Twice as Dead
Page 21
“That’s why they spared your life, isn’t it? They know you have it or know where it is? They probably thought Marvin knew, too.”
Clarice spotted her missing shoe over by the desk and pointed to it. I nodded my okay. While I watched, she crossed the floor in an uneven gait and slipped it on. After that, she stood fidgeting on her feet. I took pity on her. “Okay,” I told her, “let’s hit the bathroom—both of us.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“If you need to pee, you’re going to have to do it in front of me. I’m not letting you out of my sight for an instant.”
Resigned, she started for the door, but I stopped her and pointed at the roll of toilet tissue she’d been using on her nose. “You might want to grab that on your way out.”
The bathroom was across the hall. Roomy and gleaming with white and rose tile, they’d left most of it as it had been when the building had been a private residence, except for removing the tub and installing a large modern shower enclosure. Guest towels and fancy soaps were in abundance, matching the cutesiness of the front office. There was one small window, but it was set high with opaque glass. It would be difficult for Clarice to maneuver if she got it in her head to crawl through it. We entered the bathroom, me after her.
“Do you mind?” Clarice asked, plunking the toilet tissue on the counter.
“Go right ahead.” I gestured toward the toilet like a model on a game show showing off a prize.
Clarice crossed her arms and stared at me. I caved slightly. After all, I wouldn’t want someone watching me in such a delicate moment. I moved just outside, closing the door but not all the way. “This is as much privacy as you’re getting,” I told her. “Live with it.”
In short order, I heard her urinating and wondered how many women I would have to hear pee before the night was over.
A flush and running water told me Clarice was washing up. The water continued running. And running. And running. Didn’t she believe in water conservation? I opened the door to find her on her hands and knees halfway under the sink cabinet.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
Clarice poked her head out and looked up at me. “Getting a manicure, what do you think?” Her head disappeared. “I hid the list under here,” her muffled voice called out, “but it appears caught on something.”
I wanted to scream with frustration. “Why didn’t you just tell me that before? We could have gotten it and been out of here.”
She poked her head out again and sat back on her haunches. “Because I didn’t want you to know this much, Odelia. That’s why I fired you and blew off that fake meeting. I wanted you to get so mad you’d go away for good.” She took a deep breath. “Once I learned how dangerous this could get, I was sorry I got you involved. But you’re so pigheaded, you wouldn’t take the hint. Maybe I should have hired someone to shoot at you.” She started to duck her head back under, then hesitated to swipe a strand of hair behind an ear. I thought she was done with her rant, but she wasn’t. Instead, she tacked on one more assault. “But even that didn’t deter you, did it? Whoever shot at you was wasting their time.”
With her head under the sink and her linen-clad ass in the air,
I was sorely tempted to kick her. Instead, I patted myself on the back for showing remarkable restraint.
“There, I’ve got it.” Clarice’s head popped back out. In her hand was a small padded manila envelope with a crunched corner. Clarice opened the flap and pulled out a small flash drive. Without ceremony, she slipped a hand into the neckline of her pantsuit jacket and tucked it into her bra.
“My guess is,” I said to her, “that Marvin also has a copy of that, just to be safe, and that’s what his killer was looking for.”
“If they found it, they won’t be back. If they didn’t, they will be.”
“They?” It was the first time Clarice had referenced more than one person. “Who’s they, Clarice?”
Ignoring my question, Clarice stuck her hand back inside the cabinet and used it as leverage as she slowly got to her feet, emitting a very unladylike grunt and groan as her legs unfolded. “My joints aren’t what they used to be.”
“Tell me about it.” I glanced back out into the hallway. “Now can we get out of here?”
“You can go, Odelia, but I’m not going with you.”
When I turned back around, I saw the gun in her hand, the hand she’d stuck back into the cabinet. What was with all the guns?
“Aw, geez, come on, Clarice. You’re not going to shoot me, and you know it.”
