Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante

by Monica Nolan

  Maxie’s first instinct was to dismiss Janet’s worries, but with all she’d learned lately it seemed plausible that her mother might be wreaking havoc with the trust portfolio for some nefarious purpose. On the other hand, she needed that allowance just now.

  “Can you try to find out a little more, on the q.t.?” she suggested. “You know, not serving subpoenas or calling for points of order, or whatever it is you usually do?”

  “I’ll try,” Janet promised dubiously.

  Lois was hanging up the phone as Janet and Maxie descended the last flight of stairs. “Any luck?” asked Maxie.

  “I put in a person-to-person call,” said Lois forlornly. “The operator will ring me as soon as she reaches Netta.” She put her hand on Maxie’s arm. “I saw Pamela leave in a terrible huff—have you two quarreled again?”

  “We’re kaput. Over. Finished. Beyond resuscitation. Now stop,” she said as Lois’s brown eyes filled with tears. “Don’t shed any tears over that romance, Lo. It was never true love, and lately, even the chemistry’s started to fizzle.”

  “You’re wrong, Maxie, you and Pamela are so right for each other!” Lois started to sob. She was the only one left who still believed that the off switch on Pamela and Maxie’s romance might be flipped back to on. “The chemistry is still there!

  “Maybe,” Maxie conceded. “But there are lots more elements on the periodic table, and it’s time for me to try some new combinations!”

  Chapter 26

  An Old Friend

  Maxie entered the Knock Knock eagerly, looking for Lon. The bar was busy, in spite of it being a Monday, but she didn’t see the blond butch. The bartender gave Maxie a nod of recognition, and Maxie slid on a barstool and ordered a beer. “Lon been by?” She made the inquiry casual.

  As the bartender shook her head, one of the barflies said, “Lon’s pretty popular. Every cutie-pie who walks in wants to know where she is.” The woman leered at Maxie. “I’m right here, sweetheart—how about giving me a chance?”

  “No, thank you,” said Maxie politely but firmly.

  “Go ahead, give her a tumble.” Maxie turned at the new voice. It belonged to a striking-looking girl, staring into a tumbler of whiskey, at a table by herself. She was buxom and tall, her height increased by her beehive. “It’s no use waiting for Lon,” she said, still addressing her drink, “college girl!” On the last two words she looked up sharply, her black eyes glinting with spite as she stared at Maxie.

  “I’ve never been to college,” Maxie said. A little thrill went through her. Had Lon spoken of her to this strange girl? It was nice to think she’d been on Lon’s mind. She swiveled around to fully face her jealous rival. “And I don’t need to wait for Lon. I know where she lives.”

  The girl jumped to her feet, and her chair tumbled over behind her. “That’s a lie,” she spat. “Nobody knows where Lon lives!”

  The barfly put a restraining hand on Maxie’s arm. “You don’t want to tangle with Tanya,” she whispered. “Not when she’s this tight!”

  Maxie felt a little excited at the prospect of one of the Knock Knock’s famous barroom brawls. “I think I can take her.” She stared steadily at the black-haired vixen. “I’ve already wiped the floor once today with someone who crossed me.”

  Without warning, Tanya leaped at her, red-painted fingernails ready to claw Maxie’s face. But Maxie slid off the stool and flung it in front of her. Tanya’s torso met the obstacle and she folded over it, gasping “Ooof!” With a curse, she recovered and kicked it aside.

  The two girls circled each other, as an audience gathered. “See, this is why the Knock Knock doesn’t need a TV,” Maxie heard one customer tell another.

  Tanya lunged again and Maxie sidestepped. Then the ex-deb feinted right. As Tanya dodged, Maxie landed her left, a blow that caught the tousled temptress in the ribs. Tanya gasped again, and before she could recover, Maxie coiled her hand in Tanya’s towering beehive and twirled her rapidly. At the last minute, Maxie let go, and momentum carried Tanya into a collision with the bar. Tanya staggered and fell, clutching her upper arm.

  “You brute!” The leering barfly who had offered Maxie a drink glared at her before helping Tanya up tenderly. “Pick on someone your own size!”

  The bartender clapped her hands. “Okay, ladies, show’s over!”

