Final Appeal

I reach for the apartment key in my raincoat pocket, ready to drive it into his eyes. I feel the scream rising in my throat but suppress it.

The figure opens the window halfway and climbs into the room, landing silently at the foot of the single bed.

I back toward the apartment door in the dark, every nerve strained with tension. I can’t see who the intruder is and I don’t care. I must have been out of my mind to come here. I take a step back. Suddenly, I slip on a book and let out an involuntary yelp.

In a split second, the dark figure is barreling across the room toward me. He slams into my chest with the impact of a freight train, knocking the wind out of me. I cry out in pain and fall back on the hardwood floor. My head cracks hard where it was bumped before.

I try to scream but a hand clamps down across my mouth so cruelly it bring tears to my eyes. The hand forces my head back down against the floor. His body climbs up on mine, pinning me to the floor. I try frantically to knee him but he’s too strong. A flashlight blazes into my eyes, blinding me.

“Grace!” says the voice behind the light. “What the fuck?” The hand releases my mouth.

“Who?”

“It’s me. Winn.” He shines the flashlight on his bearded face. “What are you doing here?”

My head begins to ache. “Why did you attack me?” I ask him, wincing. “You hurt my head.”

“What did you break in for?” He backs off of me.

“What did you break in for?” I pull my tweed skirt down, trying to recover my dignity. “Jesus H. Christ, I’ve never been so banged up in all my life. Ever since I met you.”

He stands up and helps me to my feet. “Why didn’t you say who you were?”

“I didn’t know it was you. Why didn’t you say who you were?”

“I didn’t know it was you.”

“Where’s your raincoat?”

He looks down at the leather coat. “Underneath.” He pulls out an edge to show me, but it’s too dark to see. “I found this in a dumpster a block down, can you believe it? It must’ve cost a couple hundred dollars.”

“You’ve been undercover too long. Where’s your rain hat?”

“I don’t wear it on B and E’s. You should sit down. Come on.” He eases me onto the couch and tilts my head back on a crinkly bandanna he pulls from his pocket. “Rest a minute. I’ll find some ice.”

I grab his lapel before he gets up. “No. No ice. I hate ice.”

“You need ice.”

“No. What I need is to yell at you, then I need to sue you. Then I need to yell at you and sue you again.”

He laughs and sits heavily on the couch next to me. The streetlight illuminates the oil slick coating his nose; I could never go undercover, my pores couldn’t take it. “I’m sorry I jumped you like that,” he says, “but you surprised me.”

“I surprised you? I’m lawfully on the premises.”

“How was I supposed to know that? I’ve been watching this place for over a month. The light is never on at night. I came in to catch a killer.”

“Didn’t you see me go to the door?”

“I didn’t recognize you. You don’t wear hats, and I never saw you with a briefcase. I thought you were here to see the old woman downstairs. You’re off the reservation, Grace. Way off. Who’s staying with your daughter?”

“She’s at her father’s. Sunday is father’s day, apparently.”

He reaches around the back of my neck. “Lift up. I want to fix this thing.” I oblige and he folds the bandanna in two.

“I hate men.”

“I know, we’re bums. Look at me.”

“Exactly.”

He laughs. “Which do you hate more, men or ice?”

I feel myself smile, the adrenaline ebbing away. “Men. Armen in particular. So he was a father? Who’s the mother?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Of course not.”

“Then how do you know about the apartment? I thought he told you.”

Hurt and humiliated, the combination platter. “So whose child is it? Tell me.”

He pauses. “Were you in love with him?”

I’m glad he can’t see my face. “No. I was in lust with him. I didn’t know him at all, obviously. If my daughter ever does what I did, I’ll kill her.”

“You were lonely.”

“How do you know?”

“Artie told me.”

I wince. “Terrific. On to more important topics. Is it his child?”

“Yes.”

“And the mother?”

“You want to know? Straight up?” I feel his eyes on me.

“I can take it, doc.”

“The mother is Eletha.”

I gasp as if the wind were knocked out of me again. I can’t say anything for a minute.

“Grace?” He touches my arm, but I move it away.

“The mother is Eletha? The child—”

“Is Malcolm.”

Oh, God. “How do you know that?”

“She dropped him off here.”

My mind reels. I think of Malcolm’s picture on Eletha’s desk. His lightish skin. Why didn’t I think of it? Armen paid for her tuition, even. “They were married?”

“No. I checked. Never married.”

Malcolm, born out of wedlock? “Does Susan know?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen her here. Armen met Malcolm every Sunday.”

“Since when?”

“I don’t know that either. They played inside, sometimes he took him to Clark Park. Places he wouldn’t be recognized. He was a good father.”

My stomach turns over. “Oh, please. He was a liar.”

“That’s unfair.”

“How do you know? What was he, Clarence Thomas? God, was I blind.”

“Don’t judge him until you have all the facts. I knew Armen, too. He was a good man. He went out of his way for me. He got them to let me into the Y, even got me a locker. He didn’t care that I was homeless.”

“You’re not. And he was a piece of shit.”

“You don’t believe that or you wouldn’t have protected him.”

“I protected him? How?”

“You didn’t tell me about the money. The $650,000. That’s how you knew about the apartment, isn’t it?”

I sink back into the couch. My head hurts even more. “How do you know about the money?”

“The IRS found out about the account. It was a fraction of that last year, when he declared it. Gained a lot of weight in twelve months.”

“It couldn’t be a bribe for Canavan, you know. Armen wanted the case to come out the other way.”

“I know that and you know that, but the money convinced my boss it was Armen who took the bribe. They figure it’s the reason he killed himself, he couldn’t live with it. He killed himself in April—tax time, they figure. They’re gonna pull the plug on this investigation any day now. The bad guy is already dead.”