Shelter (8 page)

“What does that mean?”

“You know, civil dusk. Right before the sun sets and there's still a little light out … Listen, are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Please,” Kyung says. He hasn't said this word to his father-in-law in years, not since he asked for Gillian's hand in marriage and was refused. “Please,” he repeats.

Connie takes a knuckle to each eye and rubs them in slow circles. “This is a bad idea,” he says. “I don't know much, but I know that, at least.”

*   *   *

Mae went out for a walk at eight. The doctor told her to, for her blood pressure. It was hot that day, so she waited until the sun had almost set. Then she walked down Crescent Hill, looped around the main road, and took Starling back to the house—a thirty-, thirty-five-minute trip at most. The men must have been following her—for how long, she didn't know—but as she unlocked the front door, one of the men put a gun in her back and shoved her inside. Her purse was on the table in the entryway, so she tried to give them the cash from her wallet, about fifty or sixty dollars. The younger one, Dell, took the money, but he laughed when he put it in his pocket, as if it was hardly enough. That was how they referred to each other from the start—Nat and Dell—which frightened her. They didn't seem to care that she'd seen their faces or knew their names.

Nat was the one who carried the gun. It seemed to come more naturally to him, even though the gun didn't look like it was his. It was the kind that you had to load bullets into—the old-fashioned kind—with a mother-of-pearl handle. It almost looked like a woman's, small enough to fit in a bag. Jin woke up staring into its barrel, listening to a voice he thought he'd imagined: You're coming with me. Before he knew what was happening, someone was dragging him out of bed, down the stairs, and into the kitchen, where Mae had been tied to a chair. They used duct tape on their wrists, ankles, and shoulders. A strip to cover their mouths. They left them like this for over an hour while they ransacked the house.

Jin thought they'd leave as soon as they'd taken what they could carry, but Mae knew they wouldn't. The liquor cabinet in the living room had a squeaky hinge. She heard them open and close it, open and close it again. The more they drank, the clumsier their footsteps became, the louder their voices. Dell kept insisting there was a safe somewhere. Big houses like theirs always had a safe. Look behind the paintings, he shouted. Take down those mirrors. When they'd looked long enough, he walked into the kitchen and ripped the tape off Jin's mouth. Where is it? he screamed. Where is it? The more Jin claimed not to have one, the angrier Dell became. That's when Mae thought something about him didn't look right. It wasn't that he was drunk. It was that being drunk wasn't enough. By the time Nat joined them, Mae was rocking back and forth in her chair, trying to get one of them to pull the tape from her mouth, which he did. Little lady, he said—that's what Nat kept calling her—Little lady, you've got one chance to tell us where that safe is, or your husband here loses an eye.

She told them there wasn't a safe, but they had jewelry, silverware, and some gold coins in the house. There were furs and computers too. Dell said he didn't want their stuff—pawnshops were too risky—he wanted cash. Jin suggested taking them to an ATM. They could get all the cash they needed. Dell seemed to like this idea; Nat, less so. He looked at the gun, tossing it from one palm to the other as if he was thinking, and then
smash.
He hit Jin in the face with it, right above the eye. He seemed to know exactly where to hit to draw the most blood. Then he turned the gun over to Dell, told him to use it if he had any trouble.

Jin didn't want to be split up. He didn't want to leave Mae in the house with that man. Gun or no gun, Nat seemed like the more dangerous of the two, but he had no choice. He drove Dell to an ATM downtown, the one on the corner next to the clock tower. It was almost midnight when they arrived, and the streets were empty. He tried to take out a thousand dollars, but the machine wouldn't let him. Then he tried five hundred, and the machine spit out a stack of twenties. Dell told him to do it again, get another five hundred, but the message said he'd reached his daily withdrawal limit. They drove to another ATM down the block, next to the dry cleaners, but got the same message. Five-fucking-hundred? Dell kept shouting. That's all I get? Five-fucking-hundred?

