Final Stroke by Michael Beres Page A

the drug, she could not be sure about the magic three-hour window.
    So far, Steve seemed to be doing fairly well recalling the recent past, the past after his stroke. But last week, when his mother and retarded sister visited from Cleveland, it was obvious Steve did not remember them. He put on a good act, though, knowing he should show recognition. Faking it was something a lot of recovering stroke victims did.
    Despite not recognizing his mother and sister, there was hope. Recently he’d become obsessed by the recall of a boy from grammar school. A boy named Dwayne Matusak who apparently threatened Steve during an entire summer. Dwayne Matusak’s name came up more frequently during Jan’s visits, and, according to Steve’s therapists, during his occupational and speech rehab. Although Jan was able to visit Steve every day, his stringent rehab schedule kept her from seeing him as much as she would have liked. He was in an experimental pro gram consisting of eight to fourteen hours per day of therapy. Steve’s doctor said the medication combined with long hours of therapy was Steve’s best shot at recovery. Although this might have been more ex pensive than they could have afforded on their own, the program was experimental and therefore part of the cost was picked up.
    Lydia glanced back toward the kitchen door where Ilonka had stood while giving her toast, then turned back to Jan. “I like the name Ilonka.”
    “It’s Helen in Hungarian,” said Jan.
    “My mom’s name was Helen. She named me Lydia because she saw Groucho Marx sing ‘Lydia the Tattooed Lady’ once.”
    As Lydia spoke, she touched the scar on her left cheek with her finger and Jan could see the change that always came over Lydia when she spoke of her past and touched her scar. The scar started at the cor ner of Lydia’s mouth and went to her eye. Lydia had long black hair, fair complexion, and a thin face. When the scar had been at its worst, it masked Lydia’s beauty and even her personality because, no matter what people said, when they saw a woman with a scar like that, they couldn’t help thinking she must have deserved it.
    The scar had been made by a knife wielded by a thug who worked for a downtown pimp disappointed by Lydia’s repeated refusal to join his harem. It was the pimp’s final blow after having gotten her on her oin. Helping Jan get Lydia into drug rehab and in to see a Michigan Avenue plastic surgeon was Steve’s doing.
    Lydia was special. It was largely because of her that Jan had got ten out of the massage parlor business years earlier. Before the massage parlor business, when they should have been halfway through college, Lydia and Jan were strippers at a club just over the state line in Wis consin. After the club folded because of all the Chicago and Milwau kee executives building their weekend “farms” in the area, Lydia and Jan ended up on Chicago’s north side at a massage parlor frequented by some of those same “farmers.”
    Later, when the massage parlor business cooled and went under ground and got dirtier, Lydia told Jan she was getting the hell out and took Jan with her. Jan got a job as a Loop secretary. Lydia was also sup posed to have taken the high road, and insisted she had, but got sucked back into the underbelly of the city by a bastard who said he loved her, and would love her even more if she did certain things for him.
    And so here they were, two hardened ex-strippers and massage parlor girls sitting at a small Hungarian restaurant packed with Hun garians drinking wine. As Lydia said when they were out last minute Christmas shopping last year before Steve had his stroke, “You figure in a crowd this size, a few have got to be hiding a past they’re not ex actly proud of. Someone’s got to be ex-hookers and ex-strippers in this crowd of faces, Jan, so it might as well be us.”
    Lydia spoke as she worked on her goulash.
    “We should have my plastic surgeon attach these dumpling guys directly