Drag Queen in the Court of Death (19 page)

That evening, I had dinner with a former colleague who was in town for a few days visiting friends. She was only five years older than I but was contemplating retirement in spite of the penalties. She was organized, had it all planned out. I had always enjoyed her company. Even when disillusioned and depressed she managed to be upbeat and take matters into her own hands. I felt that no matter what she tackled, she would always be all right. She was an inspiration.

I arrived back home around ten thirty to a ringing phone. As I came in the door the machine picked up, and I heard Ryan's voice. He sounded panicky. I grabbed the receiver.

"What's the matter?"
"Michael, there's some asshole in a dress trying to climb up the fire escape to the third floor. I told him there was no one there. We all told him, but he's, like, stoned or crazy or something. He don't believe us. And he's got a knife."
"Calm down. I'll be right there."
I rushed back to the car and broke all the speed limits getting over to Ronnie's. Luckily I didn't meet any cop cars crossing Bloor Street. All the lights were on at number 145. Ryan and two of his pals were standing around looking up at the fire escape. Vince, the downstairs tenant, was standing to one side with his dog by his side. The dog was wagging his tail furiously, his tongue lolling out of one side of his mouth in a joyous grin. At least someone was happy.
Everyone started talking at once when I came up but it was pretty clear what was going on. I could see Bianca struggling up the narrow metal steps of the fire escape in high heels and a long flimsy dress. The wind had picked up and the dress kept billowing out and getting snagged on the rough metal. She had made it past the second floor and was shouting something I couldn't make out. Bianca was back in Neverland, looking for Luna La Dame.
I pulled Ryan to one side. "Someone's bound to have phoned the cops," I said. "Get inside and get rid of whatever you wouldn't want them to find in your place."
"But Michael—"
"Do it!" He turned and went around the back to the basement entrance. I went in the front door and up the stairs, unlocked Ronnie's door, and struggled with the window. It took forever to get it open. I could hear sirens in the distance now, coming closer. I climbed out onto the small landing. It seemed a lot flimsier than I remembered. I should have checked it out earlier. Bianca was toiling up just below me.
"Luna!" she called, looking up. For a moment I thought she would fall as she raised a hand to wave frantically. "You didn't answer," she said. "I was pounding on the door."
I started down the steps toward her, but she cried out in alarm and leaned out over the flimsy railing. I stepped back to the landing, afraid she would fall, or even jump.
"Bianca, it's Michael," I said, leaning over so she could see me in the light from inside. "Michael, remember?"
"Where you been, honey?"
"It took a while to get here," I said.
Bianca lurched to one side and cried out. One high heel was stuck in the slats of the metal stair.
"Just step out of it, Bianca," I said. "Come on."
"But it matches my outfit," she said.
I reached to catch her hand, but it slipped through my grasp.
"I'll get you another one, a new pair, okay?"
"Really?"
"Yes. Really. Come on." The sirens were much closer now. I was afraid if she saw the police she would panic completely. I started down toward her again, but she flung herself against the metal banister hard and screamed. The railing shivered and cracked. I held my breath, but it didn't break. It hadn't occurred to me to check the safety of the fire escape. I backed up to the landing again.
Two cop cars swung into place in front of the house, lights flashing red and blue streaks in the darkness. Bianca pulled her foot out of her wedged shoe and grabbed for my hand. She slipped and gashed her skinny leg on the metal. "Fuck!" she yelled. I lunged down two steps and grabbed both her arms and yanked her back to the landing. Her ravaged face was slick with sweat and streaked mascara. Lipstick made a red gash of her thin lips.
"The cops!"
"It's okay," I said. "We'll go inside and tell them everything's okay."
"Copasetic. Everything is copasetic. Luna always said that. Look, my dress is ruined."
I made soothing noises while trying to get her back inside. I could hear the heavy tread of police boots coming up the stairs. I yanked Bianca none too gently through the window into Ronnie's place. She looked around, and her face went even paler.
