A Kind of Justice (11 page)

After several minutes of small talk, I try to find out why we're here.

“You know you left a trail of broken hearts at TransRising tonight. When you walked out with me. All those beautiful young women.”

Phil's eyes arch in feigned surprise. “Really?”

“Don't play innocent with me.” I laugh. “You know every girl in that group wanted to leave with you.” Phil is trying to be modest and polite.

“If you say so,” he says.

“So why did you leave with me? You had your pick of younger and prettier girls.” In the back of my mind I'm thinking maybe Phil is gay and just doesn't want to talk about it. That would explain his preference for me. I'm not insulted, but it would be nice if something about me made him crazy with desire.

“They are young and pretty and I like them all,” he says. “But I . . .” He stops for a moment, searching for the right words. “I like your company, Bobbi.” His eyes take an involuntary tour of my cleavage, then back to my face. He blushes a little.

I look at him and smile, then lift my glass for a silent toast. We are sitting side by side at a small round table, just large enough to hold our wine glasses. After we tap glasses and sip, his eyes rake over my exposed legs. I avert my gaze modestly only to see what seems like swelling in his crotch—he's sexually aroused, by me!

“What do you like about my company?” I ask it hoping for some ego stroking or maybe a confession of deep-seated desire for intimacy.

“You're smart. You're funny. You're easy to talk to. You're . . .” There he goes again, choking back the word he was going to say, looking for a different one. I would clean his house for a month to know what he was going to say.

“You're sexy.” He says it in a rush and looks me straight in the eye.

He catches me off guard. My breath catches. For moment I don't know what to say.

“What does that mean, Phil?” My heart is pounding. I want him to whisk me out of here and into the nearest bed and have his way with me.

He stares at me. I can see that his mind is working a million miles a minute. He is trying to decide whether or not to take the next step. Seconds pass. He blinks, averts his gaze to the table.

“I want to tell you something, Bobbi.” His voice and body language tell me the golden moment has passed.

“Feel free to talk dirty.” I make it sound like a joke, but really I'm pandering like the village slut. I'd be disgusted with myself if I wasn't so aroused.

He shakes his head. “It's about Wilkins.”

My erotic bubble pops and I'm back in reality. Shit.

“Oh?” I say.

“He says he's found people who saw a six-foot person walking in Strand's neighborhood in the early morning hours after he was murdered.”

“That's like saying someone saw an oak tree in Oak Park, Phil.”

“His theory of the crime is that the six-footer was a woman, a transwoman, disguised as a man. Wearing false facial hair, a male wig, male clothing.”

I shrug. I try to seem nonchalant, but the truth is, this is scaring me. For a moment my brain conjures an image of me in court, my salon going bankrupt, losing everything even if found not guilty.

“Why are you telling me this?”

His turn to shrug. “Same old same old. I like you. I admire you. I root for you. I want to make sure you don't do anything to give him an excuse to get your fingerprints or DNA or anything. This man is relentless.”

“Do you think I killed Strand?”

There, it's out. A direct question, finally. I dread the answer. So does he. He squirms.

“I'm a PR guy, Bobbi. What I think doesn't matter. Me, personally? I know you didn't. I know you couldn't. But let's just be honest here. If I didn't know you, I'd think it could have been you. You had issues with Strand, I don't know all of them, but I know you figured him for the murder of your friend. You're smart and strong and you have incredible willpower.”

He stares at me when he says this. I drop my glance. As somber as this conversation is, I see myself asking him to bed me before they haul me to jail, kind of a transwoman spin on the young soldier asking the virgin to sleep with him before he goes off to war. Phil misunderstands my smile.

“I'm serious, Bobbi.”

“I appreciate that, Phil. My mind just wandered for a moment.”

We sip wine for another half hour making small talk, me wondering if maybe he just can't let himself have sex with a transwoman. Lots of men are like that. Gays because they see us as women. Straights because they see us as men. Maybe it's better that way. If gays saw us as men and straights as women we'd have so many romantic overtures we'd all be arrogant.

