The Price of Candy (22 page)

“I suppose you’re right,” I replied. “If
everyone made the correct choice, there’d be no novels and
movies.”

“Exactly, and no story about George. Anyway,
I wasn’t certain what I should do. Incredible as that seemed to me
later. I now think I was waiting for him to suddenly change back
into the old George. To stop acting that way. To be nice to me
again. When I realized the sex was really going to happen, I began
to think, okay I’m a big girl, it’s creepy, but let’s get it over
with.

“I didn’t believe him when he said I was free
to go. Didn’t believe the door was really unlocked. I didn’t think
he’d hit me if I tried to run, although I wasn’t positive about
that either. I wanted to cry, but I held back because I didn’t want
to act like a child. I was absolutely convinced he wouldn’t let me
go until he was tired of me. And knowing George that might be a
long, terrible time.

“But, you’re right, I didn’t leave...until I
finally started thinking again. Through all the fog and confusion
in my mind, eventually I decided my best action was to get him to
fall asleep. I didn’t think of that until a couple of hours had
passed and it wouldn’t have worked anyway until he was a little
tired. I pretended to fall asleep. He didn’t want to sleep. He
didn’t even want to rest. He was just getting started. He didn’t
like it and shook me. Finally, he moved away a little. I laid there
not moving a muscle. I was very cold. He was really sweating and
had turned the air conditioning on high, and I wasn’t covered with
anything except one of his hairy legs. It seemed like a month
before I heard him snoring.

“I was able to move away from him and get off
the bed without any noise. I didn’t dare breath. I gathered my
wrinkled clothes from the corner, went in the bathroom, and gently
closed the door. Damn! The noisy fucking exhaust fan came on when I
turned on the light. I cringed and froze, hoping he hadn’t heard.
Nothing I could do about it. I was exhausted. Didn’t want to look
in the mirror. I could imagine how I appeared, my hairdo
ruined—half up and half down. What the hell, nothing else I could
do. I dressed quickly, shut off the light, and slowly opened the
bathroom door.

“He was awake, sitting up in the bed watching
me. He ordered me back on the bed. He was now rested and
reenergized, ready to go at me again. My heart started pounding. I
gauged the distance to the door. I wondered if I could get there
and unlock it before he could grab me. If I could just get it
unlocked and opened, he’d have to run naked down the hall after
me.

“I took a deep breath and ran for the door.
It was unlocked. I looked back. He hadn’t moved. He didn’t look
powerful then at all, he looked foolish. You know what he said? ‘I
thought maybe you’d go along with it. I waited until you were
eighteen. I didn’t threaten you. I didn’t rape you.’ Later, I
thought about all the clever words I should have dumped on him to
put him down. I just wanted out of there. He didn’t make a move. I
left. I could have left at any time, and that thought continues to
upset me.

“I’d been an idiot. This nobody jerk tells me
to take off my clothes and instead of telling him to shove it, like
an idiot I say nicely, what are you doing, George? Of course, it
was rape. But I didn’t even get that until much later. I hadn’t
said no, so how could it be rape?”

“I’m so sorry for you, Betty Jo.” I took my
eyes off the highway and glanced over at her. She didn’t seem to be
emotional for having recounted such a disturbing episode. But I was
truly stunned. I told her, “Sorry you went through that. I’m so
glad you were able to get out okay.”

She turned to face me. “So I got screwed,
Freddy. I wish I could start that day over. But you can’t let
things like that haunt you. What did you get for your eighteenth
birthday?”

“I guess it’s healthy you can joke about it
now. Didn’t you want to get back at him, to hurt him?”

“If I’d told Jimmie, he’d have gotten a
shotgun and blasted George between the legs just enough so he
wouldn’t die. I thought about telling him. He’d hunt George down
and do it right now if I asked him. If I could find him. Jimmie’s
married now. But at the time, I just wanted it all behind me. To my
thinking, there was no hurt I could lay on him that would equal
that rape. Even if I tortured him with a red-hot iron. He’d already
had me. Luckily it was two hours instead of two days, but what he
took I can’t take back. The memory of me on the bed in that hotel
room can’t be erased from his mind.”

