A Kind of Justice (4 page)

“Bobbi, just look at you!” he says. “You are absolutely stunning!”

“I get that a lot,” I say, “but it's not usually a compliment.”

“Stop that,” he replies.

My heart flutters for a moment. He holds my chair and slides it beneath me with the casual precision of a gentleman. I am overwhelmed by the way he makes me feel like a lady. Girls like me don't get treatment like this very often, so I allow myself to luxuriate in it for a moment.

We drink a toast to each other and go through the usual conversation foreplay. I ask if he's got a serious love interest yet. No. He asks me if I do. No. This is a topic I won't allow in my salon services, partly because it's good business, and partly because we transsexual women get bombarded with really inappropriate questions. Have you tried out the new plumbing? Did it work? How does it compare to being the one with the penis? Are you into anything kinky? The questions come easier to inebriates in bars, another reason I don't frequent them. Officer Phil would never indulge in such stuff, but others do,
men and women, so I have a hard and fast rule—we don't talk about sex or politics in my chair.

“How is the hairstyling business?” he asks.

I tell him about buying the salon, giving up platform work, sweating the loan payments. I ask him about working at headquarters with the suits, dealing with the public. He's fine with the brass, loves working with civic groups, small businesses. He misses Boystown. He misses me. I blush and hold my breath for a moment, then he adds, “And Cecelia and all the girls at TransRising.” I come back to earth with a jolt. This is juvenile of me, but the only fantasy I have about men is that Phil will someday find me the woman he can't live without.

We make small talk about who's doing what in the LGBT community, what it's like at the top of the CPD food chain. We order, make another toast to old times, sip the wine, a nice Washington State Cabernet. Phil leans forward, his elbows on the table, his face just a foot or two from mine.

“Bobbi, I need to say something to you. I'm way out of line, but I want to say it anyway, on the basis that I'm a friend and that's why I'm saying it. Okay?”

For a moment there, I thought he was going to proposition me, then he started with the friend stuff. I shrug.

“Bobbi, you made a bad mistake trying to get Detective Wilkins taken off the Strand case again.”

I groan out loud. Five years ago, Wilkins tried to intimidate me during his investigation of the Strand murder. I called the LGBT advocate in the district attorney's office and complained about his bigotry—the bastard called us “tranny queers” and “butt fuckers” among other horrible expressions. She got him pulled off the case. I filed another complaint this week, but she couldn't help me this time. What happened in the salon didn't qualify as police harassment.

“Wilkins had been working the case on his own time, but since your complaint, he's gotten clearance to make it a full-blown investigation.
He convinced his captain that you filed it because he's going to prove you killed Strand.”

My adolescent fantasies involving Phil evaporate. My heart beats against my ribs with the force of an iron fist. There is a pounding noise in my ears. “It's personal with him,” I say. “Pure hate.”

“It's more serious than that, Bobbi.” Phil has a worried look on his face. “He thinks he can prove you set up that guy who got mugged in the alley where you were raped. He thinks that guy was connected to Strand. And he thinks he can link you directly to the Strand murder.”

“Link?” I echo. “How?”

“Wilkins saw you finish that nutcase in your salon with an eye gouge. He has photos of the guy's eye and it looks a lot like Strand's eye injury. The coroner said his injury came from an eye gouge that was probably used to disable him.

“Wilkins also says there were synthetic hair fibers found at the scene, consistent with a short-hair wig, maybe a male toupee. That gives him a theory about how the crime could have been committed by a woman posing as a man. That's just a wild theory right now, but he thinks you could have passed as a man back then. And you were strong enough to overpower an adult male. He says he's going to tie you to the crime scene.”

Like most transsexual women, it takes a lot to scare me. Phil's ominous message qualifies.

Wilkins is a mean and ugly brute who hates me even more than he hates all transsexuals because I stood up to his bullying the first time around. Lots of us complained, but I started it. This must have been festering in his nasty soul for years. I can see him manufacturing whatever evidence he needs to nail me, though he can destroy me without even bringing charges. Just leaking to the newspapers that I'm a suspect in a murder can send my salon's A-list clientele scattering to shops of better repute.

