A Kind of Justice (20 page)

“So he calls me around twelve, and I come right away. He didn't like to be kept waiting, especially by a whore. I get to his car and the window is down so I say something to him, something like ‘how about a fuck, sailor,' just being funny, you know? And when I get in the car he bashes me. Really hard. And he keeps hitting me.” Her lips form a thin, tight line, her face clouds in anger and shame. She stops for a moment.

“He scared me. That night, I thought he was going to kill me. People said he killed girls before. So I grab the door handle and try to run. He tries to yank me back into the car, but I pull away and go sprawling on the grass. My nose is broken. I'm bleeding, I have a black eye. I'm thinking he's going to kill me now, right here, or maybe take me to his place and spend the night punching and kicking me. I scramble to my feet and try to run. I thought he'd catch me any second. I was in total panic. But I got away clean. I couldn't believe it. I looked back when I got to Halsted, and he was in his car, driving away.”

“What else did you see?” Wilkins asks.

“Nothing, really. It was dark. The car was a half block away and moving in the other direction.”

“Could you tell how many people were in the car?”

“No,” she says.

“How many were in the car when you first got in?”

“Just John. I think. I didn't really look in the back seat, but I would have noticed if someone was back there.”

Wilkins makes some notes in his book, then takes out another photo. “Do you recognize this person?” It's the photo of Logan as a man.

She stares at it for a moment. “Not someone I know, no. Cute guy, except he might be a girl.”

Wilkins asks her to explain why she thinks that. She reads the facial hair as fake, the head hair as a wig, the butt kind of feminine for a male. Wilkins nods, impressed.

“How about this person?” He produces the photo of Logan as a woman.

“I don't know her, but I know who she is. Her name is Bobbi something. She's a big-time hair stylist and she's active in one of those transgender groups for older people.”

“What do you know about her?”

“She's supposed to be nice. She does things for trans people. Contributes money to TransRising. Things like that.”

“Was she ever involved with Strand?”

“Strand never mentioned her.”

“No rumors?”

“Come on, Detective. We gossip about everything. Of course there are rumors.”

“Like what?”

“Like she was the one who did Strand. But don't take it seriously.
There's a rumor that I fuck horses and sell the pictures and another one that the mayor has a boyfriend.”

Wilkins reviews his notes. “Anything else you can tell me about that night? Did you see anyone else on the street? Someone walking? A car going by?”

She starts to shake her head, no, then stops, looks up at the ceiling, closes her eyes. “When I was running up to Halsted, a car pulled away from the curb just as I ran past. It scared the shit out of me.”

“What do you remember about the car and the driver?”

“I never saw the driver, but I think the car was one of those expensive sedans. I think it was a BMW, but I had other things on my mind. It was black.”

Wilkins studies her, surprised a girl under such duress would notice a car.

She fills the silence with her own thoughts, far from his. “BMW was my dream car back when I was a miserable queer everybody hated,” she says. “I used to dream that I'd wake up a woman and meet the perfect man. We'd get married, and he'd buy me a BMW and treat me like Cinderella for the rest of my life, and I'd feel like Cinderella every time I drove that car somewhere. Stupid, huh? Bet you didn't expect to hear that from a whore.”

Wilkins doesn't know what to say. Her sweet dream had descended into a bleak reality, even with the nice apartment. He thought of Candice, the ex-hooker he interviewed what, six weeks ago? A lifetime? Twenty-one and just finishing high school. HIV positive. Trying to make a life on ten dollars an hour, trying to break into the corporate world. Trying to get past a family that threw her out, an adolescence spent sucking men's dicks and sleeping in wretched places.

Barbi's life had more glitz, but just below the shine was the same grim truth.

“You'd look good in that BMW, Miss Dancer,” he says, “but you need to get out of the sex trade. It's tearing you down.”

“I can't make this kind of money waiting on tables,” she says, gesturing toward her sumptuous apartment.

“You're smart. You can think of something.” Wilkins stands as he says it.

Barbi is motionless for a moment, staring at him, a stunned look on her face.

