Drag Queen in the Court of Death (9 page)

"This here's a weed, Mr. Dunn-Barton. It'll have to come down." The workman hitched up his faded green pants and scowled up at the graceful branches arching against the gray sky. "These Norway Maples are nothing but trouble."

"It looks fine to me," I said. "If it were gone, there wouldn't be any shade at all at the front."
"You can always plant a proper tree here. Give you shade in no time and still let the grass grow proper."
"All I want it a little trimming so the branches don't hit the upstairs windows." Just a bit off the side, I thought, and suppressed a grin.
"These here weed trees, they got no root system, see," the man went on earnestly, gesturing toward the ground. "Come a storm and she'll topple right into your living room. Clip your chimney too. Take down the wires."
"The tree was here when I bought the house," I said, distancing myself from the evil weed. "It did fine last winter."
"One more ice storm and splat, bam, she's gone." The tree man shook his head sadly. He shoved his cap farther back and wiped the beads of perspiration from his forehead.
I pushed my hands deeper into my pockets. "Look, I appreciate all this advice, but all I want you to do is to trim the damn tree back."
"Make her grow even faster," murmured the tree man.
"Fine. Just trim it. Thanks."
"She's your tree."
I turned and walked away. I hoped I wouldn't have nightmares about the tree crashing through the living room windows every time there was a thunderstorm.
Inside, the house was cool, dark, and silent, for a change. I checked through the mail and tossed out the ads and offers of unlimited platinum Visas and MasterCards.
The furor in the papers had died down again. The headlines now screamed about the latest sex scandal in the lives of some libidinous politician, and Ronnie and Rey Montana's mummified corpse were old news, leaving my front lawn free of vultures. Even the police had lost interest, returning the keys with the polite comment that the apartment was no longer an official crime scene and I was free to return there anytime I wished. In short, no one cared anymore. Perhaps that was what frustrated me the most.
Outside, the unfinished garden that was supposed to be a refuge of tranquility in my life lay raw and broken, baking in the oppressive heat. I grabbed my car keys and headed for the garage. I was meeting Stan Wynkowski at Ronnie's apartment to sort through the costumes and makeup and things he thought might be useful for Wilde Nights.
The air was thick, dripping with humidity. The radio broadcast dire smog warnings and the danger of heat prostration. I was reluctant to get out of my air-conditioned car.
Ronnie's old house was close and silent. This time I didn't hesitate at the purple door but pulled it open and went inside at once, making for the air conditioner. I should leave it on permanently, I thought, since I was going to be spending some time here for a while, sorting through Ronnie's personal effects, boxing up the few things he had left instructions were to go to certain friends. If I settled down to the job, it shouldn't take more than a week. I wanted to clear things out and put the house on the market.
Ronnie's desk was in perfect order, just as his business papers and investments had been. I found no surprises there, thank God. Everything was labeled, with contact names and phone numbers attached. I spent about half an hour writing checks for friends and charities listed by Ronnie in amounts ranging from five hundred to five thousand dollars, and had just worked my way to the bottom when I heard feet pounding up the stairs. Stan had brought company.
"I guess now we know why Ronnie never moved," said Stan, coming into the living room.
"I could have gone on a lot longer without finding out," another voice said. It was Glori Daze, aka Duane, carrying a stack of folded cardboard boxes. "Hi, Michael, how's it going?"
"Slowly," I said. "Getting the dresses sorted out will help."
"That's what we're here for." Duane flung the boxes on the floor by the door and went into the small front room that Ronnie had turned into his closet. "Sweet Jesus," he muttered. "I remember teaching him to sew."
He and Stan began inspecting the costumes piece by piece, subjecting each one to some unspoken scale of worth. Some were pushed to the back on the second row, but most were tagged with a red label for transport to the Wilde Nights wardrobe department, which I suspected was in Stan's basement. While they sorted, I finished my notes and checked though all the files on Ronnie's computer before reformatting the hard drive. The computer was going to Fife House Hospice, along with his extensive CD collection.
I was packing that into boxes when Duane took a break. He came into the living room and wandered over to the Wall of Death. "Fucking morbid," he muttered, shaking his head as he inspected the pictures. "Whoa. Great thundering Jaysus, Michael, here's a pic of you! Are you dead and didn't tell us?"
"You must be mistaken," I said, a little stiffly. I wasn't in the mood for corpse humor.
"See for yourself. Unless my aging eyes deceive me, which they might, that's you standing in front of the school you used to teach at."
Unwillingly, I pushed my chair back and went over to look. He was right. The picture was faded, but easily recognizable.
Stan joined us. "Christ," he said, "there's Bianca Bombe, that poor thing who crashed the rehearsal the other day. She was cute in those days, yes?"
"That no-talent cow?" Duane sputtered. "You call that—"
"Zip it, Duane. She may as well be dead. I hear she just got out of the Clark. Leave her be."
"That explains it," Duane said, but he still sounded surprisingly bitter. "She was always loony tunes."
"Well, it doesn't explain me," I said. "And it doesn't explain that these photos weren't here earlier, when I first started coming around to help out last winter."
"Well, I hear poor Ronnie was getting really strange near the end," Duane said. "Look, there's the Manatee! And that's Neon Lites! Now
she
had talent."
"And she's very dead," Stan pointed out.
"Maybe it's people who were only dead in the sense of out of Ronnie's life?" suggested Duane. "What store is that? Look there's another pic of the place."
