Deliver Me From Evil (5 page)

A
ll kinds of prostitutes, from elderly women to teenage boys, worked day and night, seven days a week, rain or shine, along San Pablo Avenue, a gritty street that ran from Oakland to Berkeley and way beyond. They did their business between parked cars, stretched out on the ground, with a homeless person as the lookout; in the backseats of their tricks' cars; or backed up against walls in back alleys.

But the ones who really meant business did theirs in some of the cheap motels up and down San Pablo Avenue and some of the nearby streets. With rooms that they rented out by the hour, some of the motel owners had the nerve to offer cable TV. It had been a long time since I had been inside a motel as tacky as the one I was in now. If Jesse Ray hadn't given me a job and fallen in love with me, I would probably be on my back in bed with some stranger in motels like this one on a regular basis by now. I had not been a bad youth, just confused and impulsive. Back then it seemed so cool to be like that. I had wanted people to like me so I'd eagerly become part of the wildest crowds. Not only had I fucked my brains out, I had done just about everything else, including drugs and thefts. It would have been easy for me to slide into prostitution. But by marrying me, J.R. had saved me from a life of despair. Well, almost. The attention and the respect that he had once given to me had made me feel better than I had in a long time. I had worked hard to reinvent myself and for a while it had worked. The housewives in my posh neighborhood had no idea how happy I was to be among them. It saddened me that it had come to this.

I had to rub my nose because there was a foul smell in the air, and it was so potent, I couldn't tell where or what it was coming from. Last week they found a woman who'd been dead for three days under the bed in one of these motels. The bed that I was standing next to sagged in the middle, but I was not about to look up under it. When I sat down on it, with my hands tied and my eyes covered, I sank into what felt like a deep valley. I gritted my teeth as Jason snapped several Polaroids of me, which he was going to deliver to Jesse Ray after the second telephone call.

“That's right. That's right,” Wade said in a breathy voice, rubbing my leg as he squatted on the floor by the bed like a director. “Get one more of her face from the side. Baby, poke your lips out,” he ordered, pinching my thigh. “That shit looks real dramatic,” he said, clapping his hands.

“All right. This is as much as I can stand of this,” I snarled. “Take this shit off me.” I had already started wiggling the ropes from around my wrists.

I was disappointed when the blindfold came off because Jason was the one who had removed it. He stood there grinning, with that one tooth he had left at the top of his mouth hanging from his gums like an icicle. When he touched me, with hands that looked like paws, my flesh crawled.

Wade was standing over me, looking at the pictures I'd posed for. I refused to look at them as I snatched my clothes up off the floor and got dressed. I didn't even have to look at Jason to know that he was enjoying every inch of my naked skin that he could see with his beady eyes.

It had been a long day, and it was going to be a long night. Around eight, Wade drove Jason back to wherever it was he lived these days. I didn't want to know any more about that man than I needed to know. And I knew more than I wanted to know already. I was glad that he didn't even know about my bogus plan to flee to Hawaii after we'd collected the money from Jesse Ray. I had warned Wade not to tell him. Especially now that the plan had been initiated.

I knew I would have trouble sleeping. For one thing, I had to wonder how Jesse Ray had explained my absence to his mama and the rest of his family. Since they all lived with us, and were so used to me being there to fix dinner for them and clean up behind their sorry asses, they would get nosy and impatient right off the bat.

After I watched television for a while, I glanced at my watch, surprised to see that it was a few minutes past nine o'clock. Adele, my bitch-on-wheels sister-in-law, sat around with rum and Coke and waited for me to braid her hair every night around nine. I knew that by now she was mad as hell. The fact that I had not been there to prepare dinner and bathe my invalid mother-in-law would have already set her off. These were just a few of the rituals that I'd endured every night for almost a year. That's how long my sister-in-law and her family had been living with us. To them, that's what “a little while, until we get back up on our feet” meant.

