That error was soon rectified, by mutual acrimonious agreement, and I managed to collect a none-toogenerous severance package in the process of getting myself fired...but that’s another story.
The elevator doors opened to reveal a reception desk. The young woman behind it was on the phone, so I stepped out and waited for her to finish.
“Welcome to—oh.” The receptionist broke off when she saw my face.
It’s a good thing Angelina recognized me, because I sure as hell wouldn’t have recognized her. Her raven black hair was still there, sure, but it was wrapped up at the back of her head in a corporate little bun. Her eyes, which I was seeing for the first time without alteration, were bright blue, made all the brighter by being framed in a pair of tortoiseshell horn-rimmed glasses. She completed the look with a rather snappy little grey suit.
It was just the cutest secretary drag I had ever seen. I had to stifle a laugh. Burlesque performers are so good at dressing up, she actually almost fit the surroundings. Except for the look in her eyes. Blue though they were, the eyes—and the anger in them—belonged to the Angelina I knew.
“Hello,” I said.
“Can I help you...sir?” She pronounced the word “sir” as if it rhymed with “go fuck yourself.”
“Yes, I’m very interested in the world of”—I glanced at the sign on the wall behind her—“trade magazine fulfillment services. Could you tell me a little more about it?”
She smiled and hissed through clenched teeth, “Kiss my ass.”
“You know, Angelina—” She hissed again, and shook her head. Ah, she used another name at the office. That was a helpful bit of information, since I was probably going to need a lever of some sort to get her to talk to me. “I have to admit that I’m not kindly disposed toward you after last night. I’ve recently come down with a bad case of being a murder suspect, and getting chased across a bridge by a bunch of heavy metal hooligans didn’t exactly help my symptoms. So I—as a person who was so terribly inconvenienced by your friends and loved ones, or at least by your loved one’s friends—would very much like to ask you now the questions I wanted to ask you last night.”
Angelina glared at me, and shook her head.
“Really?” I said. “Really?” I raised my voice slightly, so it could be heard through the glass wall that separated the reception area from the rest of the office. “So you’re telling me that if I went online, I could see what sort of pictures? Ooooh, I’d like to see those. They sound like fun.What was that web address again? W...w...w...dot... angelinab—”
Angelina hissed. She jerked her head down a fraction of an inch—making sure I could see the effort it cost her—and then back up. It was as close to a nod as I was going to get from her.
“Good,” I said, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Let’s talk about Wednesday night. You got to Topkapi early. Was Krash with you when you got there?”
Angelina nodded again.
“Fine. You put your bag in the alcove. Or did Krash do it for you?”
Angelina shook her head.
“You did it yourself. Was there another bag there?”
Angelina nodded again.
“Did you happen to peek inside that other bag?”
Angelina just glared.
I sighed. This interview wasn’t going to offer nearly as much entertainment value as Eva’s. But at least what Angelina was saying—if you could call it “saying”— seemed to confirm what I’d figured out based on Eva’s account, namely that Victoria’s bag must have arrived at the venue before Victoria had. Which meant the list of possible suspects had just gotten a whole lot longer...and the person now at the top of it was the person with whom I was currently speaking. She’d just admitted to spending some quality time alone with the bag in question, and if she had peeked inside, she would have had every reason in the world to be upset by its contents. But had she? If she had been snooping, she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell me. I decided to press some buttons and see what came out.
“I hate to tell you this,” I lied, “but you’ve got a serious problem. As long as the cops thought that Victoria arrived at the venue with her suitcase in tow, they figured I was the only one who could have tampered with the bottle. But you just confirmed that her bag was at Topkapi before I even walked in the door. And that you had every opportunity to examine it and tamper with the contents before anyone else showed up.”
Angelina’s voice was quiet. “You’re trying to frame me?”
“I’m just telling you what the cops are going to think.”
“You’re setting me up. Trying to make it look like I killed a girl I never even met before that night.”
