Dreams of Jeannie and Other Stories Part 9

"Four-thirty. I came early to check things out. Lowry must have done the same."

"s.h.i.t. The last shall be first," I said. "Clean and dry, too."

"What?"

"Have you got a phone directory?" I asked Barry Junior.

"The public phone is by the John," he said, pointing to the back of the barroom.

One glance told me the directory was too old to give me what I wanted. I left without saying good-bye.

I made it back to my office in record time.

Lowry's ad in the Yellow Pages listed a post office box. The reverse directory gave me an address in Sparks.

I wanted to leave again immediately, but I restrained myself long enough to call Matthews.

"Did someone take a shower?" I asked.

"What? A shower? Yeah. The bathroom was wet. We've even got what is maybe the perp's hair from a towel. Why?"

"I'll call you later." I would have asked him to meet me, but I wanted to be sure I was right first.

I made it to the Sparks address in record time, too.

Lowry was tossing a duffel bag into the trunk of an old Pontiac when I blocked the driveway with my Jeep.

"That's not a good place to park, little lady." He smiled, sort of. I didn't exactly feel welcome.

"I'll move it when the police arrive," I said, wishing I'd given Matthews more information.

"And when's that going to be? Seems to me you'd have to offer something to get them over here, and I just don't think you're holding any cards."

"Maybe. But I know you're holding the negatives-and that's extortion."

"Who'd I threaten? And that's only a.s.suming you're right. You could get me for taking them from the crime scene, but we'll all get our wrists slapped for that one. So get out of my way, O'Neal." He shifted restlessly.

"Let me tell you what I think." What I really thought was that I should have brought Crane with me. "I think n.o.body hired you-Dahl had pictures of you. That was why you resigned from the force and left Las Vegas-somebody was threatening to out you. You made a five o'clock appointment to meet Dahl, but you got there early, had a cup of coffee, offered to make up, do it once more for old times' sake. He gave you your envelope, so you knew where they were. You didn't have to toss the place. Thus, no worry about fingerprints. Once you had the pictures, you both got naked, and you killed him."

Lowry wasn't even trying to smile anymore.

I took a deep breath and continued. "You took a shower and cleaned up, then removed the negatives from the other envelopes and resealed them with tape. Maybe you were going to leave them, creating as many suspects as possible. For some reason you changed your mind and put them in your briefcase. Maybe you didn't want to risk a possible fingerprint on the tape. You were on your way out, planning to return at five in all innocence, when you ran into me."

The sun was fading into twilight, but even in shadow I could see his face mottling with dark streaks of anger.

"Wrong from the start, little lady." His voice was low and controlled. "I didn't know the f.a.g. And I sure as h.e.l.l didn't get into trouble over my s.e.xual orientation. I was hired by a local politico who knew I'd been pushed off the force in Las Vegas for getting a little too excited during a couple of arrests. He'd heard I needed money, and he thought paying once for a hit would be cheaper than paying forever for the negatives."

"Not a good choice."

"Well, it might have been, but I decided a better choice for me was taking the hit money and then going for the retirement pay. I figured with four professionals involved-I thought I had Dennis Whosit, too-I'd get money more regular than Social Security." He was relaxing a little, and the smile was back.

"So how'd you get naked?"

Lowry offered a low chuckle.

"h.e.l.l, I pretended he was a girl till his pants were off. Told him how cute he was, all that. I could have just shot him-would have been neater-but I liked the idea of making it look like a crime of pa.s.sion." He shifted his weight restlessly again. "It's been fun talking with you, O'Neal. You are a smart woman, and I surely wish I hadn't cut the time so close. It's going to be a lot harder collecting my Social Security on the run. Now you got a choice. You move the Jeep and let me leave, or I break your neck."

I know a little about self-defense, and I might have been able to take him if he rushed me. I didn't want to try. As he moved forward, I made a dive for the lawn, rolled over, and came up with my gun in my hand.

"Where the h.e.l.l did that pea shooter come from?"

"My boot. It's small and not too accurate, but you'll have to get your hands on me to break my neck. That's close enough that I could put a hole in yours. You can take the chance, or you can climb into the trunk of your car and pull it shut. I figure the police will get here before you suffocate."

He struggled with the idea, but he finally turned toward the car, chuckling. He put one boot, then the other, into the trunk.

"You're going to have a h.e.l.l of a time proving anything," he said. "I'll deny everything but taking the envelopes. Hearsay evidence never hanged anybody. The rest is circ.u.mstantial. Nothing ties me to the murder. No weapon, no prints, no nothing."

