Drag Queen in the Court of Death (13 page)

Next morning Julie knocked at the door around eight thirty. She knew I wasn't one to sleep in. When I opened the door, she held out a plate of muffins invitingly. "Hey, hey," she said. "Got a minute?"

"Not much more than that," I said, opening the door. "Just made coffee. Where did the muffins come from?"
"I made them." She looked smug.
"
You!
Your hidden talents amaze me."
"Me too. Actually, I do bake from time to time. But I don't advertise it. I don't want my boyfriends getting the idea that I like to cook or be domestic in any way."
"Wise policy," I said. I poured coffee, sat down, and sampled a muffin. "Good. You should do this more often."
"Oh no. It wouldn't have the same effect if I did it on a regular basis."
I laughed and agreed she had a point. "I wanted to thank you for the search job you did on Al Vecchio," I said. "I went down to London a few days ago, and he was right where you said he would be."
"Cool. What did he say?"
I told her about our lunch in the generic steak house, about Al's nervousness and his business and family. "There wasn't anything there from the man I remember, except maybe something in the eyes"
"I guess twenty-five years is a long time," she said thoughtfully.
"For you, a lifetime," I said, laughing as I got up to collect the coffee cups and rinse them out at the sink. "Now I'll have to throw you out. I've got to go."
"You're always throwing me out," she complained goodnaturedly. "Where's Ryan?"
"He's doing a painting job for me over at Ronnie's." As she disappeared into her own apartment, I wondered if she had really baked the muffins for Ryan. I was glad he was safely out of the house.
* * * *

After hours of driving along miles of baking highway, listening to opera CDs, I arrived just before six in the evening. Ronnie's hometown was a nondescript place of strip malls and car dealerships selling John Deere tractors and ride-on mowers, of run-down bungalows with a tiny square of parched, beaten-down grass out front. I passed four churches on my way down Main Street. The high school was a low building right out of the '50s. Ronnie must have gone there. I felt depressed and stiff and achy. I wondered why I had come.

In the back was a small box of stuff of Ronnie's I had picked out to bring along for Debra and her parents. Now I felt embarrassed by it. They were without relevance to this place. I turned the car right along Anderson Street and saw Lipinsky's Cleaners across the street. The sign had been repainted recently, but it was as dated as the high school. A Korean woman stood in the window, ironing shirts.

I pulled up on the asphalt lot in front and turned off the car. From habit, I snagged my jacket from the back seat, got out, and put it on. I slammed the door shut and looked around. The number sixteen was painted on the milky glass panel of the door beside the cleaners. I tried to picture Ronnie going in and out, working in the cleaners after school, but I hadn't known this boy. Maybe if I had, I could have helped him. As I raised my hand to push the bell, the door swung open. The woman who stood in the fading sunlight had an anxious, round face, short, curly brown hair obviously a wig and a heavy body. She wore careful makeup, a dark blue dress with tiny buttons down the front, and matching pumps.

