Every Man a Menace (26 page)

“How much for a room?” Jackie asked.

The female clerk stretched her neck to see Jackie. “Thirty-five,” she said without smiling.

A guest sign-in sheet sat on the other side of the glass. Jackie could read it from where she stood. Gloria had signed in to visit someone named R. Gaspar, in room 32.

“Who’s in thirty-two?” asked Jackie. “Is that Robert Gaspar?”

“We don’t give out information,” said the woman, shaking her head.

Jackie took out forty dollars from her back pocket, held it up for the woman to see, and then slid it through the slot. “There’s a man named Gaspar that used to stalk me,” she said. “I don’t want to stay with him if it’s the same one. He’s dangerous.”

The woman got out of her seat and took the forty dollars. “His name’s Raymond Gaspar,” she said.

“What’s his date of birth?” asked Jackie.

The woman stood there. Jackie slipped another twenty through the slot. “He might be my stalker’s brother,” said Jackie. “Come on, woman to woman.”

The woman looked through a box of notecards on the desk. “March twenty-second, nineteen eighty,” she said.

After warning the woman not to mention anything, for her own safety, Jackie thanked her and left.

Later that night, she looked Raymond up on the Internet. A private investigator database that Roberts had installed on her computer revealed that the man had a criminal record, but it didn’t give any details. She switched to the California Department of Corrections Inmate Locator Site and entered his name. He had been released from prison just that week. An almost narcotic feeling of excitement filled Jackie’s chest.

She called in Johnson Lake for another set of eyes. She began following Raymond Gaspar, while one of Lake’s men stayed on Gloria. She followed Raymond to Shadrack’s house on Colby Street, and followed the two of them to the house near Dolores Park. After seeing a few other people enter the party, she joined a group and went in. She tried to listen as Raymond spoke to the people near the fire. The man was clearly high on something. When he kicked over a glass of wine, she helped clean the floor. The next day, she had Lake put a man on Shadrack, as well.

At night, when she went home to rest for a few hours, she had trouble sleeping. Her excitement felt like an infection. They were getting close. The shipment was coming. But that excitement had to be filtered through the drudgery of twenty-four-hour surveillance, and a near constant state of anxiety. But she couldn’t stop. She learned to pee into a
bottle—not an easy thing for a woman. She brought her meals for the day with her each morning. Her back ached from sitting so much. It was hard to stay awake. The days started to blend together.

She arrived on Gloria’s block at 7:15 a.m. The man she was relieving, Johnson Lake’s man, was parked three houses in front of her. He tapped his brake twice to signal his departure before driving off. Gloria typically left at twenty minutes past eight, and things proceeded as usual that morning. The tan minivan was parked in the driveway, as it always was. The driver came out first; he sat there alone for a while, maybe three minutes, with the engine running. Finally, Gloria emerged and stepped into the van. The driver backed out of the driveway and pulled away.

The moment Jackie turned her car on, she sensed something was wrong. It was like a vague premonition, something in the air. She sat there for a moment and considered whether she should follow them as planned or whether, today, she should just let them go. The van was disappearing around the corner in front of her. She counted to three and made up her mind.

When she rounded the corner, she was surprised to see the van sitting there, stopped in the middle of the street. Jackie stopped twenty yards behind it. Another car stopped behind her a moment later.

Nobody honked. They all just sat there.

Jackie watched as the door of the van popped open. The driver stepped out and began walking toward her. She still could have driven forward then, swung hard onto the sidewalk and made her way around them, but she didn’t want
to show her hand yet. It was a suburban Bay Area street; it wasn’t illegal to be there. She decided to sit tight and feign innocence. She breathed in deeply and arranged her face into a look of friendly confusion.

The man wasn’t Gloria’s normal driver. Jackie had seen him coming and going over the last few weeks; he looked to be nearly sixty. He was skinny, and wore sunglasses. His cheeks were pockmarked. His pants were silky, and he walked with a friendly gait. Jackie looked in the rearview mirror and saw that a young Asian man sat waiting in the car behind her. Gloria’s driver had reached her door. She lowered her window a few inches, smiled, and asked if she could help him.