Jin assumed they'd go back to the house after this, but Dell made him drive two towns over, to Westbury. He seemed to know the streets well, telling him to turn here, turn there, until they came to a corner next to some old row houses. A skinny teenager with a ring through his nose leaned into Dell's open window and sold him a handful of small envelopes and a marble-sized ball of something white. Then they had an argument about rigs. The kid said he wasn't in the business of selling rigs, there was a twenty-four-hour pharmacy the next town over, but Dell refused to go there. He said he needed one right away. They kept yelling about it, haggling back and forth over the price. Fifty dollars. Ten dollars. Forty, then twenty. Eventually, they settled on thirty. The kid ran into the first row house and came back a few minutes later with a single syringe in a plastic bag. It's clean, right? Dell asked. You're sure it's clean? But the kid had already taken his money and run off in the dark.

In a parking lot next to an empty dollar store, Dell searched the glove compartment and removed a small flashlight and the leather folder with the paperwork for the car. He tore open one of the envelopes and carefully emptied it onto the folder. The contents looked like little shards of glass, crystalline and white. Jin had never seen anyone do drugs before; he tried not to stare as Dell crushed the shards with the end of the flashlight, turning them into a fine powder. He wondered if Dell was going to inject himself with the needle he'd bought, but he snorted the powder up his nose instead, using one of the rolled-up twenties like a straw. Afterwards, Dell became animated, almost cheerful. He fiddled with the radio all the way back to Marlboro, stopping to comment on the songs he liked and stabbing his finger at the dashboard when he didn't.

When they returned to the house, Jin heard Mae crying upstairs. He knew what it meant; it was the reason he'd been so frightened to leave her. He tried to run toward the sound of her voice, but Dell tackled him from behind and dragged him into the kitchen. He tied him up again, pulling his arms back so tight, his shoulder popped out of its socket. Then Dell disappeared and all Jin could hear was the sound of footsteps overhead, the nauseating creak of the bed.

Mae tried to fight Nat off at first, but this only made him angry. He was drunk, and the more she fought, the more he hit. It happened three times—always with him, always with her hands and feet tied to the bed. Sometimes Dell sat on the other bed and watched, but he seemed more interested in his drugs. After Jin took him to the ATM, he walked into the room and gave Nat a small white ball. Cocaine, she guessed, because of the way Nat kept scratching at it, sniffing up the dust from the hand mirror on her bureau. The drugs made him meaner. He'd hit her for no reason—for crying, for not crying, for looking at him, for not looking at him. Nothing he said or did made sense. Twice, he picked a fight with Dell, who kept injecting himself every few hours. That stuff's going to wreck you, Nat said. My problem if it does, Dell snapped. Back and forth they went, shouting at each other about drugs, money, the bind they were in. Nat called his brother useless; he blamed him for their luck.

They left Mae tied up overnight, using her scarves and the sashes from her robes. The knots they made wouldn't loosen no matter how hard she tried. Mae didn't recall sleeping that night. She just listened to them wandering through the house, opening things, breaking things, wondering aloud if there was any way to pawn the jewelry and furs and not get caught like the last time. She learned they'd been planning the robbery for weeks, but everything was going wrong. Nat kept calling their house a bust. They needed cash, straight cash. They must have fallen asleep talking about it because she didn't hear anything for hours, not until the sun was coming through the window. At first, it sounded like a mouse in the walls, a scratching noise down below. Jin heard it too, from the kitchen. Someone was using the key in the back door, fumbling with the sticky lock. He held his breath, grateful that all of this might be over soon. And then he realized it was a Friday, a cleaning day.

Marina looked irritated when she walked into the kitchen, as if she thought they'd had a party the night before. When she saw Jin tied to the chair, she started shouting at him in Bosnian. He wanted her to take the tape off his mouth so he could warn her, but she went for his hands first, crowing like a rooster the entire time. It didn't take long for the men to come running, stumbling over themselves, hungover and strung out. Still, Marina was no match for them, not even the smaller of the two. Dell took her arms while Nat picked up her legs, and they started to carry her off this way until Marina managed to free one of her feet and kick Nat square in the jaw. The look in his eyes—Jin thought he might kill her right there in front of him. Instead, he reared his fist back and swung with the full force of himself, knocking her out cold. He chuckled afterwards, massaging his chin. He seemed amused with himself as he slapped her breasts from side to side.

