“He was smart enough to keep from being blown up,” I reminded him.
Garrity made a noise. “Lucky enough, you mean. He’d stepped across the street to get some beer and cigarettes when the place went up. Stupid people shouldn’t mess with meth—they incinerate themselves eventually.”
“Any chance it was deliberate?”
“Interesting you should say that. Bulldog’s claiming that he’s being framed and that the explosion was a deliberate attempt on his life.”
“Is that possible?”
“Sure. Blowing up a meth lab is cake—a second grader could do it. Plus the gun is the alleged weapon until the forensics come back. No matter—he’s denying any knowledge of how it got in his truck.”
“Just like he’s denying killing her?”
“Just like. And just like he’s denying having anything to do with you either, not the break-in, not the threatening pictures. Says he doesn’t even know who you are.”
So much for my prime suspect. From the looks of things, I had plenty more to choose from, however. “Do the Beaumonts know about this development?”
“Chances are good they’re gearing up for a press conference as we speak.”
“Maybe not.”
Then I told him about Mark Beaumont’s decision to downplay things for a while. I also mentioned that Trey had been drafted for Senator Adams’ reception that weekend in an effort to keep it as low-key as possible while still maximizing the its political potential.
I looked up to see Rico standing in my doorway, waving a Varsity takeout box. I motioned him inside.
“But if they’re pinning this on Bulldog, then my back-stage pass is about to expire. I’m only good as long as the case is unsolved.”
Garrity took a beat. “I meant what I said earlier. Be careful with Trey.”
Suddenly, I knew what it was that was constantly zipping between them. I’d thought it was some man thing, but it wasn’t. It was fraternal, yes, but more like a big-brother-little-brother relationship. And Garrity was the big brother—protective, anxious, always trying to hide it.
“I’ll be very careful,” I promised, “but it’s a moot point. Marisa’s got him desk-bound.”
“Not surprised. But you know what? It’s nice to know he’s still got a little vroom-vroom in him.”
“The Iceman Melteth.”
“Maybe. Just maybe.”
Chapter 33
Rico placed a bag on my desk. “Nice suit.”
I preened for him. “You like? It came in real handy during the morning car chase and my subsequent trip downtown. My third.”
He laughed. Then he stopped laughing. “You’re serious?”
“As the proverbial heart attack. And speaking of…” I peered into the bag. “All right, chili dogs.”
So we sat in the secondary room, and I filled him in on my morning. He ate delicately, fastidiously even, whereas I managed to blop ketchup on my pants. I papered myself with napkins and kept eating.
“Where’s Hot Guy?” Rico said.
I licked my lips. “Grounded, like me.”
“No wonder you’re in a hurry with this little project.” He pulled a portable drive from his pocket. “All the people you don’t trust are tied up somewhere else.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I trust Trey.”
Rico looked surprised. “That’s new.”
“I guess it is. But it’s true.” I licked my fingers. “Did you bring the program?”
“So now we change the subject. Yes, I’ve got it.” Rico bellied up to my computer. “I’ve got to be at Lakewood in two hours. Some of us do more than tool around in Ferraris for a living.”
I smiled. Then I rolled my chair beside him and peered over his shoulder as he got to work. “You know the club scene, right?”
“Sure.”
“How’s Dylan Flint fit into it?”
Rico kept his eyes on the screen. “I see him a lot, especially at the new places, usually riding somebody else’s coattails past the velvet rope. But he’s popular—that sex tape thing is serious juice.”
“Any idea why he’d be hanging around the Beaumonts? Or a place like Phoenix?”
“Looking for dirt. Remember when Bobby Brown got arrested at the steak place over in Dekalb? The next day pictures are all over the place, including Dylan’s trifling little blog.”
“Yeah, well, I’m on the trifling little blog now.”
“Doing what?”
“Tooling around in a Ferrari. I don’t get it, Rico. Why in the world would he try to be a real photographer on the one hand and mess around with crap like that on the other?”
“Because it means he’s in. He’s in because he notices you and you’re in because you’re noticed—I deal with this shit all the time.” He sucked in a long slow breath. “It’s crack is what it is. Messes up your head.”
I kept thinking about the glimpse of myself on Dylan’s website. I did look exotic through the window of a Ferrari, sunglassed and untouchable. More fascinating than I really was, mysterious even. Rico read my thoughts.
“Don’t go getting all up in that, girlfriend. It’s poison.” Then he looked at the rest of the photographs spread out on the table. He tapped the one of Eliza. “That the dead girl?”
“That’s her.”
“Who’s everybody else?”
“Eric you know. That’s Senator Adams and a bunch of his friends. Eliza, with Nikki from the other night, and Trey, once again in Hot Guy mode. And that’s Gabriella, massage therapist to the stars.”
I looked at Trey’s face, at Gabriella’s. His expression was utterly neutral. But in her dressing room, I’d seen something shifting between them. Tectonics at work, I suspected, deep buried things.
Rico frowned. “Do you think they’re a couple?”
I sighed. “I have no idea. I haven’t asked him. It’s not like we’re dating—or any other ‘ing’ words for that matter, so—”
“Not Hot Guy. Them.”