I pretended to be asleep when Wade returned to the motel room a couple of hours later, cursing as he tripped over the empty pizza box that Jason had left behind on the floor. He took a quick shower, then crawled into the weak bed with me, naked and rubbing on my butt with both hands and his throbbing dick.

Despite the fact that I had arranged my own kidnapping to get money from my husband so that I could start life over as a single woman, I still had feelings for Jesse Ray. My history with him had not been all bad, and no matter what happened and where I ended up, even if it meant jail, I'd always be grateful to Jesse Ray for all the good he had done for me.

I didn't love Wade the way I had always wanted to. He was not the kind of man that I would marry and have babies with. He was more like a real-life fantasy. And, in the real world, no woman in her right mind married a fantasy. But he'd been my first love and my steady lover for the past several months. I cared enough about him for that. How could I not? The fact that he had been a “maintenance man” in a lot of other women's lives (and probably still was) over the years didn't bother me. He still made me feel special.

Especially when he agreed to help me commit a crime that could ruin us both for life if we got caught.

A
s much as Wade turned me on, I still ignored him rubbing and patting my crotch. I had had enough sex for one day. He wouldn't let me off that easily, though. He slid my panties off and fucked me, anyway, all the while thinking I was asleep. For the next hour, he rode me like a mule before he slumped over to his side of the bed like a boneless corpse.

I had had some very long nights in my turbulent life, but this was the longest night that I'd ever had to get through. But the ruckus that the hookers made running in and out the rooms on both sides of us, and fussing, fighting, and fucking their tricks, would have been enough to keep me from getting to sleep, anyway. And, even though this was not a family-friendly motel, somebody outside had a baby and a dog that were crying and howling so much, I could barely tell one from the other. I couldn't have slept if I had wanted to. I knew that I wouldn't really sleep well again until after Jesse Ray had paid the ransom money for my return.

If he did.

I was still wide awake when Jason returned to the motel around ten the next morning. Grinning as usual, of course. I was annoyed and angry to see that Wade had given that punk a key to the room. I didn't have a key. Not that I was going to be out taking a morning stroll or anything, but to me, it would have made more sense for me to have a key than Jason.

“I figured y'all would be hungry,” Jason said, stumbling into the room, holding a brown paper bag. “These bear claws is a day old and the coffee is kind of weak, but I went to the cheapest and closest place I could find.” He took out one of the bear claws and bit into it with that one tooth, his whole face twisting from left to right as he chewed. Then he set the bag down on the dresser, looking me up and down. I was still naked, thanks to Wade. But I had the covers pulled up to my chin, so it didn't do Jason any good to roll his eyes up and down my body, hoping to see my crack through a crack in the covers.

“Thanks, man,” Wade said as he fished the two cups of coffee out of the bag. He took a quick sip, making gurgling sounds in his throat. “Baby, you need to eat something,” he said, handing me one of the bear claws, which looked like somebody had been playing with it. I shook my head. “Uh, listen, me and Jason, we decided to go call my man from a pay phone today, like you suggested.”

“I'm glad to hear that,” I said, sitting up. I made sure that the covers were still up around my chin. “I wish you had done that yesterday when you called him.” I dragged my fingers through my matted hair and slid my tongue around inside and outside of my mouth. The taste of my gums, teeth, and lips was enough to make me sick. But I didn't want any coffee, any of the beaten-up bear claws, or anything else in my mouth except some mouthwash or toothpaste, which I didn't have. But more than anything, I wanted this episode to be over and done with. “What about those pictures we took yesterday?” I said, looking from Wade to Jason.

“What about them pictures?” Wade asked, talking with his mouth full.

“What are you going to do with them?” I wanted to know.

“We are going to use them. What did you think I took 'em for, woman?” Jason snapped.

“Jason, I wasn't talking to you,” I said, shaking a finger at him. “I was talking to Wade.”

“Well, I'm talking to you. And while I'm doing it, I want to tell you that you got one hell of a mouth on you, girl. No wonder you couldn't keep your husband happy,” Jason sneered, talking and chewing at the same time. A hard look crossed his face, and he stared at me with so much contempt, I felt a sharp pain shoot up my back.

