The Ritual Bath (24 page)

But the silence had become eerie—palpable. She tried not to think about it. The room was sweltering because she hadn’t bothered to turn on the air conditioner. Sudden anxiety flowed through her veins and nervous energy pro
pelled her upright. Her hands had taken on a slight tremble, her legs felt weak.

She hoped Matt would be back soon.

Opening the linen closet, she began compulsively to rearrange the towels, then stopped. She had ten minutes to go before ten. At least she’d left Peter’s number with Sarah. If worst came to worst, she’d just turn out the lights and wait for him in the dark.

Finally, there were footsteps and a gentle rap at the door.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“It’s Matt, Rina.”

She unbolted the lock and let him in.

“I was getting a little worried,” she told him.

Hawthorne smiled.

“I ran into one of the kids on the way back here. You know these boys. Once they start talking sports, there’s no stopping them. Sorry I’m late. Are you all done?”

“I’m waiting for the timer to go off in the dryer. Do you mind staying an extra minute?”

“No. Not at all.” Hawthorne glanced around. “So this is the inner sanctum. I’ve always wanted to sneak inside a convent.”

Rina smiled uneasily.

“I could see where this would be an easy target for a rapist,” he said more to himself than to her.

The hell with the towels.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“What about the towels?”

“I just remembered that Sarah Adler is ex
pecting me momentarily. If I don’t get there soon, she’s been instructed to call the police.”

Hawthorne looked perturbed.

“That wasn’t necessary.”

“Just in case, Matt. It was for your protection as well as mine—”

“I don’t need protection.”

“I’m sure you don’t—”

“You
do
trust me, Rina, don’t you?”

“Of course!” she exclaimed, too adamantly. “Why would I have called you if I didn’t trust you implicitly?”

Hawthorne’s eye began to spasm. He ran his hands through his mop of thick curls and looked at her.

“We’d better go,” he said coldly.

She turned off the lights and locked the door behind them.

“I’m kind of offended,” he said when they were outside.

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Jesus. First, that redheaded giant gets on my case, and now you’re giving me spooky looks. Do I look like a rapist?”

She stared at him, feeling suddenly light-headed.

“Matthew, please understand what I’ve been going through. I meant no offense to you at all.”

The man’s eye twitched again, then he lowered his head.

“It just burns me, Rina, that this creep has all the women here suspecting everything in
pants. But I guess it’s natural. It must be tough to be a woman, huh?”

She nodded and walked a couple of steps.

“Wait a second,” Hawthorne said, bending over.

“What is it?” Rina asked nervously.

“I dropped my watch. Damn it, the wrist band keeps coming loose.”

Hawthorne hunted around in the dark.

“Do you need help?” she asked.

“Nah, found it.” He stood up, brushed specks of dirt from the digital face, and put the timepiece to his ear.

“It’s still working.”

“That’s good,” Rina answered, starting to get shaky. She walked a couple of more steps, then felt a firm tug on her arm. Instinctively, she yanked away.

“Take it easy, Rina,” Matt said softly. “I didn’t mean anything. I think I heard something.”

Her heart was pounding, and she listened carefully.

“I don’t hear anything,” she whispered rapidly.

“Yeah, well I know I heard something,” he said firmly.

“What do you want to do?” She forced out the words.

“I don’t know…Uh, wait here. I’ll see if I can’t scare whatever it is off.”

“Matt, I don’t know.”

“I don’t want us walking into a trap.”

“Why don’t we just wait for the police.
They’ll be here if I don’t show up at home soon.”

Hawthorne’s eyelid fluttered.

“I don’t
need
the police,” he said, emphatically. “Just wait here, and I’ll go by myself!”

“I don’t want to wait alone.”

“Then come with me.”

She didn’t want that, either.

“Why can’t we make a mad dash across the grounds screaming like banshees?” she asked.

“I can take care of us, Rina.” Hawthorne pulled out a knife that gleamed in the moonlight. “I wasn’t taking any chances with this pervert.”

She swallowed hard. “I’ll wait inside the mikvah,” she whispered.

“Good idea.”

“Be careful, Matthew.”

“Piece of cake, m’lady.”

