Pretty In Ink

by Karen E. Olson

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, stepping away.

  That’s when I saw Rusty Abbott on the moving incline, coming toward me.

  Chapter 43

  Leigh Holmes wasn’t about to let me get away, even though I took another step. She was in my face again with that microphone.

  “We understand an employee of yours was involved with the ricin poisoning at the Windsor Palms,” she said.

  That stopped me. I stared at her for a long second. How did she find out about Charlotte?

  “I still have no comment,” I insisted.

  But she was onto me. She knew that question had sparked something.

  “And the police are interrogating another one of your employees as we speak,” she said, a hard edge in her voice.

  When I didn’t say anything, she added, “So what sort of business are you running, Miss Kavanaugh?”

  “Maybe you should sleep with my brother again to see if you can get answers to all these questions,” I said loudly.

  Under the five inches of caked-on makeup, I believe Leigh Holmes turned white. She waved her hand in front of the camera lens frantically, the microphone now drooping toward the ground by its cable.

  While she was distracted, I glanced around and saw that Rusty Abbott was almost to the top of the incline. He must have followed me here from Trevor’s apartment. I wasn’t interested in an up-close-and-personal encounter, so I scrambled through the crowd and got on the incline going back down. I caught Abbott’s eye.

  He pointed to the bottom of the incline. “Wait for me,” he mouthed as he moved his shirt to the side and I saw that gun again.

  What, was he kidding?

  I swiveled my head to see him start to stride up the incline, and when he got to the top, he turned around to come right back down again. He was gaining on me.

  I pushed my way down the incline and caught purchase on the pavement at the bottom. I ran around the fountain and toward the entrance to the lobby of the Venetian.

  I usually didn’t go in this way. There was no need, since I could get to the Venetian Grand Canal Shoppes through the parking garage around the back. After living in Vegas for two years, going on three, you’d think that I’d be used to the decadent, over-the-top opulence in the resort lobbies by now.

  Everything dripped gold. I almost slipped on the shiny Italian tiles on the floor as I bounded through the palatial walkway. Flags advertising Phantom of the Opera-I’d never seen the show; somehow watching a man sing with a plate on his face didn’t appeal to me-fluttered in the air-conditioning just below the arched ceiling sporting Renaissance-style paintings in gold frames. Marble columns topped with gold stood sentry, flanking the walkway that led to the globe fountain, to which golden statues clung.

  It was gold overload.

  I turned and started to run through the casino, but a security guard appeared out of nowhere, stopping me with a raised hand.

  “What’s your hurry?” he asked.

  I glanced behind me. “Someone’s following me,” I said, my breath coming out in spurts. I didn’t realize how hard I’d been running.

  The guard looked behind me. “No one running but you.”

  I peered past the fountain to the marble columns. I didn’t see Rusty Abbott. Maybe he’d lost interest. I could only hope. I looked back to the guard and nodded. “Okay, fine. I just have to get to the Grand Canal Shoppes.”

  He pointed to my left, and the escalators were there, ready to take me to my shop. I thanked him and power walked toward them, sneaking looks behind me as I went.

  Still no sign of Abbott.

  At the top of the escalators, I was in the Great Hall. Talk about over the top. More ceiling paintings, more elaborate theme park-like illusions of actually being in Venice. Without the stench of the canal, of course. I’d been in Venice once, in July, and I thought I’d landed in the middle of a sewage plant. I got over it, or probably just got used to it, as I wandered the streets and bridges.

  I was doing the same thing here, skipping past the restaurants and shops. It was like being in Oz, but instead of a yellow brick road, there was a minicanal with gondolas filled with tourists.

  As I walked, I pondered what it was Lester Fine thought I had. Did he know I’d been to Trevor’s apartment? Did he know about the money? Did he think I took it?

  I shook the thoughts away. How would Lester Fine know about Trevor’s money? No, it had to be something else. The queen-of-hearts pin, maybe? Rusty Abbott had the makeup case, so he most likely knew now that the pin had been removed. Could he think I’d taken it?

  I was circling the runway but had nowhere to land.

