Save Johanna! (11 page)

The click of the lock caught her in the middle of that terrible thought, and she let out a scream and jumped to her feet. The door opened slowly, and the man who looked like a teenager stood in the doorway. Pinky screamed again, and he quickly closed the door. But hysteria had set in, and she couldn’t stop screaming. Over and over again she shrieked and shrieked until her throat stung and she was hoarse. The husky shriek became a cry for help, and the word gave her renewed strength, and she pounded and kicked at the locked door. She never stopped long enough to listen for outside sounds. She kept kicking and shouting for help until, worn out, she collapsed on the floor in front of the door, faint with exhaustion.

Another night passed, and sometime in the early morning, just as the sky was lightening, someone tried to push the door open. It jammed against her body. Whoever it was shoved harder, and as she woke up she remembered where she was and quickly slid along the floor away from the door. There wasn’t enough light for her to see who it was, but she thought from the bulk of the shadow that it was a man. Again there was no controlling the panic that came over her, shaking her whole body and bringing fresh tears to her already swollen eyes.

“Please,” she begged, “let me leave. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

“No.” It was Avrum.

She was silent for a moment while she swallowed her sobs enough to ask, “Am I a hostage?”

“Stand up.”

She got to her feet immediately. “Did you ask my father for money? Is he going to give it to you?”

“Why did you come here?”

“I don’t know . . . to find you.”

“Who sent you?” It was light enough now to see his eyes. They were hard with suspicion.

“No one . . . I swear. I just heard about you.”

“From who?”

“I don’t know. Just around. Please, I’m not lying. No one sent me. I just came on my own to see you. People are talking about you. They say . . .” She paused, not knowing how to phrase it.

“What do they say?”

“They say you know things.”

“They’re right. And I can’t be tricked.”

Was it possible? Did he think she was sent to spy on him? She tried to make him see she wasn’t a spy, but he remained cold to her pleas.

Avrum knew he had many enemies. Enemies everywhere. Especially in the government. Clever professionals, people who looked like young, innocent runaway girls who could infiltrate his core and threaten his plan. But he was ready for the challenge. In fact, he found himself intrigued with it. Instinctively he knew how he could metamorphosize this enemy into a follower. First he would take everything from her—and when she was emptied fill her with himself.

“Please,” Pinky wept, “let me go. I won’t tell anyone.”

“You’ll stay here as long as we need you, and then . . . we’ll see.” Avrum’s tone was cold and sharp, and Pinky’s heart sank at his words. She tried not to beg, but she couldn’t help herself. For a moment Avrum was still. He seemed to be listening to her entreaties and then, abruptly, left the room and locked the door behind him.

For Pinky, the next three days passed in slow agony. Fear for her life kept her in constant panic. Each time the lock clicked she jumped up and fled to the farthest corner of the tiny room. Most of the time it was Swat who brought in her food, angry, ugly Swat. Pinky no longer tried to question her. She took the plate but didn’t eat.
She’d lost her appetite to fear. Either Swat or Nellie would lead her out to the bathroom. Privacy no longer mattered to her. All she thought about was protecting herself from the attack she expected any minute.

She’d become convinced that they planned to kill her. That’s why they were keeping their distance from her. It would be easier if they didn’t know her as a person, didn’t care about her. There was hardly a waking moment when she didn’t feel frightened. She took any sound from the other room to mean that they were coming for her.

For Pinky, life had degenerated to a level barely above survival. She was as helpless as a baby. She had to depend on them for all the essentials of life, for life itself. If only they would talk to her. She knew she could convince them that she only wanted their friendship.

She felt that escape was not possible. There was no way some one of them wouldn’t hear it if she broke the tiny window, and then they would certainly kill her. Her only hope was that whatever they wanted from her father would be paid, and they would release her. And yet, she thought, how could they? She knew who they were. They couldn’t possibly trust her. In her heart she knew they had to kill her.

These were the thoughts tormenting Pinky at two o’clock in the morning of the eighth day of her captivity. It was a moonless night, and she sat on the floor in total darkness. Even when she wiggled her fingers in front of her face, looking for some movement in the blackness, she saw none. It was like being blind. The possibility of something creeping up without warning, a mouse or one of those hideous spiders she’d seen the day before, made her shiver. The thought frightened her enough so that she brushed off her clothes and swept the floor around her with her hands. But it wasn’t enough, and, shaking off all sorts of imagined creatures, she jumped up.

She strained to hear sounds from the big room, but it was quiet. Maybe they had gone out or were stoned or sleeping themselves. This could be her chance to escape. Maybe the only one she’d have. She knew she had to take it.