She watched him disappear into the brush. A moment later, she heard noises—the crunching and snapping of leaves and twigs. It was Matt searching, she told herself. The noises became louder, intensifying, echoing against the still of the night!

Sudden silence.

She wanted to call out to him, but was afraid of giving herself away. She walked back toward the mikvah, fumbled for the key, and with a trembling hand, managed to insert it in the lock.

That was as far as she got.

He pounced on her. A panther with a ski mask. Clothing black as midnight. Before she
could scream, something soft and fuzzy was crammed down her throat. He threw her down onto the baked earth and fell upon her, pinning her hands and body, belly-down, against the ground. She felt something cold and metallic against her temple. He spoke. His voice was a gravelly whisper—unnatural—as if he were talking through a voice box. He said it was a gun and he’d use it if he had to. The faces of her boys flashed through her head.

She struggled in his grip, managed to free a hand, slid it under his shirt and clawed his ribs. He swore and smacked her cheek with the butt of the gun.

Her face went wet and numb, her vision blurred, and her head burst with pain. But she didn’t stop. She went for his eyes, but he backed away and hit her again. She felt her energy ebbing. The cloth in her mouth was beginning to suffocate her. She felt her clothes being ripped, his bare hands on her flesh—her neck, her back, inside her underpants. His touch was slimy, evil. She went wild and, with renewed force, bucked upward. The sudden movement threw him off balance and knocked the gun from his hand. Pressure eased from her back.

Taking advantage of his loss of equilibrium, she yanked the gag from her throat and tried to scream, but it came out a dry croak. He tried to punch her, but she ducked aside and his fist hit the ground. Again she screamed, and this time her voice rang out like a diva’s.

He covered her mouth with one hand and
pushed her stomach against the ground again, flattening her to the dirt. But she heard the noise, the rush through the bushes—she knew it had to be
him
. Sarah must have called.

She bit the thick flesh of the assailant’s palm and felt his blood oozing into her mouth. He swore gutturally and pulled his hand away.

“Peter!” she screamed.

The attacker heard the footsteps, too. He sprung up and tried to run, but she was too quick. She grabbed his ankle, and he went down.

“Peter!” she screamed again.

The sound of running. Louder. It was approaching her.

“Peter!” she implored.

Where was he?

She saw the figure appear.

It was Moshe.

The assailant tried to free himself from Rina’s grasp, flailing at her.

“Help me!” she screamed at the wisp of a man.

Finally, the rapist pulled free, but Moshe leaped and tackled him—his meager body an arrow shooting through the night—encircling the other man’s waist and holding him tight. Together, they tumbled into a pile of eucalyptus leaves.

The attacker was taller and heavier, but Moshe was armed with an oversized volume of the Talmud. Raising it, he blinked several times and brought it crashing down on the man’s head. The impact stunned him for a mo
ment, but then he began to lash out at Moshe. Rina ran over and struck out at his face, trying to pull off the ski mask. He kicked her in the abdomen, she doubled over, and the man broke free.

“He’s getting away, Moshe!” she gasped.

Moshe grabbed the back of a black shirt collar and pulled him down again.

Muttering the
Shema
, Moshe again used the heavy book to pummel his head. Rina crawled forward and bit his ankle. The pain made him cry out and buckle, and she took another grab at the mask, missing.

“Hold him, Moshe!” she screamed.

Moshe’s response was another slam to the attacker’s head, while chanting allegiance to
Hashem
.

Rina searched for the gun. The moon was full, and she caught a glint of metal winking at her. Picking it up, she found it small and comfortable in her hand, almost toylike. In the distance she heard a siren.

Finally!

She slipped her index finger into the trigger.

The siren grew louder.

With a shaking hand, she cocked the gun and aimed. The man was woozy but still struggling. She didn’t dare shoot for fear of hitting Moshe.

She saw the lights of the police car.

The rapist swiveled and broke free. The gun in her hand spat fire. He slowed a split second, then took off.

But the delay was all that was needed. He
ran toward the barrel of Decker’s .38 special.

“Police! Freeze!”

The attacker turned toward the hills, but Marge and Decker leaped on him, pulling him to the ground. Decker slammed the butt of his revolver into his back, then pointed it at his head.

