The Stalker's Notebook: Chapter 1: Rev 3

CHAPTER 1
August 16th, 2013 6:05 AM

August 16th, 2013 6:05 AM
Laura felt at least momentarily reconciled with herself and therefore an elusive connection to humanity. She let the sense of peace rush over her.

In her mind, she could hear the buzzing and feel the thick layered fabric of semi-organized chaos that made up morning midtown rush hour unfolding on the streets below her. Laura dreamt of one day owning her own brick-and-mortar townhouse on the Upper East Side with giant windows that look out onto a back garden and more importantly having the joyous family to fill it.

As a real estate agent, she had done well. It was always a volatile job. She liked the mixture of superficiality and depth the work could encompass. The position had granted her the savvy to spot “a good deal”. Having enough cash was another matter even with the years that she made over a hundred thousand dollars. In Manhattan’s terms and amongst peers and neighbors that could still be the salary of someone just barely making it. Helped by her father with the down payment the unrenovated studio apartment had been a lucky purchase. It had a view down “Billionaire’s Row” complete with its very own broad sliver of the New York sky. The building was situated, three blocks from Columbus Circle, at the newly emerging “Billionaire’s Row” obnoxious, ever creeping taller partly vacant glass-clad residential skyscrapers of second, third, and fifth homes casting lanky shadows. It wasn’t that long ago that Laura could remember bums roasting their dinner over oil barrels in front of the then obsolete Coliseum convention center that was an older version of Columbus Circle.

The squawk of the intercom interrupted her thoughts. Out of habit, she pressed the black button on the device cutting off her doorman’s familiar voice.
After the brief delay, which would be the approximate time it took for a person to enter the elevator and ascend twenty floors, there was a banging coming from behind her closed front door.
'Has Itamar forgotten something?'
She hated the name ‘Itamar’. Their chemistry was so flawless at the bar that she had invited him back to her place. Kissing had led to more. The condoms had already been disposed of. She smiled at her design choice of the painted pickled “white coastal” parquet flooring. The evidence of last night remained in the form of a bottle of Merlot sideways and empty at the foot of the sofa. Her face flushed a slight crimson as she recalled how just hours ago their gaze met and Itamar glided his hand up her blouse. Her nipples were still sore.
Sex on a first date. These were her adult choices. At least he's both a doctor and Jewish, she justified to herself. Dr. Ferreri would totally approve.
Itamar had asked her out again while they both lay half asleep as they cuddled in the warmth of the moonlight which illuminated the twinkling bold Manhattan skyline. The image of him lying on her bed on his back in his playful polka dot red and white boxers, with his taut muscles and his soft half-tousled sandy hair on her pillow, was enchanting. He was superior looking in person than his online profile picture had suggested. She had hoped that they wouldn’t have breakfast together even if it was just a “Starbucks run” downstairs.
Long ago she had let go of how her doormen perceived her, as she often lived and worked in the same building, but Itamar had slipped his jeans over his tight ass and was out the door before the morning broke.

Laura hopped out of bed and covered herself with her monogrammed bleach white robe as she called out “one minute please, I am coming”. Through the peephole, she could see two unfamiliar faces. A man and a woman. She wondered what they could be doing there.
“This is investigator Steve Dickov,” the man announced.
Laura opened the door. A short stocky balding man and a slender younger black woman stood at her threshold. He wore a light blue plaid shirt with belted khaki pants. The woman had on a navy blazer. Under it, a crisp white shirt was tucked into a stiff pencil skirt.
"We have some questions about a complaint you filed,” Dickov said as he leaned against her door frame. The woman stood behind him in perfect stillness.
Laura looked them over, noting how strange of a coupling they made.
“My complaint from a week ago?”
“Yes,” he said. “In regards to Dr. Bender and Altheim?”, Dickov responded.
The words were electric to Laura. They were taking her complaint seriously and so fast. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Laura knew this did not add up.
‘The government is not this responsive, is it?’
“Ah, yes, yes my complaint. Uh Great! Let’s discuss it,” Laura fumbled the words.
“Wait, here in my apartment?” she continued.
“Well, would you mind coming with us to discuss the matter further downtown in the office?” Dickov asked.
“I would not mind at all,” Laura said running her fingers through her hair.
She was ready to face this albatross. Depending on how you measured it, this had been plaguing her for over a decade. Unlike either therapist, she had always preferred to face things dead on.
“Let me just get dressed quickly and grab my bag.”
The couple waited for her in the hall as she disappeared and emerged having slipped into an uninventive outfit. Absentmindedly, she had reached for a black canvas bag rather than her Prada purse.

As she was getting dressed she could overhear Dickov say “This is a really nice building,” which made Laura feel rich. The Cheshire Condominium was a swell version of a “white-glove doorman building” but for people in the know knew “the legitimately lavish buildings” were where the address was eponymous.

She knew to go into a car with strangers as a rule always presented a danger. Maybe this could be some elaborate kidnapping scheme she amused herself with the thought but pushed it aside knowing her life wasn’t that interesting. She more than reassured herself that they knew of her specific complaint and even though she had been the one to say the actual names their faces had lit up with pure recognition at the mention of Bender and Washington names, so they had to be legitimate and from Albany, right?
She even joked about ‘seeing their badges’ as she climbed into the black suburban and the car sped off.
“Did you want to see them?” the female asked.
“No. No. It’s ok.”