"You must be Michael," she said. "I'm Deb." She held out a surprisingly small hand.
"I'm pleased to meet you after all this time," I said.
"Come on in. Just go upstairs. The door's open. I hope the trip went well?"
"It was fine," I said. "Luckily I have air-conditioning."
The stairs were steep and uncarpeted. At the top, we both paused for breath.
"I gotta get in shape." Deb laughed. "Who am I kidding?" She led the way into the dim living room. Boxes were piled against one wall. There was a large TV in the corner and two recliner chairs upholstered in powder blue in front of it. TV tables stood beside each one. A matching chesterfield stood against one wall. Above it hung a large print of a most improbable flower garden, in a heavy gilt frame. A wedding photo from the '30s hung on another wall, along with a formal family shot of all four of them. Ronnie must have been about eight or nine. He looked so innocent, so full of hope. I turned away.
"Take off your jacket," Deb was saying. "It's cooler in here since I convinced them to get that air conditioner. They're so stubborn, in the end George and I had to get it and bring it in ourselves. George installed it. He's my husband. Iced tea?"
"Thank you. That would be nice."
"It's still not exactly cold, though," she said as she headed for the kitchen down the narrow hall. I could hear her open the fridge, take something out. She must have had everything ready on a tray, because she was back almost at once.
"You look like your mother," I said, glancing at the picture. "Same eyes."
She laughed. "I never see it myself, but that's what people say. I always thought Ronnie looked like a softer version of Dad."
She poured the iced tea and sat down on one of the recliners. I sat on the couch.
"When was the last time you saw him?" I asked.
"He came back here for a visit ... let's see, I think it was about ten years ago now. Dad wouldn't let him in. Mom and I met him in the hotel on Main Street. He used to send money, you know. He'd send it to me and tell me to get something they needed with it. For a while I did; then one time I mentioned that they had Ronnie to thank for the new paint job on the car, and Dad went ballistic. Then he walked out the door, down to Beecham's, and sold the car." She shook her head. "Men."
"Deb, could you explain what really happened here? Why he left? I know it doesn't matter now, but I feel ... I don't really know him, and I thought I did."
"You think I know him? You were his 'significant other'—is that what they say?"
"You know how he got to Toronto. The story I heard, I realize now was just that. A story."
"Actually, I don't know either." She paused, put down her glass. "Hell, I think we need something stronger than tea." She got to her feet. "They don't keep much to drink around here," she said, heading for a glass-fronted cupboard at the end of the room. "Just peach brandy and Manischewitz and cooking sherry. And rum!" She pulled the bottle from the back of the cupboard in triumph. "Aha! Probably a gift from someone. Never been opened. There's Coke in the fridge." She rushed off. "Diet okay?"
"Fine by me." I loosened my tie. The room was stuffy, the shades pulled down to keep out the sun. I wished she'd let in some light.
When she came back, she had ice and cans of Coke in a small cooler in one hand and the drinks on a tray in the other. "This will keep us going," she said. "Have some banana bread. I just made it this morning."
I dutifully took a slice of the bread, slathered with butter, and ate it. It was good. It reminded me I hadn't eaten for a while.
We ate and drank for a few moments in silence.
"What did he tell you?" she said.
I took a deep breath. "First of all, he said he came from Albany."
She snorted. "Much classier," she said.
"He never actually said, but he led me to believe your dad was paying the school fees and his rent. He talked about his allowance. He always seemed to have enough, barely. I realize now I assumed a lot of things that he never really spelled out."
"Assuming our dad would do what yours would."
"In a way. He told me about his friend Harry. He said he didn't want to fight in a jungle in a country no one had ever heard of before in a war that wasn't even a real war. Just a police action where people got killed. There were quite a few draft dodgers in Toronto. It made sense."
"It was that damn war," she said at last. "Vietnam."
I nodded encouragingly.
"Ronnie was so scared. A guy we knew in school, Ace Klinger—he was ahead of us but everyone knew him, captain of the football team, valedictorian, you know the type—was reported missing in action in '64. That hit us all hard. But Harry was a friend, a guy he'd gone all though school with. Ronnie had nightmares after Harry was killed. But Dad had served in WWII and was all gung-ho. He called Ronnie a coward. Then he called him a lot of other things he probably regretted later. I don't know. They never really got along well."
There was another pause, with only the clink of the ice in our glasses. Deb reached over and pulled out another Coke. I did too. I passed her the bottle of rum.
"You know, I don't think Dad even got out of the States in his war. Maybe that was it. Maybe he felt cheated or something. Who knows? He was all for Uncle Sam. And then Harry Lang got killed in action. Ronnie went into a tailspin."
"Yes. He talked about him sometimes."
She nodded. "Harry was such a sweet kid." Her voice choked up, and she got up and pulled a box of tissues off the coffee table. She carefully blotted her eyes, thinking of the makeup no doubt. "I think it was after that Ronnie began to have nightmares."
I remembered the nightmares. I wondered how bad they got after Rey Montana went to sleep in his trunk, and what he did to stand it. I remembered the drugs near the end.
I added more rum to my drink. "You know, I think I've been discounting that war in thinking back to those days. For us it was just something happening on the news every night. Sure we talked antiwar and marched in a few demonstrations, but it didn't affect us directly. So I was thinking that the main reason he left was probably because he was gay."
