The Basement (4 page)

“Who are you?” she screams. “What do you want?”

You smile at her and press your finger against your lips, telling her to be silent.

Her tone becomes more strident, more aggressive, as if raising her voice is going to make you bend to her will. She's used to dealing with children, or a husband who can be cowed by a hot temper or the threat of a cold bed. She doesn't understand yet, so you smile. You smile and press the finger to your lips. “Shhhh,” you say. There are beads of sweat on her brow and the front of her blouse is damp. You can see her breasts rise and fall as she pants and the sight makes you ache between your legs. It's a longing, a need that you want to satisfy then and there, but you've learned from experience that it's better to wait. The longer the better.

You used the first few too quickly, and any fulfillment you felt soon faded. Slow is better.

“You can't keep me here,” she shouts. “I have to go home.”

The shouting phase doesn't last too long. Shouting works the lungs too hard, too much oxygen goes into the blood and they start to hyperventilate. That's when they stop shouting and start talking. They usually start off by threatening you, then bribing, then pleading. By the time they get to the third stage, they're ready to listen.

Sarah doesn't stop screaming for a long time. For a while she goes hysterical, her cries become yells and she begins to thrash about, pulling against the chains so hard that the bed moves. You don't want her to hurt herself so you take the stun gun out of your pocket and hold it in front of her. She doesn't react and so you think that maybe she doesn't know what a stun gun is, the damage it can do. You could explain to her, you could tell what 65,000 volts does to the body's neuromuscular system, but she clearly isn't going to be receptive so you decide to give her a demonstration. You hold it up and wave it from side to side to get her attention. It doesn't look much, that's for sure, matte black and hardly bigger than a pack of cigarettes, with a couple of steel prongs like the antenna of some predatory beetle. You press the trigger and blue sparks crackle and sizzle between the prongs and she starts to scream all the louder. That's happened before, but you know that you have to carry on, you have to show her that you're serious or she won't believe the threats you make in future. She has to know that whenever you say you'll do something, that you mean it and won't be talked out of it. She tries to roll away but the chains hold her fast as you step forward, holding the stun gun like a torch. Part of you wants to really hurt her, to push the crackling prongs against the soft white skin of her breasts and hear her scream. Her breasts are wet with sweat so the conduction would be almost perfect and you know the pain would be exquisite but you don't want to mark her. You go up to her right leg and hold her ankle with your hand. She tries to jerk the leg out of your grasp but the chain is already taught and all she does is grind the metal into her flesh. The shiny metal glistens with blood and there are red drops on the sheet.

You smile at her, press the contacts against the back of her leg and switch it on. Her whole body goes into spasm, her mouth open like she was in orgasm, her back arched like she was experiencing pleasure beyond anything she'd ever known before. When you take the gun away she slumps onto the bed, breathing heavily and dribbling from the side of her mouth.

You stand by the side of the bed and run the back of your hand against her cheek. She feels soft. So very soft.

* * *

I'm working on a scene in the casino in Checking Out, trying to build the tension between the casino owner and the hero, an LAPD bomb disposal expert turned blackjack dealer, when the doorbell rings. There isn't a doorman downstairs, the building is too cheap for that, but there's a security system and visitors aren't supposed to be able to get in unless they're admitted.

I put the chain on the door. “Yeah? Who is it?” I shout.

“Police,” says a voice.

“Yeah? I've already given.”

“Given?”

“Yeah. At the office. Thanks anyway.”

I go and sit down in front of the coffee table and continue typing. The doorbell rings again.

And again. I get up and go back to the door. “Who is it?”

“Are you Marvin Waller?”

“Who wants to know?”

“NYPD.”

“NYPD?” I'm starting to enjoy this. Whoever this cop is, he's obviously none too bright.

“New York Police Department. Can you open the door?”

“Sure I can,” I say, and go back to my chair. This time he knocks on the door, hard.

“What is it?” I shout.

“I'm getting fed up with talking through this door,” he says.

I get up again. “So go away.”

“You said you'd open the door, Mr Waller.”

“No I didn't.”

“Yes you did.”

“Oh no I didn't.” Yeah, this is fun all right. I can spin this out for hours.

“Mr Waller, can you please open the door?”

“Yes I can.” I fold my arms and lean against the wall, grinning to myself. I wonder how long it'll take him to get the grammar right. I hear voices. Muffled whispering.

“Mr Waller. Will you open the door?”

“Sure - now that you've asked properly.” I unlock the door and open it. I'm surprised. The guy's black, and he didn't sound it. He's well over six feet tall, big shoulders and a squarish face.

