Chances Are Omnibus (Gender Swap Fiction) Page 15

  “Maybe I’m just a ghost then. You want to take your chances?” I press the knife closer to his throat, enough so he can feel the blade.

  “Why you haunting me? I didn’t do nothing to you!”

  “You told me about Lennox Pharmaceuticals. Was that an accident? Or did Luther send you to find me?”

  “You go stupid or something? Lex didn’t want no cops around. Not around that scene.”

  “Why not?”

  “He didn’t want nobody messing up his score.”

  “Like an anti-aging drug called FY-1978?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know!”

  I can smell that the Worm’s pissed himself. To think I was about to piss myself when I saw him a few minutes earlier. “I believe you. A little shit like you doesn’t know anything about Artie Luther’s operation, does he?”

  “No! I don’t know nothing! I swear!”

  “But I bet you do know someone who knows, don’t you?”

  “I—”

  I press the knife tighter to his throat, enough that blood trickles down. He screams like a girl at this. “Don’t make me ask again,” I hiss. “Who told you about the robbery?”

  “Blades, man! It was Bobby Blades!”

  This makes sense. Blades was at the robbery, down in the basement. “Where can I find him?”

  “The club. He hangs out there all the time.”

  “Which one?”

  “Honey Well Club. Goes there most every night unless he’s got a job.”

  “Good.” I pull the knife back and then pat the Worm’s cheek. “You better go home and clean yourself up. Then I’d suggest you hide yourself in a deep, dark hole or I’m going to put you under Ma and Pa’s farm. Got it?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” he says. He doesn’t need any more incentive to run from the alley. I wipe the knife off with a hamburger wrapper and then tuck it into my pocket.

  I promise myself that tomorrow night Bobby Blades will get a visit from the ghost of Steve Fischer.

  Chapter 29

  I walk around for the better part of four hours to try to catch up to Maddy. The farther I go, the more my buzz wears off. Even the thrill of the Worm’s defeat leaves me. All I’m left with is a sick feeling in my gut that I’m going to find my little girl dead in a gutter or her beaten, violated body in an alley.

  It’s ironic to think of her as my little girl, because now I’m a littler girl than her. Still, I have the same sense of dread as when Maddy had a fever when she was two years old. I had felt so helpless then, as I watched Debbie mop little Maddy’s forehead with a washcloth and force water down her throat. As with most everything in Maddy’s life I hadn’t been directly involved through most of it. Through most of it I had filled out paperwork and talked with Jake about cases we were working on; I popped into Maddy’s room every now and then to make sure she hadn’t died. That hadn’t lessened the dread and fear; if anything it made things worse because I waited for Debbie to run downstairs and tell me our daughter was dead.

  I walk down every alley I come across, but see only a few bums. With the Worm’s knife in my pocket I feel much safer about them. There are still a few bars open, but I can’t get into any of them, not by myself. It’s possible Maddy went into one of those for a few more drinks. I ask a couple of liquor store clerks if they’ve seen Maddy. We go through a vaudeville act where I point to my hair and then something pink before they shake their heads.

  By four in the morning my feet are tired and I’m about to collapse on the sidewalk and sob. I find an open diner and go inside. With some of the Worm’s money, I get a cup of coffee to steady my nerves and some change for the pay phone.

  I decide to start with Grace. Maybe Maddy’s gone back there for a little angry, drunk sex. The phone picks up after one ring. I don’t get out more than her name before Grace snaps at me, “What the hell were you two doing?”

  “Is Maddy there?”

  “Yes she’s here.” The way Grace’s voice falters, I know she’s crying. Is Maddy hurt? “She’s locked herself in the bathroom. She won’t come out. She won’t even tell me what’s going on. I’m scared, Stace. She’s never been like this before.”

  I look out the window and see a street sign. “I’ll be there in about a half hour, OK? Just don’t do anything crazy before then. Either of you.”

  “Stace—”

  “I’ll explain when I get there.”

  “OK, just hurry.”