If she could somehow manage to break the glass quietly enough, she might just bring it off. She slipped off her dress and balled it into a cushion. A shiver ran through her body in the cool darkness. Holding the dress against the windowpane, she gripped her shoe and pounded it quietly into the dress. The glass did not break. Pinky allowed moments to go by, fearful of hearing some sound from the other room. But only the thumping of her heart disturbed the deathly quiet. Seizing her shoe more firmly, she struck again at the window. The muffled splintering sound told her she’d succeeded. As she withdrew the dress, shards of glass sprayed her arm and fell to the floor around her bare feet. Again she listened closely for some reaction from the other room but again heard only silence. Stepping gingerly around the glass in the utter darkness, she put her shoe and dress back on, then moved quietly to the window to examine her handiwork. A few jagged pieces protruded from the window frame, and she began to pry them loose when it came.

The click.

They
had
heard!

She waited, almost paralyzed with fear. She heard no other sound, no movement. Had she been mistaken? She inched closer to the window. If only it weren’t so totally, so infuriatingly dark.

And it came again. Another sound, this time the low creaking of a door being opened.

Avrum opened the door wide. As he did, he heard what he knew was the sound of Pinky scrambling to the far corner.

Crouched against the wall, Pinky could tell there was someone in the room. Fear prickled her skin, and the hair along her arms and legs stood straight like tiny antennae all alerted to pick up even the slightest movement in the air. It was the end, Pinky knew, and the hopelessness of that knowledge sent her mind searching for some bold, last-minute, wild attempt at survival. She accepted the first plan that hit her.

With darkness as her ally she would plunge ahead straight toward the enemy, hoping to dart past him and race out to freedom. It was as good a plan as any, and, though she wasn’t strong, she was small and fast. If only she could aim her body to avoid him. It had to be done. Using the wall as her guide, she raced toward the doorway and, at the last moment, twisted her body sideways to slip past Avrum. But he heard her coming and, stretching his strong arms across the doorway, waited to catch the small body as it tried to hurl itself to freedom.

It all happened in seconds, first flying through the air and then bounding with her shoulder against the hard, unbending barrier that knocked her backwards and sprawling to the floor. Almost simultaneously, a heavy body dropped onto hers, pinning her flat against the floor.

She struggled to get out from under Avrum, but he held her fast, all but her flailing hands and feet.

Pinky screamed a long wail for help until his hands clapped down on her mouth.

“Shut up!” Avrum growled, his face pressing against hers. In terror she obeyed, gulping the new scream down into her chest and still fighting to free her body. But his weight was too great.

This was the climax he had worked and watched and waited for these past eight days. This was the bottom of the disintegration he had so carefully orchestrated. He had fed the initial confusion with disorientation and self-doubt, reducing the victim to total dependency.

Then he had allowed that lethal combination to ferment into fear and as that fear swung out of control—terror. No other emotion can exist alongside terror. It reigns supreme, wiping out everything else down to the raw insides. What he had now, 190 painful hours later, was the shell of a person. Almost empty. And ready now, finally, for the reclamation. In one great surge of brutal strength he would overpower her physically as he had overpowered her spirit.

Tearing at her clothes, he forced her legs apart, flattening them against the floor until she was open to him and then with great force rammed himself into her, feeling the fighting, flailing body squirming under him. The ultimate degradation—the total conquest. For the victim, punching and pounding and shaking . . .

The phone.

Damn it, I hate having my work interrupted.

Involuntarily I grab it and mutter with half-voice, half-breath, “Hello.”

“Jo. Terrific. I’m glad I caught you.” It’s David. “Were you sleeping?”

“Of course not.” It comes out annoyed. “Since when do I sleep in the middle of the day?”

“Hey, take it easy. I just meant you sounded . . .”

“Well, I wasn’t. I was working.”

“Sorry if I interrupted you.”

He’s offended. I should be more gentle, but it really is an intrusion. “Can I call you back later?” I ask, trying to make it sound like I’m smiling.

“That’ll be too late. Look, let’s forget it. I’ll talk to you later.”

I’ve done it. He’s hurt. “No, wait, David. I’m sorry. Is it something special?”

“It’s a painting. Nothing. A client of mine has a Le Basque he wants to get rid of, and I can get it at a good price. I just thought it might be interesting to take a look at. But obviously I caught you at a bad time.”

“Well, I was working. . . .” Horribly enough that comes out pure whine, so I quickly cut it off and apologize. “Sorry if I sounded grumpy. I’d love to see it, but do we have to look at it right now?”

“There’s no choice. He’s leaving for Germany tomorrow morning, and he wants to tie up all the loose ends before he goes.”

