Seeing Red by Craig McDonald

“It’s not the way it looks, Dianne. Sure wish you could see it from my perspective for once. You’re starting to sound like Mom.”

  That last is a cheap and spiteful shot, but Dianne tries not to let him get under her skin.

Dianne nods slowly and rolls her head, side to side, stretching out her neck. She’s coming off an eighteen-hour shift at the General — a particularly bloody night in the E.R. She rubs her eyes and chews her lip, considering her kid brother, Pat.

  “Kid” doesn’t really cover it anymore: Pat, or “Red,” as most call him, is twenty-seven, but looks older. He’s tall, well-built and blandly good-looking, with sharp, almost too-focused blue eyes and tousled auburn hair that early on earned him his nickname.

“The cops have looked at it, Dianne, and I’m out of their sights.” Her brother adds, shrugging, “Thank Christ it’s over.”

“Maybe for you,” his sister says, trying hard to keep the anger from her voice. “But for Nancy? If you hadn’t taken her out for that goddamned drink and then left her alone…”

  Red sits back in his chair and scopes the joint. O’Reilly’s is getting raucous as happy hour hits its stride — the after-work crowd pouring in from short Friday shifts passed in offices and shops. Dianne just wants a hot bath and a weekend’s sleep. They’re close to Chinatown so she thinks maybe she’ll call ahead for some take-out. Hot and Sour soup sounds good.

  He takes another sip of his Seven-and-Seven. Red asks, “How is Nancy?”

  Dianne frowns. “Bad. Not so much physically — or so we hope. Mentally she’s a wreck. And she’s under a sword for weeks now. You know — because of all the tests and the waiting.”

  Two days before, Nancy woke up in a hot-sheet hotel room, naked and hurting. Nancy called a cab and asked to be taken to the E.R. where Dianne was winding down another long shift.

  Dianne had helped the internist run the rape kit on her best friend. Dianne sat with Nancy through the swabbing and treatment of her abrasions and friction burns. Held her hand while she was administered the morning-after pills — the first of the cycle of vaccinations for hepatitis B and the medicines for chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. Nancy, at Dianne’s urging, had also opted for a month-long regimen of zidovudine and lamivudine to thwart HIV infection.

Dianne’s friend’s memories of her attack were dim.

  Nancy couldn’t recall how many men raped her after she was slipped the rohypnol in a cocktail…some tropical blue drink that masked the blue dye that the drug’s manufacturer had begun adding to rohypnol to alert potential date rape victims.

  So many predators were onto that: hiding the blue dye in blue drinks, or in colas or glasses of red wine, that some drug companies had begun experimenting with different colorings. They randomly mixed dye colors to turn it into a kind of discouraging roulette for would-be rapists. Would that little green pill turn a drink green, or red, or garish orange?

  Nancy couldn’t recall if she had ordered the “Blue Hawaii.” She had enjoyed the cocktail before, so it was a possibility. Or perhaps it had been sent to her by another patron at the bar where she had gone with Red the night she was attacked.

Nancy had dropped by to visit Dianne, unaware Dianne had been called in to work. But Red was at his sister’s apartment, working on her computer.

  Cars…electronics — Red had always had an aptitude for mechanical things and was supporting himself with freelance computer trouble-shooting. That, and some other similarly informal side enterprises his sister hadn’t succeeded in getting a handle on yet.

Red had finished up work on his sister’s PC, then invited Nancy to join him for a drink at the bar around the corner.

At some point, Red had excused himself for the night, assuming Nancy would leave soon after. Or so Red had said. For her part, Nancy couldn’t remember much after leaving the apartment with Dianne’s brother.

  The bar Red had selected that night was hopping and three bartenders were in a serving frenzy, losing all track of drinks ordered and by whom. The cops came up cold, but were watching the bar now: Nancy was the third woman in a week to be slipped a date rape drug in that particular joint.

“You shouldn’t have left her there alone, Red,” Dianne says.

  But his abandoning Dianne’s best friend was vintage Red:

  Irresponsible? Selfish?

  Take your pick: Red was both.