It'd be a severe face if it wasn't for the tortoise-shell spectacles that give him the look of a schoolteacher. Behind him is a woman, dark-haired and pale-skinned with the bluest eyes I've ever seen. I give them the boyish smile. “Yes?” I say.

The guy looks me up and down. He doesn't seem impressed. “You're Mr Waller? Marvin Waller?”

“I am?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, what?”

He frowns. He's confused. The woman steps to the side. She's smiling. Her eyes really are amazingly blue. “Are you or are you not Marvin Waller?” she says. There's a hint of Irish in her voice.

“I am.”

“Can we come in?”

“Not without a warrant, no.”

The guy opens his wallet and shows me his shield. “We're detectives,” he says.

“I'm impressed.”

“I'm Detective Sergeant Turner. This is Detective Marcinko.”

Marcinko? That ditches the Irish theory, I suppose. “Pleased to meet you, but I've got work to do.” I go to close the door but the guy puts his foot in the gap.

“We'd like a word,” he says.

“Trespass,” I say.

“Trespass?”

“Yeah. It's a word. It means being where you're not invited.”

“I know what trespass means.”

“Okay, what about mephitic?”

“Mephitic?” he repeats, confused.

“Yeah, do you know what mephitic is?”

The guy looks at the woman. Then he looks back at me. “Are you fucking with me, Waller?”

“Not without a condom, no. Now would you please take your foot away?”

The woman puts a hand on Turner's shoulder and he steps to the side. The woman smiles at me like she wants to take me to bed and lick me all over. “Mr Waller, you'd really be doing us a favour if you'd let us in.” I bet the smile has the bad guys swooning at her feet. She really is pretty. Not drop-dead gorgeous, but the sort of girl you'd take home to meet your mother. If you had a mother. Her hair is as black as night and there's a glossy sheen as if she's just washed it. I bet it smells like apples.

“I'd rather not.”

“We're the police,” says Turner.

“Do you have a warrant?”

“Why would we need a warrant?” he says.

I smile and tell him. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” I flash him a knowing smile.

“Amendment Four of the United States Constitution, made in 1787. You need a warrant. And you need probable cause.”

“Are you a lawyer?” he asks.

“Why? Do you treat lawyers differently?”

He ignores the question. “We'd still like to come in,” he says.

"I am not giving you my consent. If you keep putting pressure on me you run the risk of my consent not being truly voluntary and an infringement of my constitutional rights. It's up to you,

but personally I'd just go. Unless you've got probable cause.“ I smile at the woman. ”Do you have probable cause?" I ask.

“Mr Waller, all we want is a few moments of your time,” she says.

“Marvin.”

“Marvin?”

“Yeah, call me Marvin. Mr Waller always reminds me of my father.”

“Okay, Marvin. Can we come in?”

“Only if you say the magic word.”

“The magic word?”

“Yeah. The magic word.”

She smiles. She gets it. “Please,” she says.

“I've had enough of this shit,” says Turner. He begins pushing the door with his foot. I take the pressure off and allow the door to open. He steps across the threshold.

"You realise, Sergeant Turner, that anything you see or hear from this moment on is tainted.

There could be a corpse lying on the bed with my knife in its chest and there'd be not one thing you could do about it. I could have a kilo of cocaine in there and I couldn't be charged."

“Fuck off,” he says and walks into the middle of the room. He looks into the alcove where the bed is as if to reassure himself that there isn't really a body there.

The woman closes the door. “Mr Waller, did you visit an apartment block on Fifth Avenue yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“And you delivered an envelope to a resident?”

“I gave it to the doorman, yes.”

“Later you wrote to the resident?”

“Mr DePalma, yes.”

“And in that letter you made several disparaging comments about the doorman?”

“I pointed out what an inefficient little shit he is, yes.”

She looks at a small notebook. “Last week, on Wednesday, you were waiting outside 200 Central Park South.”

“I was?”

“According to the patrolman who stopped you, yes.”

“If I was waiting, he wouldn't have had to stop me. Waiting implies I wasn't moving. So he wouldn't have to stop me, right?”

She smiles patiently, like a mother with a disobedient child. “But you were outside the building?”

“That's right.”

“Would you mind telling us what you were doing there?”

“I was waiting to give a script to Dino de Laurentis. It's a horror film I'm working on.”

“So you're a writer?” she asks.

I nod.

“Had anything published?” asks Turner.

“I'm a screen writer, not a novelist.”

“So have you had anything filmed?” he asks.

I ignore him and look at Marcinko. “I was waiting in a public place. I wasn't committing an offence. The patrolman asked me for identification and I showed him my driving licence. He asked me why I was there and I told him. That's it. End of story.”

“You've been reported waiting outside other buildings in the city.”

