by Rob Rosen
I nodded. Yet another date. Again, when it rained, it poured. I prayed my umbrella could keep up with the deluge. “Looking forward to it.”
I turned and headed backstage, presumably to retrieve my papers. With the door closed behind me, I could hear Mora and Auntie up ahead, already practicing to Barbra and Donna. “Enough Is Enough.” The crowd would love it. Two divas doing two divas. Genius. And toot, toot, my horn doth bloweth, what with it being my idea and all.
I tiptoed to Auntie’s office. I don’t know why I tiptoed, as no one could hear me, but, since I was up to no good, tiptoeing seemed the appropriate mode of transportation. I stood in front of the office door, heart pounding so fast it could lay down railroad tracks. I reached my now-gloved hand down, gripped the knob, and gave a turn. Thankfully, turn it did.
Click.
I was in.
The filing cabinet was against the wall. I wouldn’t need to pick it; I’d ordered a key online. Had it shipped overnight. Less than twenty bucks total. Turned out, anyone could order key T1467. I wondered why a key was necessary if anyone could come by the exact same one, but I wasn’t complaining. Instead, I was unlocking the cabinet, gripping the handle, and pulling. Sweat had formed along my forehead. My heart had now laid miles of tracks. I’d either had too much coffee or too much excitement for one day. I was betting on the latter.
I craned my neck up, out, and down. I stared inside.
“Huh?”
The “huh” was well-spoken, as the top drawer to the filing cabinet was empty. The second “huh” to quickly follow, the one after I opened the second drawer, was equally well-spoken. Sadly, there were only two drawers. “Why would anyone keep an empty filing cabinet in their office?” I wondered if Auntie was suspicious of me. But why? And how? I’d been pretty good at hiding what I was up to, or at least I thought as much. But Lucy had caught me snooping. Maybe she realized I’d temporarily stolen her key. Maybe Auntie emptied out the contents of the filing cabinet just after that. Maybe I’d never find out what had been inside.
Ah, but here’s the thing. An average person would look inside an empty filing cabinet and have no other recourse but to close said cabinet, tiptoe back to whence they came, and never know the truth. Me, I was not average. Not that any drag queens are. But, no, I was not average because I was a detective, licensed and Yelp-reviewed. Meaning, I had other recourses.
I swiped the inside of both empty drawers with a strip of paper. I then bagged the paper and pocketed the bag. If there were remnants of whatever had been in there, some stray molecule or two, a dust mote of evil, I would soon know about it.
Sort of.
I mean, I needed to send it to a lab first and then wait for the results. I had access to the lab; I didn’t have access to expediency. Expediency cost money. I could bill Arthur, sure, but under what pretense?
“What the fuck are you doing in here?”
I jumped. I turned. I clutched my chest. You think only old women do that in movies, but no.
“Fucker,” I exhaled, half-way through a heart attack.
Mora was standing at the door in Streisand attire, cross-eyes and all. “Hurry, Barry; the bitch is in the bathroom.”
I hurried, racing out the door and back to the bar, Mora behind me. I liked Mora behind me, by the way. I liked her below me, too. In fact, I simply liked Mora. To every season turn, turn, turn. Meaning, things changed. People changed. But had Lester changed? Had Lucy? Or could you take the criminal out of prison, but still have the criminal?
“Well?” she said. We were in a corner, out of earshot of everyone. It was barely past two in the middle of the week. Everyone consisted of Ray and two geezers with probable liver disease.
“An empty filing cabinet.”
She tilted her head. She looked adorable. I didn’t take her into the bathroom and fuck her. Ray, by the way, was looking at us all the while. I felt uncomfortable. “Why would someone have an empty filing cabinet in their office?”
I told her about the strip of paper, about the baggie. “Maybe she was hiding something. Maybe she no longer is hiding something. Maybe it was more like a safe than a filing cabinet.”
“You told me that Lucy had the key. What if Lucy stole whatever was in there.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “But what? And why?”
“Guess you’ll hopefully find out the what, soon enough. As to the why, you’re the great detective.”
“I am?”
