The Black Stiletto Read online

  Nevertheless, I set out running toward the sound. My eyes focused on a cropping of mesquite bushes and I knew that was where the kid was. My entire body felt more alive than it ever had—my skin was tingling all over. It was the excitement of discovery, the knowledge that I could pinpoint where the baby was hidden, and every nerve inside me directed me to rescue it. I couldn’t help it. Again, it was that mothering thing that exists in wild animals. I had no choice but to find that baby.

  Well, find it I did. It was easy. There was a basket placed under a small mesquite, and inside was a baby boy wrapped in a blanket. No note, no identifying marks. No bottle.

  I stood and focused on one of the oil derricks, another hundred yards or so away. There were men working on it. I left the baby where he was and ran as hard as I could. When I reached the rig, I went to the first man I saw and told him what I’d found. At first he must have thought I was telling a story or something, but I finally convinced him to come with me and look. He and one of the other roughnecks followed me back to the mesquite tree. They were just as amazed as me.

  Well, they called the police and it turned out the baby had indeed been abandoned, left out in the field to die. I couldn’t imagine what kind of parents would do such a thing. It hit me like a sledgehammer—there were evil people in this world.

  My mom wasn’t too happy when she had to come down to the police station and pick me up. The policeman was nice and all that, but he brought me in so I could tell my story. And I did. I simply said I’d been walking alone in the field and heard the baby cry. It was the truth. The policeman said I was a “good girl” and that I’d done the right thing. I don’t know what happened to the baby—I suppose he was sent to a foster home or whatever they did with abandoned infants back then.

  But I knew I’d saved his life. And that felt good.

  3

  Judy’s Diary

  1958

  When I was thirteen, in the spring of 1951, my mother remarried. Betty Cooper became Betty Bates when she hitched up with another oil field roughneck named Douglas Bates.

  From the moment I met the guy, I knew he was trouble.

  It was that weird intuition of mine. As soon as he walked in the door for their first date with that smarmy smile on his face and glint in his eye, I got the shivers. Looking back, I think he was more interested in me than in my mom. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on a young teenaged girl, so he hastily married a woman he didn’t care about so he could eventually trap his prey.

  Douglas was ten years older than my mother. He’d been married before, gotten divorced, and gone through a succession of women before he met my mom at a bar. I don’t know the circumstances of his earlier marriage, but I’ll bet one of my toes that it was his wife who left him. Most likely for beating her up. Which is what he liked to do to my mother.

  Oh, sure, at first he was friendly and helpful around the house. My brothers seemed to like him at the very beginning. They weren’t around much, being in high school and all, and John was going to graduate that May. My mother doted on Douglas, simply because he was a man and he was paying attention to her. He didn’t fool me one bit, though. I never trusted him. He was a liar and a sneak.

  There was one weekend just after school was out for the summer when my mom was at work cleaning houses, and my brothers were outside somewhere. I was home alone in my room, reading a book. I thought I was by myself. Well, good old Douglas wasn’t working that day, so he knocked on my door and wanted to come in. I didn’t really want him to, but he was my stepfather, so I let him. At least he was clean—he must have bathed before knocking. Which also meant he was up to something.

  He started sweet talking me, almost the way he did to my mom. Telling me how cute and pretty I was, and how I was “growin’ up in front of his eyes.” Yeah, right. He’d only known me for five months.

  “Look what I got,” he said. “A surprise!”

  Then he had the audacity to pull out a flask of whiskey! He produced two plastic cups and poured a little in each, and then he handed me one! I was thirteen-years-old, for God’s sake. I refused it.

  “Come on, Judy,” he pleaded. “You’ll like it. It’ll make you feel good.”

  Yeah, I’d seen what that stuff did to my mother.

  “No, thanks.”

  “What’s the matter? Too good for it? Little Miss Goody Two Shoes?”

  “I’m trying to read. Please leave.”

  And then he said, “You know, Judy, you’re growin’ up and you’re gonna start bein’ interested in boys. And I don’t mean playin’ football with ‘em. You’re gonna want to know what to do.”

