Damn Straight

by Elizabeth Sims

  All I needed to think about, though, was Genie Maychild: Wondrous, beautiful, unsurpassed sexpot of the LPGA Tour, she was all I needed to calm right down. I thought of her hands, so easy and sensitive, caressing me; I thought of the glade of golden down in the hollow of her back, stirring in subtle, delicious response to my breath. I thought of all her parts, and a serenity came over me, and a longing. Ah, my darling, I'll take care of everything. You can count on me. After this weekend I will be your love slave forever, and you will be my goddess, except for once in a while taking a turn as love slave.

  The country G.P.'s office was deserted and dark, and the road was even more lonesome than in the daytime. The afternoon overcast had thickened into a velvety black night.

  I drove off the gravel lot onto a patch of half-frozen lawn on the side of the building away from the road. My headlights picked up an opossum moseying along the edge of the woods. It looked into my beams with those red eyes.

  Turning off the motor but leaving the car door ajar, I moved fast. I yanked on my leather gloves, kicked loose a cobble from the shrubbery border, strode up to the lowest window, whose sill was about knee-high, and broke it out. I could see well enough by the glow of the car's dome light.

  Tossing the cobble aside, I carefully stepped in, finding myself in the doctor's private office. Nice mahogany desk, leather swivel chair, hat rack—nice. I heard no alarm, and, walking quickly to the reception area, saw no blinking lights, no silent alarm that I'd missed earlier. The air smelled cool and antiseptic.

  My Weejuns patting on the clean floor, I pulled out my trusty Mag-lite and went to the bank of sliding drawers behind the receptionist's desk. This was an old country doc's office all right. The very feel of the place was comforting to me, the burglar. The braided rug in the waiting room, the sheaf of magazines expertly fanned out on the coffee table. All around me were the symbols of cleanliness and kindness. Isn't it funny? But I felt it.

  I doubted I'd find Genie Wickers's file right in with the active ones; likely, the doctor stored old files in a more remote space. But it was so easy. I'd already rejected the possibility that she'd used a fake name; it just wasn't Genie. My fingers flicked along, Walciski, Warrell, Westphal, Weyandson, Wickers.

  WICKERS, GENIE. I lifted out the thin folder.

  The file consisted of just one sheet, a printed form with Genie's medical history on one side, and notes about an examination on the other.

  "Patient requests Rx for birth control. Pt. complains of 'a tennis ball moving in my tummy.' Pt: 'I'm afraid I might have cancer.'"

  Then the pelvic examination. "Cervix long & closed...Fundal ht. 25 cm...Fetal heart tones heard. Rate 122 per min. Fetal movement noted. Gestation around 24 weeks based on LMP...Diagnosis: probable hidden pregnancy. Patient & partner very surprised at diagnosis. Recommended prenatal care ASAP, possible counseling."

  I read it over a couple of times more. I heard my own breathing in the silence that suddenly pressed around me. Now what the hell?

  I expected to break into this office and find a record of an examination, then of an abortion, both of which I'd steal and destroy. Because Dom Dengel was threatening Genie with revealing this illegitimate pregnancy and abortion. But without the actual medical file, there'd be no proof of any pregnancy, no proof of any abortion. The doctor's own memory? Would he remember Genie from fifteen years ago? Would it even matter? Medical files are confidential, aren't they? Stealing the abortion file was only part of my overall plan, but it was a key part. If no evidence was available to Dengel, even if he was intending to steal it, Genie could dismiss his threats.

  I stood there for another minute, knowing I had to leave, yet rooted, stunned.

  She'd been six months pregnant.

  You've come for the file; now take it.

  I creased the folder with its single sheet into quarters and tucked it inside my sweater. I found a sheet of the doctor's letterhead and a ballpoint pen and took them into the doctor's private office. Holding my light in my teeth, I printed: "TO HELP PAY FOR THE WINDOW. I'M SORRY. I BROKE INTO THE WRONG PLACE."

  I placed the note in the center of the doctor's desk pad and laid a twenty-dollar bill on top of it, then weighted it down with his pencil cup. I climbed out the window and drove away.

