Victor J. Banis

by Deadly Nightshade

  She was like someone in one of those fantasy novels, who could change herself at will. There was a Schwarznegger movie with someone like that, she couldn’t remember the name of it, but she had liked the idea. She found herself thinking about who she might be in the future.

  In the future. She liked that thought, too. She’d never thought of a future in this context. When she had thought of the future, in the past, it had been an entirely different future. That one was gone now, though, it had been stolen from her. She would have to make a different one for herself. One that included all kinds of women, and all of them her.

  Something else she had discovered that she enjoyed, and this discovery had surprised her even more than the other one: she liked the killing part of it. At first, the first couple of times, she had only done what she deemed necessary to her plan. But the last time, she had found herself savoring the experience afterward—had actually begun to look forward to the next time. To tonight.

  Only, she hadn’t yet decided who she was tonight, this red-blonde with the more subdued makeup, who looked far more like a real woman. Not exactly, but closer to it than Tanya had. Someone who could pass, under the right circumstances. In the right light.

  She needed a name. She couldn’t totally become this woman until she knew the woman’s name. Leslie? Doris? No, too patrician. She didn’t want to look cheap—Tanya, after all, had looked cheap—but she didn’t want to be too elegant either.

  Belle? Yes, Belle. It had a nice Southern ring to it. The madam with the heart of gold. She’d be Belle. Belle Simmons.

  And Belle Simmons was angry. She had liked Tanya and Tanya had nearly been caught.

  It was the cops, those two looking for her. They had made her nervous, in too big a hurry. She’d been careless.

  It was their fault.

  She took her cell phone from her little handbag and punched in a number.

  § § § § §

  Stanley’s cell phone rang, the tinny Can-Can again. He answered it, said “Hello, hello,” a couple of times, frowned, and closed it. “I can’t hear myself think in here,” he said. “I’ll have to go outside. It might be the nursing home.”

  “I’d better come with you,” Tom said. “Just in case the wrong guys are hanging around.”

  Stanley flashed him a grateful smile. “Thanks,” he said, “but I’ll be okay. There’s a doorman on duty and I won’t go more than a couple feet outside the door, I promise. If I have to leave, I’ll come back for you.

  Meantime, you sit tight and wait for Gaye Dawn to show up. Or Gaylord, as the case may be. You never know with these guys who they’re going to be next.”

  “Five minutes,” Tom said, checking his watch. “If you’re not back, I’m going to come looking for you.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I’ll linger just to see,” Stanley said. He winked and got up from the table, elbowing his way through the crowd.

  Tom watched him disappear, shook his head disapprovingly at the twitch of his rear. Damn, the guy really was a three dollar bill. No wonder punks tried to kick his ass.

  It was a cute ass, though, he suddenly realized. At a glance, it could pass for a woman’s, Tom gave him that. Say, if a guy liked guys…

  Or, the thought popped into his head, maybe Stanley ought to be doing the drag thing. He was way better looking than Gaylord What’s-His-Name. Tom tried to imagine him in a dress and a wig. Yeah, sure, he’d be a doll baby, with those big round eyes of his. Maybe he’d ask Stanley if he’d ever done that. Probably he had.

  All the gay guys did, didn’t they? Maybe Stanley would do it some time just for him. A private performance.

  He smiled unconsciously at that thought.

  And remembered kissing him. That had been a totally strange experience, like nothing he’d ever imagined.

  Different from kissing a woman. He couldn’t exactly define it. Not better, necessarily—but, to his complete surprise, not worse, either. Just different.

  He thought again about Stanley in drag. What would he look like in a dress? What would it be like to kiss him if he was all made up, perfumed, looking like a woman? He’d be hot, I bet, Tom thought. Kissing him like that would probably be just like kissing a woman.

  And immediately scolded himself for thinking that way. Guys weren’t hot. Not to guys like him. Jesus, what had gotten into him? Maybe it was catching, working with Stanley. He frowned and half emptied his glass.

