Blood Relations Read online

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  Blood Relations

  Barbara Parker

  With admiration and gratitude

  to Lynn Chandler,

  a brave and beautiful lady

  and a model for us all

  (1953–1995)

  chapter one

  Just after dawn on Saturday morning, as the clouds over the Atlantic brightened from pale blue to white, Ali D., who should have been at a modeling shoot on Miami Beach, was instead in the Rape Treatment Center at the public hospital downtown.

  Ali D. was her professional name. Her real name, she told the doctor, was Alice Doris Duncan. Ali made a face, tried to laugh about it. Alice Doris. You can’t be a model with a name like that. The doctor smiled. She was young, and her clean dark hair was held back with a gold barrette. She told Ali to sit up now, please, and she scraped under Ali’s fingernails and put the scrapings on slides. Still dizzy from too much champagne, Ali closed her eyes to shut out the fluorescent lights and the horrible pink wallpaper. She wanted to go home. Just go home.

  She shared an apartment on Lenox Avenue with two other girls, all of them models at the same agency. Her roommates had the bedrooms, but they let her use the sofa bed for practically nothing because Ali wasn’t making much money yet. But someday she would. She planned to establish herself on South Beach, put her book together, then go to New York. But she would have to do it fast, because there wasn’t much time. She was almost eighteen. If you don’t make it before you’re twenty, forget it. Some girls would keep trying, but really, you had to feel sorry for them.

  Ali had been thinking about this as she left her apartment just before midnight to walk to the Apocalypse, a nightclub over on Washington Avenue. Her current ex-boyfriend, George, had invited her. Some kind of special party. That’s what he did—plan parties for the clubs, or sometimes for people with money, like if it was their birthday.

  Red hair bouncing on her shoulders, arms swinging, she made her way through the crowds on the sidewalks. Men followed her with their eyes.

  The agency had called this afternoon with a booking for a German catalog company. Here it was, May already, and the models would be wearing boots and wool coats. Everybody had to show up at the Clevelander Hotel at 6:00 A.M. The production van would take them to the site. No problem. Ali had slept most of the day. She would party at the club till maybe three, go home, shower and change, have some breakfast, then go to work. Make about $500.

  At the door to the Apocalypse, people were jammed up waiting to get in. Ali pushed her way to the front and told the bouncer that George had invited her. The bouncer sat there on his stool, with his huge arms and fat neck, and told her to get in line. A couple of girls said something to their dates, like, Who does this bitch think she is? Just then George came to check on things. Ali held out her arms. “Georgieee!” George was wearing tight jeans and a leather vest, looking totally buff. He had a two-way radio on his belt and a headset looped around his neck. He told the bouncer to unclip the rope, this girl was one of the models, for God’s sake.

  “Thought you weren’t coming.” George kissed her cheek and took her through the foyer, which was an aluminum tube with rows of lights leading into the darkness. Music was blasting from the main room. Ali went to clubs three or four nights a week. The owners wanted models to come; then the good people would show up, not just the college kids or the tourists or the causeway crowd from the mainland. It was getting late in the season, but this party looked okay, Ali thought. The heavy bass beat from the speakers pounded on her cheeks and shook the bones in her chest.

  George pulled three tickets out of his vest pocket. “Drinks,” he yelled.

  She put the tickets in her little shoulder purse, then turned around, showing him her dress. “You like it?”

  “Nice.”

  Ali yelled, “I heard Madonna was going to be here.”

  “What?”

  “Madonna. Is she coming?”

  “Yeah. I think so. But maybe not, you know?”

  Ali had been to one of Madonna’s parties. She had a mansion on the water, up the street from Sylvester Stallone’s place. Madonna herself had run her fingers through Ali’s long red hair, asked if it was natural. Yes, it was. Ali had noticed that Madonna had dark roots.

  “I hope she shows up,” Ali shouted. “She’s really cool.”

  Moving with the music now, Ali looked around to see if she recognized anybody in the crowd. The Apocalypse had a bar along one side of the long, high-ceilinged room and another on the second floor, with railings and catwalks. The metallic walls were lit by tiny spotlights. A bank of TV screens flashed with MTV videos.

