“You going to surrender yourself?” Jake asks.
“Pretty much. She’s going to have Maddy down in the basement. I’m going straight down there. That’s what she’ll expect.”
“You want me to find another way in?”
“Yeah. Let’s hope there’s a window or something you can get in through.”
“Sure.” Jake holds out his hand for me to shake. “Good luck, Steve.”
“It’s your turn to be the hero, buddy.”
“Thanks.”
I get out of the car and then run into the front doors. My shoulder screams with pain, but I don’t let it stop me. I burst through the front doors, into the foyer. “I’m here, Vollmer!” I shout. She’s probably already figured that out, so no need to hide it.
From Little’s tour of the place earlier, I know how to get down to the basement. I take the most direct route, through the empty kitchen. I could grab a knife, but there’s no point. Vollmer will search me for weapons once I get down there, if she doesn’t just shoot me on sight. No, of course she won’t do that. She wants to make me suffer. She’ll toy with me, to make me watch Maddy die, unless Jake can bail me out.
When I open the door to the basement, I hear a little girl cry. Madison. My sweet little girl. Why does she have to get mixed up with this stuff? First Dr. Ling and now Vollmer. She didn’t ask for any of it.
“Maddy?” I call out.
“Daddy, watch out!” Maddy says. “She’s got a gun.” I hear a crack followed by a shriek of pain from Maddy. Vollmer just slapped her. She’ll pay for that.
But not yet. I come down the stairs with my hands up. “Here I am, Vollmer. Now let Madison go.”
I turn my head and see it’s pretty much like I imagined. Maddy is on that old chair in the center of the basement. Her face is red and wet with tears and sweat. She tries to smile, though Vollmer’s stuffed a sock in her mouth so she can’t talk. She does tilt her head to one side, to point towards a corner. I can’t see Vollmer, but I know she’s there, hidden behind something. “Drop the piece, Fischer. And don’t say you didn’t come with one.”
“Maybe I do have one. What are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll decorate the basement floor with your daughter’s brains.”
“You realize how ridiculous you sound? Why don’t you come out so I can give you a spanking?”
Vollmer’s gun clicks. “You got three seconds, Fischer.”
I reach slowly into my holster to take out Jake’s backup pistol. I hold it up so Vollmer can see me dump the bullets onto the floor. Then I toss the weapon towards Maddy. It lands at her feet.
“What else you got?” Vollmer hisses.
“That’s it.”
“You really are getting soft,” she says. “Must be all that time as a woman. But just to be on the safe side, strip.”
“Are you serious?”
“You want me to put a bullet in darling Madison’s tummy?”
“You’d better pray I never get my hands on you,” I say and then start to unbutton my shirt.
***
Once I’m naked—she even had me take off my shoes—Vollmer finally emerges from behind the hot water heater. The gun looks ridiculously large in her tiny hand. I’m sure she still knows how to use it; Jake is proof of that. Vollmer keeps the gun on me while she kicks my clothes farther away from me.
“God, look how gross you are,” she says with an evil grin. “All that saggy, wrinkled flesh. And look at that sad little penis flopping there. When was the last time you used that thing other than to piss?”
“Is that an invitation, Erin?”
“No! I’m ten. Boys are yucky. Especially old ones.”
“You’ve had your fun, now let Madison go. This is between you and I.”
“When did we make that deal?” Vollmer shakes her head; the red braid dances around. “I said I wanted to make you suffer. What worse pain can there be than watching your daughter die while you stand here helpless?”
“What do you think’s going to happen after you kill her?” I say to buy time. “Maybe you can kill me too, but then what? You’re a ten-year-old girl. You going to let Suzanne wipe your nose and kiss your boo-boos for the next eight years?”
“Suzanne has problems of her own at the moment.”
“Trouble in paradise, huh?”
“Her usefulness is at an end.”
“Oh really? You got a new mommy lined up?”
“I don’t need a mommy. Or a grandma. I’m not like you.”
“Sure, you can take care of yourself. You’re a big girl.” It’s my turn to flash an evil grin. “How long do you think it’ll be until you’re daydreaming about kissing a boy? How long until you’re getting jealous of the prettier and more popular girls?”