  I just looked at him like he was crazy. But he kept talking.

  “I could help you, you know. I could teach you—things. Stuff your boyfriends will like. Don’t you want that?”

  “No. Get out of here.”

  “Now, Judy—”

  And then I yelled at him. “Get out of here! Leave me alone!” I picked up a book and threw it at him. It hit him right in the face. Boy, did he get mad. His cheeks got all red and he moved forward like he was going to wallop me or something. But then we both heard the front door slam. Frank called out to see if anyone was home.

  “Frankie!” I shouted.

  Douglas backed off and stood in the doorway, trying to act nonchalant. Frank appeared and asked, “What are y’all doing?”

  “Nothin’,” Douglas answered. “I was just seein’ if your sister wanted anything to eat.”

  “Well, I do,” Frank said. He was oblivious to the situation.

  Douglas just glared at me and then went away with Frank. I slammed my door shut. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lock on it.

  From then on, Douglas just got mean. He yelled at my mom a lot and they were always fighting. Mom usually gave up pretty quickly, especially after he’d slap her. Once this happened while all three of us kids were present. We were shocked, and John stood up to the creep.

  “Don’t you hit my mom!” he threatened with as much menace as an eighteen year old could muster. John would have been a formidable opponent, but my stepfather was a big man. He probably had a lot more experience in serious fighting than John did.

  Douglas just told him to shut up and then he left the house. My mom started crying and we tried to comfort her.

  “You should leave him,” I suggested.

  She looked at me like I was mad. “How dare you!” she said. “How could I possibly do that? How would we live? Where would the money come from? We just got married. I can’t go leaving a man I just married!”

  I shrugged in response and glanced at my brothers. The looks we exchanged indicated they agreed with me. But they weren’t about to come between my mom and our stepfather.

  John was lucky. As soon as he graduated from high school, he left. He joined the military like my dad, only he enlisted in the army instead of the navy. Better to enlist than be drafted, he said. The Korean War was on and he actually wanted to go over there and serve. Mom didn’t want him to go—none of us did, except for Douglas. The bastard was glad to get rid of the oldest kid. One less obstacle in the way of what he wanted—me. John went away to boot camp and, sure enough, was sent overseas to Korea. As I write this, I don’t know what happened to him, whether or not he survived, or what. I was already gone by then.

  If Douglas wasn’t working in the oil fields or beating up Mom, he was out in a nearby vacant lot shooting one of his many firearms. He owned several guns—pistols and rifles—and he went out to target practice every few days. Sometimes he’d walk around the house with a handgun and pretend he was a cowboy gunslinger, doing quick draws from an old holster he had. He idolized John Wayne and other cowboys in the movies and thought of himself as an outlaw or something. Made me sick.

  As time went on, Douglas made life hell for me and Frank. If my mom wasn’t the object of Douglas’s aggression, then it was Frank. My stepfather treated Frank like dirt. So, naturally, Frank stayed away from the house as much as possible. He
was busy in high school, he had his friends, and he had a part-time job at a drugstore. So we hardly ever saw Frank.

  Neither of my brothers was there to help me when I needed them.

  It finally happened on Halloween night, 1951. I was in eighth grade at Odessa Junior High School. My birthday was the next week and I had dressed up as a witch to go to a costume party that some kids were throwing. There was a carnival and all, and that was the thing to do. I didn’t really want to go, but I didn’t care to stay at home either. Frank was out with his friends, so no one was at home except Mom and Douglas when I came in just after midnight.

  Mom was asleep in their bedroom. In a drunken stupor, most likely. I noticed the nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the kitchen counter. Douglas was in the living room armchair doing nothing. We didn’t have a television. No one we knew had a TV then. Douglas was drunk, too, but lucid enough to give me a lecherous grin when I walked in the door.

  “Well, looky here,” he said. “It’s the Wicked Witch of the West.”

  I didn’t answer him. I just wanted to go to my room, take off the stupid costume, and go to bed. I was tired and not in a very good mood.

