 |
| 18thcenturylesbian (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Chapter Seven
Maggie Mulhearn was no
stranger to the underbelly of American society. In 2007 she’d been up her eyeballs in a criminal case
involving an animal-rights activist accused of attempting to detonate a bomb at
the Philadelphia Zoo in an abortive attempt to liberate the elephants. Following a jury trial in which Maggie
was a star witness, John Larkin was acquitted of all but the least serious
charge: burglary. Released on bail
pending sentencing, Larkin had vanished.
Some months later, a bomb was detonated at the Ringling Brothers winter
home in Florida and a number of the circus elephants briefly ran free. Maggie never knew for sure if Larkin
was involved.
She had gotten a book out of that case…
her sixth. Sales had been steady,
if not best-seller sized. Royalties
from this and her other books, several of which remained in print even after
decades, supplemented her freelance income. Pushing 50, she remained a respected war correspondent. The number of her assignments was
limited only by her own growing desire to put down some roots. A daughter of the Pennsylvania
hard-coal country, she now considered Philly her home.
Annoyed at first by Eddy’s
imposition of Dalinda Garcia on her, Maggie quickly grew accustomed to having
the services of a de facto housekeeper and cook. Maggie still did all the grocery shopping, since Dalinda
refused to leave the house. But
once the food was on the kitchen table, the diminutive Latina took over,
concocting delicious dinners. So
far as Maggie could tell, when Dalinda wasn’t cooking and cleaning, she watched
Spanish-language soap operas and game shows.
In the course of the two weeks after
Eddy’s visit, Maggie also began to see her seventh book taking shape. Dalinda’s English was poor and she was
naturally reticent. But Maggie’s
patient prying drew out the better part of the girl’s story: a childhood of poverty in an
over-crowded home in a Mexican village… sneaking across the border behind a
“Coyote” in search of a new life in El Norte… betrayal and sale to human
traffickers… rape and abuse during a long, frightening trip that ended in
Philadelphia, where she was sold yet again… this time to a monster whose
minions called him “Blade.”
It took all of two weeks for Maggie to
tease out of Dalinda the horror-movie scene of the severed breasts in the
torture chamber. The girl had run
to the bathroom and vomited, when she finished telling Maggie about that.
In the meantime, Dalinda had bonded
to Maggie, who felt at various times like her mother, her big sister… and at
the end of those first two weeks, something else.
After her left cheek was disfigured
by a phosphorous grenade in Northern Ireland, while reporting on the Trouble
there during the 1990s, Maggie had largely confined her sex life to
masturbation. This was
occasionally supplemented by a drunken one-night stand with a fellow correspondent,
while out in the field on assignment.
During short stints in Afghanistan and Iraq, covering the War on Terror,
she had occasionally given a soldier or Marine a break form his routine. And that, as they say, had been that.
Based in Philly since the 2007
Larkin trial, Maggie hadn’t hooked up with anybody on a long-term basis. She continued to confine her one-night
stands to when she was on assignment.
Male friends and colleague in the City of Brotherly Love, who might have
gotten past the disfigured profile and formed a longer-lived relationship.
Where kept firmly at arm’s length.
If they could be comfortable with her as she was, she couldn’t be
comfortable with them.
Dalinda was a frightened
woman-child --- barely 18 --- who cried half the night, when Maggie put her in
the spare bedroom. So, like a
child, she had been allowed by Maggie to sleep in with her. To Maggie’s surprise, she found that
she liked the warmth of the slender body beside her… the smell of that body,
now htat it was being bathed every day… the smell of Dalinda’s breath and the
sound of her breathing. When, on
the second Saturday after her arrival, Dalinda snuggled close and slid her hand
between Maggie’s legs, to her even greater surprise Maggie liked that too.
That was the night of the day
that Maggie went to see Ned McAdoo.
