Drag Queen in the Court of Death (8 page)

For the next few days, everywhere I went, people asked me about Rey Montana. I found it insulting that they expected me to know intimate details about this person who had a record in New York City. I was amazed that I appeared to be looked on as some sort of '60s radical, when all I did back then was fall in love. To me, this had been a life-changing event, but it was private, and I resented like hell that my life was once again a topic of public speculation. My recent encounter with Ryan didn't help my emotional equilibrium, but at least I hadn't had another scathing phone call from Trish.

"I'm sick of it, Logan," I said, spilling out my frustration onto a captive audience. "Sick of it!"
"Drowning in the past," Logan said, wafting a hand in the air. His rictus of a grin twisted his face into a parody of humor. "Come on, Michael. You can't really blame them. It's an intriguing story, even
you
have to admit. And you were there, right? Who else can we ask?"
I leaned back in my chair, struck by the question. "I've been looking through the old diary he started in school," I said slowly, the names scrolling across my mind in Ronnie's carefully embellished handwriting.
"That must be illuminating."
"Not really. Mostly it reminds me how very young he was." I paused, feeling a wave of cool sadness touch my heart. "He mentions Monica Heising a lot. I'd forgotten about her." "The activist? You knew her?"
"Back then she was just one of my students. Her parents were at their wits' end with her as I recall from the emotional parent-teacher interviews. She was brilliant, stubborn, and erratic. She was probably on drugs a lot of the time, but she was a great pal of Ronnie's."
"Didn't she run as an NDP candidate a few years ago? You should talk to her."
"Why? I don't want to be pulled into this even more!"
"Michael, do you really believe Ronnie killed that man?"
I stared at the window, not sure how to answer.
"You're reading his diaries," he went on. "You knew him then. Very well."
"Apparently not." I thought of the strange erotic passages in his embellished handwriting, the nightmares, mentions of rough sex and S and M. Just hints, but I had no idea he had any knowledge of what was then a very closed world. Overactive imagination? Fantasy driven by teenaged hormones, like the explicit purple passages about me that made me blush even now?
"Do you honestly think he could shoot a man in the back of the head? Think about it. How could that kind of action be in the heat of emotion? And another thing—where would a seventeen-year-old get a gun back then?"
"From some other draft dodger?"
"They were armed?"
"Well, not as a rule, but some of them were deserters and probably had guns. And some were just ... strange."
"And anyway, I thought you said he pulled away from them quite soon after you two got together."
"Look, when Ronnie came here he was just seventeen, too young to be called up, so he wasn't technically a draft dodger. He turned eighteen in February."
"But he knew a lot of them, right? And he pulled away from that crowd after you two—"
"God, Logan, I can't remember exactly when anything happened back then! It was a long time ago. I tried to forget, you know?"
We were silent awhile. The gray afternoon angled in through the venetian blinds. The low, mechanical hiss of some machine came from behind the curtains surrounding Logan's new roommate. I imagined it forcing blood through the shriveled shell of his body.
"It was a difficult time for me," I said at last, breaking the silence. "My whole life was turned upside down by Ronnie, and I mean that literally. My marriage cracked and shattered, and after that my family disowned me, terrified of scandal, and most of my friends stopped calling. I know it wasn't his fault. What I felt for him was the knife that cut me adrift, and I didn't care, Logan. I was happy for the first time in my life and it made me cruel and selfish and delirious with freedom. And then he left me and I was totally alone. Can't you see why I tried to forget?"
"You survived," Logan said.
And so did Laura, I thought, by retreating into the past. "Oh sure," I said. No wife. No home. No family. No friends.
"Perhaps it would be healthy to do a little digging. Therapy," he added, watching me, his head angled back to relieve the strain on his burned neck.
"Oh, so now you want to play Freud."
"Never. Anyone but the F man."
I smiled. "Fine. I'll humor you." I cleared my throat and settled back more comfortably in the chair. "Glori Daze knew Ronnie back then. She was performing at the Manatee, and I introduced them. She took Ronnie under her wing, as it were. When I saw Ronnie on stage for the first time a few months later, I was sure he would eclipse Glori, and soon. I always wondered why he didn't go on tour, the way she did."
"So when do they think Montana was killed?"
"It's still vague. But since he was last seen on April 3, 1965, they assume he was killed sometime between April and September of that year."
"Maybe we can narrow it down," he said, picking thoughtfully at a bandage on his wrist. "You said earlier Ronnie went a bit wonky. Maybe you could get more specific. For instance, you could make a time chart from the diary. Would that work?"
