Nine Minutes (14 page)

Moe was
raised in Davie. Her stepfather, who married Moe’s mother when Moe was about
ten years old, was wealthy and eager to spoil his new stepdaughter. That
explained the exorbitant reward money. Moe’s mother worked for some big airline
at the time, and although she made a nice living, she was able to quit her job
and be a stay-at-home-mom to Moe. She went on to have three more children with
Moe’s stepfather. All girls.

     
Moe had been the
recipient of all the attention for about four years before her first
half-sister was born. She was fourteen then and completely rebelled. She
started running with a fast crowd, using drugs and sleeping around. She lost
interest in her beloved horses. She was given a brand-new car for her sixteenth
birthday, and it ended up in a lake. Two months after her sixteenth birthday,
she dropped out of high school.
She was eventually picked up
by the police for shoplifting
.

     
Her parents
couldn’t understand where this was coming from. Why did she need to steal when
they gave her everything?

     
Jan couldn’t
comment on why Moe’s life spiraled out of control. It was just one of those
things. She was technically still living at home when she was twenty, although
by most counts she was never around. She slept on friends’ couches and only
showed up at home to borrow money. When her parents finally cut her off, she
resorted to breaking into her own home and stealing. I was still curious as to
how she came into contact with the gang.

     
According to Jan,
Moe was picked up by one of the members. Jan thinks his name was Chip. He wasn’t
around anymore. She’d been hanging at one of the gang’s local bars, performing
sexual favors in exchange for drugs. Chip brought her to the motel and shared
her with the guys. I looked at Jan. She knew what I was thinking.

     
“Yeah, I’m sure
Grizz
and Blue were both with her,” she said.

     
Jan went on to
explain that Moe was pretty much the motel whore. There were other women who
came and went, but Moe was a permanent fixture.

     
I couldn’t
contain my curiosity any longer. “Why did
Grizz
cut
her tongue out?” I had to know.

     
“Apparently, Moe
had a real mouth on her,” Jan said quietly. “She never got over being the
spoiled princess and was constantly bragging about how she didn’t have to live
at the motel like a whore. Her family was rich and she could go home anytime
she wanted. There was only one problem with this. She couldn’t be trusted. She’d
been at the motel and heard too many secrets exchanged. Witnessed too much. No
one really took her seriously, but it was still too risky.”

     
Jan said Moe was
steadily mocked and abused by some of the regulars. And how does someone cope
with abuse? In this case, Moe turned her frustration on the only other person
she perceived to be weaker than herself: Grunt. He was only ten or eleven then.

     
Blue had just met
Jan and wasn’t at the motel a lot, so
Grizz
had taken
Grunt under his wing. It wasn’t exactly clear, but Jan was pretty sure that
while Moe had never physically hurt Grunt, she was mean to him. Where the
others fondly teased him about his size, she was cruel and started to order him
around. She treated him like a slave, getting him to wait on her and do her
chores. She was very careful not to do it when Blue or
Grizz
were around.

     
But what Moe didn’t
count on was that
Grizz
knew everything going on. It
was only a couple of weeks after Moe started picking on Grunt that it happened.

     
Grizz
later told Blue he called Moe into his room for sex.
She was always willing to accommodate
Grizz
. Jan
thinks she was secretly in love with him.
When they got in
the room
Grizz
unzipped his jeans and told her to
kneel.
She was offended that he didn’t want intercourse with her. He
just wanted a
blow job
. She made an off-the-cuff
comment about “blow jobs being the runt’s work.” She probably thought she was
being cute and funny, but
Grizz
snapped.

     
I was shocked. I
couldn’t equate the meek and unassuming Moe with the snotty, mouthy, nasty girl
Jan was telling me about. I could see why
Grizz
would
be mad at the comment, but to cut out her tongue?

     
“Wouldn’t that
just make her more hateful and resentful of Grunt?”

     
“You would think
so,” Jan replied. “But things don’t always turn out the way you think they
might.”

     
“What do you
mean?”

     
“Well,
Grizz
left her in the room, bleeding and crying
hysterically. No one really cared that she was hurt. That she was maimed. Well,
except for one person.”

     
“Who?” But I knew
before she told me.

     
“Grunt. He nursed
her back to health all by himself. He was just a little guy, and he never left
her side. Even after she had been so mean to him.”

