TERF Wars

Chapter 4

4

“She was not a happy camper,” Rodeo joked while I drove out of the neighborhood.

“Ya think?” I pulled onto the southbound Black Canyon Highway. “Not that I care, considering her girlfriend murdered LaTonya Garrett. Let’s see what we can find out at the so-called nonprofit of hate she runs.”

Shortly after the Peoria exit, traffic came to a halt, although we were heading into town during the afternoon rush hour. I turned on the radio and learned that there had been a multi-car pileup near Bethany Home Road, a few miles south.

“This doesn’t look good,” I said.

“Maybe pull off the highway at Dunlap,” Rodeo suggested.

It took forty minutes to reach the exit and another ten before we got through the light on Dunlap Road. Even then, the surface streets were gridlocked from all the other drivers escaping the blocked highway.

By the time we reached the Womyn Born Womyn office, situated in a small strip mall, it was a quarter after five. The office was closed and dark.

“Shit.” I pounded on the glass door. “f*****g traffic.”

Rodeo put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. Zahara and I will track her down. If we don’t have her by the time Z leaves for Vegas on Saturday, I’ll keep looking. Maybe have Byrd or one of Conor’s other guys as backup. Go enjoy your weekend.”

I sighed. “If it was anyone but one of these f*****g TERFs.”

TERF was short for transgender-exclusionary radical feminist, a term the radfem community came up with to describe those who didn’t consider trans women to be women and who treated trans men as traitors to the butch lesbian community.

“Don’t let her live rent free in your head,” Rodeo replied.

“You sound like my dad.”

“Well, he is a psychologist.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go back to the Hub.”

It didn’t take us long to return downtown, which had emptied for the day.

“See you Monday,” Rodeo said, giving me a hug. “Have a pleasant flight and have fun this weekend.”

“I intend to.”

“But not too much fun.” He winked.

“Yeah, yeah.”

I headed home to get ready for my crazy extended weekend in Vegas. With a little luck, Rodeo and Zahara would track down Marshall in a day or so, making Sadie a happy woman—or at least less grumpy than usual—and the rest of us a little richer.

Home was a cozy house in the overpriced Willo District in central Phoenix that backed up to McDowell Road. I had nicknamed it the Bunker because my fiancé Conor Doyle had installed inch-thick polycarbonate windows, bulletproof walls, steel-reinforced doors, and an underground tunnel that led from a tattoo parlor on McDowell to a trapdoor in our coat closet. He’d made the extreme modifications after a d**g g**g had tried to level the place in a drive-by shooting.

My two-year-old golden retriever Diana greeted me with sloppy, wet doggy kisses at the door when I arrived.

“Hey, baby girl. You need to go for a run?”

“Just got back from one,” Conor called from the kitchen.

I found him relaxing and drinking a bottle of Jarritos Mandarin soda at our antique kitchen table rumored to have once belonged to the pirate Jean Lafitte, one of my ancestors.

Like me, Conor was a bounty hunter. In fact, he was the one who introduced me to the business before I started my own company. He greeted me with a hug and a kiss when I walked in.

“What’s the craic, love?”

Despite all the years I’d known him, his curly red hair, emerald eyes, and Irish brogue never failed to turn me on. The man had a sexy ruggedness that a lot of cisgender women dreamed their men had. The fact that he loved me, a transgender woman, still blew my mind.

I sat opposite him and took a sip of his soda. “We got Nussbaum finally.”

“The barmy lass who shags corpses?” His upper lip curled in disgust. Even that was sexy. “Good for you, love.”

“Over one hundred counts of a***e of a human corpse. But her perversion is my profit. Two-hundred-thirty-thousand-dollar bounty.”

“Brilliant! Try not to blow your entire cut gambling in Las Vegas.” He winked when he said it.

“Not a chance. Though I may have to bring an additional suitcase for all the comics, books, and other merch I plan to buy.”

My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten since we caught Nussbaum, and I was starving. I pulled a banana from the bunch on the counter only to realize it was an empty peel.

“Dammit! Got me again with the empty banana trick.”

He nearly choked on his soda laughing. Recently he’d discovered that he could open a banana from the middle and the peel wouldn’t wilt. Now it had turned into an ongoing prank.

I smirked. “Laugh while you can, smarty-pants. You’ll get yours.”

“Sorry, love. I ate the banana early this morning. Been waiting all day for you to grab it.” He continued to chuckle.

“Anyway,” I said, trying to recover my dignity. “How was your day? You were on a stakeout, right?”

“Aye. The bloke was a no-show at his girl’s place. I think we’ll check with some of his co-workers at the construction site.” His eyelids drooped. “Until then, I gotta get some shut-eye. I’m knackered.”

My phone rang. The caller ID showed the name Marie Lafitte. I took the call.

“Grand-Mère Marie! How are you?”

“Oo ye yi, cher. I fear I may not make it down for the wedding.”

“Why? Are you sick?”

