Hold Me in Contempt (7 page)

“The what?” I was sure I'd heard him incorrectly.

“He had the cheese grater from the kitchen in his back pocket.” Bernard dropped the cigarette box and looked at me. “I tried to grab it. I knew what he was about to do. I just knew. But I was too late.”

“What happened?” I asked, gripping my fingers into my left palm really tight. Over the years, I'd learned so many horrors and knew when one was near. And each time when I had to follow along, imagining the look on some poor soul's face, I saw eyes that looked like my own. Just aged and lost someplace where I couldn't find her.

“He ran the grater up her back, so fast, so hard, and the skin tore right off like Swiss cheese piping into the little holes. The skin went from brown to white. She screamed so loud. There wasn't anything I could do. I kept trying to get that grater out of his hand, and then I was trying to get her away from him, but I couldn't.” Bernard wiped a tear from his eye and tried to regain his focus on the bookshelves.

“What happened to her?”

“He beat on her some more. Yelled. Threw her out into the street without a shirt. Like trash. I went looking for her the next day. Went to the clubs. All of them. But I couldn't find her. I never saw her again.”

“Did you call the police? Tell anyone?”

“You don't see someone do something like that and call the police. I was afraid. If he could do that to her, who knew what he would do to me. Some HIV-positive fag runaway from Alabama he fucks for tricks. If she was trash, what am I?”

“Mr. Richard. Look at me.”

He turned from the bookshelves and looked into my eyes. “Yes?”

“He can't get to you now. He won't,” I said. “No one should ever have to go through that. To see that. But if you run and hide now, if you don't share your story, what happened to that woman, the woman whose name you don't even know, will happen to someone else. That's what I'm trying to stop. That's why we're here, and that's why I need you to testify.”

I reached over the table and grabbed his hand.

“It's time for you to stop being afraid. Right now,” I added. “If you don't do it for you, do it for her. Tell your story.”

Bernard sat quiet for a long while. And then he turned and looked at the books again.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“We can start with the dealings in the basement of the Candy Shop,” I said. “I need you to be honest with me about what you saw there. The more information you give me about what Miguel Alvarez did and what you did and what you saw, the closer we get to stopping this thing.”

“Okay,” he said with new tears rolling from his eyes. “I'll do it.”

While I was confident Bernard didn't need any police protection, I ordered a police escort for him. Sometimes the fear witnesses feel in cases like this one comes more from guilt than from reality. Testifying about someone else's actions was also an indictment of his inaction, and in his mind he had to create some kind of punishment for that. If the police weren't coming for him, then someone else had to. The story he'd told me, and probably even the evil in the ones he'd kept hidden, would keep him up most nights for the rest of his life looking for payback behind tinted car windows outside his apartment. Sometimes the prison sentence in the mind was worse than the real thing.

“Paul's been down here twice looking for you,” Carol said, popping her head into my office after Bernard was gone and I was editing my notes from his interview.

“Twice?” I repeated. “What did he want? Did he say?”

“Said he wanted to come down here himself to congratulate you on last week,” Carol said, grinning. “Said he was impressed. Good news, right? Coming all the way from the top!” She pointed up toward the district attorney's office. “That's pretty rare. Him down here just to speak to you. But then again, you were really great last week. Everyone's talking about it.”

“Sure,” I answered flatly before delivering a weak smile to let Carol know I wanted to be alone.

Carol took the hint and turned to walk out.

“Hey, Carol,” I called. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure. What do you need?”

“Can you close my door,” I said in a low voice, “and if Paul comes back down here, tell him I had a doctor's appointment.”

“But your appointment was this morning. Right?” Carol looked confused.

“I know. I'm not really leaving. I just want you to
say
that. Okay?”

“Okay.” Carol frowned at me awkwardly before pulling the door shut.

“And Carol,” I added just before it closed behind her, “thanks for saying I did great.”

“No problem at all. You always do.”

The Tuesday before, I'd delivered the closing argument in a case that we were sure we'd lose. While I started in my ADA class focusing on what we call rackets—basic economic crimes, arson, racketeering—after my first year it was clear that my best work was in cases that involved small-business corruption with illegal drug operations, so the DA put me on Special Prosecutions. In my last case, the owner of a small vegan bakery on the Lower East Side had been growing marijuana in his apartment and transporting it to his shop, where he baked it into cakes and brownies and even croissants. It was becoming a common New York setup for the kinds of drug operations I was set to bust down: illegal pill dispensaries and marijuana factories operating out of the basements, back rooms, and kitchens of legal business fronts that allowed the dealers to function day in and out without worry. For the vegan baker, while the business itself was failing, through investigation we discovered that his drug-laced baked goods earned him upward of eighty thousand per month. He was shipping orders throughout the state and had a special baked-goods delivery service. The case seemed pretty cut-and-dry until it came out that he was only selling the baked goods to cancer patients, most of whom delivered tear-filled testimonies on his behalf during the trial. There was a teenage boy with leukemia who testified that he would've killed himself months earlier if it weren't for the weekly brownie deliveries he received from the bake shop. A broken law was a broken law, but a bleeding heart is a bleeding heart, and looking at the jury during the testimonies, I knew it was filled with bleeding hearts that might let the baker go free or settle for lesser charges. My boss hated to lose, and he despised lesser charges. I knew the verdict would come down to me. What I said during my closing could save our record and my reputation.

