Chapter 8

My cover was blown. There was nothing I could do about that. But it wasn't illegal for me to be there and it wasn't illegal for me to watch her through a periscope on public property. Even if she called the cops, they had nothing to hold me on. She'd destroyed the only crime scene she could claim I was involved with when she moved all those boxes outside. They might try to hassle me, but it wouldn't go anywhere. Even if I wasn't licensed in Ohio, I still had the right to be where I was, doing what I was doing. Besides, I was fairly sure she wanted me to see her sell those skates.

I was also fairly sure she had some plan that she was sure would work that would keep me from getting them from whoever she sold them to. I wracked my brain to figure that out, but got nowhere.

It was a girl of about ten or eleven who got them. Well, her mother got them, anyway. They did some shopping for clothes, which I thought was kind of odd. Apparently Ronnie hadn't taken all her clothes, or Maddie had saved her old ones or something, because there were some that looked right when mommy held them up against her daughter for a look. That was all they took up to the dragon woman, who was all smiles. They didn't know they were looking at fangs, and the transaction was concluded quickly. Mommy didn't appear to haggle.

Then the little girl pointed at the skates and there was a long discussion about them. When Madeline took them from around her neck and handed them to the girl, I actually sighed. No more money was exchanged.

The woman took the girl back to an older Toyota and they got in. I got the license number with the magnifier in the periscope, but I didn't follow them. For all I knew, that's what Madeline wanted me to do. I made a call and got the tag info. Then I stayed there for three more hours, just to give Maddie fits.

Tiffany N. Moore, all of thirty-three years old, according to the birth date on her driver's license, lived at 2257 Bannister Road, Number 157. 2257 Bannister Road was the home of the Starlight Trailer Court, and Number 157 was an old white over blue Skyline model, about forty feet long. It looked like it had seen better days before Tiffany N. Moore was born, but the yard was neat. It was an older park, with a network of sidewalks through it, and the roller skates I was seeking were rolling along the walk in front of Number 157. The little girl wearing them was still learning and wobbly on her feet. Both knees were already skinned up.

I got out of the van and stood looking at the girl. Apparently Tiffany was expecting me, because she came charging out of the trailer, running full tilt at me.

"GET AWAY, PERVERT!" she screamed...

I recognized the canister in her hand ... the one pointed right at my face ... as being pepper spray just as she triggered it.

If you've never gotten a shot of pepper spray directly in the eyes, don't go out and do that. You don't need to do that to understand that it's a really unpleasant way to spend half an hour. All you have to do is put a little spritz in the air and walk through it. Hold your breath while you do it, by the way. No sense in dealing with both streaming eyes AND coughing up a lung at the same time. Just getting the barest hint of mist in your eyes will teach you plenty.

I have no idea how long I rolled around on the ground. And though I KNOW I coughed up both lungs, apparently I sucked them back in. I had closed my eyes just in time to keep myself from being flat blinded, but my face took the full spray and it felt like a nuclear fireball was eating away at my skin. My eyes were swollen closed, but some of the stuff managed to migrate to the eyeballs anyway. They were burning, too.

It took a while for a worried "Are you OK?" to penetrate my brain. I found out later that she'd never used pepper spray before and had no clue what it would do to a man.

Eventually I was able to croak, "Water.".

I didn't know it, but a crowd had gathered. One of the men took charge and, since Tiffany told him the same thing Madeline had told her - that I was a convicted sex offender who preyed on ten year old girls - he elected to supply water from a hose. Actually, while he didn't know it, that was probably the best thing he could have done for me. It got the stuff off me, for the most part, and diluted what was still there to the point that I could breathe again without feeling like I was taking in acid instead of air. Through it all, I kept rolling around and screaming. It wasn't very manly, but at that point I didn't care.

Somebody else called the cops to come get the sex pervert who had attacked a girl on their street. I was sitting up when they arrived and put me in cuffs and stuffed me in the back seat of a cruiser. Somebody in the crowd had seen the badge dlipped on my belt while I was rolling around and told the cops about it. They took it, but didn't ask me any questions. I wasn't in any shape for answering anyway.

I don't know how long I sat in the back of the car. Somebody got my wallet out, and my eyes could open just barely enough to register a blue uniform, but not much else. Some paramedics showed up. I guess the police had called them. They bathed my face and eyes with milk, and that took a lot of the sting out. They offered to take me to the hospital, but I declined. I had already avoided one ambulance bill in this case and I looked at it as a personal triumph over Madeline if I could avoid another. Besides, I knew there wasn't much else they could do for me. Pepper spray doesn't really do any permanent harm to tissues. It just feels like it does. I knew that microbes of the stuff would still be there until the contaminated skin sloughed off, so I didn't rub my eyes. All that would do was grind it in and get it on my fingers.

Eventually I was able to start blinking my eyes a little bit. By the time the cops were ready to talk to me, I was breathing more or less normally and could see, though things were still blurry.

A cop took the hand irons off, and I sat with my feet hanging out of the cruiser. Tiffany, or at least a woman wearing the same color of clothing she had been wearing, was standing ten or twelve yards away. I could hear her crying.

The cop gave me the news. "We ran your name. You've never been convicted of a sex crime. Somebody in the Chicago Police Department vouched for you as well. You wanna tell me what happened?"

"It's a long story," I croaked.

"You're not licensed in Ohio," he pointed out.

"I'm just acting as my client's agent here," I said. "No cloak and dagger stuff."

"What about the van?" he asked.

"What about it?" I said back. "It's not illegal."

"It's also not registered to you," he said.

"I borrowed it. The registration is in the glove box."