Megan Abbott - Detroit Noir

By the change in the echoes around her, Leora figured they had entered a smaller space. Farmer shoved her front against a cold, damp wall and freed her arms. He was out of reach by the time she turned around. She took a step forward, another, hands extended, without connecting.

“What’s the hold up? Do your business!” It sounded like he was talking to a dog.

“It’s … I think I’m gettin my monthlies …” Leora improvised. “I won’t know just by touching myself. I’m gone hafta see—”

“Jesus Christ ! I don’t— You expect me to take off your blindfold too? That’s a lot of nerve you got, nigger gal—”

“No!” He was closer now, she could tell by his voice, the noise of his breath. “No, only, how about you … reach in for me … and find out yourself.” Lord knew what she looked like, lipstick smeared off, mascara and eyeliner and rouge running all down her face, mud caking her uniform.

She smiled anyway, and when he said, “Yeah,” sounding half-strangled in spit, she opened her mouth in anticipation, as if this was something she had waited for her whole life, his callused hand hiking up her skirt and skinning down her nylon underwear, parting the tangled hair and inserting one finger where no one had been in years. She sighed and rode up and down on it a couple of times for good measure, and he said, “Jesus Christ,” again, but in an entirely different tone of voice.

He had his pants unbuttoned in seconds, and replaced his finger without even laying her on the floor.

She felt a jackknife in his pocket as he scrabbled against the concrete. The blade wouldn’t be longer than two or three inches, she judged, but good to have all the same. He slumped to one side, done. Before she could retrieve the knife he recovered and pushed himself away from her.

“You two having a nice time in there?” The thin man’s voice sounded maybe forty feet off.

“Yeah. I’ll be out in a jiffy.” He tied her arms again without saying another word, not a bit won over, and Leora had no choice but to let him.

Time to put her new plan into action.

“Well,” the thin man said as they reentered the first room, “I see you did have a nice time.” Her face and neck went hot. “Unfortunately, you’re not my type.” He laughed at his own joke.

“Listen,” Leora said. “I lied before. About the boy. I—”

“Sure you did. What happened — you had a chance to realize the consequences if it was true?”

“Well, some of it—”

“Sit down and shut up.”

Farmer pushed her to her knees.

“I’ll tell you the—”

“Shut up!” Farmer knocked her the rest of the way to the ground. “There must be something to— I’ll stuff your drawers in your mouth, I don’t care!” He rolled her back and forth, wrestling her skirt up again.

“The real one’s still alive! I know where they hid him!”

“Will you—”

“Wait a minute! Why are you so determined to keep her from saying what she wants? Something you’d rather I didn’t learn about?”

“But you told her to shut up!”

“I changed my mind. A gentleman’s prerogative.” The thin man bent over her. “All right. Upsy daisy.” He helped her sit with her back to the wall. “Now talk.”

“It … He’s my son, but if you let us go I can tell you where they took the other to be raised.”

“Let you go. That’s rich. Yeah, that’s exactly what we plan on doing, let you go and head off on some wild goose chase looking for a boy who died or don’t even exist.” Farmer slapped her hard. This time the thin man raised no objection.

Half her face was numb. She made her mouth work. “I told you the truth! We swapped them two at birth, and only they daddy ever knew. He was thinkin ahead to when some-thin like this would happen. You want the ransom or you want Mr. McGinniss to be laughin at you? You already sent him the note, right? He ain’t answered you yet, has he?” A guess. She hoped it was a good one. “And he ain’t gonna. You know why?

Cause he don’t care!”

Silence. Then the unclear sounds of them moving around — doing what? If only she could see. Their voices came from more of a distance, muffled and senseless. All she could tell was that they were angry, till they returned and the thin man said, “Here’s the deal. You tell us where the heir is. We release you, but we keep your kid till we find the real one’s hideout.”

Leora breathed huge gasps in and out. Oh God, she wanted like hell to agree, to get out of that hole in the ground where they had her; she had done her duty and then some, and what was Kevin to her anyway? Just a job, and maybe even the reason her own boy Carter had died, lost in the woods when he wandered off from Great-Aunt Rutha’s cabin because his momma hadn’t been there to take care of him, gone and disappeared while Leora watched over this white child who she owed nothing, nothing ! She was crying, crying hard, she couldn’t do anything about that or what she heard herself saying, which was, “No! NO! You cain’t take him! I won’t letcha!

No, I won’t!”

Farmer hit her again, but it was the thin man’s unbelieving laughter that brought her back to her right mind.

The kidnappers were standing her on her feet. “So we believe you now about this one being your kid,” the thin man said. “Otherwise you would have taken us up on our offer. So let’s have the rest of it.”

Their test, and she’d passed it without knowing. “You gonna—”

“Tell us where the McGinniss heir is or we’ll shoot your son and throw him in the river.”

“Canada,” Leora said. “Ontario.”

“Windsor?”

“In the country. I can give you directions—”

“You’ll do better than that. Here you are, Farmer.” The thin man’s voice moved away. “Keep it trained on her. I’ll be back fast as I can. Try not to have too much fun.” The sound of his feet rising up the rungs. Then another noise: wood on wood, something dragging, scraping, then falling loudly on the ceiling, the floor above her head.

She was alone in the basement with a rapist and a helpless, tied-up white boy. Who she should have left to his fate.

At least she should have tried to. When Farmer yanked him out of the car seat like that, she could have let him. And she would have, too, if only she’d been thinking instead of feeling.

Using her brain, not her heart. If Kevin hadn’t looked so much like his brother. Carter.

She wasn’t going to cry. Leora had done enough of that already. Big Momma had taught her to be strong, to survive.

Do whatever it took, even if it went against the Bible.

One more plan.

She struggled to remember the words to that lullaby. She had always known she’d need to use it someday, in the special way Big Momma had learned her. How did it go now? Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry, / Go to sleepy, little baby; / When you wake, you shall have—

“Okay, turn around so I can take this thing off,” Farmer interrupted her thoughts, tugging at her blindfold. Which was when she realized her arms were untied again. Why? She hadn’t sung a note, and anyway, it wasn’t supposed to work like that.

Maybe she wouldn’t have to, after all.

The knots in her good scarf proved too tough for Farmer as well, and he sliced them apart with his knife. She heard him open it, felt the silk give way.

Her eyes hurt. They were in a cellar, big metal buckets over in one corner with a fat flashlight standing on one. In another corner lay a short, lumpy shadow, white patches showing where Kevin’s skin contrasted with his clothes and the bandanas over his mouth and eyes.

No sign of the ladder they’d made her walk down.

She whirled quickly to find Farmer behind her but out of reach, and grinning like a natural-born idiot. He had the knife and the gun both, but the gun wasn’t aimed. “You want another fuck?” he asked. “I think there’s time before we head out.”