Secrets & Lies (6 page)

“It is for me, you know that. I don't know what I'd do without the Stiletto.”

“You'd be Judy Cooper. You'd find a nice man. Settle down. Live a normal life.”

“Are you kidding me, Freddie? You really think
I
could live a ‘normal' life? After what I've done? The Stiletto is a part of me. It'd be like cutting off an arm.”

He shook his head. “I just worry about you, Judy. If something happened to you—”

I placed a hand on his arm. “Try not to worry. I'll be okay.”

“Don't you think someday someone will find out your secret? What will you do?”

I didn't tell him that's already happened. John Richardson knows who I am, and thankfully he has respected my privacy. “Freddie, I'd find a way to deal with it.”

“But what about the people close to you, Judy? How will it affect them? Lucy?
Me
? Have you thought about that? They could arrest me for aiding and abetting a criminal.”

“Look, I know I can't do this forever, Freddie. Times are changing. This newspaper article is proof of that. Maybe I'll be forced into retirement. It's possible. And I promise you, if and when I make the decision to retire, I will bury the Black Stiletto. She'll be a secret I carry to my grave. And I'll do everything in my power to protect you.”

Freddie just made a grunting noise and sipped his coffee. I guess
the conversation was over at that point. I made some scrambled eggs and we sat at the table in silence. Finally, when I was done, I said I was going downstairs to the gym to exercise before we opened for the day. I kissed him on the cheek and told him I loved him.

He didn't reciprocate.

J
ANUARY
20, 1961

John F. Kennedy is now our president! It's so gratifying that he and Jackie are now in the White House. After all the work I did last year on his campaign, it feels really good. I know he's going to be a great president. There's so much bad stuff happening in the world. The Communists want to take over. Everyone is afraid of nuclear bombs. I heard one guy in the gym saying how it was nothing compared to what we faced during World War II. That's probably true. My father was killed in the Battle of Midway. The threat of Germany and Japan was worse than what we have now, although there were no atomic bombs then. I guess that's the crux of the matter. Would someone be mad enough to push the button?

Oh, my gosh, they're playing a new Elvis record on the radio! It's
fantastic
! The song is called “Surrender.” The DJ said the melody is the same one as Dean Martin's “Come Back to Sorrento,” and I thought it sounded familiar, but Elvis changed the lyrics and it's more up-tempo. It'll be in the stores in a couple of weeks!

That just put me in a good mood. Good enough to go out. Talk to you later, dear diary!

L
ATER

It's taken me thirty minutes for me to catch my breath after barely making it home. The newspaper was right. There are a lot more cops on the streets. They're
everywhere
.

The night started off all right. I didn't see any policemen until I
got to Washington Square Park around 10:00. There were so many! It was a regular cop convention, I counted at least ten. I avoided the spot, moved uptown, and put a lot of distance between me and the park. Maybe I should have taken that as a warning to give up and go home, but I kept going and got up into the 20s. I headed west; I don't know why. It's not too often that I have a plan when I go out as the Stiletto. Usually I just wander, and that's what I did tonight.

It was around 7th Avenue and 22nd Street that a patrolman spotted me. I was running along the street as I normally do, and suddenly, there he was on the corner. We practically bumped into each other. He shouted for me to halt. I called back to him, “No time, sorry!” and kept going, darting out into traffic. Horns honked. A cab almost hit me. The cop blew his whistle. There was no question that he'd call for a patrol car, so I didn't let a few moving vehicles stop me. I successfully made it across 7th and ran like the dickens to 8th Avenue, and then shot uptown.

Figuring I'd eluded the patrolman, I slowed to my normal sprinting pace. It's always the same when I run through the city. Pedestrians see me, point, and gawk. Every now and then a woman screams, but I certainly don't mean to scare anyone. Sometimes a man will do a wolf whistle. “Look, there's the Black Stiletto!” “Hey, Stiletto, want to go on a date?” I often get applause and cheers, and just as frequently attract boos and am called nasty names. I'm used to it, but this time, though, it really bothered me. Some guy yelled something I can't write down, dear diary, and it made me feel—
exposed
. That's the only way I can describe it.

A sense of great danger had crept up on me since I'd passed the policeman, and I suspected the cops were on my tail. Sure enough, a siren started blaring behind me. Turning, I saw the red-and-blue lights several blocks down 8th Ave. I had run up to 30th Street, so I hooked a right and sprinted into the shadows. A brownstone's stoop provided enough cover for me as I squatted and waited for the cop car to pass on by the intersection of 30th and 8th. The siren pierced
my eardrums as the vehicle continued uptown. It didn't turn toward me. For a moment, I thought maybe they weren't chasing me after all and were on their way to another crime scene. Nevertheless, I waited a minute, caught my breath, and then continued east on 30th. So far, I'd spent the entire night running from the police. And it wasn't over. As soon as I got to 7th Avenue, more patrol cars shot through the intersection, heading south. Were they looking for me? I froze on the corner amidst a few pedestrians. The last patrol car drove past me, but the officer in the passenger seat looked directly at me and we locked eyes. The driver slammed on the brakes; the wheels screeched horribly as the siren and lights kicked on.

There were three options. I could dash across 7th Avenue into heavier traffic and maybe get killed by a speeding taxicab. Or I could run north on 7th, but I'd have to run past the cops. If I went south on 7th, they'd be in pursuit right behind me. The best alternative was to reverse my tracks on 30th and head west, so that's what I did. Within seconds, I heard the two cops shout at me to stop, and then they gave chase. I knew I could outrun them, but one of the guys was some kind of track star; he gained on me surprisingly fast. With only twenty feet or so separating us, I approached the intersection of 30th and 8th—and three cops appeared, guns drawn.