Crossing through midtown and seeing the construction cranes was a reminder of how much the city had changed since she was a small girl coming into Manhattan to visit her grandparents. Back then it was a sometimes scary smutty gritty whore of a city. It was still very much a whore but a different kind mostly to and for servicing the wealthy.

They effortlessly found parking right out front. The woman walked behind her as Dickov took the front, leading them into a side entrance of a Soviet-Block looking dull grey building. While the facade of the adjacent attached classical style building was screaming “Old New York”. This one looked tired and municipal. With the metal detector there the security did seem stronger than what had become common in every office tower in post 9/11 New York where IDs and sign in lists were now always the cost of entry. Dickov showed his ID to the security guard who seemed to have recognized him anyway. They were waved passed cutting the small line that had formed.

The main hallway with its checkered floors was large enough to accommodate two adult elephants. Laura resisted the urge to only step on the white tiles. They walked past people engaged at their desks and a small camera set up on its tripod as she was led into a diminutive conference room accessorized only with a cheap brown faux wood rectangular desk cold to the touch and three hard plastic uncomfortable looking chairs. There was a kind of octagonally shaped metal on the windows. The glass frosted with the filth of New York’s street pollution. The metal webbing made Laura immediately think of jail and the unfamiliar feeling of claustrophobia from being penned in.
Steve Dickov broke the silence launching into his introduction, “this is just going to be procedural and then I can listen to your side, Ok?
Dickov placed a pen and notepad on the table.
She had once been in a house fire. She was thinking the webbed metal over the windows was definitely for sure a fire hazard. ‘No way that metal webbing could be to any kind of fire code.’
“Ok.”
“You have the right to remain silent and anything you say or do can be used against you in a court of law..”.

‘Yeah, yeah, the phraseology was a familiar cliche. Laura had already expected that her complaint to the licensing board in Albany could turn “legal” and so she understood the need for this to be “on the record” and therefore took it as a disclosure that she acknowledged.’
He asked if she wanted an attorney. She wanted to do this quickly and on the cheap and didn’t sense impending doom that would irrevocably change her and therefore did not feel a lawyer was necessary.
“I am here to help”. The detective said. He grinned.
Help? help. help. Laura thought how simple and friendly the word sounded as she tossed it around like a salad in her head.
“Well, you’ve seen the photo I sent in?”
“What photo?” He asked.
“What photo?” Laura repeated to herself. And then it hit her like a train barreling off its tracks- she was fucked!
Fuck fuck fuck she thought.

If he didn’t know about the photo which was central to her complaint then he hadn’t read her complaint. The fact that they were able to find parking right out front of the building in this area should have been another red flag now realized. They were NOT from Albany but.. likely some form of local police despite their plain clothes and she now recognized she was the one being interrogated and likely soon facing down trouble.
“It was a photo of Dr. Gertrude Bender and her son Ruben Bender. Dr. Bender and Dr. Altheim were embracing each other. It was taken at the RJS dinner that was honoring Dr. Bender.” There she had said it aloud.

Laura could not unsee the photo. Laura had stumbled across it in the middle of the night when browsing her former school RJS' website.
Dickov shrugged his shoulders.
“I introduced them.” She gestured towards her own torso.
“Not only did Altheim “kick me out” of therapy over an exaggeration of Bender’s but Altheim then used the entire situation as an opportunity to become friends with not just Bender but Bender’s daughter in law as well.”
Her voice trembling as it cracked.
“My therapists used me.”
Dickov seemed to have by then lost his patience. “Please write down any additional thoughts and I’ll be right back. I am going to call the D.A. I am not sure we have enough”.
Dickov left the room. The black woman remained seated behind Laura. Her presence felt like a knee in Laura’s back.

Laura could hear the sound of a pen clicking. This went on for a few moments before she looked down and realized she was the one who was clicking the pen.
Laura didn’t write anything down but for a squiggle that resembled an angry tadpole.
She stared at the walls and window webbing which now looked a lot more ominous for what felt like 10 minutes. He then returned and told her again he wasn't sure they had gotten enough.
“The A.D.A. would like to speak with you to clear things up .“
“Can I leave? I do have plans for later on today.”
“You can leave now but I think it is best we wrap this all up today, don’t you?
Besides the A.D.A. really wants to meet you.”
He said it as if it were a social call.

Laura vaguely knew what a prosecutor was but then again not really. She had no real idea what an A.D.A. actually did. She had never had a good reason to know what the role of a prosecutor was.
She was led passed hallways and more offices. The threesome then entered and exited an old dirty elevator that had big black thick hockey puck buttons where half the painted white lettering had long worn off and led down corridors into a small claustrophobic room with a ridiculously high ceiling. The edges were clustered with stacked cardboard boxes. Their labels read things like ‘Child Rape’ & ‘ International Sex Trafficking'. A circular table uncomfortably dominated most of the room.

Laura swallowed hard.