouldn’t dare go against the traffic on a one-way.

What traffic? There was none at this hour. This was DUMBO, not the raucous East Village.

The Hummer charged straight up hilly Adams Street and slammed on its brakes next to me. A car door swung open. Suddenly I felt the powerful crushing force of a man’s arm wrapped around my ribs. My screams were drowned out by the Q train roaring across the bridge directly overhead. In one quick motion, a man the size of a linebacker scooped me up like a toy and tossed me into the back of the Hummer.

I found myself pushed on top of the rear cargo area in between the two backseats. I sat facing front in the boxlike space, with my brawny abductor in the seat next to me. The instant he pulled the door shut, the bald, heavyset man at the wheel hit the gas pedal. I heard the clunk of the doors being locked.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, holding back my panic.

“We’re off to see the wizard…Dr. Oz.”

Tell me I’m dreaming. How did he know my name? My foreboding reaction to the unidentified Hummer was apparently very real.

The oversized ringleader smiled, his eyes and mouth a trinity of narrow slits. A short buzz cut accentuated the squareness of his cinder block shaped head. He’d taken my pocketbook and now rested it on the floor next to a large knife. “Yep. We got ourselves a real live sex therapist. Ain’t that right, Doc?”

I’d done enough crisis intervention work to witness how trauma can induce bizarre interpretations of events within the victim, but I’d never experienced it personally. Tonight my horizons were expanded. For a moment I actually believed this was all a spoof. The guy in the front passenger seat even reminded me of Forrest Gump and kept staring at me with that same dim-witted expression.

My delusionary fantasy ended quickly when the ringleader said, “I think the Doc needs an exam. Fifty bucks says she’s gone Brazilian.”

“Nah. Something tells me she’s old school,” the Gump guy said. No Southern twang. Just a dose of South Jersey.

I clamped my knees together and folded them to my chest.

“Aw, she don’t wanna play, Curtis,” the driver said.

Curtis? He began stroking my leg.

“Keep your filthy hands off me, you bastard!” I smacked his arm away and scrambled toward the opposite window. Pounding on the tinted glass, I shouted for help.

The man they called Curtis grabbed me by the hair and yanked my head back so hard I thought he’d break my neck. “I’ll do whatever I fuckin’ please, woman. Now shut your mouth. No one can hear you, anyway.”

I broke into a sweat as his hands found their way up my legs. Oh no. I realized something else.

“Ooo-eee! No panties!” He nearly shattered my eardrum. The laughter in the Hummer eclipsed my cries for help. I tried to close my legs together again, but Curtis held them apart.

“Smooth as a baby’s behind,” he said. “Prettiest pussy I’ve seen in a long time.”

Faux-Gump chimed in, “Yeah, man. Really sweet.”

I started kicking, punching and flailing my arms and legs. Anything to get me out of this car.

Curtis held me down. “Relax. Relax. Don’t be nervous. We won’t hurt ya.”

I reminded myself that I’d dealt with dangerous people before. Years ago while working with violent schizophrenics at a state mental hospital out on Long Island, a particularly mean psycho, nicknamed Happy Harry by the staff, cornered me in my office, and I walked around for a month with the bruised imprint of Harry’s fingers on my throat.

One thing’s for sure, the staff on hand this time weren’t exactly trained in the helping professions. So, get a grip, I told myself. Study the surroundings. Commit everything to memory. Black Hummer with tan interior. Guy with first or last name of Curtis in white T-shirt, baggy camouflage pants and boots. All three men had numbers tattooed on their forearms in black ink. The one on Curtis read thirteen. I tried to think of what details the police would need when I got away.

If
I got away.

Faux-Gump had unzipped his fly and pulled out his love club. Definitely Gump-Gone-Bad. Curtis sat up and cracked him in the head with his hand. “Put it away. Remember, we got orders.”

Orders? From whom? With shaking hands, I straightened out my dress, covering myself. Curtis didn’t stop me. I was beginning to think I might actually get out of this Hummer in one piece. He lowered his face close to mine. I liked to encourage all my clients to stare their demons in the face, but his foul pepperoni pizza breath nearly made my eyes water. “How about you lead us to it right now?”