“OK. Are you going to pick me up or should I meet you there?”

“Be downstairs in the lobby in fifteen minutes. All right?”

“Can you make that a half hour? I have to pull myself together.”

“I can’t. I’ve got a four o’clock appointment back at the office. Look, maybe we’d better skip the whole thing.”

I would dearly love to skip the whole thing and get back to my work. But I know that would be a bad move. If it wasn’t this particular project I would be honest with David, but with this one I don’t feel I can be. In fact, I have to make a special effort to make him feel he comes first. I know all this and it’s important to me, but, damn it, when it actually happens—the choice, I mean—it’s a strain.

When you’re deeply immersed in something it’s hard just to shut it off cold. I get very involved in my characters. For me there’s no other way to write. I have to give them life, and in so doing, they become real enough so that to leave them is an effort. But it turns out that I can’t allow that this time. At least not so it shows.

I ask some meaningless questions about the painting as a peace offering, but David knows me too well and kindly ignores them.

“See you at two thirty. OK?”

“I’ll be there. Important question. Is it very expensive?”

“Don’t worry about the price. It’s a wedding gift. If you like it.”

“Oh, David. I’m such a shit.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“Do you still love me?”

“Barely.”

“Well, I was working.”

“Johanna?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

Suddenly I feel lighter. The weight of Avrum and his group is lifted, and I’m fully back where I belong and feeling good. And now, from this vantage point, I can see how deeply I’ve allowed myself to be drawn into that other world. It has to be, I know, but still it’s almost as if some of Avrum’s great power might be working on me. Of course, that’s ludicrous since I am the master of all of them. They dance when I say dance; yet I seem to be hearing some of my own music and not always when I want to. I’m dramatizing; still it’s not something I would tell David. Certainly not David.

Not really important, anyway. A temporary situation. I find that I don’t even want to see the words, so I hit save and close the document. Now I feel as if there’s something to come back to. Like an exciting book that you have to cut off in the middle. Did I almost say the best part? Naughty Johanna; rape is hardly the best part.

Before I wrote the chapter dealing with Pinky’s conversion I had spoken to some experts in the field of brainwashing: a couple of psychiatrists from Berkeley; someone from the Rand Corporation; and a social psychiatrist with the CIA. The information I picked up from these sources all agree that, given the proper circumstances, in most cases conversion is not only possible, it’s predictable. And in Pinky’s case more plausible because she was searching for some change in her life.

In the first chapter of Pinky’s captivity, the necessary circumstances were created for her conversion to take place. She was reduced to infancy status with total dependence on her captors for her very survival. This was done through stress, deprivation, and humiliation. These assaults on the human psyche will strip it of self-identity, leaving the perfect vessel for the internalization or assimilation of new values.

In the second captivity chapter Avrum uses the identification process to rebuild the new personality to his own mold. At that point Pinky, the victim, willingly cooperates, wanting to do anything that will establish her as an identity in order to survive as a human being, not as an item of barter. But I needed to establish more than that. While I was researching, I found that in some cases hostages will come to love their captors—Patty Hearst, a bank teller in a robbery in Stockholm in 1973, airline hostesses who have “fallen in love” with hijackers holding guns to their heads, and others.

And that’s what I’ve done. By the end of that chapter Pinky has been totally converted, deeply attached to and in love with Avrum, creating the proper background and explanation for the climax of the book.

And here I am on a perfect rainy Monday morning, alert and at the computer, and, unless the apartment catches fire, with no excuse not to work. Funny, but it’s always so hard to get back into the work and then just as wrenching, once I’m involved, to pull myself away.

Well, it’s five after ten and I don’t smell smoke, so—on with it.

In the three months since Pinky’s arrival there had been some shifts in the group. It had always centered completely around Avrum, but now Pinky was always at his side. Her main and almost only contact was with Avrum. Of course Swat hated her, though she controlled the hostility when Avrum was near. Nellie would have been friendlier, but she and the others were instructed to keep their distance. It was almost as if Avrum wanted to maintain Pinky’s purity. Only he had sex with her. Frank had tried to make love to her one drugged night, but Avrum had fallen into a fury and, springing at him with a hunting knife, had sliced a deep gash in his shoulder. After that, no one went near her.

Pinky was lonely, yet she felt a perverse pleasure in her special position and reinforced it by holding to herself.

She was now completely hypnotized by Avrum, loving him with a reverence both physical and spiritual. That place within her that had sought the solidity of a strong, deep faith had been filled. Within Avrum’s aura there could be no consideration of the outside world or the people she had left at home.

