The Switch (15 page)

“I just happened to be driving by and saw something suspicious,”
said Marshall Taylor, president of Taylor Industries, five-handicap golfer and country club lover.

Mickey sat down on the bed. A little self-analysis. How did she feel about all this?

Surprisingly, she felt fine. She felt—what else? Excited. More than that. Afraid? Yes, she was afraid. But she wasn't scared to death or petrified. Just the opposite, she felt alive. She was excited but calm. She had time to take what was happening to her and study it. She could perch up there wherever she perched and look at the whole scene, calmly watch what was going on and direct herself if she wanted to—yes, exactly—and give herself lines and use them. Say what she wanted. She didn't have to worry about a nice mom image. No points for nice moms here. She could be herself.

That was interesting. Mickey looked over at the triple mirror, at her reflection in the large center panel. She said, “Who are you?” She studied herself and said, “If you don't know, you're gonna find out, aren't you?”

She liked the feeling, being excited and calm at the same time.

 

SATURDAY,
two days before they brought her, Richard had drilled holes in the doors at eye level and hung little framed silhouettes over the holes: a girl on the bathroom door and a boy on the bedroom door. He could move aside the silhouette, hung on a nail, press his eye to the hole that wasn't any bigger than a shirt button and see fine into either room.

The trouble was, the woman only had the clothes she was wearing, so there was no reason for her to take them off. There was nothing else for her to put on unless—Richard was thinking—he offered her one of his mother's nightgowns or a robe. All his mother's stuff was still in the drawers and closet and that might be a way to catch the woman naked.

Richard pressed his eye against the bedroom peep-hole and watched her pacing around, folding her arms and unfolding them, looking at things.
She'd sit on the bed and then get up and pace some more and then sit in the rocking chair and rock fast at first, then slow it down and would seem calm. She was usually pretty calm. He wondered why she didn't turn on the TV. Richard would say to himself, Come on, take off your clothes and let's see what you got. He pretended he was inspecting a woman for breeding purposes. He'd look her over and decide if he wanted her to have his kid or not.

Maybe if it got hot enough in there she'd strip. Once, she reached in her shirt and scratched her left tit and adjusted her bra. That was as good as the show got, so far. He wondered why she never had to go pee. Maybe if he gave her a pitcher of ice water—

Finally, a little after five o'clock, she came toward the door. Richard moved the silhouette over the peep hole and stepped back. There was a knock on the door. Richard said, “Yeah?”

“I want to go to the bathroom.”

Hot dog, Richard thought. He said, “You got your mask?”

“Oh—” Then after a moment, “Yes, I've got it.”

“Put it on.”

“How'm I gonna . . . do what I have to do if I can't see?”

“I'll help you.” Richard grinned.

“Forget it.”

“Just till you get in the bathroom.” Silence. “You still want to go?”

“Yes, please. Open the door.”

“Wait a minute.” Shit, Richard had to get
his
mask. He came out of the war room wearing the rubber Frankenstein Monster face, his white T-shirt and his uniform pants. He wanted her to see him, but didn't know how he was going to work it. The monster face, the coon, Ordell, said was just in case. Like if she pulled her mask off.

She had it on, standing there waiting. She pulled back a little when Richard took her by the arm, then went with him the three steps to the bathroom. Richard said, “Here you go. When the door's closed you can take your mask off and do your business.”

“Thanks,” the woman said, not sounding as though she meant it.

Richard moved the girl silhouette aside and pressed his monster face to the peep hole. Now maybe he'd see something.

She looked at herself in the mirror first. Then ran the water and washed her face and hands, Richard thinking, Do that after. She was looking in the mirror again, running a finger over her front teeth. Come on, Richard urged. She turned to the toilet. Now. Undid her belt and the top button of the slacks, unzipped the fly. Right now. Pushed her
panties down with her slacks and sat down all in one motion, her shirttail dropping down, covering her and, shit, all Richard got to see was a flash of her left bum. Goddarn it, her secret thing, her little nest right there and the goddarn shirttail was in the way. She was peeing now, he could hear her, then reaching around to flush the toilet—

Louis said, “What in the hell you doing?”

