Ed McBain: McBain's Ladies: The Women of the 87th Precinct

“I’ve been scared,” he said.

“I was afraid he’d kill me.”

She turned to look at him.

Their eyes met. Tears were forming in her eyes. She blinked them back.

“A cop isn’t supposed to get that scared, Bert. A cop is supposed to… to… I threw away my gun! The minute he stuck that knife in my ribs, I panicked, Bert, I threw away my gun! I had it in my hand but I threw it away!”

“I’d have done the same…”

“I had a spare in my boot, a little Browning. I reached into the boot, I had the gun in my hand, ready to fire, when he… he… cut me.”

Kling was silent.

“I didn’t think it would hurt that much, Bert. Getting cut. You cut yourself shaving your legs or your armpits, it stings for a minute but this was my face, Bert, he cut my face , and oh Jesus, how it hurt! I’m no beauty, I know that, but it’s the only face I have, and when he…”

“You’re gorgeous,” he said.

“Not anymore,” she said, and turned away from him again. “That was when I — when he cut me and I lost the second gun — that was when I knew I… I’d do… I’d do anything he wanted me to do. I let him rape me, Bert. I let him do it.”

“You’d be dead otherwise,” Kling said.

“So damn helpless,” she said, and shook her head again.

He said nothing.

“So now…” Her voice caught again. “I guess you’ll always wonder whether I was asking for it, huh?”

“Cut it out,” he said.

“Isn’t that what men are supposed to wonder when their wives or their girlfriends get…?”

“You were asking for it,” Kling said. “That’s why you were out there, that was your job. You were doing your job, Eileen, and you got hurt. And that’s…”

“I also got raped!.” she said, and turned to him, her eyes flashing.

“That was part of getting hurt,” he said.

“No!” she said. “You’ve been hurt on the job, but nobody ever raped you afterward! There’s a difference, Bert.”

“I understand the difference,” he said.

“I’m not sure you do,” she said. “Because if you did, you wouldn’t be giving me this ‘line of duty’ bullshit!”

“Eileen…”

“He didn’t rape a cop, he raped a woman! He raped me, Bert! Because I’m a woman!”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t know,” she said. “How can you know? You’re a man, and men don’t get raped.”

“Men get raped,” he said softly.

“Where?” she said. “In prison? Only because there aren’t any women handy.”

“Men get raped,” he said again, but did not elaborate.

She looked at him. The pain in his eyes was as deep as the pain she had felt last night when the knife ripped across her face. She kept studying his eyes, searching his face. Her anger dissipated. This was Bert sitting here with her, this was not some vague enemy named Man, this was Bert Kling — and he, after all, was not the man who’d raped her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“That’s okay.”

“I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”

“Who else?” he said, and smiled.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Really.”

She searched for his hand. He took her hand in both his own.

“I never thought this could happen to me,” she said, and sighed. “Never in a million years. I’ve been scared out there, you’re always a little scared…”

“Yes,” he said.

“But I never thought this could happen. Remember how I used to kid around about my rape fantasies?”

“Yes.”

“It’s only a fantasy when it isn’t real,” she said. “I used to think… I guess I thought… I mean, I was scared, Bert, even with backups I was scared. But not of being raped. Hurt, maybe, but not raped. I was a cop, how could a cop possibly…?”

“You’re still a cop,” he said.

“You better believe it,” she said. “Remember what I was telling you? About feeling degraded by decoy work? About maybe asking for a transfer?”

“I remember.”

“Well, now they’ll have to blast me out of this job with dynamite.”

“Good,” he said, and kissed her hand.

“‘Cause I mean… doesn’t somebody have to be out there? To make sure this doesn’t happen to other women? I mean, there has to be somebody out there, doesn’t there?”

“Sure,” he said. “You.”

“Yeah, me,” she said, and sighed deeply.

He held her hand to his cheek.

They were silent for several moments.

She almost turned her face away again.

Instead, she held his eyes with her own and said, “Will you…?”

Her voice caught again.

“Will you love me as much with a scar?”

Lightning, 1984