The Brush Off (10 page)

I’d probably run screaming for the house, lock the doors, and hold my baby close.

I sighed. What had happened to my life?

“So, what’s the plan?” Trudy asked.

I resorted to the technique my sister Pecan uses with her passel of preteen kids when they ask a question: Answer them honestly minus the details. Only supply those, one at a time, when pressed. In other words, make them work for it.

“Bettina was a client of Ricardo’s.”

“Three days a week for five years,” Bettina put in.

“Really?” Trudy gave Bettina another once-over. I knew what she was assuming. Rumor was Ricardo liked his dalliances beautiful and busty. Bettina was currently one of the two. Just wait. She’d be both before long.

“So, why are we going with her to work?”

“She says he frequented her, uh, place of business and was closer to some of the other…” What did I say, girls? Boys? “Some of her colleagues than he was to her. Maybe they can give us some clues about his killer.”

“Oh.” Trudy looked disappointed that Bettina wouldn’t be able to give us details of Ricardo’s sexual performance, details I’d rather not know but probably would by the end of the evening.

McCullough Avenue brought us to Loop 410 East, the road noise reverberating around in the almost-car-size tin can preventing us from furthering our conversation until we pulled off I-35.

Illusions was set discreetly off the access road, on a side street, behind a stand of ten-foot-high bamboo trees that hid everything but an asphalt driveway and a small gold-lettered sign. One would have to know where it was to find it, which had been one of the owners’ arguments before the city council. They weren’t trying to lure in unsuspecting youngsters looking for a good time. The club was members-only, with a strict carding policy. They didn’t convert, apparently, only admitted the converted.

What would they make of us?

I suddenly wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

“Wow,” Trudy exclaimed, wide-eyed. “I didn’t know this was here. I’ve gotta get Mario to bring me here one night.”

That thought brightened my day.

Bettina whipped into the only reserved slot left behind the gray stucco building and pulled the parking brake before she took the car out of gear. I would now have matching lumps on either side of my forehead.

“I’ll take you backstage, then get one of the boys to get you front-row seats,” Bettina announced. She peeled off her espadrilles, fit her size nines into the four-inch gold pumps she pulled from behind the seat, and clipped up a short flight of stairs to an unmarked door. In her rush to follow Bettina, Trudy plastered my face up against my intimate friend, the windshield, as she wriggled out of the seat and ran to catch up.

“Will you hurry up, Reyn?” Trudy shouted as Bettina held the door open.

I considered a proper rejoinder but bit it back when I remembered Trudy would be getting her comeuppance once she stepped inside the club. Impatient, Bettina entered and left Trudy holding the door. She did so only as long as it took me to reach the steps, then she let it go, chasing after our reluctant hostess and leaving me to dive for it or be locked out. The muscles on the right side of my spine seized up again as I propelled myself into the half-lit hallway.

I must have moaned, because Trudy poked her head around the corner. “What is it?”

“My back.”

“Horn-rims and hot dogs, don’t be such a wimp about a little twinge, Reyn. Get your priorities straight. We’re on the trail of a killer.”

Showing great restraint in not reminding her that her husband was the cause of my “little twinge,” I followed her through what felt like a neon tomb. The rhythm of rock music from deeper inside the building shook the walls. The labyrinth of hallways were painted black matte, carpeted in a low-pile black, both blacks reflected in mirrored ceilings. Was this where Ricardo got the idea for his office? I tried not to think about why or how. The blackness was periodically broken up by closed doors outlined in neon lights, labeled in glittery gold. We passed one marked
Office
, one marked
Stage Left
, one marked with a star whose name was lit in colored neon,
Randie Redeaux
. Other stars glittered down the hallway, but Trudy had stopped in front of the fourth door, marked
G Dressing Room
. The
G
being general purpose, girls, or gents, take your pick.

“Bettina said we could go on in,” Trudy said, the haughty lift in her chin surely a sign she thought we were hot stuff to be admitted backstage to a semi-star’s dressing room. Feeling guilt knocking, I opened my mouth to warn her, but she opened the door faster.

And, a second later, squealed and fainted.