Richard got the silhouette in place as he turned and faced Louis in his monster mask. Louis squinted at him, then brushed past him to the door, lifted the silhouette aside and pressed his face close to the door. When he turned to Richard he said, “Jesus Christ—”

Richard said, “It's my house, ain't it?”

Mickey could hear them on the other side of the door—not words but voices, kept low. The one who smelled had brought her in here. Now one of the others was with him. She stepped close to the door, about to press her ear to the panel to listen, and saw the drilled hole—freshly drilled, particles of unpainted wood sticking out from the round edge close to her eye. But she couldn't see through the hole. And she couldn't hear them now. There were footsteps on the stairs, going down.

When she knocked and the one who smelled let
her out, taking her arm again, she returned obediently, in silence, to the bedroom, entered, heard the door close and took off her mask.

There was a hole in the bedroom door.

She saw it and looked away, walked over to the Sony and turned it on. Mike Douglas was talking to someone. What was his name? Always wore the dark T-shirt, long hair combed back—Carlson. George Carlin. She liked him. Frank had said, Who? He'd never heard of him. She sat on the bed and went through her purse, feeling the one who smelled watching her. The heavy policeman in the funny uniform. Except he wasn't funny.
This
wasn't funny. Now what was she feeling?

She was mad. She was mad as hell. The fat smelly son of a bitch. She remembered Peter Finch, the nutty newscaster in the movie, in his raincoat. “I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more.” She groped inside her purse, feeling for something long and thin with a pointed tip—like a knitting needle—but knowing she carried nothing long and thin. Lipstick. An eyeliner brush. No pencil, not even for eyebrows. A cigarette.

There were four cigarettes left in the pack of True greens. She said to herself, Don't think. Light it.

She stood up, walked over to the Sony, switched to Channel 2—to a police car moving, just what she needed—and back to 4. She snapped her lighter and lit the cigarette, moved back to the bed, lingered,
moved past the bed to the closet, then to the blond dresser against the front wall, next to the door. He wouldn't be able to see her now.

Mickey reached out, inching the cigarette along the door panel, brought it almost to the hole and stopped. Then inched it again, close—and jabbed into the hole, losing part of the burning ember but feeling the cigarette go in cleanly and hearing, instantly, the scream on the other side of the door. Surprise, pain—Mickey wasn't sure. She moved close to the hole, withdrawing the broken cigarette, and said, “How do you like that, officer? You want to look in my basement?”

Almost at once she thought, You shouldn't have said that.

But it was done. She ripped the black tape from one of the eyes in the mask and pressed it over the peephole.

“This guy, I don't know, he thinks he's in the fucking Gestapo or something,” Louis said, “looking through the hole when she's in there. Guy watches her take a leak.”

“Yeah, maybe he's playing that,” Ordell said. “Or see, Richard ain't getting much, he prob'ly forgot what a pussy look like. Wanted to refresh his memory.”

“There's something wrong with him,” Louis said.

“Sure there is,” Ordell said. “His head got turned around or something or his mama dropped him out the window when he was a little baby.”

“She probably threw him out when he tried to rape her,” Louis said.

“Naw, he's harmless. He got all that shit up there, all the guns, but it's all he's playing pretend, thinking he's a big Nazi motherfucker, but it all stays there in his head,” Ordell said.

Yeah, well they could beat it to death, they were stuck with the guy. Forget it. Louis said, “When you stop home, remember to bring some tapes.”

“I will.”

“The Lonnie Liston Smith. You know what he's got here, his records? He's got Rosetta Tharpe.”

“He likes gospel,” Ordell said.

“He's got James Cleveland. He's got Rosie Wallace, man, and the First Church of Love Choir. If we're gonna be here awhile—You get the phone number yet?”

“I'm still waiting on Mr. Walker.” Ordell was looking at Richard's big RCA black-and-white TV that was a piece of furniture with a pink and white bucking bronco statuette on it. “Here it is,” Ordell said. “News is on.” He sat up in the maroon chair and leaned on his knees. Then sat back again. They were anxious, both of them, but didn't want to show it.

There was a wreck on the Lodge Freeway. A tank truck had jackknifed and exploded. The driver had been rushed to the Ann Arbor Burn Center and northbound traffic had been backed up for hours.

There was something about a farmer having to shoot his dairy herd because of PBB poisoning . . . and pregnant mothers being interviewed, worrying about their milk . . . something on about PBB every evening but neither Louis nor Ordell knew what it was.