I was drawn in, in spite of myself, thinking back to Ronnie's growing erratic behavior, his emotional outbursts and equally inexplicable calms. At the time I had put this down to experimentation with drugs. But maybe there was another reason he began to push me away. "The entries are sporadic," I said, "but they're always dated. It's a place to start."
"And you could track down this Monica Heising too," he went on, his eyes alight with an enthusiasm I hadn't seen for months.
"Maybe I'll bring her in for you to interrogate," I said sarcastically.
Logan thought that was a great idea. I threw up my hands. "What the hell," I said. "I can't seem to avoid it, anyway. And you know, you're right, what you said a few minutes ago. I can't see Ronnie shooting a man in the back of the head."
When I arrived back home, Llewellyn ab Hugh was hunched over with both hands shielding his eyes, peering in my front window.
"Is that a new rug I spy in there?" he asked smoothly, turning to face me as I arrived beside him.
"No, it's not. And you better be careful the neighbors don't call the police, seeing you casing the joint like that."
"Ooo, I love a man in a uniform," cooed Lew. Sometimes I wondered what I had ever seen in him. "Anyway, they'll probably think you've hired me to defend your crumbling reputation."
I unlocked the door and led the way to the living room.
"The young Adonis not home?" Lew asked, looking around as if expecting to find Ryan lurking in some dark corner or possibly under a table.
"He's gone."
"Oh, too bad. What happened?"
"Something to drink? Scotch? Vodka? Coffee?"
"I suspect this might be a scotch moment," he said, sinking into my sofa. "What happened?"
"Water? Ice?"
"Your memory going?"
"It's been a while since you honored me with your presence." I splashed water over the scotch, added ice, and handed him the drink. I mixed my own and sat down in the wing chair, wondering how soon I could ask him to leave. Not that I didn't like Lew, exactly, but he made me nervous. He seemed to appear whenever I felt vulnerable, or perhaps he just brought out this feeling in me.
"Great scotch," Lew commented, flipping his ponytail over one shoulder. His eyes were the same color as the drink, I noticed. "So what happened to the boy toy?"
"Lew, he was just staying here a few days while doing some much-needed chores around the house. He's gone. End of story."
"Any chance he'll be back?"
"I sincerely doubt it."
"I see." He grinned at me over his glass. "So you let loose that killer tongue of yours."
I looked up, startled. "It's none of your business."
"Too bad. And I never got a look at him. Did he look anything like Ronnie at that age?"
"What?" I tried not to react to his words, but I felt their force like a blow, and my hand jerked, almost spilling my drink. They were both slim, lithe, blond. "No," I said, "they didn't look one bit alike."
"Didn't mean to hit a nerve," Lew said. "It was just an educated guess."
"Perhaps there's such a thing as being overeducated." I got up and selected a CD, slipped it into the player, switched it on. Harp music wafted out from the speakers.
"Thank God it's not those dreadful monks," Lew said. "For a while there you couldn't go anywhere without feeling as if you'd slipped into a medieval cathedral with everyone in full chant." He shuddered dramatically. "Any word on the mummy-guy?"
"Apart from knowing his name, nothing, as far as I know. But I'm not privy to police reports."
"Pity. I used to date a guy on the force. Maybe I'll give him a friendly little call."
"Lew—"
"Don't bother to thank me. I'll let you know if I find out anything useful." He glanced around the room as if looking for something. "Still not smoking, I see."
"I gave it up years ago, Lew. You should too."
"Don't lecture me. I'm not one of your students. These days us smokers are becoming an oppressed minority. Do you know they won't even let me smoke in my own office anymore?"
"Shocking."
"Did your houseboy smoke? You probably wouldn't let him, poor thing. I suppose it's a good thing he left, him being so much like Ronnie and all, he might have done you in at any time. Ever think of that?"
"Shut up, Lew. Stop trying to stir things up."
"Oh hon, you don't need me for that!" He laughed.
"Ronnie didn't do in anybody," I said, surprising myself with the intensity of my conviction.
"They could hardly arrest him even if he did," Lew pointed out. "And let me say I think your defense of your old lover is quite touching. When my sins rise up to accuse me, I hope you'll be on hand to leap to my defense."
"You have skeletons in your closet?"
"Don't we all?"
"After that initial excitement in the '60s, my life became pretty dull."
"Montreal was anything but dull, as I recall," he said.
"Hotter for you, I suspect," I said.
"A hit! A palpable hit!" he cried, recoiling into a corner of the chesterfield as if mortally wounded.
"What I meant was, you had a lot more action than I did."
Mollified, he sat up again and sipped his drink.
"How well did you know Ronnie back in '65?" I asked suddenly. "Were you ever at his place?"