He had to take his hat off to get all the way inside. I waited until he had closed the lid. Then I sat on it to make sure the latch had caught before I yelled to him.

"You forgot something at the scene, Lowry! Use your head!"

He had left the front door open, so I made two calls from his phone, one to the television station and one to the police. I caught Lane just as he was coming off the set, told him not to worry, and arranged to meet him after he was through for the night.

Matthews was still unhappy with me, but he cheered up when I went with him to the station.

I told him most of the truth.

Lane was waiting for me in a quiet corner of the Comstock Room on the top floor of the Mother Lode casino by the time I arrived, a little after midnight. He looked tired, but relieved. He even managed a gleaming smile when I slid into the booth next to him and pa.s.sed him the envelope.

"I didn't look at the pictures. And I didn't sort out the negatives. I trust you'll do that and return the ones not yours to the people who need them."

"Won't you get into trouble over this?" he asked.

"I hope not. Lowry's briefcase was sitting on the front seat of the car, unlocked, and he hadn't bothered to seal the envelope he was keeping. So the police will find an envelope with pictures of Jimmy Dahl in a compromising position with the man who hired the hit. If Lowry volunteers that he took the negatives, he may have to volunteer a whole lot more. And trying to make a plea bargain by offering to testify that I rifled his briefcase wouldn't get him very far. I suspect that Matthews isn't going to try too hard to make life difficult for anyone but Lowry."

Lane picked up my hand and kissed it. Then he closed his eyes and held my hand against his cheek.

"I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am," he said softly.

"Lane, h.e.l.lo. Grabbing a late night snack?" A deep voice rumbled over my shoulder. "And Miss O'Neal, isn't it?"

"Horton. Sure." Lane turned a soft shade of red and dropped my hand.

"Hi," I said.

"No problem," Horton chuckled. "What you do on your own time is your own business."

"Thanks," Lane said. Once Horton had moved away, he added, "Is this going to be a problem for you?"

"Not at all." I noticed a flash a few tables away, and I motioned for the club photographer to come over to the booth. "Make it good," I told her.

I didn't have to tell Lane what I wanted.

I checked with Matthews the next morning. Lowry was keeping his mouth shut, as I had figured. No mention of negatives or rifled briefcases. They had taken some hair samples for laboratory testing. The politician in the photos was coming in with his lawyer that afternoon. Matthews was almost cheerful.

The photo from the Mother Lode arrived in the mail a few days later. I framed it and hung it on my office wall.

So now anybody who walks in can see the handsomest man in Reno caught in the act of kissing me.

That's my idea of justice.

Self Defense

This was originally a chapter in a novel, but the first two friends who read it both said that it was too long a break in the action, and that the protagonist's self-defense cla.s.s would have to take place off-stage, as it were. I reluctantly agreed, and then turned it into a short story, which turned out to be my first fiction sale. Another friend submitted it to Network, a feminist fiction magazine that is no longer around, and they published it in 1990. With the advantage of twelve years' experience, I've rewritten it for this collection.

"A woman in the United States is raped every two minutes," the instructor shouted. "In the three hours we will be together this morning, ninety women will be raped. And another ninety will be raped this afternoon. Rape does not just happen at night-we all think we are safer during the day-rape happens all the time! Look at the woman to your right, look at the woman to your left. Statistically, half of the women in this room-living in Los Angeles-will be raped sometime during their lives. According to FBI figures, one out of three women in the United States will be raped."

Jessie and Karen glanced uncomfortably at each other and then at the women on their other sides, who also glanced and turned quickly away. The woman on Jessie's right looked tough-those were well-defined biceps under a "Take Back the Night" t-shirt. She didn't look as if she needed a self-defense workshop. But even so she glanced away.

Jessie wondered what had happened to bring this woman here. Something had happened, surely. Something had surely happened to each of them, except Karen, who had agreed to go because Jessie didn't want to go alone.

The instructor shouted on. "Each of you-because of the kind of woman you are-has discouraged at least one rape. You have discouraged a rapist because of the way you walk, because of the way you answered when he asked you a question, because you were not compliant!"

There were some murmurs from the group. These women were not compliant. After all, they were here.

"What are the common myths about rape?" the instructor shouted.

"Women ask for it!" the woman to Jessie's right growled.

"Right!"

"Rape is an act of pa.s.sion," Jessie volunteered.

"Right!"