"Duane, we'll be here all day if we try to figure out the key to this thing," Stan objected, glancing at his watch. "I've only got another hour before I have to pick up Bob at the airport."
"I'll help you get them packed up," I said, "as soon as I check out the cupboard in the bedroom." I wanted something to distract me from the Wall of Death and my part in the puzzle. When had Ronnie added me to his mad gallery? I was glad to have company while I finished my checking of drawers and cupboards. Tomorrow I'd start the cataloguing of items to be sold.
Duane and Stan threw themselves into the packing while I rummaged through things in the bedroom. I wanted to get out of there fast, since this was the only room that held any real memories for me. In 1965 Ronnie ate, slept, and studied in this room. We made love here, talked all night here, and sat outside on the fire escape wrapped in each other's arms, waiting for the sun to come up. And the brightly painted trunk set against the wall, holding candles stuck in Chianti bottles and a bronze incense burner. I shuddered.
There were no surprises in the dresser drawers, or on the shelves. I pulled back the bed and knelt down to see if there was still a door there, leading to the cupboard that ran under the eaves. The small wooden knob had been painted over and it turned with great difficulty, but the door opened, dragging on the hardwood floor as I forced it back. Heat and dust wafted out, making me cough. It was dark, but from the small part I could see, there was nothing there. I pulled out the flashlight I had brought with me and shone it inside. Nothing on the left but dust and what looked like a few twoby-fours. On the right were a couple of shoe boxes. I was almost disappointed at the ordinariness of the find. I coughed again as I opened the first one. Old letters. In Ronnie's handwriting. I realized I had been holding my breath. Why? Can't hide a skeleton in a shoe box. I popped the lid of the second one and glanced inside. A notebook with the name Uncle Bunny, on the outside in Ronnie's ornate childish writing I remembered from school, a hand more scrawling than his later neat notes. Inside it seemed to be a ledger of some sort with the date 1970 written across the front. I flipped the notebook aside and stared at what was underneath. Neat packages of crisp green US one-hundreddollar bills stared back.
"Are you almost finished?" called Duane. "We could do with some help here."
"Coming." I stuffed the money, notebook, and letters into the box, slammed the door back into place, and pushed the bed against the wall. A casual observer wouldn't have known the crawl space existed. I doubted that Duane knew, and he had been a constant visitor for a time. But I remembered. Is that why Ronnie was so insistent I be his executor?
Ten minutes later, the money, ledger, and letters safely stowed in a GAP shopping bag I had grabbed from a cupboard, I helped load Stan's van with the boxes. Then I tossed my shopping bag into the front seat of my car and headed for home. The bag on the seat beside me would not be ignored. I was aware of the dust on the outside of the boxes, the smell of age, the aura of money. Several thousand dollars, at least. It was its mysterious source that kept nagging me. Why did Ronnie hide it? Why did he put his uncle's name on it and not send it? And where had he gotten so much money in the first place back then?
Halfway home, I pulled into the left lane and turned the car toward the hospital. I didn't want to go back to the house with all these questions buzzing at me. Maybe Logan could see something here that I couldn't.
But when I told him about it, he frowned. "This is getting worse and worse," he said. "First thing I think of is drugs."
"He wasn't a dealer, Logan."
"How do you know? You didn't think he had a corpse in his trunk, either."
I had to admit I didn't really know that much about the man who had changed my life so drastically. Had I been completely blinded by my own emotions? I wondered what Monica would say about this find—apart from wanting it donated to Allegra House, that is.
Logan coughed. He looked exhausted, his skin grayish and shiny with sweat. I wondered how he could be hot with the air-conditioning whirring away so efficiently.
"So where is this swag?" he asked, looking around.
"It was too dirty to bring in here. Germs from the '60s, doncha know. Might give you hallucinations."
"Might be an improvement. Any letters addressed to this uncle in the other shoe box?"
"From my quick look in the parking lot, no. It looks like a few letters to his family that were returned unopened, and some to his sister at another address."
"Aha! So at least you now know where they are."
"Were. People move around a lot these days."
"Worth checking out, no?" One corner of his mouth quirked up, but his heart wasn't in it today.
"My neighbor croaked," he said, noticing me looking around.
I shivered, remembering the creaking whoosh of the machinery that was all I ever heard from the other bed. I didn't know what to say.
"I think it was good," Logan said, "but that's just me."
There was an awkward silence. My mind had gone completely blank. "Have you seen Ella lately?" I asked. His sister was one of the few who still came to visit.
"She's up at a friend's cottage. By the time she gets back, I might be out of here."
"Really?"
"No, but I like to fool myself it's possible. I should be out in another month, though."
"That's good news."
Logan sighed and turned his head away to the window.
"I better go."
"Maybe you're right about him," Logan said suddenly. "Maybe he wasn't a dealer. Maybe he was just laundering money."
"Lovely," I said. "Just laundering money for his uncle? Well, then, that's just dandy. As long as he keeps it in the family."
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Rain streaked the plate glass window of De Groote's and blurred the cars crowding up Church Street. The headlights glowed dim in the early afternoon dullness. People under umbrellas stopped to look at the cuts of meat and marinating goodies displayed invitingly in the window. I took my chops and kabobs and stir-fry chicken from the cute blond behind the counter, noting his strong hands and the fine gold hairs on his wrists, then I pushed my way though the Saturday crowd to the door.

