Only Make Believe (5 page)

“Nick, Nick.”

“Diva! Miss Diva, please, honey.”

“Doctor, his heart. His heart.”

“I can’t get a pulse.”

The alarm bell clanged again, out in the hall. “Calling Doctor Graves. Doctor Graves. Calling Doctor Graves. Doctor Graves to ER. Doctor Graves to ER. Code Red, Doctor Graves.”

“Go, you two! Now! Gloves, please! Double gloves! Who brought this—this thing in? Jesus! Nobody told me there were homos in Myers.”

Carmen followed me out to the Jeep. We got in and he tried to light a cigarette. His hands shook so badly the match wouldn’t strike. I took the match box from him, snapped a flame and shielded it with my other hand.

“You OK?” I finally said. “Hell of a shock to see a thing like that.”

Carmen’s face was suddenly wet with tears. “He dying in there. Killed. For what? All he want is to make a little show. Wear a dress. Pretend to be Miss Diva the singing sensation, the famous opera star, just for tonight. Not—not be a real woman. And not to be like—not like us, no. What I mean to say, the Diva, she just want to show off the whole
personality
, the artistic Diva inside the big strong hairy sweaty man.” Carmen sobbed. “She—he—desperate for that. For so long.”

“We’ve had plenty of men dress as women for Halloween. Nobody ever got beat up. And they treat our Carmencita with respect.”

At least to his face,
I added silently, remembering the crude remarks I’d overheard in the clubroom a few hours earlier.
More or less.

Carmen inhaled hungrily, then spat out an angry stream of smoke and words. “This ain’t Halloween. And me? And you? I always thought we had plenty protection. Protection from our house dick and the gun he wears, from the bribe money the admiral pays out, from Brian the bouncer with his blackjack.”

“What went wrong tonight?”

Carmen ignored the question. “You and me, we could be in there on that table, dying, kicked in the balls like Diva. Except we got each other, and the admiral, and the protection money. I always think it’s like we got our own foxhole. But maybe not.”

“We know the rules. We keep it under wraps. Maybe our Diva picked up some street meat at the bus station and brought him back, or maybe—”

“He has a wife! Wearing high drag gets him hot in the pants, yes. But not for the boys. Nick told me he takes it home, saves it for her. Told me she understands.”

“How the hell do you know all this—when I don’t?”

“Takes one to know one. You put on a dress and stand up on stage, boss, and you’ll know. Damn it, you’ll know.”

“Forget it. I can’t even carry a tune.”

“Takes balls to wear a dress. Boys like us, we’re not safe, never. Put on the makeup and pearls, sing a little with the USO band, shake it like Sally Rand. The regular soldier boys they whistle and clap and grab their trouser buttons. But you know, I dated one or two of them—in my time. They want you so bad. No questions asked. Talk all pretty trying to get you behind a palm tree and your panties down. But they hate you afterwards, sometimes beat you up after they finish, throw sand in your face. They want to make you forget—or make
themselves
forget.”

“Or they need to punish somebody. Anybody but themselves.”

“Maybe that is it.”

My boss, Admiral Asdeck, then a top administrator at Yokosuka Naval Base in Occupied Japan, had been named director of recreational and hospitality services in the Tokyo-Yokohama District soon after the war’s end. In theory, this meant that the former submarine commander was charged with setting up and maintaining clubs, billets and guest houses for American and Allied officers. In practice, the former New York hotel-keeper’s son also took over a number of tea and geisha houses, staffed them with hungry, compliant young women and muscular Marine guards, and assigned young officers with no particular interest in the merchandise to manage them. He’s come across my personnel file in an eligible-for-discharge slush pile, pulled me off a troop ship when it docked in Japan, recognized the possibilities and taught me the not so gentle art of selling pleasure.

“You don’t have to wear drag to get a bad reaction, Carmen. We had this one navy commander that checked into the New Victory after four months at sea. Definitely my type—big shoulders and a scar on his jaw. He took a shine to me, said he wanted to buy me a drink, in private. So I took him to a room and gave him what he wanted. When he sobered up, he decided he didn’t much like what we’d done.”

