PALINDROME Read online

  The waitress came over to their table. “My name is Dana and I’ll be your server tonight. I see you’ve already got drinks. Can I start you off with an appetizer?” The staff members at Prime not only had to be professional, they had to be much, much more. The male waiters were dark and handsome. Dana was strikingly pretty and statuesque enough to hold her own on the Victoria’s Secret runway. Keith couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. Allie noticed immediately. He picked up on the fact that he had been spotted—he flipped open the menu and pretended to study it so that he could buy a little time.

  “Sushi?” he asked.

  “That’s fine,” she said with indifference.

  Is she pissed off or just jealous? he wondered. Keith picked a couple of sushi rolls off the menu that he had tried before. “We’ll have a Dragon Roll and a Montauk Roll.” He checked with Allie for approval, but none was forthcoming. Apparently she was leaning more toward being pissed off. If a guy had roving eyes on the first date . . . not a good sign.

  “Tap water or bottled?” Dana asked.

  “Tap?” Keith asked, with a gesture toward Allie, hoping to invest her with the decision.

  “Sparkling,” she replied. “Definitely sparkling. You haven’t lived here long enough to know that Long Island water is undrinkable?”

  The mood of their date had turned on the proverbial dime. It had become really ugly, really fast. Dana hurried off to retrieve the bottled water. She was back within two minutes. Keith and Allie filled the two minutes with silence. Dana filled Allie’s glass first, and then while reaching across the table to fill Keith’s glass, knocked over Allie’s water glass and splashed water on her blouse.

  “Christ!” Allie jumped out of her chair, grabbed her napkin, and began to dry herself. “Pretty but clumsy,” she mumbled angrily. “Look at me; I’m soaked.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Dana said. She grabbed a fresh napkin from the next table and helped Allie dry herself. “Really, I’m so sorry. Let me help you to the ladies’ room.”

  Allie shook her head in disgust before she glared at Keith. “I’ll be right back.” She stormed off. Dana followed.

  Keith settled back into his chair and blew out a deep sigh. He was thankful to have received a short stay of execution. He was wondering if his date with Allie was completely over or if there was a chance to patch it up. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed his friend, Vincent. It rang four times before going to voicemail. Keith left a message, “Dude, I’m on the date from hell. I just laid out big bucks for cocktails at Prime, and the goddamn waitress spilled water all over my date. Shit, man . . . Okay, call me back. Blue balls tonight, bro.”

  ~~~

  The restrooms at Prime were private, a series of individual booths set in a row. Dana found one that was unoccupied and held the door open for Allie. “Can I come in and help you?” she asked.

  “Okay, grab something to help me dry off with and come in.”

  Dana wasted no time. She grabbed several linen napkins from the supply stand and followed Allie into the restroom.

  ~~~

  Allie returned to the dinner table. The wet spot on her blouse was still visible but she was no longer soaked. The table had been reset with a dry tablecloth. The sushi appetizers were already on the table and the presentation was beautiful.

  “I asked for a new server,” Allie said. “I hope that’s all right with you.” She tilted her head and met Keith’s gaze head on, daring him to challenge her.

  “Fine. That chick was totally clumsy.”

  “That’s what happens when your boobs are too big.” She reflected for a moment and then started to laugh. “I’m just kidding—I wouldn’t do that to her. I went a little crazy, but I’m not a total bitch.” She took a sip of her martini. “This looks beautiful, but I don’t think I can eat now.” A moment passed. “Do you want to get out of here?” she whispered.

  Keith looked down at the sushi platter, forty dollars worth of raw fish. He was about to open his mouth when he felt her toes along the inside of his leg. He looked up in surprise to meet Allie’s suggestive smile.

  “How hungry are you?” she whispered in a concealed manner, leaving no doubt as to her intentions.

  Keith snapped his fingers. Dana stopped at their table. She still looked embarrassed. Keith pointed at the sushi. “We’ll take this to go . . . and the check too.”

