“No. No, I couldn’t. You need it more than—”
He laughed—a great belly shaker that nearly lifted her off the ground every time his stomach shook.
“Don’t be a fool, child. Look at you. You think Reggie got any clothes going to fit you right? And I will not have my baby living on the street. Not when I can do something about it, no sir.”
The tears came, stronger than before. Her daddy wiped them away with a thick, clumsy thumb. “Hush,” he said. “Now you come with me. I think I got some leftover clothes from a few years back when I was a stripper. Nothing showy, mind you. Got rid a all them stage clothes. Sides, any man goes looking after my baby girl with wolf’s eyes, I going to take him out.”
Trisha waited until four-thirty the next morning before leaving the projects. By then it was quiet. Even the dealers and the prostitutes had stumbled home. Anyone still awake would at least be tired—too tired to pay much attention to a white girl walking alone down one of the most dangerous streets in the city.
She hoped.
She took a quick glance back and forth down the empty hallway. Grime covered everything. How had she managed to live here this long?
She ducked back inside her father’s apartment and took one final inventory of herself before venturing out. She double-checked the drawstring on her sweats and made sure the roll of cash her father had given her still rested firmly in the bottom of her sweatpants pocket. Then she adjusted (yet again) the strap on the Victoria’s Secret one-size-too-big bra Daddy had found among his “leftovers.” How annoying. A replacement bra would be among the first things Trisha would buy—right after she bought shoes. For now she had to make do with Reggie’s tennies. Her feet slid around inside them with every step she took. It would be impossible to run. She offered a little prayer, asking that running wouldn’t be necessary.
The fatigue from her transformation still wore deep on her. She felt it in her bones. Priority one would be getting to the business district—somewhere she didn’t stick out so much—to find a hotel. Trisha felt like she could sleep for days.
She checked her ponytail, making sure it was securely held in place, before pulling the black hoodie up around her head.
Her father caught the hood halfway up and turned Trisha around. She saw the look in his eyes and felt the tears begin to well up again. She fought them back, still tasting the salt from her last bout of weeping. Not again. Not this time.
She’d done this before. As a bodybuilder at the beach, she’d been on her own. She knew she could do it.
But this time felt different.
Before, it had been … well, it had been practice. She’d had to know if she was ready to face the world alone.
And she had been. She’d come through it just fine.
This time …
She finished the thought aloud. “This time it’s for real, isn’t it?”
Her father held her face firmly between his thick, meaty palms and touched his forehead to hers. She felt the grit of dried sweat on his skin. She felt the heat of his body. She felt the reality of him flood her head—
And she saw.
Saw him as a child. A little boy in shorts chasing after a dog named Ryan.
Saw him as a Chinese man slaving away on the railroad lines.
Saw him as a nurse in the hospitals during World War One, tending to the injured.
Over and over again, she saw him in all his incarnations—and especially strong came the vision of her father as a young woman, deciding the time was right to write a child into his life—and then the surprise and joy that came when he discovered he was having not just one child, but two.
And then the disappointment and anger of her father as a middle-aged fry cook, as Georgie rattled off the list of complaints of every way their father had “wronged” him, when all along their father had been trying to do the best he could for his children.
As the vision faded, Trisha heard her father—her daddy—say one last thing: “I am now and always have been proud of you. Don’t worry none about me. When I’m ready to move on, I’ll come find you.”
Trisha shifted her weight back and forth, trying to find a comfortable spot on the hard wooden bench in the booth at Dezzi’s Coffee. The bitter aroma of roasting beans filled the air. She took a sip of Dezzi’s Special Blend and grimaced as the flavor bit back and the heat numbed the roof of her mouth.
Dezzi’s Coffee sat directly opposite the Second Precinct building. And Trisha sat there, in the open, wearing her new tan trench coat, white blouse and black pants, daring anyone—no, hoping someone—would see her and recognize her as Detective Palmer.
This was among the stupider things she’d tried.
Trisha wondered if anyone had ever tried looking up all the Palmers in the greater metropolitan area. She’d spent weeks doing just that. Weeks. Camping out at their residences. Smiling and saying “Hello” to neighbors. Looking for any sign of recognition.
Pointless.
Detective Palmer, naturally, wasn’t listed in any of the phone directories.
As she sipped her coffee Trisha cast glances across the street at the police station, hoping to catch even a glimpse of blonde hair.
Actually walking into the station was more foolish than Trisha dared try. If she’d gone in while the real Detective Palmer was there—if they actually ran into each other … There’s no possible way to explain that.
She’d just finished her second cup and was about to give up and move on to the next station house when a short little woman in a beige skirt with black hair waved at her.
“Janet! Hi!” the woman said.
Trisha had a Who? Me? moment before the realization struck—Janet. Detective Palmer’s first name was Janet.
The excitement of the moment left Trisha as quickly as it had arrived. Crap. Someone thinks I’m Detective Palmer. Now what do I do?
“Hey,” Trisha said. “Long time.”