Outside, a tall, scrawny drag queen huddled under a striped golf umbrella was peering at me. "I know you!" she exclaimed, one long beringed finger pointing at my chest. "Yes! I know you!"

"Hello, Bianca." I shifted my parcels and took her hand. She was wearing a hideous orange print dress that draggled to the ground and clung to her skinny legs in the rain.

She looked pleased that I knew her name. Her long, bony fingers continued to clutch my hand. The door opened behind me and a large woman nudged my back.

"Let's go across to Papa Peaches," I suggested. "Have you had lunch yet? I'm starving. We could have a bite to eat and catch up." I had been wanting to talk to her anyway. It seemed a perfect time. "I'm buying. What do you say?"

Her face brightened at once, a wide smile showing yellowed teeth. "That would be nice, dear. I think I have the time." She shifted her handbag to the other shoulder and took my arm, moving the umbrella over my head as we started across the street.

Once inside the restaurant, Bianca wanted to sit in front, right in the window. She took out some Kleenex and blotted her face. "I hate the rain," she said. "I must look a fright."

"Everyone gets wet in the rain," I said inanely. I smiled at the waiter, an attractive Asian guy with a colorful bead choker around his neck. I ordered a Bloody Mary for me and a margarita for Bianca.

"How did you know?" she asked, raising her tweezed eyebrows.
"Just a guess."
"Nice to be on the same wavelength with someone," she said. "You know that Stan Whatsisname, at the Wilde Nights thing, he doesn't know from nothing. You gotta tell him, honey. Tell him he needs to put me in the show this year. You can do it, I know you can."
"Bianca, you have an exaggerated idea of my importance in the show. I have no influence. I'm just one of many accompanists helping out with rehearsals."
"Luna told me—me and Luna go way back, you know—she told me I could be in the show when I got—I mean, this year. So this Stan person should listen to her."
"Luna's dead, Bianca."
She just looked at me. Our drinks came, and she took a long pull at the margarita. "I miss her."
"So do I." The words surprised me. "Tell me when you met Luna?"
She smiled, softening the harsh lines of her angular face. Her shoulders dropped as she relaxed with me, with the alcohol. She smoothed back her draggled hair with one hand. "When I first met Luna, he was still in school. He was in love with his history teacher, some guy named Marc or something. They went everywhere together, and one night I met them in the Manatee. He was just Ronnie back then, hadn't gotten into drag or anything, but I saw he was a natural, right from the beginning. The real thing. Not like that no-talent slut Glori Daze." She spat out Glori's name as if it were poison and took another long pull at her drink. I ordered her another.
"Anyways, she took to drag right away, like I said, and we were soon doing an act together."
"Wait a moment. Slow down. Did you visit Ronnie? Go to his place often?"
"Oh yeah, sure. He lived in this rooming house on the third floor. He had a tiny room with a slanting roof, painted all groovy colors. I remember it smelled real bad up there, dead raccoons or something he said, but he burned incense and smoked a lot of pot, so I guess he didn't care. There was this bitch who lived downstairs who went to the police about the smell, I remember that. We fixed her real good."
"What did you do?"
"Me and Luna, we filled out all these cards, see? All these forms ordering magazines and books and that, in her name, with her address. She must have been flooded with the stuff." She laughed, a sharp cackle that turned heads in the restaurant. "Anyways, she moved soon after that, so I guess it worked."
I ordered chicken Santa Barbara, and Bianca, giving in to my urging, finally ordered steak. While we waited for the food, Bianca maundered on about the Velvet Box Review and the Trillium Monarchist Society and the early court balls she and Luna went to. Luna was crowned empress several years in a row. According to my reckoning that must have been in the late '80s, since the society hadn't been around earlier, but I wasn't sure. My knowledge of the court system was scant, and it was all mixed up in Bianca's mind. That wasn't what I was interested in anyway.