“I read your Yelp reviews.”
I blushed, ever so slightly. “Mom left two of the four.”
“I always liked your mom.”
I nodded. “Better than me.”
He nodded. “Most definitely, and I have to get back,” he said. “More practice. It’s going to be a great act. We’re going to soak each other with water guns during the whole raining/pouring lyrics.”
Ray was still watching. I could feel his eyes on me like blue lasers. And so, I didn’t kiss Mora goodbye. I simply nodded and walked out of the bar, waving at Ray upon my exit. “See you tomorrow night!”
He grinned. He winked. Boing went my dick. “Tomorrow!” he said with a wave of his own.
My dick was confused. I was confused. My life, this case, was confusing.
And things were about to get a hell of a lot worse.
Cue the doom and gloom music.
* * * *
I sent the filing cabinet swipe to the lab. I’d never had to use them before. It was a resource offered by my school, and it didn’t come cheap. I called Arthur. “You’re getting charged for some lab work,” I told him.
“You catch some sort of venereal disease?” he said. “Not surprised.”
I was liking the old man less and less, and I didn’t like him all that much from the get-go. “I’m not sure what your husband is up to, but I may have a lead on something.”
“Cheating?”
“Nope.”
“Then what?”
Then what? I hadn’t a clue. I mean, I had a clue, but I needed him to pay for said clue. Only thing was, I didn’t want to tell him what I was investigating since it was no longer his husband’s possible cheating, per se. I mean, I was still investigating Chad, just not for what he was paying me to investigate. Or maybe it was. Who knew?
“To be honest, I’m not sure, sir. I think Chad is up to something. The lab work might help prove or disprove that something. That something might be cheating.”
Though I had serious doubts about that. In fact, I had no doubts: Chad wasn’t cheating, but Chad wasn’t on the up-and-up either, or at least that’s the feeling I had. He had that key. He was hiding that key. That key was the key to something, something possibly bad or, heck, something completely innocuous. I mean, for all I knew, Lester hid gifts for orphans in that filing cabinet of his.
At school, I’d learned to rely on hard evidence. Stick to the facts. And, for now, I had no facts, only hunches. So, I needed the lab work. And I couldn’t afford the lab work, not on what he was paying me.
“You asked me to turn up evidence on your husband. This is evidence. It turned up. It costs money. You want evidence, sir, you need to pay for it.”
He sighed. “Send me the fucking bill, kid. But that’s it. The rest of this case is on your dime, except for your flat fee.”
I started to argue, but he already hung up.
Fuckwad.
* * * *
I met Ray at his apartment. He answered the door in nothing but a towel. I figured that towels were hard to sculp, so Michelangelo simply carved a pee-pee. I’d never before in my life involuntarily groaned, but there’s always a first time for everything. Like fucking Jeff in a bathroom stall. In drag. Though I was trying not to think of Jeff when I was with Ray. Ray standing there in a towel made my trying a hell of a lot easier.
“You’re not going to the movies like that, are you?” I asked. “Because I left my towel back at home, and I’d hate for you to feel uncomfortable.”
“I was surfing. It’s hard
to keep track of time when you’re surfing.”
I nodded. “Trust me, I know of hard.”
He dropped the towel. “Does this make it worse?”
You know that first-time involuntary groan? Funny thing about that, but there was a second one that was hiding somewhere. Then, poof, there it was.
“Can I come in?” I thought to ask, once the groaning subsided.
“You can come wherever you like.”
I pointed inside. Or my dick pointed inside. Either way, inside is where I went. And ended up. Inside him, that is to say. Meaning, movie zero, involuntarily groaning three.
I found myself in the crook of his arm a short while later, pondering whether a craw lied near a crook and if a petard could somehow bridge the gap.
“I saw you chatting with Mora yesterday,” he said, thereby shaking me out of my reverie.
“Uh huh. We work together.”
“I don’t like her.” Which made two of them. Weird because I liked them both so much. You’d think it’d work the other way around. Like some sort of common fan club. We could have a theme song: I like you and you like he, homosexuality.
“And why, pray tell, don’t you like her.”