“How do you know this?” I ask when I regain control of my brain and tongue.

“He called me for background on you, Bobbi. He has the case file out. He's coming after you.”

“He's going to plant evidence, isn't he?” I'm so filled with dread I can hardly say the words.

“No,” says Phil. “Wilkins won't go that far. He's a tough guy, and he'll intimidate people to get them to confess, but he doesn't cross the legal lines. Don't feel too good about that, though. He's relentless and he hates you and he'll work like the earth on fire to make a case against you.”

“I don't get it, Phil. I learned the eye gouge in a self-defense class. I'm sure hundreds of people in this city did, too. Maybe thousands. Lots of people know that technique. The only thing that puts me on his suspect list is that I'm queer.” My tone has gone from fear to anger. I hiss out the word “queer” loud enough to draw attention from the table next to us.

Phil waits until the other diners return to their own conversation, then leans forward again. “Don't you ever use that word to describe yourself to me again, Bobbi.” He says it sternly. “You are a beautiful woman and you have done great things with your life.”

That stops me cold. For a second I think I see something in Phil's eyes, a romantic connection, maybe. But no, a closer look and what I see is a very nice man who said something nice to someone having a bad day. It's better this way. If he confessed his love for me right now, the waitstaff would have to mop the remains of my overwhelmed senses from the floor.

Our food comes. We make idle chatter with the waiter, a pleasant male who can't hide his attraction to Phil. Why should he be different?

When he leaves, Phil leans forward again, as do I. “Bobbi, I shouldn't have told you any of this. I'm asking you to keep it between us. I could get in trouble.”

“Why
did
you tell me?” I ask.

“Because I care about you. And because I don't know what all is in the evidence book. Maybe they have blood samples or DNA or something. They have no legal reason to treat you as a suspect, no reason to get samples of your blood or DNA. Don't give them one, okay? And don't antagonize Wilkins anymore. Maybe he'd be a little more interested in other suspects if it wasn't so personal with you.” He stares at me with an intensity I never thought he had. I always saw him as a sort of California surfer who blundered into police work in Chicago, thought it was a promising wave, and decided to ride it to the next coast in life.

“Okay,” I answer. Inside, I'm still mulling the “I care about you” statement. My rational mind knows he cares about me like Marilee or Cecelia care about me, but I had a momentary thrill at the thought he cared about me the way a man cares about a woman. It was a brief thrill, measured in nanoseconds.

The rest of the meal is much lighter. Phil is a great conversationalist. He gets me talking about doing platform work at hair shows, models I've worked with, a celebrity actress who had me do her hair while they were shooting on location in Chicago. Another who was in town for a brief stay. He tells me about how the new police chief got his job, why the old one left, what happened behind the scenes in the investigation of a night club fire that killed dozens of people and involved all the key elements of a great Chicago drama—politically connected principals, racial tension, and a tragic event. I try several times to get him to talk about his personal life. I want to know if he's taken, and if he's gay or straight. Phil was very artful in keeping his personal life out of the conversation when he covered Boystown, and he still is.

After two hours of comfortable conversation, our meal ends. Phil settles the check, tends to my chair as I rise, and kisses me softly on the cheek. We hug the way friends hug, or maybe just a little tighter.
I can feel my breasts press against his chest and our abdomens meet flush against each other. I will play back this sensation many times in the nights to come.

We say our farewells at the door and go our separate ways, Phil completely oblivious to how eagerly I would have entered into carnal relations with him. I sigh. It's for the better. Men like him have their pick of women and even if he lost his mind and had a tryst with me, it would be over quickly. And I have enough on my plate without a broken heart.

*    *    *

T
UESDAY
, J
ULY
9

Like lines you can't forget from a movie you hate, this is all too familiar to me. Being vulnerable to a predator whom the law can't touch. At least, not until it's too late for me.

