Mary, Queen of Scotch Read online

  Mary, Queen of Scotch

  By Rob Rosen

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2018 Rob Rosen

  ISBN 9781634867733

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  For Kenny, my five-star husband, with all my love.

  * * * *

  Mary, Queen of Scotch

  By Rob Rosen

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Afterword

  Preface

  I hate prefaces. Oh, okay, I get it; this is a preface. But, to be fair, this is my thirteenth novel and first preface, so I’m willing to look the other way. To also be fair, this one is somewhat necessary, and so, I’ll be brief. Though as a writer, brevity really isn’t my strong point. Expounding. Yes, expounding is my thing. At length. And girth. Girthy expounding I prefer. But for the sake of this, yuck, preface, again, I’ll shoot for brief. Or, you know, briefish.

  Pronouns.

  That was brief.

  Now comes that aforementioned girthy expounding. See, pronouns fly out the window—on gossamer wings, or at least taffeta—when talking about drag queens. Oh, and, yes, I talk at length about drag queens on the pages that follow. At width, too. At witty width. This book is chockful of drag queens, in fact. Actually, you could choke on the sheer volume of drag queens that follow. Or at least on the girthy ones. But drag queens are men. Men go by the pronouns he and him and his. Except when said men wear dresses. Then said men go by she and her. Such is the case in real life. Such is the case in this real book. Really.

  All that is to say, when I’m referring to a drag queen by her drag name, I use feminine pronouns. When I refer to a drag queen by her boy name, I use masculine pronouns. Writing a book is tough business. Writing a book and switching pronouns is lumberjackian. P.S., I’m a writer; I can make up words. Don’t try this at home; please leave it up to the professionals.

  To sum it up: drag queen equals she and her; out of drag equals he and him and his. And that’s that. Brief. Ish. Though I suppose I could’ve simply stated that one summation and been done with it, but then look at all the girthy expounding you’d have missed out on.

  It’s all about you, dear reader. It’s all about you.

  Chapter 1

  Dying inside a whiskey barrel is not how I pictured myself going. Old-age, sure, that would’ve been preferred—highly, even. I’d have also taken: trampled at a Britney concert; crushed after falling off the Eiffel Tower while on a date with Chris Hemsworth— A.K.A. Thored to death; or shot in Texas, mainly because I’ve often said that I’d never be caught dead there. But pickled inside an overly-large oak cask? Yeah, not so much.

  To be fair, said cask, at the time, was filled with a rather nicely blended scotch whiskey—and further blended with yours truly, Mary, Queen of Scotch, drag queen extraordinaire and noted private eye. And if you’re thinking that, wow, isn’t it ironic that a drag queen named Mary, Queen of Scotch was about to meet her maker while crammed and jammed inside a whiskey barrel, then you’d be wrong; it would’ve only been ironic had I accidentally found myself inside said barrel, perhaps for a little nip and/or nap, and then got trapped in there—again, accidentally. But there was nothing accidental about being inside that barrel, and so irony, however much a drag queen simply adores it, was nowhere to be found. Ditto for a crowbar or a working cellphone—mine being quite booze-logged by that point—or Chris Hemsworth, in or out of Thor garb.

  This all, of course, begs the question: how did an extraordinary drag queen and noted private eye wind up trapped in a rather large whiskey barrel? Ah, see, most of that aforementioned noted was noted by me, namely on Yelp, and it’s quite extraordinary that I became a drag queen to begin with. In other words, I’m a drag queen and private eye by trade, but those nifty added adjectives are a matter of opinion, mostly mine—and my mom’s.

  In other words, my dying in a whiskey barrel isn’t really all that surprising. Sad, to be certain. Awful, you betcha. But surprising, nah, not really. And a five-star rating on Yelp doesn’t do you much good when the barrel lid is nailed shut and you’re very much crowbar/cellphone/Thor-less. It does you even less good when it was you and your mom who left you two of the four Yelp reviews.