He tapped the photograph. Eliza and Nikki. And it all suddenly fell into place.
“Omigod, you really think so?”
“It’s pretty obvious.”
“But nobody’s said anything!”
“Nobody would. This Eliza girl gets shot to death and dumped in a driveway, the collective antennae go up, you know what I’m saying?”
I knew what he was saying. “But why stay in the closet in Atlanta? This place is almost as out as San Francisco.”
Rico shrugged. “If I worked for someone like Mark Beaumont, Mr. Family Values Conservative himself, I’d sure keep it on the QT. Hell, yeah, I would.”
I thought of Janie and her crucifix, the way her fingers sought it, toyed with it. There were lots of reasons to keep such things to yourself besides employment.
“Do you think the cops know?” I said.
“Maybe yes, maybe no. Either way, I’m thinking there’s a lot of stuff that a lot of people aren’t telling. This computer’s clean, by the way.”
A happy green light was flashing on the screen. Rico’s program had found nothing suspicious—no viruses, no worms, no key loggers, nothing that would allow someone to creep in when I wasn’t paying attention.
“So nobody’s spying on me?”
“Nobody at all.”
“So I was being paranoid?”
He grinned. “You know what they say about paranoia. But nobody’s snooping on this particular computer. It’s safe. I’ll check the one at Dexter’s shop the next time I’m there. Assuming you’ve taken that racist piece of rag down.”
“No more Confederate flag. I promise.”
Rico finished up quickly after that, and I walked him to his car. When we reached it, he turned and looked at me seriously, which was an unusual expression for him.
“You be careful. There are people out there who don’t play, you know what I’m saying?”
I didn’t reply for a moment. Then I st
ood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “You be careful too, Rico.”
He looked at me for a long second, then the gravity melted from his face. He made a fist and punched it at my chest, fast, like a snake striking. I put my hands up and smacked it away.
He grinned. “Look at you, getting all dangerous and shit.”
Chapter 34
The first thing I did was try Dylan Flint at his Snoopshot’s number, but he wasn’t answering—again. I left a message asking him to please get in touch with me, then spent the rest of the afternoon with a bunch of manila folders and a note pad. And it gave me a lot to think about.
If Eliza was lesbian, she’d been hiding it, which meant she thought it was something to hide. Which put a whole new spin on Jake Whitaker’s comments. Was this the reason he didn’t believe the rumors about her and Mark? Was that what he’d been being “technically true but deliberately evasive” about? It made sense, especially considering some of the things Nikki had said about him, like how Eliza had caught him peeping into windows.
Still, I knew that people were too complicated to jam into rigid sexual categories. Even Rico had had a girlfriend once, back when we were in high school, when he was still Richard Worthington and I was still…confused.
I smiled at the memory. I’d learned a lot since then. Of course, none of that mattered. I needed smarts beyond what I’d gotten in Sex Ed 101 to explain Eliza. I didn’t have time to ponder the possibilities, however. It was two-thirty, and I had a 302 to complete.
Whatever the hell that was.
***
Trey showed up in the copy room an hour later, 302 report in hand. I had just slipped mine into the feeder, and the copy machine was humming itself to life. I hopped onto a work table. “Got a quick question for you, Mr. Seaver. Did you know Eliza was lesbian?”
“No.” Trey’s expression sharpened. “Do you know that?”
“It’s a theory at this point.”
The machine coughed and clunked to a stop. Trey knelt and opened the doors to find about seven million little lights blinking at him. He started turning knobs and rollers, threading his fingers into dark hot metal places.
“A theory requires evidence.”
“I’m getting to that. But first things first—Garrity called.”
“I know.” He pulled out a mangled, blackened piece of paper and handed it to me. “He called me first.”
I threw the paper in the trash. “Then you know that story. Factor in this—I called Whitaker. He said that the police told him that Bulldog was trying to break into Eliza’s apartment.”
Trey fished the paper out of the trash and put it in the recycling box. “Had broken into. He was hoping to retrieve the drugs he’d sold Eliza, but he couldn’t find them.”
I snorted. “Did it not occur to him that the police would have confiscated any drugs when they searched the place?”
“He thought she might have hidden them well enough that the police had missed them.”
“Had they?”
“No.”
I put a hand on his elbow. He looked at it, then looked at me.
“This lesbian thing is a big deal, Trey. A very big deal.”
“If it’s true.”
“I know of only one way to find out.”
The copy machine whirred and spat out my report, along with its duplicate. Trey fed his in next. I was expecting it to wheeze and rattle, but the contraption practically purred as it got to work.
“And that would be?” he said.
“We need to talk to Eliza’s friend Nikki. I think they were lovers.”
Trey shook his head, but I interrupted whatever he was about to say.
“Just come with me and talk to her, okay? Call it personal protection, call it whatever you have to, but I need you there to tell me if she’s telling the truth.”
“I’m in a meeting until six.”
“When you’re done then. I’ll go back to the shop, change into something less corporate agenty, then pick you up on the way.”
He collected his report from the tray and tucked it into a file folder. I noticed that it already had a label on it, neatly typed.