  George shouted, “Don’t get lost. There are some people coming over. Could be good for you. They’re having dinner at Amnesia; then they’ll come over. Klaus Ruffini.”

  “Who?”

  He laughed into her ear. “Moda Ruffini, baby.”

  “Brilliant!” Moda Ruffini was a boutique on Lincoln Road, a few blocks north. Ali had seen Klaus Ruffini around the Beach. Megarich, always with a bunch of models and artists and celebrities. Ali grabbed George’s arm. “Dance with me! I love this song!”

  George looked down at the beeper on his belt. His mouth moved, something like Can’t. Later. Frowning, Ali watched him go, then pushed her way to the dance floor. Bodies flashed blue-white in the strobes, stop-action: a girl’s hair flying out around her head; a man in a muscle tee and jogging shorts, his body gleaming with sweat. Vents opened in the ceiling and clouds billowed out, settling like blue fog. Ali noticed a funny old leather queen in a biker hat, his round belly showing under an X of studded leather.

  She danced with a booker from her agency for a while, then with some frat boys. They had on T-shirts from Boston College. They wanted her to smoke some weed with them in their hotel room. She laughed and said no way, what did they think she was?

  An hour or so later, things were cranking. Ali looked around for George, hoping he hadn’t forgotten she was there. On the main bar a girl in red thigh boots and a corset laced with chains was zapping everybody with a toy laser gun. Ali had a drink, then danced with an agent who booked TV commercials. They went to the men’s room, which looked like the inside of a computer. The floor was tiled with green circuit boards. He closed the door to one of the stalls and laid out a couple of lines on the toilet tank, which was made of shiny metal. There were long smudges where people had run a finger to pick up residue. Ali said she didn’t want any. She wanted to know if he needed any girls with red hair, blue eyes, five-nine. He said to come by with a reel or her book and talk to him. Then he French-kissed her. And she’d thought he was gay. She had some coke after all to be polite. When they came out, somebody was barfing into the sink, somebody else wetting a paper towel for his face. The guy who wasn’t barfing asked where he could get some downers. Ali said she didn’t know. He said she did, that everybody on the Beach knew. He followed her out the door, cursing in German when she gave him the finger.

  Ali danced for a while with a couple of guys from Brazil. They bought her a beer, then went off to dance together. A while later she found herself beside a blond girl she’d met at a shoot. The girl was wearing low-cut jeans. There was a ring through her navel. She had just done an assignment in Europe, Ali thought. Or maybe England.

  “I heard Madonna might show up,” Ali shouted.

  “B.F.D. She’s over.” The girl yelled, “Keanu Reeves is in town shooting. I heard he was going to come, but I doubt it. It’s fucking two o’clock already. There’s nobody here.”

  “Klaus Ruffini is coming. He might want to put me in an ad.”
r />   “Cool.” They danced beside each other for a while. Then the girl went off to the bathroom with the drummer for a Spanish rock band.

  Ali saw someone waving at her, a woman with a camera. Caitlin, who used to model in New York. Ali hugged her. Caitlin said she was taking pictures freelance tonight for the society pages in Latin American Vogue. Ali told her that she might be doing some work for Moda Ruffini pretty soon. Then a shriek came from behind them. It was Pussy Katz, wearing a red wig and polka-dot dress with crinolines. She put her arm around Ali.

  “Oh, take me, take a picture of me and this cute thing here. Look. All this red hair, both of us. I mean, is this wild? Tonight I’m like Lucy Ricardo. Ricky? Ricky, where are you?” She reached out and pinched the butt of a dark-haired guy walking by. He jumped sideways, and his friends laughed and pointed.

  Caitlin took a picture of Ali and Pussy Katz with their cheeks pressed together, eyes wide open, their mouths in big O’s. Ali had met Pussy at a gay club on drag night. Ali liked the gay clubs because you could dance without the men hitting on you.

  When Pussy Katz left, Caitlin took Ali’s arm and asked if she was stoned. “No,” Ali said. “I’m having a good time, all right?”

