Drag Queen in the Court of Death (21 page)

I woke up with a headache and a ringing in my ears. The ringing turned out to be the phone, which I had forgotten to turn off as I staggered to bed last night. Or was it this morning? I reached for the phone by instinct and mumbled a hello.

Heising."
"Hi, Monica. Yes, it's me. I think."
"Late night?"
"Very. What can I do for you?"
"Good to see you at the Dharman thing. You were gone

before I got a chance to say hello."
"I was surprised to see you there."
"I get money from the foundation. Least I can do is turn

up and look grateful."
"Oh, that was the look you were giving everyone. It looked
rather more predatory to me."
She laughed. "Which brings me to why I called at the
obviously ungodly hour of nine thirty a.m. I wanted to ask
you about a few of the people there as possible donors for
Allegra House. Do you know the Rothenbergs?"
"No way. All their money goes to the opera."
"Okay, how about Judge Mooney?"
"Hmmm. As I recall, the old bird hangs out at the yacht
club. Used to have a gorgeous sloop. Now, I don't really know. He supports the foundation rather handsomely, so
maybe he thinks he's done his bit."
"Good point. What about Nigel Ross. You know him?" I hitched myself up on the pillows. "Not anymore," I said. "Didn't you go to school together?"
"He went to Trinity College School, I think. I went to Upper
Canada."
"Funny, I thought I remembered you two knowing each
other."
"Sure. But we weren't friends. I thought that's what you
meant. Didn't you know him back then too?"
"I may have run into him a few times at parties. Anyway,
the main thing is, he's got money."
"Pots of it. But he's also running for office. That takes a
lot."
"Yeah, but it's good to be seen as generous to the right
charities. I'll put him down. Can you think of anyone else I
might hit?"
"You can put the Irving-Melvins on your hit list. I hear
they're looking around for a tax write-off. And why don't you
call Llewellyn ab Hugh? He's much more plugged in than I
am." I gave her the phone numbers and hung up. I lay there for a few moments, thinking over her words. I
was sure she had been at Bobby Mason's party in '65, had
talked to Nigel for some time on the stairs, just before the
raid, but maybe I was misremembering. Or maybe she had
forgotten. She had no reason for that party to be etched on
her mind as it now was on mine.
I got up, had a shower, dressed. I was putting on the
coffee when the doorbell rang. Jaym and the empty beer
bottles. Already. He had phoned to tell me he was borrowing
a friend's van for the morning to bring them over. I was so
wound up in Nigel and Ronnie I had forgotten.
"Am I too early?" he asked, as I opened the door. He wore
an old AIDS Walk T-shirt, washed-out red gym shorts and
sandals. He looked wonderful. Two cartons of empty beer
bottles were on the step beside him.
"I just put on the coffee. Here, I'll take those boxes." We carried several loads of the empty bottles down to the
rapidly filling basement and stacked them in a corner by the
tubs of beer.
"It's nice and cool down here," Jaym said, heaving the last
carton onto the pile.
I nodded, leaning on the other boxes. We were very close
together, hemmed in by the tubs on one side, shelves holding
old china and other miscellaneous things I hadn't unpacked
yet and probably never would, and the bottles.
"Thanks for doing this for us," Jaym said.
"For you," I said. "I'm doing it for you."
We looked at each other, our bodies close in the confined
space. His eyes were a melting chocolate brown, his compact
body radiating energy. I could feel the electricity build
between us. I reached out and ran my hand under his T-shirt
and rested it on his bare waist just above the shorts. His skin
was warm and moist under my fingers. He caught his breath.
Neither of us moved.
The doorbell rang.
"Fuck," I said, pulling my hand away as if burned by his
flesh. He dropped his eyes and moved aside, so I could get to
the stairs. I felt disoriented for a moment, but I moved
steadily to the front door and opened it.
"Trish." I stared at my sister as if I'd never seen her
before.
She was holding the silver presentation tray she'd
borrowed for the Dharman event. Her face had that closed,
tight look she often wore around me.
"What's the matter with you?" she said. "You look flushed." "Can't take the stairs like I used to," I said.
"Here's the tray." She thrust it out to me abruptly. I took it. "Trish, it was a lovely afternoon," I said. "You did
a great job."
She nodded and made a sort of small grunt of
acknowledgment as she turned away.