“So?”

“So we'd like you to stop bothering people.”

“I'm a writer. I have to get my work to the right people.”

“That's what the mail is for, Waller,” says Turner. “These people don't want you hanging around outside their homes like a bad smell.”

“Have you had complaints?”

“Yes,” he says. “Several doormen have complained.”

“The doormen don't own the buildings. I haven't committed any crime.”

“Look Marvin, this city has a problem with celebrity stalkers, you know that. People in the entertainment industry are getting nervous, and they don't want strangers standing outside their buildings. It doesn't matter that your intentions are good. You're a stranger. You make them nervous. We're asking you to take their feelings into consideration, that's all.”

I shrug like I don't care. I haven't broken any laws. They're in my apartment illegally. I'm cool.

“Have the people I've been waiting to see complained? Or are we just talking about a few bolshy doormen or secretaries?”

Marcinko looks at Turner. Something passes between them. Like telepathy.

“What's going on?” I ask. I hate it when people try to pull one over on me, like they think they're smarter than I am or something.

Marcinko is the one to answer. “You know what this city is like, Marvin. People get uneasy when strangers are around. We'd prefer it if in future you put your scripts in the mail.” She pauses.

Then smiles. “Okay?”

I pause. I smile. “Okay.”

I show them to the door and they leave without saying anything else. I'm sure I haven't seen the last of them.

* * *

You dried the spittle from her chin while she was unconscious, on a handkerchief that's now back in your jacket pocket. Her breathing becomes less like a snore and gradually her eyes begin to flicker. You wait patiently for her to awaken. There's no rush. You have all the time in the world.

She has trouble focussing her eyes and it's obvious that at first she thinks she's dreaming,

then she tries to move her arms and she feels the chains bite and it all rushes back. You hold the stun gun out and you can see the fear in her eyes. She shakes her head but before you can speak you tell her that you'll only use it if she disobeys you. Obedience, you tell her, is all you require. And your first instruction is that she is not to speak, only to listen. You ask her if she understands and she begins to say yes, but you raise the stun gun and she nods instead.

Good, you tell her, that's good. She smiles like an uneasy child and you put the stun gun into your pocket. Out of sight but not out of mind.

You speak quietly, almost whispering so that she has to strain to catch each word. You tell her about the room in which she's being held, that it's underground, totally soundproofed and impossible for her to escape from. You explain about the door, how it's made of steel and operated by a numbered combination that has to be keyed in to a small metal panel. You show her the panel and you tell her that if any attempt is made to force it open it will lock shut. You explain that there's no key, and that there are thousands of combinations. After three wrong attempts, it will lock shut. You walk up to her and look her straight in the eyes.

Her beautiful, blue eyes. You spell it out for her. If she does manage to incapacitate you,

there is no way she can escape from the room. If she ever hopes to get out, it will only be because you allow it. And you will only allow it if you have her total and complete obedience.

You're lying, of course, but you know that they'll grasp any straw you offer them in an attempt to stay alive. She nods meekly, but you're not fooled. Conversion doesn't take place that quietly, no matter how much the stun gun hurts. Pretty little Sarah might be smiling and nodding and moistening her full lips and giving off all the signals that she's yours to do with as you want, but you're too good a judge of human nature to let her pull the wool over your eyes. She thinks she's smarter than you, that she can lull you into a false sense of security and then catch you unawares. She's not the first, and she won't be the last. You ask her if she wants a drink of water and she nods. You pick the paper cup off the tiled floor and hold it to her lips and keep it there as she drinks. When she's finished you take it away. She licks her lips and thanks you. You slap her face, hard, and tell her that she isn't to speak.

Tears well up in her big, blue eyes.

You smile reassuringly as a red glow spreads across her left cheek. You can clearly see the marks your fingers left, red streaks across her soft white skin. You reach up to touch her cheek and she flinches like a whipped dog. You smile reassuringly and brush her hair behind her ear.

“Please don't hurt me,” she says, her voice wavering. The heartfelt plea gives you a thrill deep inside. You tell her that everything is going to be okay so long as she does as she's told.

It's a lie and the way she nods eagerly, grabbing at the words like a drowning man fumbling for a lifebelt, excite you beyond words. The training has begun.

* * *

I reread the Chain Male comedy and laugh out loud as I prowl around the apartment. It's good,

even if I do say so myself. I decide to have another go at getting it to Mel Brooks. It's a cold day but I decide to walk anyway. On the way up to East 89th Street I have a an idea. A cracker, a sort of black comedy. I'll call it The Jinx, something like that. It's about a guy, an ordinary guy called Ralph Delaney. Ralph is jinxed - wherever he is, whatever he's doing, bad things happen to people.

