I'm one of those people who imagine themselves acting heroically at disasters. Saving children from school buses dangling precipitously from bridges. Performing first aid at car wrecks. Rescuing people from burning buildings. The truth is, I totally lose my cool in an emergency, and if things turn out okay, it's through no effort of mine.
I was blindly slashing at Sugar. My nose was running and I was making animal sounds, and by sheer accident I connected with the knife and sent it sailing through the air.
'You bitch!' Sugar shrieked. 'I hate you! I hate you!' He hurled himself at me, and we went down to the ground.
'In my day, you'd never see two women fighting like that,' one of the seniors said. 'It's all of that violence on television. That's what does it.'
I was rolling around with Sugar, and I was shouting 'Call the police, call the police.' Sugar grabbed me by my hair and yanked, and when I jerked back I caught him with my knee and pushed his gonads a good six inches into his body. He rolled off me into a fetal position and threw up.
I flopped over onto my back and look up at Ranger.
Ranger was grinning again. 'Need any help?'
'Did I wet my pants?'
'No sign of it.'
'Thank God.'
* * * * *
RANGER, SALLY AND I stood on the sidewalk in front of the seniors' building and watched the police drive off with Sugar. I'd pretty much stopped shaking, and my skinned knees had stopped bleeding.
'Now what am I going to do?' Sally said. 'I'm never going to be able to get into that corset all by myself. And what about makeup?'
'It's not easy being a drag queen,' I said to Ranger.
'Fuckin' A,' Ranger said.
We walked back to the club parking lot and found our cars. The night was humid and starless. The air- conditioning system droned from the club roof, and canned music and muffled conversation spilled out the open front door into the lot.
Sally was unconsciously bobbing his head in time to the music. I loaded him into the Porsche and thanked Ranger.
'Always enjoy seeing you in action,' Ranger said.
I drove out of the lot and headed for Hamilton. I noticed my knuckles were white on the wheel and made another effort to relax.
'Man, I'm really stoked,' Sally said. 'I think we should do more clubs. I know this great place in Princeton.'
I'd just almost been shot, slashed, and choked to death. I wasn't feeling all that stoked. I wanted to sit someplace quiet and nonthreatening and eat my mother's cookies.
'I need to talk to Morelli,' I said. 'I'm going to pass on the clubs, but you can go on your own. You don't have to worry about Sugar now.'
'Poor little guy,' Sally said. 'He isn't really a bad person.'
I supposed that was true, but I was having a hard time finding a lot of sympathy for him. He'd destroyed my car and my apartment and had tried to kill me. And if that wasn't enough, he'd ruined my Gretzky Rangers jersey. Maybe I'd feel more generous tomorrow, when I'd regained my good humor. Right now, I was tending toward grouchy.
I turned at Chambers and wound my way to Morelli's. The van was no longer on his street, and I didn't see the Duc. Lights were on in the downstairs part of Morelli's house. I assumed he'd been told about Sugar and had ended the stakeout. I took my cookies and angled out of the Porsche.
Sally slid over to the driver's seat. 'Later, dude,' he said, taking off with his foot to the floor.
'Later,' I said, but the street was already empty.
I knocked on the screen door. 'Yo!' I hollered above the TV.
Morelli padded out and opened the door for me. 'Were you really rolling around on the floor at the senior citizens' home?'
'You heard.'
'My mother called. She said Thelma Klapp phoned her and told her you just beat the crap out of some pretty blond woman. Thelma said that since you were pregnant and all she thought you shouldn't be rolling around like that.'
'The pretty blond woman wasn't a woman.'
'What's in the bag?' Morelli wanted to know.
Morelli could sniff out a cookie a mile away. I took one and handed the bag over to him. 'I have to talk to you.'
Morelli flopped onto the couch. 'I'm listening.'
'About Francine Nowicki, Maxine's mother . . .'