“How can any woman get over a rape?”

“That’s my point. It can’t be undone. Yet, I
wasn’t going to let Big Shitty George change my life. Sure, it’s a
big deal to have someone you trusted disappoint you. To find out,
after five years, they thought of you as some cute little piece of
ass.

“And Freddy, something I want to clear up.
Although I might have looked the part, I never did the Lolita bit
at any age. Even if I had, then he should have ignored it. If a
child says, let’s get drunk, you don’t go get the ice you take the
bottle away. George can’t pin that one on me.”

I said, “Do you think he was really that
devious to look and lust all those years with this big scheme in
mind?”

“No, I don’t. Let me tell you, I’ve figured
out the whole thing. George never had any five-year plan of taking
up with Momma to stay close to me. Later, on my birthday, he
thought it was worth a try. He was sure I liked him and he knew I
wasn’t innocent. Sure, he’d done some fantasizing about me over
those years. But no, George didn’t have any long-range plan. Momma
was the one with the five year plan.”

“No way!”

“Now don’t misunderstand. Here’s how it went.
Momma kept him interested in her for five years. He kept coming
back for more. Early on, she discovered his weakness, which is
where I came in. Maybe at age thirteen I wasn’t aware of how he
looked at me, but she did. She also noticed if he saw me when he
came over, he was fantastic in bed that night. We’re talking
multiple lightning strikes here. If I happened to be out of the
house and he didn’t see me, he was ho-hum—an early night.

“I remember an incident when I was sixteen.
During those years, I lived in tank tops and shorts, day and night,
summer and winter. I would have worn them to school, but they
weren’t allowed because of girls who were built like me. I’m not
sure George had ever seen me wearing anything else. One night I
told Momma I was going to show off my new jeans to George.
Absolutely not, she said, those shorts look fine, but do something
with your hair. She had another great time that night.

“Momma told me I should be polite and always
come out and greet him when he came to the house. If I didn’t hear
him come in, she’d send him back to my room to say hello. For five
years, George got his appetite with me and satisfied his hunger
with her. He turned on when he saw me and it took Momma hours to
turn him off. That went on from age thirteen until I turned
eighteen. Then George realized he had a shot at me.”

“What did your mother say?”

“Never told her. I lied to her, said we just
had dinner, and went to a late movie. I couldn’t fool her. She
could tell I hadn’t enjoyed it. She knew something had happened.
She might even have guessed that George got out of line with me.
Put his hand on my knee in the movie or something. She regretted
letting me go alone. To this day she doesn’t know what actually
happened.”

“But she’s your mother, she’d want to
know.”

“Sure, she would. But why spoil five years of
good memories for Momma? It’s all she has. I liked him to come over
because I knew it’d make Momma happy. I’m not going to take that
away from her. Plus, if I told her, she’d take the blame for
misjudging George and exposing me to danger for five years. Momma
loved me, I can’t put that scene into her memory. I can live with
my memory of George—Momma can’t live without her memories of
him.”

“So you didn’t tell your mother. You didn’t
tell Jimmie. Who did you tell?”

“No one, I just swallowed it. Buried it in my
mind as best I could for a few years. Acted as though nothing had
happened. Later I could talk about it.”

“But what if he showed up again on her
doorstep?”

“Never happen. He knew what he did. He knew
he had to disappear from both our lives. We never saw him again.
Maybe I should check with
Dear Abby
, but I’m convinced I did
the right thing by not telling Momma.”

“How were you able to get over hating
him?”

“Actually, I’m thankful for one thing. During
those years, while I was underage, he could have manipulated and
molested me. He knew I trusted him. He had many opportunities to
take advantage of me. I must have been a terrible temptation. But
he controlled himself, no innocent hand touching my leg, no playful
pat on my butt, no accidental brushing of my breasts. All that shit
that men think a little girl isn’t aware of.

“I didn’t realize until later how important
that was. Thanks, George, for not making me live my life as a
molested child. Having said that, I still think you’re a creepy
bastard and I hope you die screaming.”

