The Dead Room

38

Darby watched Baxter pull a bottle of Budweiser from the cooler set up next to her chair. Her attention – her concern – lay with Coop. For some reason the expression on his face triggered a memory of her mother – Sheila pacing the emergency waiting room while Big Red was being cut open on the operating table; her mother, a nurse, already knowing that the window of hope had slammed shut, that her husband of twenty-two years had lost too much blood and was brain dead.

‘Now I always knew my mom liked coke,’ Baxter said, tossing the beer cap on to the balcony floor. ‘I caught her snorting it a couple of times with one of her boyfriends, but I had no idea how serious her problem was until Mr Sullivan told me. Mr Sullivan is Frank Sullivan, by the way. Everyone in town called him Mr Sullivan, even the old timers. The man was big on respect, as I’m sure Coops told you. Coops, you remember that time –’

‘Let’s skip the trip down memory lane, okay?’ Coop said. ‘Do you know the name of the cop or not?’

‘Maybe Darby here would like to know what it was like growing up here in Chuck-town with Mr Sullivan,’ Baxter said. ‘I’m getting the feeling you haven’t told her about your own, you know, personal experiences.’

‘Let’s go, Darby. This is a waste of time.’

‘So here’s Mr Sullivan coming up to me one day after school saying my mother’s been rushed to the hospital,’ Baxter said. ‘Overdose, he says. Naturally, I’m upset. My mom and me, we didn’t get along too well, especially after my old man split, but I was only thirteen and the woman, despite all her faults, she was my whole world, you know?

‘Mr Sullivan puts his arm around me while I’m standing there bawling, and the whole time he’s telling me not to worry. He going to take care of the problem, get this shit all straightened out, he says. I get in his car and he takes me to the mall to buy some new clothes, makeup, perfume – whatever I want, he says. No girl my age, he says, should look the way I do.

‘On the way home, Mr Sullivan tells me about all the money my mom owes for her coke problem – a figure that doesn’t include what she’s gonna owe the hospital since she don’t got no health insurance. So he takes me back to his house, tells me to go upstairs and get cleaned up ’cause we’re going over to the hospital so the three of us can sit down and have a nice little chat about how to fix the problem. I’m still crying and having this… this out-of-body experience I guess you could call it when Mr Sullivan decides to get into the shower with me. He tells me to be strong. I’ve got to be strong for my mother.’

Baxter took a long drag from her cigarette. ‘I always wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t decided to try and fight him. Maybe then he wouldn’t have used the gun.’

Coop pinched his forehead between his fingers. Baxter drank her beer. Darby stood stock still.

‘The girls I met were real nice,’ Baxter said. ‘They were around my age. They showed me how to get these guys off real quick.’

‘What girls?’ Darby said. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Mr Sullivan threw these private parties at these ritzy Boston hotels. He rented out the suites twice a month. Me and the girls he brought there had full use of the bar. Top-shelf stuff. And there was plenty of coke, H, whatever we wanted. I snorted a little H to take the edge off some of the rougher ones.’

‘How many times did this happen?’

‘I stopped counting after the first month or two.’

‘Did you report this?’

‘You mean to the police?’

‘Yeah.’

Baxter laughed. ‘Who do you think I was blowing at the hotel?’

Coop said, ‘I think we’ve heard enough.’

‘I didn’t learn about the videotapes until later,’ Baxter said. ‘Mr Sullivan had set up video cameras in case some of these cops, I don’t know, didn’t cooperate with him or something. I think he ended up selling the tapes to some porno guys in China or Japan. They’re into that real kinky shit over there. Hey, Coops, didn’t you see one of the tapes at Jimmy DeCarlo’s bachelor party?’

Coop didn’t answer. The sweat on his face had nothing to do with the heat.

‘What happened?’ Baxter asked. ‘To that tape, I mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, strangled by the words.

‘Oh. I thought you might have destroyed it. Doesn’t matter, it’s probably already on some internet site.’

Darby said, ‘Did you tell your mother what Sullivan did to you?’

‘She already knew,’ Baxter replied. ‘Mr Sullivan showed her the Polaroids at the hospital, the ones where he had a gun pressed to my head. The ones of me sucking him off – those really upset her.’

‘Your mother told you this?’

‘She didn’t have to. Mr Sullivan brought me with him to the hospital. I was there when he showed her the pictures. I think he wanted me there to drive his point home.’

‘Did your mother go to the police?’

‘Are you for real? She told me to keep my mouth shut and do my time or else I might wind up like some of Mr Sullivan’s other lady friends. Since I’m sitting here talking to you, guess what decision I made?’

Darby felt her head spinning, not knowing what was worse: the way the woman spoke in the emotionless tone of a lobotomy patient as she recounted the horrific details of her repeated rapes at the hands of cops and a former gangster; or how the horror had been sanctioned by her own mother.

‘Michelle,’ Darby said, ‘do you know the names of any missing women who dated Sullivan?’

‘Nothing’s coming to mind. Ask Coop. He dated a couple of Mr Sullivan’s young lady friends.’

‘No,’ he said, his voice raw. ‘I didn’t.’

‘That’s right, I forgot. You didn’t date them, you just screwed them. You and the other boys at the hotel parties.’

Coop pushed himself away from the railing. ‘I never took part in any of that shit, Michelle, and you know it.’

‘Hey, I’m not judging you for dipping your wick. That’s for priests, right?’

‘Fuck this – and fuck you, Michelle,’ he said. ‘I’m out of here.’

Coop opened the sliding glass door, then slammed it back against the frame. Darby watched him go, wanting to follow, wanting to know what the hell had just happened.