Marina had loosened the tape around his wrists, enough to grab on to the end if he curled his fingers up at just the right angle. After they took her upstairs, he worked on the tape all morning, peeling it back, centimeter by centimeter. Only once did he stop, when Nat came down to look for food. He opened the refrigerator and rummaged inside, knocking over jars and containers until he found what he wanted. Then he just stood there, studying Jin while dipping rolled-up pieces of bread into a jar of mayonnaise. He ate three pieces this way while Jin sat perfectly still, the loose end of tape coiled up behind him in his fist. Playtime with the girls has been fun, Nat said, but I've got to figure out how to make some money out of you. The way he said it, Jin knew that once he got his money, he'd kill them all.

He continued working after Nat went back upstairs, undoing his hands first and then trying to loosen the tape around his ankles. They'd used so much of it. Every time he peeled some away, it made a snapping noise that he was certain they could hear. He was so close to freeing himself when Dell found him and started shouting. Jin wasn't sure who hit him first, but the force of the blow sent his chair sailing backwards, and Dell started kicking him as he lay on the floor. Not the face, Nat shouted. Not the face—I need him looking right. Jin didn't know what this meant. He just prayed for it to be over, prayed as he'd never prayed before. When Nat took a kitchen knife from the block, he closed his eyes and waited for the worst, but all he felt was a tug on his ankles as Nat sliced away his bindings. Then they marched him to the upstairs bathroom. Wash your face, Nat shouted. And put this on. He threw a clean white shirt at him, a pair of pants, and a pair of shoes. Jin did as he was told, trying to move as fast as he could. Comb your hair too, Nat said. We're going to the bank.

The cut above his eye had crusted over badly. The skin underneath was already purple and blue. Jin cleaned off the dried blood and put a bandage over the open wound, but there was no mistaking it was there, no mistaking the bruises forming around his nose. He couldn't hide the fact that something had happened to him, which wasn't entirely bad. Jin thought someone at the bank might notice and call the police. Just as he was beginning to feel optimistic about this, Nat opened the door to the master bedroom and shoved him inside. Mae was tied to her bed, splayed like an X, faceup. Marina was on the other bed, tied the same way but facedown. Both of them were naked. Nat tightened his grip on Jin's arm. I'm leaving the gun with my brother, he said. But if you pull anything at the bank, something bad's going to happen here.

Jin promised to cooperate. He'd do whatever they asked, give them anything they wanted. Dell kept pacing back and forth beside Mae's bed. He seemed twitchy, agitated. Come back quick, he said. Then he walked over to Mae and yanked out a patch of her pubic hair. The sound of her wailing, even with her mouth taped shut—it was the worst thing Jin had ever heard. You understand what I'm saying? Dell asked, pulling out another. Come back quick. Nat squeezed Jin's shoulder. That's what the tweaked-out fucker can do with his hands, he said. Imagine if I gave him a knife.

Dell continued pacing around the room after they left, muttering to himself like a homeless person on the street. Dummy, he kept saying. Big fucking dummy. Mae didn't know what he was talking about. She wondered how many of those little packets he'd gone through. There weren't any left on the end table; the torn envelopes were scattered across the floor. Dell kept studying what was left of Nat's drugs, walking back and forth to the bureau like a child who knew better. Mae didn't want him to use them, not if they made him act like his brother. The things Nat had done to Marina—Mae had to crane her head to the side to see if she was still breathing. For a long time, she thought she was dead. Dell left the room and returned several minutes later with something in his fist. She watched him in the mirror, holding a spoon over his lighter and drawing the melted drugs into his syringe. She didn't like how hesitant he was. She didn't understand it. Dell didn't seem like the kind of person who cared about risk. Her only guess was that he didn't want Nat to be angry with him for taking something that wasn't his. Dell took the syringe into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. She braced herself for when he came out, but almost an hour passed, and nothing happened.

Mae knew the men had no intention of letting them go, not that they'd ever humored her with the possibility. They'd been too careless from the start. She'd seen their faces, knew their names, carried the shame of them on her body. She wondered if Marina had a roommate or boyfriend who might notice she was missing, but she didn't want to waste what little time she had left wishing for something so unlikely. No one had called in days. No one was going to come looking for them until it was too late. She felt guilty for leading the men to the house. It was her fault that everything had happened as it did. She tried to say the Lord's Prayer, but she couldn't remember the words. All she could do was accept the death that she knew was coming. At the very least, she wanted the men to bury her or throw her body off a bridge so that strangers wouldn't have to find her naked and tied to her bed.