  He looked again. Stanley was out of sight. Maybe I should go with him anyway. What if there was someone hanging around outside, like the last time. He took another peek at his watch. A minute. He’d give him the five, like he’d said.

  He took a more decorous sip of his drink and watched a petite redhead in a skintight gold dress and too much makeup sashay in his direction, giving him the once over as she came. Incongruously, because the room was so dark already, she was wearing dark glasses, little ones that perched on her nose. He wondered how she could see anything through them.

  She smiled in his direction. He started to smile back at her, and flashed on the fact that she was a drag queen. Shit, some of these guys were truly unbelievable. You couldn’t be sure till you got your dick in them.

  No wonder that Hartman guy had been so surprised the night he got offed.

  He glanced at his watch again. Three to go. Three and half, actually. He stared at his watch, at the second hand, wondering if it was running slow. It seemed like Stanley had been gone longer.

  The redhead went by his table, the dress shimmering like it was made of spun gold. Just as she passed, she stumbled, bumping the table hard with one hip. She grabbed at it for balance and managed to knock Tom’s drink into his lap.

  “Oh, I am so sorry,” she said, clapping her hands to her face. “It’s these damned stilettos, I can’t get used to them. They’re new. I don’t know how women walk in them. Are you okay? Can I…?”

  Tom was busy trying to blot his lap with a paper napkin. “It’s okay,” he said, “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I could help with that, you know.” The redhead looked at his wet crotch and gave him a coquettish smile.

  Tom reddened and tugged at the fabric of his trousers. Wet, it was clinging to his dick a little too conspicuously. For sure he needed to switch to jockeys, while he was on this case anyway. “No, that’s okay, honest, I’m fine.”

  “Well, at least let me buy you another drink. They cost too much in this dump to be wasting them like that.”

  “No need,” Tom said, but she was insistent.

  “Scotch, right, Chivas? Rocks?”

  Tom grunted. “Bourbon. Water.”

  She was back in no time, a drink in each hand. She set one in front of Tom and slid into the booth with him, in the spot Stanley had vacated, taking a quick sip of her own drink. “Your first time here?”

  Tom edged slightly away from her, but the booth was too small for any real distance. Funny, it hadn’t seemed so crowded with Stanley, and she was even smaller than he was. “What makes you ask that?”

  “I’ve never seen you before. Not that I’m here all the time, but, well, I think I’d remember you.” Another flirty smile.

  He managed a faint smile in return. Damn, even with the makeup plastered on, she was a looker. If only…”Thanks. I think I’d remember you, too.” He squinted at her through the dim light. “Actually, I have this feeling I do remember you. Have we met?”

  Another smile. “Maybe. It’s a small world, isn’t it? How’s the drink? I asked for the good stuff. I’m not much of a bourbon drinker. The bottle said Maker’s Mark.”

  “That’s good stuff,” Tom said. He took a sip of the drink. “Yep, definitely good stuff.”

  Her smile widened, like a mother approving of something her child had done. “That’s fine then. Here’s looking up your address.” She lifted her own glass, clinked it against his. They both drank. “I’m Belle.”

  “Tom.” They toasted one another again.

  Tom struggled to think of something to say
, but she seemed content to sit next to him. Someone else had come on stage but Belle seemed more interested in looking around the crowded room, checking out the crowd. Probably, Tom thought, looking for a John. Or, does she think she’s found one, he wondered, and frowned. He took another drink, a big one this time.

  As if reading his thoughts, she glanced in his direction. “I hope you don’t mind my sitting here,” she said.

  “I hate wandering around this place on my own. It’s a dump, isn’t it?”

  “It seems okay to me,” he said, and, because she might think he was into the drag scene, he added, “for what it is.”

  “It’s a toilet. You know how they sweep up most places when they close? They flush this one.” She laughed. Despite himself, he laughed with her.

  “Anyway, you walk around too long on your own, people start thinking you can’t get a date.”

  “I doubt that’s much of a problem for you,” he said, thinking belatedly that it had sounded a little flirty.

  Close on the heels of that thought came another; his words had come out slightly slurred.

