Mary, Queen of Scotch Read online

  Arthur smirked rather meanly. “He’s a drag queen two nights a week; I wouldn’t say he’s employed so much as sporadically tipped.”

  I continued to flip the blank pages in my notebook. “In any case, sir, though I have seen men hit on your husband, his response is always the same.” I closed my notebook. I pointed at the finger next to my pinky, the one on my left hand, the one sadly naked. “He always points at his wedding ring and shakes his head no. When he’s at home, when he’s shopping, when he’s out for a jog, when he is, as you say, sporadically getting tipped, he is, at all times, faithful, not even a hint of anything untoward.” I’d also learned in detective school that using fancy words made you seem more credible. Untoward was one of those fancy words, something you saw in the New York Times crosswords, but never heard on an episode of the Real Housewives-of-pick-your-city. Troublesome might have also worked here, bothersome, too, but untoward is what I went with.

  Arthur seemed less than impressed. “He’s cheating. I know it. He’s just really good at it.”

  I sighed. “Maybe his libido is simply down.” Libido. Good one, Barry.

  “Chad’s twenty-three. Chad’s libido is fully charged, trust me. Chad’s libido could give the Energizer Bunny a run for its money.”

  “Or hop.”

  His eyes rolled. “You’ve missed something, Barry.” He said my name as if he’d just eaten something bad. Barry. Sounded like Brussels sprouts.

  I nodded. I was taught to nod. It made it look like you were listening. “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, why did you marry him in the first place? I mean…” I paused. There was that choppy water thing again, threatening to pull me under. “Well, you know.”

  Now it was his turn to sigh. It came out wheezy. He was a smoker, I figured. His fingernails were a tad yellow, teeth as well. Maybe that’s why Chad didn’t want to have sex with him. Sucking on an ashtray is never fun. Like eating Brussels sprouts. “You mean, why would I marry a kid like Chad? Or why would Chad marry an old man like me?” Again, I nodded. Only, this time, I really was listening. Intently. “He liked my money. I liked his youth. Everything has to start somewhere. That’s where we started. But then it veered into somewhere unexpected.”

  “Love,” I said.

  “In the dark, we’re the same age. Just two people. I’m simply Arthur. He’s simply Chad. We can talk for hours. Chad went to a good college, Princeton, in fact. He’s bright, sensitive. We enjoy each other’s company. So, yes, like you said, love.”

  “But the lights have to come on sometime,” I said, hoping that the truth would set me free—though not free of a paycheck.

  “Love is blind.” He said it, but he didn’t seem to believe it. Or at least his frown said as much. Plus, was Chad really blind? Or was it a case of temporary blindness, like when you see a sudden flash of light. Or a sudden flash of do-re-mi dough. Call me a cynic but come on. After all, Jack Tripper never slept with Mr. Roper. Then again, he never slept with Janet or Chrissy, either, so maybe the analogy didn’t hold water, choppy or otherwise.

  I smiled. “Perhaps, sir. In any case, I see no evidence of his duplicitousness.” Ooh, that was a good one. Graduate-school level. Too long for even the New York Times. I prayed I’d used it correctly. Sometimes, I got too big for my britches.

  “Evidence,” he said with a snap of his fingers, followed by a pained wince. “Sorry, arthritis.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Arthritis,” he said. “Snapping with a bum joint or two can sometimes be painful.”

  “No, not that,” I said with a heavy exhale. “Evidence. What kind of evidence? How can I prove that I’m not seeing anything? I can’t take you with me, right? That’s the whole point of this undercover business.”

  He nodded. “Yes, but I think there might be a way.” He stood and finished his coffee. “Meet me at my house in two hours. Chad has a yoga class then. I think I might have a way for you to prove what you’re seeing.”

  “Or not seeing.”

  He touched fingertip to nose. “Exactly.” He turned to leave. “See you in two hours. Don’t park anywhere near the house, just in case.”

  “Two hours, sir. See you then.”

  One last nod and he was gone.

  I watched him walk down the sidewalk, a strange chill running up the length of my spine as I stared.

  I finished my own cup of Joe. I remembered one of my lessons: if a client doesn’t believe what you’ve found, they’re probably in denial and won’t ever believe you; if such is the case, cut your losses and move on. I normally found what I’d learned to be valuable. I normally followed my lessons to a tee—apart from the whole taking notes thing—but nothing about this case was normal, and so, for the time being, I decided to roll with it.