The sports editor, trying to sound like W. C. Fields, said the Tigers gave the Sox the Bird Sunday, Fidrych holding the Beantowners to five scattered hits.

Louis said, “Why don't they just say it, without all that cute shit?”

Sonny Eliot jumped around his weather map with his magic marker and his snappy weather reports. “High of ninety tomorrow, that's as welcome as a blowtorch in a firecracker factory, and no relief in sight.” They waited through it in silence.

Coming up after about eight commercials would be Channel 4's latest crime report. Louis thought, Here we go. He noticed Ordell sitting forward again.

There was a quick run-through of current crime headlines with brief stories: Teens rob, shoot disabled freeway driver, proclaim, “We own the city” . . . Two stand trial in death of bartender . . . Witnesses finger
more teen gang leaders . . . Gunmen shoot up Boys Home, staffer fired . . . Mayor Coleman Young says press too critical . . .

Louis seemed puzzled. “What's all this with the kids?”

Now a TV reporter with a swirly hairdo was interviewing members of a teenaged gang, the Errol Flynns. Louis saw a bunch of skinny black kids standing around in their fifty-dollar Borsalinos like cowboys, grinning at the camera. Ordell grinned with them, saying look at them little Earl Flynns, hey, bullshittin' the man. Gonna eat him up. There were interviews with black neighborhood residents who said the police had to start hooking the kids up and throwing them in the clink . . .

In the
clink?
Louis thought.

. . . so the other kids would see them doing hard time and quit taking off the grocery stores and the old peoples' social security money so they could buy those Bosalinis and support their scag jones.

Louis said, “What's he talking about?”

“It's cool,” Ordell said. “Listen to the man.”

“Why don't they get to it?” Louis said.

There were more commercials, a preview of the top national and international news stories, but no more crime. Nothing about a suburban woman being kidnapped or abducted. Nothing about two dudes in Halloween masks breaking into a Bloomfield
Village home. Nothing about a big dude holding two martinis getting hit in the head.

Ordell said, “You think the man's still in the closet?”

“You hit him,” Louis said.

“I didn't hit him that hard.”

“You hope you didn't.”

They watched TV commercials and didn't say anything for at least two minutes, until the world news was coming on with John Chancellor.

Louis said, “I think somebody better get in his sporty uniform and go out there and investigate an alleged assault with the intent to put a guy to sleep and hope to Christ it hasn't turned out to be murder.”

 

“WHAT IS IT?”
Mickey asked.

“Chicken and noodles cooked in chicken soup with onions and some other things, a biscuit in it. You'll see a biscuit in there, but I don't think it'll kill you,” Louis said, standing in the doorway with the tray. “You got your mask on? I can't tell.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, you can turn around. It doesn't matter.”

Mickey turned and saw him through the uncovered eye in the mask: the white one with dark curly hair and a mustache, in the shaft of light from the hall. Mickey stood on the side of the bed away from the door, in shadow.

“Where do you want it?”

“I don't care.”

“I'll put it on the bed.”

She watched him place the tray near the edge, draw his hands away, then move the tray with its bowl of chicken and noodles and mug of coffee toward the middle of the spread, on top of the peacock's
fanned filigree tail. He straightened and looked at her. He stared, then began to shake his head. He said, “Aw, come on—” and walked around the bed to where she was standing to touch the mask with the tips of his fingers. He pulled the mask off, up over her head, turning her around with his other hand on her shoulder.

“I used the tape to cover the hole in the door,” Mickey said. “You'll have to get your kicks some other way.”

“Yeah, well, you don't have to worry about that. We'll cover the holes.”

“What's the matter with him? Why doesn't he bathe?”

“I'll ask him.”

“He smells.”

“He's got a few problems, but who hasn't, right? Eat your dinner,” Louis said. “You want something else, knock on the door.”

“What's gonna happen to me?”

“We'll talk about it after.”

Louis took the mask with him to fix the eye hole. Jesus, it was a dumb idea. What're you doing? I'm fixing this Halloween mask. The whole thing—what're you doing here anyway? Answer that. But there was always a time like this when you thought it was going to blow up. Then it passed. Usually it did.