“Look,” I said. “Even if you don’t come along, I’m just going to do it anyway, and then who knows what will happen. You might end up bailing me out of jail tonight. Or worse. I mean, I’m not an idiot, but I’m no investigator either.”
“Fine. I’ll do it. You’ve made a compelling case that you’re in need of professional supervision. But we’re doing this on my terms.”
“Okay.”
“We stay together at all times.”
“Okay.”
“My role is not investigatory—I am there as your personal protection as per the original contract extension, not as an official representative of Phoenix.”
“Okay.”
“And whatever we learn remains confidential until the proper paperwork has been processed. Is that clear?”
“As a bell.” I extended my hand. He shook it solemnly.
“I’ll pick you up at the shop,” he said. “Stay in the suit.”
***
At Boomers, the first of the after-work crowd had reported for action—ties loosened, inhibitions too, oiled by the two-for-one drink specials. Boomers was kind enough to keep its website up-to-date with the dancers’ performance schedules, and I’d noticed that Nikki was due to go on stage in an hour. Only she was using her professional name—Sinnamon.
Trey flashed his ID, and the bouncer called back to see if she’d see us. We then had to go through the strip club den mother, who seemed even less enthusiastic than the bouncer. But in the end, Nikki said we could come on back.
We found her in a crowded dressing room putting on her stage make-up. She sported a platinum wig, plus fishnet hose, five-inch heels, and a tiny white blouse and seersucker skirt.
“You got something to tell me?” she said.
Trey stood politely at my side, hands folded. All around us, half-naked women pulled on thongs and shimmied into breakaway tops. He didn’t even glance their way.
“I was hoping you had something to tell me,” I replied.
“Like what?”
“Like how you and Eliza were lovers.”
She reached for a bottle of water and unscrewed the cap, her expression unchanging. Trey studied her, his eyes focused on her mouth. She didn’t acknowledge his attention.
“None of your damn business,” she said.
She turned her back on us and went back to applying her make-up. The dressing room was a buzzy cacophony of female sounds and thumping bass from the stage. I met her eyes in the mirror.
“You were at the party with her, the Mardi Gras Ball.”
Another shrug. “So? I told you we went to those things.”
“You didn’t mention this specific one, which makes me curious, especially since Dylan was there too, taking pictures of you and Eliza and the Beaumonts. What were they up to?”
“I told you, I don’t know. We got into a fight, and she left with him.”
“What was the fight about?”
“She kept dragging me around the room, following the Beaumonts around. She said she wanted pictures with them and wanted me in them, too. I told her that was stupid, she told me I was stupid, and I told her if she liked those people so much, she could get them to take her home.”
Nikki stroked mascara on in thick swipes. Her eyes grew darker and more recessed the more she talked.
“Why didn’t you tell anybody about the two of you?”
“What the fuck good would that have done? It wasn’t like they were ever gonna make her one of them. She was redneck white trash. That’s all she was and all she was ever gonna be.”
“Was that why she was so infatuated with Charley, because she used to be white trash too? Did she think that would make her sympathetic?”
“Give me a break. Neither of them had nothing to do with her. She tho
ught they shit gold, though. Everything she wanted to be.”
She stood up then. She was an Amazon. Impenetrable.
“You think Eliza would be dead if she was some rich woman like Charley Beaumont? She was broke, and she was a nobody, and the only thing she had going for her was that she was white, and I ain’t got that. And you wonder why I ain’t told anybody about me and her?”
She pushed past me to leave. Trey had been standing there silent the whole time. She looked up at him. “You got any questions, Mr. Suit and Tie?”
Trey cocked his head. “Did Eliza’s sister know about your relationship?”
Nikki cocked her head back. “Yeah.”
“How did she feel about that?”
“That tight-assed bitch?” Nikki made a noise of disgust. “She told me I was gonna burn in hell, and Eliza with me. That’s what she thought about that.”
***
The ride back to Kennesaw was rather subdued. Trey didn’t speak and neither did I. I just watched the city roll by, the procession of organic food shops and cigar emporiums and adult movie stores. And always the road work, the perpetual bustle, the endless growing pains of a city forever too big for its britches.
I gathered my things. “So this turned out to be a successful trip, right?”
“My role was to keep you safe. I accomplished that.”
I didn’t argue. He liked proper categories, naming things. I found that I appreciated it too. It kept me honest. Mostly.
“We make a good team, me and you,” I said.
“We’re a team?”
I thought about that. “Yeah. A team.”
“Okay.”
I looked over at him, sitting there all neat and polite and—it hit me with a pang—so singular, so alone with all he was and all he could never be. I felt a keen sensation of loss, almost familiar now, and I suddenly wanted more than anything to hug him, and if he’d been anybody else in the world, I would have done it.
But he was Trey. And he was separated from me by a gulf far wider than a few feet of leather upholstery. I watched him drive away and thought of empty spaces.
But I also thought of bridges.
Chapter 35
The next morning, I woke up with a stiff back and a stuffed-up head. The photograph of Uncle Dexter looked spiteful in the half-light, like he knew I was taking down his Stars and Bars.
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