Mistress of Justice

real.”
    “Or,” he joked, “go back and shop and eat dinner at the inns.”
    “I’ll get you on black diamond slopes sooner or later.”
    “What the hell? I’ve still got one thumb and eight fingers left.”
    After some Christmas shopping Taylor stopped at a coffee shop on Sixth Avenue, around the corner from her apartment, for some lunch.
    Sitting at the counter, she wondered what to get Reece for Christmas. He had all the clothes he needed. Wine was too impersonal.
    Then she recalled his collection of lead soldiers.
    She’d find one that was perfect for him—just one. A special one, antique, expensive. But where? Well, this was New York, the city that boasted neighborhoods devoted to special interests: the garment district, the flower district, even the sewing machine district. There was probably a cluster of stores somewhere in Midtown selling antique toys.
    A man sat down next to her, a large workman in gray coveralls, wearing a baseball cap. There was something vaguely familiar about him and she wondered if he worked in her apartment building; the structure was old and there were always people renovating and repairing.
    He pulled out a book and began reading.
    Taylor’s chicken soup came and as she was sprinkling Tabasco on it the man next to her took a sip of coffee. When he replaced the cup his elbow knocked his book to the floor. It dropped at her feet.
    “Oh, sorry,” he said, blushing.
    “No problem,” she said and bent down to retrieve the book. When she handed it to him he smiled his thanks and said, “I like this place. You come here a lot?” A trace of some accent from one of the outer boroughs.
    “Some.”
    “With your boyfriend?” he asked, smiling, ruefully.
    She nodded, and let the small lie do double duty: let him know she wasn’t interested and save his ego from a flat-out rejection.
    “Ah, well,” he sighed and returned to his book.
    When she left he was working on a double cheeseburger. He waved to her and called, “Merry Christmas.”
    “You too,” she said.
    Back at home, she pulled the phone book out from under her bed and looked up toy stores.
    Well, let’s start at the beginning.
    As she stood to get the phone she realized she felt achy, as if a cold were coming on. Her head was hurting a bit too. She went into the bathroom to get some aspirin, swallowed them down and returned to the bedroom to start calling the stores in search of Reece’s Christmas present.
    Feeling tired …
    She reclined on the bed and picked up the cordless phone.
    She’d dialed the first digit when she gasped and sat up fast. A churning pain struck somewhere deep within her abdomen. Her face burst out in sweat.
    “Oh, man,” she whispered. Not the flu, not now.…
    Recalling that she often got sick around Christmas when she was young. A therapist she’d seen for a while had wondered if it wasn’t her dread of a holiday presided over by a domineering father.
    “Oh …” She moaned again, pressing the skin above the pang hard with both her hands. It ceased for a moment then exploded in another eruption of agony.
    Taylor stood up, adding nausea to the sensation. The room began to spin and she tried to control her fall to the parquet floor. Her head hit the dressing table and she blacked out.
    When she opened her eyes she saw claws.
    The Jabberwock’s claws, disemboweling her, tearing her stomach, throat, the back of her mouth, shredding her flesh …
    She squinted. No, no, they were just the claws on the legs of her bed. She—
    The pain stunned her again and she moaned, a low, animal sound.
    Sweat filled her eyes and ran down her nose. She wrapped her arms around herself and drew her legs up, trying to stop the pain. Every muscle hard as rubber, she tried to will the pain away but this had no effect. Then the nausea overwhelmed her and Taylor crawled to the toilet, opened the seat and held herself up on one arm while she vomited and retched for what seemed like hours.
    Her hands shook, her skin was inflamed. She stared at the tiny hexagonal tiles in front of her until she fainted again. Consciousness returned and she struggled for the phone. But her muscles gave out and she dropped again to the floor. From a distant dimension she heard a thunk—the sound of her head hitting the tiles.
    She understood now that she’d been poisoned.… The man at the restaurant. The workman in the coveralls and baseball cap.
He
was the one who’d stolen the note, the one who’d run them off the