Meanwhile those people, her parents, were frantic with worry. They besieged the police with daily inquiries, appearing at the station house, questioning, pleading, imploring, and finally using all of their considerable influence to lean on the police until they finally came up with some information.

A state trooper from upstate New York had seen a young girl answering Pinky’s description with a motorcycle group outside Newcomb. Mr. Fowler, Pinky’s father, hired Detective Harold Johnston of the Fifty-fourth Street precinct to investigate on his off hours. Armed with Pinky’s graduation picture and $500, he headed off to the hills below the high peaks of the Adirondacks, south of Tahawus.

First thing Johnston did was stop by the trooper station and talk to Sergeant Walter Pumper. Johnston showed the black trooper Pinky’s picture, and he said he was pretty certain he had seen her. “I think it was last weekend,” he said. “I remember seeing a couple of bikes of those weirdos outside the gas station on Route seventy-three, and I’m sure she was one of them. She was with this grungy-looking hippy named Maheely. He’s the big shot, some kind of cult figure they all hang around. I stopped him one time for riding without a helmet, and something about him hit me wrong, so when I came back to the station I ran him through the machine. It turns out he’s an ex-con—maybe a couple dozen arrests and a couple of convictions, one on assault and the other for drugs. Since then I’ve been keeping a pretty sharp eye on all of them, but so far nothing’s happening. The blond kid’s the newest member. I’ve only seen her a couple of times in the last month or so.”

One more stop at the gas station and Johnston had all the information he needed; it wasn’t even four in the afternoon, the weather was beautiful, and he was an avid fisherman so he decided to stay two more days for a long weekend on Mr. Fowler’s unsuspecting beneficence. On Tuesday, with two beautiful speckled trout packed in a Styrofoam carrier and sunburned cheeks, he headed back to New York City.

The next few nights Johnston spent with Pinky’s father, working on something on the order of a mini-Normandy. Three other off-duty cops from his precinct plus his wife’s brother, a car mechanic, would be hired for the invasion force. The idea was simple. They would wear police uniforms and choosing a time when most of the group was out—probably sometime in the afternoon—show up with a phony search warrant, grab Pinky, saying she was wanted by the police on some trumped-up charge, and cart her off. No one would give them a hard time because the place would certainly be loaded with enough drugs to arrest any one of them. On the slim chance that they were clean, the police would bring along their own stuff.

The plan actually went along perfectly. Avrum was wise and kept his people cool. He knew he was vulnerable, but he also knew the intruders weren’t local cops and quickly figured out that their mission was Pinky. She would have fought, but Avrum stopped her. When Pinky looked to Avrum for help, he made no move, and she understood that he wanted her to go.

“I’ll send word,” he whispered, and she left with Johnston and his men. It was the easiest $200 any of them had ever made for one day’s work.

To Pinky’s surprise they didn’t take her home, instead they headed into Manhattan. As soon as they hit the city, the others took off, and she was alone with Johnston. He took her to a small, new apartment house on East Sixty-third Street. Johnston was pleasant enough to her, but she could see that he didn’t know anything more than the capture end of the job so she didn’t bother asking him more questions.

Surprisingly enough she wasn’t frightened because she felt her parents were behind the whole thing, but she was very angry.

At the apartment she was met by a man and woman, both intelligent-looking people in their middle thirties or thereabouts. They came toward her with warm words of welcome, but she backed away, wary of their instant kindness. Who were they? What was their purpose? Could she be wrong about her parents? Maybe they weren’t involved. There was something so benign about the kidnapping and now, coming to this plain, ordinary apartment, somehow she didn’t feel in danger. Perhaps she should. Perhaps they meant to hold her for ransom.

The woman who introduced herself as Rena was slim, athletic-looking, with short, shiny brown hair framing her sunburned face. Rena, that’s all. No last name. Concern oozed from her loving smile, but Pinky was certainly not taken in. The man wasn’t as obvious. He said his name was Ken and treated her less like a wounded bird and more like an equal.

Rena came up close to her and, breaking through the human contact barrier, put her arm around Pinky’s shoulder as she led her through the small, nearly empty living room. “I know you’ll want to wash up after your long trip. Come, I’ll show you the bathroom.”

Wriggling free of the warm and friendly grasp, Pinky followed Rena down the short hall to a tiny bathroom. She allowed herself to be led inside. Rena left.

Once the door was shut, Pinky sat down on the closed toilet and waited. Her parents had to be behind this, she thought; the treatment was simply too kind for an ordinary kidnapping.

With that decision and the security of knowing her parents were involved, Pinky reverted to the tough and belligerent teenager she was at home. By the time Rena came to collect her, Pinky was angry, hostile, and very much in control of herself.

