“You really … recognize me?”
“Y is for Yes and Y is for You. Yes, I recognize You.”
“But—I was a man! The other day—I was a man! Look at me NOW!”
“I gave you a Day Pass,” he said, and blinked his eyes behind his froggy glasses. “Not good for Night.”
Maybe he was just nuts. Or I was. Or we both were.
“I was a big man—do you understand? Now I’m a woman.”
“Everyone’s different, every time,” he repeated, and I decided that he was a simpleton. But a moment later he said in a lower voice, “And you were different once before … when you arrested me.”
“What … do you mean?” I said … my new female voice drying out in the air.
“Before Fun,” he answered, and stared down at the gouged linoleum floor, which I saw he kept remarkably clean.
I couldn’t believe I’d ever crossed his path—let alone arrested him. I wanted to radio for instructions big time.
“Why … I mean—what did I arrest you for?”
“I was unauthorized,” he said simply, and glanced up at his wall of ticket stubs as if for support. Or maybe not wanting to remember more.
I honestly didn’t know what he was talking about, but it occurred to me it might have been back when I was in uniform. I took the term “beat cop” a bit too much to heart in those days. B was for billy club. Wouldn’t it have been ironic if I’d administered the blow that started him radioing in for instructions—and here he’d just saved me from a gang of gargoyles.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” I asked. Maybe I was back in danger again.
He twisted his head at this and made a garbled sound—which I realized was a very good imitation of radio static.
“Everyone’s different. Every time,” he replied, the tea steam misting his glasses.
Those words seemed to satisfy him, to calm him—and they started to sink in with me. If only we could remember that everyone’s different every time we meet them. What a difference that would make. And it’s funny, because that’s the way a cop always approaches things—only too often with suspicion and contempt masked as authority and control. For the first time I suddenly saw my old life as being a Black Knight. Not a protector of FUN, but a projector of FEAR. This ragged dignified loner was no coward when it came to getting tough, but he was a better guardian of the peace than I’d been. That was humbling. I’d always thought I was a halfway decent, halfway honest cop.
“I’m … sorry …” I said, and I meant it. I didn’t care what he’d done. I wondered how he saw through me. But maybe he just did and couldn’t say how or why. I knew what that was like. Just as we can fail or refuse to see what’s so obvious to everyone else.
He made the radio static sound again and then said “Roger that,” with his head turned away from me. I was curious where his walkie-talkie had gone. He must’ve been getting signals directly now.
“S is for Security. And Security Escort,” he said, setting down his mug on the floor and standing up.
It was the weirdest goddamn thing. I got this feeling all through me—like different hormones at work. A deep cellular change.
As goony as he was, I’d have spent the night with him. I’d have gotten down there on that futon with him. I bet he hadn’t had a woman in years. I could see—not just with my eyes—but down below—inside—that that’s what I was now.
But I could also see that that wouldn’t have made him comfortable. S is for Security. He was a gentleman, loony or not. And I felt unaccountably like a lady in his presence. My Blue Knight. A member of the same proud order as the Duke of Earl.
He selected one of the newer, compact fire extinguishers from his arsenal and eased down the Coleman flame. Then he led me back to the gate with his expensive headlight on, a bell out on the harbor gonging. There was no sign of the gargoyles. They must’ve skittered back to their holes with skin rashes and sore heads.
When we reached the trembling fence I kissed him on the stubble of his jowly cheek. Odors of dried sweat and Crispy Critters. Tea and kerosene. It actually felt natural and right.
“I’ll remember you,” I said.
“Roger that,” he answered and gave me the little fire extinguisher. “Live and learn, control the burn. Extinguish the flames and you extinguish the fear.”
I accepted his gift, realizing that it held more meaning to him than I could ever understand. Like so many things.
When I got to the car I turned to wave.
His headlamp shone back like a freelance moon, then the beam swung around and started retreating back into the ruins of Funland. His beat. The kingdom he protected. Where he rescued maidens and kept the peace.