“Shut up.”
“It’s going to happen. Not right away, but it’ll sneak up on you. Before long you’ll be lying on your canopy bed, writing in your diary about some cute boy you want to marry.”
“Shut up!”
I’ve got her rattled now. For all Vollmer’s scheming, she wasn’t ready for the effects of FY-1978. No one can be, not when you look in the mirror and see a completely different person. Not when the world suddenly becomes so much bigger because you’re a foot or two shorter than you used to be. Plus all those people who treat you like a child, who pat your head and pinch your cheeks because they think you’re just a kid.
If I can rattle her enough, I might not even need Jake’s help. “It’s going to be a few years until you can strangle people again. Look at those tiny mitts of yours. They could barely strangle a Cabbage Patch Kid.”
“I can too strangle people,” Vollmer says. “You’ll see when I strangle Maddy.”
“So, what, you’re going to be the Skinhead Strangler, Junior now? Going to start wringing the necks of little black boys and girls?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m sure the press will have fun with that. They love it when a copycat shows up. Helps them get ratings and sell papers.”
“I’m not a copycat!” Her face turns red and tears come to her eyes. Poor little psychopath.
“You finally outsmarted yourself, Vollmer. Congratulations.”
She fires the pistol at me. I can’t dodge bullets, but I don’t need to. With those tears in her eyes, she misses me by at least six inches. As I figured, the recoil staggers her scrawny body. I take full advantage to tackle her to the floor and yank the weapon from her hand. I flip it around in my hand so I can use the butt to pistol-whip her. She goes limp on the floor.
I untie Madison from the chair. As soon as she’s free, she leaps into my arms. She showers my cheeks with kisses, just like she used to do when she was little. “I knew you’d come, Daddy! I knew you’d save me.”
I stroke her hair and say, “It’s all over now, sweetheart. We’re going to take you home.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, honey.”
I hear something rumble in a far corner of the basement. The furnace? The sound gets louder and I hear a little girl’s shriek. It’s not Madison since she still clings to me like a koala and it’s not Vollmer since she’s unconscious.
There’s a louder rumble that’s accompanied by cursing. Jake’s voice. I hurry across the basement to see him and a rotund toddler in a heap in the corner of the basement. When Jake looks up, he’s covered in soot; he must have found the old coal chute. “About time you got here,” I say. I shift Madison to one shoulder so I can help Jake stand up.
The toddler gets to her feet too. Once the soot is wiped from her face, I see a pale little girl with black hair. She’s probably four years old, but even fatter than Maddy when she was a Chinese toddler. “Is this Suzanne?” I ask.
“Yes,” she squeaks.
“Vollmer gave you a shot too? Why?”
“She was mad at me for telling on her.”
“Well you don’t have to worry about her anymore,” I say.
Except I should kno
w that’s not true. I guess I have gotten soft from those years as Stacey. Or maybe I was too focused on Maddy. In either case I should have tied Vollmer up or shot the little bitch instead of assuming I’d knocked her out cold. And I should have picked up Jake’s backup pistol, along with the bullets.
I didn’t do any of those things, so I hear the click of a gun being cocked behind me. I turn around and see Vollmer with Jake’s pistol. I have just enough time to throw Maddy to my right. Then I hear the roar of the gun. Pain blossoms in my chest. I collapse to the floor. Another gun barks, this one louder. It fires three times. Jake with my gun. Vollmer won’t escape this time.
As I lie on the floor, Maddy’s face appears over me, her cheeks red and wet. “Daddy, don’t go. Please—”
“Sorry, honey,” I manage to get out before my eyes close.
***
They say your life flashes before your eyes, but I see just one scene. It was about twenty years ago, the first time Maddy was eight. Debbie’s dad had a heart attack, so it was up to me to take Madison to her soccer game. It’s the district championship and as her team’s top goal scorer Maddy has to be there.
I sit in the stands, near the top so I have a good view of the field. Maddy’s team wears red with blue shorts while the team they play is in blue with black shorts. I get that from one of the other parents since I haven’t seen Maddy play all season, a source of angst for Maddy and Debbie. I’d like to be here for every game, but it’s not like criminals take afternoons off to watch their children play.