  “Got any candy for me, sweetheart?” he asked.

  I shook my head and went to the refrigerator to see if there was anything to drink besides water. As I was looking, I sensed him standing behind me.

  “Didn’t you go trick or treatin’?”

  “No,” I answered, my back still to him. “I just went to a party. I’m too old to trick or treat.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. You’re just the right age. In fact, your birthday is next week, ain’t it?”

  I ignored him. I shut the fridge and tried to move past him. He was blocking the way out of the kitchen.

  “I’d like to go to my room, please,” I said.

  “Hold on, sweetie. We’re gonna play a little trick or treat.”

  I wanted to say something to him I’d heard kids at school say. You know, the “F” word. But I didn’t use that word in those days. I kept silent.

  Then he reached out and caressed my cheek with the back of his gnarly hand.

  I jerked back and hissed, “Don’t touch me!”

  After that there was fire in his eyes and he whispered, “Don’t you dare talk like that to your father! You respect your elders, do you hear me?”

  “You’re not my father.”

  “I’m your stepfather. Same thing.”

  “No it ain’t.”

  He got this sickly grin on his face and licked his lips. “My, my, ain’t you the spirited one? You and I are gonna have some fun, sweetheart. I can see that, yes siree.”

  Douglas backed me up against the fridge and there was nowhere I could go. I could smell his rancid whiskey breath and, I swear, I could hear his heart beating furiously in his chest. It turned him on to be in such a dominating position over me.

  He grabbed me by the throat and held it tightly—not hard enough to make a mark or choke me, just strong enough to keep me from moving. I was scared to death. I think I started crying, I’m not sure. For God’s sake, I was still thirteen years old. I may have been a tough little street girl, but I was no match for a grown man who weighed two hundred and sixty pounds.

  “You wanna go to your room? Let’s go to your room!”

  He then yanked me away from the fridge and, still holding me by the neck, marched me out of the kitchen, through the living room, and into the hall. I wanted to cry out for my mom, but the bedroom door was closed and I knew she was sleeping soundly. I could hear her snoring. I prayed for Frank to come home, but the chances of that happening were slim. It was hopeless.

  When we got to my room, he threw me down on my bed and then shut the door. Douglas came at me and started tearing off my costume. He laughed and started chanting, “Trick or treat, trick or treat,” as if this was fun—some game he thought we both enjoyed. I tried to kick and punch him, but it was no use. He held me down and ripped away my panties. Then he unbuckled his pants.

  I couldn’t stop him.

  When he’d finished his business, he patted my face as if I’d done a household chore for him. “Thanks, sweetie. You done real good,” he said. “That was definitely a treat, not a trick.”

  I don’t remember if I was crying or what. I just know I was hurt. There was blood on my bed and I felt as if I’d been torn apart. I must have been in shock.

  Douglas stood, pulled up his pants, and said, “Now don’t you go tellin’ anyone about this. It was your fault, you know. You teased me. You can’t go around teasin’ grown men or this is what’ll happen. If your mother found out, it would kill her. You don’t want to kill your mama, do you? She’d hate you for the rest of your life. You’d be in so much trouble. Maybe even get sent away to some juvenile home, y’know what I mean? A prison for bad girls. ‘Cause that’s what you are, sweetheart. A bad girl. Do you hear me?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Do we understand each other?”

  I nodded.

  Then he left the room.

  The rest of that night was a blur. I’m pretty sure I sat in the bathtub for a long time and then went to bed and cried myself to sleep.

  Needless to say, my fourteenth birthday was the unhappiest of my life.

  For the next several weeks, the hell of living at home was magnified tenfold. I couldn’t stand to be there. I took long walks, stayed out late—for which I got in trouble with Mom—and spent more time at school than was necessary. Whenever I was home, Douglas would just leer at me, grin, and lick his lips. I knew it was a matter of time before he did it again.

  Yes, he was planning it. I saw it in his face and eyes. That intuition again. The wild animal’s instinct to protect itself.

