Seriously, Paula? Livingston? As in Stanley and Livingston? Am I just beating a dead glam-rock horse here?
Because I couldn’t imagine things being any worse. I just blurted it out. I was scared, man. “They … they … were … were going … to … hurt me.”
“Did they? You can trust us.” Haupt finally showing me his shield, introducing both himself and Engebretsen. “Is there something we can do?”
I was still unsure. One wrong move, and I was on the sidewalk, face down, cuffed. I didn’t want that. As soon as one of them noticed the holes in my pocket …
“Get me out of here. Give me a ride somewhere, please.”
Engebretsen, the nice one. “Can we talk on the way? Entirely up to you.”
Haupt kept his mouth shut and stared straight ahead. I walked back towards him, towards the open car door. Leaned in a little too close. Haupt pulled back. Strained.
“Okay,” I said, my breath aimed towards Haupt’s ear. “Let’s talk.”
I slipped into the backseat and we were gone while the ambulance sirens were still just a distant echo.
We parked near the Guthrie Theater on the River, crowded since a play had just ended and everyone was streaming out to their cars or Ubers or cabs or whatever goddamn vehicles they could find to buzz around the place and make me feel even more paranoid.
Haupt finally spoke, very formal. “We’re not interested in any small time stuff. If it’s dope, if it’s tricking, listen, we just need to know what they did back there.”
I looked at Haupt, then Engebretsen, and back to Haupt … then back to Engebretsen. “Should I answer him?”
A shrug. “Free country.”
Haupt said, “Just trust us. We have a good reason for wanting to help you.”
“You’re way out of the loop.”
Another shrug from Engebretsen. “Then put us in it. We can protect you. What’s your name?”
I took a gamble. “Hannah.”
And, yep, that struck a nerve.
Engebretsen sighed. “What a coincidence.”
Haupt spat, “Shit.”
“You don’t like my name?”
The man with the mustache looked at me via the rearview mirror. “Apparently, you’ve been missing for quite a while. We were beginning to think you weren’t real. Seems like a lot of people are looking for you.”
“Yeah,” Haupt said. “Like, star witness. We might need to take you into protective custody.”
I sat back, thought for a moment about how to turn this to my advantage. They didn’t know me. If they wanted to dig, it would be easy. But they were caught by surprise seeing me run out of that bar, and now they were trying to reel me in slowly, patiently. But time was running out. I’d already texted Joel that I needed a ‘rescue’ without either cop knowing. Just palmed the thing low on my thigh and gave Joel the make of car along with the address. Starting to regret it. I had forgotten about Joel’s marine problem. He must’ve read ‘rescue’ as ‘lethal force, if necessary’. And now these cops might have a lifeline to throw.
“What kind of protection? What if I still won’t talk?”
Haupt said, “That would be interference in an ongoing—”
“Buh, buh, buh,” Engebretsen raised his hand. He turned to face me, which was a struggle. “I think we can come to an understanding. Immunity, sure. Maybe, you know, Federal?”
Wow. They had no idea. If I could wrap up Joel and myself in a deal … if I could tell these cops what I knew, and they could find the missing links …
“You first. Why are you following Paula?”
They exchanged another one of those telepathic glances. Then Engebretsen sighed. “She’s a friend of yours. Someone thinks you’re missing. We asked her about you, and she acted funny. She wasn’t straight with us.”
Haupt couldn’t help but choke back a laugh. ‘Straight with us’ — get it?”
Okay, they got that much right. Time to make them get the rest right, too. “It’s a conspiracy.”
Haupt choked back another laugh, but this one came with an air of impatience. “Jesus help me. We don’t have time for this.”
“Well, think about it. Who’s looking for me? Someone with political ties?”
More cop telepathy.
“We can’t say.”
I shook my head. “Could you stretch that immunity to cover another person? Someone I trust?”
Now Haupt had turned in his seat, too. Both of them staring at me. Engebretsen was first to break the silence. “Go on then. Tell us your story.”
“No, not yet.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joel pull the car up to the corner opposite. Shit, shit, shit. I needed to text him to hold off. “Let’s talk a deal first. Let’s talk protection.”