“You never met her? She stole your number.”
“Which I found out for the first time that night when I saw her do it. You’re not going to pin this crap on me, Porkpie.” She spoke so passionately that for a moment I could almost believe she was innocent. “I’m not going to let you. I don’t care what convoluted crap you’re dreaming up to cover your own ass, but I’ll stab you in the eye before I let you put me in jail.”
Okay, that last part didn’t seem quite as innocent.
“I’m not trying to frame you, Angelina. I’m just trying to find out who killed Victoria.”
“Who cares?” she hissed.
“Let me give you a sampling of the questions the cops are going to ask you, now that you’re a suspect. First off, they’re going to want to know why you decided to do that particular number on that particular night.”
“And I’ll tell them,” Angelina said. “That I did it because LuLu told me not to.”
“Do you really think they’re going to believe—wait, what?”
“LuLu never liked that number. She told me I could do any other number I wanted at Dreamland, but not that one, not at her show. She hated that one.”
“And you were going to do it anyway?”
“She wasn’t there.”
“Wow. That’s...not very professional.”
“Oh, please.”
“Oh, please, yourself.” Now I was annoyed. “If a producer doesn’t like an act of yours, you don’t perform that act at their show. Especially not on a night where the producer isn’t there.” That sort of behavior reeked of grade school antics, ‘look what I can do when teacher’s back is turned.’ “That’s bush league,” I said. “You had to know LuLu would find out, and she never would have booked you again.”
She glared at me some more. “What makes you think I wanted to perform for her again?”
Grade school again. This was nice. We were really building up a delightful dislike of each other, served with side order of suspicion.
Behind me, the elevator bell dinged.
I heard someone get out and saw Angelina look past my shoulder. Her face relaxed. She beckoned the person over and rolled her eyes in my direction.
“This guy bothering you, Emily?” said a disturbingly familiar voice.
Angelina—Emily—smiled. It was the first real smile I had seen on her face. I had a sneaking suspicion that whatever was making her happy would have exactly the opposite effect on me.
I turned around.
There was a large fellow behind me. His hair was pulled tightly back in a ponytail rather than hanging loose, but I recognized him immediately. Because this particular large fellow was the same large fellow I had last seen twelve hours earlier standing on a crossbeam of the Brooklyn Bridge.
He was wearing a uniform with the words “Universal Security” emblazoned in bright yellow on the chest pocket.
“Jonny,” Angelina said, in a sickly sweet voice, “I’d like to introduce you to my friend Brian. He works at the security desk downstairs. Brian, this is Jonny Porkpie. Oh! But you two have already met, haven’t you?”
Brian held out a meaty palm.
I wasn’t falling for that trick. I’d seen too many drunks escorted out of bars by a handshake from a bouncer that turned into an arm twisted behind the back.
“Nice to see you again,” I said, smiling and keeping my arms firmly at my sides.
Though it remained unshaken, Brian’s hand was continuing to move in my direction in a manner that could only be described as ‘threatening.’
I decided that my interview with Angelina had come to an end.
As Brian made a grab for my shoulder, I ducked under his hand and scooted into the elevator just as the doors were closing.
CHAPTER 10
It wasn’t exactly how I’d wanted that interview to end, but I was at least a bit further along than I had been when I woke up this morning. I now had a better sense of who could have tampered with the prop bottle in Victoria’s bag: anyone. Anyone in the world—or at least anyone who’d been in the East Village before the Dreamland show began on Wednesday night. And two more questions had been raised: how long had Victoria’s bag been in that alcove before I arrived, and who had put it there?
As important as those questions were, though, there was still the one that trumped them: Who had tampered with the bottle? It was possible that it had happened before I arrived, maybe even before Angelina had, and I’d look into that possibility if I had to, but I already knew for a fact that there were several beautiful women who had spent time alone behind the curtain with that bag, when they’d dropped off their own suitcases in the alcove. And those women already happened to be my most likely suspects. Two of them I had already spoken to. Two remained. I could have flipped a coin, I suppose, but I figured I might as well start with the woman to whom I owed a thank you.
