Read Pretty In Ink Online

Authors: Karen E. Olson

Pretty In Ink (3 page)

BOOK: Pretty In Ink
10.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
“No, it was a guy,” I insisted. “He had a tattoo,” I added.
The pencil paused over the pad. “What sort of tattoo?”
“A queen-of-hearts playing card. On his inner forearm. His right arm.”
“So you can’t tell me anything else about this guy, but you’re sure about the tattoo?”
“I own a tattoo shop. The Painted Lady.”
The eyebrows went back up again, and his arms fell to his sides. “At the Venetian?”
He seemed to know it. “Yeah,” I said.
“Pricey place.”
I didn’t know whether he was referring to the upscale shops that made up the Venetian Grand Canal Shoppes or my custom tattoos.
“You can get cheaper ink on Fremont.”
Sure. I should’ve known. He was determined to take me down a notch. I had to ask Tim about this guy who wouldn’t give me his name.
“There’s no cork,” he said curtly.
I frowned. “What?”
“No one has seen the cork that
you
say hit him. You’re sure it was a cork?”
“No, a frog flew out of that bottle.” I rolled my eyes at him, irritated that he was questioning everything I was telling him. As if I would lie.
“No frogs, either,” he said humorlessly as he stuffed the notebook in his jacket pocket. “Do you have a card or something? In case I need to ask you more questions?”
“Maybe
you
can give me
your
card,” I suggested.
I thought it might work. And for a second, he considered it. But then he grinned and said, “I know where to find you,” before heading back to the stage.
Chapter 3
“T
hat was smooth,” Joel said.
“You could’ve helped me out here.”
“You seemed to have it under control.”
I was going to say something snarky, but I was distracted as I glanced around the club. The pandemonium had quieted down with the arrival of the police and paramedics, who were now rolling Trevor out on the gurney. He’d propped himself up on one elbow and was batting his eyes at the guy holding a blood pressure cuff but who seemed interested in what Trevor was saying. Maybe he’d get a date out of this. Seemed only right, since the rest of the night was a bust.
Charlotte was beckoning us to come up onstage. Joel and I weaved around a couple of tables and climbed the steps.
“Trevor asked if I’d bring his stuff to his apartment,” she said. “I’m just so relieved he’s okay.”
Joel caught her in a hug.
I shifted from foot to foot. I’m not a hugger. At least not to the extent Joel is. Joel would hug anyone anytime for anything.
I started across the stage, figuring they’d join me when they were done.
Bitsy came out from behind the curtain. Like a magic trick. It startled me.
“Hey, what are you doing back here?” I asked.
“Helping Charlotte get Trevor’s stuff.”
Not a surprise. Bitsy might have attitude now and then, but she was always the first to help out.
“There’s something here; I’m not sure it’s Trevor’s. I need Charlotte to tell me.”
We went to the dressing room, where all the queens had gotten ready for their performances. Makeup was strewn across a long table in front of a long, wide mirror meant for sharing. The light caught sequins, and they sparkled against the feather boas; fabric draped over chairs and lay on the floor. Backpacks and duffel bags littered the corners of the room; shoes of all shapes and sizes—but all glittering—were scattered.
MissTique stood by the table, holding a box of Uncle Ben’s rice.
What in this picture doesn’t belong?
Before I could ask about the rice, Bitsy tugged on my arm.
I looked down to see her holding a gray hooded sweatshirt.
“This was lying on Trevor’s backpack, but I don’t remember him wearing it,” she said.
I didn’t remember him wearing it, either. But the guy who hit him with the cork had worn one exactly like it.
I’d opened my mouth to say something when an unearthly sound filled the room.
Bitsy and I looked up to see MissTique clutching the rice box to her chest, which was heaving with sobs. We glanced at each other, and Bitsy shrugged as if to say,
What are we supposed to do?
I shrugged back. No clue.
MissTique dramatically fell into a chair next to her, holding on to the box as if it were a life preserver. The tears that rolled down her cheeks left grooves in her makeup like little mountain rivers.
“It was supposed to be wonderful,” she choked, her eyes brimming over as they pleaded with us for some sort of sympathy.