“Not if you leave right now, I won’t.”
“We can leave right now together. I don’t even care about that list.” It wasn’t the truth, but it was a lie I could live with.
“It’s not that simple, Odelia. First, people have murdered my friends, and I’m probably next. Second, I have these people to protect.” She patted her chest with her free hand. “And third, I’m pretty sure some of what I’ve done is a crime.”
“Ya think?”
She made a face at me. “So you tell the police whatever you want, but I’m disappearing. I did it once before. I’ll do it again. After all,” she said, smiling as wide as her split lip would allow, “I’m a professional.”
She pointed the gun at my gut. I really didn’t think Clarice would kill me, but I wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t shoot a limb just to keep me occupied while she fled. I backed up, Clarice following, until we were in the hallway.
“Keep going,” Clarice told me, “back into the room. I need to grab my purse.”
I turned and marched back into the room where Clarice had been held hostage. Once we were there, we heard the back door open.
“Must be Sally,” I said to Clarice. “Finally. Maybe she can talk some sense into you.”
Clarice rolled her eyes. She kept the gun on me while she moved toward the desk where her handbag had been dumped during the ransacking, its contents scattered across the desk. With her free hand, she started gathering her things.
“Hey, Sal,” I called. “We’re in here.”
No one had told the drag queen that I didn’t like guns. Nor did I think it the right time to tell him myself.
Sally stood in front of him, a gun to her back as they came through the door from the hallway. I stood in front of Clarice, a gun at my back. We were the cream filling in a deadly sandwich cookie. Make that expendable filling. After all, to a killer, what were a couple more bodies? It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. And now that Clarice had uncovered the list, there would be no reason to keep her alive. The flash drive snuggled against Clarice’s boobies had changed it from a standoff to a massacre.
Sally looked straight ahead, not at me, not at Clarice. She looked shell-shocked but, knowing her, it was a façade. Inside, she was probably calculating every detail.
“Move over there,” the drag queen ordered, his voice normal and not the breathy, high pitch he’d used before. He poked Sally in the back. “Next to her.”
Obeying, Sally moved forward until she stood next to me.
I took note of the pink tee shirt the gunman was wearing. Across the front was the slogan Boy-Girls Wanna Have Fun. “What happened to your halter top?” I asked. “Too much blood on it?”
“Shut up,” he snapped.
“That’s going be a nightmare to get out,” I continued. “It’s hard to launder sequins properly. Can’t toss it either—someone might find it.”
“I said shut up!”
We heard soft footsteps in the hallway, followed by the appearance of Amber Straight. She was dressed in jeans and a tight black tee shirt. Her curly hair had been pulled back away from her face and secured with a dark do-rag. She looked like an elfin ninja. Her presence didn’t surprise me, though Betty Rumble’s did. Since they worked together at Rambling Rose, I was expecting Amber and Aaron to be in cahoots. Maybe Aaron was the softie Clarice claimed.
“Mrs. Cooper?” Amber seemed as surprised to see me as I was Betty.
Without checking the time, I knew Steele should be on the phone by now calling the police, especially if from his perch down the street he had seen Betty and Amber grab Sally. I just prayed everyone got here in time and Betty wasn’t trigger-happy.
“Get out of my way,” Clarice demanded, speaking to Betty and Amber, “or I’ll shoot these two.” She’d stopped fussing with her purse and moved up closer behind me.
Um, it seemed Clarice hadn’t reached the same conclusion I had about our lack of worth to anyone. I could tell by the smirk on Betty’s face that he had. So had Sally. She’d given up her stoicism and replaced it with fright.
“Go ahead,” Betty told Clarice with a giggle. “Shoot them—less bullets for me to waste.”
I needed to stall for time. “Nothing spells discretion like the sound of gunfire.” When everyone, including Sally, looked at me like I was crazy, I added, “With all the cops just a couple of blocks away at Billie’s, they should find their way here in record time.”