“I didn't want you involved in this in the first place. And if it was up to me, you wouldn't be here now,” I reminded. “This is my”—I paused and tapped my chest with my finger—“my game. If you don't want to play it by my rules, you can take your fucking bear claws and get the hell up out of here. And, with your lovely record, I know I don't have to worry about you blabbing about any of this.”

Jason was still chewing, but the look on his face had softened. He blinked and swallowed hard. “We ain't going to use them pictures unless we have to,” he muttered, looking at Wade.

“Jason, I'm in the room, and I'm the one talking now. I asked the question about the pictures, not Wade. You can address me,” I said, with a smirk. “After we get the money, you won't ever have to see me again.”

“Woman, I don't know why you be tripping. We are all on the same side,” Jason said, speaking to me but
still
looking at Wade. Then he slurped from his coffee cup like a hog at a trough.

“Both of y'all need to chill out. We got business to take care of,” Wade said, shaking his fist in Jason's face but looking at me. “Baby, you better stay in the room while we're gone. I seen a pay phone about two blocks down the way.”

“What are you going to say to my husband this time?” I asked, still glaring at the side of Jason's face. I flinched when he let out a loud belch.

“First, we need to find out where my man's head is right about now. If things are going our way, I'll tell him when and where to drop off the money.” Wade paused and gave me a thoughtful look. “Once we get our money, well, it's over. You do what you got to do. I do what I got to do. Any questions?” He looked from me to Jason.

“Hell, yeah! I got a question! When do I get paid?” Jason asked in an anxious voice, moving toward the bed. Crumbs decorated his chin and lips. It was only then that I noticed that Jason looked cleaner and neater than he'd looked the day before. He wore a nice crisp plaid shirt and a pair of jeans that somebody had taken the time to iron. The creases in the legs were razor sharp. Whatever he was doing to the women in his life was working. Or, if he was as lucky as Wade, one of the women taking such good care of him was his mama.

“Calm down, brother. You'll get your money when old J.R. gives me my money,” Wade said firmly, giving Jason a hot look.

“I think you mean
my
money,” I said, ignoring the ominous feeling that suddenly came over me. The feeling that I had was one thing, and that was bad enough. But the way that Wade looked at me gave me a chill that went all the way down to my bones.

I
didn't know how long Wade and Jason would be gone this time. And even though I was nervous and on edge, I was glad to be alone so that I could have some time to myself.

I had no appetite. The way my stomach was feeling, I didn't think I'd eat again until I knew for sure what Jesse Ray was going to do. My throat was dry, but by now the coffee that Jason had brought was too cold to drink. I emptied one of the cups and used it to get some water from the faucet in the bathroom. I was only able to swallow a few sips, and I almost threw it back up. The water was cloudy and tasted like metal.

I tried to get some sleep as I crawled back into the bed and curled up under the covers, still naked. Maury Povich was on the TV screen, with some trashy-looking, big-footed woman screaming at the married man she'd been having an affair with.

But no matter how tired I was or how hard I tried to doze off, all I could do was lie there and think. There were a lot of things on my mind that I needed to sort through. My future was the most important. But I couldn't ignore my past and the things that had happened to me then that had driven me to my present point of desperation.

I had spent most of my childhood looking for love, but in all the wrong places. And I had tried just about every trick in the book to get it. I didn't have any family other than Daddy and Mama. At least none to speak of. But from the vague stories that both my parents had told me, usually in whispered voices, I had a few family members left somewhere in some little rural village in Guatemala occupied mostly by blacks and Indians.

After enduring forty-eight hours of the worst labor any woman had ever experienced, according to Mama, she had given birth to me. “And you was such a homely little beast. You had eyes like a dead fish, hair like barbed wire, and a snout like a pig,” she often told me, adding, with a mysterious smirk, “Praise the Lord, your face eventually settled in the right direction.” That was as close as my mother ever came to telling me I was good-looking. And coming from her that was quite a compliment.