  Tanya’s new friend supported her out of the bar, and the crowd dispersed. All except a plump woman in a crisp new pair of ill-fitting dungarees.

  “Maxie Mainwaring, as I live and breathe!” she exclaimed with unfeigned pleasure. “Tell me—confidentially and off the record—where did you learn to handle yourself in a fight?”

  “Mamie!” Maxie hugged her old mentor. “It’s good to see you! But what are you doing here?”

  “Ever since you abandoned me, I’ve had to do my own legwork.” In unspoken agreement Maxie and her old boss sat down at the table Tanya had vacated. Mamie sighed in relief. “And I’m not as fit as you. Truthfully, Maxie, I never dreamed you had such a wicked left!” She reached out and felt Maxie’s upper arm. “What muscle!”

  “I learned a few things from playground scraps,” Maxie said modestly, thinking of her disadvantaged youths. She noticed the gleam in Mamie’s eye and warned her, “Now, Mamie, I don’t want to see any items in tomorrow’s column on two-fisted debutantes.”

  “Maxie, really.” Mamie tried to look hurt.

  “I’m serious, Mamie—I’ll sue. I can produce half-a-dozen witnesses who will be happy to say I spent this evening at the Magdalena Arms, playing Ping-Pong.”

  Mamie couldn’t help herself, Maxie knew. Let fall a piece of gossip, and she would snatch it up the way a dog does a scrap of meat. You couldn’t blame the animal for following its instincts, but you didn’t leave it alone in the kitchen.

  Mamie’s face fell. “Maxie, give me something,” the columnist begged. “I’ve been on my feet all evening and I’ve got bubkes for tomorrow.”

  “Well . . .” An idea dawned in Maxie’s head. “I do have something hot. But it’ll cost you.”

  “Feed me a taste.”

  “We’re talking about Larry Lathrop.”

  Mamie brightened. “Is he in town? Larry’s always good for gossip. What is it—pregnant bobby-soxer? Did he bean someone with a bottle again? Even just an engagement—”

  Maxie rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, and Mamie took the hint and put a ten-dollar bill on the table.

  “It’s not something he did, it’s what happened to him,” she explained as she picked up the money. “That famous profile of his is in the past. Larry poked his nose into the wrong place and it got busted.” She held up the ten. “Another one of these gets you the details.”

  A delighted smile spread over Mamie’s face. “When, where, and who?” she asked, getting out her wallet.

  Maxie filled her in, leaving the offices of Polish unnamed, and describing herself as “an ordinary office worker who was horrified by Larry’s uninvited advances.”

  “You always did get the good stuff,” said Mamie scribbling rapidly. “How about coming back to work for me? At a raise in salary, of course!”

  Maxie was tempted, but she temporized, “Let’s keep this strictly on a per-item basis, huh? At least for now. I’ve got some other things cooking.”

  “Fair enough.” Mamie put her notebook away. “I’ll always pay top dollar for any juicy tip you have. And here’s a tip from me to you, for free: If you can get a picture of Larry with his bandaged nose, Idol Gossip will pay you more than you’d make from me in a month.”

  “Thanks, Mamie!” Maxie knew it hadn’t been a mistake making up with the savvy journalist. She remembered to ask her old boss about possible publishers for Stella.

  “Try Mount Olympus Editions; tell George I sent you. Do the characters suffer enough? George is a stickler for suffering. He thinks it’ll keep the censors off his back. I had to bury a couple of my girls in an avalanche at the end of Boarding School Hussies.”

  M
axie wondered how Stella would feel about putting the girls at Homophile Handbooks through similar trials. As far as Maxie could remember, aside from some jealousy and heartache, Sally and her friends had emerged at the end of the book pretty unscathed.

  “I’m off.” Mamie heaved herself to her feet. “A few more stops on Pingst Street, and then home to beddy-bye.”

  “You never did tell me what brought you to the Knock Knock,” Maxie remembered.

  “The mob shakeup. There’s a rumor circulating I wanted to check.”

  “I thought your editor put the kibosh on crime stories.”

  “But scandal always sells,” Mamie reminded her. “Rumor has it that the underworld’s newest kingpin is a queenpin—and nothing’s more scandalous than a girl with a gun!”