  The Painted Lady was at the opposite end of the canal, squeezed in between Barneys New York and Jack’s Gallery. Across the waterway was a Godiva chocolate place. I needed a little chocolate right about now, so I crossed over one of the footbridges and found myself pointing out various truffles that the kind girl put into a box for me. Armed with sugar, I scooted around the end of the canal and the line of people waiting their turn for a gondola ride and pushed open the door to my shop.

  I took a deep breath as the door slowly closed behind me. Bitsy was sitting at the front desk and looked up at me expectantly. I handed her the box of chocolates.

  Her grin was immediate.

  “Godiva!” she exclaimed.

  Joel’s head poked out of his door. “Did you bring Godiva?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  Bitsy had already opened the box and was popping a truffle in her mouth, mmming as she savored it. Joel came out of his room a few seconds later and bounced over to the desk, grabbing the box.

  “Do you have a client?” I asked.

  His mouth was already full of truffle. He nodded. “Needed a break anyway,” he said as chocolate smeared across his teeth.

  I grabbed one because I knew they could be gone in seconds, and when the chocolate hit my tongue, I sighed again.

  “You should get poisoned more often,” Joel said, taking three truffles back to his room with him.

  Bitsy cocked her head toward his back. “He’s off Weight Watchers. Said he gained five pounds and can’t afford any more.”

  “Too bad,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  We both knew he’d join up again in about three or four months.

  I had my back to the door, and when it opened, I jumped a little, but it wasn’t Rusty Abbott. It was my client.

  I was feeling almost normal again as I inked the pinup girl on Herbie Nelson’s upper arm. She had unnaturally large breasts with the nipples peeking out of a low-cut shirt and legs that any showgirl would die for. Herbie wanted her to be a blonde, so she had a huge bouffant of yellow curls cascading over her shoulders. When Herbie flexed his biceps, the breasts got even larger. He loved it.

  I wasn’t so sure. This was old school, the kind of ink Jeff Coleman would do. I didn’t do many like this-usually left it to Joel, who was better at it than me. But Herbie was a regular. I’d already inked him five times, and he’d fallen in love with the Japanese geisha that I’d done just a few months back on his other arm. Granted, he’d wanted a more scantily clad geisha, so the kimono was short and open in the front. Herbie liked sexy women on his person. I hated to say it, but it might be the closest he would ever get. Who was I to turn him away? Plus, he paid top dollar, and considering the economy, we needed as much money as we could get in the till at the end of the day.

  The gloves were feeling a little clammy, and my hand started to cramp about an hour into Herbie’s ink. I lifted my foot off the pedal and the machine stopped. I looked at Herbie’s face, and he had tears running down his cheeks. Herbie always cried. I was used to it now.

  “A break?” I asked, pulling off my gloves before he could answer.

  Herbie nodded, and I handed him a box of tissues so he could clean himself up before round two.

  I stepped out of the room. Bitsy was still at the front desk, going over the appointment book. She looked up when I
came out. I walked over to her and noticed that the box of truffles was empty. I raised my eyebrows at her, and she chuckled.

  “Joel enjoyed them.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s got half an hour between clients. I think he’s out getting something else to eat.”

  Figured. It was lunchtime. I hoped he’d bring something back for me and Bitsy.

  “Oh, by the way,” Bitsy added, giving me a sly smile I couldn’t read. “A few minutes ago someone came in and made an appointment. He’s going to be back in a couple hours to go over what he wants with you.”

  I nodded. “Okay.” I leaned over her shoulder and looked at the appointment book.

  When I saw the name she’d penciled in, I froze.

  Colin Bixby.

  Chapter 44

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Bitsy said. “I thought you’d be happy about this, Dr. Sexy coming in for a tattoo. You might be able to see a part of his body that you’ve just thought about seeing. And he looks even sexier without that lab coat on. He’s got a nice tight butt in those designer jeans.” Her eyebrows bounced up and down as she grinned.

  I chuckled nervously. “It’s just, well, I found out he’s already got a tattoo, but he told me in the hospital that he didn’t have one, that he was afraid of needles.”