My untimely, unplanned, and unwanted birth had occurred at home, in the two-bedroom apartment that my parents had lived in at the time, on a dead-end street in North Berkeley, California. We moved from that place when I was eight, but I will remember it until the day I die. Eight other people, from the same oppressed Central American country as my parents, had lived with us. They slept on the living-room floor, on cardboard pallets lined up like corpses. And that was literally the case with one man. One night, as I stumbled through the living room to get to the bathroom, I stepped on the man's head. He was an ugly old creature that we called Abuelo Pato, Spanish for Grandpa Duck. He looked more like a frog than a duck to me, and the one time that I mentioned that to my mother, she slapped me halfway across the living room. When he didn't move or say anything, I knew something was wrong. But I didn't say or do anything. After I did my business in the bathroom, I stumbled back to bed.

The next morning, when I found out that the man I'd stepped on was dead, I thought I'd killed him. I was the only child in the house, so I didn't have a high position. I stayed in a child's place. I spoke when I was spoken to, and nobody bothered to ask me anything about the dead man. I walked around in a daze for the next few days, convinced that I'd caused a man's death. Each time somebody knocked on our front door, I almost jumped out of my skin, terrified that it might be the cops coming to haul me off to jail. I was just about ready to pass out at the funeral when the preacher saved me by muttering something about the old man dying from a heart attack in his sleep. My life returned to normal, which was not saying much.

There was not much in my life for me to be happy about. I had no friends or real toys to play with. The television that we had only got two stations: One was a home shopping channel, which was useless because nobody in our house was interested in costume jewelry or Ginsu knives. The other channel was in Korean.

It was no wonder I was always doing or saying something to upset Mama. Like the time I walked into the bedroom I shared with her and Daddy and saw another man with her on the bed. They didn't see me, but as soon as Daddy got back home from his janitor's job at a nearby office building, I met him at the front door, yelling at the top of my lungs, “Daddy, Mama was sitting on a man's face!” Daddy didn't respond, so I assumed he didn't hear me. But Mama heard me all the way from the kitchen. She flew into the living room and batted my head with a spatula. For the next two days, she reminded me about the long labor she'd survived on account of me and how ugly she thought I was when I was born.

Just before I turned nine, Daddy got a job driving for some shady-looking white man who owned a restaurant with a bar that a lot of rich people went to. I thought that he was shady because every time I saw him, he had on dark glasses, even at night, and a black hat and dark clothes, which made him look more like a bandit than a businessman. Mr. Bloom lived in a big beige mansion in the Berkeley Hills. Up until then, the only work that Daddy and Mama had ever done in the States was farm or janitorial work.

Right after Daddy started driving for the shady businessman, he talked him into hiring Mama as a nanny for his three children. Like gypsies, we moved from one miserable old building after another. Moving around so much was the only way we could eventually get rid of all our “roommates.” Each time we relocated to another apartment, it was always one that was smaller than the one before, so Daddy had a good excuse not to drag all of his rootless countrymen along with us. By the time we found a one-room studio apartment that was so small, it looked and felt like a doll-house, it was just Mama, Daddy, and me.

With the long hours that my parents worked, I pretty much had to raise myself. During that time, I felt that I didn't belong anywhere. The days that my parents would leave the house before I got up and would come home after I'd gone to bed, I felt like an orphan. I roamed the streets like a stray dog. I started smoking when I was ten and drinking a year later. When I couldn't steal any of Daddy's cigars and when there was no alcohol in the house, I stole what I wanted from convenience stores. Sometimes I stole from the parents of some of the unsupervised kids I ran amok with. Nobody ever told me not to do it or that it was wrong. So I kept doing it.

About a year later, the restaurant owner bought up a bunch of old apartment buildings throughout the Bay Area. He made Daddy the manager and maintenance man of one in Berkeley. The neighborhood was fairly rough, but Daddy didn't have to pay rent as long as he managed the building. My folks didn't like to spend money, so I knew that as long as we could live rent free, we would be in this place. And I was glad.