  I had to flee.

  For three more horrendous months I endured existing under the same roof with that evil man. At the end of January 1952, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore.

  I got hold of a bus schedule. I figured out how to get to the Odessa station in town and how much money it would cost to go somewhere far away. I packed a knapsack with some clothes and necessities. Then on a Sunday morning when my mom and Douglas were sleeping late, I crept into their bedroom. I could do that well. I called it “sneaky-weaking.” Like a cat, I could open doors and go in and out of a room without making a sound.

  So I sneaky-weaked into the room and grabbed Douglas’s billfold, which was sitting on the nightstand by his side of the bed. He’d been paid the Friday before, and I knew his routine. He always cashed his check for the full amount, went for a drink at one of the roughneck bars, then came home with a wad in his wallet. On Monday he used it to pay bills, give some to my mother, and maybe put a little in the bank.

  But this was Sunday.

  I counted two hundred and fifty-two dollars in his wallet, so I took it and replaced the billfold. There was another hundred and twenty-five stashed in his nightstand drawer. I had managed to save a hundred dollars of my own money, so I thought I was rich. I had no idea how quickly that amount of cash would slip away out in the real world. But I didn’t think about it, and I wouldn’t have cared if I had.

  I grabbed my knapsack and left the house. Caught the bus at the end of the block and rode it downtown. I didn’t know where I wanted to go from there, so I studied the big board and the names of all the various cities. New York sounded the most exotic, so that’s what I chose. I boarded the next bus to New York City and left behind my home, my brother, my mom, Texas, and that sick creep Douglas Bates.

  As soon as I was in my seat, I vowed that one day I would get revenge on the bastard for what he did to me.

  4

  Roberto

  THE PRESENT

  My goddamned heart nearly stopped when I heard the guard shout, “Ranelli! Roberto Ranelli! Your ride’s here!”

  Holy Mother of God.

  I’ve been waitin’ for this day for fifty-two fuckin’ years. Sittin’ in this rathole all that time, gettin’ old, just tryin’
to survive. I knew they couldn’t keep me in here until I died. I always thought I’d see the outside again.

  They gave me some street clothes to put on. Some trousers that barely fit, a clean white shirt, and a dumpy sport jacket. I don’t know where they got ‘em. Probably some thrift shop in Ossining. Or maybe there’s some kind of shitty charitable organization that provides civilian threads for parolees. Hell, I don’t know. I don’t care, either. I just wanted to get the fuck out of here.

  The guard known as “Red,” because of his flamin’ red hair and freckles, approached my cell and gave the signal to the operator down the hall. No keys in this place, not anymore. Everything is automated. Run by computers. Amazin’ inventions, those computers. When I first got sent up the river, there were no such things. They were science fiction. I’m glad I got to learn how to use one in the prison library. I witnessed the evolution of computers in that stinkin’ library. I remember the first one they had was a stupid Apple IIc. We all thought it was a marvel. I think that was in nineteen eighty-four or somethin’. By 1990 we had real PCs that ran on DOS. Yeah, I learned what DOS was and how to manipulate it a little bit. Then Windows was the next big thing. Then things really started to explode. Computers got more sophisticated, faster, and smaller. Now we got these Macs in the prison library. Pretty nice machines. Hold on—we don’t got ‘em. They got ‘em. I’m outta here. I’m fuckin’ paroled. After fifty-two years. Unbelievable.

  The bars slid open and I walked out. “Thanks, Red,” I said.

  “Sure thing, Ranelli. We’re gonna miss you around here.”

  “Red, I was here before you were born.”

  “I know. You’re like my goddamned uncle or somethin’.”

  “Take care of yourself, Red.”

  “You too, Ranelli. Just go on down to Roscoe, there, and he’ll escort you to where you gotta go.”

  “Thanks.”

  As I walked down that hall of cells, guys I’d become friends with—and enemies, too—they all said goodbye and good luck. I waved and smiled at them. I didn’t want to stop and talk. I didn’t want to draw it out. Fuck ‘em.