They had me hemmed in. It was the exact same thing that happened to me the night I'd caught my cold. Only this time I wasn't able to duck into a dark doorway and hide. They had already seen me.

Dear diary, my first thought was—
I wasn't having fun anymore
.

Throughout the three years of the Black Stiletto's so-called career, it was always an invigorating, liberating sensation to step out on the streets in my outfit and take the city by storm. Tonight, though, I felt like a mouse in one of those laboratory mazes. And instead of a piece of cheese at the end of the tunnel, there was a hungry cat.

Flashlight beams from both ends of the street jumped around, trying to put the bull's-eye on me. I darted back and forth across 30th and then headed east toward 7th again. There were only two patrolmen
chasing me from that direction, whereas there were three in the other. I took the path of least resistance. But this was also the path occupied by that really fast runner, the cop who thought he was doing the 100-yard dash for a medal.

Looking back on what happened, all I can say is that there was no other way, dear diary. It was either do what I did or get caught.

I attacked the policeman. He was just catching up to me, running like a bull, and I reacted spontaneously and instinctively, like a wild animal. Right after it happened, I regretted it and felt really bad. But honestly,
I had no choice
.

The cops bearing flashlights couldn't keep them trained on me, so all they got were glimpses of me running through them, back and forth. The guy running toward me, though, didn't have one. I could see him, but he couldn't see me. My eyesight is better in the dark than most people's. So I charged and body blocked him, probably harder than I meant to. He
flew
as he emitted a loud, “Ooompf!” The cop crashed into the adjacent stoop, hitting the stone steps with a horrifying crack. Then he laid there motionless. Like a rag doll. I should have stayed to see if he was okay, but I didn't. I kept running east. The other cop had a light, but he hadn't caught me in it. I ran right past him on the opposite side of the street. When I got to the corner, I sped across 7th and kept going until I arrived in the East Village.

Now I'm concerned about the policeman. I really do hope he's okay, but oh my God, I think I killed him.

J
ANUARY
21, 1961

The story was in all the newspapers. BLACK STILETTO ASSAULTS COP! My heart nearly stopped when I saw the headline. I read what it said and found out the patrolman was in the hospital. His injuries weren't revealed, but he was expected to recover. I was relieved, but still sorry that I had to do it. I wish I could apologize to him somehow. What really disturbed me was the venom directed at
the Black Stiletto. She was being portrayed as a violent, dangerous criminal. The police commissioner pledged that catching the Black Stiletto was the NYPD's number-one priority.

Freddie could tell I was upset all day, but he didn't say anything. I'm afraid he thinks it's true—that the Black Stiletto
did
maliciously attack that cop—and I'm afraid he's right.

I'll have to talk to him, if he'll listen.

T
HE
P
RESENT

I started the fourth diary and took a look at the trinkets that Mom had left in that strongbox Uncle Thomas gave me. I knew what the roll of film was. The Kennedy campaign button made sense. There were two more items the diaries hadn't mentioned yet. One was a silver heart-shaped locket, the other a small gold key. I examined the locket again. There were three diamonds on it—one each on the two rounded tops of the heart, and the third down at the point. Inside the locket was space for a small photograph, but it was empty.

Another mystery.

I was as curious as ever to talk to Uncle Thomas again. I'd never pressed him for answers before, so I decided it was time for him to come clean. Foremost on my mind was what arrangements, if any, my mother had made regarding her funeral. That was a morbid subject and no one really liked to talk about it, especially when the person was still alive, but it's something we all needed to address, right? People who had the means and wherewithal to do so usually take care of their own arrangements before death so their children won't be burdened with the unpleasant task. Uncle Thomas had told me sometime after Mom had gone into Woodlands that I wasn't to worry about her financially. We basically had to get rid of all her assets so that Medicaid would pay for the nursing home stay. At the
time she was basically broke anyway, living off the fumes of an empty gas tank, and I didn't realize it. I was too caught up in my own world to notice.

Thomas Avery's office was in Arlington Heights, not far from our old house. A new real estate firm was handling the sale of the house, and I recently decided to put a little of my newfound salary into sprucing it up so we could sell it. It's been on the market for a couple of years, but we never had any luck getting rid of the place because it was in such disrepair. I suppose it was a good thing it didn't sell right off the bat, otherwise Mom's Black Stiletto stuff would still be hidden in that secret room in the basement. I would never have retrieved it, and the new owners would be living with one of the world's most valuable treasures right under their noses.

I grew up in that house, went to high school in Arlington Heights, and then left for college. It was weird—I'd taken it for granted that Mom had money, because she always did. At least she got by, she was able to feed us, put clothes on our backs, and pay for my college tuition. She never worked. When I once asked her about it, she said we lived off a big inheritance that my father left. I never questioned it. I was a dummy, probably too absorbed in my precious existence that I was oblivious that anything could be, well, not
normal
about our family.

We moved into the house in 1970, when I was seven. I remember being relatively new to the neighborhood when I started first grade. Prior to that, we lived in an apartment in Arlington Heights for a year or two—going backward from there was where it started to get hazy for me. I had vague memories of being in the car a lot, staying in hotel rooms, living in a couple of different apartments for short durations, but I couldn't say where we were.

Uncle Thomas's secretary, Janie, greeted me warmly when I entered the office. She was nearly as old as her boss, so I've known her a long time, too. Janie really was on top of things at his office; it was like
she
ran
his
life. Thomas and my mom were pretty close, and I've always suspected they dated at one time. But since then, did Thomas
and Janie ever have a thing? Uncle Thomas was once married to a woman named Martha, but she died a few years ago.