“Who?”
“A man, about as old as you, only he had a shaved head and a lot of swastika tattoos on his arms. He wanted the code to open the vault. When I wouldn’t give it, he shot two of my assistants.”
Tears dribble down her cheeks. I wipe them away for her. “You don’t have to tell me the rest if you don’t want to.”
“I can do it,” she says. “I gave him the password. I opened the vault. He took everything: the crate of serum, the notes, everything.”
“Then he shot the rest of your staff, didn’t he?”
“Yes. I thought he would shoot me too, but he didn’t. He opened the case of serum. He took one syringe out. ‘Have a taste of your own medicine, Doc,’ he said. Then he jabbed it into my neck.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes. I blacked out.” She cries silently for a minute before she asks, “Do you have a mirror?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Isn’t there anything shiny? I want to know what he did to me.”
About the only shiny thing I can see is the bedpan. I hand that to her. She stares at her reflection in it. Then she holds up one hand and stares at it for a moment. She touches her cheek, moves the hand up to stroke her hair, and pushes it forward.
“Oh no,” she says.
“It’ll be all right, Clarita. Dr. Nath can find a way to change you back.”
“How did she get the formula?”
“She had a copy of the original. Her aunt left it to her.”
I feel bad about lying to a little girl, even if she is a middle-aged woman inside. She’s probably too tired at the moment to see through the lie. She rolls over in bed and faces away from me.
“Come on, Clarita, think of what you said when I woke up as a little girl. You tried to give me hope, didn’t you?”
“Lot of good it did.”
“Let’s try to stay positive,” I say. “Maybe we won’t need her to do anything. Maybe you’ll change back on your own.”
“Into a blond white girl,” she grumbles. “How am I going to explain that?”
“Most people won’t care. They’ll be glad to have you back.”
“I guess.”
“I’d better call your doctor. And Jake. I’m sure he’ll have some questions for you.”
“I don’t wanna see him. I don’t wanna see anyone. I wanna go home.”
“Clarita, you can’t go home. You’re not well.”
She rolls over to face me. “I don’t want a bunch of people poking and prodding me. Can’t you take me home? Pwease?”
“You’re not fooling me with that lisp,” I say. “Jake would kill me if I took you out of here without saying anything.”
“At least take me to a different hospital. I know so many people here. I don’t want them to see me like this. I don’t want them pinching my cheeks and saying how cute I am.” She gives a little sob for emphasis. “You know how it is, Steve. Help me.”
I think about it for a minute. I know it’s wrong, but she’s right: I do know how it is. That’s the reason I ran away from Mac and tried to hide from Maddy. I can’t blame Dr. Palmer—Clarita—if she wants to do the same. “All right,” I say. “We’ll find a way to get you out of here.”
***
The first part of my clever scheme is to fetch Clarita’s blouse from the closet. It comes all the way down to her knees now. That should be good enough to cover her up. Then I open the door and poke my head out. “Hey buddy,” I say. “Can you get someone? The kid is making a real mess in here.” I have Clarita make some retching sounds. She’s convincing enough that the cop makes a disgusted face.
“Yeah, I’ll go get someone,” he says.
Clarita isn’t strong enough to get out of bed on her own, so I carry her. There’s a gurney outside the room I can set her on. I drape a cover over her entire body. I push the gurney down the hallway as fast as I can without drawing any attention.
“You all right?” I ask her.
“I’m fine,” she whispers.
I have to stop at the bathroom where I left my clothes. Not so much for the clothes—though I’m sure Jake would like those back—but for the money in the clothes. We’ll need that to get a cab out of here.
There’s an announcement over the loudspeakers, a code something or other. I assume that’s for us. I push the gurney into an elevator. There are a couple of doctors and nurses in there. They don’t pay any attention to us.
We make it out of the hospital and into a cab without any trouble. Clarita continues to sleep on the cab ride back to her apartment. I watch her and try to see if she’s growing. If she is, it’s too subtle for me to notice. Again I question the wisdom of taking her out of the hospital. Jake will be pissed at me. He could bring me up on charges. It won’t matter that she begged me to do it, especially now that she’s a minor and I’m an adult. But Jake doesn’t understand what it’s like to wake up as a child while still an adult inside. Only Maddy and I know what that feels like. Nothing can make the pain vanish, but some familiar surroundings might ease the discomfort a little. At least she won’t have so many people gaping at her.
I carry her from the cab. She’s still asleep even as I approach her door. I fumble around in my pocket for the keys I took from the closet. Once I get the door unlocked, I push the door open. Clarita stirs in my arms. “Are we here?”
“We’re here,” I say. “You got to go potty?”
“No.”
“Hungry?”
“No.”
“Are you thirsty?”
“A little.”
“I’ll put you to bed and then bring you some water.”
“OK.”
The bed is much too big for her now, but she doesn’t notice. As soon as I set her down, she burrows into the pillows until she lets out a contented sigh. I leave her there to fetch a glass of water, which I set on the nightstand. She looks so angelic as she sleeps.
I kiss her forehead before I slip out of the room.