  Bitsy looked at me like I had three heads, but before I could explain, the door opened and Joel came in, carrying take-out bags from Johnny Rockets.

  I prefer In-N-Out Burger, but Johnny Rockets would do in a pinch.

  “Lunch has arrived,” Joel announced.

  I glanced back at my room. I had to get back to Herbie, but my stomach was growling. I reached in one of the bags and grabbed a burger, peeled back the paper, and took a couple of bites. I indicated my room. “Gotta get back,” I said, talking with my mouth full. Sister Mary Eucharista would have made me write “I will not talk with my mouth full” on the blackboard fifty times for that.

  I took another couple of bites, wadded up the paper, and put it in the trashcan under the desk. “Thanks,” I said to Joel before heading back to Herbie.

  My head was distracted with thoughts of Colin Bixby as I finished the pinup girl, and he still hadn’t arrived by the time Herbie and I emerged from the room. Herbie paid Bitsy, and we sent him on his way. I looked nervously out the glass doors at the canal and to the right and the left, but there was no sign of Bixby.

  “You’re acting like a girl on prom night,” Joel commented as he came up behind me, startling me.

  I slapped his arm playfully. “Don’t do that,” I said. “It’s just that I’m not exactly sure what this guy is up to.” I told them about the queen-of-hearts tattoo Bixby had had done at Murder Ink a year ago, when he was dressed in drag with Wesley Lambert and Rusty Abbott. “So he lied to me, and I don’t think he’ll be all that into me, either, since he’s obviously gay, like I thought initially.”

  Bitsy’s eyes skirted to Joel for a second, and I knew what she was thinking. We still didn’t know which way Joel swung-officially, anyway. He had never come out to us, might never. We always tried to say in front of him that we didn’t care who was gay or who wasn’t, but it didn’t do any good. Sometimes we thought he was just asexual, which was also a possibility.

  I looked back out the door, but the scene was the same as it had been a second ago, the last time I checked.

  “When he gets here, just let me know, okay?”

  I went down the hall and into the staff room, where I settled in at the light table. I had a sketch to do for a client tomorrow, but just as I put pencil to paper, the corner of my messenger bag as it hung over the chair caught my eye. That’s right. Trevor’s laptop.

  I put the pencil down and got the bag, sliding the laptop out and setting it on the table. I lifted the cover and turned it on.

  A bunch of folder icons littered the screen when it booted up. They were tagged with dates, nothing else. I clicked on one.

  Pictures. Seven of them, of Trevor in various stages of development and finally ending up as Britney Brassieres. A glance at the date on the folder told me that this was two weeks ago. I clicked on a video file, and the movie started. It was a how-to: how to become a drag queen in seven minutes. Although Trevor’s narration told me that it really took two hours from start to finish.

  Interesting, but I didn’t think this was anything special.

  I clicked on another folder; this one was dated a week ago.

  These looked like Britney Brassieres’s publicity shots. She was all dolled up with that long, big, blond wig and eyelashes that curled out about two inches. Each picture had her in a different costume: the Catholic schoolgirl skirt and blouse; a cheetah-print bodysuit; a short, white, sequined dress that rode up high enough so if Trevor’s jewels fell out it would create quite a stir.

  I closed the folder and opened another one. This one had a date from about six months ago.

  Trevor and Kyle and Stephan all as themselves sitting around what was obviously Trevor’s apartment, holding martini glasses and mugging for the camera. Clicking on a couple of the other pictures told me these were from a party. I noted that Trevor had actually cleaned up the apartment a little, although the exercise equipment still sported the wigs. Maybe it was just a conversation piece.

  I’d like to listen in on that one.

  This was getting me nowhere.

  I looked in Trevor’s documents, but nothing seemed unusual. He had a folder called “taxes,” and I clicked on that, just out of curiosity.

  The files went back five years, from what I could see. I wondered how long Charlotte had been doing his taxes for him. If, in fact, she actually had ever done his taxes. I was doubting mostly everything Charlotte had told us now. I mentally slapped myself. Of course she’d done his taxes. He’d told us that himself. Then again, if he was in on it with her, then he could lie, too.