  I do hurry. I’m grateful for this lithe body that lets me gallop thirty blocks in twenty minutes. By the time I reach Grace’s shop, sweat drenches my entire body. I don’t have time to rest. I haul myself up the fire escape to the second floor.

  I’ve barely got through the window when Grace grabs me by the shoulder. She throws me against the wall hard enough that it’ll probably leave a bruise for a day or two. I deserve it.

  “What the hell is going on? What were you and Maddy up to?”

  “I found some papers. About her father.”

  “Her father? What about him?”

  “He’s dead. I told her and she wanted to go out for a drink. So we went to this bar—”

  “You went to a bar?”

  “Yes. But we got thrown out. We went to this liquor store and I waited outside. This creep hassled me and we got separated. I looked all over for her. Is she all right?”

  “I don’t know! I was sitting here working on my dissertation when she came in. I only got a glimpse of her before she locked herself in there.” Grace lets me go. Then she shakes her head. “How could you let her do that?”

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  “You should have stopped her. Or at least called me and let me handle it.”

  I look down at my feet, at what are probably Grace’s sneakers. She seems to notice this too. “What happened to your clothes?”

  “I got my dress dirty, so Maddy snuck in here to get me something clean.”

  Grace throws up her hands. I brace for her to punch or slap me or maybe just to give me another push. She doesn’t do any of those. Instead she sinks down onto the living room couch and puts her face in her hands.

  I sit down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have told her.”

  “It’s not your fault. You don’t know Maddy like I do.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Grace looks up at me. “You don’t know what kind of life she’s had. Her parents got divorced when she was a kid. It wasn’t an amicable divorce either. She never saw her father again.”

  “He didn’t even send a birthday card,” I say.

  “Yeah, what a shit. Her mom isn’t any better. The way Maddy tells it, her mom went through about half the phone book in the city. Every time poor Maddy thought it’d work out and she’d finally have a ‘normal’ family.”

  Grace stops and shakes her head. “What you don’t know about her is that the hair, the piercings, the attitude, it’s all a dodge. It’s a defense mechanism she’s created for herself. She pretends to be this tough chick, but really she’s that same ten-year-old girl whose parents broke her heart.

  “All these years, she’s been hoping they’d get back together, that her daddy would come through the door and sweep her up in a hug and they could go out for ice cream and shit like that and then they’d go back home for dinner with Mommy.”

  “And I ruined that for her.”

  “Yeah. Now she knows for sure it’s not going to happen. Before the odds might have been one-in-a-million, but now they’re zero.”

  I nod and think of my reaction to Dr. Palmer when she told me it’d be twenty years or more before I could hope for a cure. I had always thought I might be stuck this way for a long time—if not forever—but when she told me that had made it final.

  I join Grace in crying for Maddy. If Grace is right, then all this time Maddy’s waited for me. But I never came for her. I was so stupid I never even tried to see her. I just crawled away with my tail be
tween my legs.

  “I’m such an idiot,” I say, which is putting it mildly.

  “You did what you thought was best.”

  I say nothing. I can’t tell Grace the truth. She’d never believe me. Neither would Maddy if I went to the door and told her that her new friend Stacey is actually the father she’s longed for.

  And then the bathroom door opens.

  Grace and I spring from the couch at the same time. We hurry over to the bathroom and get there just as Maddy emerges. But it’s not the same Maddy who went inside.

  Somewhere along the way Maddy must have stopped at a drug store. The pink is gone from her hair. Now it’s entirely jet black. She’s taken the scissors to it as well to chop off most of it in favor of a patchy, boyish cut.

  She looks at me and then Grace. I mentally urge her to come to me, to collapse into her daddy’s arms. But she doesn’t. She picks Grace, her lover. She toddles forward a step before she melts into Grace’s arms.

  “Maddy, what did you do?” Grace asks.

  “I’m mourning,” she says. She slurs her words a little. “For Daddy.”