  Hands slid around her waist. It was George. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, except that he wanted her to come with him. They went toward the stairs leading to the second level, a run of blue lights on the curved wall to show the way. Halfway up, George turned toward the wall so no one could see him and gave her one of the pills out of his vest pocket. On the second level the security guy opened the door to the private room and they went in. The room had black walls, white statues of nudes draped with gold cloth, and blue lights in plaster sconces. Long windows looked down on the main dance floor, and the glass vibrated in time to the music.

  There were probably twenty people in the VIP room. Ali recognized an actress from the soaps with her bare feet in someone’s lap. A black movie actor. A girl singer for a New York rock band called Phobos, talking about bondage as the ultimate expression of trust. The man next to her nodded, said, We’re all bound in one way or another. Someone’s bodyguard stood by the door. A blond male model was dancing by himself. White shirt hanging open. Incredibly gorgeous. Ali had seen his pictures in men’s magazines.

  A girl looked up slowly from an armchair, squinted at Ali. “Are you somebody I should know?”

  “I model for Moschino.”

  “Bullshit.” The girl hiccupped.

  George took Ali over to meet a man in a yellow silk shirt with palm trees and flamingos on it. Klaus Ruffini. He was younger than she’d expected, maybe thirty-five. Ali said hi, and Klaus took a handful of her hair and made a beard for himself. Everyone laughed.

  It was late, too late to matter what time it was. The singer left with her people. Then the soap opera actress staggered out, held up by two men. A flash went off. Caitlin had come in to take some society-page photos. Everybody posed and smiled, and finally Caitlin put her camera down and somebody gave her a glass of champagne. Somebody else bumped her and the champagne spilled on the drunk girl asleep on the floor. Klaus was on the sofa drinking Cristal out of the bottle. A Japanese girl sat beside him smoking a joint. Her eyes were closed. Ali held out her champagne glass and he filled it. She said his store was fabulous. She shopped there all the time. “I think I’ve got the look for Moda Ruffini. Do you want my card? You could call me.”

  The Japanese girl slid off the sofa.

  Klaus pulled Ali onto his lap and kissed her. His tongue slid into her mouth, tasting like tobacco. He rubbed her thigh. She wanted to push him away, but thought it would make him mad. So she laughed and got up to dance with the black movie actor. She tried to remember his name. Klaus was talking to George, looking at Ali, his cigar glowing red between his fingers. Ali dancing, lifting her hair, letting it fall. She stumbled. The heel of her shoe broke, and she kicked them both off. Then George danced with her and moved her toward the back of the room. The floor tilted, and Ali held on to his shoulders.

  She asked why he didn’t call her anymore. He said something into her ear but she couldn’t make it out. His voice sounded like it was coming out of a long pipe. They kissed for a while. Then she was moving backward, bumping against something. A table. George swept the glasses off it and pushed her onto her back. She tried to get up, but he held her down with an arm across her chest. His hand went between her legs, pulling at her underwear. He unzipped his pants. She yelled for him to get off. She tried to twist her hips away but he was too heavy.

  When he finished, he kept his hands on her wrists. Someone else was pushing her legs apart. The movie actor leaned into her, eyes squinted shut, while George held her down and told her over and over it was okay, be quiet, baby, it’s okay. Ali felt like she was up in the ceiling looking down, and she could see herself, pale in the darkness, and the men around her, and her mouth open, yelling, but there was only the hard beat of the music in her ears.

  Klaus Ruffini was laughing silently. He stuck his cigar between his teeth and leaned over to pick up an unopened bottle of champagne off the floor. He shoved the actor aside and motioned for George to turn Ali over on her stomach.

  Fingers went inside her, then something heavy and cold. She screamed and twisted when the pain tore through her. Faces floated like moons in the darkness, watching. Finally the thing was gone, and Klaus let her up. He said she was very pretty and tried to kiss her. She hit him in the chest.

