Chapter 29- Options
Dorothy stood as still as a statue outside of the Fort Frolic security station. Despite the early hour – nearly five in the morning – she was immaculately made up. There was not a single crease on her linen skirt or a stray golden hair out of place. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses to hide the redness. Not from crying with sorrow, but from the burning rage that radiated from them even more than Richard's parlor trick eyes did now.
No one had come for her. They had come for the whore, of course. The whore was long gone when she woke up. Dorothy had slept until ten. By the time she checked out of the hotel Rapture was abuzz with Richard's name. And the whore's name. It had been an extremely rude awakening.
Dorothy had rushed home, but her tardy arrival to the situation had proved disastrous. There had been photographers and reporters waiting outside of their building. Not only the Rapture Tribune, but the Rapture Standard and, much to her horror and mortification, the rag Do Tell! and Heller News. Dorothy had been bewildered. A woman of her standing should only be in the paper three times in her life – at her birth, marriage, and death. And now they were asking her how she felt about her husband punching another man in public over another woman.
At first she had nothing to say because she genuinely did know how to react. She barely knew what had happened. Richard had nearly killed Robert and it had something to do with…that whore. Frantic, Dorothy had called Richard's lawyer, who had felt obliged to tell her what was going on.
She had surprised, but not shocked, to hear that Robert had tried to drug Lupe and rape her. Had she not been in a panic she would have enjoyed the potential to lord that over Annette. But the rage inside of her that her husband made a public spectacle of himself over the whore was insurmountable.
Richard had publicly declared that he cared about the maid. Not just that he was screwing the maid, as embarrassing as that was, but that he cared, or even loved, the maid. The servant. The whore. Dorothy's inferior. But the whore was now elevated to a superior position to Dorothy by Richard's actions. He made her more than she was with his fists and his public indecency.
Dorothy was incensed when she got off the telephone with the lawyer. Her first instinct had been to destroy everything Richard owned, but as she stared at the closet full of expensive suits she saw the financial folly in that. Nothing that the whore owned was worth anything though.
The whore's possessions were obliterated by Dorothy. All of her trite doodles were ripped to confetti. The whore had five shirts, two sweaters, four skirts, and two pairs of shoes. Had. She no longer had them to drape over her whore body because after the third telephone call from a newspaper requesting an interview Dorothy had cut them to ribbons with a scissor.
There had been a sweet little diamond and gold heart-shaped necklace too, hidden in the bottom of her closet. A gift from Richard, no doubt. She scooped it up and put it in her pocket.
And now, as she waited, she wore the necklace around her neck. She wanted him to ask where she got it. To force him to admit that he had been showering his whore with their money.
There was a photographer outside the police station as well. Dorothy acted as if she didn't even see him, but her manicured aplomb was for the camera. She wasn't going to let the whore take her place. Richard was Dorothy's husband, her legal partner, not the whore's.
There weren't many people up and about in Rapture so early, at least not in Fort Frolic. A tired looking pair of dancing girls in matching dresses wandered past Dorothy on their way to the metro station. A street sweeper was pushing a broom down the alley. The lack of a crowd made it easy to spot the whore on her advance.
The whore spied Dorothy when she was a block away and stopped dead in her tracks. She took a few tentative steps forward and likely noticed the photographers clustered around the entrance to the security station. The whore thought better of it and slunk against a pillar attached to a closed bar. She peeked around the side of the pillar but made no further advance.
A slight smile snuck over Dorothy's lips as she won this little battle. Her smile grew when she imagined the look on the whore's face when she found out all her worldly possessions had been destroyed. I would like to be there when she finds out, I must make a note to do it.
Feeling slightly energized by this encounter, Dorothy checked her reflection in her compact. Picture perfect. No one was going to accuse her of being a mess. She looked up from the miniature mirror just in time to see Richard exit the station.
Richard took her breath away. His bright blond hair was rakishly unkempt and his sky blue eyes smoldered with confidence. His suit jacket, the one he had been wearing at the party, was rumbled and distressed, which added a flair of scoundrel to him. She couldn't remember him looking so virile. That bastard, she thought, confused as to her own feelings at the moment.
A flurry of flashbulbs went off. Ricard also ignored the press as he walked towards Dorothy. He didn't notice her stunned state and stood a few feet away from her, obviously waiting for her to make the first move.
"Did you have a good stay at Hotel Security?" Dorothy joked with a dismissive sniff.
