It was about two thirty on an afternoon in June when my life as a middle class young Jewish professional woman ended. The preceding month was one of transitions in my life. After mulling over the three acceptances I had received for law school, I decided to go to the local institution. Wanting to have a little fun before three years of hard work, I quit my job with the brokerage where I had served as a financial consultant and made preparations to backpack through Europe.
The man with whom I was living could not accompany me to Europe and would not countenance his lover being footloose and fancy free over the summer. So we broke up and I returned to my apartment. Having decided to remain in the city for the next three years, I signed a new lease and paid three months rent in advance, as I was not going to be in town until law school started.
Being almost an orphan, I was the perfect victim for Garth. Born Rebecca Milstein in Ukraine, I immigrated to America with my parents and older brother at the age of four. I had few memories of the old country, and knew none of my relatives there.
Although I was happy in suburban Western Pennsylvania, the rest of my family did not adapt well to their new surroundings. My mother became chronically depressed and died of cancer when I was sixteen. My father and brother did not like being cab drivers in America and moved to Israel after I graduated from high school.
They were kind enough to turn over the fifty thousand dollars that my mother's insurance policy paid after her untimely death, and I used the funds to attend college. I wanted to be an attorney, but the money ran out after my four years of undergraduate school, forcing me to make a living as a stockbroker. At the age of thirty, I had finally saved enough to realize my dream of going to law school.
My circle of friends included only my boyfriend, with whom I had just had an acrimonious break up and the people at work. Therefore, given my travel plans, everyone I knew did not expect to see me this summer.
Thus I was quite isolated socially two days before I was scheduled to catch a plane for London. That afternoon I had gotten my hair cut in a little shop located among old houses in a quiet Jewish neighborhood in the city of Pittsburgh.
Just a short distance away, situated on a main thoroughfare, was a bank. It was mid afternoon, just before such financial institutions closed. My car was parked a block away, out of sight from the hair salon.
I was strolling down the side of the street opposite my car and had just opened the doors with my remote when I noticed a tall man walking toward my car on the other side of the street. On his head was a black stocking cap, but the sides of his scalp were shaven clean. His black leather jacket hung open and a gray wife beater covered his chest. He carried a brown paper bag in his right hand.
When the tail lights of my vehicle flickered on, he picked up his pace. If I had chosen to lock the doors of my car and run back to the beauty shop, I would not have been kidnapped. But such a course of action did not occur to me, and instead I raced the man to my car.
I flung open the door and jumped into the driver's seat, but before I could lock the car, the man opened the passenger door and got inside. Before I could escape, he seized my right arm and pulled me back into the driver's seat.
My arm felt like it was in a vice. I bit his forearm, but the cold metal from the barrel of his pistol touching my forehead dissuaded me from further resistance. "Bitch, you're gonna drive me out of here," a gravelly voice commanded.
"Please. Let me go. Take the car."
I trembled as I dangled the keys in front of him.
"You'll call the goddamn police the second I let you out of here. Just start the fucking car."
The gun was pointed at my chest. Tears ran down my face.
"I don't think I can drive like this," I sobbed.
"You have two choices. You can start the car, or you can ride in the trunk after I can put a round from this pistol into your head."
I started the car.
"Where do you want me to go?"
"Where do you live?"
"In a high rise. On Forbes Street."
"Is there a doorman?"
"No."
"How about a back door?"
"Yes."
"We'll go there so I can chill. And if you play any tricks on me, you're dead."
"Are you trying to get away from someone?" I asked, hoping there was a somewhat more benign explanation for my predicament than being abducted by a psycho.
"Just be quiet. I'll do the talking."
He held the gun at his waist, pointing it so that the bullet would traverse my liver before entering my heart.
"Can't you say something that will make me less afraid?"
"You best be taking me to your place. If we're not there in another five minutes you're dead."
"We're going there."
I went through a stop sign.