"Most rapists are strangers," another woman called out.

"Rape is a good way of punishing uppity women," spat still another.

The pitch of the answers rose higher, the rate of response faster.

"Women secretly want to be raped," came a cry from the back.

"Right!" shouted the instructor. "Right! Right!"

Jessie's heart began to beat in rhythm to the shouts.

"Another myth is that you will be hurt worse if you fight back." The instructor paced the room, looking each woman in the eye. "Most rapists look for the easiest possible target. They want compliant women! Women who don't know how to say NO! The rapist of a young Asian woman was found not guilty by a jury, just because she never said the word NO! He claimed he didn't know she was resisting! Well, she didn't know how to say NO! And some of you may not have learned to say NO! But you're not going to be victims! And even if you have been before, you're not going to be again!"

She looked at Jessie on that one. Jessie had to look away.

"No matter what happened to you, no matter what brought you to this cla.s.s, it wasn't your fault." The instructor moved on to the next woman. "Whatever it was, if you were attacked, if you were mugged, if you were raped, you were not to blame. You didn't know how to protect yourself. And now you're going to learn. You're going to learn to say NO! A victim doesn't say NO! But you are not a victim, and if you were one, you aren't one anymore. You will say NO! Now, let me hear it!"

"No," a few of the women said uneasily.

"Louder!" shouted the instructor.

The "nos" became a little stronger.

"Let me hear it louder! NO! NO!" The instructor led them, turning it into a chant.

"NO! NO! NO! NO!".

"And that's just the way you're going to shout it when you attack Ralph the Rapist!" The instructor held up a pair of stuffed jeans. "You will note that Ralph has no chest. In the movies, you see women struggling with men and hitting them in the chest. Those movies were made by men! Men don't want you to know how to hurt them. Never hit a man in the chest. You won't hurt him. And if you're going to hit him, you've got to want to hurt him. The chest, the upper body, is his strongest area. But your center of gravity is lower. You're going to learn today to use your strength against his weakness. You're going to learn all the vulnerable areas-the eyes, the ears, the nose, the b.a.l.l.s, and the kneecaps."

"The kneecaps?" Jessie asked.

"Absolutely! The average man's kneecap breaks under forty pounds of pressure. The average untrained woman can smash down with a force of sixty pounds. That's one and a half kneecaps. And you're going to learn how to do it today! But we're going to start top down-with the eyes. Pick a partner."

Jessie turned to Karen, who shrugged and nodded. The other women-about a dozen-paired off. Following instructions, one woman from each pair picked up a pillow from a stack in the middle of the room and held it for the other to hit.

Karen held the pillow at arm's length, eye level, with her head turned away, as if she were afraid Jessie might miss. Jessie knew she wouldn't miss. But she had to try it first, see how it felt to hit the pillow, so she punched it with a soft jab, an embarra.s.singly soft jab. Then she tried really hitting it. Almost. She began hitting the pillow harder and harder, annoyed that Karen was holding it so limply, as if it weren't a symbol of oppression at all. She finally knocked it out of Karen's hands.

"Great! Keep it up!"

The instructor had noticed. Jessie, pleased, hit the pillow out of Karen's hands again. She found it more awkward when she tried to scratch the pillow's eyes or break its eardrums. But hitting it on the nose felt good.

Karen couldn't knock the pillow out of Jessie's hands. Jessie shook it at her, to encourage her, but Karen never put any weight into her blows.

"This is weird," Karen whispered when the instructor called a break. "I need a cigarette. You coming?"

Jessie shook her head. She wanted to ask Karen why she had come if she wasn't really going to do it. But she knew why Karen had come. Jessie had asked, and Karen was compliant.

Jessie stayed in the bare room, stretching her muscles and looking at the clock, fretting when the break ran past its allotted ten minutes.

Then they were back, and the instructor lined them up. One at a time, they ran at Ralph the Rapist, kicking at his kneecaps, shouting "NO!" with each kick.

Then his b.a.l.l.s, they started kicking his b.a.l.l.s. The b.a.l.l.s were harder to hit.

"Men will tell you not to try for the b.a.l.l.s, that they protect their b.a.l.l.s, that you can't hurt them there. This is a lie! But you have to practice!" the instructor shouted.

They lined up again. The room was large enough to accommodate a much larger cla.s.s, but Jessie was glad there were so few of them. More practice. This time, her kick landed. Ralph the Rapist went flying. Off balance, Jessie did, too.

"Great! Next time you'll stay on your feet!"