No Place for a Lady

"Damn it!" To punctuate the expletive, I tapped the enter key sharply. That woke my computer from its third nap since I sat down after supper four hours earlier.

I had a Thursday noon deadline for the next week's issue, but a compelling finish for the story eluded me this Tuesday night. As on the previous two nights, I admitted writer's block. I saved the paltry output of my evening's work, shut down, then slouched deeper into the chair to gather my thoughts for a moment. My mood was as dark as the moonless night beyond my window.

The ringing phone disrupted my mild funk just before a thunderous tantrum to vent my frustration. That outburst could have rivaled the fury of the driving mid-October squall outside. I composed myself and answered, "Hello?"

"Oh, thank God! ... Mickie, this is Norma. I'm so glad you're home."

Although I barely recognized her voice above the background noises of a boisterous crowd, I noted an edge of fear in it. "You're calling late. What's up?"

"I need your help! I have to talk to you, but not on this phone. Too many ears are too close, and some aren't friendly. Meet me in the Blue Onion in an hour. Okay?"

Norma Winslow, probably my best friend, called for help. She didn't usually ask for help for little things, so I knew she faced a serious problem. Still, I needed a bit more than an hour. I had to put on my face, dress, and then drive there. "I'll try to get there in an hour, Norma, but it's 10:30 already. Best I can promise is that I'll be there by midnight." While surprised by her call, I knew and respected the Blue Onion's reputation as the roughest of rough places around the docks. "But let's meet some other place, any other place, than the Blue Onion. The Silver Sloop, maybe?"

Norma held firm. "No. We have to meet here. I'm supposed to meet Sid here later, and I can't reach him to change those plans."

I understood the importance of Norma's other appointment with the other private detective I respected, so, despite serious misgivings, reluctantly agreed, "Okay. Before midnight, in the Blue Onion."

"Get here as soon as you can. And Mickie, dress 'loose' so you blend in. Pack your gun because it's dangerous. If I have to leave before you get here, check with Gwen, the bartender. Hope to see you later. Bye!" Norma hung up.

My thoughts, now personal, strayed far from my current assignment. As I combed my hair and put on my makeup, questions came rapidly and regularly as waves driven before an on-shore wind, but the answers hadn't yet left their secret port.

If you ever read the National Rag, you may have seen my column, Muddy Skirts. My byline reads Michelle Stevens, but my friends call me Mickie. I earned my pay. I was often first to report a scandal or tragedy, or to uncover a desperate life at the dark fringe of life. To get such scoops for the tabloid that paid me, I constantly jousted with rivals, out thought and outmaneuvered them, pushed back other pushy people to be the first to poke through the wreckage of a ruined reputation or an ended life.

Certainly, paychecks earned as a professional busybody housed me in modest comfort, fed me, kept my bills paid with a bit to spare, and put clothes on my back without making me get on my back. While researching the story about pimps and prostitutes along the waterfront, I met some people who did just that to earn a living.

On the face of it, I had it much better than the men and women who worked the streets. Their trade in transient pleasure acquainted them with severe risks, and not just that they might catch some disease. Many were assaulted by the Johns and even by a few of the Jills. Some were injured seriously. For a few, the need to make a living by selling their services brought crippling injuries or death. In fact, a dozen had been murdered and another half dozen just disappeared so far this year.

Still, I wasn't overly fond of my job. I worked on the dark and dirty side of life, so feared the depressing darkness and dirtiness would stain my soul indelibly. Sometimes, I felt that I had become unforgiving, unyielding, unrelenting, as hard and cold as the concrete, asphalt and steel of my world. It's a world that I wanted to escape, if only I could find a way that wouldn't make me a good story in my own column.

As I rolled black thigh high hose up my legs, I again conceded that each column printed betrayed a person. Some secrets were shanghaied when I invaded someone's privacy. Others were shared because a person trusted me to honor their confidence. Every story exposed someone without concern for the effects. I wasn't raised to be so callous, thus each column cost something of myself that I loathed to pay.

Had I walled away my emotions and integrity forever? Or did I just leave them hanging in the closet when I dressed for work? During that morning's staff meeting, my editor revealed that he thought of me as just another of the hacks who wrote for the paper. While unintentional, it was an insult nonetheless, and fueled my fears and concerns that I had lost my way just to earn some money. I never felt this way when I was on the police force, because then the search for truth served justice and the community. Reporting for the scandal sheet merely served the perverse curiosity of the readers. It made me a Judas to anyone who trusted me.

As I selected a low cut white blouse and black leather miniskirt, another question haunted, taunted, me. Would I ever have a real life? Whenever that thought invaded my meditations, especially on quiet nights at home, it started me crying into my cocoa. Tonight, those quiet tears freely would salt my drink, but it would be a proper drink at the Blue Onion. I was on a mission.