This was Charlotte and Joel’s territory. Bitsy and I were just here for the ride. And if I wasn’t a hugger, Bitsy really wasn’t.
“It was good,” I tried. “Great, until, well . . .” My voice trailed off, because she knew what I was talking about and it was no use beating a dead horse.
Fortunately, Charlotte just that moment swept into the room, assessed the situation, and went over to MissTique and put her arms around her. Joel stood awkwardly in the doorway. So I’d found his Achilles’ heel. Hugging is good, except in the case of a teary drag queen.
Bitsy and I busied ourselves with Trevor’s duffel bag, stuffing his Britney Brassieres costumes inside. I found his makeup case on the table and began putting that together, although I wasn’t totally sure just what makeup was his as opposed to his fellow queens’.
I picked up a stray stocking and held it up to show Charlotte, my eyebrows raised with the question.
“Could be,” Charlotte said, not being much help at all.
MissTique finally relaxed her grip on the rice box and held it out for me. “This is Trevor’s.”
I took it from her. “What . . .”
She chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that was like thunder.
“He uses it for his boobs.”
She must have seen my expression, because her chuckle turned into laughter. “He fills a sock with rice and then puts that in his bra. It’s quite ingenious, because while the rest of us just use plain socks or pantyhose, his boobs actually move like they’re real.”
I contemplated the box for a second. I could sell the idea to middle school girls and make a fortune. I found a plastic bag on the table, wrapped the box up so no rice would fall out, and put it in the duffel bag.
Joel had come into the room now and was shuffling around, looking at the dresses on the floor. I couldn’t tell whether he was wondering why men would dress like this and perform, or whether he wanted to try something on. It was difficult sometimes to read Joel.
“I hope the cops find that guy and lock him up,” MissTique said, anger tinting her voice.
I opened a case that had more shades of eye shadow than I even knew existed. “You know, he really didn’t do anything except disrupt everything. Trevor’s okay. So I’m not sure he’ll have the book thrown at him or anything,” I said.
“What do you know about it?” she asked.
“Her brother’s a police detective,” Charlotte said.
“The one out there?” MissTique asked.
I cringed. “No. I don’t know that guy.”
“Good, because I had serious issues with him,” MissTique said. She got up and pulled off her wig. Long tresses of sleek black hair landed on the floor, and she didn’t bother picking them up. She kicked off her platform heels, reached under her dress, and tugged, pulling down her hose and sliding them off her legs.
Joel looked away.
Bitsy and I couldn’t tear our eyes away.
The wide white plastic belt came off next, and then she tugged at the back of the white sequined minidress. Charlotte unzipped her, and the dress slid off.
MissTique stood before us in her bra and panties, the hairy chest proof that we weren’t in Kansas anymore.
Socks spilled out of the bra as he unhooked it, and I watched as he pulled off two pairs of incredibly tight Speedos that obviously had been holding his jewels in place.
He didn’t seem self-conscious at all that he was standing in the middle of the room naked.
Charlotte handed him a pair of jeans.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said.
Bitsy and I turned back to our job at hand. I tried to remember MissTique’s real name but drew a blank. Joel’s pink face was reflected in the mirror. He hadn’t watched any of it. Unless he peeked.
He might have. But I wasn’t going to ask.
“Kyle, is there anything else here that’s Trevor’s?” Charlotte asked, kicking my brain into gear and reminding me that MissTique was really Kyle Albrecht.
I was too young to start having senior moments.
Kyle looked around and shrugged. “Honey, if you leave something behind, he can get it tomorrow.”
I’d filled the top of the makeup kit, so I slid open a drawer at the bottom of the case. Trevor had more makeup than I’d managed to acquire in a lifetime. The fact that he was a man made this wrong somehow. Although it could be argued that my ink was a substitute for the stuff I’d put on my face.
I grabbed a lipstick off the table, hoping it was Trevor’s, and stuffed it in the drawer. But it went in only halfway. Something was blocking the back of the drawer.
I pulled it out as far as I could, then tried to push it back in. Something had gotten stuck behind it, so I took the whole drawer out and set it on the table before taking the case and leaning it on an angle so I could see what was in there.
I reached my hand inside.
And pulled out a large brooch.