“Lead you to what?”

“Don’t fuck with me. What were you doing last night down on Beard Street?”

Bingo. Gwen’s loft. They must’ve caught a glimpse of me and Binnie climbing down the fire escape. I went bold. “Why were
you
there?”

A hard slap cracked the side of my face, bouncing me against the window. Curtis grabbed my arm and shook me. “I ask the questions here. You got it hidden somewhere, don’t you?”

“Honestly. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Gump-Gone-Bad leaned back. “Chub Dubs is gonna be pissed if we don’t come up with something.”

“Shut your mouth,” Curtis snapped.

His teammate’s words obviously hit a nerve. They were working for somebody else. Who was Chub Dubs? Curtis slid his hand under my dress and put a nasty clamp on my privates. My precious poo-poo would never be the same.

“No more games, fuckin’ bitch pussy.”

Interesting choice of words. Say hello to Uncle Pete’s diction coach. Big surprise.

“You’re gonna be a real sorry if you don’t tell us where it is.”

“Where
what
is?”

“Your friend’s little recipe.”

Recipe? Of Gwen’s? She was the world’s worst cook. “Believe me, the only recipe of hers that I know is the one for her apple-walnut brownies.”

Gump-Gone-Bad lit up. “Man, I love brownies. Especially apple-walnut.”

That cost him another whack on the head from the big guy. Curtis turned back to me. “Don’t play innocent,” he said in low growl. “You were in on it. You and that bony egghead bitch. And I can prove it.” He slid a paper out of his pocket and unfolded it in front of my face.

I recognized the postcard. Gwen used to keep it tacked on her bulletin board. It announced the seminar she and I had presented together called Fragrance And Sexuality. Between my website and the yellow pages, finding my address must have taken them five minutes.

Curtis waved a blank-book journal with a floral cover. “Check this. A little goodie that was tucked under her mattress.”

I glanced at him. Was I actually looking at the person who murdered Gwen? The thought sent a shudder through me.

“Listen up.” Curtis flipped open the journal. “Straight from the horse’s mouth—‘Only Saylor knows where I hid the tablet.’ ”

Hid the
what
? “You’re making this up. Trying to sucker me.”

He held it open for me to read. There it was in Gwen’s handwriting—“Only Saylor knows where I hid the tablet.”

I do? Gee, thanks, Gwen. Just what I needed. A reason for them to kill me. Way to go, you brilliant klutz. Come up with an ingenious way to conceal my name in the suicide note, but leave it in your journal. Then again, I doubt she was expecting a visit from the people-snuffers.

Meanwhile, what the hell was she talking about? What tablet? Gwen did use the word “tablet” to refer to some of the inscribed stone and clay relics she’d deciphered in her work. But most of them belonged to the university. She had her own small collection of fossils and shards, though I doubted any were of great value.

I looked at the other text on the page. Nothing in it specific enough to give me a clue. Fragments of poetry, some archaic terminology. Typically idiosyncratic of her. I went to turn the page, but Curtis snapped the book closed and threw it on the floor.

The look in his eyes tripped my motormouth into gear. “Cool your jets. This can all be explained. You have to understand Gwendolyn Applebee and the way she did things. We’re talking major league eccentric here. Really off the wall—”

Whap!
I tasted blood on my lip.

“Don’t tell me what a nut she was.” His hand grabbed my throat. “I tell her she’s gotta write a suicide note and instead she makes a stupid crock of shit good-bye poem. Says her friends would expect that of her. Pissed me off. I know her kind. Snobby bitch. Thinks she’s one up. So cultured. Like I never read no poetry? And hers stunk.”

Meet Gwen’s killer. Was I next?

He released his grip. “We’re going back to the Hook, and you’re gonna show us what you were looking for last night. Or you ain’t coming back.”

Fight the panic. Think fast. “Wait a minute. If you kill me you’ll never get the tablet.”

Curtis twisted my arm behind my back and pulled. A searing pain traveled through my entire body. He upped the pressure.