By the time I put on some gaudy jewelry suited for bar hopping along the docks, it was time to leave. I felt a sudden gnawing uneasiness as I pulled on my 4 inch heels and got my coat and purse. Only later did I understand the premonition came because Norma said, "Hope to see you later." As I pulled the door closed behind me, I thought, "I should have my head examined for going to the Blue Onion. I must have an extra, make that an excess, hole in it somewhere. If it was anyone other than Norma, I'd sit this one out."

* * *

Across town, in a small booth across from the Blue Onion's bar, Norma sat alone. Despite efforts to direct her thoughts in other directions, the sense of imminent peril persistently invaded her consciousness. Unable to ignore it, she examined it as she nervously nursed her drink.

Early this afternoon, she snapped surveillance photographs related to the case she and Sid worked. The pictures incriminated dangerous people who would kill her rather than let her share those photos with her partner or the police. At first, she believed that her subjects didn't notice her. The growing dread began just after she retrieved the developed prints, when she saw one of the photographed men behind her as she pulled away from the parking spot. She lost him in traffic, but she knew that's when her status changed. No longer prowling huntress, she was herself hunted now.

That origin for her tension determined, she returned to the present. The first two phone calls she just made were but one-way speeches to answering machines. In a perfect world, one or the other, maybe both, would have been home. Neither call would be of any use if Sid or Chet didn't check his machine in time. The information had to be passed along before her pursuers caught up to her and silenced her.

Uninvited, apprehension and fear now sat with her. They had been Norma's escorts during quiet moments for these last six hours. At first, they kept a polite distance. Now they crowded her to make room for a foursome at a small table for two, to make space for regret.

A nagging second thought, a realization, was seed of her growing remorse. Norma knew before she dialed that her third call entangled and endangered Mickie, her closest friend, but she saw no other option. If neither Sid nor Chet arrived before Mickie, well then, so be it! Regardless of risks to her friend, Norma must draft her, convince her to deliver the information to the others. In her favor, Mickie would be quite capable to complete the task against opposition, if she hadn't gone soft.

Still, Norma's regret sprouted from understanding that her friend shouldn't be exposed to such hazards without full explanation. Norma wanted to tell Mickie the whole story, tell her why she was picked to be a courier, and to become a target, before the end of the night. The new arrival, entering through the back door, made a silent threat that her wish might not be possible.

She recognized this tough from her earlier surveillance. He was one of the thugs involved in the evil plot. As he stalked toward her, Norma went out the front door and turned left as soon as she reached the sidewalk. She spotted another lurker, a shadow under the neon cross marking the mission soup kitchen.

He anticipated her flight, positioned himself to block escape to the left along the street. To the right, the sidewalk was open, but her next possible sanctuary would be too far to reach before he could shoot her in the back. The first thug came through the door behind her. He'd catch her easily if she stood flat-footed. Left no time for careful plans, Norma kicked off her heels, charged forward, then made a second sharp left to run down the gangway between the Blue Onion and the mission.

Norma knew that she took a calculated risk. If there were three, the third could already block the gangway. She would be trapped between enemies. She could only hope to get a head start before the two on the street reacted to her maneuver.

She hoped to cross the alley, and reach her car parked in the lot behind the bar. Once in her Corvette, she could outrun them easily.

But indeed, a third man waited at the end of the gangway. The thug moved confidently to intercept her flight, but she was more ready, more determined to escape than he was to catch her. Her path opened because he didn't block the unexpected blow from the purse she swung as a bat after a low pitch. Surprise etched his features as his knees buckled from the blow directed below them, but the thug wasn't done yet. As she tried to get past, he grabbed her coat. Norma kneed his nose hard enough to drive a ball through the goal post from fifty yards. His head snapped back and his grip loosened as he passed out. She nearly got away, except now the other two reached her, grabbed her, punched her.

No scenes from her past flashed before her eyes. She was far too busy for that. Norma fought for her life as a cornered bear turns on tormenting hounds. She was outnumbered and knew that she fought a lost battle if she couldn't disable one or both. Norma maneuvered to face only one attacker at a time and kept the wall at her back. She struck them as hard as she knew how, with no rules save her own survival,

If she couldn't win, at least she could mark them. Besides the bruises and scratches she would make them wear, samples of their blood and skin under her fingernails would be clues to their identities. If she could tear off an attacker's ear, thumb out an eye, crush a larynx, side-kick a knee to rupture ligaments, or drive her heel down on an instep hard enough to break a foot, the police might even catch the thugs at the nearest emergency room.

Suddenly, she fought only one, then none, but felt the presence of a third. She tossed the hair out of her eyes. Through the haze caused by her assailants' punches, she recognized a friend and ally. "About time you showed up, Sid!"

