Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.
Background
Zee takes in the troubled son of a friend. No good deed goes unpunished. The druggy guy seduces Biggie, Zees young ward. After ditching movie night to go clubbing, Biggie disappears.
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By the time I finished reshaving my legs and playing whack-a-mole with my chin hairs, Sid had come and gone.
Q sat in his Eames chair, looking pensive.
"Where's Sid?" I asked.
He took his time answering as if the sound of my voice traveled a long distance.
"While you were doing...whatever...you were doing, Sid did his doctor thing and left. An ambulance will be here soon."
"What did he say is wrong with her?"
"His best guess? She suffered some kind of psychotic break due to a traumatic event."
"How long will she be like this?" I asked.
I knew the answer; there was no answer. But I'd run out of questions. Sid knew Biggies history. He knew about her step-father kicking her in the head with steel-toed boots when she was two years old--the ultimate diagnosis: Arrested emotional development and speech dysplasia due to blunt trauma to her developing brain. Now, this.
And I was correct. Q did not answer.
Switching questions, I asked, "So, where is he, Sid?"
"He went home to pack a bag. He's taking Biggie to a private sanitarium in Wisconsin."
"Are you going?"
"Yes."
"Can I go?"
"No."
"Then, what am I to do?" I asked.
He looked up at me. "Pack her things," he said and then swiveled his chair to face the wall. "Now, leave me alone."
"Did he ask about me...?" I asked in a whisper.
If he heard me, he chose to ignore me.
That was three years ago.
So, here I sit on a concrete bench on Michigan Ave with Ike The Spike.
Had he not spoken to me, I would not have recognized him. His charming good looks were a thing of the past.
The person sitting next to me in a hospital gown looked more Frankenstein than Frankie Avalon. The entire left side of his face looked as if it had been removed with a meat cleaver and sewn back on with baling wire. His left eye drooped as if he were perpetually staring at his shoes.
"How's my baby?" He asked.
"What baby would that be?" I asked.
"I hear she had a kid."
"Does the "she" you refer to have a name?"
He laughed, then coughed, then wiped bloodstained mucus on his filthy hospital gown. Then, he laughed again.
"I think we need to get you out of here before the cops come," I said, hailing a cab.
Q was busy in the front seat of the limo, retrieving registration cards and insurance proof. He did not see us leave. He had not recognized Nick.
We sat in the backseat of the cab. "Where to?" The cabbie asked.
I looked at Nick. "The Surf hotel off Broadway," he answered.
Author Notes
Zee: Author of cheap paperback novels. Rich, eccentric old cougar living in a condo in downtown Chicago.
Biggie: Filipino. Zees unofficially adopted daughter. Computer guru. Eighteen but diagnosed with arrested emotional development and speech dysphasia after suffering a brutal beating as a child.
Stella: Thirty-something housekeeper. She lives with Zee. She Drives a motorcycle. She moved from her grandparent's farm in Oklahoma to Chicago in search of her birth mother.
Q: Big, mean, and beautiful. He lives in a condo next to Zee. Occupation, bodyguard, chauffeur, cook, and anything else zee needs. Upper crust educated. African American.
Ike-The-Spike: Heroin Addict. Son of famous restaurant owner in Chicago. Real name is Nick.
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