  Meaning, I was ready to hear Gabriel blow that old horn of his, preferably in a Britney medley, with or without Auto-Tune—preferably with, if only for continuity sake.

  Perhaps, I should’ve simply become an accountant. That’s what Dad wanted, Dad also being an accountant. Dad has eighty-seven five-star Yelp reviews, by the way, and I doubt he left any of them. Though Mom probably added a few, Mom being Mom. Plus, accountants rarely get nailed inside whiskey barrels. Mob accountants, maybe, but Dad didn’t work for the mob. Least I don’t think so, what with us being Jewish and all. And while Jews do so love Italian food, that’s not quite the qualifier.

  Mom, by the way, a tiny woman with a ginormous personality, is a part-time librarian. There’s humor in that, as Mom couldn’t keep her mouth shut even if it’d been stapled and Crazy-Glued. I couldn’t picture her shushing anyone so much as egging them on. Knowing Mom, she probably chose the job so she could have endless people to talk to for five minutes at a time. After five minutes, my mom finds people annoying. I’m rarely an exception to that rule.

  Anyway, I did become a private eye on purpose; the drag queen thing was by chance. Perhaps fate. I mean, cheek bones like mine don’t grow on trees. And how many thirty-year-old men still have a twenty-eight-inch waist? Sure, the girdle helps, but still.

  The funny thing is, the private eye business is how I became a drag queen in the first place. Though I suppose funny isn’t exactly apt, all things considered—all things being me stuffed inside an oaken soon-to-be-coffin, sloshing around in a rather nicely blended scotch.

  See, I was on a case at the time—the time I became a drag queen, that is to say. The case of the cheating husband. Presumably. Theoretically. Allegedly. I mean, my client, husband number one, thought that husband number two was cheating, and so he hired me to prove and/or disprove said presumed, theoretical, alleged belief. I’d already been a detective for three years. Licensed and everything. Trained by the best. Online. I was a barista before that. Starbucks. In person, not online. You do the math, but o
ne and one equals anything is better than working at Starbucks, anything being detective work. FYI, the ad made it look glamorous. FYI, it wasn’t, but it paid the bills and you rarely got scalded by hot milk.

  But back to the case.

  Arthur, my client, was sixty. His husband, Chad, was twenty-three. Arthur looked like Mister Roper from Three’s Company. Chad looked more like Jack Tripper, John Ritter in his younger days. If you don’t watch TV Land, then, to translate, odds were good that Chad was indeed cheating. Or not. Though ten to one he was. Like I said, good odds. And even better money, easy money. Follow Chad, snap some pictures, pass Go, collect cash. Voilà, and again, easy. Or, again, not. P.S., I didn’t trust Arthur from the get-go. Call it detective’s intuition, but if he was on the up-and-up, I was guessing the up was in the up-to-no-good category. Still, I took his money. Beggars, choosers, blah, blah, blah.

  In any case, Chad was at home most days. I took photos of Chad lounging by the pool, mowing the lawn, and gardening. I took photos because Chad did all these things shirtless and because Chad looked like a young version of John Ritter, with an impish grin and a sparkle in his eyes. Not to mention an ample bulge in his too-tight shorts, which often yielded an ample bulge in my slacks, which often resulted in my bulge unbulging itself, which is, yes, a distinct advantage of working alone in your car. And, no, they didn’t mention that in the online detective school ad, but they should have. Just saying.

  Anyway, Chad seemed the perfect husband. Emphasis on the perfect. So that left Chad’s nights for him to get up to no good. And Chad’s nights, twice a week, were spent at a local gay bar, the Out-N-Out. On the surface of things, that alone was damning evidence, but Chad wasn’t cruising so much as working those two nights—in heels and a wig. In other words, in drag.

  “Why do you think he’s cheating, sir?” I asked Arthur before I took the case.

  Arthur shrugged. “He doesn’t have sex with me anymore.”

