Drag Queen in the Court of Death (14 page)

Ronnie's mother wore thick glasses, and her hands were knotted with arthritis. Her hair was still streaked with brown, and she wore it pulled back and fastened in an untidy bun at the back of her neck. She was sitting in what the hospital euphemistically called the sunroom, in a hard plastic chair with metal arms. Her whole face lit up when she saw Deb. I felt my stomach heave unpleasantly, thinking of my own mother, now long gone. Had she ever felt that way about seeing me? Had I ever given her any reason to feel that way?

Deb introduced me and smoothly slipped in Ronnie's death and how he had thought of her and prepared the picture album. I wondered why Ronnie hadn't really done that himself. Had he been so hurt by their denial he couldn't forgive?

His mother took the album and hugged it to her chest, tears spilling over her wrinkled cheeks. "I missed him so much," she said, her voice a whisper in the relentlessly bright room. "I couldn't do anything about it, you know. He had to go his own way. It was for the best."

We stayed for a while, talking about the past. Her mind wandered now and then, and she would forget who I was. Then, "Oh yes, a friend of Ronnie's. Have you seen him lately?"

"Just a while ago," I said after the third time and a look from Deb. We left when the physiotherapist came and took her away.

His father was another story. Heavy and dour, he sat in a wheelchair beside his bed, staring into space. He barely acknowledged Deb and ignored me completely. I wondered how much, if anything, he was taking in. I gave him the silver and pearl money clip I had found among Ronnie's
possessions.

"So he's dead," he said at last, his voice phlegmy and hoarse, as if he rarely used it. "Was it that homosexual disease?"