  I want to grab her and tell her she doesn’t need to mourn for Daddy; Daddy is right here. But I can’t. Instead I watch as Grace leads her away to the bedroom. The door closes and I’m alone.

  Chapter 30

  I spend the rest of the night in the “guest bedroom” that had been Maddy’s when she first moved in. The bed is lumpy and smells like cat piss, but I can’t sleep anyway. I have far too much on my mind.

  Again I think what a fool I’ve been. Maddy needed me after the divorce and I was never there. Never a visit or a call or even a fucking card. I cut her out of my life entirely, except once a year to mourn her at Squiggy’s. She needs me again now, but I still can’t be there for her, not in the way I want. The best I can do is to be next door in a dusty bedroom while Maddy cries on another woman’s shoulder.

  When I can’t stare at the ceiling anymore, I roll out of bed. I put my ear to Grace and Maddy’s door, but there’s only silence. They’ve probably fallen asleep by now, entangled in each other’s arms for comfort. That picture doesn’t disgust me; it only makes me jealous again that Grace is the one Maddy went to for support.

  There has to be something Stacey Chance can do for Maddy. I see the stove and think breakfast in bed might help Maddy and Grace. There are eggs and such in the refrigerator, but I know I can’t cook anything.

  Instead I put on a pair of Grace’s sneakers and then slip down the fire escape. It’s six in the morning, late enough or early enough depending on your perspective for the creeps to have gone to bed. I’m still glad for the Worm’s knife. A girl can’t be too safe in a place like this.

  I go down to the diner across from the Kozee Koffee, where Tess and I drank horrible coffee the one day. The service isn’t any better as I order three vegetarian omelets and toast to go. I skip the coffee; I figure anything I make has to be better than the shit they serve here.

  I wait around by the counter for a few minutes until the surly waitress hands me a sack with three foam boxes in it. I use up the rest of the Worm’s money with this purchase. At least it went for a good cause.

  I’m almost back to Grace’s when a pair of headlights snap on. They hit me in the face just like the light in the interrogation room. I put a hand up to shield my eyes, though I already know who’s there. I should have realized Jake wouldn’t let this go so easily.

  I make sure to grip the bag tighter before he approaches. It comes as no surprise when he pushes me into an alley, against a wall. “Why does everyone keep doing that?” I shout at him. “I’m not a fucking rag doll.”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jake hisses. “Why did you tell Maddy you’re dead?”

  “Because it’s true. Steve Fischer is dead. You heard Dr. Palmer. Twenty years at a minimum. You don’t think Maddy’s going to figure it out by then?” Then again since I’d already gone twelve years without a word to her, maybe another twenty could have gone by.

  “You should have let me tell her when the time was right.”

  “When would that be? Six months? A year? It was going to happen eventually. Might as well happen now.”

  Jake sighs and lets me go. “You’re still such a pigheaded son of a bitch,” he says. He reaches into his jacket for a cigarette.

  That’s when Maddy chooses to walk by. Before I can tell her to stop, she throws herself at Jake. “Get away from her, you creep!” she screams.

  She punches at Jake for a few seconds before he says, “Maddy, stop it. It’s me! It’s Mr. Madigan.”

  That only adds to Maddy’s fury. “You son of a bitch! Why didn’t you tell me Daddy was dead?”

  I let our breakfast drop so I can grab Maddy around the shoulders and haul her back against the wall. I’m careful not to run her into it as hard as everyone has done to me. She still tries to claw at Jake for a few seconds before she goes limp. I finally get my wish when she puts her head on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Maddy. Your father’s body hasn’t turned up yet. I didn’t want to tell you or your mom until it did, when we’d know for sure,” Jake says.

  “I have a right to know what’s going on. He’s my dad.”

  “I know that. I just didn’t want to worry you guys until I was positive.”

  Maddy sniffles a few times. It seems the crying jag is over, at least for now. She pulls her head up, a black mascara stain left on my shirt—Grace’s shirt. She wipes ineffectually at her eyes for a moment. “Well now I know. And I’m going to tell Mom.”