"I ran into Nigel Ross yesterday," I went on, "and he was
raving about it."
She paused and turned back to me.
"He said, and I quote, 'Your sister certainly knows how to
organize a wonderful event.'"
"Nigel Ross said those exact words."
"Yes. Well, those exact sentiments anyway."
She smiled, her face opening up a little. She looked
younger. "Thanks for telling me," she said.
"Do you want to come in?" I asked recklessly. "I've just
brewed coffee."
She paused and I tensed, remembering Jaym. "I really
can't this morning," she said. "Rain check?"
"Okay."
She waved and got into her car. I closed the door to find
Jaym right behind me.
"I've got to go," he said, edging around me.
"Why? Is it something I said? Did?"
He shook his head. "I'm really attracted to you," he said,
"but I don't want to go too fast. Okay?"
I shrugged. "If it's Ryan, you can forget about him," I said.
"He's out of my life now."
Jaym leaned over and kissed me on the mouth, then fled
down the path to his van.
I stood at the door, licking my lips and grinning as he
drove away.
I felt strangely light-hearted for the rest of the day, as I
went about my business. Even the inspection of my new office
at the university didn't bring me down. A narrow slice of a
room with half a window I would share with someone else, it
was nevertheless a step up from last year's carrel at the end
of a glassed-in hall. My desk was up against the old radiator
and the bookcase we both would share stretched right to the
molding of the high ceiling. I wondered what acrobatics would
be involved in using the top shelves, since there was no room
for a ladder. I loaded the books I had chosen to bring into my
part of the lower shelves, moved the better chair over to my
desk, and put the old brass nameplate I had had made years
ago on top. I spent some more time waxing the drawers so
they actually went in and out. I had had the forethought to
bring floor wax for this purpose. Sometimes experience with
old furniture comes in handy.
The rest of the day passed in a boring round of errands
and chores: picking up dry cleaning, dropping off shirts,
buying fish food and groceries and some gourmet goodies in
case I could entice Jaym in for dinner sometime soon. I
picked up the new light fixture for the tenant's front hall in
Ronnie's building and got the replacement ceiling fan for the
basement apartment. I thought about Julie and even got so
far as ringing her doorbell, but there was no answer. Come to
think of it, things had been awfully quiet up there recently.
Maybe she was keeping a low profile, staying with her
boyfriend. Or maybe she had gone? No. That I would have
noticed, surely.
Over time, I have forced myself to learn something about
cooking. It seemed that I never managed to pick a lover who
could cook. All three of the men I had lived with over the
years had no real interest in it. We ate out a lot. I ate out a
lot now. But tonight, I stayed in and cooked pasta Alfredo
with lots of garlic and diced chicken and a Caesar salad. I
even baked an apple for dessert. Maybe seeing Trish had
reminded me of one of our childhood favorites—cored apples
stuffed with brown sugar and cinnamon, baked in the oven
until soft. Not exactly gourmet fare, but it worked for me. I was stacking the dishwasher when the phone rang. "Michael, you'd better get over here. I mean it. That
nutcase is back and he's got someone with him, and they're
all up there screaming and yelling and—"
"Ryan, calm down. How did they get in? Just start from the
beginning."
"Yeah, okay, so I come home and I see lights up there,
right? So I go, okay, Michael's doing something or maybe he's
with that real estate lady or something. So then I go into my
place and order a pizza, and when I come out to pay for it, I
hear them going at it up there. The pizza guy even says
something. So I go up the fire escape, and the window's open
and this nutcase is in there and someone else too, but I can't
see him. So anyway, I shout at them and the nutcase throws
something at me so I thought I better call you, like, before
the cops, right?"
"So as far as you know, they got in the window? Are they
still shouting?"
"I don't hear nothing, but maybe they're just, like, taking a
rest or something?"
"All right, I'm coming over. Don't call the cops yet." "Okay. And Michael? I think one of them's got a gun."
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I broke all speed limits driving over to Ronnie's. Again. A playback of all those other times, racing to help. Trying to save Ronnie who didn't want to be rescued. But this time it was Bianca. The truth about that night twenty-five years ago was buried deep in her ruined mind and now I might get a chance to bring it to light. Or maybe not....