  Her brother couldn’t keep male friends, let alone a steady girlfriend.

  Their mother had had a terrible falling-out with Red the previous Christmas. She had threatened to write him out of her will and forbidden him ever to visit.

  Elaine Garrett had been contemplating filing a complaint against her son regarding some missing jewelry. Calling from her cell phone, her mother told Dianne she had decided to press charges against Red. Then she heard her mother screaming before the connection was broken. Elaine Garrett had been cresting Telegraph Hill when her brakes failed — a loose nut securing the line gave way, spraying brake fluid all the way down the hill.

  Their mother’s Lexus was crushed by a Hummer crossing at the foot of the hill.

  Elaine had died furious at Dianne for not siding with her against Red.

  Mother and son had never gotten along…twenty years of head games that started soon after Dianne’s father’s freak electrocution in the family swimming pool. The war began at their father’s funeral— their mother publicly berating seven-year-old Red and accusing him of impossible crimes. Elaine maintained for years that Red was a liar and a thief.

  Dianne didn’t consider herself to be blind to her brother’s failings; not at all.

  But Dianne couldn’t see Red as the monster her mother painted Dianne’s brother to be.

  Poor Red was just turned in on himself and full of unwarranted self-hatred and self-disappointment. He was a smart kid with some technical savvy, but over-burdened with too little focus and ambition.

  Red just never could be counted on to think things through — like leaving poor Nancy alone in that damned bar.

  This was how Dianne viewed her brother: a bit dim, a bit careless. But, a good enough guy in the end.

  “I suppose you’re going to ride my ass forever about this, huh, Sis?”

  “Goddamn it, Red! If you seemed just a little sorrier for what happened, I might not be losing it now.” Dianne wants to slap her brother; maybe toss a drink in his face. Doesn’t help that she is so tired.

  Dianne bows her head, knuckles pressed to her forehead. “I want to know more about this. Did you see anybody watching Nancy that night? Anything at all you can remember that might help catch these bastards?”

  “I’ve thought about it, but —”

  “Think harder.” Dianne stands, picking up her purse. “Be back in a minute,” she says, looking around for the lady’s room.

  “I’ll have a drink waiting.”

  “Not sure I want one.”

  But when Dianne returns, Red is sipping a fresh drink. She sees the tall glass waiting for her, sparkling blue and garnished with pineapple, cherry and slice of orange: a Blue Hawaii.

  Dianne is now seeing red:

  Furious, she asks, “What is this, some kind of sick joke?”

  Her brother appears flustered. Red follows her pointing finger to the glass.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he says, looking horrified. “I wasn’t thinking, Di’. I’m sorry. I’ll send it back — get you a Black Russian? Maybe a glass of Merlot, instead? I’m so sorry. Wasn’t thinking.”

  “You never do.”

  Dianne sits down and pushes the bright blue cocktail aside. “Tell me this much, Red: what was Nancy drinking when it was just the two of you?”

  “Not sure…trying to remember.”

  “Not one of these, was it?”’

  “Christ, no,” her brother says, meeting her gaze. “I can’t believe you are—”

  “I’m not,” Dianne says. “I’m not doing that. I’m just trying to stop this from happening to someone else. Anything you can remember might help the cops, you know?”

  She reaches across the table and squeezes her brother’s unresponsive hand. She squeezes harder. “I love you, Red. You know that, don’t you? You’re just so damned frustrating sometimes.”

  Red searches his sister’s eyes. “I know. I—” He frowns, following his sister’s gaze to the Blue Hawaii he has ordered for her. As he does, he feels his sister’s hand draw away.

  “Jesus Christ,” Dianne says, picking up her purse and backing away from the table. “Jesus Christ,” she yells. Other patrons are turning to look; they look at the glass she is pointing to.

  Red has heard about the pharmaceutical companies playing with something like this, but he never imagined it was already in circulation.

  Goddamn it.

  Dianne stares at the Blue Hawaii — the pale turquoise drink darkening to purple from the spreading red dye.

© Craig McDonald 2007 All Rights Reserved