     
I could see Grunt
nursing Moe back to health. I’d seen him more than once at the motel stitching
up someone who’d been in a fight. I knew
Grizz
had a
doctor on his payroll, and that the physician noticed Grunt taking an interest
when he occasionally came to the motel to provide medical care. He’d showed Grunt
how to deal with some basic injuries and left medical supplies for him to use.
Grunt was smart. He most certainly could’ve gone to medical school.

     
I knew instantly
the reasoning behind
Grizz’s
insistence that Grunt be
the one to take my virginity that night. He saw in Grunt a nurturing, caring
person who’d do his best not to hurt me. I still wondered, though—Grunt
was the same person who nailed a man to a fence.

     
I snapped back to
the present and my conversation with Jan. I’d felt there was a special bond
between Grunt and Moe, but I didn’t know what it was. If I was going to be
honest, I thought it might’ve been sexual, but I was wrong. It was so strange
to think her comment about Grunt is what caused her mutilation. She could’ve
justified an even more intense hatred of him after that. Yet the simple act of
loving concern from a child changed it all.

     
I was touched.

     
I was thinking
about this and watching Grunt as he drove us home. I had a paper plate full of
food wrapped in tinfoil for Moe on my lap. I was feeling a slight high from the
wine and had my head leaned back against the seat, but facing Grunt.

     
We stopped at a
stop sign and he looked over at me. I lifted my hand and caressed his cheek. “You
are such a good person, Grunt. I’m glad it was you.”

     
He looked at me
like he was confused and then realized that I was talking about the night he
drugged me in his room. He took my hand and kissed it.

     
“I’m glad it was
me too, Kit.”

     
We were lost in
the moment, and the reality of what was happening sunk in. I pulled my hand
back and sat up.

     
“I hope it hasn’t
caused a problem with you and Sarah Jo,” I said quietly. “I mean
,
I’m assuming she doesn’t know, and I don’t know if you
feel guilty about cheating on her like that. You know? I’m sorry if you do.”

     
He didn’t say
anything right away, but looked straight ahead and started to drive.
      
“Sarah Jo’s
not my girlfriend, Kit.”

     
This got my
attention and I looked over at him. “What? What do you mean she’s not your
girlfriend? I’ve seen you two together. You sure look like a couple to me.”

     
“Well, we’re not.
We’ve been best friends for a long time. Fess didn’t like to bring her around,
but he liked me and would take me home with him once in awhile. She has two
younger brothers, too. They’d lost their mother a year or two before. Breast
cancer.”

     
I was stunned. “Stop.
Pull over here, Grunt. I want to talk to you, and I want your attention.”

     
He did as I asked
and made a right on Griffin Road. There was nothing but orange groves out there
in the seventies, and he easily pulled into one of the rows.

     
He cut the engine
and turned to face me. “She’s not my girlfriend, but she is very special to me.”

     
“Do you always
act that lovey-dovey with someone who’s not your girlfriend?” On the few
occasions I had seen them, they were either holding hands or had their arms
around each other, but now that I thought about it, I’d never seen them kiss.

     
“Jo and I are
affectionate with each other, but there’s nothing to it. She’s had the same
boyfriend from high school for two years. Stephen somebody.”

     
“You do know I
thought you were a couple, right? Grunt. Answer me. You wanted me to think you
were a couple, didn’t you?”

     
He didn’t say
anything, just looked at his lap.

     
“It’s better this
way, don’t you think?” he whispered.

     
I couldn’t
believe what I was hearing? Did Grunt have feelings for me and was trying to
hide them? Did he know I had feelings for him back in the summer and purposely
derailed them by bringing Sarah Jo to the motel?

     
I touched his
face then and turned it toward me. We were staring at each other. I wanted so
badly to kiss him, but I couldn’t betray
Grizz
. I
didn’t know what to do. My mind was reeling. I remembered how much I had tried
to hang around Grunt after that dream. That’s when Sarah Jo showed up. Had he
done that on purpose to dissuade me?

     
“What is this,
Grunt?” Tears pricked my eyes.

     
“It doesn’t matter.”
His voice was hollow. “It can never be and we both know it.”

     
I couldn’t let it
drop. “If it could be, would you want it? Would you want me?”

     
“Kit, I’ve wanted
you since the first night I saw you. You sat there that night in the pit, so
brave and so beautiful in those jeans and that flowery shirt. I was going to
take care of you. I didn’t know what Monster was
gonna
do with you, but I would have gone up against
him for you. That was before I knew he brought you there for
Grizz
.”

     
I remembered that
night vividly. I remembered the feeling of being watched. I instantly
remembered the morning after I lost my virginity. How I went to Grunt’s room to
ask him to take me out. He’d asked me what I was wearing that first night so I
didn’t wear it while I was out with him. I might’ve been recognized. Now I knew
it was an act. He knew exactly what I’d been wearing the first night at the
motel.