Ned and Maggie knew each other since she was in her early twenties and
he a mere teen. In the lte 1980s
she had hired Ned’s father, Archie, an attorney, to prove that her Great
Grandfather, John “Black Jack” Kehoe --- hanged in 1876 as ehe so-called King
of the Molly Maguires, a coal-country Irish terrorist group --- had been
framed. Archie McAdoo had found
compelling evidence and Kehoe had been pardoned by the Pennsylvania governor.
Two decades later,
Archie and Ned, by then Archie’s law partner, had brought her back to
Philadelphia to help with the Larkin case. Maggie had made Philly her home base ever since.
Now she needed Ned’s
advice about what to do with Dalinda… and what to do about this “Blade” the
Latina seemed to fear, as if he were the Devil himself.
They met for lunch in
the Oakmont Pub, not far from Ned’s Havertown law office. They sat outside in the warm weather
and indulged in a pint of Guinness.
Maggie laid out the story as she knew it.
“Well,
Maggs, I have to hand it to you,” Ned responded, after sipping his stout and
wiping his upper lip with a forefinger.
“You really are a story magnet.
That’s one heck of a yarn.
“And you say this Dalinda is
still living with you?’
Maggie felt her face warm and hoped she wasn’t visibly
blushing.
“That’s right, Ned,” she
replied, then added, “Frankly, I don’t know what to do with her.”
“You could turn her over
to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement people,” Ned responded quickly, then
felt a little callous.
“What about this Eddy
Ireland?” he shifted gears. “I
know a lot of private investigators, but I he doesn’t conjure up a face in my
head.”
“I’ve know Eddy
for a few years, now,” explained Maggie. “He’s helped get under the surface of some of my
assignments for Philadelphia Magazine and the Philly Inquirer. In return, I’ve thrown some business
his way. We usually meet for
drinks every couple of weeks or so.”
She saw Ned’s eyebrows
raise ever so slightly.
“No, Neddy,” she said
firmly. “It’s nothing more
personal than that.”
“But he picked you to
take care of the girl,” Ned objected.
“That suggests a lot of trust at least.”
“More than I
realized,” conceded Maggie.
“So where is Eddy
now?” Ned wondered.
“That’s another
big wrinkle,” replied Maggie. “I
haven’t seen or heard for him in the past two weeks. I’ve emailed, texted and left email messages. Nada.”
“And you haven’t
personally tried to look into theis Blade character?”
“No, I’ve been
busy with several assignments. And
it’s taken me this long to get what finally seems to be the whole story out of
Dalinda.”
Ned nibbled at his
fries. Maggies recalled how his
Dad, a large man, always gobbled his food.
“So… you think I
shold turn her over to ICE, eh, Ned?”
Their eyes
met. The silence lasted for a ten
count.
“No. No, Maggie, I don’t”
Maggie breathed an
audible sigh.
“Good. I don’t either. But I don’t know what the hell I should do.”
“Keep doing
what your doing, Maggs. Let me
talk to a friend in the U.S. Attorney’s office.”
Now it was
Maggie’s turn to raise her eyebrows.
“No
worries, Maggs. He’s a
friend. I can do this in
confidence. Give me a few days.”
When
they parted company, Maggie drove home.
She entered her house to aroma of Dalinda’s cooking. Dinner was accompanied by a bottle of
wine. Dalinda clearly had no
experience with wine, but she took to it with enthusiasm.
After dinner the pair curled up on the living room couch and watched
TV. Dalinda snuggled up against Maggie,
who put her arm around the girl.
It wasn’t long before Dalinda’s left hand found its way to that place of
warm refuge she now visited every night.
This time, Maggie lowered her head to find Dalinda looking up at her
with big doe eyes. They kissed. Tongues entwined. Clothes came off.
Afterwards, Lying beside a sleeping Latina in her bed, Maggie
wondered,
“Am I a lesbian?”
“Am I in love?”
And, “Am I going to end up fucked by all this?”
No comments:
Post a Comment