Carmen giggled. “Didn’t like how much he’d liked what you’d done to him, maybe?”

“Maybe. He tried to tear the place up. Kicked a hole in the shoji-screen wall, broke an antique vase. Luckily, my Marine guard was drinking tea with the geishas in the lounge. We got the officer tied up and sent him to the nearby shore patrol post in a taxi. Wearing nothing but dog tags and a blanket.”

“My bossman is such a stud.”

“I gave the officer’s uniform to the girls. To sell on the black market. And all his cash. Kept his skivvies as a souvenir.”

Carmen batted his eyes admiringly. “I won’t tell Bud.”

“He knows,” I replied. “As much as he wants to know. Things were different then. Running the New Victory was a job. Navy undercover work.”

“Undercover! If you say so, boss.”

“That was a joke. I threw the shorts away before I left Japan.”

“I’m laughing. Ha ha. You made me feel better. OK,
now, this minute
—can we say Miss Diva was undercover and just learning how a girl pulls herself together for a show?”

“You give lessons in this?”

Carmen glanced at the hospital entrance. “Like I said, we had a talk. I took measurements and did the shopping last week. I also consulted Mr. Patt Cope. You know? The beautician we have on call? He came in Sunday and did up Nick’s face and hair.”

“Next time, let me know.” I was beginning to feel defensive and definitely sounding like it.

“Are you blind, deaf and dumb, bossman? You’d have known everything if you opened the special requests file on your desk. I know you heard Miss Diva Capri sing in the club. And our brave house dick sat practically next to her at the bar while he wolfed that double-deck sandwich. All the while La Diva was talking to one person and another. Wasn’t nothing intended to be secret from either of you.”

Carmen turned to me and gave me a hard stare, as if to say,
Face the music and dance, bossman. Whether the Diva’s dead or alive, we’ve got a royal mess on our hands. And your highly trained house cock did nothing to stop it. Nobody did.

What he said was this: “Now, boss, if you please, can we go back to the hotel and see what is up? Maybe Bud know something more.”

The Caloosa catered to people with secrets. It was my job to know their secrets and to protect my guests. The club I’d managed in Japan functioned as a
de facto
brothel for allied officers. There were never any complaints by either Japanese or Occupation authorities. At the Caloosa, I provided a haven for people who wanted to play cards for high stakes or have a mixed drink at some odd hour—such as ten o’clock on a Sunday morning. I routinely arranged introductions, seductions and social and sexual encounters. I employed strong arms to enforce rules and secure guests’ safety. And suddenly it seemed to be going straight to Hell.

I stepped on the clutch. The Jeep’s egg-beater engine wheezed to life.
Am I slipping? I failed to spot the cross dresser on either visit. I didn’t consult the files. Maybe I’m getting too comfortable in my role as hotshot manager and untouchable sexual outlaw.

What good does it do to pay a house dick if he takes off every fourth weekend for reserve duty? Sure, there’s a war on. But we’re fighting our own war. Is the love we’ve found together worth risking Asdeck’s, Carmen’s, Tommy’s, Brian’s and everyone else’s financial and emotional investment?

I’ve always been a cocky so-and-so. But at that moment I had to admit I’d just stumbled into a double fuck-up. I knew I’d have to fix it, and fast. I let out the clutch and the war-surplus Jeep leaped backward, bucking and skidding on pebbles and loose sand.

Bud and I conferred in my office. “Wife’s name’s Amelia,” I said, handing him the DiGennaro file. “Owns his own business. Sells schoolbooks and supplies like paper and pencils. Boy Scouts leader. Belongs to St. Stanislaus Catholic Church and sings in the choir. Phone numbers are listed under Bradenton addresses, home and office both. Caloosa dues paid up through the end of June. Settles his bills in cash.”

Bud took the folder but didn’t open it. “Lee Memorial would of phoned the Mrs. by now. According to Lee County standard operating procedure.”

“The hospital’s SOP was strictly SNAFU. The on-call sawbones was sacked out in a laundry room. Ambulance medic had to go roust him.”

