Night vision jl-2

by Paul Levine

  "You said you responded to me. Did you mean it?"

  "You're a sultry enchantress and damn well know it."

  "But you're still not interested."

  "Lately, I've been trying to do my thinking north of the equator."

  She smiled and looked at me straight on.

  "'Then I shall fly for my I good, perhaps for thine, at any rate for thine if mine is thine.'"

  It took me a moment to decipher. "That's very good. Original?"

  "I wish."

  "Who wrote it?"

  "Tennyson. Ever heard of him?"

  Bobbie Blinderman was telling me about Alfred Tennyson's emotional problems and his letter to Emily-somebody breaking off their engagement, flying for his own good, perhaps for thine, blah, blah, blah. But I wasn't listening. Not really listening. I was thinking, running it all through my head.

  Woman is the lesser man,

  And all thy passions, matched with mine,

  Are as moonlight unto sunlight, And as water unto wine.

  "Why belittle women that way? What does Bobbie Blinderman know of male passions, anyway?"

  "Who is the hunter, Bobbie?"

  She spoke slowly, her voice heavy. "You know that, Jake. You've read it so many times. Man is the hunter."

  And woman is the game. All I knew were the words. But now I remembered more of hers. The less you know about me the better. Flippant at the time, meaningful now? Come into focus. Come on, think. Two hyenas sniffing around, Charlie had said. What was it she had asked? Would appearances put you off?

  Saint Simeon. She was trying to tell me something.

  "You're the Passion Prince, aren't you?"

  "I liked the name, borrowed it."

  "You never met Marsha Diamond, but you computer-talked with her the night she died."

  "Yes, but I was so new at it, I was…too crude. It was the beast in me."

  "From then on, you took the poet's words."

  "Yes."

  She moved closer to the sofa. Tears formed in the corners of her dark eyes. Her eyebrows were scrunched. She was silent.

  On the sailboard was a stack of books and old newspapers. I fished around and pulled out the worn volume Prince had given me. The Poems of Tennyson. I thumbed through it, found what I wanted, and said, "They're called stylites, aren't they, the monks on the pillars?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "Saint Simeon isn't your name. You took it from a poem called Saint Simeon Stylites. "

  She nodded. I read:

  "' I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold

  Of saintdom, and to clamor, mourn, and sob,

  Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer,

  Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin! '"

  A tear ran down her face.

  "Help me figure you out. What does it mean? What is your sin?"

  "You don't care about me," she said.

  "I want to help you. Tell me."

  She stood two feet in front of me. I was still on the sofa, my head at the level of her waist. She faced me and slid one shoulder free of the black dress. Then she pushed the other side away, the dress sliding over her breasts until she was naked to the waist. It was a flat, smooth waist. The breasts were small and pointed. She placed a hand on each of her nipples and stroked them erect. Softly, she spoke the lines, "'Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, and left her woman…'"

  She closed her eyes and moved closer to me, straddling my knees with her legs. She reached down and gently circled my hand with hers. "'Lovelier in her mood than in her mould that other, when she came from barren deeps to conquer all with love.'"

  She placed my hand underneath the hem of her dress and moved it slowly up her leg, guiding me.

  Then she chanted it, as if in a trance:

  "' But woman is not undevelopt man,

  But diverse: could we make her as the man,

  Sweet love were slain: his clearest bond is this,

  Not like to like, but like in difference.

  Yet in the long years liker must they grow;

  The man be more of woman, she of man. '"

  My hand slid between her smooth thighs, higher and higher.

  When it would go no farther, she held it there. And then I knew.

  CHAPTER 38

  The Thing They Dare Not Do

  She had been born Robert Simon, she said.

  She laughed. "Bob. Let's throw the ball, Bob. Do I seem like a Bob to you? I should have changed it to something more feminine. What do you think of Melissa?"

  "Bobbie's just fine," I said.

  "I always wore dresses and jewelry and my hair was long and beautiful," she said, running a hand through the layered shag. "My mother used to brush my hair."

  "Your mother wanted you to be a girl."