  “You okay?” Her voice seemed to come from somewhere far off, as if she were in a tunnel.

  Tom frowned and shook his head. He suddenly realized he was drunk. Very drunk. But he couldn’t think how he’d gotten that way. He lifted the glass in his hand and looked at it. It wasn’t quite empty. Hell, he didn’t get drunk on one glass of good bourbon. He didn’t get drunk on one bottle.

  “I don’t know, I feel funny,” he said.

  “You look funny. How many of those have you had, anyway?”

  “Just the one. Well, the one that got spilled. And this one.” His speech sounded funny, even to his own ears.

  “That makes two, doesn’t it? Look, maybe you need some air. There’s an alley out back. Let’s go have a cigarette, why don’t we?”

  She slid out of the booth, stood up. Tom wanted to say no, he was fine, but he wasn’t. The room was definitely tilting now, slipping around. He slid out after her, got to his feet a little unsteadily. She put an arm around his waist to support him. He would have jerked away, but actually, he thought he needed the support just at the moment.

  Where was Stanley, anyway? Stanley would see that he was okay. Stanley might be gay as pink ink, but he trusted Stanley. He looked at his watch but he couldn’t make out the numbers on the dial.

  “Easy,” she said, “It’s just back this way. Lean on me, why don’t you?”

  Somehow, she piloted them through the crowded room, smiling politely at people, giving them you-know-how-it-is looks. One or two of them smirked knowingly, you could read their expressions: another guy who couldn’t hold his liquor. Tom felt pissed, and too light-headed to take anybody on. What was wrong with him?

  The stage was to their left and raised a little. A trio of drag queens danced to and fro. When he looked in their direction he saw oversized feet in high-heeled shoes, but the light suddenly hurt his eyes and he looked away. On the wall next to him, their shadows leapt and spun like ghosts. Their song came at him as if from a great distance. The Pointer Sisters. He knew this song—tried to hum it. What came out sounded more like a moan. Some shithead in pajamas laughed at him. Tom swung around to confront him and stumbled a little and the redhead steadied him. Belle, he reminded himself. Her name was Belle. In a shimmering golden haze.

  Despite the fact that she was little, five two, five three at the most, he was grateful to have her helping him. He’d have rather had Stanley, though, to lean on. And Stanley would see that he was all right, he was sure of it. He paused once.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I thought I heard someone call my name.” He tried to look over his shoulder. “I heard someone say, Tom.”

  “Honey, there must be a hundred Toms in this place. Come on, you need air.”

  § § § § §

  There was no message on his phone. Stanley stared at the little screen, punched in Most Recent Calls.

  There it was, just a couple of minutes ago, but no call back number, just “Missed Call.” Whoever had phoned him had blocked their call back number. Which made no sense, did it? Why call someone if you didn’t want to talk to them?

  On a hunch, he called Home Gardens in Petaluma, to check on his dad. But no, the woman there informed him, after checking, Mister Korski was sleeping. No one there had called.

  Stanley shoved the phone back into his pocket, nodded to the doorman, and reentered the club. He was halfway back to the table before he saw it was empty. He looked around the room and spotted Tom, walking away from him, heading toward the rear of the bar. Even at the distance, in the bad light, he couldn’t mistake those shoulders.

  Where the hell was he going?

  Stanley tried to follow him and lost him in the crush of bodies. He jumped up and down a couple of times to see better, thought he caught another glimpse of Tom moving through the crowd about twenty feet ahead of him. Who was he with, and why hadn’t he waited at the table? Was that a woman? A woman in a gold lamé dress? Jesus, was the guy that desperate to get laid?

  Something nagged at him. A woman, here? No, the knowledge flashed like lightning across his consciousness, more likely it was a drag queen. No real woman in this club would be wearing a gold lamé dress. That was the kind of thing entertainers wore. Drag queen entertainers, especially. Drag queens loved gold lamé.

  A drag queen? And that call—nothing. A missed call message, but no call back number. That worried him, too. He had a sense of something amiss, nothing more than a hunch, really, but it buzzed around him like an angry wasp.

