Black notice (33 page)

I wanted to slap her.

"Anyway, after talking with the Sanderses for a while, I came to realize they're the Jerry Falwell type and weren't about to condone a lesbian relationship."

"I wish you wouldn't use that word:"

"Well, that's what they are. Descended from the Amazon types on the island of Lesbos in tile Aegean Sea, off the coast of Turkey. Turkish women have so much hair. You ever noticed?"

"You ever heard of Sappho?"

"Of course I've heard of him," Dorothy said.

"She was a Lesbian because she lived on Lesbos. She was one of the greatest lyric poets in antiquity."

"Ha. Nothing poetic about some of these body-pierced, stocky hockey players I see. And of course, the Sanderses didn't come right out and say they thought Lucy and Jo were lesbians. Their reasoning was Jo had been horribly traumatized, and to see Lucy would bring it all back. It was too- soon. They were quite emphatic in a very nice way, and when Lucy showed up, they were very kind and sympathetic when they told her."

I passed through the toll plaza.

"Unfortunately, you know how Lucy is. She challenged them. She said she didn't believe them, and got pretty loud and rude. I explained to the Sanderses that she was just very upset after all she'd been through. They were very patient and said they'd pray for her, and next thing I knew a nurse told Lucy she had to leave.

"She stormed out," my sister said. She looked over at me to add, "Of course, mad at you or not, she'll come looking for you, just like she always does."

"How could you do that to her?" I asked. "How could you get between her and Jo? What kind of person areyou?"

Dorothy was taken aback. I could feel her bristle.

"You've always been so jealous of me because you're not her mother," she answered.

I turned off on the Meadow Street exit instead of keeping on toward home.

"Why don't we just settle this once and for all," Dorothy and her stingers said. "You're nothing but a machine, a computer, one of those high-tech instruments you love so much. And one has to ask what's wrong with a person who chooses to spend all her time with dead people. Refrigerated, stinky, rotting dead people, most of them low-lifes to begin with."

I got on the Downtown Expressway again, heading back downtown.

"Versus me, I believe in relationships. I spend my time in creative pursuits, in reflection and relationships, and I believe our bodies are our temples and we should take care of them and be proud of them. Look at you." She paused for effect. "You smoke, you drink, you don't even belong to a gym, I bet. Don't ask me why you're not fat and flabby, unless it's cutting through all those ribs and running around crime scenes or being on your feet all day in a goddamn morgue. But let's get to what the worst thing is."

She leaned close to me, her vodka breath an unpleasant vapor.

"Fasten your shoulder harness, Dorothy," I quietly said.

"What you've done to my daughter. My only child. You never had a child because you've always been too busy. So you took mine," she blasted me with her boozy breath. "I should have never, never, ever let her visit you. Where was my brain when I let her stay summers with you?"

She dramatically clutched her head in both hands.

"You filled her with all this guns and ammo and crimesolving shit! You turned her into a fucking little computer nerd by the time she was ten, when little girls should be going to birthday parties and riding 'ponies and making friends!"

I let her rail on, paying attention to the road.

"You exposed her to a big, ugly redneck cop, and let's face it. He's really your only close relationship with a man. I hope like hell you don't sleep with a pig like that. And I have to tell you, as sorry as I am about what happened to Benton, he was weak. Not enough sap in that tree, oh no. No yolk in that egg.

"Huh. You were the man in that relationship, Miss doctor-lawyer-chief. I've told you before and I'll tell you again, you're nothing but a man, with big tits. You fool everybody because you look so elegant in your Ralph Lauren and ritzy-titzy car. You think you're so fucking sexy with those big tits, always making me feel something's wrong with me and making fun of me when I ordered Mark Eden and all those other contraptions. And remember what Mother said?

"She gave me a photograph of a man's hairy hand and said, "That's what makes a woman's breasts get big."'

"You're drunk," I said.

"We were teenagers and you made fun of me!"

"I never made fun of you"

"You made me feel stupid and ugly. And you had this blond hair and a chest and all the boys talked about you. Especially since you were smart, too. Oh, you've always thought you're so fucking smart because I couldn't do anything but English."

"Stop it, Dorothy."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't, Dorothy."

"But you don't fool me. Oh, no."

She shook her head from side to side, wagging her finger in my face.

"Oh, no. You can't fool me. I've always suspected the truth about you."

I was parked in front of the Berkeley Hotel, and she didn't even notice. She was screaming, -tears streaming down her face.

"You're a closet diesel dyke," she said hatefully. "And you turned my daughter into one! And now she almost gets killed and she thinks I'm lower than a sewer!"

"Why don't you go inside your hotel and get some sleep," I said to her.

She wiped her eyes and looked out the window, surprised to see her hotel, as if it were a spaceship that had silently landed.

"I'm not dumping you out on the roadside, Dorothy. But right now I think it's best we're not together."

She sniffled, her rage fading like fireworks in the night. "I'll get you to your room," I said.

She shook her head, her hands motionless in her lap, tears sliding down her miserable face.

"She didn't want to see me," she said in a voice as quiet as a breath. "The minute I came off the elevator in that hospital, she looked as if someone had just spat on her food."

A group of people were walking out of the Tobacco Company. I recognized the men who had been at Dorothy's table. They were walking unsteadily and laughing too loudly.

"She's always wanted to be just like you, Kay. Do you have any idea how that feels?" she cried. "I'm a somebody, too. Why can't she want to be like me?"

She suddenly moved over and hugged me. She cried into my neck, sobbing, shaking. I wanted to love her. But I didn't. I never had.