***
A few hours later I listen to her CDs again while I wait for her to wake up. It might not be a while. That kind of change takes a lot out of you. It’ll only get worse once she starts to go through her second teething process. I’ve endured that twice now and it’s not any fun. Then if she gets to eleven or twelve there’s that second first period to look forward to. I know how bad those can be too. So for now I let her sleep.
I just about fall off the couch when I hear someone knock. I look around for a weapon, but the cops took the Taser out of Clarita’s purse. Maybe I could find a knife in the kitchen, but I wait. It’s probably a neighbor who wants to borrow sugar or some shit like that.
There’s a harder knock on the door. Then I hear Jake’s voice shout, “I know you’re in there, you son of a bitch! Open the fucking door!”
I scramble off the couch and rush for the door as fast as I can before he can wake Clarita up. I take the locks off and then throw the door open. Before Jake can say anything, I shove him hard enough that he stumbles backwards into the opposite wall. I shut Clarita’s door quietly. I turn to find Jake ready to tackle me like a linebacker.
He’s been drinking recently; his reflexes are slowed. I sidestep him and then wrestle him down to the floor. As Stacey I wouldn’t have a chance in Hell to keep him down, but Steve’s body is big and heavy enough to pin him. “Settle down,” I tell him. I put him in a headlock.
“Where is she?” Jake asks from my armpit.
“In her room. Sleeping.”
“You realize what you’ve done? I could arrest you.”
“You’re not arresting anyone.”
“As soon as you let me go, I’m putting the cuffs on you.”
“You’re not going to do that.”
“Why not?”
“If you were going to do that you would have done it years ago.”
I finally let him go and drop him to the floor. I let him catch his breath and stretch his muscles after our one-sided fight. He could pu
ll his gun now, but I know he won’t. Jake is my partner—or was. We’ve been through too much for it to end like that.
“The captain is going to have my ass if he finds out.”
“He’s going to have your ass if he gets a whiff of you,” I say.
“You’re a fine one to talk about that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not letting you take Clarita anywhere.”
“So it’s Clarita now? You two getting cozy?”
“She’s a child. Six or seven at most.”
“Then you should have left her at the hospital.”
“What are they going to do for her there? No one can do anything, except maybe Dr. Nath.”
“What are you going to do here then?”
“Try to make her comfortable. That’s about all you can do.” I fix Jake with a stare. “Trust me.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” He gets to his feet; I follow him up to make sure he can’t go inside. “What am I supposed to tell the captain about this?”
“Get Nath to call him. Say they took Clarita for tests.”
“That’ll go over well.”
“Better than saying a dead man kidnapped her.”
“Christ,” Jake spits. “I don’t know how I get wrapped up in this shit.”
“Just lucky.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Stay here and look after her.”
“Great.”
“If you and Tess want to be really helpful, she could use some things: food, clothes, toys, stuff like that. Then I can stay here with her. I don’t think she should be alone more than she has to be right now.”
“She had plenty of company at the hospital.”
“Yeah, surrounded by strangers.” At this point I wish I could ask Jake for a cigarette, but I don’t want to smell like smoke when I get back to Clarita. “I’m the only one besides Maddy who knows what this feels like.”
“And Vollmer.”
“Yeah, maybe him—her—too.” I sigh and then ask, “Any leads yet?”
“Not a fucking thing.”
“You want any help?”
“We can handle it. You babysit the kid.”
“Sure.”
Jake glares at me. “I know what that means. It means you’re going to butt your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“Probably. That’s what Steve does, isn’t it?”
“Stacey had a nasty habit of doing that too.” Jake stares at me for a few moments longer and then sighs. “Try not to kill anyone, all right?”
“Except Vollmer.”
“Steve—”
“If I get the chance that fucker is going down hard. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.” When I was Stacey we might hug or something, but he just pats me on the shoulder as he leaves. “I’ll be back later. Don’t get in too much trouble.”
“You know me.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter 27
Jake shows up about twelve hours later with a bunch of mine and Maddy’s old clothes from when we were little girls, along with our toys, which includes my stuffed monkey. Clarita is still asleep when Jake stops by. She hardly stirs when I slip Pinky into her arms, but like a child she immediately latches on to crush the monkey in a hug.
“She’s so fucking cute,” Jake whispers.
“Don’t let her hear that,” I say. “That’s the last thing she needs to hear right now.”
I help him get some bags of groceries from the station wagon downstairs. He got a variety of foods: cereal, microwave dinners, canned pasta, and even some cookies. “Try not to eat it all yourself,” he says and slaps my belly.
“She might not be in the mood to eat in a little while,” I say as I think of the inevitable second teething process.
That starts a day later. At first it’s benign; her front teeth get loose and then start to fall out while she reads a Nancy Drew book Jake brought along with the other stuff. I keep the teeth in a bowl in the kitchen. Maybe Dr. Nath will want to study them later. Or Clarita can keep them as a souvenir, hopefully after she’s become an adult again.
I’m asleep on the couch when I hear her moan. At times like this I’m glad I don’t need to scramble to find glasses. When I get into the room, Clarita has Pinky in a death grip and blood dribbles down her chin. I see two more little white teeth on the sheet.
“I hate thith,” she mutters. “It’th not fair.”