T
HOUGH MY BACK SCREAMED OVER SUPPORTING HER
dead weight, I couldn’t blame Trudy for going limp. I knew what to expect, and I still felt a little woozy. A dozen drag queens in various stages of undress buzzed around like colorful, happy bees in falsies. Of course, some of the breasts were real, which was more than I wanted to consider at the moment. Elbow to elbow at the counter, some wearing only bras and girdles, they applied false eyelashes, rouge, and lipstick. At our end, one hiked up a skirt to slather body glitter on a bare, curvaceous thigh.

I envied that thigh. Even men had better women’s legs than I did. How depressing.

The blonde (courtesy of a custom-made wig) in the corner finally drew my attention. Ripping duct tape with his teeth, he stuck his hands down the front of his black French-cut silk undies in a delicate operation that left him with a profile as feminine as mine.

Or maybe more so.

Yikes.

Bettina was nowhere to be seen. She’d directed us to the dressing room to shock us, perhaps scare us away. I wondered if it was just for sport because we’d become tedious or if she wanted to hide something. Hmm.

The chaos and chatter in the room had kept anyone from noticing us, two real women in the doorway, one of whom was unconscious. That just goes to show how frenetic and loud it was in the G dressing room. Before I’d decided how to announce our presence, Trudy began slipping out of my arms. The blonde with the awesome legs looked up and rushed over.

“Oh,
girlfriend!”
He (while I’d reconciled myself to calling Bettina a her, I couldn’t help thinking of the blonde as a male, considering I’d watched him shape his him-stuff into her-stuff) reached over with one arm, Lady Godiva tresses draping over Trudy’s face as he dragged her to the couch in the middle of the room and laid her down. Another performer, this one dressed in fluffy mules and a pink sequined and feathered robe—with no telling what underneath—put a damp washrag on Trudy’s forehead.

“What happened to her?” Lady Godiva asked.

“Low blood sugar.” Not true, but easier than saying they’d scared the consciousness out of her. Trudy moaned; her eyelids fluttered open just long enough to take in Lady Godiva’s five o’clock shadow before they snapped shut again.

“Hand me those Calorie Cutter Caramels, LeDonna.” Lady Godiva grabbed them out of LeDonna’s hand and regarded what must have been a skeptical expression on my face. He patted his flat, hairless stomach, smoothing his hand around the swell of his hip. “A girl’s gotta watch the fat intake. This figure’s not easy to keep.”

Understatement of the year, I thought as I watched him/her (damn, I was back to that!) unwrap a caramel. I took it, feeding it bit by bit into Trudy’s mouth, which—as I knew it would—brought her around better than smelling salts. Trudy despises caramel; her mother hid her childhood medicines in melted caramel.

A wet brown wad shot out of her mouth, sending the “girls” scattering. The candy stuck in a neon-green feather boa, dragging it off its hanger and onto the floor. Someone gasped in horror. Gagging, Trudy sat up and batted my hand away. “Yuck. What
are
you doing, Reyn?”

“Just getting you back on your feet.” I grinned, biting my lower lip to keep from laughing.

That familiar light in Trudy’s eyes told me I was in trouble. “On my feet? I need to be on my knees—”

“Ooo lala, baby,” one of the “girls” sang out. An odd mixture of baritone, tenor, and falsetto giggles rippled through the room. Trudy glanced around, a bit dazed and not cluing in to what everyone else in the room took to be a double entendre by one of their own.

“On my knees to pray for your salvation,” Trudy finished a bit righteously.

“Bible thumper, huh?” LeDonna commented, leaning over to zip up knee-high red leather boots. He really was a dead ringer for Tina Turner. It almost made me want to stay for the show.

“Buffet Catholic, more like,” I responded.

Trudy put her hands on her hips with a huff.

“You two new hires?” Lady Godiva asked, glancing appraisingly at us—appreciatively at Trudy, askance at me, especially in the general vicinity of my chest. It was heartening to know I wouldn’t make a good transvestite. See, small breasts
can
be an asset.

“He’s got Nicole Kidman down cold.” LeDonna crooked a little finger at Trudy, a little jealously.