Crowds of people strolled along Bloor Street as I honked my way through, paying no attention to shouts and hand gestures from irate pedestrians. I was afraid I'd be too late. Too late to save poor, demented Bianca from whatever fate she was spinning to. I didn't believe there was a gun. I didn't think there was anyone with her, either. Ryan assumed the shouts were two people, because it wasn't sane to be shouting to yourself in an empty apartment. But Bianca wasn't sane.

When I pulled my car up in front of the house, there was another car already there, slewed at an abrupt angle into the street. Ryan was sitting on the steps, smoking, beside Vincent and his dog. A tall woman in a skirt and blouse stood talking to them, her arms crossed, hugging her elbows.

"This used to be a quiet house to live in," she said, bearing down on me as I emerged from my car.
"I'll handle it," I said.
"Putting this boy in charge is ludicrous," she went on, following along beside me up the path.
I couldn't remember her name. "He's not in charge," I said. "He's doing some painting."
"I'll move if this keeps up."
"Fine. Go home, everyone. Ryan, stay down here." I headed up the stairs to the third floor. Vincent's dog licked my hand as I went by.
It was quiet up there now. At least, I couldn't hear anything. Maybe Bianca had tired herself out. I remembered the last time, how she drooped when she got inside, sank onto the bed, and sat there, as if stunned. I quietly unlocked the purple door, pulled it open, and went inside. I smelled incense. Amber, I thought. Through the bedroom door I saw candlelight and heard a low murmur of voices. I felt pinpricks along the back of my neck. Ronnie used to burn incense. Light candles stuck in Chianti bottles. I walked into the bedroom.
Bianca sat on a cushion in front of the low window, surrounded by candles. Duane Kelley, aka Glori Daze, sat on the bed looking tense and red in the face. Bianca was wearing Ronnie's red dress, the one I had given her, and several long chiffon scarves attached to her wrists. Many cheap rings flashed in the candlelight. Her big, shiny, vinyl handbag was beside her. Duane wore expensive designer jeans and a dark green silk shirt. I wondered what he had been doing when lured away by Bianca.
"You finally got here," Bianca said, looking at me. Her eyes were very bright, her face over rouged, her mouth a gash of red that only approximated her lips.
"Hello, Bianca," I said. "How did you get in?"
"Through the window," Duane said tersely.
Damn. I must have left the thing unlocked after the last debacle. I looked at Duane, who merely shrugged his wide shoulders.
"I hear you're writing a book," he said.
"A book, yes!" cried Bianca. "Michael's going to get it all down, get it all right, about me and Luna and that. Right? That's why we all have to talk, to get everything ... well, everything straight, like."
I opened my mouth to explain to Duane that I was doing no such thing, but his look stopped me. "Right," I said. "Why don't you tell me a little about it, and then we can all go home."
"Yes," said Bianca. She took something out of the bag, an old photograph, looked at it a moment, then touched it to the candle flame. "That one's not very flattering," she said. "Here's a better one." She handed over a picture of herself outside this house, young and vibrant and pretty in a tight turquoise satin mini-dress, waving at the camera.
Ashes fluttered around her and the smell of burning chemicals soured the air. I looked at Duane.
"Don't burn the place down, you idiot," Duane said suddenly, as she pulled another photo from her bag.
"You shut the fuck up, you ugly cunt!" Bianca shouted, the change so abrupt I was startled. "You have nothing to say! Nothing! This is my show!"
"You're right." I spread out my hands placatingly. "Bianca, why don't you start at the beginning, May 24, 1965. You came here to help Ronnie get ready for his first party in drag, remember?"
"Oh, for God's sake," Duane exploded.
"Shut up! I was there! And I saw you, Glori! I saw that man on the floor! But I don't know him," she added, her voice dropping to a whisper. "And Luna said it was okay, everything was copasetic, and anyway, we were all going to a great party! Except the man on the floor," she added.
"Was the man's name Haven?" I asked.
"No. No, I don't know. Maybe. Anyway, I didn't know him. Luna was scared of him, I think. So we decided not to talk about him. Ever. We swore a blood oath and did a ceremony and everything. So Glori, that cow, she starts to blab..."
"You fucking space cadet, I never said a damn word! I'm not the one with a few screws loose!"
"You ran away! I stayed to help Luna!"