"Oh my God!" she said, putting both hands over her mouth. "Oh fuck!"
"Everything's okay now," I said. "You just wait here, and I'll talk to the cops."
Bianca sank onto the bed. She was shaking.
There were two cops, just like last time, and one herded me expertly into the living room while the other one talked to Bianca.
"She ... he is having a difficult time adjusting to a friend's death," I explained. "His friend lived here until he died. He lived here for twenty-five years." I felt an unexpected lump of emotion well up in my throat. "Bianca ... He's just out of the Clark," I went on. "He has bad moments now and then, but he's harmless."
"Did he threaten you or anyone else?" the cop asked. He looked like someone's father, broad and solid and kind, under the veneer of imperturbability.
"No, there were no threats. He just wanted to see his friend."
"And did he threaten to jump or anything like that?"
"No," I said. I wondered what madness Bianca was spouting in the next room.
The cop sighed. "You know there's no way we can take him to a psychiatric facility unless he's a danger to himself or to others."
"I know."
"What's your name, sir?"
"Michael Dunn-Barton."
"And his name?"
"I only know him as Bianca."
"That's okay. Maybe my partner got it."
I explained what I was doing there, why I had been called, and that was it. They went thumping down the stairs, and silence fell once again. I scooped up an old pair of shoes of Ronnie's and one of the leftover dresses that hadn't made it into the Wilde Nights wardrobe and went back to Bianca. She was crying, wiping her face with the hem of her dress, making even more of a mess of her makeup.
"I didn't do nothing," she said. "I never even saw the guy before. Ask Luna. She knew him. Not me."
"It's okay, Bianca, he was just a cop doing his job. They're gone now. Come on. Do these shoes fit?"
The dress and shoes distracted her at once. She thrust her long feet into the shoes, which were obviously too small, and insisted on wearing them. The dress she wrapped in her arms and said she would save for later.
"I'll drive you home," I said, offering my arm.
She smiled, a ghoulish effect, and took my arm as if we were about to enter a ballroom, batting her eyelashes. I felt my stomach turn.
As we made our slow progress down the stairs, she said,
"I gotta talk to Luna about that article in the paper, you know? They got it wrong. They never even mentioned me, and I was there, like, all the time, you know? How come they never mentioned me?"
"The article in the
Rag
?"
"It was all bogus."
"Yes, it was."
We were at the front door. Vince and his dog had gone back inside, and no one was there but Ryan, looking sulky.
"The cops never even came near us," he said. "You owe me, like, seventy-five bucks."
"Fuck off," I said.
Ryan flounced away, and I helped Bianca into the passenger seat, first throwing a bunch of papers into the back.
"What's all that?" she wanted to know.
"Oh, just notes for my book," I said, starting the car and swinging into the street.
"Oh good! You're writing a book! You'll get it right, eh? You know, me and Luna, we go way back, right?"
"Bianca, it's not that kind of a book. It's—"
"Do you know Nigel?"
"Nigel Ross?"
"Yes! You do know him. You see, you're the right person to do this book, not that cunt reporter. And you can tell them I didn't do nothing. I didn't mean nothing by it. I didn't even know the guy!" She was getting agitated again. "And tell them about that bitch Glori..."
"Bianca, that's enough. You can't tell a writer how to write a book."
"Oh. Okay then. You were there. You know."
"Right," I said. I had no idea what she was talking about, and by this time I didn't care. "Where do you live?"
She told me and I took her to the place she called home. As I drove away, I prayed she would stay there.
When I got home I went through to the garden and put on the lights. I sat for a long time in the peaceful quiet, emptying my mind, listening to the hypnotic splash of the water, breathing in the sweet scent of the lavender and miniature roses. I felt calmer when I finally got up to go to bed. And looked at the pond. All my red goldfish were floating on the surface of the water. Dead.
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I went back to the place I'd bought the fish and had them analyze a sample of the water. A little on the acidic side, but nothing lethal. I hadn't thought to bring in one of the corpses.