  Which meant that, yes, two hours later, I was parking a few blocks away from his house. It was a nice neighborhood, most everyone living behind large gates, like monkeys in a zoo. We’d evolved only to unevolve, to return to what we’d started out as. And, no, I’m not usually that deep, but it was a longish walk and I had nothing better to do than to ponder the fate of mankind. Plus, of course, I was still very much fully-caffeinated at the time.

  I arrived at his gate and rang a buzzer. The gate didn’t open. Instead, he came sauntering out a moment later, a bag in hand. Proverbs 29:4-5 says to beware the man who comes bearing gifts. I wasn’t a religious man, but, like those big words, a good quote every now and again puts the client at ease, lets them know that they’ve hired a capable man. In any case, I stared at him. I stared at the bag. That chill up my spine returned, only going down this time, in the opposite direction. It, like the monkeys, had gone full-circle—or full-line, as it were.

  “Here,” he said, handing me the bag. “Don’t open it here. Smile. Act like this is just me returning something to you.”

  I nodded. I smiled in return. “Thanks, Arthur!” I shouted, as his shoulders bunched up. “I appreciate your returning this! I was looking forward to using it tonight! While the wife is away!” I winked at him. “How was that?” I whispered.

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “Just two pals exchanging a brown paper bag in the middle of the street.”

  He sighed. He turned. He didn’t say another word.

  I turned. I smiled. I started the longish walk back to my car. FYI, I was intentionally being a dick. FYI, it was fun, if not a tad risky. My lessons taught me that being risky was sometimes a good thing, that you occasionally had to be a little risky to solve the case. Just don’t get too risky. Or too dicky. Though that latter thing was just inference on my part.

  I hopped back in my jalopy, closed the door, and opened the bag.

  I took out the devise. “Spy cam.” I stared at myself in the rearview mirror. “He wants to watch me work. Evidence, he’d said.” I twirled the object around between my fingers. My eyebrows rose and lowered. “Fine by me. Let him see what I’m seeing. Namely nothing.”

  And yet, something about this didn’t sit well with me. I’d met Chad. I liked Chad. Chad wasn’t cheating. But now his husband wanted me to film him, to spy on him. Which, fine, was what I’d been doing, but still.

  I pulled out my cell. I dialed Arthur’s number. He picked up on the first ring. “I have the cam.”

  “Bravo for you.”

  “My price just doubled.”

  “We had a deal.”

  I grinned at myself in the mirror. “We had a deal. I did my job. Your husband isn’t cheating. This, therefore, is a new gig. Hence the doubling of the price.”

  He didn’t reply. Not right away. “You don’t strike me as the type of man who uses the word hence.”

  I chuckled. He was right; I wasn’t. “The doubling was a deal, sir, for a repeat customer. I have other jobs. I already did yours. If you want to find someone else to help you, be my guest.” This little maneuver was also in my online textbook. A client is becoming difficult? Threaten to end the case before they do. Keep control of the situation. Odds are good
, they’ll bend.

  FYI, he bent. Bent like an ice-laden birch. Which is a James Agee quote, bitches. Suck it!

  Sorry. Cocky is a no-no in the detective game. Still, I’d won. Plus, I was still on the case. Meaning, Mary, Queen of Scotch was soon to make a triumphant comeback.

  * * * *

  Mom had done a better job on my makeup and garb the next go around. That is to say, she took me down to Macy’s and had a professional do me up. The clothes we borrowed from a tall neighbor with big feet and wide shoulders. She’d been a roller derby queen in her youth, so it was befitting that a queen’s clothes were borrowed by yet another queen. Not that we told her that the clothes were for me so much as for a visiting aunt whose luggage went lost at the airport, a woman of largish proportions.

  “Not doing me any good anyway,” said the neighbor lady, Marge, who went by Marge the Barge in her youth. Didn’t sound like a moniker most women would relish, but Marge seemed to brighten at the retelling. “Hadn’t worn this nice stuff in years.” Nice, by the way, equated to gaudy: gaudy dresses, gaudy halter tops and blouses, gaudy nurse’s and cop costumes for, what I was told, roller derby theme nights. Drag queens, by the way, relish gaudy. Relish with mustard and pickles on the side. Heck, we even like theme-wear, no designated night required.