The man returned her smile. As he did, the reverse lights on the rear of the van lit up. It was backing toward her. Now her car was truly pinned in. Her eyes went back to the man at her window.

“What’s up?” she asked.

The man reached out and tried to open her door but it was locked. Jackie, in a panic, rolled her window up. The man removed his sunglasses and hung them from the top button of his shirt. Then he put both hands against the windshield and lowered his face to it. It was the kind of gesture a joking grandfather might perform for a child, but the effect was not the same. He smiled, and she saw that one of his front teeth was capped in gold.

She could ram the van, she thought, but she told herself that she could still act her way out of this. She held both hands up near her head in confusion.

“Open it,” the man said. He produced a black pistol and tapped her window with it. It made a horrible sound, cold and hard:
tap, tap, tap.

Everything blurred from there. The man, after looking all around to confirm they were unobserved, began screwing a silencer on to his gun. When he was done, he pointed it toward her head. She unlocked the door.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked, when he’d pulled it open. “What’d I do?”

“You’re not police?” asked the man. He had a Filipino accent. His face looked genuinely concerned. He held the gun loose at his side now.

“No, I’m—what? I’m driving to work.”

“Ah—and your work involves what?”

“I work at a school,” Jackie said. “I’m a teacher.”

The man used the gun to point at the watch on his left wrist.

“It’s a little late to be teaching, right? Teachers go to school at seven thirty. It’s after eight thirty already.”

“I don’t know who you think—” She willed authority into her voice. “It’s not acceptable to go around and …”

“I’ve never met a teacher who follows a woman for days on end.”

Jackie’s mind went blank. “No?” she said.

He bent down so that his face was close to hers. The scent of cigarettes, coffee, and the soap on his skin drifted into her car. “I’m going to sit down in that seat,” he said. He pointed at the passenger seat with his gun. “I’m sure it’s a little mistake, a simple misunderstanding. You can
explain everything, and then we’ll have you on your way, back to your classroom. Please, don’t do anything stupid.” With that he closed her door and walked around the back of her vehicle.

She watched him in her rearview, and then turned and watched him approach the passenger side. She could still lay on the horn, ram the cars. But she didn’t do anything. She couldn’t. He opened the door and sat down.

“Good,” he said. He leaned toward her and pressed the horn gently. The car behind them backed up.

“Drive back that way,” he said.

“I have no idea what you think is happening,” she said.

“It’s fine—nothing—back up, back up,” he said.

She had to turn halfway in her seat so she could see. The man with the gun stayed facing forward, a dreadful look hung on his face. As the car reversed, she spoke slowly, sounding out each syllable to emphasize her innocence: “I don’t know who you think I am. Please, I’m begging you. I wasn’t trying to follow you. If it seemed like I was, I apologize.” She used her American accent. She sounded like a girl born and raised in California.

“Back in there,” the man said, pointing at a driveway. “Back into it and then turn around. I’m sure it’s fine. I guarantee you, no problem.” He pointed his gun at the van in front of them. “But she wants to talk to you before the police are called. You know? Normal business. Go.” He pointed toward Gloria’s house.

Jackie, unable to stop her hands from shaking, steered the car back toward the house. Her chest clamped shut with fear.

“Please pull into this driveway,” said the man.

Jackie turned into Gloria’s driveway, the same one she’d been watching for weeks. The car that had been behind her parked on the street. The tan minivan pulled behind Jackie, boxing her in. Gloria sat in the driver’s seat.

The man next to Jackie rubbed his forehead as though he had a headache. Jackie looked at his gun, imagined snatching it out of his hand, but couldn’t bring herself to try. The front door of Gloria’s home sprung open and a young man dressed like he’d been asleep came out. He was talking on a cordless phone. He walked right up to Jackie’s window and looked in at her. He spoke Tagalog; Jackie couldn’t understand him. She looked at her rearview mirror and saw Gloria speaking into a cell phone. They were talking to each other.

“This is so stupid,” said Jackie. She shook her head and held her palms up.

“I know,” said the man with the gun. His expression made him seem as annoyed as she was.

“I’m going to be late, and I’m fucking pissed,” said Jackie. She banged on the steering wheel with the heel of her hand.

