Suffer the Flesh

Chapter 1

I can help you.

Those had been the words that started it all, words that changed Zoey’s life.

She turned the corner of Fourteenth Street at Union Square, bumped into a vendor hawking honey-roasted nuts, watched a skinny Jimmy Walker lookalike sell fake Rolexes out of a leather briefcase worth more than the items he was trying to unload. Mobs of downtown Manhattan commuters rushed past her into oblivion. She ducked into a bookstore on Seventeenth Street.

“I can help you.”

Clutching a book to her chest, she glanced at the woman standing beside her. Zoey knelt before the endless volumes of dieting self help on the Barnes and Noble shelves. “Excuse me?”

The woman knelt beside Zoey and flipped her long blonde hair over one shoulder. “I can help.”

Zoey blinked. “I think you’ve confused me with someone else. I didn’t ask for help.”

“But you want it, don’t you?”

“What?” Zoey stood, her knees popping. She scratched an itch on her eyebrow and shifted the books from one hand to the other.

The woman followed her up from the crouch. “Hey, look, it’s no biggie. It’s just… well, I’ve been there. I know what it’s like. I know how to fix it.”

Zoey didn’t know what the odd woman was talking about, only knew that it wasn’t the most uncommon thing to have a few unstable people approach you when you lived in New York City. Even in Barnes and Noble. Even crazies enjoyed a good read.

She shrugged and laughed nervously and moved slowly away from Powter and Atkins and sidled toward New Age.

“My name’s Mel. As in Melody. Would you stop moving away for just a minute?”

Zoey stopped. She trailed a finger along the shelf as if inspecting for dust. Then she saw it coming. The expression on Mel’s face, the way she cocked her head and pursed her lips and squinted her eyes. That look of judgment. Zoey knew what was next—the commentary.

The advice. A few hundred clichés. Zoey often had retorts for them, but mostly not. Most of the time it wasn’t worth it, and retorts rarely had the desired impact.

Zoey sighed, crossed her arms over her chest. “What is it?”

“I used to be your size.”

Knew it. “What are you selling? Weight Watchers? Jennie Craig? NutriSystem?”

“No.”

Zoey waited for Mel to continue. Felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment, and anger toward her own reaction. Why was it that she felt the need to accept other people’s views of her?

“It’s not a diet.”

“Pills then. Supplements?” She’d heard it all. Metabolism boosts, speed, all-protein diets, all liquids, all fruit, count calories, count fat grams, exercise till you drop. There was nothing new out there.

“Will you let me finish?”

Again, her cheeks flushed, reduced to this by a total stranger.

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you. But you’d never guess, because it’s not a diet or pills, nothing like that. It’s… well, it’s more of a regimen.”

“What, a fat camp?” Zoey laughed. “If you’re trying to sell me something, you’re not very good at it.”

Mel smiled sadly. “It’s just… see, this isn’t . . .” She pulled at her lip, twisted the corner. “I shouldn’t even be telling you this. There are recruitment requirements.”

“Recruitment? What is it, boot camp? Is this for the military?”

Mel shook her head.

Now Zoey was intrigued. She noticed how attractive Mel was, how thin, and she felt a twinge of jealousy as she often did when seeing a thin, beautiful woman. She had no idea how beautiful she was herself.

“Are you interested?” Mel asked.

In what? She didn’t know any more now than a few minutes ago. “What’s the cost?”

“No cost. Are you married?”

“Married? No—why?” Zoey tilted her head.

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Zoey.”

“Kids, Zoey? Pets? Serious relationship?”

“No to all of the above. But—”

“You’re a perfect candidate. No commitments.”

“For what?” She swallowed, not sure why she suddenly felt apprehensive. A no-cost plan that didn’t include dieting. But now she was getting the third degree from Mel, this unusual woman she’d met only minutes before. What was there not to be wary of?

It reminded her of a sales pitch she’d received a year earlier, a company trying to convince her they were the wave of the future in telecommunications and that she should invest huge sums of money and become a seller. The truth was, everything had a catch.

A price. “So this is free? And I’ll lose weight?”

“Absolutely. I used to be a size twenty, and now I’m a six.”

“What’s the catch?”

“Look—I’m not supposed to say anything else. They already know you’re interested—”

“They?”

“So my part of this is over. Good luck, Zoey.” Mel turned away and headed toward the escalator. Glanced back over her shoulder as she descended. “Please don’t hate me…”

Mel’s parting words sat like a rock in the pit of Zoey’s stomach.

Reading and book buying were suddenly of no interest. This was too bizarre. She needed chocolate. Zoey headed uptown, found a Baskin and Robbins and ordered a rocky road sundae. Her attempts at death by chocolate were never fatal. Wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand because she’d forgotten the napkins. Mel’s words ran through her head, and little of it made sense; she’d been so cryptic.

Who were they? And when were they going to contact her? How could they?

She headed west toward the subway, toward the N train that would bring her home to Queens.

Several blocks from her destination she was approached by an aggressive homeless man, asking for spare change. She tried to ignore him, to maneuver around him, but he kept blocking her. She moved toward the curb but he was faster, seemed to anticipate her moves. He smelled like urine and sweat, his hands crusted with grime.

She looked around, searched for help, a waste of time in a city that wasn’t known as the City of Brotherly Love. Passersby inspected the sidewalk as they rushed past, giving wide berth to the lunatic confronting her.

“C’mon, girlie, cost ya’a quawta ta pass.” He grinned, surprisingly white teeth somehow more startling. There was something disturbing in his smile, something she couldn’t determine in those fleeting moments.

“You got too much food in ya, girlie.”