  I paused, not wanting to state the obvious and more wanting the easy cash. I shrugged in reply. Mom always said, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything. A shrug equated to the latter.

  So that’s how I wound up at the club. But Chad worked behind stage, behind a locked door, behind a door with a sign that read: MEN IN FROCKS ONLY! Which is to say, I had no access to him, to any sort of evidence that he was cheating. Or not. Though when you’re betting ten-to-one, the one rarely rolls around.

  Anyway, long and the short of it, that’s how I became a drag queen. Out of necessity. Fate might’ve had her nasty little hand in all that, but so did Goodwill. Mainly because Goodwill charged by the pound for women’s apparel; fate made me pay in other ways. Namely, slowly dying in a whiskey barrel. Fucking fickle finger of fate, ramming itself up my ass without so much as a dollop of slick lube.

  “Why am I applying blush to you, Barry?” Mom asked, after she went blouse shopping with me at Goodwill.

  “I already told you; I’m on a case.”

  She sighed. “Starbucks seemed less dangerous.” I showed her the burn mark next to my thumb. Whoever said not to cry over spilt milk didn’t have scalding milk spilt on them. “Still,” she added, “at least you didn’t have to wear rouge and lipstick.”

  “I had to wear beige slacks,” I lamented. “Beige, Ma. Beige.” I emphasized it the third time. It beared emphasizing.

  She sighed and moved onto the mascara. “Just don’t tell your dad.”

  I giggled. The brush tickled. “I already did.”

  She paused. She frowned. “What did he say?”

  I shrugged. “He asked me not to tell our rabbi.”

  Sagely, she nodded. “Smart.” She moved her head back a bit, to better take me in. “Not bad.”

  I smiled. “Good genetics.”

  I got a roll of her eyes in return. “I’m already helping; you don’t need to butter me up.”

  “Just hedging my bets.” Mom, you see, loves her butter. Both figuratively and literally. Mom reminds me of Shelley Winters in her later years, more zaftig, less sex-kitten, still gritty and brash.

  She moved away and threw me the clothes we bought at Goodwill. I already had a Halloween wig. Two years old. I’d gone as a hippy. I pried the flowers free and gave it a good comb-through. I slipped it on last, after the blouse and the skirt and the heels. It all felt uncomfortable. I, in fact, felt uncomfortable.

  “Cher?” I asked hopefully.

  She tilted her head a bit. “More like Sonny wearing lipstick.”

  I walked to the mirror. That is to say, I tripped to the mirror, wobbling as I stared at myself. A fishy queen I was not. That is to say, I wouldn’t be getting free drinks at the bar on ladies’ night. “Thank God this is only temporary then.” Like a herpes outbreak. Meaning, temporary until it flared back up.

  “You look like your grandmother,” she said.

  “Thanks?”

  “At least you have a good personality, Barry.”

  I was gone before she could further complement me—if that’s what she was attempting to do. I drove back to the bar. I didn’t pass my temple, just in case. I drove with the heels off. I wished I could’ve walked without them, too. I figured that massive corns loomed in my future. Stalks of them. I caught my reflection in the mirror. I tossed my catch back. I looked like a raven-haired Raggedy Ann doll, though more raggedy than Ann. Like Andy on the losing end of a bet.

  I pulled into the bar’s parking lot a short while later, luckily snagging the last free spot. My stomach did a series of somersaults, all scoring perfect tens from the judges. I’d never been nervous on a case before. I liked detective work. I liked uncovering the truth, finding pieces to puzzles, then solving said puzzles. But mostly, I did all that from behind the scenes, sifting through paperwork, spying from fifty feet away. This was decidedly different. I was suddenly Mata Hari, incognito on the front lines. FYI, Mata Hari died a horrible death.

  I teetered inside. I was a half a foot taller than usual, ducking as I entered. Alice met looking glass in that instant. Where was the pill that would shrink me back to normal size? Better yet, where was the drink to calm my nerves?