"Help? Help! You poor, pathetic excuse for a queen couldn't even keep yourself out of the loony bin, let alone help Ronnie! He carried you for years, don't you realize that? Years!" Duane's face was getting dangerously red, his eyes watering with the smoke and emotion.
Bianca scrambled to her feet, clutching her purse. The long dress swayed perilously close to the dancing candle flames. "You coward!" she shrieked. "You broken-down old bitch! All you did was use other people's material! Over and over, never anything new! You only wanted the money!"
"What money?" I said.
Duane was on his feet now too. "You wouldn't know an original routine if you fell over it!" he shouted. "It was Ronnie who did all the routines!"
"Asshole! You weren't even here! How would you know?"
"Isn't this all a bit beside the point?" I asked, but they ignored me.
Duane took a few steps toward Bianca, who reached inside her purse. She pulled out a gun. I stepped back involuntarily. I had never actually seen a real handgun before, except safely in a policeman's holster. It looked as if Bianca had tied one of the chiffon scarves to the trigger guard of the thing, so she couldn't lose it. Or so no one could get it away from her easily.
Duane sank down on the bed again and gave me a look that I couldn't read.
But in spite of the gun, I wanted to get Bianca back on the track of the May 24 story. She seemed less upset by that than by Glori.
"Do you have any paper in that bag?" I asked. "I'll need to take notes."
Duane make an exasperated noise, but Bianca twittered on about always being prepared for anything and pulled out a small shiny silver book from the dollar store with a tiny pencil attached and threw it to me with a tittering laugh.
"Just the thing," muttered Duane.
"It'll do fine." I sat down on the one chair in the room and opened the book, pretending to write. "So, you were going to meet Nigel at the party, have I got that right?"
"Nigel?" She looked scared again, lost, as if she were five years old and couldn't remember where she lived. She was waving the gun around in an alarming manner. I wondered where the hell she had gotten it.
"Nigel Ross," I said.
"Oh, he wasn't here," she said, getting back on track again. "Weren't you here? I thought you were here?"
"I was here earlier," I said. "Then Ronnie said I was making him nervous, so I left, and waited for everyone at Bobby's house."
"As if she can process all that," muttered Duane.
"She was there." Bianca pointed the gun at Duane. "I remember that she was there, shouting orders at everyone, like usual."
"Someone had to do something!" Duane said.
"You're the one that got us all in that mess in the first place! You! You made Luna do all that ... that ... and then you ran away and left her in the shit!"
"Oh, for God's sake, you don't know anything."
Bianca suddenly aimed the gun at Duane and fired.
Noise filled the small room, booming inside my head. I clapped my hands over my ears. Duane's face went white. A whole gaped in the wall over his shoulder.
"Enough!" I jumped to my feet. "Give me the gun. Then I'll take the rest of my notes for the book."
"No! I told enough already. Enough talk. All talk, talk, talk. That one talked too much." She aimed the gun at Duane again, using both hands this time, trying to hold it steady.
I sprang at her, acting without thinking, going in on an angle that would knock her away from Duane. She screamed and twisted away from me, just as my shoulder slammed into her. A crash of breaking glass, and she went through the window, landing on the shaky fire escape beyond.
"No! No!" she shouted, leaning away from me as I lurched to my knees, reaching for her through the jagged window. A splintering creak and the rusty railing gave way. Bianca shrieked and fell backward through the warm night air, hitting the ground three stories below with a thud.
Duane and I peered though the broken railing at the shattered figure on the grass. The gun was flung out above her head, still tied to her wrist. Police sirens once again screamed toward us in the night.
"Jesus Christ," I said, my voice hoarse with shock. Blood splashed onto my shirt from a cut on my arm. Absently I pulled out a piece of jagged glass and dropped it into the wastebasket.
Duane whipped off a pillowcase, tore it into strips, and handed me one. "And that's the way it happens sometimes," he whispered in my ear. "Accidents, a chain of events. No real perp, as the cops say."
He was telling me something, something important, but I was too much in shock to take it in. The police were here. Again. Coming up the same stairs. Asking the same questions. It was good that they had come before; it was all on record. All Bianca's crazy behavior spelled out in the police computers.
"Where did he get the gun?" they asked.
"I suspect it's very old," I said. "I think it may be the gun that killed Rey Montana back in 1965."