Richard had walked out nodding, rubbing his eye, not asking any questions. He walked back in exactly an hour and a half later still rubbing it. He said, “You know what that puss did to my eye?”

“Tell us about the other, Richard,” Ordell said.

“Well, what I did,” Richard said, shoving his policeman's hat to the back of his head, “I made sure there was no surveillance first. I cruised the street and the street back of the residence, the residence being dark, not any light on, but which didn't mean anything.”

Jesus Christ, Louis thought.

“So then I went to a pay phone in the Kroger's, the corner of Maple and Lahser”—he pronounced it “Lasher”—“and phoned the residence, letting it ring twenty-five times.”

“Twenty-five times,” Ordell said.

“There being no answer I returned to the residence and pulled into the backyard and turned the car around before getting out. Then—I want to ask you. You leave the garage door open?”

“Yes, we did, Richard,” Ordell said.

“The door from the garage into the house?”

“For Christ sake, get to the alleged guy,” Louis said, “will you?”

“Let him tell it,” Ordell said. “Go on, Richard.”

“Well, I went in—”

He went up to the bedroom like they'd told him, found the two glasses on the floor, the closet door with a big hole in it like it'd been kicked out from the inside . . .

Louis felt himself begin to relax a little.

. . . and the closet all messed up, blood on the clothes that were on the floor, but nobody in there. So evidently the witness had left.

“And not with any help,” Louis said. “He kicked his way out. He was strong and healthy enough to kick a hole in the door.”

Ordell sat back in his maroon chair. He was relieved, too, and could think now without a heavy unknown hanging over him, though there was still the big question.

“Why didn't the man go to the police?”

“I don't know,” Louis said, “but I got a theory.”

Louis had his mask on this time as he eased open the bedroom door a few inches. He said, “Mickey?” It was the first time he had used her name.

She didn't answer immediately.

“What?”

“Turn the light out and sit on the other side of the bed facing the windows.”

“There aren't any windows.”

“Yeah, well, where they used to be.” He waited. When the light went off he opened the door wide and stepped inside. She seemed small sitting there,
her shoulders hunched a little. He walked around the bed, out of the light into the darkened half of the room, and nudged her shoulder to hand her the taped mask.

“Here, I fixed it for you. Put it on.”

Mickey took it from him and slipped the elastic band over her head as Louis sat down in the rocker facing her—two people sitting in a dark bedroom with masks on.

She said, “This is unbelievable.”

“Yeah, I know. It's a little strange,” Louis said. “If somebody walked in and saw us, huh? Well—” He sat back and began to rock. The rocker squeaked and he stopped.

“You watch the news?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing about you on the 5:30 or the 6,” Louis said. “How come?”

“What're you asking me for?”

“You have something going with that guy?”

“What guy?”

“Come on, the big guy walked in.”

“He's a friend of the family.”

“A friend, huh? Comes in the bedroom with the martinis—”

“He's a
friend
.”

“Then how come he didn't call the cops?”

“How do you know he isn't dead or in a coma?”
Mickey straightened, her blind gaze facing the sound of Louis' voice. “You hit him with something, didn't you?”

“We checked,” Louis said. “He let himself out.”

There was silence.

Mickey said, “How do you know he
didn't
call the police?”

“Because the magic eye of television would've had it.”

“Not something that happened this afternoon,” Mickey said. “There wasn't time.”

“So we'll see if it's on the 11 o'clock,” Louis said. “But I don't think it will be. What do you think?”

There was silence again.

“You don't think so either,” Louis said. “The guy, this good friend of the family, it doesn't look like he wants to get involved. You have a nice little thing going there, it's kind of exciting. Quiet bedroom in the afternoon, hubby's off building houses— As long as you don't get caught, huh? What's the guy gonna say?” Louis paused.

“Are you asking me?” Mickey said.

“No, I'm saying the guy looks around, he says hey, wait a minute. What am I doing here? Something's going on, it's none of my business.”

“That's what he says?”

“I don't know him. I don't know what he's got to
lose,” Louis said. “What kind of a guy is he?” She didn't answer him. “Okay, put yourself in his place. You know him pretty well—”

“Nothing
happened
,” Mickey said. “There wasn't anything going on between us.”