The woman approached the booth with a steaming cup nestled between both hands. Trisha hoped Detective Palmer and the woman didn’t know each other well.
“No kidding,” the woman said. “What are you doing over here? Don’t tell me you and Hurley are seeing each other again?”
Trisha did her best to look guilty—not that difficult considering the circumstances. “I cannot tell a lie,” she said.
A look crossed the little woman’s face that seemed to say, You can do better than Hurley. She seemed to realize what she’d done because she fumbled with the cup for a moment and then changed the conversation completely.
“You ever get what you needed on that Weevil’s Club case?”
Weevil’s Club? That was over on King Street—the neighborhood Reggie had been in, asking questions about Georgie. The neighborhood where someone had blown Reggie’s disguise and made this whole stint as Trisha Palmer necessary.
Now that was a lead.
“Not yet,” Trisha told the woman. “But I have a hunch something’s about to break open.”
Trisha couldn’t imagine a darker place than The Weevil’s Club—and it was still the middle of the day. The club itself was in the basement of an old brick three-story. Uneven stairs led down through a shadowy doorway. Inside, yes, the lights were dim, but, on top of that, mud seemed to coat the outside of every gutter-level window. The oppressive music blaring through the speakers overhead drowned out any conversation.
Weevil himself, a tattooed giant of a man, washed glasses behind the bar with a rag that seriously needed replacement.
Even though the city had long ago passed a ban on indoor smoking, Weevil’s stunk with the combination of the fresh smoke that clung to its patrons and the rancid odor that had permeated the walls before the ban went into effect.
Weevil saw her and glared. Trisha fought back a shudder.
He motioned with his head toward a doorway next to the bar. Trisha follo
wed him through it.
Weevil’s office was nicer than the club itself, but that wasn’t saying much. The door muffled the music, except for the ever-present repetitive throb of the bass line. Bare energy-efficient light bulbs overhead, screwed into dingy sockets, cast a fluorescent-blue haze on mangy carpeting and wood-paneled walls.
A pine-scented candle burned away on Weevil’s desk, but even that couldn’t cut the rancid smoke flavor of the air by much.
Weevil leaned against a cluttered desk with arms folded. “You got it?” he said.
Trisha had done it again—obviously she was supposed to know what he was talking about. Time to fake it again.
“No,” she said. “Not yet.”
Weevil turned his back on her. “Then we got nothing to say, Detective. You can see yourself out.”
Trisha stepped forward, feeling the fierce determination swelling in her chest. The police had come for her, back before her change. And something had happened here—the same neighborhood she’d been in, asking about Georgie. She was pretty sure Weevil knew what connected those two things.
But what could she say? Hi. I’m not really Detective Palmer. I used to be a black kid. He’d never believe it.
But she had to say something. He had already gathered a few papers from a filing cabinet and was now herding her toward the door, back into the club where the music would drown out anything she tried to say.
She opened her mouth and the words came out before she knew what they were. “Fat Reggie,” she said.
Weevil froze. An evil little smile crept into the corners of his mouth.
“You finally tracked him down, eh? What did that little bastard have to say for himself?”
“Said he was innocent.”
“Naturally.”
“I believe him,” Trisha said.
The little muscle just below Weevil’s eye began to twitch. “You look here, Detective. I don’t care what you think of me. I don’t. You get your shit together and get your search warrant. You come back here with that and I’ll play nice—give you a tour of the whole joint. But that fat little runt stole my football trophy from me. Got half a dozen witnesses say so—including one of The City’s Finest. He stole it, and I want it back.”
Trisha’s mind churned. Witnesses? As Reggie she’d been up and down this street, asking about her brother. It was the kind of neighborhood that attracted Georgie—though she couldn’t pretend to understand why—but she’d never stepped foot in Weevil’s until that afternoon.
And his trophy? His?
She took a step toward Weevil, closing the space between them, and placed her hand on the rough stubble of his face.
“Look, lady, I—”
Before he could pull away she went up on her tiptoes and touched her head to his.
If she was wrong and this wasn’t Georgie, she’d probably just invited him to rape her.
Weevil didn’t resist her. He closed his eyes, allowing the essence of himself to flow between them.
And she saw.
Saw Georgie standing up to their mother as a fry cook, petulant and eager to face the world on his own terms. Felt the oppression Georgie believed their mother placed on him.
Saw him change himself into the appearance of a bank teller at the local branch—he’d been watching her for weeks, flirting with her for days. A silly girl who’d accidentally mentioned that the Facebook password she’d just given him was the same password she used everywhere so that she never had to remember anything.
Saw him use the girl’s appearance to access their father’s savings—their family’s savings—draining the whole account.
Saw him as a forty-year-old office worker, removing her heels to relieve her sore feet, dreaming of the end of the workday where she would lavish a younger admirer with the finest wine, dinner at a four-star restaurant, and a passionate night in a luxury suite.
Saw him as a teenage boy, out on the street, wondering what had happened to all of his money.