  “Tom,” he shouted again, but his voice faded into the roar of the crowd and the broad shoulders had disappeared. Where he thought he’d seen him there were only broken shadows, dancing. The Pointer sisters, singing Don’t Walk Away. The shimmering dress was gone too. Together? The way people were shoved in here, it was impossible to say for sure.

  He elbowed his way through the packed room, ignoring a couple of oaths and some dirty looks.

  § § § § §

  The room was too dark, too crowded. Tom looked back a couple of times, but he couldn’t see Stanley.

  Probably, he was still out front, on his cell phone. Maybe there was something seriously wrong with his father. Or maybe there’d been some trouble out there. Stanley on his own was a magnet for trouble. He needed someone to look after him, that was for sure. He needs me to look after him.

  “Maybe we should go out front,” he said.

  “Doll, you’re too wasted. The doorman would never let you back in. Come on, this way you can get some air, and you’ll be fine, and nobody will know anything about it but me. It doesn’t look good, a cop getting wasted. Especially not in a drag bar.”

  “I guess you’re right,” he said, letting her move him along again. If Stanley saw him this drunk he’d just ride his ass. Anyway, he didn’t want Stanley to see him like this, not to see him helpless. He wanted Stanley to think he was tough, always in control. A Clint Eastwood kind of guy, or Bruce Willis. He liked how Stanley looked up at him that way. Maybe it was dumb, but it made him feel good. Made him feel—he wasn’t sure what—bigger, maybe, stronger? Tougher?

  More of a man popped into his head, but he pushed that thought aside. For sure, that wasn’t it. He didn’t need a queer friend to make him feel like a man. There’d always been plenty of women for that. Well, fuck, really, he didn’t need anybody to make him feel like a man. He was a man.

  They went through a curtained doorway, past a door marked Girlfriends and another, Boyfriends. There was a door at the end of the little hallway, with a red light burning over it.

  “Alarm?” he asked in a mumble, nodding toward a sign that said No Exit.

  “I come out here all the time,” she said. “Everybody does, since the no smoking thing. They had to turn the damned alarm off, kept emptying the place out.”

  They were in the alley, then. Dark, damp with fog, the rain nothing more now than a mist. He gulpe
d in the cool night air gratefully, felt the spinning of his head slow down somewhat. They walked a few feet. “Can we get back in?” he asked, glancing back at the door that had closed behind them. Stanley would be worried…

  “It doesn’t lock,” she said.

  “Jesus, I don’t know what happened to me,” he said, leaning heavily against a brick wall, his words still slurred. “I felt like I was halfway to the moon.”

  She grinned up at him. “I’ve never had quite that effect on a man,” she said. “Not that fast, at least.”

  He managed to grin back at her. “Hey, thanks,” he said, “I really appreciate your helping me. I think I was about to pass out back there.”

  “You looked green around the gills, that’s for sure. I need a cigarette.” She fumbled in her purse, leaning against him, so close that his nostrils were filled with the scent of her perfume. Not the cheap stuff, like you’d think. This smelled expensive. His wife had used the expensive stuff.

  Stanley did, too. That had never occurred to him before—Stanley wore a woman’s perfume, maybe it was even the same perfume. What a little fruitcake, he thought, grinning despite himself. He wore good stuff, though. Had to give him credit for that. He had some class, anyway. Little Stanley was a piece of work, wasn’t he, a real…

  Something registered then in his consciousness, the grin fading. “Did I tell you I was a cop?” he asked.

  She smiled. “No need to, handsome.”

  He was suddenly aware of how close she was, of how red her mouth was—so desirable. And the perfume.

  Like Stanley’s. Despite himself, he felt his arms coming up around her, pulling her close. She tilted her face up to him, scarlet lips parted, inviting.

  He leaned down to kiss her, felt something hard and metallic between them.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Stanley made it to the rear of the room finally. He looked back once at the shifting mass of people in the dim bar. It would be easy to miss someone in that crush. Maybe he should check around in the bar some more. And a part of him was scared. They were on the trail of a cold-blooded murderer. With a gun.