“Hardly,” answered Amber with a sneer. “They’re too tied up playing cop to pay attention to us.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” I told her. “Because of Gunn’s murder, they’ll be especially on guard for anything suspicious. I’m sure they even have officers walking the streets right now looking for anything out of the ordinary. And gunshots are out of the norm for this neighborhood.” I didn’t know if the bull I was slinging was true or not, but on TV the cops always canvass the neighborhood around a crime scene. I hoped Amber and Betty watched the same shows I did.
Everyone went mute while considering my words. Betty broke the silence. “Hand over the list, Clarice, and we’ll let you all live.”
“Are you nuts?” Amber asked him. Obviously, she wasn’t as worried about cops swarming the place. “Just kill them, grab the info, and let’s get out of here.”
He shook his head. “Fatso here might have a point. When I ducked out of the club, the cops were thick up and down the whole street.”
“Then let me do it.” Amber pulled a knife.
I backed up and felt Clarice’s gun dig into my back. “So you’re the one with the killer knife skills,” I said to Amber, wondering if the cops had got it wrong about Shirley’s murder. Amber was neither strong or a man. Crazy as a hoot owl, yes.
“Actually,” interjected Betty with some pride, “we’re both pretty handy with a blade. Something our daddy taught us a long time ago.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You’re brother and sister. I heard that tidbit from my friend on the police force.”
Betty giggled again. “Name’s Brad Straight. Can you imagine a gay drag queen with the name of Straight?”
Amber took a step forward with her knife. Sally and I backed up together until I again felt Clarice’s gun in my back. I wasn’t sure which I preferred—the quick death of a gunshot (providing Clarice could hit a vital organ) or the slow, painful death of a knife. There was something unsettling going on behind Amber’s blue eyes, something that told me, given her druthers, she would rather take her time with a blade.
“So, did you share the honors?” I asked them. “Did one of you do Shirley and the other Marvin?”
“You’re a smart cookie,” said Betty.
I shrugged. “Not really. The cops are pretty sure a very strong woman or a man killed Shirley. Handy with a knife or not, Amber is neither of those.”
“And you’d be right,” confirmed Betty. “We gave Shirley plenty of opportunities to hand over the money. I told her what had happened to Nunez—how we sold his whereabouts to those thugs from Bakersfield. Told her it was just the beginning.”
“But how did you know about Alfred?” The question came from Clarice. It was one of the questions on my own lips.
Betty laughed. “There’s that old saying: loose lips sink ships. In this case, it was loose pillow talk.”
I looked at Amber. Had she had an affair with Marvin or Aaron? She stared at us in silence, eyes impatient with bloodlust. In her other clothes she’d seemed perky, a former cheerleader who loved weddings, but now she was a cold and calculating killer. “Marvin told you?” I asked her.
Betty laughed again. “Of course you’d think it was the cute blond girl who did the undercover work.”
I had gone for the obvious and been wrong. I latched my eyes onto Betty, looking beyond the makeup and false eyelashes. “It was you he told?”
“Not Marvin. Aaron.” The comment came from behind me, from Clarice. “Marvin was straight. Shirley told me not too long ago that she suspected Aaron had a new boyfriend but was being close-mouthed about it.”
“That would be moi.” Betty seemed pleased with himself. “Marvin didn’t like him dating employees at the club. He’d done it before and it hadn’t gone well.”
“So Aaron told you about Alfred and the others?”
“Yep, it was one night at a romantic little cabin in Big Bear. We were celebrating two months together. Amazing what kinds of secrets come out after a bottle of wine and lovemaking. He even told me about big bad Shirley and the bank robbery. Now Aaron’s over at Billie’s blubbering over a brother who treated him like an indentured servant. What a waste.”