"Jesus Christ. You're lucky a cop didn't see you. Oh, maybe that's what you're trying to do. Get stopped by a cop. You better not be. Because if a fucking cop stops us, that's the end of him. And you, too."
"My name is Rebecca." I thought if he knew my name, knew that I was a person, he might be less eager to pull the trigger.
"It's nice to meet you, Rebecca. Just call me, 'Fucking Maniac'. That's all you've got to know about me; that I'm a fucking maniac who's going to kill you if you don't get me someplace safe off the street."
We continued our journey in silence. I parked in the lot next to my building and we entered through the back. No one was on the freight elevator when it arrived, and we took it up to my apartment on the fourth floor. When we reached my door, he looked at the mezuzah.
"What's this?"
"Just an ornament for good luck," I replied as I opened the door.
My captor turned on the television after we entered my domicile. A local newsman was reporting on a bank robbery near my beauty shop. He said that two of the robbers were killed and one was at large. Miraculously, no one else was injured or killed.
"Well, it looks like I haven't committed any capital crimes yet. I might have to let you live."
The reporter went on about how the dead men had links to a neo-Nazi group. My pulse quickened as I prayed he would not find out that I was a Jew.
"Do you got anything to drink? Booze, I mean."
"I have beer and wine. What would you like?"
"What kind of beer do you got?"
"Miller Lite."
"That beer's for pussies. Don't you got anything else?"
"Just half a bottle of Chablis."
"That stuff's for pussies too. But I guess you are a pussy, so what should I have expected? Give me a brew."
I took a bottle of beer out of the refrigerator, took the cap off, and gave it to my guest. I looked around to see if there was anything that would betray my background. There was a Chagall print hanging on the wall and my Shabbas candles were out on the kitchen cabinet, and I prayed that the animal who had invaded my apartment was not learned enough to pick up these clues.
The story about the bank robbery was over and a commercial for an Adam Sandler movie was playing. "Do you think that guy's a kike?" he asked me.
"Who?"
"Adam Sandler."
"I don't know."
"Hollywood is run by a bunch of kikes. I bet you he is one."
I spotted a copy of the Jewish Times on the coffee table in front of where the man whom I now surmised was a fugitive sat. I didn't dare move it. But it was only a matter of time before he noticed it if he kept sitting there.
"You can tie me up and gag me. I'm off from work and I'm not expecting anyone until the cleaning lady comes in two days. She has a key, so she'll let herself in and find me. And you'll have a big head start. The police will question me, but believe me; I don't want any more trouble from you. So I'll just give them the basics."
He looked down at the coffee table as he pondered my suggestion. His eyes caught the Jewish Times and his face became twisted with anger.
He grabbed the paper and shook it before my face. "What the fuck is this?"
"It's my boyfriend's; my ex-boyfriend's. He's Jewish."
"Are you a kike?"
I shook my head no.
He looked at the front page. "Israel to get new fighter jets from U.S.A," he read. "Now when my people take over those goddamn hebes there ain't gonna get nothing! You're lucky you're not a fucking Jew. And I hoped you learned a lesson from dating a kike."
My spirits were lifted by his taking at face value my denial of my Judaism. I tried to take the paper from him. "Let's throw this goddamn thing away. The guy's a prick. I thought I had gotten rid of everything of his."
But he held onto the paper and his eyes roamed to the address label. His face again became twisted with anger.
"Was you're goddamn boyfriend named Rebecca Milstein?"
I shook my head no.
"You're full of bullshit. You're a kike!"
I ran for the phone. He pulled the cord from the wall as I lifted the receiver.
I screamed, but he covered my mouth. I tried to break free of him, but his grip was like a vice. I felt the barrel of his gun against my ribs.
"If you make a sound when I take my hand off you're mouth, I'll kill you."
Tears were streaming down my face, but I stifled a sob when he took his hand away from my mouth.
He let go of me and an instant later I felt the back of his hand strike my cheek. The force of the blow caused me to land on the floor.
"Goddamn lying bitch!" he muttered.