“Hey, I'm not your husband,” Louis said. “I don't care if you're screwing the guy out of his mind every Monday at twelve-thirty. But is he the kind of guy'd stick his neck out for you?”

Louis waited for her. He was sure she had tightened up inside. He felt the same way and it wasn't going to get them anywhere. He thought, Jesus Christ, and pulled his mask off. He felt a little better—watching her in silence, sitting with her hands in her lap—and wanted to help her. He didn't know how, but he did. It wasn't something to think about. He reached over, hunching forward in the rocker, hearing it squeak, and touched her face. She drew back. But he had hold of her mask and lifted it from her face as she pulled away from him.

Louis said, “What's he willing to do for you? That's all we're talking about.”

Mickey looked at the figure hunched in the rocking chair, leaning toward her with his arms on his knees, waiting patiently.

She said, “I'll tell you something. I honestly don't know.”

Tyra's ass looked as though it had been hit by Double-O buckshot at a distance, the shot spent so that it didn't cut or rip through her flesh, but made soft dents and pock marks.

Marshall would see his wife's ass and wonder if she knew what it looked like. If she did, why would she want to flash it at him, slipping the nighty off as she walked out of the den? Marshall was sitting in his leather chair trying to watch the eleven o'clock news. Tyra was showing him the lingerie she'd bought for the Mackinac Island convention weekend coming up. She'd leave the den, go out into the breakfast room or kitchen or somewhere, come back with another filmy outfit on—looking like a woman in a 1930s movie—and stand between Marshall and the television set with a hand on her hip and one fat leg in front of the other.

It was his own fault—before the news came on—expressing interest in Tyra's day. What'd you do? I went shopping. You didn't go out to the club? I'll show you what I bought. Did you talk to anybody? I'll be right back. Hey, while you're up, Marshall had said, do me a favor. Call Mickey and find out when Frank's coming back. Tyra returned in a green chiffon baby-doll with green chiffon—bursting—bikini pants, asked Marshall if he liked it and got him to say he loved it before telling him no one answered at Dawson's.

“All right, this is the peach,” Tyra said. “Which do you like better, the peach or the green?” The 165 pound model took a step and threw her hips, swirling the sheer material and giving Marshall a glimpse of the television screen.

“Which one do you like?”

“That one.”

“Really? I thought you liked the green.”

Crime. Governor Milliken urges suburbs to rescue the cities . . . whatever that meant. Marshall drew hard on his cigar, waiting.

“Do you love it or you just like it?”

“I love it,” Marshall said.

“Why do you have it on so loud?”

“Leave it alone!”

“Ohhh, is her scairt?” Tyra petted her schnauzer who had perked up her little ears. Ingrid was lying in a deep leather chair, the twin to Marshall's.

Two pose as police in freeway holdup . . . commercials, the news again and Tyra was back.

“This is the Luci-Ann. You like it?”

“Fine.”

“Don't ask what it cost, please.” Tyra whirled and posed and fluffed the white marabou trimming that hung to the floor. “I'll tell you if you promise you won't be mad. Two hundred and seventy-five. But it's a Luci-Ann.”

Three held in stabbing of woman on Belle Isle.

“Do you love it? . . . Marsh-
ull!
. . . Ohhh, I'm
sorry, baby. I scairt her, din I? Does her like mommy's Luci-Ann?”

The schnauzer probably didn't give a shit one way or the other, but recognized a tone that could mean a doggie treat, sat up in the chair, pointed her little ears and yipped once.

A woman stabbed on Belle Isle and the suburbs asked to rescue the cities, in the recap. But no word about a woman in the suburbs missing, assaulted . . . or anything.

Marshall drew on the cigar until he could feel it in his jaw. The cigar was out. Frank and Bo were both out of town. Mickey . . . well, all he really knew, she wasn't home. Say she went to Beaumont. They fixed her up. Then, on the way home she stopped by a friend's. Or a friend took her to the hospital; that was it. Who was a close friend of Mickey's? He couldn't think of anyone immediately. Maybe Kay Lyons. He'd seen them sitting together talking. Charlie Lyons had said he'd be in Grand Rapids this week—

Tyra was out changing again.

Marshall raised his head. “Honey . . . call the Lyons for me, will you? Find out if Charlie's in town or when he's coming back. Will you do that, sweetheart?”