For the loan of her pet lawyer.
I’d never been to Jillian’s dungeon before. When I called her to see if she had time to chat with me, she said she would be tied up there all afternoon—sorry, that’s not entirely accurate; she said she would be tying people up there all afternoon. But she said I should feel free to drop by.
It wasn’t actually a dungeon, not in the classical—or rather, Medieval—sense of the word. The room I walked into when she opened the door wasn’t dank and mildewed with stone walls and iron chains as the only decoration. The walls were covered in red velvet, and the chains hanging from them were, if I was to hazard a guess, reinforced steel.
But as a place to conduct an interrogation, it had a certain charm.
“Nice decor,” I said, as I sat down on a divan upholstered in the same red velvet as the walls.
“Yeah, cheesy, right? But it’s what the clients expect.” Jillian wore a robe over what looked like a tight-fitting, low-cut leather bustier. The outfit went well with the room.
“So,” I said. “I wanted to thank you for the loan of your lawyer friend.”
“Don’t ever mention that again,” Jillian said, in a voice I imagined she usually reserved for her clients. It was only momentary, though, and with the next sentence her tone was that of the Jillian I knew. “But you’re welcome. Hey, do you want a cup of tea?”
“Sure,” I said, and she vanished through the door. I heard her footsteps receding into the depths of the establishment.
While she was gone, I took a stroll around the room. Never having been in a working dungeon before, I was curious. The chains were the real thing, heavy and serious-looking. At one station there was a manacle for each hand, the height adjustable, it seemed, based on whether you wanted the client’s feet touching the floor or not. For those feet, there was a pair of shackles right above the molding. All of these were securely attached to the wall—very securely attached. I pulled on one of them and estimated that they could, with very little strain, support the full weight of a man twice my size.
There was a cabinet in the corner of the room. Locked. I’d seen Jillian integrate some of the tools of the trade into her acts, so I had some idea what was inside, but just for fun I spent a couple of seconds imagining what might be behind those doors that was too risqué even for burlesque.
Aside from the divan and the cabinet, the room’s only furniture was a plain wooden folding chair that seemed sort of out of place, but I’m sure it had its uses. The hardwood floor seemed out of place, too—I might have expected a deep shag carpet with that wallpaper— but I guessed the wood was easier to clean.
Jillian came back bearing a tray with a small pink tea set, which she set down on the top of the cabinet. She poured, and handed me a cup.
“Thanks,” I said. “So, listen, I’m here because I wanted to talk about...”
“Bottoms up,” she said, raising her teacup. I’m never one to turn down a toast, even if it’s just tea.
“Likewise,” I said, and drained the cup. I put it on the tray, and she poured me another. “Strange taste,” I said. “Lapsang souchong?”
“No. Private blend. Now, you wanted to talk about something?” Strange, I thought: Jillian hadn’t touched her tea. And she likes tea. A lot. But instead of drinking it, she seemed to be pouring her cup back into the pot.
“The, uh—” The steam coming out of my own teacup was fascinating. It was making the most interesting twists and swirls. “Wednesday night at Dreamland...” Behind the steam, Jillian’s bustier was getting more obvious. Oh, that was because she had taken off her robe. It was black, like I said before, black leather. “—murder at the, Victoria and—” She was also wearing black boots, I noticed. With high heels. High, high, sharp heels. “—police were, think I’m the—” Strange, I hadn’t noticed her boots before. Why was I noticing them now? Oh! Because I was on the floor. That’s funny —why was I on the floor? I guess it didn’t matter. Those boots mattered, though. They were black, like I said, and very tall, and black and shiny—oh, wait, no they weren’t, they were black and blurry. Come to think of it, everything was black. What was I talking about? Oh, yes. Dreamland.