WOKE UP ON WEDNESDAY MORNING AND I HONESTLY hadn’t thought I would. After I left the Blue Knight I had a breakdown in the car on the way home. The car didn’t break down. I did. Weeping. Pounding on the windows. I ran inside when I got home.
A guy who looked like Ricardo Montalban was sneaking out of Mrs. Ramona’s apartment—clutching a bunch of clothes. It didn’t really surprise me. Old Lothario winked at me and dropped a pair of pants going out the hall door. He didn’t notice and I didn’t tell him. I picked them up. I didn’t want anyone gossiping about Mrs. R.
God only knows what they’d say about me. Things could get complicated. I snuggled on the bed with Pico, trying to understand what had happened. I couldn’t. I just cried, wondering when it would end. If it would end.
I’d taken on female form—and not just any female. I’d transformed into someone who looked just like Stacy. I wasn’t sick in the head—something more pervasive and profound had happened. The thought of my appointment with the psychologist seemed absurd. I reached for the Sidewinder’s sleep pills. I’d meant to take them all, hoping not to wake up—just wanting to dissolve like a capsule in water. But I didn’t. I hadn’t been able to face down El Miedo or the nightmares before. For all those years. And so the ghosts just kept coming. Until I became one of them myself. And now I was finding human form again. Only a different one.
When I woke the second time I’d returned to outer male appearance but not my old self. Stacy had been about 5’8” and I figured I was an inch taller and still quite a bit heavier. My equipment had shrunk to the size of a chick embryo. Inside I could feel a distinct change though. A different kind of being. I didn’t know if it was female—or something more alien. Suddenly all those tabloid stories about people being abducted by Martians didn’t seem so laughable. Maybe that’s what Genevieve was. Something from far away—only a woman outwardly, which it seemed she could modify at will. All the time before I’d tried to believe I was going insane and having hallucinations. How simple they seemed compared to the truth.
But I could feel my reversion wasn’t complete. I realized I’d had a few of these episodes now. That’s what the blackout escapades had been. They seemed to be getting more intense.
Then, when I was in the kitchen getting Pico some food I noticed that the images on the Foto Booth strip had materialized more fully. The woman’s face had become clearer and more confident—and much more attractive. A heartbreaker.
The final frame was almost a spitting image of Stacy wearing my too-big sports coat. It was like a police Identikit. Morph my face into a beautiful frozen blonde. Mid-30s. Like an angel with a mood disorder. But you could still recognize my eyes.
Like the tracks of the Scenic Railway, Mistress Genevieve’s powers extended far beyond normal expectation—and I wondered how much tape would be needed to cordon off the crime scene of her influence. What kind of tape I couldn’t even imagine.
My cell phone rang. It seemed to go off like gelignite after all the silence. Her? No. Padgett. Shit. I couldn’t take the call. I couldn’t. It was like something from another time, another life.
I let it ring through to voicemail. A moment later the message signal beeped. Chris sounded concerned—but trying to be cheerful, which only made him sound more anxious. He was paired up with M
onty short term, with Haslett floating. He made a joke about that. Monty wanted to set me up with this woman named Elena, a nice Hispanic babe he and his wife had met at their Latin Dance Class. Said she was shaped like an art deco lamp. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. I was too wigged out to picture Head and Shoulders and his big mama learning to salsa. Jesus de Christophe. A nice Hispanic woman trawling dance classes for a Mambo King out on a date with yours drooly! And they say irony is something you study in high school. My mind was a mess and hearing the Cub’s voice only made it muddier.
What was even worse, my old Birch thinking was still very much at work. Big ham-fisted dumb ideas—like whether taking it up the butt as a woman would be different than as a man. How’s that for honesty, huh? I always did have a knack for scaring myself. Guess I hadn’t lost my touch that way.