I saw Deb's startled look. "He died of cancer," I said. He nodded, turning the money clip over and over in his old hands without looking at it. I glanced at Deb for a cue. She opened her mouth to say something when Mr. Lipinsky said, "Ron snuck out of my house like a thief in the night. He never said good-bye or explained what he was doing or where he was going. He died to me then."
"I thought you should know," I said.
"So fine. You told me. Good-bye."
"Dad, really—"
"Deb, what do I know from Ron's life this past twenty-five years? What do I care? I'm a sick old man who wants to die in peace."
"I'll be back later, Dad." She pecked his cheek and we left. Deb apologized all the way to the parking lot.
"He's so bitter. Nothing has turned out the way he expected, I guess."
"It rarely does."
"I'm going to have a hard time getting him to move to the home, but I figure if the old place is gone, he won't have any choice. I didn't want to do it that way, but..." She shrugged.
"It's a difficult time for you, isn't it?"
She sighed. "He doesn't realize Mom couldn't even get up the stairs anymore. But that new place costs way more than we expected. I don't know how long we can do it. I'd take them into our house, but George says no way."
"Ronnie left you some money for your parents," I said, the lie rolling off my tongue smooth as butter. "Most of his estate went to charity, but there's a bequest for you to administer for them."
She looked at me open mouthed. "Ronnie had money?"
"He was single, with no dependants, a successful man, and a partner in a big accounting firm. He wasn't a millionaire, but he had money, yes."
"Gosh," she said, sounding like a teenager from the '50s. "He always was good with figures. How much?"
I had been doing rapid calculations in my head, trying to figure out how much I could shave off to ease Deb's burden. I'm sure if he had thought of it this way, he would have done it. Luckily, the way things were spelled out left me with lots of leeway. "I can write you a check right now for thirty thousand dollars," I said. "I'll let you know later if there's any more. Don't count on it, though," I added hastily, seeing more than my commission disappear.
Deb burst into tears. "You've no idea how much I need this!" she said. "With what we can get for the building, that should take us for some time. God bless Ronnie!"
"Amen," I whispered, as I pulled up in front of the cleaners and wrote out the check.
Deb insisted I take a thermos of coffee and some banana bread with me. When I checked the bag later on, I discovered she'd slipped in a bagel and cream cheese, as well. I appreciated the thought.
The drive home was uneventful. My mind was filled with half-remembered things, impressions from long ago. But now I wondered how much I had contributed to Ronnie's reinventing of himself by my reluctance to ask questions. I had really made it easy for him, I thought now, accepting everything at face value, assuming what I thought I saw was the truth. At twenty-two, I was far more naive than he was.
By the time I got back to Toronto, I was swimming in depression. Ryan wasn't home, which was just as well. His presence was rarely soothing. I picked up the mail and noticed one large heavy cream envelope from the Dharman Foundation. Surely Trish hadn't invited me, her despised brother, to her wonderful garden party for the beautiful people! As I scanned the thick square inside, I saw that someone had, and smiled. How ironic. But if not Trish, who? Of course my family had supported the foundation since its inception, and I had contributed every year, the amount coming automatically out of my bank account. It must add up to a substantial sum by now. Perhaps it had just been generated automatically, my largesse having accumulated and spilled over some hidden line that took me into the benefactor category. I tossed the invitation aside and checked my messages. Logan, reminding me to drop over and fill him in. I wasn't sure how ready I was for this. But I didn't want to wander around the house alone, either, my mind restlessly skipping over the shadows of the past, not letting me settle on anything. I picked up the box with the tranquility water fountain in it that I'd bought for Logan as a coming-home present and went down the street to his place.
Logan was sitting up in a padded chair, dressed in loosefitting olive trousers that looked a little like harem pants and a long-sleeved Indian cotton white shirt open at the throat. His keyboards were on a stand in front of him and he was practicing with the sound off. He looked better than I'd seen him for some time and I told him so.
"You coming on to me, Michael?" he said, his mouth quirked up on one side in his sneer of a smile.
"If I ever do, you won't have to ask," I said. I was in no mood for heavy-handed pleasantries. "How are your hands?"
"Not bad, considering," he said. "Still a little stiff, but I'm working in it."
"Nice flowers." I nodded at the vase standing on the piano. Someone, probably Ellen, had put a paper doily underneath.
"I hate them!" Logan said, with unexpected passion. "Flowers are for sickrooms and gardens. I don't want her to make this into a hospital, but what can you do?"
I picked up the plastic bag I had carried the fountain over in, went to the piano bench, and grabbed the flowers in a stranglehold. Without stopping to think, I stuffed them headfirst into the bag. Then I emptied the vase in the sink in his tiny kitchen and sat down again. "Just blame me."
"I will." Logan nodded once. "A man of action," he said. "I never would have guessed."
"I have hidden depths," I said.
"I guess so. How did your trip go?"
I told him. I left out the part about the check. "I don't know why I went there in the first place," I finished up.
"Sure you do," he said. "You wanted to meet them. To get closer to Ronnie."
"Hell of a lot of good that did," I said bitterly. "I felt closer to him before. I don't know what I found out."
"You found out you fell in love with a fake," he said.
"You have such a way with words," I said. "He wasn't a fake. I don't mind someone reinventing himself. I did it. We all do it to a certain extent."
"
You
did it? I don't think so."
I just looked at him. He shrugged, that peculiar, lopsided shrug he had developed after the fire. "In a way it's like losing him all over again. But now I know it wasn't my fault. That's something, I suppose. All this time I thought it must have been something I did, something I said. There was no explanation. Nothing. Just suddenly he became ... different."
"Killing someone will do that to you, I suppose," Logan said, rubbing a thumb over his scarred wrist.
I laughed for the first time that day. "You've gotta admit it's a helluva good excuse for breaking up with someone."
"So what did you find out about Uncle Bunny?"
"Deb didn't recognize the name. They only had one real uncle and none of the honorary ones was called anything like Bunny."
"So Bunny, whoever he is, is not connected to the family. You'll have to look elsewhere."
"The only other concrete thing I found out was that Ronnie didn't come directly to Toronto as I always thought; he went to New York City first. And he went in May, so he was there for a few months."
"Well, well." Logan rolled his shoulders against the back of the chair, twisting to the side to ease his neck. "Now we're cooking."
"I'm not about to rush madly off to NYC on a wild-goose chase."
"Not yet," Logan said. "Not until you have something to chase after. It'll come. Keep digging."
"Easy for you to say," I muttered. I took the fountain out of the box and began to assemble it. Logan looked at it suspiciously.
"It's not flowers," I said.
"Good thing. I have a friend who's death on flowers."
I piled pebbles around the funnel in the bowl, added water, plugged it in.
"I'm tranquil enough," Logan grumbled, but I could tell he was intrigued. When I left him, he was sitting back with his eyes closed, listening to the splash of the water over the pebbles into the bowl.
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I woke up at four a.m. and lay for a while staring at the ceiling. I knew I wasn't going to fall asleep again, so I got up and tiptoed to Ryan's room. He wasn't there. Did he even know I was back? Did he care?

I went downstairs and sat down at the harpsichord to play. It needed tuning but wasn't too far off for a little noodling. I tried some Scarlatti, but my hands were stiff, refusing to flow with the long cascades of notes and precision trills. I thought of Logan, lying in bed hour after hour, squeezing a stress ball to keep his fingers supple. I switched to Mozart, with slightly better results.