It was becoming clear to me. “Tonight,” I said to Betty, “you disappeared before intermission. I know because your tables were clamoring for drinks but you’d gone AWOL. You went to the back door and let Amber in. While everyone was carrying on over bingo games, you were probably threatening Marvin and destroying his office looking for the list and the money. When you didn’t find it, you killed him.”
“Very nice deduction,” Betty told me, “and mostly true.”
“Shirley didn’t take that money,” Clarice shot off.
“I’m inclined to believe you … now.” Betty pointed dramatically at Clarice. “The bank money was a surprise, doll, let me tell you. I was more interested in the witless protection program you were running.”
Amber added, “We both were. That’s why we came here.”
Sally found her voice. “You two wanted to go into hiding, so you started killing people? Hardly seems like a way to avoid attention.”
“Jesus, no.” Betty Rumble clearly thought we were imbeciles. “We’re trying to locate someone we believe is in hiding. It has taken Sis and I some time, but we finally traced him here.”
Hearing Betty call Amber sis made me want to see and touch Clark. I wanted to hear him call me sis again and worried I might never get the chance.
“We took these stupid jobs,” Betty continued, “just to find out what we could, but Clarice keeps those records shut tighter than her hoochie. So I seduced Aaron and got him to talk. When he said he wasn’t privy to the list, we had no choice but to start with the threats and follow through.”
In a kooky way, it was starting to come together. “You used the idea of the bank money to try and cover up the fact that it’s really the list you wanted?”
“Close but no cigar, creampuff. If we’d managed to squeeze the bank money out of Shirley, it would have been a bonus. But what we’re really after is the information about all those new identities.”
Clarice edged out from behind me. She still held the gun up, but it was pointed at Betty now instead of me. “Who are you looking for? If he is one of ours and I tell you, will you leave us and the others be?”
Sally and I stole glances at each other. I could tell she believed as well as I did that no matter what information was shared, our lives would end as soon as Betty and Amber received it. I kept my ears cocked, praying for the sound of cops summoned by Steele. Twenty-five minutes had come and gone. Where in the hell was the help he’d threatened to call?
“We’re looking for our father.” Amber’s eyes sparkled with madness. “When our mother got sick, he took everything
we had and vanished, leaving us alone and broke, with medical debts out our ass and more on the way. When she died, we promised each other we’d hunt him down and make him pay.”
“Too bad Shirley and Marvin weren’t as cooperative as you’re willing to be.” Betty shook his head with sadness. “I don’t feel bad about Marvin; he was an ass. But Shirley was a nice lady. I confronted her Saturday at that wedding. Asked her where he was. Demanded to know. She refused to tell me—kept trying to snow me, telling me Dad was dead.”
Clarice’s eyes went wide and darted from Betty to Amber. “Was your father Homer Randolph?”
“Yes,” Amber confirmed, gripping the knife until her knuckles went white. “He and Mom never married. We were given her family name—Straight.” She raised the knife. “Where is he?”
“This was all so pointless,” Clarice wailed. “Shirley wasn’t snowing you. Homer really is dead. He had a heart attack about two or two and a half years ago. Died almost instantly.”
“You’re lying,” Amber spit out.
“I’m not,” Clarice insisted. “Homer went into hiding, what, five years ago? Right?”
Betty and Amber nodded in unison.
“He told Marvin his ex-wife was squeezing him for support. He paid cash for our services.”
“That was our money you took!” shouted Amber.
“Listen,” Clarice tried to explain. “We don’t know anything about where the money comes from. We listen to people, make a judgment call, and either accept them or don’t.”
“A judgment call,” I scoffed. “You mean like Scott Johnson?”
Clarice shot me one of her death-ray looks, but I was immune to them. I shot one of my own back, canceling hers out.
“You’re sure our father, Homer, didn’t die in pain?” asked Amber.
“Yes,” Clarice answered. “The doctor said it was quick. Apparently he had a bad heart and didn’t know it.”
Amber shook the knife in our direction. “Too bad. I was looking forward to gutting him.”