  “We feel terrible about the little accident,” Dana said. “It’s on the house.” She picked up the sushi platter. “I’ll just box this up and be right back.” She dashed off.

  “Smart move, handsome,” Allie said to Keith.

  “I’ve got chopsticks at my place,” he said.

  “You won’t need them. I’ll let you eat it off my naked body,” she whispered after checking to make sure none of the other diners could hear her.

  Allie stood and walked off in the most provocative manner possible, leaving Keith dumbfounded at the table. He whipped out his cell phone and left another message for Vincent. Bravado was unmistakable in the sound of his booming voice. “Dude, un-believable—I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before, but I am totally gonna get laid. Don’t bother to call me back. I’ll be busy . . . Hey, by the way, where the hell are you, man? Later!”

  ~~~

  Allie nuzzled Keith’s neck as he fumbled to put his key in the door lock. He was still holding onto the doggie bag. She began running her fingers through his hair. “Hurry!” she said.

  “I can’t see what I’m doing. The light’s out.”

  She grabbed the plastic bag. “Give me that,” she demanded. “She uncovered the sushi, popped one of the rolls into her mouth, and then pressed her lips to his. She threw her arms around him just as the lock clicked—they stumbled blindly into the apartment. Allie kicked the door closed behind them. She stuffed a second roll into his mouth and then went in to retrieve it.

  “You’re wild,” Keith said, half-chewing and half-choking on the Dragon Roll.

  “I’m so turned on,” she whispered. He could feel her warm breath on his neck. “Tear my blouse off.”

  “Oh my God, you’re a freak,” he said.

  “Less talking,” she instructed. Allie grabbed her blouse with her two hands and attempted to tear it. “Help me.”

  Keith didn’t need a second invitation. He grabbed her blouse with two hands and tore it away. His fingernails scratched her breast in the process.

  Allie moaned, “God, that’s feels so good.” She touched the spot where she had been scratched and then licked the blood from her fingertip. “Now my panties.” She hiked up her skirt. “Tear off my panties, hurry!”

  Keith reached behind her to get his hand under her skirt. He grabbed a handful of fabric and tore her panties until they came free. Allie pressed her mouth to his and leaned into him with her full weight, sending him backward against the wall.

  “Are you ready for us?” she asked.

  It was dark, but she could clearly make out the confused look on his face. “Us?” he asked just as Ax’s knuckles whipped into his temple. He felt a flash of electricity in his head, like the shock from touching a wall socket. His temple throbbed painfully for a split second and then everything went black.

  ~~~

  When Keith came to, his first instinct was to shield his eyes from the intermittent flashing of the strobe light that filled the doorway of his darkened house. “What is going on?” he said in a low voice. He touched the side of his head, the spot where the intense pain was coming from. He used the wall to steady himself. He slid upward with his shoulder against the wall as he stood. He was still completely disoriented as he peered outside. He could see Allie standing next to a police officer. The police car was behind them—the strobe light intermittently silhouetted their figures. She was wearing the policeman’s jacket, and she was crying. In the next instant, three Suffolk County policemen came charging through the door. “Hey,” he yelled, “what the—” He was face down on the floor before he knew what hit him; handcuffs ra
tcheted down on his wrists. “Hey, I live here,” he protested. “Stop it! What’s going on?” He was struggling with the police officers, unsure of what was happening to him and trying desperately to make sense of it all. “You can’t do this. I have rights, and I want a lawyer.”

  One of the cops replied in a loud, condescending voice, “Oh yeah? You’ll need one, scumbag.”

  Five: Canned

  Keith Cooper sat in the interrogation room. He was handcuffed. His head rested upon the pillow he had constructed with his hands. An empty paper cup resided on the table next to him. He was in a room that had not been refurbished in thirty years. The walls were paneled in some God-awful wood veneer that the county’s builder had bought in a job lot for pennies on the dollar. It had weathered, turned gray, and had been scratched to death from three decades of abuse.