She was dead serious, but I had to laugh.
Betty Jo was quite a woman. I was impressed with how she handled
the anguish in the years after the attack. The episode was
obviously a passage of sorts for her. She had entered that hotel
room as a child and left as an adult.

She wasn’t through, “I learned something else
from that experience, and I try to get it across to the beautiful
girlfriends I dance with. George had my body, but that’s all. At no
time did he have me. You are not your body. Never think the only
thing valuable about yourself is your body and what you can do with
it.”

Her words struck me and I felt a strange
agitation and discomfort. I questioned to what extent I had focused
on her body and not her valuable inner self. I realized she was not
as I had earlier believed.

State Attorney Lawrence Moran started to
leave his office for the day when he noticed one of his staff,
Assistant State Attorney Melvin Shapiro, waiting at the elevator.
Moran motioned him over. They went into Moran’s office. “Mel, I
heard that the wife of our victim Bruce Banks is down here from
Delaware. That’s still your case isn’t it?”

Shapiro nodded. “Mrs. Banks was over at the
office of the medical examiner. The funeral director was with her.
The M.E. phoned me to be certain it was okay to release her
husband’s body for shipment back to Delaware. I said no
problem.”

“And you interviewed Mrs. Banks?”

“And I interviewed Mrs. Banks. You want a
copy? Not much there. In her statement, she said Banks just got in
his pickup and disappeared. He’d done it before. Taken off for a
couple of days without telling her. Fishing or something.
Apparently, they weren’t exactly a pair of lovebirds. She was
surprised to learn he drove to Florida. They know no one locally.
Never heard of Abby Olin or Sandra Reid. So we still have no idea
why Bruce Banks was down here.”

“Is she still in town?”

“I believe so, she’s getting their pickup
released from the sheriff’s pound today. It’s registered to him
only. But I told the sheriff to let her take it anyway. It’s been
searched. She’s going to have things tough enough without us giving
her a hassle over ownership. We have no interest in it. She’ll
drive it back up.

Moran pushed the phone across the desk to
Shapiro. “Phone the sheriff right now. Put a hold on that pickup
until you can talk to Mrs. Banks again.”

Shapiro shrugged. Moran waited. When Shapiro
had completed the call, he said, “We’re in luck. She hasn’t picked
it up yet. They’ll hold the vehicle until I give the word. So
what’s going on?”

“I want keep her in town for a few more
hours. Locate her inform her that we’ll be prosecuting Sandy Reid
for conspiracy to commit murder. Explain to her that she can bring
a wrongful death suit against Reid and get some money. Then I want
you to personally introduce her to some local attorney to handle
it.”

“I can’t do that. We don’t do that. We don’t
get involved encouraging ancillary civil actions. And if Mrs. Bank
brings a suit against Sandy, she must also bring one against Abby
Olin the co-conspirator.”

“If Abby Olin also has to defend a wrongful
death action, that’s not my problem. I want Reid sued.”

“I’m not certain we’ll even have a conspiracy
case against Sandy.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll have an excellent case
against her. I’ve a feeling Abby Olin is going to tell us a whole
lot more about Sandy’s involvement.

We drove on deep into Georgia on I-95. My
fondness for Betty Jo had grown into a strong liking for her
personally, not just her body. Of course, with a woman that
attractive, I do admit to a considerable preoccupation with her
looks. But now I was interested in her personal life as well. I
cared what happened to her.

She had trusted me with her George story and
I felt we were closer, as if we had a history. She was chatty and
polite and that was fine, except there was nothing special between
us. I wanted to have dinner with her, have a few drinks, chat
across the table, and get to know her better.

She was leaning forward searching for a
better music station on the radio. I noticed how the shoulder belt
crossed between and promoted her breasts. Had she positioned it
that way on purpose?

She saw me. “You know, Freddy, you’re the
poster boy for an ideal customer in the club.”

“Well, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, loaded with lust and money.”

“Few men can look at you and not get lustful.
That’s the point isn’t it?” She could call me lusty. I was
certainly guilty on that point. It would be difficult for me to
conceal it. I asked, “What’s it like to have dozens of men mentally
ravishing you while you dance?”