“I know,” I say. All I can do is collect the teeth, wipe her chin, and then pat her hand. “It’ll be over in a day or so. And just think, then you’ll be older, on your way to being an adult.”
“Yeah, right.” She starts to cry. Five years ago, Steve would have no idea what to do, but after all that time as a woman, I’ve learned something about empathy. I put my arm around her and let her lean against me. “I won’t be an adult again. Jutht a thtupid kid.”
“You’re not stupid.”
“I let him do thith. I let him kill thothe people.”
“You didn’t have a choice.”
“I’m not a hero like you. I’m a coward.”
“I’m not a hero either. I’m just a stubborn old bully.”
“Are not.” She gives me a holey, bloody smile. “You jutht want people to think that.”
I stay in her room that night and sleep on a chair. It’s hell for my middle-aged back, but I know Clarita will need me. This will be about as bad as it gets, with a lot of pain and blood. I wish I could give her something to help her sleep, but I don’t want to mix anything else with FY-1978. A reaction to anything I give her—even baby aspirin—might do a lot worse than cause her to lose some teeth.
She closes her eyes, but I know she’s not really asleep. Every now and then she whimpers and spits out another tooth. I wipe at the vacated hole with some gauze to stem the bleeding a little. The only times I get up are to fetch more water and gauze.
You’d think to lose all those teeth is the hard part, but it gets worse as the permanent teeth start to come in. When a wave of pain comes on from her gums, Clarita starts to sob; she hugs Pinky until I’m sure the stuffing will come out. There’s nothing much I can say at those times, except for her to hang in there; everything will be over soon. When it is, she’ll be about eight years old, closer to being a young woman. That’s not of much comfort when she’s in so much agony.
I make tomato soup Jake left us to keep her strength up. It’s a lot easier for her to slurp down the broth than to eat anything solid right now. I feed her like a baby; I spoon the soup into her mouth while she cries silently.
“It’s going to be all right,” I tell her for the hundredth time. “You have to stay positive, remember? Think about getting bigger, about becoming an adult again.”
“What kind of adult? Mommy won’t even recognize me.”
“I didn’t know—”
“The thtill liveth in Ecuador,” Clarita says. “I thee her thometimeth. When I can. I won’t be able to anymore.”
“Your mom will know you even if you are blond and white.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Come on, remember all the stuff you told me? This isn’t the end of the world. Even if you don’t get much older right away, it doesn’t have to be a death sentence. You can start a new life. I can raise you if no one else will.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “You were thuch a great dad latht time. Abandoning Maddy.”
“Fine, maybe I won’t have to raise you. Tess would be glad to have you. You got any problems with her?”
“The’th nice.”
“She is. And she’s a really good mom. Or grandma. Or aunt. Whatever you’d want to go by.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s Jake you got to watch out for.”
We share a rare laugh about that before the next wave of pain kicks in.
***
Another day goes by before the worst is over. Clarita’s got a mouth full of permanent teeth now. If I had a monitor, I’d say she’
s about eight years old, still as cute as ever. With all the excitement over, she’s passed out in bed. I finally leave the room to give her some privacy.
There’s nothing else to do, so I warm up some Swedish meatballs and turn on Clarita’s laptop. I haven’t been able to keep up with what’s going on with Vollmer. Nothing good, I’m sure. Jake says he can handle it, but I know differently. I brought the bastard in last time and I’ll do it again this time, even if he is now a teenage girl. Except this time I won’t let her live. I’ll give her a taste of her own medicine and strangle the life out of her for all the pain she’s caused to innocent people, including Clarita. And Stacey Chance.
There have been five more homicides in the last four days. She’s slowing down. With the amped-up police presence, including the Feds, Vollmer must be choosing targets more carefully. No one except Clarita and I can identify Vollmer as a woman, but with so many eyes looking around, she doesn’t want to risk some dope seeing her by accident.
Since I can’t leave just yet, I decide to do something Steve Fischer never would have been able to do five years ago: I use Google to find information on the new Strangler killings.
As good as the Internet is at supplying porn and cat videos, it’s not so good with facts. There are Wikipedia articles written by God only knows who, bits of old research papers, and message boards littered with crackpot theories that range from Vollmer being a government agent to an angel of death sent by God to exact vengeance against the unrighteous. That’s not what I really need right now; I need the forensics, ballistics, witness testimonies, and so forth. In other words, the stuff the police have.
I could ask Jake for it, but I already know what he’ll say. Maybe there’s another way. I pick up my phone. It doesn’t come as a surprise to find Maddy’s blocked my number. I find Clarita’s phone and dial Maddy again. This time she picks up. “Dr. Palmer?”
“No,” I say. “Look, before you hang up—”
“You son of a bitch! She’s in the hospital and you stole her phone?”
“I’m borrowing it. Madison, she needs you.”
“Me? Why does she need me?”
“You’re her friend.”
“Can’t Tess talk to her?”
“Tess doesn’t know what this kind of change is like. You do.” I sigh into the receiver. “Madison, whatever you have against me, do this for Clarita. Please?”
Chances Are Omnibus (Gender Swap Fiction) Page 79