  " I wanted to be a girl. As long as I could remember. She didn't object when I used her cosmetics or learned to sew or dressed in her underthings."

  "What's your earliest memory?"

  "Sleeping with Mother. She would curl herself around me. I remember how warm she was, her bare breasts pressing into my back.

  She would tuck her arms and legs around me, holding me tight. So womblike. Every night until my teens."

  "And your father?"

  She had pulled the shoulders of the dress back up and was leaning on my kitchen counter. I was displaying my culinary skills by boiling a pot of water, two tea bags cleverly dangling inside waiting mugs.

  "You expect me to say he wasn't there," she said.

  I shrugged.

  "He was there but not there. He'd leave for work before I awoke and come home after I was asleep. On weekends he'd lock himself into his workshop and cut and hammer and saw, making all sorts of useless things. He had his hands on wood and sheet metal far more than on my mother."

  "You wanted to be like your mother."

  "So very much. But I'm not a fetishist, you know. I didn't just want to dress in women's clothing."

  I thought of Stephanie, the man-killing transsexual, mocking transvestites. No weekend cross-dressing here.

  "I wanted breasts like Mother's," Bobbie continued. "I wanted to dress like her. I wanted to be rid of my penis. Do you know I never, never peed standing up. Not once. Not then, not now."

  The pot threatened to boil over. I poured the steaming water into the mugs. "You have the breasts."

  "Hormones. Lovely breasts, don't you think, though not so large as I would like. And a beautifully pitched voice. But I still have the ugly thing."

  She pointed to her crotch. "I didn't pass their tests, so they wouldn't cut me." She imitated a supercilious doctor: "'Mr. Simon, you don't unequivocally believe yourself to be a woman.'"

  "Because you still have sex with women."

  "Partly, I suppose, though is that any worse than hooking, selling yourself to men? Many TS's do that to pay for the operation, you know. You'd be surprised how excited men get when they're with a woman who possesses both breasts and a penis. They don't know what to grab first."

  "Telling themselves it's not really a homosexual experience because she looks like a woman."

  She shrugged and sipped the tea. "I could show you things, Jake, take you to heights-"

  A little light bulb flashed. "That's how you met Max, wasn't it? You were raising money for the operation that never came."

  "He loved me, took me out of a filthy room on South Beach. You don't know what I've been through."

  I thought I did. "I'll bet if we ran the name Robert Simon, we'd come up with a few busts, wouldn't we? What you did for love. And money. Maybe rolling some johns who would never file charges. Maybe jail time for soliciting."

  "Is it a crime to fulfill my destiny, to be what I was meant to be?"

  "What are you, Bobbie?"

  She shook her head. "Something. Nothing. Something stuck between here and there. I don't know anymore. I lust for you because I'm a woman. I lust for Pam and I hate myself for it."

  Little bells were ringing.
What was it Stephanie had said? When I need a woman, it comes over me in waves. My passion inflamed a thousandfold. Then she had whispered something else. And hate her for it, for making me the male beast.

  "Who do you hate, Bobbie?"

  "I told you. Myself, for my weakness, my own lack of total identity with my femininity."

  "Maybe, but you also hate her…"

  "Don't start playing shrink with me. That's what she does."

  "Do you hate Pam for that, too?"

  "You're nuts!"

  "Man is the hunter," I said.

  "Sure, sure. And woman is his game."

  " You're the hunter, Bobbie."

  "No! The game."

  "You want to be the game. Or part of you does. Part of you is shamed to be a woman and another part shamed to love a woman."

  She closed her eyes. "I am shamed through all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.'"

  "Yes, that's it, isn't it?"

  "'Weakness to be wroth with weakness! Woman's pleasure, woman's pain. Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain.'"

  "You believe it, don't you, Bobbie?"

  "No. Just words. Just a man's words. It isn't me."

  "You had sex with Mary Rosedahl the night she was killed."

  "Yes."

  "And you were the male, weren't you? You had vaginal intercourse. It's your blood we've been after."

  "Yes, but-"

  "And the same with Priscilla Fox. You had sex with both of them and left your borrowed poetry behind."