  “Jonnie Walker and soda,” I said to the bartender. “Please.”

  He smiled my way. “Coming right up, pretty lady.”

  It should be noted that the bar made a bat cave seem bright in comparison, and darkness was a girl’s best friend—drag queens and vampires, in fact. Who knew there was such a commonality? In any case, dark though it was, you could still see how packed the place was. See and hear, that is, the din just below a roar as the men waited for the show. Apparently, they had drag seven nights a week there. This was all news to me as I’d never been to the bar before, this not being my neck of the woods.

  The barkeep poured. He stirred. He handed. I drank, then sighed. “Better.”

  “You new around here?” he asked. “Performing tonight, I mean?”

  I gulped. “Testing the waters.” One swollen pinky toe at a time.

  He nodded. “Name?”

  I started to reply. Barry, I almost said. But I wasn’t Barry that night. Barry didn’t wobble in high heels. Barry didn’t wear fake lashes and equally fake tits. The bartender wasn’t asking about Barry, though. I was taught in online detective school to think fast. Don’t appear nervous. If you have to lie, do so convincingly and make it a lie you can easily remember down the line.

  “Mary,” I replied, willing my hand not to shake as I took a sip. Mary was good, I reasoned. Quintessential. I stared at my drink as I set it down. I smiled. The bar brightened as a light pulsed above my bewigged head. “Mary, Queen of Scotch.” And a legend was born—even if only in my head.

  “Nice to meet you, Mary,” said the bartender. “Name’s Ray. Ray Charles.”

  I shook the extended hand and grinned. “Did your parents have a penchant for blind soul singers?”

  He shrugged. “Doubtful. It’s short for Raymond. As in everybody loves.” He released my hand, then pointed to the mostly emp
ty tip jar. “Oh well. Not everybody, I suppose.” The shrug got joined with a sigh. “In any case, you performing tonight? I don’t see you on the roster.” He pointed behind me to a screen on the wall. There was indeed a roster. My name, suffice it to say, was not listed.

  “Last minute addition,” I said. “I’m a friend of Chad’s.” Tangentially, but still.

  “Lucy? She didn’t mention it.” The shrug returned in full force as he walked around the bar and motioned for me to follow. Ray passed under a dim light. He looked less like Ray Romano, more like Ray Liotta. Italian, probably. Early forties, maybe ten years older than me. He was easy on the eyes. Then again, he’d called me pretty, so lord only knew what he looked like in the light of day. In any case, he trotted over to the stage door, pushing through the still-growing crowd, and unlocked it, then bowed courteously, and said, “Dressing room is on the right. Have a good show.”

  My gulp made a triumphant reappearance. Show? Um, yeah, the online detective school didn’t teach performance art. They taught you how to lie convincingly—and legally, of course—even how to disguise yourself, but lip-syncing in heels and a cheap hippy wig wasn’t part of the curriculum. Mainly because their idea of a disguise was a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap, and, I had a feeling, that wasn’t going to cut it at Out-N-Out.

  “Thanks, Ray,” I said as I walked inside a narrow corridor, the door closing behind me. The click of metal meeting metal made me jump. A trickle of sweat threatened to ruin my mom’s paint job. The wig was hot and scratchy. It was also flammable. It said so on the inside label. I wondered how often they caught fire and what the circumstances were at times such as those. As to my feet, they were already killing me. And if I lifted my arms, I was sure I’d find Lake-Ontario-sized pit stains.

  “You can do this,” I whispered to myself under my breath. “It’s a job. I’m being paid to be here. Keep calm. Act like you belong.”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. Again, I jumped—and jumping in heels is even harder than walking in heels. I turned. It was Chad, A.K.A. Lucy, A.K.A. Lucille Balls. She had on a red wig, red lipstick, pale skin, a form-fitting dress, padded in all the right places. Still, it was Chad underneath. Of that I was certain.