When our food came, we ate for a while in silence. Bianca was shoveling it in as if she hadn't eaten a good meal for a while. Then she slowed down, a faraway look on her haggard face. "I remember the first time Luna got really dressed up, in a red tulle gown I loaned her. In those days I had a wardrobe to die for. Anyways, Luna had to shorten it a lot, 'cause she was just a little thing. I was taking her to Bobby Mason's Queen's Birthday Ball—you know, on the Queen's official birthday, May twenty-fourth? But Luna wasn't any good with a needle back then, so she'd used scotch tape and pins to hold up the lining. She couldn't sit down all night, afraid of getting stuck with a pin! She was in a real state that night anyway. I guess all the excitement.... She was real upset about—"
"About what?"
Her eyes suddenly went scared, losing focus. She felt around for her purse, pulled it onto her knees, and rooted around. I watched as she pulled out a bottle of pills, tipped a few into her hand and took them, washing them down with the margarita.
"What was Luna so upset about?" I asked.
Bianca started eating again.
"When did Luna get upset?"
"I never said nothing." Bianca took another drink. "We sang on stage, did you know? We did a duet and then Luna danced and we danced together. It was grand." She began to hum, keeping time by waving her fork in the air.
I reached over and took her hand for a moment. "Do you remember when Ronnie broke up with the history teacher?"
She paused, a piece of steak halfway to her lips. She looked up at the ceiling, as if seeking inspiration up there. "That was a bad time," she said. She ate the piece of steak, chewing thoughtfully. "Ronnie got real weird. I don't know why that teacher walked out the way he did, just when he was needed most."
"Walked out? What do you mean?"
She shrugged and adjusted the bangles on one skinny wrist. "Well, it looked that way to
moi
. And Ronnie was crying his eyes out and smoking up and you name it. It was the worst time to break up with someone. Good steak. Want a bite?"
"No, thanks. But I didn't—"
"And another thing I just remembered." She pointed her fork at me accusingly. Did she suddenly grasp who I was? "Losing his boyfriend opened the door to that dreadful violent man—what was his name? He used to beat on Luna somethin' fierce. It was awful."
I swallowed, remembering the times Ronnie had called me for help. I remembered taking him to the hospital, the crowded, noisy waiting room, the brisk attendants and nurses, the lies I put down on the forms to make sure he was covered by my insurance. "Going out with Al Vecchio was his choice," I said.
"Shows what you know," Bianca muttered darkly, spearing the last of the steak.
"What do you mean?"
"Honey, Luna had her reasons, okay? 'Nuff said. I ain't telling no tales out of school."
"Ronnie owed him money, right?"
"I didn't say that."
"But he had a good allowance from his family. Why would he need money?"
She dabbed at her thin lips with her napkin. "I gotta powder my nose."
I watched her go, weaving slightly between the tables, her large purse hugged under one arm. I wondered which restroom she would use. I wondered why Ronnie had needed money so badly he put up with being a punching bag for Al Vecchio. Why hadn't he come to me?
I waited fifteen minutes before it occurred to me to check.
"Her? She's gone," said the waiter. "She went out the side door. Didn't you know?"
I paid the bill and left. The rain has faded to a fine mist, and the sun was poking through now and then to glint on the slick street and dripping awnings. I hurried along the lane to the parking lot and headed home, stopping at the Harbord Bakery to pick up a few bagels and some Chelsea buns.
As I turned into my street, I saw Julie on my front porch, laughing and talking animatedly with a young man. When he turned toward her, I recognized Ryan. I slowed the car even more and watched as Julie tried to unlock the door while holding several plastic grocery bags. As one began to slip, Ryan caught it deftly, moving close to her and laughing into her eyes. I felt a hot anger sweep through me and accelerated into the alley behind the house and around to my garage. I barely stopped to close the door before rushing through the upheaval in my garden, through the house to the front. Ryan was just disappearing upstairs to Julie's.