  Maxie pondered this last tidbit after Mamie left. Lon must be mixed up in the new gang. But why had she come to Francine’s to warn the ex-deb the other night, if her employers were trying to force Francine Flicka to fork over protection money?

  Does she have a soft spot for me?

  There was a little stir in the air, like a ripple in a still pond when a fish sucks a waterbug under. The hairs on the back of Maxie’s neck lifted, and she turned, knowing exactly what she’d see: Lon, standing at the bar, and surveying the place as if she owned it. Lon looked over as Maxie looked up, and their gazes met and locked. The force of Maxie’s desire bludgeoned her like a police baton. Lon moved toward her, sauntering in what seemed to the bewitched ex-deb to be slow motion. She slid into the seat across from Maxie.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Lon said.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” breathed Maxie.

  Lon looked at her some more. “Now we’ve found each other, what do we do?” Her blue gaze was like the neon in Francine’s sign, promising fun, troubles forgotten, new friends. It was hard for Maxie to breathe.

  “Find someplace private,” she said boldly.

  Chapter 27

  Lon

  Lon unlocked the door and opened it. Reaching in, she switched on the light, then stood aside, waving Maxie in first with a mocking half bow. Maxie looked around the small room, lit by the bare bulb. Was this how mobsters lived? In anonymous rooms with stained ceilings? There was a sink in the corner, a bed, and a bureau. Instead of a closet there was an old armoire.

  Lon hadn’t wanted to come here. When Maxie suggested they go to Lon’s place, she told the ex-deb point blank that she didn’t like people to know where she lived. She liked it less when Maxie told her she already knew, and proved it.

  “Did you just move in?” asked Maxie. There was nothing that marked the room as Lon’s except a couple of books on the floor and a single postcard stuck in the frame of the bureau mirror.

  “I travel light,” said Lon. She shut the door behind them and moved toward Maxie purposefully, switching off the dim bulb. “You’ve seen enough.”

  Instinctively Maxie backed up until her heel hit the baseboard. With the lights off, the room was alive with green and violet shadows from the Seneca’s neon sign. Lon’s eyes were pools of darkness, and a chartreuse streak on her cheek gave her the allure of a portrait by Matisse. Was the mob girl going to murder her, or make out? Madcap Maxie found the uncertainty exciting.

  She slipped sideways, eluding Lon’s grasp. The two circled each other like gladiators, looking for a weak spot in each other’s defenses. As Maxie edged along the armoire, Lon pounced and pushed her up against the wall between the old wardrobe and the bureau. “There isn’t anywhere to run,” she said, before pulling the aroused girl against her. Her lips located Maxie’s most vulnerable spots, and Maxie found herself trapped and tormented by Lon’s talented tongue. When the thrill-seeking ex-deb could bear it no longer, she wrenched down the hand that Lon had pinned against the wall, and used it to twist Lon’s arm behind the startled girl. She whirled her around until Lon was wedged against the bureau. Now the tables were turned, and Maxie took her time, making the other girl writhe and squirm with helpless pleasure.

  The tiny room became a battlefield, each girl aiming for ascendancy in this sensual contest.

  “How do you know where I live?” Lon whispered, between punishing kisses.

  “How did you know I was out of town?” countered Maxie, squeezing Lon’s muscular buttocks until the other girl groaned in reluctant delight.

  Their clothes were early casualties. Maxie lost her scarlet pants somewhere between the bureau and the bed. Her ruffled blouse disappeared as they tumbled onto the narrow matress. The two girls grappled in growing excitement, their naked bodies slick with the sweat of ecstatic exertion.

  “These sheets—did they come with the room?” Maxie gasped. The fine linen she felt with her fingertips didn’t belong in the seedy hotel any more than Lon did.

  “I live in a dump, but I live like a king,” Lon boasted, trapping Maxie between her legs. Maxie felt the full length of Lon pressed against her, a surfeit of sensation that made her head swim.

  The battle was over—or was it just beginning? Every inch of Maxie’s skin was tingling with a pleasure so intense she couldn’t take it. Then Lon’s seeking hand reached between the unemployed girl’s legs, and Maxie bit her lip so hard it almost bled. It was if every breaker in her private fuse box had been thrown with one flip of Lon’s wrist. Maxie felt almost electrocuted with pleasure, and even Lon was trembling as the same current coursed through her.