  "Yes, yes."

  "And then strangled them, the sleek and shining creatures of your chase."

  "No. I'm a woman. I want to be loved by a man. I want to change."

  "You hunt them for the beauty of their skins."

  "No, no!"

  "The rest of the stanza. Say it."

  She turned away and hugged herself, hunching over, the fragile blades of her shoulders delicate as the wings of a bird. "Or shall I do it?" I asked. In a whimper, she recited the verse:

  "' They love us for it, and we ride them down.

  Wheedling and siding with them! Out! For shame!

  Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them

  As he that does the thing they dare not do,

  Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes

  With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in

  Among the women, snares them by the score

  Flattered and flustered, wins, though dashed with death… '"

  "Bobbie, you're not a woman…"

  Great sobs racked her body. "I am, I am."

  "You're a man and you blame them for it, hate them for it." She whirled and brought her hand toward my cheek. Her slim-fingered boy-girl fist wouldn't have hurt, but it held a Miami Dolphin mug half-filled with hot tea. The mug glanced off my forehead, and the tea splashed square across my face. I yelped and hopped backward on my one good leg. My eyes were half-closed, but I sensed her bending over, and something black was in her hand. I tried to pivot, and if my left leg had held the weight, I would have dropped her with a straight left hand. But it couldn't and I didn't, and the leg collapsed, and as I fell without help from anyone she bashed me square on the skull. It felt like a hammer, and great gongs went off as I crumpled to the kitchen floor. I started up and she hit me again, this time at the base of the skull. The world lit up and I lay down.

  I took a futile stab at a leg as she stepped over me, and as she stepped away I saw the blurry image of her shapely calves and stockinged feet. In each hand she held a stylish black shoe with a stiletto heel.

  I was woozy but awake. I had not been out long.

  The kitchen floor was cool and sticky against my face. I looked for my own blood, would maybe send some to Nick Fox. But there was no blood. Last week's spilled beer, tacky on my skin.

  I touched my face. Raw skin that would blister from the hot tea. I felt my head. Two bumps with round dents where the metal-tipped heel had jolted me. I pulled myself up with my good leg and totaled the score. I figured I was the first guy to be KO'd on consecutive days by Mr. and Mrs. Max Blinderman. Even if the missus was nearly a mister, it would not look good on my resume.

  The cobwebs were clearing and I picked up the phone. First I called Nick Fox, who didn't believe me and wanted to know why the hell I hadn't delivered my blood and my gun. I yelled at him to shut up, then told him about the hermaphroditic nature of Robert Simon aka Bobbie Blinderman.

  "You touched it?" he asked, incredulous. "You really touched it?"

  "Listen, Nick. She or he is the killer. Get somebody to the Sunset Beach Hotel right now. Pam Maxson's suite."

  He was still skeptical but said he would take all necessary precautions. I hate the way politicians talk.

  I called the hotel, hoping Pam Maxson was there.

  Her laugh was filled with derision. "Are you trying to tell me you just learned of her sexual identity? I find that hard to believe, though it's not surprising she was at your house. Tell me, were you doing her or vice versa?"

  "What are you talking about? Do you think I-"

  "You and that promiscuous creature…"

  "Pam, if you're jealous, let me assure-"

  "Jealous! Of her, of you? Do you think either of you means anything to me?"

  "Pam, listen to me. I'm trying to tell you she's a killer. She wants to kill you."

  "Rubbish. She's had sadistic fantasies quite normal among transsexuals, and she's as slutty as the rest of them, but-"

  "Pam, I'm telling you she's coming over there."

  "I know that. She called from the lobby a minute ago. I would expect that's her at the door just now."

  CHAPTER 39

  A Freak Accident

  The medical examiner's van was angled in front of the hotel, its front tires sinking into a bed of geraniums. The van bore little resemblance to the emergency vehicles favored by police and fire rescue. There was no oxygen, no plasma, no sophisticated electronics for monitoring hearts and brains.

  There was no need.

  The state attorney's car was pulled off the driveway under a sweet-gum tree. Nick Fox hadn't spent four years as a patrolman without learning the first rule of survival in south Florida: never park in the sun.