“From what?”
I sighed. “Everyone. Look, I need something now or this whole thing … aw, goddamnit.”
My phone buzzing, buzzing. The cops were too busy guessing what I was about to tell them to notice, but time was running out fast. Seconds left. I wanted to wave the idiot away, but …
“Last chance,” I said.
“What? You think we’re letting you go?”
I seethed Fuck and lifted my phone to text Joel. Haupt tried to grab it. I pulled back. Joel’s headlights, brighter and brighter, closer and closer, until—
He hit hard enough to crumple the Charger’s hood. A shower of glass, the sound of steel twisting. I fell back into the seat, then onto the floorboard. Joel had slammed right into the front of the cop car.
I checked my teeth with my tongue to make sure they were all there. Next thing I know, there’s Joel whipping the back door open, shotgun in one hand, shouting, “Don’t move! Nobody move, goddamn it!”
I was waiting for the cops to kill both of us. I shouted back, “Enough! Enough! Nobody shoot! Stop it!”
Joel grabbed my arm and pulled, nearly pulling the thing out of its socket. I resisted at first, pleading with the cops: “He doesn’t know! He has no idea! Please!”
But they were dazed, hardly able to see through the white dust clouds floating over their exploded airbags. Haupt fumbled with the radio. Engebretsen fought the bag like he was wrestling. Right then, I’d have given the bag better odds than myself, I was so deflated. All I could think of doing was to keep pleading with the cops, who were already demanding back-up and all other sorts of fire-and-brimstone, as Joel dragged me out of the Charger and back to his brother’s car, all scrunched up but still operational. He told me to get in, while he ran around to the driver’s side, and by then, it wasn’t worth hanging around to ask these cops to, you know, go lightly on my friend.
I climbed in and had barely shut the door before Joel screeched out of there in reverse, J-turned, and shot down a street heading south onto the 35W. It was only after we’d merged into traffic that he said, “We’re fucked.”
“Of course we’re fucked! I had us a deal, man! Seconds away from a deal!”
“A deal? What deal? What?”
“They were fucking cops, you asshat! Good cops. They were our ticket out of the shit, but I’m pretty sure you just sunk us deeper.” I pounded my fist against the roof. “We are a minute or two from a serious manhunt. This car needs to get gone.”
“It’s my brother’s car!”
“You smashed it into a cop car! You could’ve killed them. You could’ve killed me.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t hit them that hard.”
I leaned forward, as low as I could, like I was bracing for a plane crash. “The deepest shit, man. Oh my god. Oh, Christ! So, so, so fucked.”
“What about Paula? Did you see Paula? Robin said you texted—”
“I’m not telling you shit until we dump this fucking car.”
He was quiet a moment. Then, “Opie’s gonna kill me.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. Sometimes, this idiot …
What we ended up with was a convenience store with a back alley. Thankfully, dark as shit because they’d ne
ver replaced a broken light. We would need to walk fast and call a cab when we were far enough away. The neighborhood didn’t look all that rough, but neither did it look harmless. Think working-class guys who like guns. And both of us were strapped, so, yeah. We could barely see the tops of the buildings downtown, looking and feeling far, far away right then.
I shook my head and smiled. Joel asked, “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Seriously.”
“Just, you know, you, pulling some of that Steven Segall shit. Some ex-soldier expertise, rescuing me.”
“Partners.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“And if I’ve got to go down for this, I’m taking you along, safe and sound, to federal prison.”
“Arm candy?”
“Housekeeping.”
We fell silent, walking along the narrow shoulder of the boulevard once we ran out of sidewalk. There wasn’t much to joke about, but that didn’t stop us. Even helped a little, if you asked me. We never stood a chance. What the hell did we think we were doing? And what the hell was happening? What had we gotten into? I still had no idea.
I said, “We’re not really partners anymore. Technically, I mean.”
Joel nodded. “I know.”
“It was the Chief, by the way.”
“What?”
“Killed Hannah. Had an affair with her.”
“Bosack. That explains a lot.”