  Chapter 23

  I just made it onto the last United flight from O'Hare to Los Angeles. As I hurried into the jetway, I almost got run over by a sprinting executive hissing into her cell phone.

  "That is not acceptable! If the jury believes her even a little bit, we could be totally—" She slowed down after jostling me. "Tell him to try again. Tell him—no, go up ten thousand."

  We were the last passengers on. As the executive, or lawyer, and I made our way down the aisle, she apologized for bumping me. "Things turn to chaos sometimes."

  "Don't I know it," I said over my shoulder. "That's all right. Looks like we're seat mates, then."

  I helped her hoist her garment bag into the overhead bin as the flight attendants urged us to get settled.

  "Hey, this one's not full at all," said the executive, moving over to an empty row. "Give us both more room."

  "Thanks."

  Having a row to myself again made me happy in spite of the baffling situation I was in. I settled down with my thoughts and my notebook and wished for a drink.

  When the plane got to cruising altitude, I bought a Scotch on the rocks, even though it almost killed me to pay four dollars for it.

  So here we are. Nothing in my experience made me think there could have been any way a healthy girl could've gotten a doctor to abort a six-month pregnancy. What had happened to that baby? Dengel thought it had been aborted. Could Genie have given it up for adoption without anybody knowing? What was the deal with the baby?

  The threat of Dom Dengel, I felt, was both pressing and not pressing. He was a weirdo, all right, a nasty son of a bitch, but he seemed listless, almost passive, sitting there in his lawn chair, talking big.

  But who, then, had broken into Dewey O'Connor's house and scared the hell out of us that night? Who had left the note on the car? Well, I'd gotten Dengel to admit that he had friends who helped him.

  I leaned over from my aisle seat to peer out the airplane window into the blackness below, into the invisible grandeur of the North American continent. Fairylands below—towns and cities and their lights—little tiny fairylands.

  Genie and I needed to have a talk. But somehow I had to hold off doing it until this weekend was over.

  A terrible thought rose up in my mind. It jumped out at me from the jumble of my day on the Illinois prairie, but it was so terrible that I shut it away instantly. No. There's an explanation, and I'm going to get it sooner or later.

  The whisky made me feel warm and cozy inside my sweater and jeans.

  With the time difference, the flight would come into L.A. around one in the morning, then I'd have the ninety-minute drive out to the house. I wondered how Genie had scored that day in the tournament. Earlier, I'd lucklessly fiddled with the car radio, trying to find a sports report that mentioned it.

  Even with my coat over me, I wanted to be warmer. I asked a most attractive flight attendant for a pillow and blanket. During the twenty seconds it took her to fetch them, I fantasized that she would compassionately tuck me in, as the advertisements encouraged you to expect. But she wordlessly handed them to the passenger in the row ahead of me.

  "Oh!" said the passenger.

  As I popped up and stepped forward to claim my bedding, she, the passenger, perceiving my face, said "Oh!" again.

  And my heart plummeted through the floor into the baggage compartment and I said nothing to coach Marian Handistock, who in her aisle seat, looked very different than she had in the afternoon. Her face was drawn, yes, but that wasn't all.

  She said nothing to me, and I couldn't think of anything to say to her. She glared at me with utter coldness, utter contempt. Having surely seen me board, she wasn't surprised. She had that look ready for me. D
istracted by my hurry and talking with the stranger, I hadn't spotted her. There was nothing to say, anyway.

  I sat down in an icy sweat. Coach Handy suddenly had a thorough-going furtiveness about her. What else had caught my attention? For one thing, I'd noticed that her hands looked terrible. They were red; they looked sore. Several knuckles were covered with Band-Aids.

  Her legs were crossed, and one foot stuck slightly into the aisle. I studied her shoe, noticing that it had gotten terribly muddy very recently. Mud had been scraped off the sides and the sole. The remaining mud hadn't had a chance to start to flake away yet. There was mud, too, on her pant cuff.

  A stone of dread began to grow in my stomach.

  There was nothing for me to do but settle back in my seat and get my pulse under control. I hoisted my coat collar around my neck and forced my eyes closed. Incredibly, I must have fallen asleep, because I practically had a heart attack when someone's hand clamped over my shoulder. If I hadn't been wearing my seat belt, I'd have hit the call button with my eye. It was just an unsteady guy on his way to the toilet.

