The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,24

well, then I was sunk. It was not a refuge I could leave in a hurry. All I could do was stay there and wait for the cops to drag me out.

“Kinda sleepy,” the woman said.

“Yeah, well, you’re gonna get the best night’s sleep you ever had,” the man said.

“Ca’ keep m’eyes open…”

“Roofies’ll do that.”

“How’d I get here?”

“You live here, you dizzy bitch. Jesus, you’re built nice, aren’t you? Hang on now, just let me get your clothes off.”

“Sleeeeepy…”

In spite of myself I listened, and somewhere along the way it dawned on me what I was listening to. One thing he’d said—“Roofies’ll do that”—was enough to clue me in, once I’d allowed it to register. Roofies is one of the names for Rohypnol, that miracle of modern medical science known as the date-rape drug. Barbara Creeley, who’d already been burglarized (even though she didn’t know it yet), was about to get raped (even though she didn’t know that, either).

It struck me that I ought to do something, but what? If I tried to squirm out from under the bed, I’d alert him long before I was in a position to do anything. I’d gone in headfirst, more or less, so I’d be coming out feet first, and by the time my head cleared the bedframe he’d be in a position to break something over it. And even if I somehow got out before he reacted, well, then what? I never studied martial arts, never put on a pair of boxing gloves, and the last time I was in a fight was when I was eleven years old. My opponent was Kevin Vogelsang, and he gave me a bloody nose, which I probably deserved for chirping “Tweet, tweet, tweet” at him. (His last name means Birdsong. If it had been Feldmaus I’d very likely have gone “Squeak, squeak, squeak” at him, and gotten the same bloody nose. I was a real pain in the ass when I was eleven.)

The point is I’ve never been much at physical combat, nor am I the hulking sort who can intimidate an opponent by his mere physical presence. In fact I had a feeling it might be the other way around. I hadn’t had a look at the Roofies guy, but he had heavy footsteps and a deep and resonant voice, and I’d formed the image of a large fellow who spent a lot of time at the gym lifting heavy metal objects. There was always the chance that my strength would be as the strength of ten because my heart was pure, but what good would that do me? His strength was very likely the strength of eleven, even if his heart was darker than the inside of a cow.

My impulse was chivalrous, but you couldn’t have told as much from what I did, which was stay right where I was, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean, while the scoundrel had his way with her.

I’ll draw a veil over the next ten or fifteen minutes, if it’s all the same to you. I couldn’t shut out the sounds, nor could I stop my mind from inventing pictures to go with them, but I’m going to keep all that to myself. Barbara Creeley had to endure it, but at least she didn’t have to know about it, and neither should you.

I said she didn’t know about it, but that’s not to say she was unconscious throughout. At one point her voice rang out clear as a bell: “Who are you? What are you doing?”

“Shut up,” he explained.

“What’s going on?”

“You’re getting laid,” he said, “but you won’t remember a thing in the morning. You’ll just wonder why you’re sore down there, and where the wet spot in the bed came from.”

And he laughed savagely, but she didn’t say anything, and I guess she must have slipped back under the fuzzy blanket of Rohypnol. According to what I’d heard and read about the drug, he was right that she wouldn’t remember much, if anything. A couple of Roofies, ground up and stirred into a drink, made the drinker essentially comatose, albeit with occasional interludes of apparent lucidity. Sometimes the victim even participated in the lovemaking (if you want to call it that), making the usual moves and uttering the usual grunts and sighs, but not from a truly conscious plane, and without anything much imprinting itself on her memory.

There you have it—Rohypnol, clearly a drug for our times. What beats me is why