It was covered in sparkling clear and red stones. I had no idea whether they were real or not. But it was the design that made me catch my breath.
It was a queen-of-hearts playing card.
Chapter 4
K
yle had been taking his makeup off with a baby wipe when he saw the brooch in my hand. He waved his hand in the air.
“Trevor made such a big deal over that thing.”
I turned it over in my hand. “Where did he get it?”
“At a fund-raiser about a year ago.”
Bitsy looked over my elbow at the brooch.
“Pretty,” she said, but I knew she didn’t mean it. It was garish and over the top, not something either of us would like.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop staring at it.
“It’s the queen of hearts,” I said softly.
“Like the tattoo you saw.” Joel had joined the party, now that Kyle was Kyle and wearing jeans and a white T-shirt.
Kyle put the baby wipe down. His eyes looked a lot smaller without all the shadow and eyeliner and lashes. “What tattoo?”
I told him about the guy who’d shot the cork at Trevor.
“So you think because of this pin that there’s some sort of connection?”
His tone indicated his doubts about that. He was probably right. This was Vegas. Over-the-top brooches and playing-card tattoos were part of the fabric of Sin City.
I put the brooch in the makeup-kit drawer, added the lipstick, and shoved it back into the case. “You’re right,” I said. “It’s just a coincidence, I guess.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.” Wouldn’t you know we’d hear from Bitsy the peanut gallery.
Kyle cleared his throat. “The fund-raiser where Trevor got the pin? It was the Queen of Hearts Ball. They were raising money for AIDS research.”
So maybe I wasn’t completely off base. But I was hard-pressed to see how the tattoo would be a part of that.
“This isn’t the first time someone’s gotten hit with a champagne cork.”
I’d almost forgotten Charlotte was in the room, she was so quiet.
“That’s right,” Joel piped up.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Joel said, “Some guy’s been going to clubs all over the city for months now, spraying champagne on people. I can’t believe you haven’t heard about that.”
So sue me for not paying attention to the local news. The story, however, indicated that perhaps Trevor was just another victim, and the queen of hearts thing
was
just a coincidence, despite Bitsy’s belief. It also would explain why the detective was here. A serial champagne-cork shooter could warrant that.
“He got beat up,” Charlotte continued when Joel went silent. “The guy who was spraying the champagne. He got some guy soaked, and the guy went nuts and beat the crap out of him. Cops arrested the guy who did the beating, but they let the champagne sprayer go.”
“So why would he keep doing it if the cops know who he is? I mean, he must have pressed charges after getting beat up,” I said, then wondered again about the detective. Wouldn’t he already know who the guy was?
Unless it was a copycat.
This was the problem being brought up in a family of cops. I always think of all the angles.
Kyle finished taking off his makeup. He had been a gorgeous woman, but he was a good-looking guy, too. The makeup had made his face look even longer and thinner, but without it he looked more normal, less anorexic, perhaps. A little stubble had started to sprout on his jawline and chin.
“Where are the rest of the girls?” Charlotte asked him.
Kyle shrugged. “They’re probably drinking for free out there.” He got up. “I need to make sure they’re all going to come back tomorrow night for the next show.” He saw me with a piece of shiny fabric in my hand. “That’s Miranda’s, not Britney’s.” He picked up the gray hooded sweatshirt and studied it a second. “I’ll see if this belongs to anyone. If it doesn’t, we can give it to the police.” His eyes skirted around the room. “I think you’ve got everything. Thanks much.” And with that, Kyle disappeared out the door.
I tried not to think about the brooch as we lugged Trevor’s makeup case and duffel bag back out into the front of the club.
Kyle was right: Everyone was standing around with cocktails in their hands, gossiping about what had happened. The police had gone; I was glad I wouldn’t have to interact with that detective again. Miranda Rites came over to us, her sequins blinding me for a second.
BOOK: Pretty In Ink
10.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Five-Year Party by Brandon, Craig
The Women's Room by Marilyn French
The Witch of Hebron by James Howard Kunstler
More Than Once by Elizabeth Briggs
The Dog With Nine Lives by Della Galton
Alaskan Wolf by Linda O. Johnston
Eggs Benedict Arnold by Laura Childs
Passion's Promise by Danielle Steel