Wilkins gives her his business card at the door. “Call me if I can help you sometime. I owe you one,” he says.

Barbi puts a hand on his arm. “You don't look like it, but you're a good guy.” She hugs him. “Thank you, Detective.”

“For what?”

“You treat people with respect. It means a lot.” Her eyes are misty. Words don't come to Wilkins so he nods to her as he leaves.

As he walks to his car, he gets back in cop mode. Black sedans keep coming up in this case. Logan didn't own a car, but what about her friends? His mind skips to the rich loudmouth transwoman . . . he pictures her in his mind, tall, blond, arrogant. Swenson. Her name was Swenson. She drives a black Caddie now. He'd see what she had back then. What if she and Logan did Strand together? They're friends. It could happen. Wouldn't that be something?

*    *    *

F
RIDAY
, O
CTOBER
17

I flinch when I hear the quiet tap on the door. I'm in the bathroom, removing makeup and cleansing and moisturizing my face after a long day at work. I'm also naked, taking inventory of my body as I tend to my nightly ritual.

Before I can promise to hurry, Betsy enters. “Mind if I pee?” she asks, big smile on her face. She doesn't wait for permission. She pulls up her nightgown and plops on the toilet. A tinkling sound follows.
She looks up at me. I am still blushing and self-consciously trying to cover my bare breasts and womanhood.

She grins at me. It's her wise, big sister look, which has been missing for a long time. “Relax, Bobbi. Sisters do this.”

The truth of what she says washes over me like an awakening. The sex fantasies that dominated my young male mind have given way to a rich variety of fantasies as a middle-age transgender woman. One of the most prolific genres is all the girl things I missed growing up male. Pajama parties, doing each others' hair, talking about boys, and having friends you could touch in an intimate but nonsexual way. The burgeoning subset of that genre has been fantasies of sisterhood with Betsy, of moments just like this, intimate, humorous, trusting. A warm sensation surges through my body and I smile at her.

“I just thought we need to lighten up a little,” she says. The impish grin remains.

“Good idea,” I say, my mouth dry. I slowly let my arms and hands fall to my side, exposing my bare body, as nervous as a young virgin. This wasn't in my fantasies. I was always clothed in my fantasies, nothing more risqué than a bra and panties. Try as I might, I remain self-conscious about my body and my femininity with Betsy since we became roommates. I keep my body covered whenever I'm in our shared space and I try not to leave my lingerie around for fear it will offend her in some way. This is completely irrational, but it's where I'm at.

“My goodness, Bobbi, your boobs are bigger than mine!” she exclaims. She is assessing me as I stand at the sink, blushing. I want badly to put on my nightgown or at least wrap myself in a towel. “And they're so perky.” She's still talking about my breasts.

“You're a very sexy lady,” she says. “But you didn't need me to tell you that.”

I struggle to find something appropriate to say. “No one else is going to say it,” I tell her. “Plus, when you say it, I can hear bands playing.” I'm trying to be humorous. It's what I do when I can't be brave.

“Are you making fun of me?” Her smile widens. She knows I'm not. Her gaze falls to my pelvis. Her body language radiates curiosity. Straight people are obsessed with transsexual plumbing, even women. She wants to inspect it but is too much a lady to say so. I understand her curiosity. I understand that it's not sexual. I understand it is not because she is reviled. She's just curious.

“Why don't you take a look,” I offer as I step toward her.

She blushes and sits back, protesting, apologizing.

“It's okay, Betsy. Sisters do this. If we had grown up together we would have compared body parts many times. Have a look. We'll get it over with and move on to other things.”

Her impish smile comes back. She examines me closely, starts to touch, pulls her hand back as though singed by a hot flame. “It's okay,” I say, and use my own hands to brush back pubic hairs and open my labia. This was never part of my daydreams, but I am surprisingly calm, perhaps because Betsy is so nonchalant. Her scrutiny lasts only a few seconds.

“Wow,” she says, sitting back. I pluck my nightgown from its hanging place and put it on. Betsy stands, flushes, comes face-to-face with me. “You're beautiful, Sis.”