"You know, it's not as bad as you would think. It's no castle dungeon at least." His remarks were loud enough for the press to hear. The reporters furiously scribbled this down on their notebooks.
"Mr. Stone, a few questions-" one asked, but he dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
"I have a lawyer, don't I? Speak with him. And don't pester my wife either, she's been through more than enough."
Dorothy was mildly surprised. This was the nicest thing he'd said about her since the whore came into his life. "Shall we go home? We have much to discuss."
Richard's eyes fell upon the necklace she was wearing and he paused before replying. "Yes," he simply answered and started to walk toward the metro station.
Dorothy followed closely and caught up to him so she could talk. "Do you like my new necklace," she whispered to him once she double and triple-checked that they were out of earshot of the reporters.
"I knew damn well it was a possibility that you'd steal it from Lupe when I gave it to her. I chose to do so anyway," Richard calmly replied.
"She never wore it, not once," Dorothy taunted him.
"That wasn't the point. The point was that I gave it to her because…" he trailed off and slowed down. "…because I am in love with her. My apologies." Richard started walking again, faster this time.
"You aren't capable of love," Dorothy scoffed, taking care to keep her voice down. "You are a sexual degenerate who traded a morphine addiction for some unholy monstrosity of unnatural science."
Richard snorted a laugh. "I understand that you are upset but you cannot expect us to carry on like this after what happened at the casino."
They passed the shining aluminum pillar the whore was hiding. She stepped out from it and said nothing, but Richard's attention immediately snapped to her like Dorothy and the reporters and the rest of Rapture no longer existed. They locked eyes and Richard slowed his pace again. They said nothing. The whore barely even moved, she just pressed her lips together in a simpering, mewlish way, and batted her slutty eyes at him.
Richard reluctantly turned from her and kept pace toward the metro. He said nothing to Dorothy, but after several steps he turned and looked back at the whore, who was still staring at him.
"Do you want to know how I found this necklace?" Dorothy asked as he turned back toward the metro.
"Do you want to know when I gave it to her? It was on Valentine's Day. She fucked me in a bathysphere. It was the single greatest experience of my life," Richard responded. "It was a gift to reward, well, very whorish behavior. You are unfit to wear a whore's necklace, so if it isn't too much trouble I'd like to have it back."
Dorothy's first impulse was to rip the necklace off her neck and toss it in the cold water around the sides of the metro, but that was not pragmatic. I will wear it to the whore's funeral. Richard's poisoned semen will kill her sooner or later, and what an awful death it will be.
"I destroyed everything she has," Dorothy impotently hissed as she obviously couldn't tell Richard that he was slowly killing the whore in such a poetically perfect way. Richard's insinuation that she was less than a whore, specifically his whore, was infuriating.
"She didn't have much to begin with, now did she? I will get her new things. Better things. More necklaces, more shoes, whatever it is that she desires. But I don't think she desires much." Richard's casual dismissal of Dorothy's destruction was just another in the continual line of insults he slung at her.
"Her art as well, if you can call her smeary charcoal garbage 'art'," Dorothy prodded him. Truth be told, Dorothy didn't find the whore's drawings so bad, they had a melancholy quality to them. "Did you like her drawings or did you only like the messy black scribbles between her legs?"
"I should ask her if she'd be kind enough to draw me in the nude sometime," Richard deflected. They had reached the metro station. At this early hour, there was no wait. "I suppose we should share a bathysphere. It would look better and neither of us wish to cause more of a splash than we already have."
Dorothy snuck a peek over her shoulder and glimpsed at least one photographer on the approach. "At least the bathysphere will be private."
Richard smiled to himself and said nothing. He held the door for Dorothy, and then climbed in and spun the controls for Adranos Place. The gentle rumble of the bathysphere detaching and moving was the only sound for a solid minute.
Dorothy was the one to break the silence. "Why did you have to do this?"
Richard sighed and slouched in the seat. "You know why. I'm not going to indulge your…I don't even know what to call it. I'm done Dorothy. I'm done. I am giving you two options. Firstly, you accept the terms of a divorce. It will leave you with something. Not the apartment we have now, but enough to keep you out of the gutter. Secondly, if you don't accept the terms of the divorce I am leaving anyway and you get nothing. I don't care if we are still legally married, I will not stay in the same home with you, I will not financially maintain you, and I will not, ever again, play pretend the role you want me to. With the divorce you get an ex-husband, however ungainly you find that it is still much, much more respectable than being the scorned and forgotten wife who has been replaced by, as you say, a whore."