It’s hard from up here to tell which one is Madison. There are a bunch of kids on her team with brown hair and they all have ponytails like hers. It’s embarrassing to have to ask another parent which number my daughter is; I’m a police detective, why didn’t I notice this on the ride over here? A mother rolls her eyes and says Maddy is number ten.
I focus on number ten in red, to watch Maddy run up and down the field. As with most soccer games there’s not a lot of scoring. Not even many shots that get on the goal. I count two for Maddy’s team and three for the other team, none close to a goal.
When there’s a break in the action for halftime or intermission or whatever they call it, Maddy turns to look up in the stands. I wave to her and she waves back. Even from up here I can see how her face lights up to see me there. The coach puts an arm around her shoulder, and whispers into her ear, probably to tell her to focus on the game. Prick. I ought to go down there and tell him to lighten up; they’re just little kids for Christ’s sake.
The teams still don’t score for a while. Then Maddy charges towards someone on the other team with the ball. She taps the ball away from the other kid. She ducks around the kid and gets clear. From there it’s just her and the ball; she drives towards the other team’s goalie. I get to my feet, though I’m too nervous even to cheer for her.
I’m so focused on Maddy, I don’t see the kid she stole the ball from close in. That girl has the same number as her; if her uniform weren’t a different color they’d look like twins. The kid on the other team runs up beside Maddy and then like it’s roller derby, hip checks her off the ball. Madison tumbles to the ground and lands hard on one knee.
“What the fuck was that?” I scream.
Apparently the ref agrees with me, because he blows his whistle. He hands something red to the other girl. Meanwhile, my little girl doesn’t lie there to cry about her boo-boo; she’s on her feet to talk trash in the other girl’s face. Her coach has to run out there to pull her back before she can get into trouble. As for the other girl, she’s escorted off the field.
The mother I asked about Maddy’s number earlier nudges my leg. She points down to the field, where the ref puts the ball down a few yards in front of the goal. “She gets a penalty kick now.”
“What’s that mean?”
“She gets a free shot on goal.”
“Oh,” I say. Maddy stretches a little and then looks up at the stands. I wave to her and shout, “You can do it, Maddy!”
She takes a few steps back. The ref blows the whistle and then she trots forward, towards the ball. The goalie stays in position, though she’s about as antsy as I am at the moment. Maddy gets up to the ball and kicks it hard.
The ball is a line drive that heads for the corner of the goal to Maddy’s right. The goalie takes a couple of steps towards it before she leaves her feet, to get in front of the ball before it can get into the net. I can see it in slow motion as the goalie’s fingers reach for the ball. But she misses it. The ball sails past her, into the net.
I can hear Maddy’s shrieks all the way up here. She jumps up and down like she’s just won the Super Bowl or World Series. Maybe that’s what this is to her. I simply sag onto my seat, relieved she did it. My little girl the hero.
There’s more to the game, but it’s anticlimactic. The other team never gets a goal. Maddy’s team wins 1-0 when the clock finally stops and the ref signals it’s over. I look down at the field and see Maddy jump up and down again as she celebrates with her teammates. If this were a movie I’d be in tears right now, but I’m not. Maybe I should have, because things were all downhill after that. I didn’t go to any more of her games and she and Debbie stopped asking me to come. In two years Maddy’s mom and I divorce and I won’t see Madison again until I’m an eighteen-year-old girl named Stacey.
None of that is important right now. What’s important right now is I go down to the field. Maddy breaks away from her teammates to run towards me, ponytail flapping wildly behind her. She jumps into my arms, unconcerned that her dirty cleats poke me in the sides. “Daddy, Daddy, did you see it? Did you see it?”
“I saw it, sweetheart. You did a very good job.”
Despite what I just said, Maddy describes the goal for me again. “I knew it would go in. I knew it!”
“So did I,” I lie. I put her down on the ground; she’s too heavy and I’m too old to carry her around. Maddy takes my hand and I give hers a squeeze.