He looked at me speculatively, as if trying to decide what trap I was laying for him. "He wasn't really my type," he said at last. "I remember meeting him with you now and then. And I remember when he started performing I saw him a few times. After you two split up, I heard he got into an abusive relationship, as we say these days. Then ... didn't he have a thing with Phil Starkman? And then I think I heard something about joining a commune or something."
"You're joking. When was this?"
"I kid you not. But I really don't remember when, Michael. You should talk to Glori Daze and that other queen who was around then. She performed with Ronnie as a sort of queen tag team event for a while when Ronnie came back. What was her name...? Binaca, that's it. Binaca Labamba or something."
"Bianca Bombe."
"Right." He finished his drink and stood up. "I'd love to stick around and chew the fat about the old days, but I have an appointment with my plastic surgeon." He blew me a kiss and was gone.
I suspected he was really off to the gym to battle Father Time. For some reason he never wanted to admit he did any strenuous exercise. An image thing, I suppose. So far he was doing pretty well. I suppose being in shape is useful when you're defending major crime bosses. As I watched him drive away in his white Jag, I noticed the vanity plates. QCQ. Queen's Council Queer? Good old Lew. A TV news truck from a local station rumbled up and parked in front of my house, half on the sidewalk. I closed the drapes and turned off the phones. Again.
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Monica Heising was not hard to find. She left a trail everywhere she went, and she seemed to have been a lot of places, from the Right to Privacy committee to Planned Parenthood to a home for teenage mothers. I started with the local NDP Party office and found out she had left them after a flare-up about some policy or other regarding Native women. Then I tried the alumni office of the University of Toronto and got better results, an address in North Toronto. The phone number was unlisted so I got into my car and drove up there one afternoon later that week.

Monica's neighborhood was filled with similar two-story houses with a small porch out front and garage at the end of a shared driveway. Fenced backyards could be glimpsed from the street and kid's bikes and brightly colored plastic toys lay about on the lawns. Monica's house had a fire engine red door. A friendly golden lab-ish dog wagged his tail as I walked up the steps. I hoped Monica would be as approachable. A sign on the door said the bell was out of order, so I knocked. Loudly.

"Okay, okay, I hear you!" The door was flung open and there she was. She had gained a lot of weight but the eyes were the same; the hair, though gray, still cascaded down her back as it had back in the '60s, and her face was surprisingly youthful. "Oh my gawd," she said. "What a blast from the past!"

"You recognize me?" I was amazed.
"Fuck, yes! After all the commotion in the papers about Ronnie, of course I do! Besides, you're the only teacher I ever

I followed her and the dog into a house humming with activity. The dining room table had been extended to its full length and all around it sat chattering women, stuffing envelopes, peeling stamps, and sticking them into place, an efficient and noisy assembly line. They were all ages, though mostly younger than Monica, all dressed casually in shorts and T-shirts. Sun streamed in the dining room window, which was filled with plants in varying stages of ill health.

Michael."
"Hi, Michael," they chorused.
I felt as if I were in an AA meeting. I nodded stiffly. "Michael was the first person I ever knew who struck a

I shook my head, stunned at this sudden testimonial. "Monica, I—"
She waved a hand at me dismissively. "Oh go ahead and belittle it, but I was there, remember? And I knew it was against the law back then. So don't shake your head at me!" She laughed, the same laugh that used to disrupt my classes on numerous occasions. Even then, I didn't really mind. "We're getting a mailing out for the latest fundraising appeal for Allegra House. Most of these people live there, or have lived there somewhere along the way, when they needed it. Let's go upstairs. I left the printer spewing out more letters."
She thumped up the carpeted stairs in front of me, talking all the way, her Birkenstock sandals slapping her bare feet smartly. She made me feel as if I had been slothful my entire life and I had only a little time to make up for my past unsatisfactory performance.
The small hall was made smaller with cardboard boxes of stationery piled in one corner. Ahead, her office overflowed with paper and files. Bits and pieces of computer equipment crowded shelves, cheek to cheek with books and boxes of labels and envelopes. A stack of banker boxes leaned perilously in one corner. On the end of the desk, her printer spewed forth a jumbled pile of letters. Monica collected them as she talked.
"Damn machines are a godsend when they work. McDuff, get out of here. Go! Nothing to eat here." The dog hung his head and slouched out to the hall, where he lay down, head between his paws, and looked up at her soulfully.
"Christ," muttered Monica, refilling the printer with paper. "To look at him you'd think I clobbered him regularly."
"Somehow I doubt that," I said, smiling.