Behind me, I heard the door open and a few muttered curses. I kept playing.
"Hey, you're back," said Ryan.
"So are you," I said. I could smell the cigarettes and beer and the sweet hint of marijuana. I kept playing.
"I hate that thing," Ryan said and belched. "Fuck, I'm wrecked. I'm going to bed."
"
Bonne nuit
."
"Whatever." He stumbled off into the shadows. He was obviously planning to take tomorrow off. Then I remembered it was Sunday.
I played for a while longer, then sat in the solarium and read. By the time dawn was lightening the sky, I was drifting off again and went to bed.
I was awakened by the doorbell. Someone was ringing it persistently, peal after peal. I pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, threw water on my face, and went to see who the annoying person was and tell them I was not interested in buying candy to support the local public school.
Ellis stood on the porch, with Jaym, looking embarrassed, a few steps behind him.
"I thought you were an early bird," Ellis said, neatly cutting off my line of attack.
"Come in. I need coffee."
Ellis snickered annoyingly.
"I just got back from a trip," I said, reaching for the coffeemaker. I noticed it was ten forty-seven. "Isn't this a bit early for you, Ellis?"
"Nope. I haven't been to bed," he said. "So I guess it's late for me, right?" He giggled. What had Ronnie ever seen in him? For the first time I wondered if their relationship had been sexual. Somehow I doubted it.
I switched on the coffeemaker. Jaym slid onto a stool and fiddled with the camera around his neck. As I heated up the leftover banana bread from Deb, got out the jam and butter, I noticed his dark eyes studying me. Out of nowhere came the image of him scooping up the contents of Bianca's purse, helping her put them back inside. Jaym, straightening her wig after she fell backward off the platform. I looked at him more closely. He dropped his eyes.
"Hey, Michael, you know, we want to contribute to the Wilde Nights cast party, right? Like, donate some beer and that, but we don't have the gelt. So we had this idea—" "Ell had this idea," Jaym said.
"Yeah, well, you went along with it, right? So anyway, someone said you, like, make your own wine and that."
I could see where this was going. I didn't like it. "I make a little, yes. For my own consumption."
"Yeah, yeah. So we wondered if you had any room in your basement, like, for our beer? I mean, we could make it and put it in bottles. A friend of mine has all the stuff, but no place to keep it, you know?"
I poured the coffee into mugs and took a long drink. Ellis added sugar and milk. Jaym drank it black.
"I think this is an imposition," Jaym said, standing up.
"Whoa! Hey, Michael hasn't said anything yet. So what do you say, Michael?"
"I don't think so," I said. "When I said I'd contribute to your campaign, I meant one check, at the fund-raiser."
"What?" Jaym looked confused.
"He didn't tell you the beer will be from—what's your stage name, Ellis?"
"Loralei." Ellis flushed. "Might as well start the campaign now, eh? But you wouldn't have to do a thing, Michael. And it would only be two garbage cans, so we wouldn't take up much room."
"Have you ever done this before?" I asked.
"I helped my friend a few times, sure. We can do it, right, Jaym?" Ellis glanced at his watch and took another gulp of coffee. "You know, I hate to drink and run, but I've gotta be somewhere. You and Jaym can talk about it, okay? I'm outta here." He waved and ran for the door.
Jaym put down his mug. "I'm really sorry," he said. "He's always getting me into these jams. I never learn."
I laughed. "He does seem a bit frothy for you," I said.
He shrugged. "I guess I need a bit of froth in my life." He glanced up at me with a quick smile that transformed his face for a moment. "Look, I'll just go. Ellis had no right to ask you this favor. Thanks for the coffee."
"Hold on. There's no reason to dismiss it out of hand. Let's take a look downstairs and see if there's any room."
I led the way downstairs and looked at the three large glass johnnies, two of red, one of white. One of them was Lew's experiment with some fruity concoction, one was a California burgundy, and the other my attempt at a sauterne hybrid. There was plenty of room for a few barrels of beer. The bottling would take up more space, but it could be arranged.
"Do you honestly think Ellis will carry this through?" I asked.
Jaym was examining the label on the closest bottle. He raised his head and looked off into space for a moment. "Honestly, no. I expect I'll be the one doing it. I don't mind," he added. "I don't have anything heavy on right now."
"When would you start?"
"As soon as possible, I guess. There's not that much time till November. If I get my choice, I'll do a lager."
"It's your project if you do the work, so it's your choice. Come on. Let's go upstairs." I led the way back to the kitchen and poured more coffee. "How did you meet Ellis, anyway?"
"He was doing a show at the 519 and I was there. We talked for a while. Then I ended up helping him take his stuff out to the car."
I laughed. "It figures. He needed a roadie."