Dorothy cooly stared at him. "You can't just leave, Richard, you can't abandon your wife. I will never sign divorce papers. I will never face that disgrace."
"What are they going to do to me, throw me in jail? I don't care about social niceties, my name is on my place of work so I am pretty sure my job is secure, and have you forgotten we are living in a laissez-faire paradise? I doubt there are any laws on the books to prevent me from marrying Lupe while still married to you, nor do I think there is anything that says I am forced to maintain you if I do not wish to do so."
With all of the social conventions suddenly and violently ripped out from under her, Dorothy could only stare in open mouthed shock at Richard's audacity. "What will become of me, hm? Your wife? What will become of me, your wife, when you run off to play house with a whore?"
"As per my previous statement, you will get a modest alimony if you sign divorce papers on my terms. Enough to live on, if you live frugally. If you don't sign?" Richard shrugged. "I am going to need a new housekeeper, you could apply for the position."
At his last little smug comment Dorothy's social conventions flew out the window as well. She lunged at him, fingers extended, and dug into his handsome face with her neatly manicured nails. "Shut your mouth!" Dorothy shrieked at him as little rivets of scarlet appeared on his face, courtesy of her fingernails. She wished to perhaps better articulate herself, perhaps elucidate him on the depth of his impropriety, but all she could produce was banshee-like screams of rage.
Richard seized her arms and tore them from his face. "I will thank you to stop," he tersely said, blood dripping from his cheeks, but even as he spoke the skin on his face began to knit back together. It was such a bizarre thing that she stopped her assault to watch.
His freak status doesn't change anything. But she was also a little more intimidated than he was before. Dorothy wiped her bloody fingers off on a handkerchief before speaking. "You will never be free of me. Never. I will make it my life's business to make you as miserable as you have made me."
"Have it your way then. You wish to remain my wife, you shall do so in name only. If that title is so important to you, by all means, have it. It will be all that you have soon enough."
I will make you miserable, Dorothy vowed as she glared at him. You love your whore, do you? Then it will hurt even more when you kill her. And if you won't kill her quickly enough for my taste, I will help her into her grave.
Would you kindly imagine a page break here?
All the words that the doctors told her seemed like they came from the other end of a long tunnel. Brain bleeding. Fractured skull. Brainstem reflexes. Long term care. Short term possibilities. Annette heard all the words and tried to hold on to them, but it was like trying to hold onto smoke.
Robert hadn't opened his eyes since Richard had hit him. As hard as a heavyweight champ, that's what she heard one of the doctor's say to a nurse in the hallway. It was unbelievable. Sure, Robert had gotten in a tussle or two over his hobby, but to be knocked to kingdom come by an unremarkable man who sat behind a desk all day?
"Why you, my love?" Annette whispered to her comatose husband as he lay in his hospital bed. She had been there for nearly twenty-four hours, refusing all suggestions to eat or change or care for herself in any way. She brushed his hand and choked back a sob. We had been on top of the world together, and to lose it all like this, in a flash, with a single blow. Annette paid no heed to the tears running down her face.
"Mrs. Anderson, we must interview you for the investigation," came the voice of a security agent at the door.
"Why bother?" Annette softly said while sadly gazing at Robert. She didn't even turn around to face the agent. "Throw that monster Stone into the sea and let him sink like his namesake."
"Madam, that isn't how things work around here. An investigation is required before charges are filed. Now normally we'd have you come down to the station, but in light of your situation we are willing to compromise."
She reluctantly turned to face the agent. He was a tall, thin man with a heavily creased face. "What is your name?"
"Detective Lambert. Please Mrs. Anderson, I need to get your version of events."
She stole a glance at Robert, then returned her attention to the police. "Very well, Detective Lambert. Ask your questions."
"First off, take me through the events of the evening."
"We all had a lovely time up until that bastard did this to my husband. That's all I have to say, you may leave."
Lambert sighted. "What time did you retire to your room?"
"I don't know. Late. There aren't clocks in a casino," she quickly answered, wishing that this damnable cop would do his job and go and hassle Richard and not her.
Lambert took a notebook out from his coat pocket. "I got several witnesses that put you leaving the party at roughly three AM. Does that sound right?"
Annette nodded. "Yes, that sounds right."
