The van stopped. She heard the driver's door open, then shut, the sound of him walking around the back.
"I'm going to open the door. Don't try anything."
The door opened, flooding the van with light. He stepped in, flicked on the roof light, and closed the door.
"Don't scream, I'm warning you." He was a big man. He grabbed her hand and twisted it, so that she was on her back.
She kicked him as hard as she could. He leaned his knee on her chest and she hit him with her fists. Her blows did not bother him. He pulled out a roll of duct tape, tore off a piece, then put it over her mouth. She punched at him but he was big and heavy and his knee was pressing down on her. He turned her on her side. With the next piece of tape he bound her hands behind her. Then the ankles, even though she kicked at him. When he was done she lay on her back, wriggling, trying to free herself.
He took one more piece and held it over her.
"Close your eyes," he commanded.
She did. The tape went right over her eyes, catching a few strands of her hair.
He seemed to be in no hurry. She could feel him straddling her, so close she smelled the gum he was chewing, something like cinnamon. "You escaped me once," he said, "but not this time."
His hand moved down her blouse, tore it open. She could hear him breathing loudly through his nose. The hand felt her breasts, mashed them. Then it was between her legs, pulling down her underpants, the dirty thumb hooking up inside of her, hurting her. It probed and wig
gled, then slipped out. Again she heard him breathing through his nose. She wondered if he was smelling his finger.
She felt herself being turned over and tied up with the rope. It was tight, around her hands, arms, and legs. She could feel him cinching the knots.
Then came the bucket, right over her head, duct-taped to her clothes, her breath echoing in her own ears. Darkness upon darkness. He might have said something to her but she could not tell what it was. She went limp with exhaustion, her clothes soaked with sweat. She felt the van door close again and the vehicle begin to move, and she was jolted backward along the hard metal floor, trussed, helpless, with no hope that anyone knew where she was.
"A wheelchair
gigolo?"
"Yes, he only—you know—does it with women in wheel-chairs."
Connie lowered her voice into the phone. She didn't want anyone to hear her, including the house staff, who knew too much about her, anyway. "Old women?"
"No, no. Young, thirties, forties, maybe fifties."
"They
pay
him?"
"Well, yes. They pay him a lot, I heard. But they don't mind. It doesn't seem like much,
considering."
"Considering what?" she asked.
"Considering how good he is! You'd be surprised how many women with money there are in New York City who are in wheelchairs. You know, from falls, back problems, multiple sclerosis . . . hundreds, anyway."
"I never see them, though."
"Most kind of
hide.
I've got one in my building. That's how I found out about him."
"And your friend, how often does he—?"
"Once a month, about. Her husband never touches her. Not in
years
."
"Did she tell you about what—oh,
God,
wait, just a moment." Connie listened for the sound of the men coming down from the roof. Her husband and the funny little Chinese man named Chen whom
they'd just had to dinner were up on the terrace having drinks and smoking cigars. They'd been up there awhile already. What could they possibly be discussing now? It had been the absolutely worst dinner conversation ever—stilted and weird, mostly because the guy's English was so bad, not to mention his skills with a
fork,
with Bill acting as if the man was some kind of high-powered global chieftain. Well,
sorry,
she knew who all those guys were, especially the billionaires in Hong Kong and Singapore, and this guy didn't rate. Bill said some other men might join them later. She listened again, heard nothing.
"Sorry, go on," she said, "you were saying her husband never touches her and she and the gigolo guy do it and all that."
"The neighbor heard them one afternoon, heard
her
."
"Come on! Who
is
he?"
"Well, he's like this tall logger guy in a flannel shirt who lives outside the city. He's like maybe twenty-nine, thirty. Comes in for one week a month. Kind of just
does
everyone, then leaves."
"That's—isn't that kind of sick? Or weird?"
"Actually, I think it's sweet."
"Well, they do
pay
him."
"Sure, but he doesn't have to do this! I heard it all started because he used to deliver Christmas trees and firewood into the city each winter, just a regular job, and I guess one time it was a woman in a wheelchair and one thing led to, like,
another
."
"I say he's on a weirdo power trip."
"That's what I thought. Exactly. But I heard differently. He's supposed to be gentle. Firm but
gentle.
A lot of these women are in chronic pain, are very stiff in the joints, weird medical conditions, the spine . . . you can
imagine
some of the problems."
Connie felt an odd irritation and clicked her fingernails against the inlaid table she'd found in—well, wherever it had been, Portobello Road in London, Rue Jacob in Paris, maybe. "It's got to be—"
The bedroom intercom buzzed.
"Connie," barked her husband's voice. "When those guys get here, send them up to the roof. Right away."
"Yessir, Mr. Husbo." She clicked off, returned to the phone. "I was saying it's got to be a weird power trip thing."
"Connie, I'm telling you that's what
I
thought."
"Until—?"
"I saw him."
"What?"
she gasped.
"I talked to him."
A gust of jealousy went through her. "You did?"
"He's nice. Very intelligent. Maybe even a little
shy
."
Why did this information torment her? "Does he, you know, do
regular
women?"
"That sounds kinda desperate, Connie."
"It
is
kinda desperate."
"What happened to that guy you had?"
"He started getting close to finding out about Bill, you know, how much money there was."
"What's, you know . . . going on with Bill?"
"Well, I
do
love him. But, you know . . . did I ever tell you he pisses in the tub every morning?"
"Oh-migod."
