No Way Out

the police station, but they showed a still photograph of the girl and stock footage from the man’s talk show. Apparently he’d been arrested after shooting the latest show, yet to be broadcast.

And that was when Carter got the feeling.

He didn’t remember the details too clearly — the whole thing had happened just too fast. But there was one thing that he remembered.

For a moment he hesitated, realizing that criminals could sometimes be vengeful towards people who “snitched.” But then he remembered his own, all-too-frequent words about the cowards who don’t speak out when criminals destroy their communities. He didn’t want to be like one of those people whom he routinely criticized. He knew now that it was his civic duty to speak out and he didn’t want to be like all the shirkers.

So he dragged his weary bones out of the comfort of his tattered, dust-ridden armchair and trudged over to the phone.

Friday 12 June — 9:40

Detective Bridget Riley was a victim chaperone, but not a counselor. Her duties involved being the principal point of contact between the investigating officers and the rape victim. The detectives investigating the case put most of their questions through Bridget. When they had to put questions directly or when others had to have contact with the victim, such as during the medical examination, the victim chaperone had to be there.

She had a sporty, athletic look about her, not the soft look of a movie queen, but the tough look of kick-boxer. Male colleagues found her attractive and her face, highlighted against a raven-haired background, was potential photographic model material. But what was a blessing in the world of Show Biz, could be something of a curse in the locker-room culture of the police.

Because of her looks, Bridget had been the target of sexual harassment by her colleagues. And like the proverbial “Boy named Sue” it had made her tough. She could take the complements with a smile and a shrug and when they became vulgar she hit back with a glib rejoinder like “in your dreams buster.”

When one of the rookies was bold enough to try and pin her against a locker, showing off in front of three of his friends, she deterred him from further action with a well-placed fist to the groin. He had been anticipating the knee and had been poised to block it with his leg, but the fist took him by surprise. Then she added insult to injury by asking him if he wanted her to kiss it better. The rookies never bothered her again; nor had anyone else in the department during the four years since.

At this moment, Bridget was sitting at her desk typing up a report on a domestic violence case for the DA’s office, when a female officer came over from the fax machine and dropped two sheets of paper on her desk. Bridget was a stickler for clarity as well as detail and so absorbed was she in getting the wording right that she let the fax lie there for three minutes while she played around with the phraseology of a single sentence.

Sarah Jensen, the Assistant District Attorney in charge of the Domestic Violence Division at the Ventura County DA’s office, was no less determined than Bridget to nail these “bastards” who beat their wives or girlfriends. But Sarah Jensen was a realist. She was also very ambitious. She knew that unsuccessful prosecutions damaged the reputation of the department, not to mention giving her a poor track record, personally.

She also knew that failures of prosecutions in such cases, gave right-wing politicians and news editors the chance to accuse the department of a feminist witch-hunt against men in the name of liberal political correctness.

So Bridget knew that she had to word the sentence carefully to give the impression that it was a winnable case. Whether it actually would be won was up to a lot of people: the prosecutor, the witnesses, the judge, even the jury. But Bridget was determined that the case should go to trial.

When she eventually looked at the fax, her eyes lit up. She scooped it up and rushed out of the room.

Friday, 12 June 2009 — 10:30

Elias Claymore’s Mediterranean-style villa stood in landscaped grounds on the sand of Montecito’s most prestigious beach and had breathtaking views of the ocean from nearly every room. Although the coveted syndication deal for his TV show had yet to materialize, he had done well out of his best-selling autobiography, his three follow-up books and the movie about his life.

To show for it, he had a huge living room with fireplace, bar and ocean view, a beachside kitchen, two beachside bedrooms each with a fireplace and a third at the back. Even the office had an ocean view. There was also a separate guest apartment, a large beachfront deck, a sunset view seaside spa, majestic trees and flowering gardens and 75 feet of private beach front.

Sitting on a lounging chair on the deck, looking out onto the ocean and thinking about his present surroundings, Elias Claymore realized that crime and repentance had served him well. It was a far cry from the ramshackle hut where he had been born and the rat-infested ‘hood where he had grown up. But how far had he really come?

“You can take the man out of the ghetto,” the racists had taunted. “But you can’t take the ghetto out of the man.” And much as it pained his troubled conscience, the racists were right on this one, albeit in the most literal sense. For a ghetto is actually a place of retreat where one is surrounded by ones own kind yet constantly under threat from those outside. And right now he felt besieged.

His mind drifted back to what his life had once been like. He used to think that the pain was all over. He had never forgotten what he had done. But after all these years he thought it would no longer come back to haunt him. Yet, the events of the past week had proved him wrong — and it was like a slow, drawn-out torture.

He tried to soften the pain by reminding himself what had driven him to do the things he had done and become the man he became. But those memories were even more painful. Like the time he was nine when two white policemen raped his mother before his eyes. He had tried to stop them, but one of them had grabbed him and twisted his arm behind his back, forcing him to watch while the other “pig” had pinned his mother to the ground, ripped her clothes and forced himself into her as she screamed and begged for mercy.

She had brought up Elias all alone, without the help of a man, for most of Elias’s childhood. She had always been a strong figure in his early years, dishing out the punishment but also protecting him from the bigger kids in the ‘hood. But she couldn’t protect herself from this. And Elias Claymore learned in those few minutes that the mother, who had been like a pillar of support for the entire world as he knew it, was powerless in the face of this invading force in their own home.

And through his childish eyes, little Elias knew why. She was a woman — and women were weaker than men. He couldn’t expect a woman to protect him. It was for men to be strong and to protect women… or violate them. That was how it was in other households. He had seen the local pimps slapping their girls around and he quickly learned that this was the natural order in the world. It was normal for men to dominate women.

But these men who had invaded his house and were now raping his mother were not their men. They were an alien presence. These were the “pigs” who beat up blacks just because they were black. These were the people who called him “nigger” and made him afraid whenever they walked by, knowing that he daren’t respond to their racist taunts. And now they were here in his home, doing… this thing… to his mother.

He couldn’t blame her for being weak. But it was her fault that they didn’t have a man to protect them. She had driven him away. That’s what one of his “brothers” had told him. She had called Elias’s father a “no-good, drunken deadbeat” and thrown him out of the house. But now he realized how much they needed a man in this household… and they didn’t have one because of her.

He realized in that moment that one day he would be a man. He would be big and strong and then there’d be hell to pay! Because then he’d be able to fight back… and he’d hit them where it hurt. He’d hit their weak ones — their women.