  George pulled her off Klaus and told her to shut up. Ali was screaming and crying. She grabbed a glass and threw it at him, then a half-full bottle of rum. George ducked and the bottle knocked down one of the sconces. The light glared harsh and white into the room, showing lines of liquid running down the wall. The bodyguard dragged her to the door and pushed her through it. She slid to the floor.

  Then Caitlin was there, bending over her. Bastards! What did they do to you? Ali, please. You have to get up. The walls tilted and moved. Caitlin gripped her arm and pulled. Half-carried her down the stairs, through the bodies on the dance floor, all heat and sweat and noise.

  Outside, people stared. Then somehow Ali was in Caitlin’s car. But not going home. Going across the causeway to Miami. Then stumbling barefoot along a corridor with a shiny floor. Caitlin put her into a chair in a waiting room with pink wallpaper.

  Ali remembered her booking at six o’clock and tried to get up, hitting at Caitlin and crying when she wouldn’t let her go. Caitlin held Ali’s head in her lap and cried, too, and stroked her hair. Oh, Ali, I’m sorry. Damn them all. Oh, God. I’m so sorry.

  chapter two

  The murder of Carlito Ramos brought three television news reporters and a satellite truck to his mother’s apartment on Miami Beach to record the scene, but when the case finally came up for trial a year later, none of them covered it. The big trial that week was the robbery-homicide of a Japanese couple who had become lost on their way to Metro Zoo in broad daylight and had stopped to ask directions. The Ramos case, which most people had forgotten about, was a domestic dispute of no real significance for the tourist trade.

  Sam Hagen had been a prosecutor in Miami for eighteen years, and by now most first-degree murder trials had become routine—if violent deaths could ever be routine. He could almost accept those cases where the killing was at least explainable, or where the victim was as bad as his killer, but this one had made him burn with rage. Carlito Ramos, four years old. His mother told her live-in boyfriend to get out, she never wanted to see his face again. Luis screamed that he’d give her something to remember him by. He ran into Carlito’s room, picked up the sleeping child, and hurled him through the window. Carlito fell sixty-seven feet to a concrete sidewalk. His skull shattered like a melon.

  After final arguments the jurors filed out. They would be called back in a while to be given instructions. The judge gaveled a recess. Sam Hagen watched the observers leave the courtroom—the defendant’s parents, in tears; two law school grads here to pick up some
pointers; and a group of retirees who spent their spare time watching criminal trials. Adela Ramos, the dead boy’s mother, went out leaning on her brother’s arm.

  At the prosecution table Sam dropped wearily into his chair. He was forty-six and feeling every year of it. He reached up to squeeze the younger prosecutor’s shoulder. “Good job, Joe.”

  He had let Joe McGee make the final argument. Sam or another of the dozen prosecutors on the Major Crimes staff would supervise heavy cases to make sure they weren’t lost or reversed on appeal through an inadvertent screwup by someone with less experience. McGee was a black Miami ex-cop who had decided he would live longer in court than on the streets. Smart and aggressive, he had moved up fast through the felony division, but this was his first death-penalty murder trial.

  Sam saw him glance toward the defense table, nostrils flaring as if he’d smelled something vile. “I want the son of a bitch,” McGee said between his teeth.

  Luis Balmaseda. Good-looking dark-haired guy; twenty-eight years old, dressed in a neat blue suit. His lawyer sat on the railing, swinging one foot, talking to an associate in the firm. The lawyers laughed and Balmaseda smiled. With the jury out of sight, everybody relaxed. The lawyers could kid around, and the defendant might laugh at their jokes. And for a minute you could almost forget what he had done, just as he could forget he might die for it.

  Turning away, McGee pulled a stack of notes and xeroxed jury instructions out of a box and tossed them onto the table. He sat down. “You got any inspirations here, boss?”

  “Yeah. A rope.”

  Before trial the defense had offered a plea to second-degree murder. Greenbaum denied that his client had killed the boy, but even if he had killed him, first degree didn’t apply. The act wasn’t premeditated. Balmaseda and his girlfriend were drunk and arguing violently. A plea to second would mean fifteen or twenty years. Why not take a sure thing? Sam had said no fucking way.