  I mulled over what they could be “in on” together. I still didn’t have a clue.

  As I opened the file for this past year, I could almost hear Sister Mary Eucharista telling me I should respect a person’s privacy. But Trevor was dead, and someone shot at me. I figured I’d get a pass on this.

  I found a Word document with all Trevor’s deductions: wigs, costumes, makeup, shoes. I wished I could deduct my shoes.

  An Excel document had two lists of numbers. When my eyes adjusted to the little boxes, I focused on the first column and figured they had to be dates, because they were noted as 2/1, 3/1, 4/1. If they were dates, they ran the course of about ten months. The column next to it showed 3,000, 5,000, and one 10,000. A quick add off the top of my head indicated that the total was around 50,000.

  I leaned back in my seat for a second. That was about how much Trevor had in those boots. This money came from somewhere, but nothing indicated where.

  I touched the pad again, closing the Excel document and eyeing a few PDFs, all of them of Trevor’s 1099 wages-money he’d made freelancing his wares. Chez Tango was there, as well as a couple of other clubs. But those weren’t the most interesting.

  The 1099 from Lester Fine was.

  According to this, Trevor made almost a hundred thousand dollars in the previous year working for Lester Fine. I scanned the PDF and saw a notation for “bodyguard.”

  Trevor? Really? That was a lot of money to pay a skinny little queen to be a bodyguard.

  What was Lester Fine really paying him for? Was the money in the boots part of this?

  I found the connection to the Internet and opened Fire-fox. I scanned his sidebar of bookmarks.

  I clicked on one for a credit union, hoping it was his account and that Trevor had saved his password. I smiled when I saw the login and password pop into the boxes. I hit return and waited a second before Trevor’s accounts showed up. I clicked on the checking account. He had fifty dollars and thirty-three cents. Sad. But there was also a link for a savings account. I clicked.

  Forty-two dollars and three cents.

  Ha
d Trevor just cashed the checks from Lester Fine and hid the money in his boots? Seemed a little odd, since he had an account and a place to put it. Maybe he was worried about so much going in.

  I kept coming back to my original question of what he was doing for Lester Fine to make so much money.

  I looked at the bookmarks again.

  Hmmm. Facebook. I clicked on it, and the page popped up, complete with Trevor’s saved password and login.

  I made a mental note to take my passwords and log-ins out of my own laptop. I didn’t want someone poking around in my life like I was poking around in Trevor’s.

  His last Facebook status had been recorded the afternoon before the Chez Tango show: Trevor McKay is all tatted up and ready to go.

  A rush of sadness overwhelmed me as I noted his birth date. He’d been only twenty-six. And to be taken down by a champagne cork, well, that wasn’t right.

  His favorite musicians were Donna Summer, Wham!, Boy George and Culture Club, George Michael, and the Bee Gees. He was only twenty-six? It was as if he’d been living in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Britney Spears was not on the list.

  This was a total bust. I started to log out, then paused a second and clicked on Trevor’s pictures. I had a feeling I might see something familiar.

  I was right. The photos in the folders on his desktop were categorized as photo albums on Facebook. He probably had uploaded them and then forgot to delete the folders.

  I glanced over toward the door and could hear Bitsy and Joel laughing about something. Obviously, Colin Bixby had not arrived yet. My watch told me he was late now. I wasn’t going to get too upset about it. I really had no idea what I was going to say to him when I saw him.

  I absently clicked through Trevor’s pictures from his party and smiled at one of Kyle wearing a pair of Trevor’s boots and one of the wigs. It might have been the one he ended up wearing home yesterday, but then they all started looking alike after a while.

  Just like all the boys.

  Except one.

  She had a mane of blond hair and wore a sexy white minidress that was sleeveless on one arm and had a long sleeve on the other. Her biceps were buff, in a good way, like Michelle Obama’s. Her face wasn’t as long and thin as some of the others, but the makeup was impeccable. She was gorgeous. But it was none of those things that struck me.