Joe McGinniss - Never Enough

IT WAS 8:00 P.M. MONDAY IN HONG KONG, 6:00 A.M. MONDAY in Chicago when Nancy Kissel called her father, Ira Keeshin. She was crying.

Rob and I had a huge fight last night, she said. Im pretty badly beaten up. Im sure he broke some of my ribs. And Im afraid. Im afraid hes going to come back and hurt me more.

Wait. He hit you?

He was drunk. It was horrible She started crying so hard she couldnt talk.

Where is he now?

II dont know. He left. He could be anywhere.

How are you ? Have you been to a doctor?

Im going in the morning. My ribs are killing me. Im all beat up.

And you dont know where Rob is?

He could be anywhere. Im scared hell come back.

How are the kids?

Theyre fine. They dont know anything.

Are Connie and Min there?

Yes, theyre here.

Make sure they stay with you. And keep the door locked. Double-bolt it. This is awful. What the hell happened?

Instead of answering, Nancy broke down in tears again.

Never mind. Listen, Ill get down there as fast as I can. If he comes back, call the police. Stay safe. Thats the most important thing. Dont go out anywhere he might be able to grab you. Keep Connie and Min with you. Call some friends to come over. I dont want you alone until we know where he is.

She was sobbing.

Maybe he just lost it for a minute Maybe hes ashamed, thats why he left.

No. This wasnt the first time.

What

Just get here , please. I dont know what to do.

Ira was sixty years old, five seven, physically active, physically fit. He thought fast. He talked fast. He was impulsive. He was not a long-term planner. He had a quick sense of humor. He had a temper. He had a heart. He didnt have much contact with his first ex-wife, Nancys mother, but hed stayed on good terms with his second, even after hed married for a third time.

He was the number two man at a specialty bread company that supplied bread and rolls of the highest quality to many of Chicagos finest restaurants and huge quantities of lesser-quality product to such national chains as Chilis, Cheesecake Factory, and TGIF.

He arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday night. He had visited Nancy and Rob there before. Nancy had said shed have a car and driver meet him at the airport, but he found no one waiting for him. He took a taxi to Parkview, the multitower luxury apartment complex where Rob and Nancy lived. He checked into the hotel on the grounds, walked to their building, and took the elevator to the twenty-second floor.

Nancy was thirty-nine but looked younger. She was short and blond, flashy and feisty. She had lively eyes and a brilliant smile. Her shapeliness did not suggest that shed borne three children. Heads still turned when she entered a room. Normally. Now she looked haggard and scared.

Has he come back?

No.

Has he called?

She shook her head.

He started to hug her.

Dont! Didnt I tell you he broke my ribs?

Ira smelled scented candles. He glanced around the living room. Dozens of candles were burning. He thought he smelled lilac and vanilla. But he was too tired to smell straight, too tired to think straight, almost too tired to stand.

Will you be okay overnight?

Ill be fine.

Then Ill see you in the morning after Ive had a little sleep. Well go to the police, file a missing persons report.

And an assault and battery complaint.

That, too.

After kissing each of his three grandchildren as they slept, Ira went back to the hotel and to bed.

Isabel was nine, Zoe six, and Ethan three. Rob and Nancy had arrived in Hong Kong in 1997 when Zoe was an infant. Ethan had been born there. Rob had been sent to Hong Kong to make money for Goldman Sachs and for himself. Hed done both. Three years later, hed moved to Merrill Lynch to make more.

Ira had breakfast with the children while Nancy got dressed. He took the girls down to their school bus. They were thrilled by Grandpa Iras surprise visit. Connie, the nannyor amah, as nannies are called in Hong Kongwould take Ethan to his preschool later.

The morning was cool, the sky clear. November marked the end of Hong Kongs summer. In November, the daytime temperature dropped into the seventies and the humidity eased. The air pollution lingeredthe pollution never went away anymorebut it was slightly less oppressive than in summer.

Ira and Nancy took a taxi to the Aberdeen Division police station on Wong Chuk Hang Road, near the Ap Lei Chau Bridge. As soon as they arrived and stated their business they were led to a conference room and joined by Sergeant Mok Kwok-chuen, who was ready to write down the details.

But instead of speaking, Nancy started to tremble, as if on the verge of a seizure. Then she closed her eyes and began to rock back and forth, her arms crossed tightly in front of her, moaning.

Ira tried to calm her. She quivered and sobbed. Sergeant Mok was attentive and solicitous. Ira told him that Nancy had been badly beaten by her husband, who had then gone missing and who was still missing after three and a half days.

Eventually, Nancy was able to stutter a brief account of what had happened. She said her husband had been drunk and had begun hitting and kicking her when shed resisted his attempts to have sex. Then hed left their apartment and she didnt know where hed gone. The account came out in fits and starts. Nancy would speak a few coherent sentences, then slip back into a state in which all she did was tremble, moan, and cry.

Sergeant Mok explained that he could issue a missing persons report, but that before Nancy could press assault and battery charges a police doctor would have to examine her and record her injuries. He said that could be done at Queen Mary Hospital in nearby Pok Fu Lam, not far from the University of Hong Kong. Ira and Sergeant Mok helped her to a waiting patrol car.

It was almost noon when they arrived. Queen Mary, the teaching hospital for the medical school of the nearby University of Hong Kong, was one of the largest and busiest acute-care facilities in the territory. The lobby was overflowing with patients waiting to be seen. The Hong Kong patrolman who brought Ira and Nancy to the hospital explained to a receptionist why they had come. The receptionist told him that Nancy would have to wait her turn. They sat and they waited. And they sat and waited. Nancy did not like to sit and wait under any circumstances. She didnt see why she should be made to now. This was the sort of thing shed been putting up with for six years. The Chinese did not seem able to grasp the obvious fact that certain people should not be made to sit and wait.