He shrugged. My head bounced against his chest. I thought he was going to say that she looked at me all lovey-dovey-like, that she hung on my every word, or some such jealous thing like that. But, no; that’s not what he said.
“She’s no good. I, um, I can’t say why she’s no good, but, trust me, she’s not.”
I didn’t reply. Did he know about me and Jeff? Did I owe it to him to tell him, despite the fact that we weren’t dating so much as semi-regularly fucking? Did I owe it to him because I liked him? Did I owe it to me to tell him, to lighten the load weighing heavily on my conscience?
“Um,” I ummed, pushing myself off him so that I could stare into those dazzling eyes, into that mesmerizing sea of blue. “Jeff and I dated for some time not all that long ago.”
He blinked. He blinked again. Blue, no blue, blue, no blue, blue. It was like catching fleeting glimpses into heaven. I know, schmaltzy but true. Hallmark had nothing on me when I was in bed with a naked, hairy David. “I thought I saw something there, some sort of connection between you two.” He also pushed himself up, his back against the pillow. “And?”
“And what?”
“And you know what and.”
I nodded. I knew. “I like you, Ray. I like you, but I don’t know you, at least not yet. I like Jeff because I know Jeff. There’s a certain comfort there, but Jeff and I ended about as well as Pompeii. Archaeologists could have a field-day digging through the rubble of our failed relationship.”
He sighed. “Look, Barry, you don’t owe me an explanation. We’re not officially dating. Like you said, we barely know each other. I like you, too, but let’s just see how things go. Meanwhile, just be careful. Bad guys don’t usually get sainted.” He leaned in and kissed me. I’d done the right thing by telling him. I still felt guilty and shitty.
Oh, and I needed to pick one of them. But which one?
Chapter 5
That week at the bar, I did Bjork, Bette, Barbra, and Britney. I called it my B-phase. Each time, I felt I was getting better and better, more polished, both in my lip-syncing and makeup, even at the dreaded, tipless hosting. As to the makeup, it was Lucy who helped, who even volunteered to help, who, in fact, demanded it.
“Drag queens do not get their makeup done at Macy’s,” she exclaimed.
“Sometimes my mom does it,” I replied.
She seemed to think that over, but then stomped her foot. She had six-inch stilettos on. Stomping wasn’t easy—or painless. “Kitschy, I’ll give you that, but, no, you have to learn how to do it yourself.”
“Or pay someone to do it for you.”
She nodded. “But not someone down at Macy’s. Bloomies, maybe. Nordstrom’s, okay. But not Macy’s. Too pedestrian.”
“Snobbish much?”
Her head bobbed in a nod. “Much.”
And so she showed me before work one night, when we were both on the schedule. We’d worked together a few times now. I’d performed with all the girls, in fact. Each gave off a certain sisterly vibe. It was like we were in competition, but still wanted each other to succeed. One of them would lend the other a scarf, a blouse, a pair of shoes, and then say how awful the other looked in it. To an outsider, bitchy would’ve been the word; to an insider, to someone like me, now, it was endearing, a sort of ongoing ritual hazing.
In any case, back to the makeup tutorial.
Lucy showed me how to apply foundation, blush, mascara, lipstick, eyeshadow, creams and ointments, powders and gels. If it could go on your face and somehow transform you, Lucy showed me how to use it, all from a foot away, barely even that. It was comfortably uncomfortable.
“Tell me how you met your husband?” I asked. I had my wig on. I had the cam on. I felt guilty about that as well. I wasn’t supposed to get personally invested in my cases. FYI, I was invested. In fact, I felt like I was the sole investor. I was friends with my prey. I was lovers with the peripheral characters. To an extent, the bar had become my life. My apartment seemed like a hotel, a place to visit.