Jaym flushed, and I wished I'd kept quiet."I gave him my number and said to phone if he needed help next week. He did, and we began hanging out. He's fun to be with. He always has a group around, laughing and talking—but don't ask me what they talk about." He laughed self-consciously.
"Where do you work?" I asked, handing him a muffin.
Jaym didn't answer at first, chewing the muffin and looking into his coffee cup. Maybe he was unemployed. It had been a tactless question.
"Look, you don't—"
"I'm a trader," Jaym said. "I don't like to mention it, 'cause the stock market's not sexy. A lot of guys don't know about the market, so they think it's boring, or if they do, they ask all kinds of questions I'm not prepared to answer."
"A trader? On the floor?" I said. "I admire anyone who can do that."
"It's exciting. And I'm doing okay," he added, glancing up at me with a quick smile. "Ronnie Lipinsky helped get me started five years ago."
I was filled with questions, but after what he had just said, I pushed them all down and took another look at Jaym, the stock-trading tap dancer. Had Ronnie bankrolled him for a line of credit? Did he pay for his license? Either way, I knew he had been paid back. I had been right about Jaym. He
was
different.
"To get back to this beer project," I said slowly. "If you're doing it, I'd consider it, but I don't want Ellis prancing in and out of here at all hours, with no advance warning."
Jaym nodded. "I told him he should call first."
"If you take over the project, I'll do it. If not, find some place else."
"We'll need more people to do the bottling," he said.
"Set it up in advance."
"And I'd rather not be doing this all alone."
There was silence, while we sipped coffee. "I haven't done beer for a long time," I said. "I'll help, if you like."
Jaym smiled broadly, his whole face lighting with pleasure. He opened his backpack and pulled out a big brown envelope. "I finally finished the roll and developed the pictures I took at Ronnie's place," he said, handing me the envelope. "I did a few experiments in Photoshop. Not sure how they worked, though. If you don't want them, just toss them."
I pulled out the pictures and stared. They were five-bysevens, all of me, five shots taken that day and four at rehearsals. They were amazing, especially the one of Ronnie and me together, Ronnie looking well and full of life, not the way he had been when I returned.
"I fooled around with Photoshop," Jaym said, turning a ring around and around on his finger. "I thought..."
"I love it," I said quickly. "Thanks so much. I don't have any good, recent pictures of Ronnie. And this..." I shook my head, feeling a strange mixture of emotions I wasn't prepared to deal with just now.
Jaym zipped up his backpack and flung it over one shoulder just as the doorbell rang. I led the way and opened the door to find Trish standing there, her small mouth gathered into its usual tight line.
"Good morning," she said stiffly. She stepped back abruptly when she saw Jaym, her chin lifting with disapproval.
"I'll call about the beer," Jaym said. He stuck out his hand, surprising me again. His shake was firm. Then he was gone, head down as he hurried past Trish.
"You never change, do you?" Trish said. "I've come for the tray."
"You never change, either," I said, holding the door open.
For a moment I thought she wouldn't come in. But she overcame her reluctance and stepped inside. She stood in the doorway of the living room, looking around, taking in every little detail. I saw her estimate the value of the paintings, the harpsichord, the small sculpture of a male dancer on the stand by the window. I left her there while I went into the kitchen to get the tray. When I came back, Ryan was there, wearing tiny red shorts and nothing else, scratching his chest sleepily.
"I thought I heard someone," he said vaguely.
"Jaym was here for a while," I said. "This is my sister, Trish. Trish, meet Ryan."
"Hi," said Ryan, still scratching.
Trish frowned. She didn't want to meet Ryan. She nodded at him, muttered, "Good morning," and reached for the tray.
"You'll have to clean it," I said.
"I don't know why you insist on keeping things you never look after," Trish hissed.
"Because they're mine?" I suggested.
Trish wrapped her arms around the tray as if protecting it from my neglect and headed for the door.
"I want it back right after the event," I called after her.
She didn't answer.
Ryan wandered over and closed the front door, which Trish had left open. "Bitch on wheels, eh?" he said. "Glad I don't have a sister."
I suddenly thought of Debra Shopiro, nee Lipinsky. It takes more than a good, understanding sister, I thought. A lot more.
Ryan looked at the photos I was still holding. "Not bad," he said. He took one, turned it over, and grinned. "Jaym's got his address and phone number on the back," he said.
"All photographers do that," I snapped, taking the glossy back and stuffing it into the envelope.
"Yeah, yeah." Ryan sauntered back to the kitchen. His tight shorts left little to my imagination, but the only feeling this elicited now was one of irritation.
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