The man standing outside ended his phone call. He leaned down and studied Jackie’s face for a moment, as though trying to recall if he’d ever seen her before.

“I have no clue what you want,” she said, speaking loudly through the closed window. “This is insane.” She ratcheted up her anger. “I’m going to call the police, I’m going to sue each and every one of you for false imprisonment, and I’m going to get really fucking pissed off if you don’t let me go. You hear me?” She sounded genuinely aggrieved.

The man outside her window straightened up and looked around at the neighboring houses. He opened Jackie’s door
and motioned for her to get out. Jackie didn’t move. The man in the passenger seat pulled her keys from the ignition and dropped them into her purse.

“Please. No sound. Silence. No talking,” he said. He put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her out of the car. The man in the driveway had been joined by the other driver. They held their hands toward the front door of the house.

“Please,” said the one in pajamas.

Jackie turned and looked at Gloria. The woman was watching everything from inside the minivan; the expression on her face remained flat. It appeared her thoughts were elsewhere. Jackie again considered screaming, but fear of being hit, or worse, kept her quiet. The street was empty. She walked toward the front door.

“This is beyond unacceptable,” she said. “It’s fucking bullshit. My father is a top attorney in San Francisco. Do you understand? Lawyer!”

“Please,” the young driver said again.

The one in pajamas hurried ahead of them and held the door open. Jackie stepped into the house. The place smelled, not unpleasantly, like chicken porridge. The man with the gun pushed Jackie gently into the living room. Pictures of young children hung from the walls. She registered a bookshelf, a liquor cabinet. A doomed feeling spread over her. A moment later, Gloria stepped into the room.

“Hello,” the older woman said. She said something in Tagalog after that, and the man with the gun frisked Jackie. He searched her roughly, untucking her shirt, pulling it up, and rubbing her back and belly. He circled her waistband with his fingers. She pulled away from him.

“This is fucking bullshit,” she said, turning toward Gloria. “Ma’am, I don’t know what you think—I have no—this—” She breathed in deeply. “Please, I’m sorry. I have no idea what you think happened.”

Gloria waved for her to be quiet. The young driver walked into the room carrying Jackie’s purse. He dumped its contents onto the table. Jackie heard loose change falling, heard her keys fall out. “Give me that!” she yelled. She started walking toward the man with the purse, but the one with the gun grabbed her arm.

“Jesus,” she said. “What the fuck?”

“Shut up!” said Gloria.

The man at the table found her license and brought it to Gloria. Gloria took it and read the name aloud: “Candy Hall-Garcia.” She said something about
Candy
in Tagalog and the men chuckled.

“You can’t do this,” said Jackie. “It’s kidnapping. You could be in so much trouble. California does not—”

“Final warning,” said Gloria. “Shut up. No speaking until spoken to.”

The man searching through her purse handed Gloria her phone.

“Password?” Gloria said.

“I’m not—”

“Beat her until she says it,” said Gloria.

The pockmarked man lifted his fist like he was going to hit her.

“Okay, okay, fine, Jesus: One-nine-eight-five.”

She remembered too late that she’d been exchanging text messages with Johnson Lake. They’d used Gloria’s name.
They’d texted about Raymond and Shadrack and John. A dark clarity settled over her. Gloria stood silently reading from the phone for a very long time.

The expression on her face, when she finally looked up, suggested icy hatred. She spoke a long sentence in Tagalog, and one of the men disappeared down a flight of stairs into the basement.

“Sit,” said Gloria, pointing at the couch. Jackie sat.

“Move her car into the garage,” Gloria said.

“I can pay you,” said Jackie.

“The next time she speaks, I want you to break one of her fingers,” said Gloria. “This one.” She pointed at her own fourth finger. “Snap it.”

She set a wooden chair in front of Jackie and sat down, pressing her hands together in front of her face like she was praying. The man with the gun stood by silently. Jackie, no longer able to maintain eye contact, glanced at Gloria every few seconds. The other woman didn’t look away. She stared and stared.

Tears trailed down Jackie’s face. She sniffled, quietly. The sound of a dryer tumbling clothes could be heard in a distant room. Finally, breaking the silence, the young man downstairs called up, “Okay!”