Faye Kellerman - Sacred and Profane

He tried to stare her down, but she held his gaze with rage burning in her eyes. He’d never seen her like that.

“You’re so far off base, Peter, you’re not even in the ballpark,” she said. “Rav Schulman was in Auschwitz for three years. He lost his entire family. His wife was made sterile by Nazi butchery. His children were executed in front of his eyes-shot in the head. He was forced to dig their graves with his bare hands.”

Decker continued to look at her, but his eyes were no longer confrontational. A sour taste filled his mouth, a putrid stench clogged his nostrils. He felt nauseated. Lowering his head, he swallowed back a dry heave and walked to the door.

“I’m not a saint, Rina,” he said quietly. “And I don’t want to live with one, either.”

Her skull was a headdress of bandages, and what showed of her face was raw and ripped and poked with plastic tubing. Her eyes were closed when Decker walked in, so he pulled up a chair at her bedside. A cockpit of panels and dials monitored her vital signs. Green fluorescent lines jumped about on a screen and he heard beeps at irregular intervals. Techno-medicine. Decker wondered if any of it really helped in the long run.

Noticing her damp forehead, he took a tissue and dabbed the sweaty skin gently. She opened her eyes.

“Hi, Kiki,” he said softly.

Her lips turned upward. Her mouth tried to form a word, but instead she coughed feebly.

“Don’t talk. You’ll have plenty of time to talk.” She nodded.

“Go to sleep.”

Again she nodded. Her eyes closed and moments later she drifted off.

Decker walked outside the room and lit up. Immediately, two nurses and an orderly told him there was no smoking. He extinguished the cigarette.

A young woman approached him-a hooker who was trying to hide it. Her skirt was of modest length, but too tight. Her blouse was buttoned up to her neck but was still sheer enough to see her bare breasts and nipples. Her crimson-nailed feet were stuffed into open-toed sandals with fuck-me heels. She was long-limbed, with a horsy face-big teeth, thick lips, and large hard eyes saturated with hate.

“Are you the cop friend of Kiki’s?” she asked. Her voice was low and breathy. In the dark it would have been sexy.

“Who are you?” Decker asked flatly.

“I’m Lilah, a friend of Kiki’s. Like her best friend.”

Like her lover, he thought. The protective posture, the defiance. Dare you to say anything against her, pig.

“Are you Decker?”

He nodded.

“I’m the one who called you down,” she said. “I did it for Kiki. I knew she’d want to see you. God only knows why she singled you out. You’re just another cop-not even that good looking.”

“Do you know what happened to her, Lilah?”

“I have an idea.”

Decker waited.

“She had a bunch of these johns,” she said. “Real rich kinky types who pay well but toss her around…A bite here, a kick there…This time…I don’t know. Someone went overboard.”

Decker was taken aback.

“A john?”

The girl nodded.

“She was beaten up by a john that she’s serviced before?”

“Yeah, but none of them ever went this crazy.”

“She was turning tricks?”

“I know you told her not to, but-”

Decker clenched his fists. “For Chrissakes!”

“She just didn’t know if she could handle another bad foster home.”

“This wasn’t a bad foster home,” Decker said, struggling to keep his voice low. “All she had to do was keep her nose clean-”

“She wasn’t gonna go to that place, Decker. She told me that.”

“For God’s sake, why not?”

“The street may not be much, but to her at least it’s home.”

“Home? What kind of shit are you feeding me, Babe? She was smacked around and now she’s on the critical list. Home! Wake up and smell the roses.”

Lilah turned fierce. “She told me you did Juvey, Dick.”

“I do.”

“So you wake up and smell the roses-or the fucking garbage. Yeah, she was smacked around. What the hell do you think her father did to her? And the hairball never paid her for it, either.”

Decker ran his hands down his face. “I don’t believe this. I busted my ass…Who are these scumbags?”

“They ride by in Jeeps, four-wheelers. They could buy anything or anyone, but they love to slum in Hollywood. I tried one of them once, a fat old fucker named Maurice. Musta been about sixty-five. The money was great, but I got some pride.”

Decker said nothing.

Lilah shrugged philosophically. “Actually, the sucker didn’t like me. I guess I was too old for him. What an asshole! He broke my fucking tooth!”

“Do you know which one did this to her?” Decker asked.

“No,” she said quietly.

“Can you tell me anything more about these assholes?” Decker asked.

“No.”

“Think, Lilah!”

“Look,” Lilah said. “I don’t know anymore. I’m tired. Leave me alone.”

“Don’t you want this bastard to pay for what he did to Kiki?”

“Cut the justice speech, cop. Assholes out there are big fat zits. Squeeze one, a dozen more pop up. I love Kiki, but I only got so much energy inside and I got to save it for when it counts. I was a white knight once. I just don’t give a shit anymore.”

Suddenly a high-pitched noise emanated from Kiki’s room. A monotone. A flat monotone. To correspond with flat vital signs. The lights outside the doorway flashed bright blue. He was shoved out of the way by a team of two nurses and a doctor. Decker made himself scarce, walking down the hallway, not wanting to know, but forced to stay until there was closure.

Fifteen minutes passed. The look in Lilah’s eyes said everything.

Shit!

The girl fell into Decker’s open arms. He held her as she sobbed pitifully. After she composed herself, Decker pulled away and said:

“You know who her parents are?”

“She hates her parents.”

“We’ve got to send the body to somewhere, Lilah.”

The girl wiped tears and running mascara off her cheek with her fingers. “She’s from Indianapolis. Her real name is Patsy Lee Norford. I think her father’s name is Mick or Mike.”

“I’ll find him,” Decker said.

“You’re a nice guy,” Lilah said. She whipped out a compact and began to fix her melted face. “Kiki said you were a nice guy. I frankly didn’t think they existed anymore.”

“If Kiki thought so highly of me, why the hell didn’t she listen to me and just stay out of trouble for a week?”

Lilah broke into wicked laughter-a mixture of irony and bitterness.

“She was a dumb-ass,” she said, starting to cry. “And you’re a dumb-ass, also…I mean, don’t you get it?”

Decker waited for her to explain.

“She was fucking in love with you, for Chrissakes! She didn’t want to go to that halfway house because she knew she’d never see you again. I mean, you told her on the phone you wouldn’t visit her! She figured at least on the streets she could be your stoolie, and then she could be with you.”

She clicked the compact closed and stuffed it in her purse. “You men are real stupid shits. I don’t care who the hell you are-john, cop, asshole father of five fucking kids-you’re all shit for brains.”

She spat at him and walked away.

He trudged into the station house and was greeted by Marge’s smiling face.

“Cheer up, Rabbi,” she said. “The warrants for Cecil Pode just came through.”

“It’s a little after the fact,” he said, gulping down some aspirin.

“You look horrible, Pete.”

“Not as horrible as I feel. Look, I’ll meet you out at Pode’s place in about an hour.”