She laughed and pushed the hair away from her face. "Damned air conditioner isn't working very well. Or maybe it's just me," she added, wiping her forehead. "Millie! Come get the rest of these letters!" she bellowed down the stairs. A young woman in jeans cutoffs and a tiny T-shirt ran up, gathered the papers in her arms, and disappeared again without a word.
"Poor thing has had three abortions," Monica said, shaking her head. "So many people afraid of the Pill these days. Okay, let's say we take a break. It's cooler out front."
I followed as she led the way through what appeared to be her bedroom, stopping en route to get two Coronas from a bar fridge used as a bedside table, and then going out sliding doors to a deck on top of the front porch. The dog followed, sniffing all around the area before skittering down stairs to the back garden, his toenails clicking against the painted wood.
Monica flung herself into one of the deck chairs and put her feet up on a big empty flowerpot. "Shits Hall," she said with a smile. "I actually liked that place, can you imagine? I guess there are no places like that anymore."
"I don't expect so. Don't need cram schools when there aren't any provincial matriculation exams to worry about anymore."
"There were some damned good teachers in that place, though. Remember old Harcourt? What a dynamite teacher! I don't understand why he stayed there."
"He didn't have an Ontario teaching certificate. None of us did, though some had pretty impressive credentials from other places. Harcourt had taught for years in England and didn't want to go back to school at his age."
"I don't blame him. What could they teach him? And there was Ms. Lard Ass, as we called her. Poor Miss Bates. She was potty over you, you know. We used to watch her waylaying you in the parking lot, on the stairs, in the hall. You had no clue, did you?"
"Miss Bates?" I said, perplexed. I remembered her as being breathy and disorganized, her briefcase always overflowing with papers to mark. But if she was "potty" over me, it was the first I knew of it.
Monica laughed and took a long drink of her beer. "You were so young, and you looked it, too. We all adored you, but you only had eyes for Ronnie. Once we figured that out, we gave up trying to get noticed. Except Miss Bates. She never clued in. Even when they fired you for fraternizing with the enemy."
"Monica, I think you exaggerate."
"Me?" She grinned, the same grin that used to annoy me so much in class—knowing, impudent, teasing. Suddenly her smile disappeared, her face dimming as if a light had gone off. "Christ, what a mess," she said. She gestured vaguely at the house, but I knew what she meant.
"I was lucky they did nothing more than fire me, Monica. I could have gone to jail."
"Are you kidding? Bring everything out in the open and have parents pulling their kids out of the school? No chance." She took another pull of her ale. "Poor Ronnie," she murmured.
"Monica, what's your theory about this Rey Montana thing?" I asked.
She looked into her glass thoughtfully. "Frankly, at first I thought you'd done it."
"What!"
"You asked." She shrugged. "Maybe you came in one night and found him with some guy, got jealous, and shot him." "And where did I get the gun?"
"Tucker Freemont."
"That draft dodger guy who lived in Rochdale?" "The very same. He had a gun. I saw it."
"Where did he get it?"
"No idea. I hate guns. So did Ronnie. He was with me that day. We'd gone to score some weed, as they say, and Rochdale was the place to go then, as you no doubt remember. Anyway, when Tucker showed us the thing, I thought Ronnie would throw up or pass out or both. We just got the hell out of there."
"When was this?"
"I don't know. Sometime just before he went to that commune, I think. So that's where I figured you got the gun. Besides, you were the only one I could think of with guts enough to pull off such a stunt."
"Thanks. Any more testimonials from you and I'll end up in jail."
"Only thing I know for sure is that Ronnie couldn't have done it."
"I could, but he couldn't."
"You're more macho," she said and grinned.
"Well, I agree with you in one thing; Ronnie couldn't have done it. Which begs the question of how the damn thing got into the trunk."
"That's why I thought it might have been you," she said. "He was trying to shield you."
"Oh, and I just walked off and left him to deal with it."
"A really bad trip?"
I laughed. "God, Monica, you certainly have a wild notion of how colorful I was back then!"
"Well, Ronnie thought you were pretty terrific." She sighed. "Remember when you threw me out of class for braiding his hair? He used to sit in front of me, remember?"
"As I recall, I threw you out of class on a regular basis. You never would shut up." I smiled, the memories suddenly sharp and clear as yesterday.
"Haven't changed much, in that respect."
"In any respect," I said, and I meant it.
"Sure, what's seventy pounds and some gray hair?" She paused and looked down over the railing at the dog, who was digging busily in the backyard. "Damn dog," she muttered affectionately. "So, Michael, what are you up to these days?"