It didn't take long for me to make some new friends. Across the street from us lived a Mexican family with nine kids. The only girl, Maria Cortez, was my age. We hit it off right away and before I knew it I was hanging out with Maria and some of her friends. Like me, they were not really bad kids. But I was glad to see that they were not as confused and impulsive as I was. Our conversations almost always included sex. I was the only virgin in the crowd so I tried to absorb as much information as I could. I couldn't wait to have my first sexual experience so that I could see what all the fuss was about.

Maria had to look after her younger siblings so she didn't have too much free time on her hands. “Christine, be glad you are an only child. You can do whatever you want and not have to worry about changing diapers, cleaning toilets, helping cook dinner, doing laundry and all the rest of the bullshit I have to do,” Maria told me. “You can have all your time to yourself. You a lucky girl.” Compared to Maria I guess I was. I had time to spare.

After school I would go home and watch television and eat whatever I wanted to eat. It was a good thing I enjoyed healthy things, like fruits and vegetables, as much as I did candy and soda pop. I was as healthy as I was supposed to be. But there were other things around me that were not healthy. The lack of guidance was one. Because there was nobody around too much to tell me what to do and what not to do, I did whatever I wanted, and I didn't have to worry about any consequences.

I was so hungry for attention that I put myself in a situation that cost me my virginity on my thirteenth birthday. Nobody raped me or took advantage of me like with so many of the other girls in my neighborhood. I initiated my first sexual encounter myself.

He was one of the many boys in our neighborhood that a lot of the parents had warned their daughters to stay away from. But that only made him more appealing. My parents had not warned me to avoid this boy or any other boy, so their interference was one thing I didn't have to worry about. Almost every time I saw him, some girl was up in his face, trying to get his attention.

Not only was this boy cute, but he was popular. By the time he caught my roving eyes, he'd already been with just about every black, Asian, Latino, and white girl I knew. He was already in high school, and even though I'd seen him looking at me long and hard, he had not approached me yet. But in the Bay Area, life was too short for some people. I didn't know how much time I had left, so it made sense for me to speed things up. I trotted over to his house the Friday after Thanksgiving to return a roasting pan that Mama had borrowed to cook our turkey in and to bring the twenty dollars that his mama, Miss Louise, was borrowing from Daddy. But my real purpose for going to his house was to claim what I thought should have been mine a long time ago.

As soon as I realized that the boy was home alone, I backed him from behind into a corner in his mama's kitchen, wrapped my arms around his waist, and kissed him on the back of his neck. I still had the twenty-dollar bill clutched in my hand. Even though the house that he and his mama lived alone in was large, the kitchen was small. There was barely enough room in it to accommodate the appliances and the large table in the middle of the floor. But it was neat, and the floor looked like it had just been waxed.

Not only did Miss Louise have a handsome son, but she was a clean woman. She kept such a clean house, you could eat off the floors. But she was also a materialistic woman with extravagant tastes. A lot of people didn't like her, because she borrowed money from everybody she knew to support her expensive habits. She even borrowed from me the pocket change that I made running errands for old people.

“Girl, what's gotten in you?” he laughed, pushing me away. He grabbed my wrists and turned around to face me. He had eyes like a cat. They were gray and shiny and so mysterious that when I looked into them, it seemed like I was looking into his soul. I felt something that I had never in my life felt before, and it was something I would never forget or stop searching for: passion. I would have settled for some kind of affection from just about anybody, but I only wanted to experience passion for the first time with this particular boy. I was getting signals from places on my body that I had never paid any attention to before. My crotch alone felt like it was on fire, so I wanted to get this over with as soon possible so I could cool off and move on to something else. In addition to having sex, there were a lot of other things that I wanted to do while I was still young enough to do them.

I started rubbing his dick with both of my hands as hard as I could.