  When we landed, Coach Handy didn't look my way as she left her seat. I lingered, wanting her to get far ahead of me, wanting not to bump into her as I made my way to the parking shuttle.

  The last few passengers filed past my row up the aisle. One man, in jeans and a tattered sweatshirt, caught my attention.

  No. Lord, no.

  I carefully watched for his profile as he exited into the Jetway.

  It was Dengel.

  He must not have seen me, must not have recognized me as I'd boarded, had he even been looking. That was part of the purpose of my nun ruse. Somebody would say, "Oh, yeah, that woman—she was wearing a funny scarf and a really ugly sweater." Not: "Oh, yeah—she was about five foot ten with a mole on her right cheek."

  .

  I picked up the car and drove to Mission Hills like a maniac, blasting through the night, thinking. My main goal was to get Genie through the weekend without anything dreadful happening. Figuring out what the hell was going on would have to wait.

  It was the desert again, Southern California; it was hot. I'd stripped off my coat and sweater as I hustled to the car, breathing in that LAX jet-fuel air.

  It was about three in the morning when I let myself into the house at Mission Hills with the key Genie had given me. I thought I'd slip quietly into bed beside her. I listened for Todd, expecting him to come bumping right over to me, as was his custom. Then I went looking for him, first stepping out of my shoes. I heard nothing.

  Todd wasn't in the den, he wasn't anywhere. I went to the bedroom door, beneath which a seam of light showed, and listened. I realized that if I opened the door now, I'd scare the bejesus out of both of them.

  Softly, I said, "Genie, it's Lillian." I opened the door. She was sitting on the bed in her kimono, hugging her knees, her inhaler in her hand, Todd at her side. He jumped off the bed and came to me, enthusiastically sniffing. I squatted to pet him. Looking up, I saw that Genie's eyes were big.

  "Why are you up so late?" I asked.

  "Hold me."

  I obliged gladly. As I breathed deep from the back of her neck, a tremor ran through her. Somehow she felt more angular to me. I brushed her hair out of her eyes and inspected her face. What did I see? Fear? Confusion? There was a depth in her eyes, a depth that seemed to just keep going. I looked for the bottom and didn't find it.

  She murmured, "I need you so much."

  "Has something happened? Tell me."

  "I'm one shot out of the lead. And I'm scared."

  I waited, holding her head against my heart, stroking her hair. Needless to say, I was scared, too, but wasn't about to reveal it.

  "Genie, dear—"

  "He wants to destroy me."

  I held her tighter and tried to get her to talk more, but she wouldn't. So I played my mandolin and eased all three of us to sleep until we had to face a new day.

  Chapter 24

  I felt I was occupying some kind of netherworld, a separate reality of my own making. Genie and I, awake at dawn, didn't talk much at breakfast. I told her I'd spent some quality time with Truby. She knew I was lying, I think, but didn't care. The tournament was her focus, and it was going to stay that way.

  So there was this huge unspoken thing in the air between us, and I felt both of us fighting the tension it created. Finally, after I cleared the table—she'd hardly eaten—I took her into my arms and said, "You know, I'm trying to help you."

  She nodded into my breasts, but she didn't appear comforted. A miserable groan rattled up from her throat. After a minute she whispered, "I want you with me today."

  "You'll have me. It's just that right now..."

  She looked up. "Right now what?"

  "Well, I'm going out for just a while."

  "No." Her eyes hardened.

  "You're not teeing off until, what, ten o'clock?"

  "That's right, and you're not going anywhere until we leave. We're holing up here until the car comes, and you're riding in with me."

  "But Genie—"

  "No!" The tiny shards of emerald in her eyes caught me and held me in a rush of fury. "You don't understand!" she cried. "None of it is important! Nothing counts! Nothing counts except—"

  "Except that trophy."

  "Yes. Yes. Yes! I will not be forgotten! Genie Maychild will not be forgotten! No one but me knows that my career is just beginning. Lillian, I've found a way to focus that I never had before. I'm going to win this one, you know? And the next and the next. I think you do know it. I know it."