They questioned us in different rooms. When they left I sat for a moment, looking ahead of me at the Wall of Death. Ronnie had lived with death for so long, and I had had no idea. While I agonized about his confusing behavior toward me, he was trying to cope with this hidden violence.
When I went back into the bedroom, Duane was sweeping up the shards of glass and putting them in a cardboard box he had found somewhere. "We'll have to cover that with something," he said, nodding at the window, which now had no glass in the bottom part.
I found some old plywood in the basement and together we nailed it up across the window. Didn't do too much for the look of the place. I'd have to get a glazier in and a plasterer to repair the bullet hole....
Bullet hole.
"Bianca always did leave a mess behind for others to clean up," Duane said.
"What's his real name?" I asked. "The police asked me, but I didn't know."
"Mark Vanderleez or something like that. Dutch. I don't remember exactly."
I led the way into the living room, away from the stench of candle wax and incense and death. I wondered how Ronnie had ever slept in that room again. No wonder he started using drugs so much.
We sat facing each other in the two white overstuffed chairs. Around us the mobiles whispered like ghosts in the breeze from the one open window.
"So I guess Bianca got you here with the gun," I said.
"Right. I was just about to go out to the movies. Then she went on about calling you. That you were writing a book about her, like I really believed that, and you needed to be here too. But I don't have a car phone, and this phone was disconnected. Was I glad when you showed up!"
"Ryan called me about the shouting and screaming. So what did go down here in '65?"
"Great thundering Jaysus, Michael. Give it a rest!"
"What happened?"
"Maybe you are writing a book about it," he muttered. "It was like tonight. Too many people in a small room, getting all overexcited. I was there helping Ronnie shorten the dress, and Bianca was twittering around being useless like usual, and then this guy shows up."
"Haven. Or did he call himself Rey?"
"No, he said his name was Haven. Ronnie went into shock seeing him, and then the guy began to demand money, something about his cut or something like that. Who knows? We thought it was crazy talk, thought the guy was high, you know? Half the world seemed to be high back then."
"That's not how I remember it," I remarked.
"Well, maybe not in the teachers' lounge," he said. "Anyway, then this guy pulls out a gun. Well, none of us had ever seen one. It was electric in there. And Bianca..."
"What did she do?"
"Bianca adored Ronnie. Nothing sexual, you understand, she just adored him. Thought he had everything. Fool. Anyway, she went ballistic when the guy got too close to Ronnie, waving that damn pistol. It was an unfortunate chain of events. Then Freemont came to the door and that distracted him. I grabbed him. Bianca got the gun."
"And Freemont?"
"He was on acid or something. He said something intelligent like, 'Solid, man,' and drifted out again with the rest of the mushrooms Bianca had."
"And then?"
"Then I forced the guy onto his knees so we could relax a bit, but someone else came to the door. The door bumped Bianca, who fired, and that was that. Right in the back of the head."
"Who was at the door?"
"For fuck's sake, who cares? It's over!"
"Nigel Ross."
"Let it be, Michael." He got to his feet and we went around checking the windows and locks, making sure all the candles were out. The scent drifted in the air, bringing back the pain of memories. Could I have helped? Was I so obsessed with my own coming out that I couldn't see Ronnie's pain?
Downstairs, I asked quietly, "Where did you get the leather?"
"I worked in a furniture factory back then. The one thing my father ever taught me was upholstery in the family business. I went back and got some of the stuff I'd been working on. It was ruined anyway for selling purposes, some imperfection. I thought we'd wrap the guy up for a while and then get rid of him somewhere. Then I got a chance to do a gig in New York. I had no idea the guy was still here."
"And no one thought to call the police?"
"In those days? In that neighborhood? A bunch of guys dressed up as women with a dead American on the floor. Sure. And anyway, Ronnie was afraid he'd be deported."
I walked him to his car. "And Nigel?"
"Nigel is good people, even if he is closeted. Leave it be, Michael. Just let it go."
I put my hand on the open window. "It wasn't Bianca, was it? It was you?"
We looked at each other for a very long time.
"One more thing."
Duane groaned.
"How did Bianca get to keep the gun?"
"That one I can't answer," he said. "I thought the wretched thing was in the trunk with the body." He shook his head. "You're a bull dog, Michael, but even a dog lets go eventually. Great thundering Jaysus." Duane sighed wearily and drove away.
Let it go. After all these years, just let it go.
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