  A uniformed sergeant stood guard at the suite's double doors. He looked at my cane and at my face and let out a low whistle. Then he blocked the door and made me negotiate.

  "Let 'em in!"

  It was Nick Fox. "Been expecting you, Jakie…" He did a double take. "Jesus H. Christ, you look like shit warmed over."

  I looked around the room. No Pamela Maxson. No Bobbie Blinderman. "You were too late," I said hoarsely.

  "It happens that way sometimes."

  "Where's the body?"

  He jerked a thumb toward the balcony. The sliding glass doors were open, and a humid breeze from the Atlantic puckered the flimsy curtains. I hobbled out. A police photographer was crouching, taking a shot of something on the concrete slab of the balcony. He was blocking my view. I stepped around him.

  A woman's shoe.

  A black shoe with a stiletto heel cleanly broken off. The heel was jammed in the track of the sliding glass door. The rest of the shoe lay forlornly on its side near the edge of the balcony. I looked straight down over the railing, gripping it tight. One hundred twenty feet below, on the pool deck, lay a body in a black dress. The legs were splayed at an unnatural angle, and a pool of blood seeped from beneath her head and across the hard Chattahoochee. Alongside, a man in a white coat was taking photos. Another man was on his hands and knees, whisking the deck with a brush.

  "Dr. Maxson's in the bedroom," Nick Fox said, standing behind me.

  My eyes must have had a desperate look. "She's okay, don't worry. Now, before you go in there, I gotta ask you a couple questions. The other night, you were at your secretary's place, and you had the. 38, right?"

  "Right."

  "Did the gun discharge?"

  "Yeah."
/>   "Did Dr. Maxson shoot the gun?"

  "Yeah."

  "Why did she shoot?"

  "To get my attention."

  "Maybe I should try that. How many shots?"

  "One."

  "You're sure, just one shot."

  "Yeah. What the hell-"

  "You ever shoot it?"

  "Never."

  "Okay, c'mon. Let's see your girlfriend."

  Pam Maxson sat on the bed. She wore a double-breasted coatdress in purple-and-black houndstooth. Epaulets and padded shoulders, not your typical daytime resort wear. A female detective sat next to her, scribbling notes on a pad. The detective wore a blue skirt, white blouse, and blue jacket, and her holster was visible on the left side. Clipped to the jacket was a plastic shield with her photo and name and large black letters spelling "Homicide." I moved closer. Her name was Sigorsky. She was short and bleached blond, but she hadn't made it to the beauty salon in a while. She was wide through the hips, and her dark eyes walked me up and down, taking their sweet time. Her report would probably record each welt, bruise, and blister. Two other cops in uniform stood around, admiring the wet bar, every liquor under the sun in miniature airline bottles. Cops always travel in packs.

  "Jake, oh Jake, thank God you're here. It was so awful."

  Pam Maxson stood and rushed to me, throwing her arms around me. If she noticed that my face looked like steak tartare, she didn't mention it. I held her. It was impossible to do anything else. I felt her tears against my neck.

  Detective Sigorsky said, "That will be all, Dr. Maxson, unless you want to add anything."

  Pam just shook her head.

  I eased up on her padded shoulders. "What happened?"

  She shook her head again, tears streaming from her green flinty eyes.

  "A freak accident," Sigorsky said.

  Behind me Nick Fox chuckled. "A freak's accident is more like it."

  The detective continued: "Dr. Maxson was treating the subject for psychological disorders related to her…or rather, his sexual-identity confusion. Did I get that term right, doctor?"

  "Gender-identity disorder. Possible schizophrenia."

  "Maybe he wasn't used to walking in those high heels," Sigorsky said. "Lord knows, I have trouble with them; maybe he wasn't watching and he stepped in the door track, the heel broke, he fell forward and flipped over the railing." Sigorsky shrugged and smiled a rueful smile. "We've had some of those spring-break college kids go off balconies, but usually they're trying to climb from floor to floor when they're all liquored up. Now a shoe does it. I tell you, it gets weirder every day."