I'd spent days working on the argument. I'd typed it, memorized it, and practiced it, had it ready to be performed like I was Dr. King stepping up to the podium on the Mall in DC. But when it was time for me to deliver, I choked. I forgot the entire thing, and for a second I stood there looking at the jury trying to remember any word on the iPad I'd left sitting at the prosecution's desk. Then it came to me. I had to admit that the baker's actions were likely coming from a place of goodwill. I said that he could've been helping those in need, but he was also cheating the system. He was lying to his community. He was involved in vigilante justice that threatened a system that operated on the idea of change. If he wanted to change the system, he needed to work within it—not compromise it. Not take medical matters into his own hands. I went down a list of medical-marijuana champions who'd done just that. Those who'd achieved victory. I added that he detracted from their victory and lessened the power of their fight. His criminal behavior cost us more than it may have benefited the few he served. For that he needed to be prosecuted.

No matter what a counselor says, there's just no way of knowing which way a jury will go after a case is closed. So when the jury left the courtroom to deliberate, I followed my class's ritual of going out for scotch and cigars. After two days, they came back with a verdict for the wayward baker: guilty of all charges.

I stayed in my office working on the Candy Shop case a little later than I anticipated. When I got home, the bottle of wine was still sitting on the coffee table in the living room. I kicked off my shoes, picked up the bottle, and walked it into the kitchen, cursing myself for the late-night boozing that I was sure added, like, ten pounds to my body each year. I vowed to pour the little bit that was left down the drain and never ever bring a bottle of wine into the house again . . .  ​a promise I knew instantly was a lie.

I was cursing aloud and lying some more to myself about trying to find more time to go to the gym when there was a single soft knock at the door. I never had company I wasn't expecting, so I stood in the kitchen listening for a second to be sure the knock was actually at my door and not coming from downstairs or next door. But then there was a second set of three quick knocks.

“Who is it?” I called, walking to the door.

There was no answer.

I looked through the peephole. There was someone I definitely wasn't expecting and didn't care to see.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Open the door.”

“I told you not to come here anymore,” I said, looking at a bright smile in the little blurry glass hole in the door.

“I know.”

“So?”

“You're going to make me stand out here forever? Come on, Kim. I just want to talk.”

Against my better judgment and probably for a few reasons I couldn't admit, I undid the three locks, removed the doorstop, and let Paul in.

“Damn, you got cold on a brother fast,” he said, walking in and reaching for me.

I pushed him away and walked into the living room.

“What do you want, Paul?” I asked. I folded my arms over my chest and planted my feet firmly on the floor to let him know he was not staying. “I'm sure the DA of New York County has more to do than make uninvited house calls.”

“I'll start with a seat,” he joked, and sat down on the couch without an invitation. “Maybe a little wine.”

“Fresh out of wine,” I said. “And now I wish I didn't have a couch.”

“Kiki Mimi! You mad? Why you so mad?”

“Don't call me that. I told you not to call me that. That's only for family.”

“I'm like family.”

“No, you have a family. In Westchester. With your wife. Kids. The golden retriever. Remember?”

Paul exhaled dramatically and threw his head back to rest it against the couch. He was still in his work clothes, but his tie was missing and his shirt was unbuttoned. From four feet away, I could smell his cologne.

I never meant for anything to happen with Paul. When Ronald and I broke up after the accident, I was in the hospital for weeks and Paul came by a few times just to check on me. When I was released from the hospital, he continued to text me to send me well wishes and keep me updated on my cases. I thought it was kind, thoughtful, but when I told Tamika about it, she laughed in my face and told me we were setting a “thing” up. “He's fine as hell. You know what you're doing. Just be a big girl and admit it,” she said. I denied it, but then everything became too clear. His visits and flowers, the texts way after office hours and updates I was already getting from Carol—he was coming on to me.

When I went back to work, I decided that there was no way I was going to be involved in a workplace affair—with my boss. It could ruin him. It could ruin me. He was separated but still married and had two kids . . .  ​and that golden retriever. I couldn't get involved in all of that. Still, Tamika was right. Paul had that Blair Underwood mystique. Almond skin and sophisticated eyes that were so dark they looked black. He had perfect teeth and clean nails. His style was impeccable and his body was solid—even with his clothes on. And he always smelled so complex—rich sweet and dark spicy.

I fought off my attraction for him for a few months. Ignored his texts. I even went out on a couple of dates, and as Tamika instructed me to in hopes that I'd get over Ronald, I got my “feet wet” a few times. But nothing seemed to satisfy me. Through so many botched and just plain awkward love affairs, I was learning fast that contrary to popular belief, not all men are created equal. Some were soft, some were little, most were wack, and the others couldn't even get it up. So I'm clear: I'm talking about penises.

I don't want to make it sound like I was out there looking for nothing but a great fuck. That was far from the truth. Like anyone else, I wanted love. I wanted to find my mate. And sometimes I came close. I met some great guys, but no matter how strong the connection was, once we got into that bedroom and the private parts were released and I had to check for the motion in the ocean, if things weren't right with my body, everything went wrong with my mind. I'd go from seeing the same man every day to ignoring his calls and rolling my eyes when he spoke. It was hard to explain. I didn't understand it myself, but I thought it had something to do with intimacy. With being touched again. Moved from inside of my body. For all of her man trouble, Tamika explained it best. “It's like finding the right dance partner,” she said one night when we were drinking wine on her front steps in Brooklyn. “Y'all step together. Y'all groove together.”

“I came to your office twice today,” Paul said, looking up at the ceiling over my couch.

“Yeah, you shouldn't have done that. Not the way everyone talks. They already think something's going on. Easter Summer keeps sniffing around, asking questions. I think she's—”

“I've missed you. I'm going crazy,” he cut in.

“Paul, we had to stop.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘Why'? You're my boss. That's why,” I said. “Don't pull me back into this. I was doing well. It's been two months. Let's just move on.” I picked up my shoes and trudged to the bedroom to escape smelling him, looking at his body relaxed on my couch.

I put the shoes in place and thought about how I was going to get Paul out of my apartment.