The Brush Off

by Laura Bradley

  “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 min
d 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?”

  Emitting a choking sound, Trudy grabbed my arm, pulled me to the exit, and shoved me out the door. The door clicked shut. We both jumped when we saw the silent, watchful redhead from the dressing room leaning against the wall of the building, cigarette dangling from one broad hand. Close up, I could peg his color as the unusual Egyptian Plum. He wore a black cotton outfit that looked like a cross between medical scrubs and pajamas. He must have noticed me studying them. I needed to work on subtling my method of visual detection, which consisted of a hard stare, often accompanied by a dropped open mouth.

  “I teach karate for fun and do this”—he waved toward the interior of Illusions—“for a living.”

  He took a long drag and blew out the smoke before he spoke again.

  “Gregor’s a prick. But he’s no killer. He doesn’t have enough imagination for that.”

  I thought anyone who could run a drag queen show probably had more imagination than the average Joe, but I didn’t argue, for fear it would shut up what might be our best source of information so far.

  “Listen,” the redhead whispered, looking off into the bamboo as if he expected a panda to jump out any minute. “Ricardo came in a couple of times and seemed to enjoy the show, but he was more being polite, I think, than being a real fan. He talked to us, sure, about all sorts of stuff—politics, sports, hair. He treated us like we were his equals, never looking down on what we are or what we do. He was a class guy. But I think his visits were part of a plan. He was staking out the place.”

  “For what?” Trudy interrupted. I stepped on her foot to shut her up. She kicked me in the shin.

  “For a meeting about a week ago that he had with another guy. Ricardo had come lots of times before. See, the way I figure it, by then he’d satisfied himself that he could be safer and more invisible here than anywhere in town. No one will admit to seeing someone else here. How could they without incriminating themselves by admitting to being in a transvestite club?”

  “Ingenious,” I whispered, and meant it. This guy was smart, and so was Ricardo, although not smart enough, apparently.

  “Yeah, plus Ricardo then had insurance—the knowledge of the power brokers who come here.”

  The source of many of his owed favors, no doubt. Perhaps I was off-base when I thought it was Gregor out for Ricardo. Maybe it was a member of the club who wanted his secret kept, wasn’t willing to pay, but was willing to kill.

  “What power brokers?” I couldn’t help asking.

  Long Egyptian Plum’s hair rippled as he shook his head decisively. “No way. I’m not stupid. But I will tell you the guy Ricardo met that night looked familiar to me, not because he comes here regularly but because I saw him somewhere on TV or in the newspaper. He wasn’t someone I’d know to name, though. And he never came again.”

  “When was this?” I asked, instinct telling me to follow this.

  “Maybe a month ago.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Improved average.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Trudy interjected, clearly more interested in the term as a general cosmetic description than as a way to find this man for our case.

  “A middleaged guy, average height, average weight, who wouldn’t attract attention except for the tan he bought, the pricey jewelry he wore, the expensive highlights in his hair, his clothes.”

  “What clothes?” I asked.

  “Tennis whites.” Redhead blew out another mouthful of smoke. “We see a lot of weird getups in here, but tennis whites? It’s not something you wear to be incognito, which people tend to want to be in Illusions. So, this guy either has the balls not to care if he’s recognized, or he thought he was meeting Ricardo at a club where they swing rackets instead of both ways.”

  “Did you hear what they talked about?”

  “No. They knew each other, but they weren’t friends. Body language told me that.”

  “Who left first?”

  “The tennis guy, tense and angry, kind of like he had a stick up his butt.”

  “Would you recognize him if I showed you a photo?” I asked. Trudy looked hopefully at me, as if I might know who Ricardo’s mystery date had been. I had no clue.

  “Sure.” He let the glowing butt fall to the ground. The roar of a car engine pulled my attention to the parking lot as a dark blue late-model Crown Victoria with tinted windows squealed around the corner of the building.

  It must be our ride, I thought, though come to think of it, no one at the salon drove a Crown Vic. Sherlyn’s Escort was often on the blink, and she probably had to call a car service. As the car lurched to a stop at the base of the stairs, the driver’s side door flew open. I reached inside my purse for my wallet.

  “Freeze!”

  The voice and the command were familiar but terribly out of context. Shocked, I looked up to see a big black gun trained at my forehead.

  ten

  “WHAT IS THAT?” I DEMANDED AS SOON AS MY EYES defrosted enough to seethe frowning face behind the gun. For once, Scythe’s emotions were easy to read—he had none. His laser-light blues trained on me like I was a cardboard cutout at the firing range.

  “Police-issue nine-millimeter Glock.”

  My tongue was feeling a little thick, what with my adrenaline all going to my lower intestines, but I forced it to work anyway. “What are you doing with it?”

  “I’m going to use it to shoot you unless you take your hand out of your purse very slowly and very immediately.”

  “You know just what to say to make a girl go weak at the knees,” I muttered, while obeying Scythe’s order, though I was sorely tempted to pull my checkbook out and aim it at him. Only problem was, it wasn’t loaded with much.

  A smile muscle twitched at the corner of his unforgiving mouth. That left eyebrow half hitched. His eyes thawed by about ten degrees. While common sense told me to be nothing but grateful, I recognized that look. I’d seen it on my brother Chevy’s face when, as he changed a diaper on his firstborn, the brand-new baby boy had used his dad’s head for target practice. It was that combination of disgust and grudging respect I now saw on Scythe’s face.

  Wow, what a way to impress a man. I really had a touch, now, didn’t I?

  Trudy swaying next to me drew my attention away from both my lack of sexual charm and impending mortal harm. “We’re going to die!” Trudy exclaimed with a squeal as her eyes began to roll back into her head. Only then did I notice that Redhead had at some point disappeared back into the building, no doubt having sagely recogn
ized the squeal of police tires. He won the IQ test of the day.

  I slapped Trudy across the face. Her eyes snapped back to reality. One problem solved.

  “Hands back up over your head,” Scythe commanded, what little emotion he’d displayed fleeing his face. My mouth went dry. I did as I was told. I didn’t think being shot by a man with the body of a Greek god and the charisma of Houdini would be a consolation when I was bleeding to death in the parking lot of a transvestite club. My mother would never forgive me. I wonder if I would care about that from heaven. Optimistic thinker that I am.

  Shaking sense back into her head, Trudy leaned her hip against the metal railing for support as her hands joined mine in the air. “Thanks, Reyn, but I’d rather you’d have let me faint. I don’t want to see my best friend gunned down.”

  “I’m not going to gun anybody down,” he said, reluctantly letting exasperation creep into his tone, which gave me a little shot of perverse satisfaction. He slipped his sleek black gun back into the shoulder holster hidden under his blazer. “Is everything always so chaotic with you two?”

  Trudy and I seriously considered the question with a long look at each other, finally nodding at the same time as we turned our wide-eyed attention back to Scythe. He shook his head with a grunt.

  The passenger door opened, and for the first time I saw we had more unwelcome company. Crandall, shaking and red in the face, looked like he was having a heart attack as he struggled to unfold his blocky body from the seat. Scythe’s eyes cut to his partner for a second, his frown deepening. How insensitive, I thought, for him to find his colleague’s discomfort irritating. Tears began rolling over the paunchy dunes in Crandall’s cheeks. Only then did it dawn on me that the old guy was laughing, albeit with one hand resting on his shoulder holster.