She smiled. Her usual sadness seemed, for a change, not to bloom on her face. “Arthur,” she said, a tad reverently, like saying amen at the end of a prayer. Had Lucy prayed for her husband? Was Arthur God’s way of saying be careful what you wish for? “We were at a coffee shop. He was sitting next to me reading a book I’d just finished the day before. I said how it was a coincidence. He said he didn’t believe in coincidences, that some meetings were predestined. I found him fascinating, his intelligence sexy. The age difference didn’t seem to matter. It was like we were old friends right from the beginning.” All this she said as more and more product got added to my face. I watched her in the mirror, watched her technique as I listened to her story, trying not to imagine the Arthur I’d come to know and seriously loathe. “He asked me out on a date. I eagerly said yes, even though I knew what other people would say. From that day forward, we’ve been together.” She stood. She jazz-handed my face. “And, voilà!”
I blinked. I’d been transformed. If there was a pore on my face left breathing, it would be a miracle. Still, for all intents and purposes, I was beautiful. Oh, sure, you could tell there was a man behind the makeup, but the artistry in the application was exquisite.
“You’re a genius,” I proclaimed.
She shrugged. “All in a day’s work.” She sat back down next to me. “I tell people I love Arthur. They don’t believe me. I tell Arthur I love Arthur. I think sometimes even he has a problem with it.”
I nodded. I got it. And yet, you had to wonder if he was playing to the camera, even if he didn’t know there was actually a camera for him to be playing to.
* * * *
I went home after my performance that night and thought of the story that Lucy had told me. The funny thing was, I believed her. Sure, she might have simply been feeding me a line, for whatever reason, but I still had the feeling she was telling me the truth, at least about how she loved her husband. That didn’t mean she wasn’t cheating on him, though. Plenty of people cheated and still loved their spouses. Millions of people, in fact. I was cheating on Ray. I was cheating on Jeff. And, yes, I wasn’t really cheating because none of us had any agreed upon arrangement, and still it felt like cheating. And that also didn’t mean I didn’t care for either of them any less while I was doing it.
Now then, though I did believe Lucy, Arthur was another matter entirely. Him I did not believe. Did he love Lucy? Perhaps. Did he really think Lucy was cheating? That I hadn’t a clue. But why press the matter so much if he didn’t believe it in the first place? And why hire me to uncover something that was, in theory, uncoverable?
“Hey, Ma,” I said.
I tended to call my mother when I was either depressed, confused, or in general need of help. Usually, it was more and than or. Meaning, I had a mean
case of all three and I needed a big, heaping spoonful of Mommy.
“What’s wrong now?”
Mom wasn’t maternal so much as pit-bossy. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”
I heard the sigh from across the line. “Because it’s the middle of the day and I didn’t call you first.”
“Can’t I just call to say I love you?”
“Why start now?”
The next sigh came from me. We tended to make each other sigh, a lot. I’d been told I was exasperating. The apple didn’t fall too far from the exasperation tree. “Fine,” I said. “Have you ever heard of an Arthur Slade? Rich, old, gay guy?”
“He’s your client, right?”
I nodded into the phone. “Right. I was just curious if you’d ever heard anything about him. You’re about the same age, live a few miles apart.”
“You just said he was old, Barry. Are you calling your mother old?”
My sigh repeated. “No, I was calling you for help.” I whimpered. “Help.”
“That works on most mothers, Barry.”
“But you’re not most mothers.”
I couldn’t see her shaking her head, but I had a strong suspicion that that’s what she was doing. “Nope. And what sort of help do you need?”
“Research.”
“Sounds like fun…said no one ever.”
My mom was apparently hip to the prevailing lingo. “I can’t turn up anything on Arthur Slade. Google Home comes up blank, but not everything makes it on to the Internet. Old news, especially older local news, wouldn’t turn up. Even gossip. Dad’s an accountant. Arthur is wealthy. Maybe he’s heard some scuttlebutt.”
“And what makes you think there’s some butt to scuttle?”
I shrugged. “Call it intuition. Call it work experience. Either way, there’s something fishy about Arthur Slade, which is why I need a new lure, namely you and Dad.”
“You have a way with words, Barry.”
“Did it help?”
The last sigh was the loudest. It generally was. I think Mom enjoyed making me work for it. Then she could always use it against me later on, guilt me into submission. “I’ll check. I’ll have your father check. You owe us both.”