“No, you idiot. Not Bosack. Neudecker.”
Quiet. Then, “Whoa.”
“Yeah.”
“That … wow.”
I nodded. “I know.”
Another block. Another silence. No one out of doors. There was a cold fog. I crossed my arms, hugged myself. My legs, man. How would I ever get used to skirts?
How many transwomen had asked the same question? How cliché was I? How selfish?
Then Joel brought my meandering thoughts to an abrupt halt. “I wasn’t raised around gays or transvestites. You know that, right?”
“Me neither.”
“Yeah, but, still … what I mean is I’ve always thought as long as the gays keep it to themselves, and I keep to myself, there’s no problem. But get in my face, I get to, like, defend myself.”
“Jesus.”
“Wait, though. I never did. Maybe once. And then, in Iraq, there were a few guys … don’t ask, don’t tell, right? And I don’t even remember how we found out, but they carried their weapons and held their heads high, and they would’ve killed for me, and I would’ve killed for them.”
“Okay.” I didn’t need him bleeding all over me like this. Not now.
“But still, you, I mean, there’s no way for you to hide this. There’s no way people like you—”
“Hey, hold up—”
“I know, I don’t mean anything. Listen. People like you, if you are like that, you can’t keep it out of my face. You shouldn’t have to. I just don’t like it.”
“Why not?”
“Makes me nervous. Like I’ll say something wrong. Like I just did. Like I’ll never get to be left alone again. Gay marriage? Smile and deal with it. Crossdressing?”
“Transitioning.”
“That too. Just have to grin and bear it. Stuff I want to say about men’s thoughts, real man things, are they going to be made fun of now? Is the tolerance going to go both ways?”
Deep shit. I said, “I don’t know,” because I really didn’t know. “Best I can say is that we’ll figure it out together and learn to make it work, even if some people get bent out of shape.”
“Come on. There’s got to be something straight down the middle.”
“There is. There always is. People in the middle just aren’t as loud as your average Fox News hate-peddler, and they don’t tend to broadcast intolerance of minorities with quite as much evangelical zeal.”
“Well, okay. I can see that. It never feels like it’s only one thing, though. It’s gay marriage today, but then it’s like, now you have to accept vegans and no guns and electric cars. It’s a checklist, always more, more, more.”
“Where the fuck did you get this victim complex? Doomsday preppers? Your dad? The Donald?”
“Just the way it feels.”
I tried to imagine what it was like up there in his skull. How much of it was hate on principal, and how much was white-knuckle fear over losing one’s place in the world? The guy had been a solider. His whole job had been to protect people he didn’t understand from other people he understood even less, except that they wanted to kill him over shit Joel didn’t give two shits about.
“You’re pissed all the time, aren’t you? Oh, Joel! Just tell me the truth. Please, be honest … you’ve got a terminal disease, don’t you? Shit, man, I’m so sorry. I should’ve known. I mean, the signs were all there … short fuse, bad temper … you’re … you’re allergic to happiness, right?”
That made him smile. An actual laugh. “Shut up.”
We found a busy intersection with a falling-apart bar named Doug’s Depot on one corner, a Burger King on the opposite corner, a store that, really, I couldn’t tell what it sold from the sign, and then, how about it, another bar across the street — the only sign lit up saying ‘Off/On Sale Liquor’ — that made the first one seem like a better idea. A few smokers hanging around outside Doug’s, wondering what sort of trouble we were up to, or what sort of trouble they could get away with causing us. A white boy with a Tennessee accent rapping over a steel guitar spilled out of the doors, the dreaded ‘bro-country’ I’d been lucky to avoid thus far. I called for a cab, girling-up my voice a bit, that ‘please rescue me’ sort of thing. Turned off the phone. Wondered if it was being traced. Wondered if we were at that level of criminal yet. Wondered why I hadn’t thought of it earlier.
One of the smokers blew a smoke ring in the frosty air. He was a trucker-cap-wearing fake, sure, but still had some menace and decent biceps. Looked me over and said, “You’re a dude.”