     
My mind was in
turmoil. I didn’t know what to say.

     
I didn’t have to
say anything. The spell was broken when he started the car. The loud engine
snapped me back to reality, and we wordlessly drove back to the motel.

Chapter Twenty-Five

That
evening was never discussed again. We fell back into our normal routines like
it never happened—no covert glances or stolen looks. We both must have
committed to ourselves the same thought: It never happened. It couldn’t happen.
And it was erased from memory.

     
There was one positive thing that came
from that talk, though—Sarah Jo. Knowing she wasn’t romantically involved
with Grunt opened up an avenue I wanted to explore: friendship. I was growing
to love Moe, but honestly, communication was difficult.
Grizz
and Grunt were men. The thing with Jan was a disaster. I wanted a girlfriend.

     
I asked Grunt for her phone number. Grunt
and I had gone back to being comfortable around each other like we were on the
drive over to Blue’s that Thanksgiving. I made first contact with Sarah Jo, and
it was instant chemistry.

     
It didn’t start out easy, though. Her
father resisted our friendship at first. I think Fess was uncomfortable with
her being friends with the underage wife of a notorious gang leader. And who
could blame him?

     
Her father wasn’t the hardened criminal
one expected to find in a motorcycle gang. He actually fell into it by
accident. Fess’s nickname was short for Professor. He taught at a local college.
Back
then,
he was juggling his teaching career, three
small children and a dying wife. It was all too much for him.

     
Three months after his wife died,
he was approached by the parent of one of his students
. The
student was failing his class, which would have prevented him from graduating.

     
Fess didn’t have to be bribed. He already
felt like he’d let his students down by not being there for them during his
wife’s illness and ultimate death. He told the parent to not worry; his son
would pass.

     
That parent happened to be a narcotics
detective. He told Fess he would make it up to him no matter what. Whenever Fess
needed a favor, no matter what it was, he would be his man. Fess got the distinct
impression that when he said it didn’t matter what it was, he meant it.

     
Less than a month later, Fess was drowning
his sorrows at a bar and met a young, up-and-coming motorcycle gang leader.
Grizz
.

     
Fess was not only missing his wife, trying
to raise three small children and hold down a job, but he was terribly in debt.
His wife’s illness was long, and even though he had insurance through his job,
it wasn’t enough for all the care she required. He needed money. He was going
to lose his house.

     
That’s how it started.
Grizz’s
network of inside
informants.
Fess called in that favor and the parent was only too happy
to oblige.
Grizz
paid well. That’s what Fess did. He
kept a ledger for
Grizz
of informants and other
people who worked for him in other capacities. Fess kept records of who did
what and how much they were paid. He never passed money. He never made contact.
He never used his real name. There was never anything to tie him to
Grizz
.

     
He eventually bought himself a Harley and
would occasionally come out to the motel, but he never wore the jacket. The
only reason Sarah Jo was
friends with Grunt was
because Fess felt sorry for the little boy at the motel. He later became
extremely fond of Grunt. Grunt had potential, and Fess saw that.

     
Sarah Jo confided in me that Fess
regularly visited Moe in her room when he was there.
Jo
 
knew
how much he missed her mother,
and he was only human. She thought her father might have feelings for Moe. But
if they cared about each other, they hid it well from the rest of us.
           
Sarah
Jo told me she did recognize me when she first met me. But, of course, she knew
better than to say anything. She attended my rival school, Fort Lauderdale High
School. My school,
Stranahan
, and her school had been
archenemies as long as I could remember. But she had enough friends at
Stranahan
to know about me: the honor student who’d gone
missing. It was assumed I’d run away.

     
She told me all about her boyfriend, Stephen.
She’d been with him for two years and was currently torn between her love for
him and the interest a new boy was showing her.

     
Our friendship was difficult for us in the
beginning because of my limitations on where I could go, and neither one of us
had a driver’s license. We had to rely on Grunt, Moe,
Grizz
,
Fess or whoever was available to drop us at an occasional movie, the beach or
an out of the way mall.

     
Still, in spite of the obstacles, the
friendship flourished. She was my maid of honor when I married my husband. I
was hers when she married her husband. She was there when I gave birth to my
two children. I was there when she had her three children. She was waiting for
me outside the execution viewing room the day
Grizz
died.

     
She was, and is to this day, one of my
very best friends.

____________