T
HURSDAY
, A
UGUST
28

W
ILKINS SITS FORWARD
and places a file folder on the coffee table. He swishes two breath mints in his mouth to make sure he doesn't alienate his audience. Opposite him is the bleached-blond queer and his boyfriend on the couch. They are holding hands, which would be disgusting if Wilkins let himself think about it.

“Thank you for seeing me,” he says. “I want you to think back to the night you saw that person walking on the street, the night that man was murdered. I want you to think about what that person looked like, everything you can remember, every detail. Then I want to show you some pictures and you tell me if they resemble that person or not.”

“Okay,” the blond man says. “But it was dark, the light wasn't good.”

“I know,” Wilkins says. “And don't worry about that. I just want your reaction to the photos.”

The man closes his eyes for several seconds, opens them, nods to Wilkins.

Wilkins produces an eight-by-ten black-and-white photo showing a man walking on a sidewalk in gray light. It is a Photoshop creation, Bobbi Logan as a man, seen from a short distance, wearing the clothing and facial hair Pretty Boy described to Wilkins earlier. The face is Logan's with a VanDyke, mustache, sideburns, and longish male hair. The body is Logan's but in male clothes, and without breasts.

“Does this look anything like the person you saw that night?”

The man studies the photo. “That could be him. I mean, it could be a lot of people, but it could be him.”

“Do you see anything that doesn't look like him?”

The blond man looks at him questioningly.

“Look closely and tell me if there was something you saw that night that you don't see here, or something you see here that doesn't belong. The guy's too fat or too short or his head is too big or too small . . . like that.”

The blond man studies the photo. “No, I don't think so.”

“What specifically reminds you of the man you saw that night?”

The blond man blushes, nods his head yes, smiles self-consciously, holds his boyfriend's hand again. “It's his ass. The man I saw that night had a really cute ass. Not to be graphic, Detective, but not many men have curvy butts.”

Wilkins should be revolted but he isn't. His adrenaline surges. It's not anywhere close to a positive ID. All he's done is keep Logan in play as a suspect. But he can feel it. He's right about this. He just has to keep digging.

“Thank you, sir,” Wilkins says, putting the photo back in the file folder. “Just one more thing. Will you look at this photo and tell me if it looks like the person you saw that night?”

He produces another eight-by-ten photo, this one a portrait of Logan with a van Dyke beard and mustache, and male hair falling to mid-ear.

“That looks like him, I think, but I didn't see his face very well—just a quick glance. Although . . .” His voice trails off in thought.

“Although . . .” Wilkins coaxes him.

“Well, I'm pretty sure he had longer sideburns. There were a lot of shadows, but I thought his sideburns went to the bottom of his ear, maybe even lower.”

Wilkins nods appreciatively and makes notes in his notebook, another on a sticky note that he attaches to the photo.

“Thank you, sir,” he says to the blond man. “Thank you both.” They shake hands. “You've been a great help to me and the department.”

*    *    *

F
RIDAY
, A
UGUST
29

“Hi, Bobbi! It's Roger.” He's calling from Florida. Probably baking his brains out in the tropical heat. I wouldn't live in one of those hot redneck states for anything. Well, maybe if Officer Phil was moving there and wanted to take me along as his concubine.

“How are you, dear?” he asks.

“I'm just fine, sweetie.” I'm trying to master that cooing use of
dear, sweetie, honey,
and the rest of that saccharine lexicon that gay men and most other women employ so well. It sounds stupid when I do it though.

“How's business, honey?” The sweet references roll off his lips with the grace of an eagle riding thermals high above the earth.

I answer with platitudes, hoping not to get into the subject, but he presses me on it. I ask about Robert, his partner. Robert is fine, he says, but how is business?