"Oh that," said Deb, waving a hand at me. "No one talked about that in those days, least of all Dad, except that one time he blew up at him and called him all those names." She winced, remembering. "It was after that row that Ronnie borrowed all fifty-eight dollars and seventy-nine cents I had saved up, stole another thirty-two dollars from Ma's purse and walked to the highway to hitch a ride out of town.
"Why did he choose Toronto?" I asked.
"No idea."
"Maybe that's where the ride was going."
"Oh no. That time he ended up in New York City." "He did?"
"He did. He phoned me a few days later, said he was fine and settled in with some guy he'd met."
"Do you remember his name?"
"After all this time? Besides, I didn't ask too many questions. I didn't hear anything for a while; then several months later I got a fat envelope from Toronto with the money I'd lent him, plus five dollars interest." She laughed. "Best investment I ever made. He paid Ma back too."
I thought of all those old US dollar bills in the shoe box in Ronnie's dusty attic cupboard. Had they come from New York?
"Deb, who is Uncle Bunny?"
"No idea. We only had one uncle, Earl, and he died a few years after Ronnie left."
"What about the honorary kind?"
"Oh sure, lots of them, but no Bunny. It's not the kind of nickname any of my family's friends would have. Trust me on that."
I nodded. The room was dark now. Deb reached up and switched on a floor lamp.
"And now we've got a new war to send the kids off to," she said quietly. "That high hell we see every night on CNN."
I thought of the Gulf War coverage that had just started to appear on TV, all at such a distance, at night, the navy sky streaked with bright streamers of death. "War is hell, no matter how you fight it," I said. I glanced at my watch. "It's getting late. I'd better go. I passed a motel on the way in. I can stay there."
"You know what? Why don't you stay here tonight? There's plenty of room. I don't like the idea of you spending the night in that dilapidated place."
"No, no. I don't want to put you out at all."
She waved her hands dismissively. "No bother. The spare room's made up anyway. I was expecting my daughter, but she couldn't make it at the last minute."
I relaxed back into the couch. "Truthfully, I'm so relaxed I'd much rather stay," I said.
"Then it's settled."
"Before I get any more relaxed, I'll just get my bag out of the car," I said, pushing myself to my feet. A few more drinks and I'd never make it back up those stairs.
When I got back, Deb had poured me another drink. I took it and sank back into the welcoming arms of the couch. Deb had taken off her shoes and had her feet up on a brown vinyl hassock that must be a period piece. I handed her the small photo album I had made up to bring. "I thought you or your mother might like to have these," I said awkwardly. I had tried to think of how they might like to see Ronnie— successful, happy, accomplished. It was hard to find pictures that wouldn't need a running commentary, but there were some: Ronnie accepting an award for community work; Ronnie dressed to the nines, at a classy restaurant celebrating with his partners when he became a partner himself. Ronnie in a purple T-shirt, painting the clouds on his bedroom ceiling, laughing into the camera; a candid shot of Ronnie sitting at his desk in his office, shirt sleeves rolled up, concentrating on some paperwork. There was a picture of him with me outside the school in 1965 and several of him and Monica Heising. Deb was dabbing at her eyes.
"He was always so damned photogenic," she said.
I laughed.
"We used to take figure skating lessons, you know? Well, it was supposed to be me taking the lessons, but Mom used to bring Ronnie with her and he wanted to skate so badly, so Mom let him, without telling Dad, needless to say. Ronnie took to it right away, a natural, they said, and first thing you know he was ahead of me. And that was when the shit hit the fan. Ronnie won some sort of a title, and it was in the paper and Dad found out. And that was the end of Ronnie and skating. I'd quit by then anyway. Dad was so mad. Poor Mom. She put up with a lot."
"Don't tell me. He thought skating was for girls."
"And sissies. So it didn't matter that Ronnie had found something to excel at." She shook her head sadly. "For a while I remember the skating coach tried to make Ronnie and me an ice dance couple for the ice show the club was doing. But he was shorter than me, and I felt awkward. We did one waltz together and that was it. I fell center ice and rushed off in tears. Ronnie finished doing a sort of ad lib solo."
"Sounds like him."
"Oh yeah. But he tried to help me. I remember that. It was the skaters' waltz. Wait!" She pushed herself to her feet and padded over to a box filled with old vinyl records. "I've been trying to tape all their old favorites so we can get rid of the stereo. Here it is!" She went to the glass-fronted stereo and laid the record on the turntable, switched it on, poised the needle at the edge of the disk. The ritual brought back memories of Ronnnie's old room and the beat-up record player he had found in a secondhand store. The strains of the skaters' waltz wafted through the dim room. Deb swayed in time, one hand tapping time on the cabinet.
I put down my drink, got to my feet, and touched her shoulder.
She turned, startled.
I bowed. "May I have this dance?"
Her face flushed and her eyes, bright with tears, smiled back at me. I took her hand and waltzed her into the middle of the crowded room, where we twirled and dipped and swayed among the half-filled cartons and remains of her old, forgotten life.
"You're a great dancer," she said, sounding surprised.
"My sister and I took lessons from the dreaded Madam Von Reichenburg. We damn well better be good!"
She laughed. "Ronnie must have had lots of fun with you," she said, and for the first time, her face didn't look sad when she mentioned his name.
"I hope so," I said. I really hope so. At least for a while.
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