  "Tell me about your focus."

  "Not yet." She riffled her hand through her perfect sun-kissed hair.

  "Well, I don't doubt you in the slightest."

  "You don't doubt me?"

  "No," I assured her.

  "You believe in me all the way?"

  "Yes. Yes, I certainly do, my darling, my most darlingest. I've never known anyone even remotely like you. I've never known anyone as strong as you. As intense as you. I'm trying not to totally give in to your spell—have you felt it?"

  "Yes. Oh, Lillian, give in! Surrender to me. Surrender your whole self to me. You won't be sorry. You said you believe in me?"

  "Yes. Oh, God, let me kiss you."

  "You'll stay—mmph—with me now? Mmph. Mwa."

  "Mmp. Yes. All right."

  "Nothing can touch me now."

  Smooching sounds filled the kitchen, and Todd hopped around to where he could get a good look at what was going on. It wasn't that he was a voyeur, just curious.

  I watched Genie come out of her upset. I watched her smile, her lips with their little downturned corners so easy and her body so alive, so alert.

  I'd thought I'd be able to temporarily neutralize the threat of Dengel, perhaps by getting to Coco Nash and asking her to keep her security people, or whatever they were, on Genie for the duration, buying me some time until the tournament was over. Now, I'd just have to shadow her all around the course and hope for the best.

  Dengel, I figured, would approach her at some point, either at the course in public, or at the house for a little private pow-wow. He needed not just an opportunity to frighten her; he needed an opportunity to coerce her. He needed time, and if he was serious about wanting her to agree to get injected with his sperm, he'd have to make nice with her. In whatever horrible way.

  I kept expecting Coach Handy to call or show up, but she didn't. Genie and I cuddled on the couch with Todd until the courtesy car pulled up out front.

  The driver was a hardy lass named Stacy, who looked as though she might teach a little gym herself. She wore a bright red golf cap and a hulking brace on one knee.

  "Very glad to help out," she said briskly, when Genie thanked her. "You're my last pickup. I'm looking forward to watching you play today. I've got my vantage points all picked out."

  I asked, "Even on that bad leg? What happened?"

  "Oh, it's way better, I can walk okay. I slid into se
cond and tore my ACL."

  "Oh, no," Genie said, "my nightmare."

  "As soon as you're through," said Stacy, "I'll be ready to take you back."

  .

  Peaches was on the spot with Genie's bag when she came out of the locker room looking like a million bucks. I'd never known anyone who could wear clothes like Genie did. She'd chosen a silky, featherweight shirt in a clear fawn shade, and a pair of gorgeous pale-blue shorts. Her hair caught the sun like gold, and she'd put on some pink lip gloss. Everything looked just right, down to her broken-in but polished saddle shoes.

  Peaches Oshinsky didn't appear too shabby himself. He was the kind of guy who could look good in a greasy undershirt, but he had on a neat polo shirt and shorts beneath his spanking white official caddie jumpsuit. His eyes were bright, and his teeth shone out from his beautiful flawless face.

  "I bet your wife's missing you," I said.

  He just smiled as he fastened the front of his suit.

  I looked down at my own frayed golf shirt, rumpled shorts, and black sneakers, and decided I ought to get at least a minimum-wage job.

  I trailed along to the practice range and stood quietly, watching not Genie and Peaches, but the other people nearby, like Secret Service guys do. Dewey O'Connor wasn't around. Genie said she'd sent him home; he'd helped her enough, she felt.

  Truby found us and stood behind the ropes. I went over to her. She began, "Thank God you didn't get yourself—"

  "Truby, I need your help today. I need you to hang around Genie's group with me. I'm looking for a guy in the crowd, and if I see him, I want you to help me watch him. I'll give you a sign if I see him."

  She gave me a long hard look. "All right. Lillian, why are you talking to me instead of a cop?"

  "It's not that serious."

  "Oh. Really." She folded her arms. "You went to Chicago?"

  "Yeah." I tried to make it sound casual. "Don't worry."

  "And?"

  "I gotta go. Oh. Have you—?"