I caught her door in one hand. "Ryan," I said.
He turned around, one foot on the step ahead of him, and looked me in the eyes. Then he glanced away. "I thought you weren't home," he said.
"Hi, Michael." Julie spun around and grinned at me. "Ryan didn't have his key so I invited him up to my place to wait."
"Thanks, Julie." I stood aside, holding my front door open pointedly. Ryan handed the parcel to Julie and slipped down the steps and into my apartment.
Ryan turned around and began backing away, his hands out in front of him as if in supplication. "Look, Michael—"
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm sorry. I'm real sorry."
"And?"
"I shouldn't have taken your money, but I was just so mad—"
"I owed you the money. Nevertheless, you had no right—"
"I know, I know. I was just so mad and ... Shit!" He was looking over my shoulder. "What the fuck you think you're doing?"
Everything happened at once. He sprang past me to the front door. I spun around as someone called my name, and a flash exploded almost in my face.
"This is private property!" Ryan shouted. "Get the hell out before we call the cops!" He slammed the front door in the guy's face and slipped the chain in place. "Getting so's you're not safe in your own house," he muttered.
"Who the hell was that?"
"Photographer with the
Rainbow Rag
," he said. "I recognized him from Boot's Patio. He's always hanging around there."
"Thanks. Guess you spoiled that picture for him. I thought I'd closed the door."
"Guess it didn't catch."
I walked into the kitchen, shaken, and pulled two Coronas out of the fridge. I led the way to the solarium and sat down in the wicker armchair.
Ryan flung himself into the other armchair, his lean body still thrumming with tension. He had a shadow mustache on his upper lip. A muscle jumped in one cheek. He took a long pull at his beer, then raised his hazel eyes and looked right at me again. I felt the strength of that look, the calculated heat he threw my way. "I owe you a lot," he said. He reached into the back pocket of his tight jeans, squirmed around a bit as he pulled out his wallet, then leaned forward to hand me a card. A credit card.
My
credit card. "I didn't use it," he said. "Not once."
"Big of you," I said, taking it. The plastic was warm from his body. "Is this why you came back?"
He nodded. "And I want to know ... I don't want you mad at me anymore."
"Look, I'm not your father." I felt the tension twist tighter in the air.
"I know, I know. I just want to, like, start again, okay?"
"I have to be able to trust anyone who lives in my house, Ryan." We both drank in silence for a while. I saw the shadows in his eyes, the tension in his body, the nervous tapping of one foot. I wondered what he had been doing while he was away, how he had been living. He wasn't wearing the gold bracelet.
Ryan suddenly slid forward, off his chair and onto his knees in front of me, one hand on my thigh. "I'm real sorry," he said, gazing up at me.
I wasn't sure anymore who was in whose debt. Did it matter? He had saved me from getting my face splashed all over the gay news. Were they doing an article on me? Was it for their notorious Around Town spread? "I need you to finish the garden," I said, looking through the window at the desolation outside. "And maybe some painting," I added. "After that, I can't say. I'll pay you a regular wage, and you can have your old room back. But Ryan, this is the last time. Shape up and fly right, or you're out." My father's expression made me wince inside, but I could see it impressed Ryan.
He sat back on his heels and nodded solemnly. We talked out a few details. I resisted the urge to take his hand off my thigh. I got up instead. "When you need a key, take the spare from the brass bowl in the hall. It can't be copied, and I want it returned when you come in, okay?"
"Got it." Ryan stood up too. His eyes glowed. His whole body seemed to uncoil. He had what he wanted. Did I?
After he had gone upstairs, I took the old shoe box full of Ronnie's money and hid it in my bedroom closet. Tomorrow I would put it in my safety deposit box.
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