“What?” Trudy squawked, sitting up straighter. I patted her shoulder.
Down, girl.

“Actually, we’re not here to work,” I began. “Bettina brought us.”

LeDonna rolled her eyes and returned to the vanity counter, where she picked up a bottle of blue mascara. “Bettina knows she ain’t supposed to bring anybody backstage. But a big star like her, she don’t need to follow the rules.”

Most in the room had gone back to their preparations, but I noticed a redhead in a violet lamé sheath listening silently but closely to our conversation.

“Well, since you’re here, I’ll take you up front, get you good seats,” Lady Godiva offered. “Just let me throw on a robe.”

“Don’t rush,” I put in quickly. “I was hoping any or all of you might be able to help me.”

“Help with what?”

“Ricardo Montoya was murdered last night.”

“You the cops?” LeDonna asked, her eyes, no longer friendly, drilling mine through the conduit of the mirror.

The atmosphere in the room, which had gone from comfortable chaos to friendly tolerance since our arrival, now chilled to stone cold. Trudy shifted on the couch, digging her fingernails into the flesh of my inner forearm.

“No, I’m not a cop; I’m a hairstylist. Ricardo was my friend, my mentor.”

“You’re the one on TV,” a buxom curly-headed blonde in a cowgirl outfit spoke up, pointing. “I saw you on the noon news. You’re a suspect.”

So much for viewers being dazzled deaf by Amethyst’s fashion sense. But apparently, having a possible murderer in their midst was preferable to a cop, because suddenly the temperature in the room warmed several dozen degrees. Trudy relaxed.

I nodded at the cowgirl. Who was she supposed to be, Mae West? “Which is part of the reason I’m here. I didn’t kill him,” I said, playing up an animosity that might work in my favor. “But the cops are putting on the heat anyway.”

A few under-the-breath, especially creative epitaphs were muttered in sympathy. Then Lady Godiva turned back to me. “We’re happy to help you if it means screwing the cops. What you need?”

“I’m looking at each part of Ricardo’s life to find a motive. I heard a rumor this morning that he liked to, ah…”I paused, grasping for my rusty repertoire of political correctness. If I ever needed it, I needed it now, with approximately two thousand pounds of man in drag staring me down.

Trudy apparently didn’t trust me to come up with anything delicate enough. “What Reyn’s trying to ask is, did Ricardo experiment sexually?”

The chuckles, shaking heads, and hands waving off the rumor told me it wasn’t true. “He might have liked to experiment, but with real girls, not boys playing at it,” LeDonna answered. “We know, cuz lots of us tried. He was one fine-looking man. What’s happened, such a hot piece of ass whacked, well, shit, that’s a shame.”

It occurred to me Ricardo spurning any of their advances could be considered motive for murder. Of course, the scenario more likely to me would’ve been Ricardo—the suave yet macho friend I thought I knew—murdering any one of these guys who’d approached him about sex. Maybe, though, he so insulted the provocateur that he/she held a deadly grudge. Glancing around the room, I could see that many of them might have had the strength to bury the pick in Ricardo’s back. Bettina’s disappearance and the silent, watchful redhead in the corner made me wonder all the more whether there was more here than just a lot of duct tape and falsies. I tried a different line of questioning.

“Did any of you notice if Ricardo got friendly with any of your customers?”

“Club members,” Lady Godiva corrected as the temperature dropped again. “You’re crossing into territory we can’t cover now, girlfriend. We all signed a confidentiality agreement when we join the club. That’s what our members pay for, to see a good show and never be seen here.”

“Surely you have a list of club members,” I began. “I could get it from your manager.”

“You’d only get it over Gregor’s dead body.”

Trudy and I cringed, but, looking around, we saw no one else thought it a bad choice of words. Apparently, Gregor’s homicidally protective nature was accepted and respected. Perhaps I’d hit on something. Had Ricardo threatened to expose Illusions’ clientele? Last night, he’d talked about a windfall—had he tried to blackmail Gregor?

“Where is Gregor? Do you think he’d talk to me?” I asked, batting my eyelashes innocently.