"I want her to adore me, too!" she exclaimed, carried away by emotion and alcohol and her own addiction to drama. "I want her to admire me, too! I want her to brag about me like she does you! I want her to think I'm brilliant and strong, that everyone turns around and looks at me when I walk into a room. I want her to think and say all those things-she thinks and says about you! I want her to ask my advice and want to grow up to be just like me."

I put the car in gear and drove up to the entrance of the hotel.

"Dorothy," I said, "you're the most selfish person I've ever known."

30It was almost nine o'clock by the time I got home, and I worried that I should have brought Dorothy with me instead of leaving her at the hotel. I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if she had gone right back across the street to the bar. Maybe there were a few lonely men left she could amuse.

I checked my telephone messages, annoyed by hangups. There were seven of them, and caller-m read unavailable each time. Reporters didn't like to leave messages, even at my office, because it gave me the option of not calling them back. I heard a car door shut in the driveway and almost wondered if it were Dorothy, but when I checked, a yellow taxi was driving away as Lucy rang the bell.

She was carrying one small suitcase and a tote bag and dropped them in the foyer, shoving the door shut without hugging me. Her left cheek was one dark purple bruise, and several smaller ones were beginning to turn yellow at the edges. I had seen enough injuries like that to know she had been punched.

"I hate her," she started in, glaring at me as if I were to blame. "Who told her to come here? Was it you?"

"You know I would never do something like that:' I said.

"Come on. Let's talk. We have so much talking to do. My God, I was beginning to think I was never going to see you again."

I sat her in front of the fire and tossed in another log. Lucy looked awful. She had dark circles under her eyes, her jeans and sweater were hanging off her, her reddishbrown hair was falling over her face. She propped a foot up on my coffee table. Velcro ripped as she took off her ankle holster and gun.

"You got anything to drink in this house?" she asked. "Some bourbon or something? There was no damn heat in the back of the taxi and the window wouldn't close. I'm frozen. Look at my hands."

She held them out. The nails were blue. I took both of them in mine and held them tight. I moved closer to her on the couch and put my arms around her again. She felt so thin.

"What happened to all that muscle?" I tried to be funny.

"I haven't had much food . . :" She stared into the fire.

"They don't have food in Miami?"

She wouldn't smile.

"Why did Mother have to come? Why can't she just leave me alone? All my life she doesn't do a goddamn fucking thing except subject me to all her men, men, men," she said. "Parade herself around with all these dicks fawning over her while I had nobody. Hell, they had nobody, either, and didn't even know it."

"You've always had me."

She shoved her hair out of her eyes and didn't seem to hear me.

"You know what she did at the hospital?"

"How did she know where to find you?" I had to have that question answered first, and Lucy knew why I asked it.

"Because she's my birth mother," she said with singsong sarcasm. "So she's listed on various forms whether I like it or not, and of course she knows who Jo is. So Mom tracks down Jo's parents here in Richmond and finds out everything because she's so manipulative and people always think she's wonderful. The Sanderses tell her where Jo's room'is and Mother shows up at the hospital this morning and I didn't even know she was here until I was sitting there in the waiting area and she walked in like the prima donna she is."

She clenched and unclenched her fists as if her fingers were stiff.

"Then guess what?" she went on. "Mom puts on this big sympathetic act with the Sanderses. Is bringing them coffee, sandwiches, giving them all her little pearls of philosophy. And they're talking and talking, and I'm just sitting there like I don't exist, and then Mom comes over and pats my hand and says, Jo isn't having any visitors today.

"I ask her who the hell she is, telling me that. She says the Sanderses wanted her to tell me because they didn't want to hurt my feelings. So I finally just fucking leave. Mom may still be there for all I know."

"She's not," I said.

Lucy got up and stabbed a log with the poker. Sparks swarmed as if in protest.

"She's gone too far. This time she's done it," my niece said.

"Let's don't talk about her. I want to talk about you. Tell me what happened in Miami:"

She sat on the rug, leaning against the couch, staring into the fire. I got up and went to the bar and poured her a Booker's bourbon.

"Aunt Kay, I've got to see her."

I handed Lucy the drink and sat back down. I massaged her shoulders and she began to loosen up, her voice getting drowsy.

"She's in there and doesn't know I'm waiting for her. Maybe she thinks I can't be bothered."

"Why in the world would she think that, Lucy?"

She didn't answer me, but seemed drawn into smoke and flames. She sipped her drink.

"When we were driving there in my hot little V -twelveBenz," she said in a distant voice, "Jo had this bad feeling and she told me she did. I said it was normal to have a bad feeling when you're about to do a takedown. I even kidded her about it."

She paused, just staring at flames as if she were seeing something else.

"We get to the door of the apartment that these OneSixty-Fiver assholes are using as their clubhouse;' she resumed, "and Jo goes first. There're six of them in there instead of three. Right away we know we're had and I know what they're going to do. One of them grabs Jo and sticks a gun to her head to make her tell them where the Fisher Island place is we'd set up for the hit."

She took a deep breath and was silent, as if she couldn't go on. She sipped the bourbon.

"God, what is this stuff? The vapors alone are knocking me out."

"A hundred and twenty proof. Usually I'm not a pusher, but it wouldn't be such a bad thing for you to be knocked out right now. Stay here with me for a while;" I said.

"ATF and DEA did everything right," she told me.

"These things happen, Lucy."

"I had to think so fast. The only thing I knew to do was act like I didn't care if they blew her brains out or not. Here they are holding a gun to her head and I start acting pissed off at her, which wasn't at all what they were expecting."