Saw that boy admiring Weevil—Weevil’s presence, his command of the neighborhood. Saw him sneaking after Weevil late at night when Weevil resupplied his dealers and paid off corrupt government officials.
Saw that boy kill Weevil. Brutally. Slashing Weevil’s throat and enjoying the feel of the blood splattering that boy’s face.
Saw that boy become Weevil. Writing himself into Weevil’s world. Taking over the drug operation. Expanding it. With a fierce determination to conquer—to be free forever from the oppression of poverty. To rule over his domain.
No matter the cost.
Trisha tried to force herself away, but the vision kept coming. Weevil, strangling a pimp. Taking over the prostitution in this part of the city. Weevil, hiring thugs from the worst of the city’s gangs. Weevil, threatening the son of a city councilwoman if she didn’t change her vote on upcoming ordinances.
Weevil, staring down the real Detective Janet Palmer, daring her to come at him with everything she had. Knowing that she would. And not caring because he knew he could get away with it.
The horror of it all rocked Trisha to the core. Her brother had done terrible, terrible things.
And then she saw Weevil, getting word of some punk-ass fat kid traipsing up and down King Street, asking if anybody had seen his brother Georgie.
And Weevil had made one last transformation—just for one day. Just long enough to be ready to change back.
Weevil as Fat Reggie, bursting from the office behind the bar, holding tight to a water bottle nestled in the folds of his jacket so no one could see, dashing out into the cool evening, into the crowds, and into a side alley where he wrote himself back into Weevil and called the cops to report a robbery at his club.
The vision broke and Trisha pulled away only to see a look of smug self-satisfaction on her brother’s face.
“You came,” he said. “I knew you’d get my message.”
Goosebumps prickled along Trisha’s arms, and she pulled her coat tightly closed around her to stave off the chill. Weevil didn’t keep his office that cold, but everything she’d just witnessed about the way her brother spent the last several months made her shiver.
She sank back into the soft leather of an oversized chair. She supposed it was comfortable, but right now Trisha didn’t think she’d ever be comfortable again.
The only thing she’d wanted—her brother—had been found, and with that, and with the discovery of who he really was, her fierce determination faded away and left her utterly alone.
The door opened, briefly inviting that dreadful music, and slammed again as Weevil returned with a tumbler full of some kind of beer that looked and smelled like piss.
He offered it to her. “Put hair on your chest.”
“Did you really just say that?”
“What?”
Trisha looked at her chest and back to her brother, who shrugged and tried to hand it to her again.
“I think I’d throw up,” she said.
He shrugged again. “Best beer on the planet.”
“No.”
Weevil took a big swallow and wiped his mouth with the back of his giant, hairy arm.
“Good to see you, sis.”
“I can’t say the same.”
“Oh come on. Tell me you weren’t sick of being that stupid retard.”
Trisha prickled. “Don’t say that.”
“Okay. Halfwit. Better?”
Last year, before Georgie ran away, Trisha had loved this kind of banter. They could go at it for hours, making circular little arguments back and forth at each other, changing a word here and there to give different contexts to what the other had said.
Knowing what Georgie had become, it grated at her. She’d had enough.
“What are you doing here, Georgie?”
“Weevil.”
“No
,” she said. “You’re not.”
“But I am. I run this part of the city. I got three guys within earshot’ll say I’m the boss. Thirty more just a couple steps down the chain. I got policemen in my pocket. Hell, you saw the vision. You know exactly who I am.”
“If you’re Weevil, then my brother is dead.”
He snorted and tried to stroke the side of her face. She pulled away.
“I am Weevil and your brother,” he said. “That’s the difference between you and me, sis. You’re still figuring out who you’re meant to be. Me, I found it. Weevil is exactly who I’m supposed to be.”
“I don’t think the real Weevil feels that way.”
“Don’t you get acting all high-and-mighty on me, sis. I saw your life at the same time you saw mine. Geez, all that time stuck in the body of Fat Reggie … How’d you do it? We’re the lucky ones, sis. We’re not trapped by our genetics. We just have to find who we’re meant to be and we can be it. I mean, look at you. Detective Palmer? Niiiice choice. How’d ya think she’d feel knowing—”
A touch of pure evil entered Weevil’s eyes.
“What?” asked Trisha.
“Nothing,” he said, but he turned to his desk and, after picking up his phone, he dialed a few numbers and he whispered a few words Trisha couldn’t quite make out.
When he put down the phone Weevil changed the subject entirely. “How’s dad? What’s he calling himself these days, anyway?”
The question caught Trisha unexpectedly. She’d become Fat Reggie shortly before her father made the transition to that last phase of their lives together. She struggled with the fractured memories left over from Reggie and finally came up with the title on the sheet her father had written up for that shift: I am Reggie’s Father.
Oh.
The tears started welling up in her eyes all over again. He’d sacrificed his entire identity after Georgie had left—given up everything—so that he could be her father. Nothing more.
But that title suddenly meant everything to her. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to leave Weevil to whatever he had planned and go back home. To hold her daddy just one more time and tell him that she loved him.