The temperature dropped near blizzard level again. Lady Godiva smiled, though, showing a row of blinding capped teeth. “We like you, so I don’t think we want you talking to Gregor. He’s out of your league, girlfriend. Trust me, leave it alone. Plus, he was here all last night.”

“Between two and five
a.m.
?” I’d extrapolated the time of death from my fuzzy view of my digital alarm; one of the three digits I’d seen in triplicate had to be the hour of Ricardo’s call, as he was bleeding to death. If only I had gone down to the salon to see what was wrong.

“Yes, we were choreographing a new group routine. We’re not morning people, so we always work after closing.” Several nods backed up Lady’s Godiva’s statement. But, of course, these were people who lied to protect their customers—why not their boss?

Everyone froze at a pounding at the door that sounded like the Incredible Hulk was on the other side. “Get out here, you pussies! What are you doing? Ten minutes to show time!”

Just as Lady Godiva started to shoo me and Trudy toward the walk-in closet, the door burst open, and an incredibly short, furry-armed man with a bald pate stomped into the dressing room. Aiming his middle finger at us (I tried not to take it as an editorial comment), he glared through little eyes that were so light blue they were nearly colorless. “Bettina told me about you two. Get the hell outta here. Ricardo paid his dues for a year, cleared his bar tab every visit, and never hassled nobody. I got no beef with him except his croaking is causing me a hassle right now. You can fix that by getting lost.”

“I was going to take them up front to see the show,” Lady Godiva said, rather bravely, I thought.

“Not unless they sign a membership contract and pony up two thousand bucks, you’re not.”

Trudy’s eyes widened as they met mine, and we both shook our heads. Intrepid investigators too cheap to go where we needed to go. James Bond needn’t worry.

“Then get scarce,” Gregor boomed, leading the way out the door. I noticed black hair crawling out from the collar of his tacky white satin shirt. Ick. No wonder he had an anger management issue; being saddled with both a small man and a hairy man complex was no picnic. It was amazing he could get himself up out of bed every day. I flirted with the idea of mentioning electrolysis, then thought better of it.

“Thanks,” I said softly to Lady Godiva as we left. The strains of “When a Man Loves a Woman” filtered into the hallway from the club. Despite having been bounced out of the joint by someone who looked like he’d rather stuff us in a trunk than show us the door, I twitched my lips into a brief smile. Maybe Gregor had a sense of humor after all, twisted though it may be. So he wasn’t completely unlikable. Short, Hairy, and Menacing paused outside the Stage Left door and hooked a thumb toward the exit sign. It suddenly occurred to me that we didn’t have a way back to the salon. I paused. Those colorless eyes glared. Oh, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained my gran always said.

“We don’t have a ride,” I told Gregor.

“Like I care?”

“I guess you don’t mind us hanging around, then, as customers start coming. No telling how long it will be before we can manage to get a cab.”

Grumbling obscenities, Gregor yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and demanded the salon number. I gave it to him, his stunted forefinger stabbed it out, and I noticed that even he winced at Sherlyn’s grating greeting. Maybe this was one receptionist I’d fire before she quit. Gregor growled into his Motorola. “Yeah, you. You send somebody over here to Illusions club to get your boss and her pal before I put ’em to work.” He paused to listen to Sherlyn. The veins on his neck started to bulge. He cut her off. “Tough shit. I don’ care it’s five and time for you to clock out, you answered the fricking phone, didn’ ya? Get your boss to pay you overtime.” This time, Sherlyn cut him off. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. The volume of his growl rose with each word. “No, bitch, you can’t stay for the happy hour show. You got ten minutes to haul your boss’s ass outta here before I throw that ass and her friend’s sweet one
in
the show. Understand?”

Swell. Now I was a murder suspect and a transvestite. How long before the media got hold of that? Probably just long enough for Sherlyn to hang up the phone. Trudy gasped, which thrilled the sadistic Gregor no end. He stretched his lips open in what I guessed was his version of a smile, thrust the phone back into his pocket, and took an obscene inventory of Trudy’s legs, leaving his hand in his pocket. I didn’t want to think of what he was doing in there. “Ever danced before, babe?”