  It was a scientific law that when one person became a conduit for a live current, anyone touching the victim became part of the chain. Maxie’s Girl Scout handbook advised would-be rescuers to knock the victim loose, not latch onto him. But who could knock Maxie and Lon off this current, before it incinerated them with unbearable ecstasy? The two girls shuddered, locked in their electric embrace, until the jolt finally found ground eight stories below.

  After a long moment, when the breath was still knocking in Maxie’s lungs, Lon reached down beside the bed and dug out a cigarette. The orange tip flared in the neon-lit dimness. Lon handed it to Maxie, who took a deep drag.

  “Have you ever been in love?” Maxie asked, handing the cigarette back to Lon.

  “I’m in love right now.” Maxie could make out her lazy, satisfied smile.

  “Silly!” The ex-deb swatted the mob girl playfully. “I’m serious.”

  Lon looked up at the stained ceiling reflectively. “I thought I was once. Sometimes I still think so.”

  “You’re with someone?” Maxie hoped it wasn’t that beehive-topped Tanya. She was so limp that if Tanya burst in right now she wouldn’t be able to lift a finger to fight her.

  “Aren’t you?” Lon looked at her. “That Pat, or Priscilla, or Pam?”

  “She’s not in the picture anymore.” Maxie took another drag on their shared cigarette. “And I’m not sure I ever loved her. Maybe I just liked her, and the rest was chemical combustion.”

  “Isn’t that what love is?”

  Now it was Maxie’s turn to roll on her back and stare at the ceiling. If that was love, she’d been in love an awful lot. She dismissed the philosphical questions for more concrete queries.

  “How do you know about Pam anyway?”

  “How do you know where I live?” countered Lon.

  “But that’s the only thing I know. Sure, I’ve speculated, but you seem to have a detailed dossier on me. Even the score a little.”

  Lon thought for a moment. “I’m a college dropout,” she said finally.

  “What?” Maxie shrieked. “After all the guff you’ve been giving me!”

  Lon laughed. “Now tell me some of your speculations,” she challenged.

  “Well . . . you’re working for the mob.”

  “That’s not speculation, that’s observation!” Lon jeered.

  “The new mob in town. You seem like you’re just an errand girl, but I’ve got a hunch you’re running errands for the boss—the Queenpin herself!” Maxie tried to make out Lon’s expression.

  “Queenpin? What do you mean
‘queenpin’?” Lon said too quickly. “The mob is strictly men-only—real old-country stuff.”

  “Then how did you get involved?” challenged Maxie.

  Lon looked at her suspiciously. “I don’t need to read about myself in the Sentinel.”

  “Call it career research,” Maxie assured her. “Job placement has been on my mind all summer.”

  “Well, I was flunking French,” Lon began. She told the familiar story in a few terse sentences: the uncomprehending parents; the decision to stay on her own in the city; the job handing out towels at the local YMCA, which barely paid the bills. “One Christmas when the gym was closed, I had to survive for three days on a single can of soup.”

  “Did you consume it cold?” Maxie interrupted.

  “No,” said Lon, puzzled. “I had a hot plate.”

  Then there had been the fateful encounter. Where and with whom, Lon wouldn’t say, but “A while ago, I met someone who took a shine to me. They said their outfit could use me, and they sort of took me under their wing and showed me the ropes. I was like their—their pro-tégé.”

  They was a she, and she was Lon’s love, Maxie guessed. But all she said was, “Surely you could have found something else—why, you’ve got more schooling than I have.”

  “Tell me where I can find another job where I don’t have to wear a dress!” Lon shot back. “And where I can sleep till noon, and that pays pretty well to boot!”

  Maxie could understand Lon’s allergy to early hours. She had the same ailment herself. Still—“But you’re working for hardened criminals,” she argued. “Extortionists at least, maybe murderers!” She thought of the cop and wondered again who had caused his death.

  Lon shrugged. “They only kill each other. And the way I look at it, there will always be people who want to gamble, indulge in forbidden substances, or invest in crooked enterprises. If the mob didn’t provide opportunities, someone else would.”

  Lon was practically repeating what Kathy had called a common myth.

  “So you’re saying if the people want their vices, let them have them.” Maxie rephrased Lon’s spurious argument.