I grimaced and squealed out, “Please. Stop.” I struggled to speak, my words intermingled with groans. “You’ve got to believe me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He let go of my arm and acquainted me with what must have been the biggest, meanest hunting knife this side of the Yukon. Using the tip of the blade, he lifted up my dress and poked it gently into my stomach. He pressed a little harder on the knife. I felt a prickle, then a sting.

My body trembled uncontrollably. “Do you think I’d risk my life over one of Gwen’s crusty old tablets? I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know anything about it.”

“That’s not what your friend said in her journal.” He pulled the knife from my belly and now placed the sharp blade against my throat.

Tears rolled down my face. “If she did tell me, it must have been a while back. Gwen was always yapping about her fossils. Honest. I never paid much attention.” He didn’t blink. Think fast. Real fast. I raced my words. “Give me a few weeks. Just because I don’t remember now doesn’t mean I can’t figure it out. I knew Gwen better than anybody. So, why kill me if I’m the only one who knows?”

“Your life don’t mean a thing to me. Refuse to cooperate, what good are you? That answer your question?”

I’ll say. His reply sucked the air right out of my lungs. “But I really don’t remember.”

“She’s too scared to be lying,” said Gump-Gone-Bad. “I don’t think she knows.”

Remind me to bake him some brownies. I tried to steady my voice. “Please, just give me some time.”

Curtis tilted his head and squinted his eyes. Portrait of a hit man lost in thought. “I’ll give you one week to refresh your memory and come up with it.” He pulled away the knife. My body let go of its tension, and I felt myself take a complete breath.

The pudgy driver snorted. “She’ll head for the cops.”

“Nah. She ain’t that stupid.” Curtis snatched my pocketbook off the floor in front of him and rifled through it, taking the twenty dollars I had left. He found my tin of Peppermint Peckers,

looked up at me and shook his head.

I shrugged nervously. “Good conversation starters.”

He grinned and slid the tin into his pocket. “I got a conversation piece you’ll
really
like.”

Next Curtis picked up my cell phone, fussed with it until my number showed, then handed it to me. “You’ll need this. ’Cause I’ll be calling you.”

I spotted the keys to our DUMBO loft on his index finger. “I’ve moved to a building with twenty-four hour security. And I can change my locks.”

“If I want in, I’ll get in.” Curtis dropped the keys back into my pocketbook and stared me hard in the face. “And don’t think any kind of police protection is gonna keep you safe. Same goes for a freakin’ PI or bodyguard. I got me and my posse. Go to the cops, and I promise you— we’ll find you before they find us.”

“What if I have to leave the city as part of my search for the tablet? For all I know it could be in Connecticut or New Jersey.”

“Just bring me the tablet next Saturday. And don’t pull any crap. ’Cause if you do, remember this: you have a mother in Florida, that queer you got for a brother in the Village and your fat aunt with the red hair.” He caught the surprise on my face. “Got ’em all marked down as collateral. Oh, yeah. There’s that Latino sidekick of yours, too. Don’t show, or go running to the cops—we go straight down the list.”

He leaned in close. “You got till next Saturday. Don’t mess up. Otherwise, I’m gonna take care of that little pussy of yours real good next time.”

With those endearing words, Curtis jammed my pocketbook into my chest. He told the driver to pull over. The car stopped. Curtis opened the door. “Out.”

Scrambling over his knees, desperate to reach the sidewalk before he changed his mind, I felt his hand grab my naked butt. A rough squeeze, then a shove that sent me stumbling out onto the curb.

As they pulled away, the light from the streetlamp made it possible to get their plate number. I was repeating it to myself when I got distracted by their bumper sticker: “Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty.” Was I missing something?

I stood there alone, feeling numb, but refusing to slip into gaga land. Time for a little self-applied crisis intervention. I focused on whatever strengths I had going, no matter how slight. Anything to keep me out of victim mode. I had survived. It might not have been pretty, but then neither was living through a tornado or a train wreck. In my own way I had kept my head about me and managed to use my big mouth to keep myself alive¬—at least for the next seven days.

Should I risk going to the police? Not if it meant putting my family and Benita in danger. I had no doubt Curtis would make good on his threat. After all, he murdered Gwen. There was no question about that. Not anymore. And Curtis settled my debate with Benita over the PI. Scratch that option.