“It's slow, Roger,” I answer finally. I won't lie to him about it. “We're doing some promotional stuff to try to stop the bleeding, but we're off about thirty percent versus a year ago, and the people I talk to say this recession won't bottom out for another year or two.”

“Oh, Bobbi, I was afraid of that.” He issues a series of sympathetic clucks and groans. A normal American businessman would be asking about his money and I'm bracing myself for that.

“How are you meeting expenses?” he asks, finally.

“So far, by cutting my salary and not replacing one assistant who left. Plus a little belt-tightening in the color room, getting the girls to cut out waste. The usual.”

“You're not paying yourself, Bobbi?”

He sounds like a comedian doing a Jewish mother routine. I almost laugh.

“I took partial payment,” I say. “I'll get it back when things turn around.”

“Bobbi, you can't do that. You are the key to the business.”

We talk business strategies for a few minutes, then Roger says what he called to say.

“Bobbi, if you have to go light on your payments to me for a few months, you go right ahead. If we have to restructure the deal, that's what we'll do. I don't want you losing your building or living like a nun. You have to stay healthy. Robert and I are fine right now.” He goes on but I don't really process his words. I can't get past the realization that this man trusts me enough to let me miss payments to him or change the deal entirely. I would never do that, but the offer makes my head spin. Five years ago when I was transitioning, most people wouldn't give me the time of day or an interview for a job or even deign to sit next to me on the El. Roger was the exception and now here he is saying “pay me when you can.”

I thank him and promise that if the situation becomes dire I will call him and talk about his offer. We have that conversation again. Roger has too much time on his hands.

*    *    *

S
ATURDAY
, A
UGUST
30

Betsy walks into the living room and collapses on the couch next to me. She has just kissed Robbie goodnight. The child lasted one set at Jazzfest and we stayed for one more, admiring how she could sleep so restfully in a crowd. We walked part way home because it was such a nice night, shifting Robbie back and forth between us until we got too tired to carry her anymore and took a cab the rest of the way.

This is our first weekend sleepover at my apartment. It has gone well. I've been anticipating this event all week, planning every detail, cleaning, prepping the bedrooms, laying in enough groceries to feed the masses. And dreaming about being there for Betsy. Providing support and shelter while she gets her life together. Being the sister she can say anything to. Being a second mom to Robbie. All three of us going places together, shopping, beaches, concerts.

Betsy is still too burdened by reality to share my sisterly zeal, but she has enjoyed the day, too. She leans her head against my shoulder. I lower my head to rest on hers and we hold hands.

“Were you really surprised to see that policeman there?” Betsy asks.

Officer Phil saw us at Jazzfest and came over to say hello. As I introduced him to Betsy it occurred to me she might find him interesting when she started dating again. It would be nice to keep him in the family . . .

“Are you interested in him?” There is a tiny undercurrent of tension in her voice when she asks this. We haven't talked about how we would handle dating and sex yet. We're both healthy single women. It's going to come up, especially if we become roommates, but now might not be the time to get into it. If Cecelia were here she'd tell me to duck the question. This is America. Everyone gets weird about sex, even rational people.

But the answer to that question looms like a black shadow of fear in front of me. I can't have a real relationship with Betsy if I lie about who I am.

“Was it that obvious?” I answer. I thought I had done a good job of keeping my knees and voice steady when Phil chatted with us.

“Kind of. And he's obviously interested in you. Are you two . . .” She doesn't finish the sentence.

“No. And he's not interested in me. Not like that. Men like Phil don't dabble in transwomen like me. You don't want to see the kind of men who find me attractive.” But in the back of my mind I'm thinking that Betsy is the second person to suggest this possibility. Her and Marilee. Two women who have a firm grasp on reality. Plus Phil's little erectile moment at the wine bar . . . It's enough to make my heart thump a little harder.

“I thought you were more into women. Like that lady from Indianapolis.” My first romance when I transitioned was with a woman I met at a hair show. It was pretty torrid for a while, but the distance was a problem. Last time we talked she was dating a man.