  Cooper lifted his head when the door opened. A uniformed officer said, “Your attorney is here.”

  “Thanks,” Cooper replied. “What about some more water?”

  “Yeah, any minute now,” the cop replied sarcastically. He stepped aside so that the attorney could enter the room, and then pulled the door closed on his way out.

  Emilio Bolan was a man of purpose. He walked directly to the chair opposite Cooper and sat down without saying a word. He flipped open his briefcase and withdrew a legal pad. He fished within the breast pocket of his Dolce & Gabbana suit and withdrew a handcrafter S.T. Dupont pen. He scribbled the date and time at the top of the page alongside Cooper’s name.

  “Thanks—” Bolan raised his finger and silenced Cooper before he could say anything else. He looked up at the wall-mounted video camera and checked to make sure it had been turned off. Without looking, he rapped on the one-way viewing panel behind him. He dusted lint off his lapel as he waited for the police officer to return. A minute passed in silence, and then the door to the interrogation room swung open.

  “Yeah?” the uniformed cop said impatiently.

  “Everything is switched off, yes?” Bolan asked.

  “Yeah, everything’s off,” the cop replied.

  “Everything?” Bolan reiterated. “No video or audio recording at all, yes?”

  “I said, yes,”

  “Splendid. Thank you,” Bolan said with a polite smile. “Please make sure the shades are drawn on the viewing panel.” He rapped on the glass panel with his knuckles again.

  “Anything else?” the cop replied, irritation evident in the tone of his voice. “You want a couple of lattes? How about a plate of nachos to pick on? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he muttered as he pulled the door shut.

  “Thanks for coming down. I—” Cooper said.

  Bolan shot his cuffs quickly and unexpectedly, causing Cooper to flinch. Bolan admired his solid gold cufflinks momentarily. “You don’t speak unless I tell you to. I will ask the questions and you will answer, quickly and accurately. The first time you lie to me, I will resign as your counsel. I don’t appreciate being dragged out to Suffolk County in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s all bullshit. I didn’t do anything,” Cooper said.

  “Of course not. No one ever does anything. In fact, I am so busy defending falsely accused individuals that I can scarcely find time for a satisfying bowel movement.”

  “So you’re not the nicest attorney, are you?”

  “I could be if we had met under the proper circumstances . . . but we didn’t. Nicest? No, I’m not the nicest, but I’m the best that money can buy; lucky for you to have a friend with lots of influence. I’m sure you can find any number of Long Island country bumpkin attorneys to defend you, so if that’s what you would prefer—” Bolan put the cap on his exquisite pen and slipped it back into his pocket. “No problem.” He stood and prepared to leave.

  “Whoa, hold on,” Cooper said. He showed his palms to indicate he was willing to back off. “I got it. We’ll play by your rules.”

  Bolan sat and thatched his fingers. He flexed them before he retrieved his pen. “Do you understand the crime you have been accused of?”

  “Let me guess . . . rape?” Cooper responded indignantly.

  “Attempted rape to be specific. These are not charges to be taken lightly.”

  “This is such crap. This chick is insane. She came on to me big time and then cold-conked me.”

  “She seduced you and then knocked you out? Do you know how implausible that sounds?”

  “Look, I’m just telling you what I know. It was a first date. I took her to dinner, and she went off the wall because the waitress spilled a little water on her. She went into the bathroom to dry off, and when she came back, she told me she would rather screw than eat. I took her back to my place, and she was all over me.”

  “My friend, you are in serious trouble. I’ll give you one last opportunity to tell me the truth.”

  “That is the truth!” Cooper protested.

  Bolan stared at Cooper with an icy, jaundiced eye. A moment passed while he appeared to consider his next step. Let me tell you what I know.” He raised his index finger. “First, her blouse was torn to shreds.”

  “She did that.”

  “She did that, really?”

  “She started to tear it and couldn’t. She begged me to help her with it.”