I gave her a brief sketch of my teaching gig at the university, the book I was working on, and went on to mention the Wilde Nights rehearsal.
"God, yes! I went to the first one and sat front row center. Ronnie threw me a rose. I went last year too. He was getting quite sick then, but he did one terrific, show-stopping number and still brought the house down. Did you see it?"
I nodded.
"I'm glad he had you at the end, Michael. I'm no good with sickness. But you, his first love, you were there, at the beginning, and the end. That was important to him."
I felt a sudden surge of unwanted emotion. I took a drink of beer and cleared my throat. It was just an accident, I wanted to say. I didn't plan it that way. "I didn't realize you were such a sentimentalist," I said dryly.
"When you two broke up, he just fell apart," Monica went on, ignoring me. "He got real wild. I vividly remember my birthday in June '65. My parents had a garden party for me. Well, it was mainly for the relatives, but they bribed me to come, and I invited Ronnie. Well, let me tell you, he sure caused a sensation, showing up after midnight, stoned out of his mind, dressed in nothing but green paint and a feather boa. He said he was Ms. Photosynthesis. I thought my grandmother would have a heart attack! It was glorious!"
She looked out over the railing, her smile slowly fading. "He flunked half his subjects, did you know? After you left, he started hanging out with Tucker at Rochdale, dropping acid and doing mushrooms and God knows what else. Then he suddenly packed his bags and took off to a commune in Quebec."
"I heard he'd done something like that. It doesn't sound like him at all."
"That's what I thought, but he did. He still kept his old room, though, so I guess he knew it was only temporary. He was gone all summer, all fall. I went to visit him there once." She shivered.
"What was it like?"
"A dump. And I got the impression Ronnie was not popular there for some reason. Weird vibes. Anyway, he came back around Christmas."
"How big was this place? Who were they?"
"Apparently there had been about fifteen people there at one point. When I arrived, there were about eight or nine, more women than men, I think. Three of the guys were Americans."
"Oh? Any Latinos?"
"Michael, my memory isn't what it used to be. And anyway—" She stopped. "Oh," she said. "You mean one of them could be...."
"Rey Montana. Just a thought. Right time period. Right age. I don't suppose you remember any names?"
"As I recall, they all had those made-up hippie names. I doubt any of them used what was on their birth certificates."
"Strange period."
"Ronnie would never talk about it. By the time he came back, they must have been freezing to death at the old commune. I remember inviting him to my place Christmas Day. He'd lost a lot of weight. He looked totally wasted and about five years older. Anyway, in January he went back to Shits Hall and worked like hell. This time he made it. He missed you so much."
I shook my head.
"He did. But he refused to write or call, even though he found out where you were from the university."
"That's how I found you," I said. "The alumni office." We were both quiet awhile, listening to the kids playing in the street below, the women downstairs laughing and talking. "What about you? Married? Children?"
"Oh me. Yup, I got married at nineteen to a totally unsuitable man from South Africa. Ronnie was my bridesmaid. It was a perfectly weird and lovely wedding out in the country at my crazy aunt's old cottage. We had a kid. I went to university. I marched in protests, organized sit-ins. The usual." She laughed. "Then he died."
"Oh Monica, I'm sorry."
"So was I. Anyway, I got through it. I had Andy, my son, to look after. Ronnie used to babysit for me. He was great with Andy. Then I got married again at twenty-nine. But I divorced him three years later. I didn't have any luck with men. And now I don't have time for them." She finished off her beer and got to her feet. "Speaking of time, I'd better get back to work."
"Thanks for seeing me, Monica."
"Anytime, Michael. Just drop by, and we'll talk about the old days."
"As long as you don't bring up my murderous past," I said, following her down the stairs.
"Forgive and forget, that's my motto these days," she said. "Before you go, maybe you could spare a few dollars for Allegra House," she said, one hand on the handle of the front door. Her gray eyes danced as I pulled out my check book.
"Somehow I didn't expect to get out of here scot-free," I said, making out a check for a hundred dollars and handing it over.
"Hey, thanks. And come back anytime!"
"Can't afford it," I said, laughing as I made my way to my car.
"Next visit is free," she called, waving as I got into the car. "I promise!"
As I drove back downtown, I kept thinking of the Monica Murder Theory, starring me as I had never been. Was it possible anyone else could jump to the conclusion that I had done it? It was a sobering thought I fervently hoped would not occur to the police. Her reasoning about Ronnie shielding me, however, led me to wonder. Could he have been protecting someone else?
And who were those shadowy people out at the commune? Those people he would never talk about? Could one of them have wound up in Ronnie's trunk with a bullet in his head?
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