“Yeah? So we can’t assume they did call her, nor nothing.” He paged through the folder quickly. “This was in the hotel lockbox, right?”

“We like to be on the safe side.”

“Huh, guess I better put in a call to the Bradenton police desk. Have an officer drive over to inform the lady in person. Assuming she’s there and not somewhere around here. Over at the Bradford, maybe, washing the blood off her hands.”

“Huh?”

“Wife or husband’s the first one you look at in a domestic violence case.”

“Aren’t you kind of jumping to a conclusion? Why do you assume DiGennaro’s domestic situation has anything to do with this?”

“How many happy husbands do you know that dress up like women and parade around like a floozy working the Honolulu bars?”

“Carmen told me the wife knows, and that she understands.”

“Remains to be seen.”

“You’ve got me there.”

“Why are you fucking with me, Dan? I mean, so what if the wife knows? And if she does in fact understand that her husband’s some kind of pervert, well, maybe that’d be a motive to kill him herself or have him put down. There was a whole chapter on this, OK? In the law enforcement textbook I read? Before I got tested for my promotion, remember?”

“Why don’t we wait and see whether the alleged pervert ends up dead or alive?”

He closed the file. “Right. Yes. I ought to head over to the hospital now—in case DiGennaro comes to and is able to make a statement. I can call the wife from there. Or start tracing her movements. Nobody here saw nothing. Not so far’s I can tell. Not yet.”

Carmen knocked and threw open the door. “Fresh coffee brewing, gentlemens. Biscuits in the oven. Juice on the way. Be two shakes of a
puta’s
tail. So please, if you kindly follow me into the River Room. And we put our heads together.”

It was just before dawn. The morning shift was coming on duty and I’d called an emergency staff meeting. Brian Murphy the bouncer, chief clerk Phil Chesler and head housekeeper Mrs. Rudella Smallwood were seated at an undressed six-top. Out across the pool deck, red-and-orange sunbeams skittered along the choppy, black-gold surface of the Caloosahatchee.

The coffee cups were empty. I waved at headwaiter Homer Meadows, a retired Pullman dining car waiter, now the oldest member of the staff. “Coffee soonest. Caffeine emergency here.”

Bud slapped the table and the empty cups danced. “Ladies and gentlemen, listen up. I got to leave in four minutes. And by the end of today I got to know everything that happened here yesterday and last night. Who was on the premises, who was with who, who talked to the guest in 522, was there anything funny went on that anybody noticed.”

Brian picked up his cup and began warming it in his hands. “Anything funny? A businessman dresses up like a wop madam and sings for his supper? We don’t get that sort of fun around here but once in a blue moon. Man gets beat to a pulp in his room and nobody hears a thing? Har, har, har. Funny as a case of the clap.”

Mrs. Smallwood gasped, covered her mouth. “The guest was really wearing ladies’ things?”

“Corset, falsies, lace underpants,” Phil began.

Bud cut him off. “Stow that.”

Carmen and Homer appeared bearing silver coffee pots and baskets of rolls. I held up my cup. “Carmen, didn’t you tell me that Mrs. DiGennaro knows about her husband’s hobby?”

“
Si, señor
. Diva told me she understands.”

“Show me an adulterer who says his wife understands,” Brian said, “and I’ll show you a man who’d tell lies to the Holy Father in Rome.”

Mrs. Smallwood giggled and fanned her face with her hand.

Phil reached for the sugar bowl. “There was a phone call for Mr. DiG yesterday afternoon. Operator didn’t put it through. Caller didn’t want to leave a message. Operator made a note at the time. See, I’d filled her in earlier—on the guest’s special requests, at least as it pertained to her. I mean
him
.”

Bud flipped through DiGennaro’s folder, whistling when he got to the special requests carbon copy. “Member No. 1126. Operator and desk clerks to take messages only. No calls direct to room. No Diva Capri or DiGennaro registered in hotel. Prefers quiet, secluded room with bath and full-length mirror. Requires assistance dressing. Will appear in costume during stay. Prefers to be addressed as ‘Diva’ or ‘Miss Diva Capri’ when in costume. Consult Mr. Cabildo Morales for details.”