  Jake looks ready to say something, but just sighs again. “I’ll drive—”

  “The hell you will. I’ll take the train,” Maddy says. She points a finger at him. “Stay the hell away from me. Me and Mom, got it?”

  I try to intervene. “Maddy—”

  “That goes for you too. Everyone leave me the fuck alone.”

  Between Jake and I we could overpower her, wrestle her into the car. Maybe we could drive her over to Lennox’s headquarters and have a chat with Dr. Palmer. But even if she did believe our crazy story, what then? She’d still be angry at me for lying to her. She’d probably hate me all over again. Even if she did get over that, what kind of relationship could we have?

  It’s better like this, I tell myself. I let Maddy go. Jake must sense my line of thought; he doesn’t do anything to stop her as she stomps away. He catches me before I can collapse to the ground. Now it’s me who needs his shoulder to cry on.

  “I’ve made such a mess of things,” I say into his shoulder.

  “I know,” he says and pats my back. “We’ll get it all straightened out. Somehow.”

  I don’t say anything. I’m not nearly so optimistic about that. We’d need a miracle to get things back to the way they used to be. I haven’t believed in miracles for a long time.

  Chapter 31

  After I’ve cried myself out, Jake lets me go. Despite what Maddy said, he’s going to swing by Debbie’s condo to make sure neither of them does anything crazy. “Then I guess I’ll have to break the news to Tess.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. It might help if you were there—”

  “I don’t think so. Not for a little while.”

  “Steve—”

  “Don’t call me that. It’s Stacey now. It always will be.” I seize the bag from the ground. I stomp off in the opposite direction as Maddy went, back to Grace’s. Jake doesn’t try to stop me this time.

  Maddy unlocked the front door on her way out, which makes it easier for me to get the eggs upstairs. I find Grace on the couch, head in her hands while she stares at the floor. She doesn’t even look up when I come in.

  I leave breakfast on the table and then sit down next to Grace. I put an arm around her shoulders. Usually I’ve been the one who’s needed comfort over the past few days, so it feels a little odd to be on the opposite end. “Maddy’ll come back,” I say.

  “I know,�
� Grace says.

  I’m not sure what to say next. Being a woman, Grace probably wants to talk about her feelings, which will end up with a lot of tears. I wish Tess were here; she would be able to handle this a lot better than me. After Jenny died, I comforted Jake with a trip to Squiggy’s and made sure he didn’t drown in his own vomit after he passed out.

  Unable to think of anything to say, I sit in silence with her for a few moments. Then I say, “I bought some breakfast. Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “How about some coffee?” Grace only shrugs. I sigh and say, “There has to be something I can do.”

  She takes my hand that’s around her shoulders and gives it a squeeze. “Just sit here,” she says.

  “OK.” I try not to flinch when Grace leans over and rests her head on my chest. I remember Debbie snuggled up against me on the couch or in bed when we were still newlyweds. After Maddy was born and the wheels started to come off our marriage, she didn’t bother to cuddle anymore. I didn’t realize until now how much I’ve missed it.

  We sit there for a couple of hours; I stroke her hair and she uses my breast as a pillow. From her soft breathing I figure she must have nodded off by now. As much as I enjoy the intimacy, my arm is asleep and my bladder starts to nag at me.

  Right on cue, Grace whispers, “I should go down and open the store.”

  “You don’t have to. I can handle it.”

  She sits up, turns to me, and smiles. “I suppose I have taught you everything I know. Use it well, grasshopper.”

  “I’ll try.” I slide off the couch and then go to use the bathroom and shake some life back into my arm. When I finish, Grace lies on the couch and clutches a throw pillow to her chest as if it were Maddy. I don’t say anything; I just take a box of omelet and head downstairs.

  ***

  There’s not much to do in the shop except worry about my daughter and my friend/employer. I can see now why Grace usually has a book with her and wants to get out of this business as soon as possible. For the first two hours I pick at my cold omelet; I eat about half before I toss the rest of it out.