“One move and you’re iced, fucker,” Decker said, clamping on the cuffs.

“You got him?” Marge asked, gun drawn.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll go call in.”

Decker lifted the man upright and pushed him onto the hood of the Plymouth.

“Just try anything, and you’re dead meat, asshole,” he said, slamming the masked face against the metal. “You’re fucking dead meat.”

“Take it easy, Pete,” Marge said, trying to pull him off.

“You hear me, motherfucker?” Decker spat. “Just blink the wrong way, and you’re dead meat!”

Rina watched as Decker, with one savage turn of his wrist, yanked off the mask.

It was Gilbert. His face was blanched, in stark contrast to the black clothing. His eyes were wild, puffy and glistening wet, his lips swollen from being bitten, oozing with blood.

Rina gasped and backed away. Then she thought of something.

“Oh my God!” she cried out. “Matt Hawthorne. He was walking me home. He heard something and went looking in the bushes.”

“Where is he?” Decker pressed his knee into the small of Gilbert’s back.

“Near the oaks,” Gilbert mumbled. “Where those kids killed the black woman.”

“Did you kill him?”

Decker saw that creepy half smile spread across his lips. A sudden burst of blood poured out of his nose down to his chin.

“If I did, it was unintentional,” he said, giggling.

Decker smashed his face against the car.

Marge pulled Gilbert from Decker’s grasp and shoved him to the ground. She bent down, cuffed his feet, turned him over onto his stomach, and pointed her gun at his head.

“Go look for Hawthorne,” she told her partner.

Go cool off
was the message.

Decker rubbed his hands over his face and looked at Rina. Her clothes were in shreds. The beautiful face was mangled, bruised, and scraped—her forehead, nose, lips, and chin were bleeding, her left jaw already swollen to three times its normal size. Marge saw the look on his face, noticed his hand inch toward his holster.

“Don’t even think about it, Pete,” she said firmly. “Go look for Hawthorne.”

He nodded and walked away.

“You are one lucky fucker,” she said when Decker was out of earshot. “He almost blew you away, and I almost didn’t stop him.”

Marge read him his rights and asked if he understood what she had said.

Gilbert laughed, then cried, then shoved his face into the dirt.

“From dust we came!” he cried out, spitting dirt. His mouth drooled a muddy trail.

“You don’t understand. It was her fault!” he screamed suddenly, face purple with rage. The veins on his neck bulged and pulsated. “She did it to me. She had this power over me! She could have helped, but she didn’t. She rejected me, just like all the rest of them. She said it was because I wasn’t Jewish, but I knew the truth. She was laughing behind my back at me. I know she was. She
made
me unable to function. They all did. They all laughed at me.”

He broke into tears.

“I’m so sorry, Rina. If you would have just given me a chance…If someone would have given me a chance. But the goddam bitches won’t give an inch.”

He struggled violently against the restraints.

“Do you understand that she has the
power
!” he screamed. “She could have used it for my benefit. A daughter of Judeah! The daughter of Zion! She is the magician and knows the art of healing, just as her ancestors before her. She is the daughter of Miriam, the great healer. Even her name is Miriam. But instead of helping me, she zapped me. She made me useless as a man. They all did. But I’d show her. If she wasn’t going to give it to me, I was going to take it. If she hadn’t laughed behind my back, telling me bull…” He began to stutter. “It’s b-b-bullshit! She was
using
her
Jewishness as an excuse. The truth was she was laughing at me. But I saw through it. The b-b-bitch. If she wouldn’t have given me b-b-bullshit, I wouldn’t have gotten mad. B-b-but she did. S-s-so I was going to get it. I was going to get it whether she liked it or not.”

His face grew distorted, and he started to sob.

“Oh, God! Oh, my God, I’m so, so sorry!”

A wacko, Marge thought and turned away in disgust. She heard chanting, looked up, and saw Moshe fifteen feet away. The thin, ghostlike man had come through. Yet here he was, head buried in a book, chanting to himself while swaying back and forth, acting as if nothing had happened.

Another wacko, she thought.

The good wacko and the bad wacko.

A moment later a black-and-white pulled up. Folstrom and Walsh got out.