"What did you do once you got to your suite?"
Annette tensed. She hadn't thought this far yet. She pursed her lips and tried to think. "I was hungry. I ordered some snacks from the kitchen."
"That you did, that you did," Lambert said amiably. "I spoke to the kitchen staff and they showed me the ticket for your order. Taken at 3:07, delivered ten minutes later."
Annette nodded. Then what is your problem? "Is there anything else?"
"I spoke to your pit manager and he told me that Robert left the casino floor at around 3:30. Do you know where he went?"
Annette froze. She could clearly see where his line of questioning was going. "I..." she trailed off. "What does it matter? He's lying here in a coma, he's the victim in this!"
"It matters because I am trying to establish a timeline. There's two people who know exactly what happened, your husband and Mr. Stone, and Stone has his own story. Your husband is unable to tell me what happened, so I need to puzzle it out myself."
"What's his story? What lies is that awful man telling about my husband?" Annette demanded, hoping she could seize upon a scrap of information and build a satisfactory fiction around it.
Lambert shook his head. "Did your husband return to your room?"
Annette looked away. "I don't remember," she weakly said.
"You don't remember? Did you go to bed?"
Annette nodded. "Yes, yes I did, right after my snack was delivered. I must have been asleep." As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized they were a mistake.
"Answer me this, Mrs. Anderson." Lambert put his notebook away and gave her his full attention. "How did you know that your husband was under attack by Mr. Stone? They didn't have their altercation until 4:55 AM. If you were asleep in your room, how did you come to know there was a fight aaaalllllll the way downstairs?"
"I…I," Annette stuttered, "I don't remember, it was all a blur. Someone must have called me, I suppose, I don't recall, look, my husband is in a coma." How much have they already found? Did they need a warrant? Annette's stomach knotted up.
"So, within less than a minute of your husband and Mr. Stone arriving on the casino floor, you were telephoned, you got out of bed, got dressed, and you got downstairs right as Mr. Stone gave the knockout punch? Because I got twenty witnesses that say your husband had his ticket stamped almost immediately."
Annette's mouth fell open. "Just what are you implying, Detective Lambert? That I had something to do with this?"
"You tell me, Mrs. Anderson. And while you're at it, why don't you tell me where it was your husband and Mr. Stone came from, because I have a statement from a housekeeper who says she saw the both of them pop out of a service hallway."
Annette scowled at Lambert. "I am sure I do not know. Perhaps the housekeeper is lying to you."
"I don't think so. See if you can't 'remember' what happened. I'll be in touch." He turned to leave.
"Wait, Mr. Lambert, er, Detective Lambert. Are you going to arrest Stone?"
"He was in custody and then released. It's not my job to decide who is charged with what. I collect information and try to figure out who's telling the truth and who's lying."
Annette was flabbergasted. "Who's lying? You care so damned much about witnesses! Everyone on the floor saw him hit Robert! Arrest him and keep him in prison! Why is that so hard for you?!"
"Because, Mrs. Anderson, it is not a crime here to defend yourself and those around you from an assault. And I have found no reason not to believe Mr. Stone's version of events."
"You believe his…nonsense! He's a mad man, you know, he used to inject morphine every day, it's addled his mind," Annette desperately argued.
"Again, Mrs. Anderson, I do not charge people with crimes. I keep the peace. I don't believe Mr. Stone is a danger to the city at large, and from here on out it's up to the council to decide if to assign criminal liability."
"I do not give you permission to search my private rooms!" Annette blurted out. "You need a warrant, correct?" Those were notoriously hard to get in Rapture, nearly impossible, not like back on land.
"I would need a warrant, yes. But only for your private rooms. Hotel rooms are considered legally the temporary property of the person who pays for it-"
"Ah! I paid for Lupe's room! It was commentary, I mean, from the casino!" Annette excitedly pointed out, thinking she had uncovered a loophole.
"Counts as a gift, then, still her temporary property," Lambert refuted calmly. "And how did you know it was Ms. Cervantes's room? I didn't say that."
Annette was speechless. He's tricked me! It was very disrespectful to cheat a grieving near-widow like herself.
"As I said, the room was searched, and under the course of our search, we found nothing that leads us to believe that Mr. Stone is a threat to the city or its residents."
Annette turned back to Robert. "Mr. Lambert, please take your accusations and lies and complacency and laziness and general incompetence with you." And give me a chance to think of what to do!