Secrets & Lies Read Online Free Page B

and round. To my west were more cops pouring over the crime scene. Unless the guys to my east got out of their car and joined their team at the shop, I’d have to stay where I was.
    And it was really, really cold.
    That’s what happened, dear diary. The cops never got out of the car or moved it until the other policemen finished their job at the store. I guess they were told to watch the street.
    It took
hours
. I suffered. I really did! It was so darned cold. I sat there in that wet, frigid doorway until 2:38 a.m.
    The two burglars I’d pounded were eventually taken away. I kept my fingers crossed that the cops would call it a night and notbother with searching the rest of the street. Thank goodness, they just left. Maybe the two under arrest told them that the gang’s other half made off in the van. I wonder if they got caught.
    I was frozen stiff. It hurt to make my way home. I was afraid I’d gotten frostbite on my lower face, the part that’s not covered by the leather mask. All my energy was depleted, and it was a huge effort to climb the telephone pole and trek across the roofs to the gym. Once I was in my room, I looked in the mirror and saw that my lips were
blue
. That scared me, so I took a hot bath and soaked for a half hour. I laid a warm, wet washrag over my mouth and nose, and after a while, my face looked normal again. Then I made some hot tea, and here I am.
    Now I can barely keep my eyes open.

3
Judy’s Diary
    1961
    J ANUARY 10, 1961
    I’ve got a bad cold and a fever.
    It’s no wonder, after what I went through the other night. I got so cold and wet, and for such a long period of time, too. And what did it accomplish? Well, no big fat thanks to the Black Stiletto. A lot of good it did me, stopping that robbery. Besides, I was only half successful, and it got me sick as a dog in the process. There was nothing in the papers about me. The
Daily News
said the two burglars arrested in front of and inside the fur store had been left behind by their own gang members, who had gotten away. Surely, the two guys told the police the Black Stiletto was there. I bet the cops withheld that information on purpose just to spite me.
    I feel so crummy. I went to see Dr. Goldstein today. He said I had an ear infection, something I don’t think I’ve had since I was a kid in Odessa. He gave me some medicine, and then I thought about something Lucy and I had discussed recently.
    It was a little embarrassing, but I didn’t know of any other way to bring it up but to just ask. “I’ve heard there’s going to be some kind of birth control pill?”
    Dr. Goldstein shot me a look a parent might give. He must have thought—
What? A nice girl like Judy Cooper?
He went back to hisnote writing and said that it was approved, but only for married women. I felt like he was disappointed in me somehow. Well, I’m not his daughter. As for this new pill they’re talking about, I don’t know if I’d take it. Gosh, the way my love life is going these days, there’s no
need
, ha ha.
    I suppose some people would think I’m a slut for even thinking about it. Why would any unmarried girl want to take the pill unless she’s easy? That’s the mainstream viewpoint, but it seems to me there’s a kind of underground position, especially among women, that it’s really okay for us to like sex as much as men do. We should have more choices in what we, as women, do with our bodies, such as whether to have kids or not. There’s a growing sentiment that it should be legal for women to safely have abortions. I don’t know what I think about that, but I do admire there is something happening in this country with regard to equal rights, whether they’re for women or Negroes or whomever.
    After the doctor appointment, I went home, took my medicine, and went to bed. Got up a little while ago to have some chicken soup Freddie brought in from the East