"Sometimes this happens," the owner said. "Even if you had brought one of them in, we probably couldn't tell for sure if someone had tampered with them."

"You said they were hardy," I objected.
"Once they're established, yes, up to a point. They'll even survive under the ice in the winter. Look, we'll replace the fish, since you hadn't had them for long. We'll change the water and start over again."
"And if it happens again?"
"If it happens again, bring in exhibit A."
I was sure Julie had done this, angered by the letter I had Lew write to her, threatening to sue, but I knew I couldn't prove it. Lew had told me I probably couldn't even get her out of my house if she refused to move. Not unless I needed the space for a family member. I thought of Trish and smiled. I thought of my niece, the one with the tasteful belly button piercing. Maybe, but Trish would never allow it. Just when I thought I was getting everything balanced in my life, the scales tipped again.
One thing that was moving along well, much to my surprise, was the Wilde Nights rehearsal. What I saw was a sort of patchwork quilt of the show, since I was there only every third time or so, and they rehearsed it out of sequence. Predictably, Ellis shone on stage. Less predictably, so did Jaym, tap dancing his way across the stage in a frenzy of movement and unexpected grace. He was never in drag, dancing as a man in the chorus line of chorines and one other guy. In another scene, he and the other guy danced together, just like in the old challenge type dances on the silver screen. It was very energetic. I believed him when he said it was great exercise.
After the next rehearsal, Glori sidled up to me as I was packing up my music and suggested we go for a bite to eat. I glanced at Jaym, who was putting his dance shoes in his bag near by. He smiled and motioned to Ellis with his head.
"If you've got something set up already," Glori began.
"No, no. That's a fine idea."
"You like Indian? There's a great place on Wellesley just past Parliament."
"Sounds good. My car's parked out front."
As we drove, I wondered if Glori had planned this beforehand. He wore no makeup or drag. No wig. He had rehearsed with a feather boa, which was now shoved into his shopping bag along with the heels. He looked like any other middle-aged man now, his color a little high and spreading middle attesting to a love of food.
We talked about the show and some of the people in it. We talked about our favorite restaurants. When we arrived at the modest house and were sitting down, we ordered. He was obviously known here.
"I come here often," he admitted. "I hear you and Bianca had a little bit of a to-do the other day."
So that was what this was all about. I shrugged. "It didn't amount to much," I said.
"What happened?"
I summarized the event as briefly as I could. "Maybe she was off her meds or something," I said.
"Sounds like it. You know, Michael, you can't trust a word that cow says. She's mad as a hatter."
"I sort of figured that out all on my own, Duane," I said.
He laughed.
"What's the scoop here, anyway?" I asked. "Why have you two got it in for each other?"
Duane sighed and fiddled with his silverware. "We used to share a house back in the '60s," he said. "It was me and Bianca and Lulu and two more ditzy young queens. The place was practically falling down and we got it cheap. They're all dead now but me and Bianca." He paused, rearranged the cutlery, and took a drink of tea. "We were all performing off and on here and there, mostly at private parties and the Manatee. No money in it really, but we loved it. We all had specialties, acts we did. But Bianca, we found out the hard way you couldn't trust her. She stole things."
"What kind of things? You mean money?"
"There wasn't much of that lying around, but if there had been, she would have taken it. She was like a magpie. Looking back, I think maybe she was envious, you know? Thinking that if she had something of ours she would be more like us. I don't know. Guess I need more therapy to figure it out."
"I think you're one of the sanest people I know," I said.
"Great thundering Jaysus, as my old man used to say, shows the kind of people you hang with, baby!"
The waiter brought the food, and there was silence for a few moments as we ate.
"But you know it wasn't that that soured me against her," he went on. "She stole my routines. That's what did it. The first time, I thought okay, she didn't do it on purpose. We all rehearse together, maybe she just absorbed it, you know, like osmosis or something. Then she used my material for an audition and she got the part. I was furious. She was making money on my material!" His face got red just thinking about it, even after twenty-five years.
"So it's professional jealousy," I said.
"Professional! That cow?" He snorted.
"Did she steal from Ronnie?" I asked.
"Probably. Ronnie never said. I don't know why he put up with her hanging around all the time. She didn't have an ounce of originality."
"They did an act together, didn't they?"
"Yeah, and I still wonder why."
"What do you mean?"
"Look, Ronnie was head and shoulders better than that cow, and I mean it. Never mind the fact I hate her guts. Ask anyone! Ronnie carried her for several years; then the drugs took over or she went round the bend or whatever, and Ronnie's career took off."
I took a drink of the Indian beer and thought for a few minutes. "Maybe she had something on Ronnie," I said softly. "Maybe she saw something, like Rey Montana's murder."
Duane got very still. He almost stopped breathing. "Great thundering Jaysus," he said.
Me and Luna, we go way back....
I drove Duane home and on the way asked about Nigel Ross.
"That prick," muttered Duane. "He was so in the closet he wouldn't even give Bianca his phone number, never mind address."
"He was in college then, I think. He was probably in residence."
"He didn't have a phone?"
"You were at the twenty-fourth of May party when the police came and he deserted Bianca, leaving her to get arrested?"
"Fuck, she wasn't the only one got arrested. Here's my building. Thanks for the lift, baby. Keep your powder dry." He rolled out of the car and up the walkway to his apartment building. I drove home. He had been so talkative until I mentioned the party. Had he been arrested too? Did he blame Nigel? Or Bianca, the one who had created the disturbance? * * * *