Which made me ask the question if it was at all possible to scare the Dark Mistress. She had to have some vulnerability, some side entrance. That’s what a large part of my job and in fact my whole life had been—finding people’s weaknesses and bearing down on them until they broke apart. Maybe something of those old skills could come into play now—now that I knew how serious and how fucking whacko things really were. I’d been playing too short a game against an opponent beyond my estimation. But everything was different now. Not only me.
I realized that knowing about Genevieve—and I didn’t know nearly enough obviously—but now the scent of what appeared to be her body—the soft but viselike whisper of her mind in mine—the afterimages of her entering me with the vestige of my own stolen maleness—that changed the world. Not just my body. The whole damn rulebook went right out the window. Right through the mirror.
I looked at the clock. The appointment with the shrink Lance had arranged for me was coming up. As he’d never seen me before, he probably wouldn’t notice anything. But the other people in my building would. Soon there’d be more questions than I could cope with. I was starting to understand what had happened to Stoakes and Whitney—and Cracker Jack. The 10-10 furlough. How would I end it, if it came to that?
While others on the job had bought into the Glock, I’d called in the marker on my seniority to select the SIG P-229. I liked the feel of it. But now I’d turned it in—and my .22 LR boot gun too. I’d re-registered my old personal Walther PPK in Polly’s name for her protection. The modified Thunder Ranch carbine and the choke-bore Savage were locked up at our old place for their protection. And mine. Suddenly, I was short of stopping power. Just when I needed it most. You see, I really do have an honest streak when it comes to some things.
The sharpness of that thought got me focused. If nothing else talking with a stranger couldn’t hurt. It was something to try. I put on the female underwear from the night before. Why not? Maybe I’d had a kink before and not admitted it. Now it was part of the training, like shooting off rounds at the course. There was enough support for my shriveled genitals, and I somehow felt comfortable in them. I rolled up the sleeves from the shirt I’d bought—and it sort of worked. It was warm out—the harsh heat of summer coming early. I didn’t need a jacket. The one I’d bought the other day was too big now anyway. As were the pants. Then I remembered the trousers Mrs. Ramona’s friend had dropped. They actually fit. I slipped the strip of Foto Booth pics in my chest pocket, snuck out of the building as quick as I could, and drove over to the shrink’s office at Republic and Cass. His name was Turcell and I tried to picture what he’d look like as I missed every stoplight.
The guy who ushered me into his salmon-carpeted office with a lead gray leatherette couch and teak-finish Formica desk, turned out to be about 50, lean and springy like a fitness maven, with thinning hair. He’d just given himself a spray of a mid-range Yves St. Laurent fragrance and he wore a buff-colored sports jacket over a pesto cotton shirt. I was certain he’d never handled a handgun, let alone had one pointed at him.
My old cop sense was on full suction, silky panties or not. The thought and feel of them actually gave me a little erection. Little being the operative word.
He probably thought I was somehow trying to skate on work. That’s where people who aren’t on the job can’t understand it. He’d have no Yves St. Laurent way of knowing that I missed hobnobbing with the abrasive caseworkers and the hardbitten parole officers. I missed signing in and signing out. I missed the clumpy white powder soap in the wash room. I missed Chris’ banter and Monty’s dandruff. I missed them all.
He took his seat and motioned to a foam filled chair on the other side of the desk. Then he stroked a hand over his head, the way that guys with thinning hair do. He gave his wedding ring a twist. There was a group of family photos behind him—his kids holding out cards with their names on them, and a foursome of adults holding up their racquets on a tennis court. He had an Art Gallery calendar angled at the edge of his blotter. The featured artist was Jackson Pollock. I’d at least heard of him. The sample work looked like a kid’s painting.
“I’m glad you came in to see me,” he began. “You look like you want to talk.”
“Yeah,” I said, staring at the photos on his window ledge, the degrees mounted on the wall and all the shelves lined with books. Everything was so perfectly in order. I wondered what Genevieve would say. Would he be more resistant to her, or would he fall that much faster?
