Strange Robby (19 page)

The man's expression changed immediately. He looked from the woman in the picture to the woman that held it and had no trouble believing her story.

"Tell you what, kid. The frame is what's for sale. Why would I charge you for the photo when it's obviously yours?"

"Thanks. Thanks a lot," she said.

"I'll put it a sack for you."

He did so, and she thanked him again.

"So, what did you buy?" Carrie asked when they were back in the car.

"I'll tell you later," Spider said quietly, but she was smiling, which Carrie didn't really expect.

In fact, Carrie couldn't remember ever seeing her this happy except right after they'd had sex.

Carrie started to look in the sack.

"Please, Carrie?" Spider pleaded.

Carrie put the sack down and nodded.

"Must be for you, dear," Jill said.

"Leave the kids alone, Jill," Robert said. "Can we go home now? My legs are about to fall off my body."

"It's too weird," Carrie said looking at the picture Spider had handed her a few moments before. "You didn't know what your mother looked like."

"No. Like I said, I was about three when she died. My father got rid of all her pictures, put them away, or sold them. Makes sense that he'd pawn them off for the frames."

"Still, what are the odds?" Carrie said.

"Apparently pretty good." Spider took the picture from Carrie and looked at it. "Is it just wishful thinking, or do I look just like my mother?"

"Except that you'd never be caught dead in a dress, I'd think that was you. Even her hands are . . . ''

"Freakishly large," Spider said with a smile.

"Well, I don't think they're freakish." Carrie was embarrassed, and she was blushing. Something she just didn't do. "I like your hands."

Spider laughed at her back peddling. "Carrie, I'm not self-conscious about the size of my hands. I guess I should be, I mean it's not like I don't know that they're abnormally large, but it just doesn't bother me. Never has. Scott had big hands, but Dad didn't. So I always figured it was a good thing."

Carrie grinned wickedly. "A very good thing."

Spider put the picture carefully on a shelf and lay down on the bed beside Carrie. Spider was quiet, pensive.

"What's wrong?" Carrie asked, brushing a stray strand of hair out of Spider's face.

"I was just thinking how different my life might have been if I'd had a mother, or if Scott were still alive. I spent a big chunk of my life working very hard at not caring too much, because, let's face it, I just don't have a very good track record. Sometimes it worries me that I love you as much as I do."

Carrie thought about it for a second. "I'm glad you love me, and I don't believe that it means I have been marked for impending doom. In fact, I have never felt so safe in my whole life. I don't believe in curses or bad luck."

"Me neither, not really." Spider snuggled close to Carrie. "So, you want to have sex?"

"Oh my God, Spider!" Carrie screamed sitting straight up in bed.

"OK, all right. We don't have to. I understand if you're a little up tight what with having your parents in the house and all," Spider said quickly.

"That's not it," Carrie laughed and turned to look at Spider. "Spider, the faceless woman in your dreams . . . "

"Yes?"

"It's your mother."

It was so obvious that Spider could have kicked herself. The dreams almost made sense now. The child inside her equated safety with getting to her mother. Of course she couldn't reach her mother, because her mother was dead. It was kind of disturbing if you thought about it, which Spider tried not to. The woman had no face because Spider didn't remember what her mother had looked like.

The department shrink didn't seem to see any significance in her finding a picture of her mother. Or in Spider's realizing that her mother was the faceless woman in her dreams. In fact, she wasn't even sure that he was awake until he asked a question.

"What do you suppose the SWTF men represented in your dream?"

"I don't fucking know. I thought that was what the department was paying you for."

"And why do you think you dreamt about being a prisoner in a hole?"

"Well, duh. Because I was a prisoner in a hole for five weeks, and my stupid-assed partner reminded me of it," Spider said. "Do I really have to keep coming in here? Because if you're just going to sit there while I answer all the questions, you're wasting my time."

"You don't think that I'm helping you?"

"Well, no," Spider said.
Is this guy a fucking idiot or what . . . How fucking stupid is he? The fucking department is paying him a small fortune to sit on his ass and look bored. Guess he isn't stupid at all if you think about it. He is, however, a fucking asshole.

"Why don't you think our sessions are helping you?"

"Because you ask me stupid assed questions and you never seem to be listening to me when I answer them. Also, I'm not any better or worse than I was when I first came in here. So I have flashbacks. Big fucking deal. Everyone remembers stuff. It has never gotten in my way at work, never caused any real problems. It's not like I run around trying to shoot people or anything. I figure that these so-called post traumatic shock episodes come with the territory. If you'd been through what I've been through, and seen the things I've seen, you wouldn't be able to erase it from your brain, either. You try sitting in a fucking pit for five weeks. Smelling your own dung. Getting the crap beat out you on a regular basis. So fucking hot you can't breathe. No idea what tomorrow's going to bring, or even what day or time it is. Then see if you don't change forever. All of the therapy in the world is not going to put me back where I was before I stood in a trench and had pieces of my dead lover's body slap me up-side the head. I'm not sure I would want it to. To be so called normal after that, to my way of thinking, would make me one sick fuck. The bottom line is that you don't give a damn whether I live or die, and I know it. So how the hell could talking to you help me?"

"What makes you think I don't care about you, or what happens to you?"

I'm fucking psychic, you dork.
"I can tell. I'm not a fucking moron, you know."

"I don't think that you are. I am listening to you . . . "

"You fucking annoy the hell out of me," Spider said throwing up her hands. "I try to tell you something I think is very enlightening, and you're blowing me off. Only to ask some stupid assed question about the So-what-if guys."

