Robert Tanenbaum - Falsely Accused

“Your shift ain’t over until four,” he said.

“I’m quitting,” she said. The man shrugged, counted her cash, peeled off some bills, and shoved them across the grimy desk at her. She pocketed the cash without bothering to count it. The night man whistled, as for a dog.

A small man, with red-brown skin, with high cheekbones and crow-wing hair stood in the doorway. The night man asked him in Spanish if he wanted a ride. The man said yes. Stupenagel wanted to tell him, to warn him, but couldn’t think of what to say, how to explain what was going on up there. And he wouldn’t understand. Even ripped off, the man would make in a month what would take him a year to earn in Central America. Instead, what she said, in Spanish, was, “You can drive me home, brother. I can be your first fare.”

Professor Gloria Malkin of the New York University sociology department was twenty-nine years old, not bad at all for an associate with tenure. More remarkably, she looked about twelve. Not more than four-ten, Marlene thought, a little foxy in the face but nice clear brown eyes, the slightest indication of breasts under the prim white Oxford shirt and grass green sweater. She had frizzy pale tan hair yanked back into an old-fashioned ponytail tied with a bead and elastic holder. She was one of those women who fell into their look in sophomore year and found thereafter no reason to change.

Unlike Marlene. She had chosen to appear for the interview in her biker gang momma thug outfit: knee boots, black jeans, a Navy sweater, black leather jacket with the shiny zips. Her hair had grown out into thick, springy sable coils, which bounced around her face, Medusa-like. Also, she was wearing a patch over her eye rather than the glassie, and not a drugstore black paper model either, but a narrow, soft-leather item of the type favored by actors playing German officers in the last war. She told herself that it was a professional look, considering her new profession.

“My secretary said you were a private detective,” said the professor by way of opening. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually met a private detective before. It sounds romantic.”

“Yes, that’s odd, isn’t it?” said Marlene. “The professions that have attracted the interest of romance writers are a funny bunch. Pirate. Cowboy.”

“Spy. Artist. Yes, I imagine for the people who actually do them, they must be the same as-I don’t know-tax accountancy or installing washing machines.”

“Yes, that’s what you’re supposed to say,” said Marlene, “but in fact, it’s unutterably romantic. Rushing around in cabs following people. Wearing black clothes and sneaking into places. Violence.”

“I’m impressed,” said Malkin. “The violence. Is that how you …” She gestured at Marlene’s face.

“Yes. I got beat up.”

“And the eye the same?”

“No, that was a while ago. I was a prosecutor then. Somebody sent a bomb in the mail.”

Malkin’s eyes widened. “Oh, you’re that one! In the article in the Voice. I should have made the connection.”

“Yes. In fact, Ariadne’s a friend of mine. How I got your number.”

“Speaking of romantic occupations. Well, my gosh, this is just like being in a comic strip. First Brenda Starr and now a female crime fighter … Wonder Woman? No, the Cat Lady!”

They laughed at that together and then talked casually for a while, trading career backgrounds, until Malkin said, “Well, unless you’re recruiting for a mousy sidekick, you must have had a reason for coming to see me. I imagine it was that article.”

“Yeah, it was,” said Marlene. “I’m trying to develop a service that specializes in stalking cases.”

“Really? That’s fascinating. Do you have some kind of foundation support?”

“No, why?”

“Well, because most women whose lives have deteriorated to the point where they’re being stalked or brutalized are usually in no position to lay out any money for protection.”

“Good point,” said Marlene. “My husband raised it too. I guess it hasn’t been a problem yet. As a matter of fact, I just finished a case that was very lucrative. A fashion model.”

“You stopped whoever was stalking her?”

“So far. My sense of this guy is that he won’t be back. I don’t think he was a true obsessive, just a nasty who liked to torture the animals. Which is really why I came to see you.”

“Yes, the typology,” said Malkin almost dismissively. “But tell me, how did you do it? Make him stop.”

“You want to hear this? Yeah, well, briefly, first we got out a protective order. The guy called anyway, and we had him on the recorder. I got the client to egg him on, insult him, and he got really vile-totally lost control. Threats, obscenity-he really started wailing on how he was going to mutilate her sexual organs. Funny, because he was supposedly this classy guy. Drunk probably. In any case, we take the tape to the judge, and he issues a contempt citation, and the cops pick him up at work. Handcuffs, the whole nine yards. Of course, he makes bail and goes back to the office to straighten things out. I guess he figured he could use the hysterical woman mad with jealousy gambit.”

“And didn’t he?” Malkin asked. Her eyes were sparkling, and she had curled herself up in her chair, like a Girl Scout listening to ghost stories around the fire.

“No. Actually, my partner walked into his office while he was out and put a copy of the tape on the office P.A. system. I don’t think it did his career much good. He specialized in fashion advertising, and a lot of the heavy hitters in that business are women. Anyway, when he found this out, he threw caution to the winds and went straight for her. To her building, I mean. And he got in.”

“My God! Didn’t she have security in the building?”

“Oh, yeah, plenty. But it turned out the doorman was distracted for the moment, and Mr. Nice got up to her apartment by the fire stairs. Fortunately, my partner was there with the client. The guy became violent and had to be subdued.”

“Subdued?”

“Yeah. He broke his arm and his jaw in the struggle. Lost a number of teeth too. He’s in the prison ward at Riker’s, charged with assault, criminal trespass, and contempt. What is that look for?”

“I imagine that you are referring to the look that we sociologists give to our informants when our informants have chosen to leave valuable information unvoiced. For example, to take the present case, we observe a remarkable and unlikely set of circumstances. The culprit is enraged, the doorman is distracted-by what, we may wonder-the former victim is at home. Strangely enough, she lets him into her apartment, and by another great coincidence there is a guardian capable of subduing the culprit and causing him severe injury. The word setup springs to mind.”

“The police are satisfied that we acted within the dictates of the law,” replied Marlene primly. “Scumbags who get their lumps tend to be even less of a priority than women being stalked, if you can believe that.”

“ I can, barely,” said Malkin. “So, is making sure that scumbags get their lumps going to be your usual service?”

“Not at all, although I should point out that if some unpleasant and reckless person wants to walk into a doorknob, I don’t think it’s our obligation to yank it away. I’d like to be able to adjust our service to the degree of risk to the client.”

“I see. That’s where the typology comes in, you think?”

“Yes.”

“Okay-briefly, my belief is that there are three separate types of stalkers. What the article called the slobs are blue-collar types with a history of batting the girls around. When the women get tired of it and want to leave, they become insanely jealous. Why would they leave unless they want to screw somebody else? So they stalk, and they sometimes kill, and when they do they often kill themselves too. The sadists are usually white-collar or better, control freaks, who get their kicks out of torturing the ladies, and the stalking is just a refinement of the torture. The strangers are wackos who fix on some woman as part of their twist. Could be a movie actress or a rock star, or somebody they saw on the street that triggers the twitch.”