“So,” he prompted, smoothing his thinning hair. “I know confidentially that you were involved in an on-the-job shooting a while back. Please tell me about it.”
“I was shot at close range in the groin by a drug addict and informer that I’d been screwing,” I responded. “I was obsessed with her.”
“Hm. How were you obsessed?” he asked, perking up. Then he added, “Please remember that everything you say is confidential.”
“I met her as part of a case I was working,” I replied. “One thing led to another, as it often does—or has with me. She reminded me of someone else—from the past. Before I knew it I was sneaking out on my wife all the time and fucking this chick every chance I could get.”
“So, it was like an addiction.”
“It wasn’t like an addiction,” I corrected. “It was an addiction.”
“How did being with her make you feel?”
“Good at the time. Bad later. Awful. But better than the dead feeling before I met her.”
“How did the shooting come about?” he asked, his voice still as even as his books.
Christ, people wall themselves in with a lot of crap. As if anyone with any jimmy can’t see right through them. But I was going to give his little ping-pong game a shot.
“I told her it was over. I made a pretense of a police matter on the day it happened. But it was personal. And to be honest, I knew what would happen. I think I wanted her to kill me.”
“Really?” he frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t have a bunch of smiling faces at my desk like you,” I said. “And I couldn’t face my wife anymore. I barely wanted to touch her and I couldn’t get a hard-on for her without pharmacy help. We made each other sick and I knew she could smell what was going on.”
“Smell is a very strong word,” he remarked—and the way he said it made it look like he’d just caught a whiff of something festering.
“Neither of my two wives was stupid,” I answered. “Only me.”
He fingered his hair again, thinking what to say. “I very much appreciate your candor, Detective Ritter,” he decided.
I couldn’t recall the last time someone had called me that.
“Most of the people I talk to I can talk to for weeks—and even years, and they’re not as open as you’ve just been.”
“Maybe I’m finally growing up,” I answered.
He nodded again and then started musing.
“So, you’ve been divorced twice. No children?”
“None that I know of.”
“Tell me about your state of mind when you met this girl. You said she reminded you of someone. Was there an earlier incident?”
“I fell for a hooker,” I replied. “Wanted to be a lounge singer. She was the best sex I’d ever had. Very kinky—but innocent and teenage too sometimes. It happened when my second wife was pregnant. She lost the baby.”
“And you blamed yourself?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
I kept looking at those happy pictures staring at me. The color of the carpet. The messy masterpiece of Jackson Pollock.
“Well, let me ask you briefly about your childhood. I don’t want to get bogged down in the past when there are problems in the present that worry you. But very often the key to problems in the moment lies in the past.”
“I’ve heard that,” I said and managed not to laugh. “My father was thought to have committed suicide, but he was really murdered. Pushed off a construction scaffold—he was a builder—when I was 10 years old. He was really gay … doing young guys he hired to work for him. He couldn’t cope with other people knowing. One of his young friends gave him a push because he wouldn’t come out in the open with it. I saw it happen—and I never told anyone. Just let the young guy skip. He was the older brother of one of my best friends. I’m pretty certain he’s dead now—either of drugs and alcohol or violence like the kind he was used to.”
“I see,” Turcell said—not seeing at all, only stroking the remains of his hair. “And—and you never told anyone?”
“I made sure my mother confronted my old man’s sex thing, although I’m sure now she already knew.”
“What did you do?”
“I found a jar of bloody Vaseline in his truck. I put it on her dresser. I guess Dad didn’t like the texture of lubricant. Or maybe he was just old school.”
“Hmm,” he murmured, stroking and stroking. “Did you understand what you were doing?”
“Sure. And no, not really. What kid could? I wouldn’t have understood at all—I mean what in hell is blood doing in a Vaseline jar? But I saw him actually doing Jake. Had him bent over a pile of roofing tiles, pumping him like a girl. Only real hard. More like some kind of animal.”
Private Midnight Page 25