“You didn’t want to wash up?” Rena asked, sounding a little tentative like her mother might.

“What’s this all about? And who are you?”

“Wash later if you like. Right now you must be thirsty.”

“I’m not anything except furious at being illegally taken and transported like some kind of chattel. You’re fools for allowing yourselves to get involved. I don’t know how much my parents are paying you, but it’s not nearly enough to get yourselves mixed up in kidnapping.”

“Come into the kitchen. I think Ken’s put together some of his special vichyssoise.”

Pinky stared at her. Had she misheard? Vichyssoise? It was so unexpected that she simply followed Rena into the kitchen. And there was Ken, a younger, brighter-looking version of Bert Parks, busy chopping chives into a large pot. She could tell it was cold from the white, frosty accumulation on the outside of the pot.

“Sit down,” Rena said pleasantly, holding out one of the black wrought-iron chairs and tapping the red plastic seat invitingly.

Pinky was curious. She sat. And sure enough Ken smiled and immediately ladled the white soup into a deep bowl. Adding just a touch of nutmeg and some snipped chives, he set the vichyssoise down in front of Pinky. It looked good, and the aroma was a pleasant mixture of the freshness of the cut herbs and the light pungency of the nutmeg. To refuse would of course be only a gesture and temporary. She would be uncooperative and simply wait out whatever stupidity her parents had arranged, but starving herself was pointless and self-defeating. It was probably more important to keep sharp enough to handle this strange couple. Granting herself the necessary permission, she dropped the paper napkin to her lap, picked up the spoon, and dipped in. She had to suppress a smile of pleasure. It was delicious and particularly so after the weeks of the greasy junk diet she’d been on with the family. And she was hungry.

They watched her like loving relatives, quick to anticipate any need. Salt? Another piece of French bread? Enough pepper?

She made no sign that she heard them, and they in turn made no sign that they noticed her lack of response. When Ken offered seconds, she made no protest so he refilled the bowl. She ate the second bowl slowly but finished it all. Meanwhile, Ken and Rena carried on the most ordinary stream of small talk about whether leeks were a necessity or onions would do. Ken felt it had to be leeks for the hint of sweetness that you wouldn’t find in onions. Rena disagreed but not with any real conviction. And then, chuckling, she turned to Pinky. “Truth is,” she said, “I haven’t made it in years. I used to use onions because leeks were difficult to find, but today they’re common in any supermarket.”

Pinky was surprised that Ken seemed annoyed. “If you took the trouble you could always have found them.”

“I’m still not so sure it’s worth the extra bother,” Rena answered him in kind.

And he snapped back, “Not if you’re happy with mediocrity.”

“And you think I am?”

Ken’s answer was a shrug of his shoulders and a conspiratorial, unkind smile to Pinky who watched fascinated and totally confused. Who the devil were these people who arranged kidnaps and lunch and then argued over recipes?

“Where are my parents?”

“There’s no need to worry about them,” Ken said, scooping up the empty soup bowl and taking it to the sink.

“I’m not worried, I’m just asking. You must know about them since they’re probably paying you.”

“We don’t take money.” Ken turned to her, holding the soapy bowl. “Whatever we do is because we want to help.”

This time Rena agreed. “Yes. We want to, and we think we can.”

“But my parents sent you.”

“No one sent us,” Ken said, pulling up the seat next to Pinky. His lively face seemed incredibly honest and intelligent. “They told us about you, and we offered our help.”

“Just like that, huh? No money. Nothing. Just the goodness of your heart and a deep interest in someone you’ve never laid eyes on before. Sure.” Pinky shook her head, spreading her lips into a sarcastic smirk. “Happens every day.”

“Not every day,” Rena answered, and she too managed to look sincere, “but fairly often. More often than we’d like.”

“You’re deprogrammers. Hired guns for the mind. Right?” Pinky said, aiming for the soft spots.

But that wasn’t one because Ken’s expression was just as open and frank as before. “It’s true we’re not completely selfless in what we do. No more than most people who have a cause, I guess. To be honest, it fills our own needs, gives us a satisfaction we probably require. Perhaps that’s altruism reduced to its basic. Whatever we get it from it, it isn’t money.”

Pinky would have continued her skepticism, but the truth was she didn’t feel it and, being a fairly honest person herself, let it pass. So they didn’t get money. Still, they were kidnappers sent by her parents to steal her from the life she had chosen. To violate her personal freedom; that in itself was infuriating. As if she had no power in her own life. How dare they? All of them. Again her parents were intruding in her life. She was their flesh and blood which gave them divine control. It had to be her mother. Her mother never had any respect for her as any identity other than her daughter. Not her father, but he was weak when it came to his wife.