At his high school sports day a pole vaulter is impaled on his pole, a swimmer drowns. At college,

a professor is electrocuted while demonstrating a scientific experiment, buses crash after Ralph gets off, buildings burn down after he leaves them.

Ralph is blissfully unaware that he is the unwitting cause of the disasters, though he himself always emerges unscathed. He gets a video recorder as a graduation present and carries it everywhere. Before long he's capturing the most amazing rescues and disasters on video tape, and sells them to TV reality shows and news broadcasts. He is soon offered a staff job as a cameraman on a local TV station, and his career flourishes - no matter on what job he's sent, something bizarre happens and he captures it on film. His jinx means he never fails to get a big story and is close to landing a job with one of the networks. Then he meets a girl and falls in love. The jinx vanishes and his career stalls. He loses the girl and the jinx returns. Ralph realizes he must choose between love and his career. It's a great first act, all I need is the rest of the story.

I can't stop grinning as I walk and I get a few doubtful looks from passers-by. New York isn't a city where people smile in the streets, unless they've overdosed on their medication. Bearing in mind what happened last time, I wait some distance away from the main entrance. After I while, I start pacing up and down, trying to work out the second act of The Jinx. I'm so engrossed in the plot that I don't notice the two figures behind me until one of them speaks.

“Mr Waller?”

At first the voice doesn't register and I carry on walking with my head down.

“Mr Waller?”

I turn around. It's Marcinko and Turner. Turner is glaring at me but Marcinko has a butterwouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth smile plastered across her face. “I told you, Mr Waller is my father.”

“What are you doing here, Marvin?”

Turner walks behind me and stands there as if he thinks I'm going to run away. “Just waiting,” I say.

“Who for?”

“Am I committing an offence?”

“I'm simply asking you a question, Marvin.”

“Fuck this, let's just take him down to the station,” says Turner. I don't even bother to look at him, I just continue smiling at the angelic face of Officer Marcinko. She has a beautiful mouth.

“Am I catching a train?” I ask.

“Funny man,” says Turner. “Funny, funny man.”

“What's that?” asks Marcinko, nodding at the envelope.

“An envelope.”

“Do you mind if I take a look at it.”

“Yes. I do mind.”

Turner puts a heavy hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “We want to look at the envelope.”

Still I don't look at him. “I am withholding my consent. Unless you have reasonable articulable suspicion that I have committed an offence, you cannot officially stop and search me. Are we clear on that?”

“We've had a complaint from the building owners,” says Marcinko.

“Not good enough,” I say. “You'll need more than that for a Terry stop.”

“You know about Terry stops, do you?” growls Turner. “Quite the little lawyer, aren't we?”

“You're certainly not, Detective Sergeant Turner, or you wouldn't be wearing out your shoes on the city's sidewalks. And you wouldn't have such a cheap watch on your wrist.”

A Terry stop refers to the Supreme Court case which established that the police are allowed to question a suspect providing they have what's called reasonable articulable suspicion. Just a feeling that something is amiss won't do, they have to be able to explain what made them think something illegal was going on. And even then they only have the right to frisk for weapons, they can't go through pockets or do a strip search. For that they need a warrant, or an arrest. And neither are possible without probable cause. Standing on a street corner with an envelope isn't probable cause. No way. I know it and they know it so I just stand and smile and tell them no,

they can't look at the envelope. So long as I don't try to run away or make any threatening gestures,

they can't do anything to me.

“Who are you waiting for?” Marcinko asks.

“Officer Marcinko, you know who I am, I've explained that I'm waiting for someone, unless you feel that you have probable cause to make an arrest, I'd rather you left me alone.”

Turner tightens his grip on my shoulder.

“And I regard that as physical detention against my will, and an infringement of my rights under the Fourth Amendment.”

“Fuck you,” says Turner, but he moves his hand. Marcinko frowns at him, then smiles at me.

She's so transparent, this one. So used to getting her way on the back of her looks.

“Marvin. Please show me the envelope.”

The magic word. She said the magic word. For that she deserves to be rewarded. I show it to her. She reads the name and address and then hands it back.

“We did ask you not to hang around outside buildings, Marvin. Why didn't you mail it?”

“I don't trust the doorman.”

“The doorman can't stop the mail.”

“You think not?”

“Mr Brooks isn't the only person who lives in this block, Marvin. There are a lot of single women.”

“You think I'm a stalker, is that it?”

“Or worse,” growls Turner. “Why don't you fuck of to LA, Waller. There's lots of directors and producers in La-La Land. You could really make a nuisance of yourself out there.”

“Are you trying to run me out of town, sheriff?”