In spite of her fear, in spite of the dread, embarrassment spread on her cheeks like a disease. To reference her weight was the secret weapon. Zoey was ready to wave the white flag, to empty the contents of her wallet into his filthy, diseased hands just to shut him up. To detract attention away from her, from her size. He was a dirty fighter and she was defenseless against him.

“What’s going on here?” Police officer. Zoey’s heart sank. Had he heard the lunatic’s last remarks? “You okay, miss? He hurt you?”

The homeless man was being cuffed and led into an unmarked police car. She hadn’t even noticed them approach.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ll give you a ride home.”

“It’s okay, I live in Queens. I can take the train.”

He smiled, his lingering gaze making her uncomfortable. His eyes roamed her thighs, hips, stomach, chest, face. As if sizing her up. She couldn’t tell if that was disgust in his eyes. There were men out there who were attracted to large women, but she usually wasn’t interested in them. She wasn’t comfortable enough with her own size.

“Not a problem,” he said, his brown eyes droopy. He removed and replaced his cap, revealing a severely receding hairline. “It’s SOP.” He waved his arm toward the unmarked car, the only indication that it was a police car its cherry, still flashing.

She never asked to see his badge.

Once inside the car, he closed the door behind her. The windows and doors had no handles—it looked as if they had been broken off. A mesh grille separated the back seat from the front. The interior smelled like corn chips, the floor littered with empty soda and beer cans. The seat was ripped.

A second officer got in and sat beside her and pulled his door shut by the edge. The badge on his chest said MURPHY. A short-cropped beard obscured half his face.

Murphy banged on the screen and the car began to move. “Don’t you want to know my address?” she asked the man beside her.

“Sure. You said Queens.”

“Right, Astoria.”

He leaned forward. “She lives in Astoria.”

The officer driving nodded.

“Do you want my address?” Zoey’s breath quickened, and her pulse accelerated, though she didn’t know why.

Murphy stared out the window.

“But—” But what? Maybe she was pissing them off. Maybe they’d get pissed off enough to dump her somewhere in Brooklyn.

She leaned back and slumped against the seat, watching the midtown traffic trickle by, hypnotized by the nonstop rush-hour traffic, pedestrians crossing against red lights, and they carefully maneuvered in and out of cars like pinballs. Her thoughts drifted to the confrontation with the homeless man, how he’d accosted her, how fortunate she was the police just happened to show up.

Wasn’t that good luck?

It finally clicked, suddenly realized why she felt uncomfortable. She glanced out the window and noticed they were heading north on the East River Drive, not even close to the Queensborough Bridge, the way home.

She leaned into the mesh grille, wrapped her fingers in the wire. “This isn’t the way.”

“Sit back and relax,” Murphy said.

Traffic had thinned out, and they were driving the speed limit. The city was disappearing behind them at an alarming rate as they passed Yankee Stadium and headed toward the George Washington Bridge. Bile choked its way into Zoey’s throat. Her heart pounded.

Still they drove, crossing the bridge into New Jersey. After a while the driver made a series of turns down empty streets, onto back roads, until they reached a deserted area, an abandoned plant. Zoey squashed herself against the door. Tried to scream but her

lungs were frozen.

Fake Officer Murphy smiled. “Take it easy. We’re not going to hurt you.” He reached toward her and she cringed. “Look, you can make this easy, or not. You wanna be a pain in the ass?”

They never tried to hide their identities. Even if she cooperated, why wouldn’t they kill her? She could pick them out of a lineup.

The car stopped rolling, and Murphy said, “Let’s go.”

She sucked air, threw back her head and screamed. “No! No, please!”

Murphy took her arm, and she wrapped her fingers in the mesh, bloodless fingers gripping for life, willing to relinquish only if chopped off. He reached around behind her and brought his hand down over her face, covering her nose and mouth with a rag. Her fist flew wild, trying to connect with his nose, head, any part of his body. But then her body relaxed and collapsed on him, fingers loosening their death-grip on the wire. Somewhere beneath was a layer of panic, but she drifted away from it. It struggled to resurface, but for now, bliss.

“The hell did you use?” The driver opened her door and caught her before she slumped to the ground.

“Just something to mellow her out, Jason. She’s still with us for now.”

“Good. Then she can walk. I’d hate to have to carry this one.”

Jason laughed. He poked Zoey in her side. “Come on, princess, get out.”

Brain fog blocked thoughts of resistance, and she groggily lifted her head. Slowly she slid across the seat and fell out the door when she tried to stand.

The men laughed.

“I love watching them on this stuff,” Jason said. “Look at her—she can’t even stand.”

On her hands and knees, Zoey moved, groping for something to hold on to, blindly searching for a rock or a stick to use as a weapon.

“She’d better get used to that position,” Murphy said, and both men cracked up.

“Hey, there it is,” Jason said.

Zoey lifted her head, saw the van heading toward them from the distance. Tipped over on her side, physically unable to struggle any more, but her brain continued to scramble for a way out.

The van pulled up, and Zoey saw Jason talking to the driver. Out of desperation her head was clearing, charged by pure adrenaline.

Murphy, Jason, and a third man circled her.

“She can walk,” Jason said.

The van driver shrugged. “Not a problem. Let’s get her in the back.”

Struggles against the men who pulled her to her feet were weak, half-hearted. Still dazed, disoriented, she offered little resistance. Roughly they shoved her into the back of the van, pushing her onto a stained mattress that reeked of stale tobacco and wet dog. They flipped her on her back and secured her arms and legs with restraints fastened to the sides of the van. She tugged on the straps, her mind focusing, panic rising. Van driver hovered over her and flicked a syringe. Swabbed her upper arm and warned her to stay still. There was no longer any use in resisting, and a needle broken off in her arm would make things worse. Eyes closed, head rolled back, Zoey sobbed as she felt the prick of the needle, felt the liquid burn its way into her bloodstream, and moments later she drifted off.