I'm soaking in my beloved oval spa and thinking. From a distant room the rich tones of Mozart vibrate into my steamy escape.

Usually my contemplations in this spa are romantic, sometimes erotically so. I think of people I know or have seen who are physically attractive and imagine what it would be like to be intimate with them. My fantasies include both men and women. I'm glad I'm this way. It's like being an independent voter. I go for the person, not the genital party.

But my thoughts are light-years away from love and sex now. Now, the movie in my mind is playing a dark film set in alleys and bars, in shady places where light beams of social order and humanity can't penetrate.

I'm reliving my time in a jungle where a man murdered a transwoman, maybe more than one, and got away with it. He liked to beat
them up, too. Money and power put him above the law. Even the law of the jungle.

When the beast came after me, the other creatures in the jungle looked away. I was a pitiful prey. Trying to transition. Scared of the world. In my mind I was a woman, but when I saw myself through other people's eyes, I saw a man with tits and a dick. A freak craving acceptance and understanding.

The unfairness of it all came crashing in on me. I had started my transition days after a beautiful young transwoman had been brutally murdered. There wasn't a soul in the police department or the media who gave a damn. It wasn't Wilkins' case, but he wouldn't have cared anyway. We were vermin to him.

On the other hand, when a rich white guy like John Strand got himself murdered, all of a sudden cops like Wilkins were all over it. And Wilkins finally decided the dead transwoman was important—but only because she was a friend of mine and her murder a motive for me to take revenge on Strand. The injustice of it still raises my blood pressure.

I try to think of pleasanter things, but the weight of a crushing debt and the ominous shadow of Detective Wilkins keep drowning the sunbeams and lullabies I try to conjure. Most of all, I keep coming back to Phil's haunting message, that my complaint to the DA has enabled this ogre to stalk me night and day, until he gets what he wants. The irony. Five years ago I was being stalked by a murderer, now a cop is doing the same thing with the same intent. Wilkins doesn't want to kill me, but he wants to lock me up for the rest of my life, so what's the difference? I'm the meat in a big hate sandwich.

This will be a long, lonely night fraught with fleeting moments of sleep tormented by dark dreams, ending in wakeful restlessness. The night will usher in a morning filled with first aid to make my face look fresh and stylish for the salon. It's okay. I've been here before. So many times I couldn't count them all.

*    *    *

T
UESDAY
, J
ULY
9

Wilkins moves quickly from one to the next. He assumes they're all prostitutes. Some of them look like men and cruise for gay customers. Some are in various stages of trans female, looking for anything they can get. They disgust him. He has trouble establishing eye contact because looking at their faces makes him sick.

“Can you help me, here?” he says to each girl. “I'm a cop. I'm looking for anyone who knew this man.” He flashes a photo of John Strand.

One after another, they look at him with a startled glance, then shake their heads no.

After a few refusals, he figures it out, and starts adding that he's not vice, he's not here to bust anyone or get anyone in trouble.

An hour later he gets lucky. A tall, thin African-American transwoman nods her head yes. “He's that dude who got himself killed a while back,” she says.

“You knew him?” Wilkins asks.

“I knew of him. I knew a girl he beat half to death.”

“Can you put me in touch with her?”

The hooker shrugs. “Buy me dinner and I'll ask her if she wants to talk to you.”

Wilkins starts to walk away. She's just trying to hustle him for a meal. Then again, he thinks, there was a shred of sincerity in her voice.

“Okay,” he says. He passes her a twenty-dollar bill and his card. “Tell her to call me anytime. I just want to talk.”

The girl nods.

“One other thing,” he says. “You know this lady?” He shows her a photo of Logan.

The girl nods her head yes. “She has a fancy beauty salon. A friend of mine works there.”

“What's she like?”

“Nice, I think.”

Wilkins tries a few more questions. She doesn't have answers but maybe she'd pass his card on to someone who knew more. It is something, and it beats sitting in that shithole apartment of his.