"As long he's interested in something, one of his ridiculous deals or why some billion-dollar company is not doing well, he's bearable. He's got one like that right now, tonight. I try to encourage him, you know, give him
something
to do! Otherwise I'd—"
"You'd be out buying a wheelchair!"
"Don't tell anyone else about this guy! I'm
serious!
Pretty soon
New York
magazine will do a story on him and everyone will know and it'll be ruined."
"Won't tell, promise."
"You know how to meet this guy?"
"Sure. He comes by the building."
"When next? I want to—" She heard the building intercom buzzing. "Sorry, I got to go do this. Hold on."
The roof terrace was reached by a private elevator within their apartment. She'd insisted they put it in so that she didn't have to use
the regular elevator, which, after all, had an operator in it all the time, and she liked to go up to the roof in a bathing suit to exercise or sunbathe. The intercom buzzed again and she opened the door and was surprised to see five men in business suits, each carrying a briefcase. One of them was that little old man named Elliot she'd met years ago.
"Must be quite a party you guys have planned," she noted as he politely shook her hand. "But I guess girls aren't invited."
Elliot smiled in distant amusement. "Your husband is a remarkable man," he said. "And I cherish his friendship."
"Bill is up on the roof with a certain Mr. Chen, who's here from China."
Elliot looked her in the eye. "Mrs. Martz, I can assure you we are very familiar with this Mr. Chen."
She took them inside the apartment and down the hall to the other elevator, watched them get in, then remembered—the wheelchair gigolo!—and hurried back to the phone.
Longest trip of her life.
They'd lurched along some kind of avenue in Brooklyn—she could tell by the stop-and-go traffic, the honking and sirens—then made a turnoff across bumpy ground and then she heard a truck engine and smelled
shit,
a cosmic enveloping gust of it. Like the van was tunneling through a mountain of the stuff. Then the van stopped a few seconds later, a garage door of a building was slid upward, and the van pulled inside. Now she just waited. She had an uncomfortable feeling between her legs where his thumb had been, and she could smell her own sweat and fear. Her neck ached from the struggle. But it was the tape over her eyes that hurt most. It was stuck to her eyebrows and lashes, and every time she blinked, the tape pulled. She breathed through her nose, the sound of it in the plastic bucket close to her face. Tough to hear much else than that, but now she could feel the van's engine switch off, and she heard the van's front door open and close, then the side door slide open.
"All right," his voice came to her, low and mean and firm, "I'm taking you out. Don't fight me."
She wanted to fight but didn't have it in her.
"Nod your head to show me you understand."
She did this, the bucket hitting her chest.
She felt his big hands grab her like a piece of cargo and drag her awkwardly across the metal floor of the van.
Then he picked her up and flopped her over at the waist, his shoulder in her stomach. He was carrying her—
down,
she thought. She heard a creaking noise. A strange abrasive chemical smell filled her nostrils, sickened her.
He put her down on something, a bed or sofa.
"You're pretty light," he said. She didn't know what this meant. "Now hold still, I got to do something to you."
She tensed, expecting the worst. But he was only wrapping something metal and heavy around her waist that settled against her hips. She heard a key click.
"I'm going to take off the bucket."
She felt the tugging of the tape at her clothes and hair, and when the bucket came off she no longer heard herself breathing through her nose.
His fingers touched her face and she started to struggle and cry.
"Hey! I'm just taking the tape off your mouth!"
She forced herself to be still. The chemical smell really bothered her, made her want to vomit, actually. Or maybe it was him—how close he was to her. She felt his fingernails picking at the end of the tape and the tape itself pulling away from her left cheek, her lips, then her right cheek. Stung as it was pulled away. She worked her face muscles a bit.
"Here's a bottle of water."
Something touched her lips. She shook her head violently.
He cuffed her. "Drink it. Don't be stupid."
She did, opening her mouth blindly, trying not to choke. It was regular water, so far as she could tell.
"All right," he began. "I know your name is Jin Li, however it gets pronounced. But who are you, anyway?"
She cleared her throat. She wished she could see him. "Why should I tell you?"
"Because I fucking told you to tell me!"
"Who are
you
?"
"Me?" He followed the question with a snort.
In that one word she heard an entire philosophy: a combative pride, utter disbelief that the universe so ignored him, and beneath that, the unmoored fury of self-hatred.
"Yeah, who are you?" she said brazenly.
"Me, I'm one who wins. That's what my name literally means, in fact."
"What is it?"
He hit her, hard. "I'm asking the questions. Don't forget that."
Her head spun and she fell backward, expecting to be hit again. But she did not forget what he'd said, not for a moment.
"All right, I got some questions. Were you in that car with the Mexican girls?"
I don't want to be hit again, Jin Li thought.
"No."
He hit her again. "Yes, you
were.
Now I know you are a liar and now
you
know that
I
know it. Got that? Okay? Don't fuck with me, right? All right—the limousine. Who were the Chinese guys in the limousine looking for you?"
Oh, Jin Li thought, he knows things. I'm going to have to be careful about everything I say.
He didn't suspect yet.
Still thought he was enjoying a social visit. Still thought this was a polite mating ritual between wealthy men. Brandy and cigars. Bragging about China's economy, its foreign-currency reserves, its deep-water navy, its planned moon shot. Well, this wasn't a mating ritual, but one of them was certainly going to get fucked. And it's not me, thought Martz. They were sitting out in teak lawn chairs, the Manhattan skyline blazing around them. Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State, the bridges to Brooklyn, the lighted windows far and near both intimate and grand. Even Chen, with his pumped-up self-importance, seemed impressed.