“No, no, it’s Guimauve. She’s not her usual perky self, and she hasn’t been eating. I fear she may be ill.”

“Oh, Grand-Mère, I’m so sorry. Any idea what’s going on?”

“She’s at the veterinarian now. They’re running tests.”

My heart felt heavy. I so wanted her to come out for the wedding. But she loved that dog, and it was a long trip from New Orleans for a woman in her late seventies.

Conor eyed me with a concerned look.

“Do what you feel is best. If you can’t make it, I will understand. I know how much she means to you. And maybe I’ll fly back to New Orleans sometime soon.”

“I would hate to miss your wedding, cher. You’re my only granddaughter.”

“I would miss you too. Let me know when you hear from the vet.”

“I will. Bye-bye, cher.”

I hung up and sighed.

“How’s Grand-Mère Marie?” Conor got up and hugged me from behind.

“Not good. Her dog, Guimauve, is sick.”

“Gwee-what?”

“Guimauve. It’s French for marshmallow.” I shrugged. “She’s not sure whether she’ll make it to the wedding or not.”

“Poor woman must be wrecked. What kind of dog is it?”

“Shitza-poo.”

Conor spewed orange soda across the kitchen table, barely missing me. “A what?”

“A shitza-poo. It’s a cross between a shih-tzu and a poodle. What else would you call it?”

“I dunno. Maybe a shih-poo?” He grabbed a kitchen towel and mopped up the mess.

“A sheep-poo? Oh yeah. That sounds tons better.”

“Well, I hope the poor pup gets to feeling better. I know how close you are with your grandmother.”

I trailed a finger along the grain of the antique wooden table. She had given it to me years earlier. Supposedly, Captain Jean Lafitte had eaten off it in his ship’s cabin. “Yeah, we’re close.”

“Well, love, I’m gonna hit the sack.”

I felt a twinge of sadness about leaving him for the weekend. Since he’d come back into my life a year earlier, I’d become clingier for fear of losing him once again. “Care for some company?”

His eyes twinkled with anticipation. “Aye! Can never say no to you.”

As we undressed, both our bodies reflected the violent and potentially lethal nature of our chosen profession. The coppery curls of hair on his chest couldn’t hide the multiple scars from bullet wounds, knife attacks, and an IED he survived while working for Dark Horse Security in Iraq.

My body wasn’t much better. I’d been shot, stabbed, beaten, and battered from my countless encounters with suspects, both as a bounty hunter and in my one-year stint as a patrol officer with Phoenix PD.

The scars were a hazard of the trade. But one scar on his leg still pulled at a deeply held trauma in my soul. A year and a half ago, Conor and I were trying to stop a white nationalist paramilitary group from bringing down Phoenix City Hall with a truck full of explosives. Conor had forced the truck over on the Piestewa Freeway. Still, the driver set off the explosive during morning rush hour, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds more.

For a week, I believed Conor had been killed in the explosion. But on Christmas morning, he called me from Mexico on a burner phone. Seconds before the detonation, he’d leapt off the bridge into the Arizona Canal. He avoided the blast but suffered a compound fracture from the fall into the canal.

With help from a document forger named Picardo, Conor escaped to Mexico to evade the Northern Irish police who had tracked him to Phoenix as part of their investigation into the Omagh bombing that Conor’s father had been involved with when Conor was seventeen.

I visited him down in Mexico but declined his offer to start a new life under assumed identities. Without me by his side, he surrendered to the Northern Irish authorities and was eventually cleared of the terrorism charges after two decades of living on the run.

Months later, Conor’s U.S. citizenship was restored. He never explained how, but I gathered that his former employer, Dark Horse Security, had greased the path with Homeland Security.

The four-inch scar where the Mexican surgeon repaired his shattered leg still reminded me of the sense of loss I’d experienced, both when I thought him dead and when I walked away.

Our lovemaking now was even more passionate. Gratitude was a helluva d**g. Soon I would marry this amazing man. The impossible dream was finally coming true.

Despite all the s**t we’d been through, both together and separately, I had no reservations about spending the rest of my life with this kind, funny, sexy man. The refrain from Carole King’s “Natural Woman” played through my mind.

After a post-coital cuddle, he fell into a much-needed sleep while I packed for my weekend of cosplay, fangirling, and bachelorette festivities.

Becca, her significant other Easton St. Claire, and I would spend Thursday, Friday, and part of Saturday doing the StoryCon thing. Going to panels, buying comics, talking to creators, and probably getting my photo taken with other fans of the Into the Black franchise who loved the character I was cosplaying.

Zahara, my friend and lawyer Kirsten Pasternak, and my mentor Juanita Valdez would join us on Saturday afternoon. Juanita, a trans woman who owned Phoenix’s largest drag bar, was in charge of the bachelorette party. I had no idea what outrageous things she had planned, but knowing her, it would be memorable. Assuming I didn’t get too drunk.