I shook my head. Ignored him by pretending to talk to Joel, but the guy kept on. Not drunk, either. He had a couple of friends there, watching. “You’re a dude. You’re like Caitlyn. You’re in drag, man. What’s it like?”
I shook my head again. “Sorry.”
“Is it easier? Are you, like, all-the-way? Or pre-op? What’s it like? I’m not being rude. I’m just curious.”
The guy tried to get between me and Joel, and his friends were coming closer, behind me. All smoking. A cloud of three different odors swirling under the streetlight, and Joel distracted. He watched this jackass operate, but he’d stepped back, like he didn’t want to get involved. The hipsters were happy to leave him out.
“I mean, do you feel like a man? Or a woman? Or a lesbian? What’s the thrill?”
His friends: “C’mon, man, leave him alone.”
The asshole turned to Joel, pointing at him. Stabbing at him with the two fingers holding the cig. “Are you two a thing? You know that’s a dude, right, and you’re okay with that? Are you fucking him?”
Joel’s cheeks were red, from the question or from the cold, I had no idea. He turned his head, first up the block, then down the block. The cab, the cab, where was the cab?
The asshole tilted his head like a dog, right up in Joel’s face. “I dig it. It’s not my thing, no, not mine, but if it’s yours, hey. I just want to know what it’s like.”
Joel said, “Back away.”
“No, no, it’s not a bad thing. I’m curious. I really want to know—”
Joel spun, slow and lazy, and connected with a punch that sounded like he’d hit a wall covered in wet paint. The asshole crumbled, still going, “No, no!” His friends bristled, one of them grabbing my arm while the other shouted, “Hey!”, before stomping over for his turn. He tackled Joel around the waist, both going down. The whole time, Joel karate-chopped on the guy’s neck and shoulders, until they hit the iced-up sidewalk and skid a few feet away. Joel got a knee up and started wrenching the stupid fuck away, when the hipster s
taggered over and kicked Joel in the side of the head.
“Faggot!” Yelling now. One per kick. “Faggot! Faggot!”
Joel shielded his head with his arms, still working his knee on the second guy, who was trying to get a clear shot at Joel’s balls.
The third one dragged me closer, probably wanting a better look. Wanting to jump in. He had me tight. His arm was rope, stained with tattoos, holding me like a vise. But that was easy enough to break. Got him by the wrist, wrenched it off and flipped it. All cops know if you bend back a person’s wrist, you can make them do anything you want. And now there was a crowd out here, the bar emptying out, some people looking shocked at the guy lying twisted at my feet, crying like a little baby in pain. A woman got between us and tried to pry my fingers off the dick’s arm. I backed off, some guy asking me if I was okay, slurring it. The woman crouched next to the dick, calling him “Honey, honey, honey.” She looked up at me as if I had hurt her favorite puppy. Maybe that was true somehow.
The dick’s face turned purple. He shouted, “She’s a dude, asshole! Dude looks like a lady!”
The woman raised her eyebrows at me. “Oh, one of those.”
It took four guys to get these idiots off Joel, who was bleeding from his ear, the skin around his eye swelling, darkening. Some people were already on phones to the cops, some filming the fight, some asking if I wanted to call in a hate crime. The assholes sassing back that I was the aggressor, making a pass at the hipster. Shaking their heads. “That ain’t right.”
I rubbed my arm and pushed through the crowd. The sidewalk outside the bar across the street was full, too. Great. Joel used a fire hydrant to steady himself, then tried to stand unaided again. I got to him and said, “You okay?”
Beat the fuck up as he was, he made his voice buzz low like Lee Marvin, almost like a magic trick, saying, “Good. Gotta go.”
He chinned a block up, where the taxi was turning onto the road. Drunks told us the cops were on the way, and we had to stay, but we ignored them. I held up my left arm and waved at the cab, hooked my other arm around Joel’s and helped him stand. The drunks insisting — no, demanding — that we stay and turn these fuckers in. The asshole was raging, blood dripping from his nose, and through all of it, he was held up between two much stronger guys: “Faggot wanted to suck my cock! I was just being friendly! Faggot wanted to suck me off!”
Castle Danger--Woman on Ice Page 23