While Rachel was in the bath I made red beans and rice. Susan put out the rest of the cornbread and I chopped green peppers and scallions. When Rachel finally came to dinner, she had put on some of Susan’s make-up and a pair of Susan’s jeans and a sweatshirt of mine that was considerably big. The sleeves were rolled up and made a bulky ring around her arms above the elbow. Her hair had been washed and blown dry and looked very straight. I said, “You want some more bourbon?”
She said yes.
I gave her some more, with ice, and she sat at the table in the dining area and sipped it. I served the beans and rice with the chopped vegetables and some canned chopped tomato on top and put out a dish of grated cheddar cheese. Susan and I drank beer with the meal. Rachel stayed with the bourbon. Like the martinis she’d been drinking when we met first, the bourbon seemed to have no effect.
There was very little talk for the first few minutes. Rachel ate rapidly. When she had nearly finished, she said, “Julie is that woman’s daughter, did you know that?”
“Yes,” I said.
“They took me because of her, you know.”
“I thought they might have.”
“They wanted to punish me for corrupting their girl child. They wanted to separate us. They wanted to be sure no one would ever see Julie with me. The idea that her daughter could be a lesbian was more than she could think. I think she thought that if I weren’t there, Julie would revert to her normal self.”
She said
“Maybe it was, too,” Rachel said. “Especially the man. I think he was more comfortable with the kidnaping if it was for a cause. He called it a political act.”
“And what did they plan to do with you?” I said.
“I don’t know. I don’t think they knew. I think the one that actually took me, the big one that works for them … ”
“Mingo,” I said. “Mingo Mulready.”
“I think he wanted to kill me.”
“Sure,” I said. “You’d make a damaging witness if you survived.”
Rachel nodded. “And they didn’t conceal their identities. I saw them all, and they told me they were Julie’s people.”
“Did they treat you badly?” Susan said. Rachel looked down at her plate. It was empty. I said, “Would you like more?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s very good, but I’m full, thank you.”
“More bourbon?” I said.
“You know, that’s the thing you’ve said to me most, since I got here? You must have great faith in its restorative powers.”
“It’s a way of being solicitous,” I said.
“I know,” Rachel said. “And yes, I’ll have another. I, too, have great faith in its restorative powers.”
I got her the bourbon.
“I wonder why they didn’t kill me,” she said. “I was afraid they would. I’d lie up there in the dark, and each time they came I’d wonder if they had come to kill me.”
“Probably didn’t have the balls,” I said. “Probably would have had to find a way to maneuver themselves into having Mingo do it.”
“Like what?” Rachel said.
“Oh, get up some kind of ultimatum and present it to the cops. An ultimatum that couldn’t be met. Then they could say it wasn’t their fault. They’d been left no choice, and they’d had to do it to stop your poison because the officials were duped by the Antichrist, or the commies, or Gore Vidal, or whoever.”
“The mother would have wanted to most,” Rachel said. She looked at Susan. “They didn’t mistreat me in the sense of torture or anything. I wasn’t tied up or beaten. But the mother wanted to humiliate me. And the son. Julie’s brother.”
“Lawrence,” I said.
“Yes, Lawrence.” She shivered.
“What did Lawrence do?” Susan said. Her voice was quite soft.
“He used to come up with my food and sit beside me on the bed and ask me about my relations with Julie. He wanted explicit detail. And he would touch me.”
I said, “Jesus Christ.”
“I think he got excited by the talk of my lovemaking with Julie. And he would say in his position he rarely had the opportunity to be with a woman, how he had to be careful, that he was in an exposed position and couldn’t risk being compromised by a woman. And then he would touch me.” She stopped.
Susan said, very quietly, “Did he rape you?”
