The Seduction - Art Bourgeau by Art Bourgeau Read Free Book Online

across the street to Walt Kramer. He's the only
one in the block on nights right now. And he went down to have a
look. Sadie, that's his wife, called me later and told me that when
he come back to call it in she'd never seen him look worse. She asked
him what happened and he wouldn't say anything about it. But she did
hear him call Louise Pipari, she's the DiFranco's neighbor, and tell
her to stay close because they might need her. When Sadie asked him
again what happened all he'd say was if he got his hands on whoever
did it he'd kill him himself."
    "They ought to shoot the sonofabitch that did
it," repeated the first woman.
    "Shooting's too good for a bastard like that,"
said a woman in a red satin warm-up jacket. "I heard he tortured
her. They ought to chain him up, right in the city hall courtyard,
and cut his nuts off. And not with a knife, with a saw so it'd hurt
more. Ever cut yourself with a saw? Hurts ten times worse. Isn't that
right, Flora? That's what they ought to do, chain him up and saw his
nuts off."
    Flora was a shapeless woman with a gray complexion
and wrinkled bags under her eyes. She wore a tattered cardigan and a
dress that looked like it had been made from a mattress cover
decorated with little blue flowers. She was clutching a handbill with
a picture on it, and there were tears in her eyes as she stepped
forward and handed Laura the crumpled handbill.
    "She was a good girl," she said, "went
to Mass every Sunday and never did anything wrong. She's Italian but
she always call me her Polish grandmother. Sometimes she stop by
after school to see me and tell me things and we would talk. But
lately she too busy with this new boyfriend she has, and she don't
stop by so much more. I tell her he's no good for her, he's too old,
but she just laugh and tell me that grandmothers always say that."
    The woman's face twisted up and the tears overflowed
her eyes.
    Laura saw that the picture on the handbill was poorly
reproduced, as though it had been run off from a cheap copying
machine, but the snapshot was clear enough to show a darkhaired,
nubile beauty with a faintly sullen cast to her face. It occurred to
her that if she'd ever had a child it would have been about the same
age . . . "But we don't know for sure that it's her. It may not
be her at all." True or not, she wanted to give the women some
hope while they waited, but the hard-eyed looks she got back showed
little gratitude. And Laura knew that with that one remark she had
gone from being a neighborhood insider with an interesting job to an
uptown outsider to whom doors would now be closed.
    Anxious to turn away that image and keep the women
talking, Laura pushed ahead: "What about this boyfriend you
mentioned? What's his story?"
    The woman in the satin warm-up jacket was the first
to speak.
    "She told Flora he was an undercover cop and
drove a silver sports car, and that he was handsome and wore a beard
and had dark glasses—"
    "That's bull," said the blonde. "There's
no undercover cop that lives in this neighborhood, and if he did he
sure wouldn't be driving no silver sports car."
    "That's what I said," agreed the woman in
the warm-up jacket. "I said she made him up. You know how kids
are."
    "Maybe he just told her he was cop, trying to
impress her," Laura said.
    "What do you think about that, Flora?" said
the woman in the warm-up jacket.
    "His name's Peter, that's all I know, and he's
real enough."
    This from the old woman.
    Laura looked
at the picture again. Something in Terri DiFranco's expression, maybe
it was her eyes or the stormy look on her young face, made her
believe that Terri had been telling the truth. Yes . . . Peter was
real.
    She felt a touch on her arm and turned. It was the
young cop who had been so formal a few minutes earlier.
    "The lieutenant will see you now, ma'am,"
he said.
    "We'll be right here," the woman told her.
"Come back and tell us what you find out."
    Laura handed the handbill back to the old woman, who
refused to take