I opened my eyes. Or did I? I still couldn’t see anything.Huh. Weird. I blinked a few times, as a test. Yep, my eyes were as wide open as a pervert’s fly just before he gets himself kicked out of a burlesque show. But my eyelashes were hitting something rough each time I blinked. My guess was that the something rough was the thing preventing me from seeing.
I reached for it and—and nothing. I couldn’t reach for it. My arm wouldn’t move. Something was holding it in place. I tried the other arm. Nope. Tried to move my legs. No luck there, either.
This was somewhat disconcerting.
I wasn’t dead, at least. I knew that for a fact, because I could feel a draft. Although I can’t say that I was at all optimistic about where I was feeling it.
“Oh, Jonny, Jonny, Jonny,” said a voice. I knew that voice. That was Jillian’s voice. I heard a door close. I heard a lock lock. I heard high heels click-clack across the hardwood floor, getting louder as they came in my direction.
Something brushed against my cheek.
I felt fingernails on the back of my head.
Suddenly, the world exploded into light.
Jillian dangled the blindfold in front of me as my eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, “A client dropped in just before you arrived. I had to finish him off before we could...chat.”
“No worries,” I said. “I’ve just been—”
“If you say ‘hanging around,’ Jonny, I swear to god I will whip you.”
It was an idle threat, and I knew it. She wasn’t going to whip me. She didn’t even have a whip. That thing in her hand was a riding crop.
“—here,” I finished. I figured it was a good idea to play it safe, at least until Jillian’s intentions were clearer. It’s not every day you wake up shackled to a friend’s wall.
“Mmm-hm. So. Jonny. Jonny, Jonny, Jonny.” Jillian caressed my cheek with the riding crop, then ran it down my body to—well, let’s just say the areas further down my body. She continued: “You came here to accuse me of murder, didn’t you?”
I chuckled. I shook my head. “Don’t be silly. No. No, that isn’t it at all. What I came here to do was ask you some questions. Questions about Victoria’s death, yes, but to accuse you of murder?
I’m in no position to do any such a thing.” Certainly not at the moment. “Just asking questions, is all.”
“So ask ’em.”
I glanced down.
“Like this?”
Jillian shrugged and lowered herself onto the divan. She began untying those boots I had noticed earlier, when I was passing out on the floor. It wasn’t going to be quick—each boot started just below her knee and went all the way down, and had the laces to prove it.
“I should mention, Jillian,” I said, “that in the grand scheme of things, this looks a little suspicious.”
“What does?”
“Me. Wall. Shackles. Lack of pants, shirt, shoes, socks, or indeed any other clothing-related accoutrements.”
“Does it?” Jillian seemed unconcerned. She continued her work with the bootlaces. At least she had put down the riding crop.
“Well, I mean, look at it,” I said. “I arrive here, you offer me a cup of tea—”
“Tea!” she exclaimed. “Thank you for reminding me. I didn’t get to have any earlier.” She stood up and left. How she managed to walk so quickly in heels that high with bootlaces half-untied was beyond me.
With Jillian out of the room again, I took a moment to consider my situation. It wasn’t exactly what I would describe as promising. I was trussed up better than a freshman pledge during a frat initiation. The chains showed no signs of wanting to come out of the wall. The leather restraints around my wrists and ankles could be unbuckled if I happened to have a hand free. But I didn’t. I clenched my muscles and pulled...no leeway whatsoever. Jillian knew her business.
But let’s see...
If I could just reach that buckle with one finger, just a single finger, I might be able to...
Nope.
I bent my wrist until it hurt and didn’t get within a fingernail of the thing.
Maybe I could slide a hand out of the restraint. The skin was certainly sweaty enough. If I just squeezed my fingers together and pulled with all my strength...
By the time Jillian returned a few minutes later, I had managed to wedge my hand so firmly into the shackle that I was unable to move it in either direction, in or out.
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