  “I suppose that’s when you clawed her breasts. She has animal-like claw marks on her breasts. As you might have guessed, her skin was found under your fingernails.”

  “So I scratched her.”

  “You also tore off her panties.”

  “Yes, because she begged me to. I told you, she was all over me. I never saw a woman so turned on.”

  “They also found GHB pills, a date rape drug in your apartment.”

  Cooper buried his face in his cuffed hands. He began breathing deeply and nervously. “Shit.”

  “Do you have any idea how this looks? The police already questioned the staff at the restaurant, who said they heard you on the phone, boasting that you were going to screw this woman’s brains out.”

  Cooper closed his eyes. “This is a total setup.”

  “Why would she do that? What would motivate someone you barely know to set you up and accuse you of attempted rape?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you been drugging women with GHB and raping them?”

  Cooper hesitated before answering, “No.”

  “You don’t sound convincing.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “I ask again, have you been drugging women?”

  “I did it once, but it was for a friend. He gave me some pills, and I slipped one of them into a girl’s drink the other night. I forgot to throw away the rest of the pills.”

  Bolan began writing furiously on his pad. “Name? I need to know his name?”

  “Yo, the hole is deep enough, I’m not dragging a friend down with me.”

  “You are going to do time, my naïve friend. There is physical evidence to corroborate the plaintiff’s allegations, and you were found with date-rape drugs in your possession, which you admit you’ve administered before. Christ himself would have to intervene on your behalf to keep you from imprisonment.”

  “Isn’t my word worth anything?”

  “Nothing, you stupid, stupid man.”

  “You know what, enough,” Cooper said with outrage. “I’ve been tending bar a long time, and believe me, these young babes are begging for it. They come in and get hammered night after night hoping to go home with someone. Booze, GHB, what’s the difference? One’s a little faster than the other, that’s all. Either way, everyone goes home a winner.”

  “Maintain that attitude, and I have no doubt that you will spend the next several years of your life in jail, confined and without freedom. What on earth would compel you to drug an innocent woman? You willfully aided and abetted in the commission of felony rape. Shortly thereafter, you were accused of attempted rape. If the District Attorney puts these facts together as quickly as I did, you’ll do a minimum of five years. Now give m
e your accomplice’s name, while we have the opportunity to construct a reasonable defense.”

  Cooper began to gasp, and his hands began to shake. Before he was able to collect himself, his mouth opened, and he told Bolan his friend’s name.

  Six: Toontown

  So, do you remember that Roger Rabbit movie? It was a cool, animated flick. Now do you remember the first time the PI, Eddie Valiant, crossed the Hollywood border and entered an animated world, a place called Toontown? Well, that’s kind of the way I feel whenever I drive into Islandia. People stop being people—well, regular people anyway. They become caricatures. Not far away from the semi-affluent Suffolk County towns of Smithtown and Hauppauge, with their spa franchises and their top-dollar steakhouses, lies Islandia, where your worst prejudices find a face. As you cross the border, Audis are replaced by flatbed pickup trucks and rent-a-wrecks; the Whole Foods Market is replaced by Walmart; and normal folks become zombies.

  Sitting in Gabi’s favorite Chinese buffet restaurant, my seat by the window afforded me a spectacular view of the bizarre and eclectic. We were sitting across from a table of six obese women. They were sucking the meat out of king crab legs at a rate that would impress a Detroit assembly line engineer. One of the claw-sucking ladies had just sat down with a fresh pile of crustaceous appendages. She had only gotten through a couple of them when her dark-haired infant began to screech like a falcon diving on its prey. She gave her offspring one quick, mean-spirited glance from the corner of her eye. Now this was impressive: she grabbed her child with one hand, stuffed a bottle of formula in its mouth, and was chewing a fresh crab leg in ten seconds flat.

  Two guys were sitting down at a nearby table. One was wearing a blood-stained bandana. They looked as if they had just been released from lockup and were planning their next convenience-store robbery.