“It’s too bad Mommy wasn’t here to see it.”
“I know, but you can tell her all about it when she gets home.”
“OK.” We start out for the parking lot. Along the way, she asks, “Can we go to McDonald’s, Daddy?”
“Sure we can. You can get whatever you want.”
“Even a Big Mac?”
I tousle her hair and say, “You can get seven Big Macs if you want.”
“Dad-dy, don’t be silly.”
I feel a prick in my neck. Probably a bee sting. Fucking bees.
Except something strange happens: my entire body goes numb. I collapse to the ground. The grass feels really hard here too, almost like concrete. Maddy’s face looms over me, her cheeks red and wet. Why’s she crying? It’s just a bee sting. “It’ll be OK, Daddy,” she says. “I love you.”
I want to say something back, but I can’t. I can’t do anything except pass out.
Epilogue
I open the door to Mac’s office and walk up to the reception desk. The receptionist looks up at me and squints. I say, “Tell Dr. Macintosh his wife wants to see him.”
She squints at me a moment longer as she tries to figure it out. Then she nods. “Just a minute,” she says.
There are a couple of patients here, but not Jamie and Caleb. They’ve gone back to Miami, at least for now. Darren’s gone with them too for a couple of weeks to take a little vacation. No one knows where Mary Anne is, but she’ll probably turn up when she needs money. We just have to hope she doesn’t show up in the back of a police car.
“You can go in now,” the receptionist says and motions to the door.
It’s too bad Mac isn’t standing up, because I’d really like to run into his arms, like the night he proposed. Instead I walk in and try to look dignified. Mac stands up from behind his desk. “Stacey?”
“It’s me,” I say. I smile at him. “Can’t a wife visit her husband at work?”
“My God,” he says. “I thought—”
“I know.” I can�
��t hold back anymore; I run over to his desk to kiss him the way we did so many times on our honeymoon. Mac is slow to react, but after a few seconds he kisses me back. If we weren’t in his office he might pin me down on the carpet to ravage me; he still might do that and God knows I wouldn’t mind.
We finally have to come up for air. He takes a step back to look me over. I look pretty much the way I used to when we were together: the bright red pigtails, the bangs, the red glasses, and the naughty schoolgirl outfit. He runs a finger along the corners of my eyes and then taps my nose. “Those are different.”
“Yeah, I’m not Chinese anymore,” I say.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen-point-seven,” I say.
“Oh, so you’re underage.”
“Shut up and kiss me again.” He doesn’t need any more prompting. We kiss again, the same as last time. This time when we finish, I take his hand and lead him over to the white chairs so we can talk.
I tell him about what happened in Suzanne Little’s basement. Everything after I got shot I have to go by what Maddy told me. Apparently I passed out and was almost as dead as Vollmer. It was Maddy who saved me. She asked Suzanne where Vollmer kept the FY-1978, if she had any left.
Vollmer did have some left, up in the refrigerator, the vegetable crisper of all places. When I felt that prick in the neck while I flashed back to Maddy’s soccer game it was actually her to inject me with the FY-1978. “It’ll be OK, Daddy,” she said. “I love you.”
I woke up later in Clarita’s bedroom. I had a pretty good idea what had happened when I woke up and saw the breasts against the sheets. Just to be sure, I crawled out of bed and went over to Clarita’s vanity. That’s when I saw Stacey again. Not little half-Chinese Stacey Chance, but the Stacey from when I first woke up as a woman five years ago. The same long brown hair, the same round blue eyes, the same longish nose, the same five-foot-six height, and the same C-cup breasts.
I talked to Dr. Nath later and she theorized I didn’t turn into a little girl like Clarita, Madison, Vollmer, Suzanne, or even myself before because Maddy gave me the shot as I was near death, just like when Artie Luther gave me that first shot. She thinks it has something to do with my immune system being weakened from the bullet wound. Dr. Nath is excited now to begin a new set of experiments based on that hypothesis. I wouldn’t want to be the one who has to volunteer to have my immune system shut down for the shot.
Chances Are Omnibus (Gender Swap Fiction) Page 85