“Does it seem anatomically correct?” I punctuate the question with my own smile.

“I think so,” she says. “Really, though, unless you're a doctor, who ever gets a good look at an adult woman's vagina?”

I look at her questioningly.

“Well, I don't have a great angle to see mine, you know?” she says. “It's like, just because you own a car doesn't mean you know how to fix the engine.”

She kisses me on the cheek and we leave together.

I hope this is one of those pivotal moments where everything that happens afterward is so much easier than before. Our first two weeks of living together have been good, but not easy. I haven't cohabited
with anyone in a long time, and Betsy's marital years were far different than having a roommate. Not to mention the awkwardness of us having been spouses once. I have obsessed on anticipating every need, making sure the apartment is perfect at all times, and monitoring my every action to make sure nothing I do upsets, offends, or frightens Betsy. I think my inhibitions make Betsy nervous, and she's focused on being a good roommate, too, keeping out of my way, helping with stuff. I think our good intentions are the source of more stress and tension than if we were already at the taking-each-other-for-granted stage.

We're still establishing our routine chores like cooking and cleaning. Betsy wants to do everything because she's not working, and I want us to share everything because I want a sister, not a housekeeper. It's not the worst problem to have. We chat for a moment each night about the next day's schedule, who will be home when, who will cook, who will stop for food, what other chores need to be done.

We went back and forth on the rooming arrangements. I insisted she take the master bedroom because it wasn't practical for her or Robbie to sleep in the room I use for a hair studio, and because she would suffocate in that cramped room after all the nights she's spent in her Northbrook castle. I won the argument, but we are sharing the closet in the master bedroom. It was strange at first, hearing other noises, other voices in the flat, having to wait for the bathroom sometimes, planning a daily menu in advance. But I like it. I like all of it. I love feeling like I'm a part of something. When I lived here alone I seldom closed doors, but when I did, the sound of the closing door echoed through the apartment like a lonely song. The sounds of closing doors now are the sounds of life and love. I feel like an actual person with an actual family.

I have to remind myself constantly that this is just temporary, that Betsy and Robbie will be moving on in a few months. That I shouldn't get too attached.

*    *    *

W
EDNESDAY
, O
CTOBER
22

Wilkins sits in the corner of the lounge, reading a newspaper like several others, looking up now and then to take in the scenery.

He has shadowed Logan to her gym several times, catching glimpses of her workouts, peeking through the window to watch her self-defense class. Her workouts are impressive. A reminder that he should be doing something. She lifts weights, does stretching and balance, runs. Some of her exercises make his body ache just watching. The running makes him breathe hard. He's not sure he can run a block anymore, so many days and nights of sitting, bad food, coffee. He has a physical coming up. It won't be pretty. They've been on him to get a regular doctor and dentist for years.

He shivers. He's been shot at, beaten, bitten by rats and dogs, he's walked into whitey bars, the only black guy in the place, he's corralled psychopaths, you name it, he's stood up to it, but doctors and dentists scare the shit out of him. Especially dentists. The sound of that drill goes right up and down his spine. Absolute torture. His dad used to whack him for whining and crying, but the sound of that drill made him whimper like a bitch and sweat like a pig. He ran out one day and never came back. Never made another appointment.

Logan comes out of the self-defense class and crosses the lounge, heading for the room with weights and aerobic machines. She's done this before. She goes in the workout room for a few minutes and comes back out, goes to the locker room, showers, and leaves. She isn't going in there to work out. It's something else. He gets up and stands at the threshold of the room to watch her. She's waiting at the edge of the free-weight area. A burly power lifter finishes a set of dead lifts, then walks over to her, big smile on his face. Hers, too.

Wilkins finds a row of plastic chairs and sits down. He can't hear what they're saying, but they have a lot of affection for each other. They touch several times, smile constantly. Logan gestures a lot as she talks, uninhibited. They hug. Wilkins makes for the lounge again so Logan won't pass directly in front of him on her way out. She breezes through on her way to the locker room, and he goes back in the workout room. He watches her burly friend lift. The man is superhumanly strong. Others in the area are deferential to him.