"Got your message. Looks like I found you just in time." her partner answered. Sid surveyed the sprawled antagonists, "Let's go. They're starting to come around." He grabbed her arm, briskly led her to his car, and they sped away.

A block into the trip, Norma said, "Oh shit! Sid, head for the hospital. This isn't all their blood. I'm cut. I'm bleeding. I feel kind of woozzzz ..." She passed out.

"Damn it! Hold on, girl. We're only blocks away!" Sid dialed 9-1-1 to let the emergency room know he was coming in fast and laden with a stabbing victim so they'd meet him with a Gurney.

* * *

In the gangway, Nick's head cleared slowly, inexorably. The last remembered image of the brick wall rushing toward his face faded. The darkness which followed the pain of impact was replaced by fresh view of a narrow corridor which opened onto a lighted parking lot across the alley. As he regained his senses, he felt himself stumbling along, moving at a quicker pace than his uncoordinated legs could manage.

He realized Stretch had him under the arms, partly carrying, partly dragging him from the scene of the skirmish. Nick checked that his jaw wasn't broken, then whined, "That son-of-a-bitch rammed me into the wall! Damn near broke my head." His words echoed faintly in the narrow brick canyon of the gangway between buildings.

Nick breathed with difficulty. He experienced this before, after other fights. As they reached the lighted alley, he saw the blood on his left hand, wiped from his face when he checked his jaw. He knew his nose was broken again. He asked Stretch, "How'd you do?"

"Didn't do no better than you. Almost had her before that other guy jumped in. But we're both better off than Curly. He's still out cold. We need to get him to Doc's." Tall, thin Stretch broke the news with the subtlety of a left jab to an already broken nose. It staggered Nick like another punch to his head.

The lingering fog lifted from Nick's dazed mind. He knew bruises from a lost fight were sure to show within the next few days. They always seemed to hurt more than those he got when he won. Nausea flooded and ebbed, so he knew that at least one punch had been to his stomach. But Stretch was right. No matter how he felt, he was moving. Curly was hurt seriously if they needed to get him to Doc's place.

With effort, Nick remembered their ambush. They had planned it well, and it promised to go well at the start. How, why, had it gone so badly at the end? Images formed, became ordered in correct sequence. Nick remembered, then admitted aloud, "She was pretty tough herself. Never figured she had the nerve to fight us."

Stretch, stooped and breathing deeply under his burden, noted, "Smart, too. Took on Curly to open an escape route rather than trying to fight three of us at once. Just a good thing we caught her or she'd have got away clean ... Shit! She did get away, ... I must still be a little loopy from the fight."

Despite feeling only half alive himself, Nick tried to break away. "Can't leave Curly. Got to take him with us."

"We won't leave him. After I get you to the car, I'll go back for Curly. We need to clear out before the cops get here. Then we'll go to Doc's. See if he can help Curly, get you patched up." Stretch outlined his plan as he restrained Nick. He leaned Nick against the car, opened the door for his comrade. As he turned away, he noticed his friend's bleeding nose, "Nick, try not to bleed all over the seats, huh? Vonnie will kill me if I get blood on the seats."

Stretch dragged Curly to the car. As he crossed the alley, he paused to take a few breaths. Before he restarted, he ordered, "Nick, open the back door. Spread that blanket over the seat so I don't get Curly's blood on it."

Nick did as instructed, then rested alongside the car for only a moment. He thought he rested only a minute, not even enough time to completely stanch the flow from his bloody nose before he sat inside, but it must have been longer than it felt.

Too, while quite thin for his height, Stretch was a lot stronger than he looked. He was back already and propped Curly in the rear seat. He arranged Curly to look like a reveler with a snoot full, just in case a passing patrolman eyed them while they drove.

Stretch took a final look back at the site of their defeat as he put the car in gear, then eased toward Doc's. He didn't want to be stopped for a minor traffic beef with an unconscious man in the back seat, especially when that man bled freely on his shirt.

Nick was characteristically silent, so Stretch was free to think. As guests of the state, the four of them shared a cell some years ago. He was caught driving a stolen car. Nick and Curly were caught during an attempted armed robbery at a convenience store. Only Doc could claim that he got a raw deal. While Doc saw combat as an Army Medic, the jury didn't buy the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder defense presented by his Public Defender. The jury found, and the judge concurred, that kicking the other guy in the head a half dozen times after he was down turned the bar fight into attempted homicide. That made it serious enough to land in prison, even for a first offense.

Doc worked his six years in the infirmary. Almost an extension of his training to treat soldiers wounded in battle, he mastered the useful specialty of patching other inmates injured in fights at Gray Stone U. Curly and Nick needed him now. As an extra benefit, Doc wouldn't ask embarrassing questions like a hospital would, just treat them. He'd know what to do with Curly's body if he died. And, they could call the boss without being overheard by anyone outside the gang.