Robert Tanenbaum - Act of Revenge

“That’s what they get for having glass windows. Uptown assholes!”

“I think they were trying to make the place more inviting. Not everybody likes to work in a fort.”

“Let ’em open a goddamn yarn shop, then. Speaking of uptown assholes, your pal Brenda Nero is back with us.”

“How nice for you.”

“You got to help me out, Marlene. The bitch is driving me crazy.”

“Uh-huh. The solution is simple. Walk up to her and say, ‘Sugar, get your young white ass out of my shelter.’ ”

Mattie frowned, taking on even more of the aspect of a Toltec idol than she normally carried. “Marlene, hell, you know I can’t do that.”

Marlene did know. “What’s she done now?”

“Oh, you know. Nothing you can put your finger on, but I got three women threatening to leave if I don’t get rid of her. That’s a laugh, huh?” She laughed dully to illustrate. “They’re threatened with death and dismemberment, and they’d rather skip than hang with Brenda.”

“That’s Brenda,” said Marlene, and looked long at her pal, and observed that she was genuinely suffering under the hard-girl mask. Blaming the victim was one of the three remaining cardinal sins among the liberati of New York, along with littering and smoking in restaurants, and Marlene struggled daily to resist it. That it was always the Man was not, however, an article of faith for her, as it was for Mattie. In many cases it turned out to be an unconscious conspiracy between a man and a woman to continue mutual torture until they were both dead. Thus she could see Brenda as a mere problem and not as a holy cause.

“You’ve talked with her, naturally.”

“I’ve talked with her, I yelled at her, I made her cry. I came this close”-Mattie held thumb and index finger a pea-diameter apart-“to punching her face out.” She snorted. “That’d be rich, huh? Shelter operator pounds victim.”

“Why’s she here?” asked Marlene with a surreptitious glance at her watch.

“Oh, the usual. Chester’s acting up again.”

“She says.”

“She’s got a big bruise on her jaw, goddammit!”

Marlene adopted the calming tone she used with dangerous fanatics, of which there were some few in her life. “Okay. Well, why don’t I go and have a little talk with Chester this afternoon? Maybe we can work things out.”

“Break his legs.”

“It’s an option. Was that why you wanted to see me today?”

“No, it’s this new one. Won’t talk, won’t say who she is. Looks like she’s been pimp-beat, but don’t look like a hooker.”

“What, with a wire hanger?”

“Some kind of thin whip anyway. Looks like it’s been going on for a while, the scars. She says he put his cigar out on her ass.”

“And she won’t say who she is?”

“No, but-”

“But me no buts, girl. You got rules, I got rules. You know I don’t touch a client unless she goes for the whole legal business. .”

“Marlene, just see her. .”

“. . naming the abuser, prosecuting for assault. .”

“Marlene, five minutes. She asked if she could see you.”

“. . and so on. What is this now, the cute puppy school of bodyguarding? If I like her looks, I’ll waive the rules?”

Mattie turned up her glower a notch and thrust forward her heavy jaw. “Don’t be a bitch, Marlene.”

“Oh, that’s delightful, coming from you.” She rose and gathered up her bag. “I have to go. I will drive out and see Chester, and then I will go home. I have children. And a husband.”

Mattie’s face darkened to mahogany, and her heavy brows almost met in the middle. An interesting moment passed, during which both of them realized that, manlike as were some of their doings, they were not in fact men and didn’t have to carry on so. The big woman sucked in breath and said, “Marlene, please. For me. Just see her and maybe she’ll talk to you. If she don’t, no harm. You can just forget her, okay?”

A request in these terms from Mattie Duran was so unusual as to stun Marlene’s normal prudence, and, of course, she was intrigued.

“Okay, I’ll see her.”

Mattie smiled, brightening the room with a show of gold and bright enamel against her dark skin. “Great! You’re a pal, chica . She’s in 37.”

She would be. Room 37 was the only single room for clients in the EVWS, tiny, in the center of the building, windowless, its doors and walls heavily reinforced. It was the most secure place in the shelter, and was reserved for people that Mattie had determined were under threat from people who knew what they were doing when it came to dispensing lethal violence. Some time back, the shelter had been attacked by a group of actual international terrorists, who had made off with a young girl, and Mattie wanted to make sure it would not happen again.

Marlene climbed the stairs against the flow of women and children descending for the evening meal. She greeted those she knew, a substantial proportion. Marlene’s role at the EVWS was to represent clients in court, to move them to (they hoped) safe apartments, to train them in self-defense, and to provide her brand of counseling to the significant others. Given Marlene’s rep around town, this often sufficed. Marlene had not lost a client in some years, and her clientele was selected from among the most endangered women in the city, or rather those of the most endangered who had the sense and the nerve to get out.

The woman who opened the door of 37 to Marlene’s knock was still lovely in the frozen way that some wealthy women adopt, a look that peaked in the Kennedy years. Not a mark was visible on the face, which didn’t mean much. A lot of guys were careful about the face, wanting to preserve the trophy value of the arm piece. Her eyes, a nice china blue, and big ones, showed more mileage around the edges than one might gather from a first look at the face and body. A well-preserved forty, was Marlene’s thought, three days a week at the gym, a few surgical tucks maybe, strict diet, winters in the Islands. She was dressed in a ratty purple sweatshirt and jeans several sizes too large for her, and a pair of cheap tennis shoes, all clearly out of the shelter slop box.

“You wanted to see me,” said Marlene, and introduced herself, extending a hand. The woman’s grip was soft and hesitant, and her eyes, which Marlene now observed were fuzzy and unfocused, slid away from contact. Oh, pharmaceuticals! thought Marlene. She loved these types.

The woman did not give her own name, but turned away and sat on the narrow bed. Marlene shut the door and sat beside her, there being nowhere else to sit. The room was tiny, a cell eight feet on a side, holding only a steel cot, a varnished deal bureau, a rag rug, and a rickety night table.

“So, what do I call you?”

The woman paused, as if trying to remember. “Vivian,” she said.

“Last name?”

The woman shook her head and looked down at the rag rug.

“Look, I can’t begin to help you unless you talk to me.” Nothing. “I have to have your name at least.” Marlene waited. She observed that the woman had fragments of nail polish still clinging to her nails, which bore the signs of having had the frequent attention of a manicurist. Her hair, too, though lank from a recent washing, showed the mass and shaping of a first-class cut. Marlene felt a pulse of irritation, which she knew she would not have felt had the woman been poor. She stood up and announced, “Okay, sorry, but I’m leaving.”

“Fein,” said the woman.

“Fine? You don’t want help? You want me to leave?”

“No, Fein is the name. My name is Vivian Fein.” The crying started.

Marlene always said that she was one of the few women in New York for whom both Kleenex and bullets were a deductible business expense. She gave over a wad of the former to stem the drench and waited, making soothing sounds.