"I think you may have trouble with authority figures," the shrink suggested.

"I have trouble with you!" Spider spat back.

"And why do you suppose that is?" he asked.

"Because I don't like you. You're a big, dumb, never-been-anywhere, never-done-anything, had-everything-fed-to-you-on-a-fuck-ing-silver-platter JERK!"

He looked at his watch, then at her. "Well, that's our time for today. I think we've made a lot of progress."

Spider got up and headed for the door. When she reached it she turned and looked at him. "I suppose if I told you to eat shit and die, I'd be fucking cured."

Tommy met her in the hallway. "Well?" he asked.

"He's a friggin idiot," Spider said.

Tommy laughed. "Why do you say that?"

"He thinks I'm well on the way to recovery because I hate his guts."

"Makes sense to me," Tommy said. Spider just stared at him and he smiled. "If the guy knows he's an asshole, maybe that's how he knows someone else is sane; whether they hate him or not."

"You keep trying, but it's just not working for you, Tommy. Thousands of comedians out of work, and here you are trying to be funny," she said. They were almost out the door when their comlinks buzzed and they were called back into the lieutenant's office.

"Come in," the lieutenant ordered.

Tommy wondered why he always did that. Did he really think they were going to stand in the hall like dorks till he told them it was all right to come in?

"Better sit down."

They did.

"DA Richards just suffered a major heart attack. The doctors say it's bad. They're hopeful about his recovery, but in the mean time . . . " He looked at Spider. "Your . . . whatever the hell you call her, is the acting DA. Don't think that gives you one damn bit more privilege than anyone else in this department."

Tommy worked hard at not smiling. It was easy to see that this really chapped Toby's ass. It was no secret that he disliked Spider Webb. Toby liked to think that you could do things by the book and get results. Tommy and Spider proved almost daily that you could get a hell of a lot more done if you weren't afraid to bend the rules.

Toby could tolerate Tommy. Tommy wasn't as abrasive or openly insubordinate as Spider. Tommy knew when to keep his mouth shut. He knew how to look as if he had been duly chastised, and to a superficial bastard like Toby that was all that really mattered.

Tommy looked at Spider. She was obviously upset, more than he thought she should have been. He knew she liked and respected Richards, but he doubted that was the reason that she looked like she was going to strangle Toby with his own testicles.

Tommy steeled himself for her attack and the repercussions.

"I call her Baby. I'll be sure to tell her just how much respect you have for her and our relationship." She glared at him. Then she stood up, walked over and put her fists on his desk.

Tommy waited for Toby to order her to get her hands off his desk, as he usually did.

But Toby could see Spider's face, and knew before Tommy did just how mad Spider really was. Toby kept quiet.

"You're way the fuck out of line!" Spider screamed. "If I was the kind of pencil pushing, paper crunching geek that you are, I'd probably be bringing you up on charges right about now. Don't you
ever
accuse me of asking for or receiving special treatment, or I'll have your fucking job. And don't you
dare
bring my private life up when either of us are on duty or in front of my partner. You got trouble with me? Then you meet me after work somewhere, and we'll discuss it then. Not here where your fucking rank protects you."

She stood up straight and left the room.

Tommy looked at the lieutenant, shook his head, and followed his partner. He had to run to catch up with her.

"Pencil pushing, paper crunching geek!" Tommy laughed in spite of himself. "That's pretty bad, even for you."

Spider stopped dead in her tracks and turned to glare at him. "You think this is funny, Tommy?"

Wow! She really is mad!
"I'm sorry. I just don't get it. What's the big deal? He's said worse things and you didn't get nearly this pissed off."

Spider started walking again, and he followed.

"No, you don't get it, do you, Tommy? Because in a way you're just like him. You don't really think of mine and Carrie's relationship as being the same as you and Laura's. This was a personal attack on Carrie's integrity as well as my own," Spider said. She seemed to calm down a little. "That little crack, calling Carrie my 'whatever the hell I call her.' He wouldn't do that to you, or to any straight person on the force. He obviously has no respect for me—that I can live with. But he doesn't respect Carrie. He thinks he's better than her because he's straight and she's not. As if the true test of a person's worth is who they fuck. I knew he didn't like me, but now in know he hates my guts, and I haven't done anything to deserve that."

Tommy nodded. He understood now. If someone said something he didn't like about Laura he'd have to kick their ass. "Spider, don't lump me with him. I'm on your side, always have been, always will be. Just because I don't wear an 'I love my gay friend' T-shirt and march in a freaking parade doesn't mean I don't understand that you're the same as us."

Spider nodded silently as they walked across the parking lot towards their car. Spider even let him drive without an argument. Tommy slid into the driver's seat as Spider climbed in and shut the door. Tommy started the car.

"If you feel that strongly about it, why
don't
you bring him up on charges? He's a dick; maybe this is our chance to get rid of him."

"Are you nuts!" Spider said.

Tommy shrugged and pulled the car out into traffic.

"If Richards is down for the count—and I hope he's not—but if he is, Carrie's going to be running for DA with less than six weeks left to campaign. She
wants
to be DA. She'd never run against Richards, but if Richards is out . . . I can't help not having a dick, but I'm sure as hell not going to do anything else to ruin her chances. She'd never forgive me if I did. Hell! I'd never forgive myself." She took a deep breath. "Besides, I have to work here. Most of the guys we work with wouldn't understand why I was making such a big fuss. Hell, most of them aren't any more comfortable with me than he is. If not because I'm gay, then because they know I can kick their fat, fucking, out of shape, donut-eating asses."