  And so, newly done-up, I headed for the bar. The parking lot was just as packed as the night before. Chad worked two nights. This was the second night. Meaning, this was my only chance for another week.

  “Hi, Ray,” I said, bellying—though it was more like tittying—up to the bar. Arthur’s spy cam, by the way, was hidden in my wig. You could hide half the philharmonic in there and still have room for the conductor—baton and all.

  “Mary!” he shouted, all good-naturedly. “Back again? Lucy didn’t mention it.” He shrugged. “Guess her wig was on a bit too tight.”

  “She wasn’t expecting me,” I replied, holding up the clothes and wig she’d leant me. “Just returning all this to her.” I smiled his way and batted my mammoth lashes, suddenly feeling like a cow about to moo. FYI, I’m a rather handsome man. Lots of people say so. Lots of people who aren’t my mother, even. Said people say I look like a young Rick Springfield during his General Hospital days. I have to take their word for it, seeing as, for one, I don’t watch soap operas, and, for two, I wasn’t even alive back then. Still, I took it as a compliment. I say all this not out of vanity—uh, mostly—but because, as a woman, the cow analogy was befitting. Again, moo. Had I not chosen the name Mary, Bessie would’ve worked. Maybe Bessie James, the outlaw of drag. I could borrow from mom’s neighbor again. Marge the Barge had plenty of fringe-bedecked frocks, which probably fluttered nicely when she wheeled her way around the track, mercilessly knocking down her opponents.

  But I digress.

  “Is she backstage?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Give me a minute; I’ll take you back.” He slid a scotch on the rocks my way. “On the house.” He batted his lashes. He looked more bull than cow. He looked nice. Nice was nice.

  “Take your time.” I’ll just stand here and stare at your ass in those tight jeans of yours. Which is just what I did. While I sipped my scotch. Through a straw. Because getting the lipstick on just right took a good ten minutes and fucking it up could easily take ten seconds. “Thanks for the lighting last night, by the way,” I told him.

  He chuckled over his shoulder. “How did you know it was me?”

  I shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

  He turned and headed around the bar. He was standing in front of me a moment later. He had the bluest eyes. The sky turned green with jealousy at so much friggin’ blue. You could take a dip in them, in fact. Better yet, a skinny dip. “Lucky,” he echoed, breath minty fresh. This is what Crest commercials were made of. Nine out of ten dentists would’ve pulled him in and devoured him whole, blue eyes and all. Me, I blushed—which, under all that foundation, was impossible to see—and he then headed us to the stage door.

  He led me inside. “You got a song preference, should you to decide to sync your lips tonight?”

  “Better stick with Madonna,” I said. “Seems to work for me.” Plus, like I said, I knew all her songs. You have to, or they don’t give you your card. Gay card, that is. Not detective. For that, you just fork over a couple of hundred smackeroos. The gay thing is free—because all the best things in life are. “But, like I said, I’m not performing, just returning.” I held up my borrowed threads, yet again.

  “But you’re dressed for it.”

  Yep, that I was. But that was a disguise, not a costume. I’d been taught that your mark should never see you, never know they’re being watched. If Chad knew what I looked like, out of gaudy roller queen drag, my cover could be blown. And why I usually so enjoy getting…well, you know the rest. “For the fans,” I said, instead.

  “Ah,” he ahed, just as we entered the dressing room.

  “Not again,” huffed Luna.

  Lucy turned. “Mary! You’re back!”

  I lifted her rentals from my side. “I never changed last night.” In truth, once you wear cashmere, you never want to go back to polyester. That is to say, I simply couldn’t get back into those Goodwill duds of mine. My awful hippie wig, in fact, still hung where I’d left it.

  There was another queen in the dressing room. Pearl and Auntie Bellum had the night off. I was introduced to Maureen Povich. “You should join us. My partner, Connie Hung, couldn’t make it tonight,” she said, surprisingly not at all bitchy.

  “Not again,” again huffed Luna.

  Ray snapped his fingers. “I’ll cue the track!” And he was off. Gone, but not forgotten.

  Goosebumps rose up along my arms. I half expected to hear honking a moment later—drowned out only by all that mooing. “Well…”

  Maureen clapped, palms flat, talon-like nails quivering. “Oh goody!”

  Luna glared her way. “Fucking antidepressants.”

  Maureen glared back. “You should try some. Mix it with alcohol. Easier to O.D. that way.”

  “Ladies,” pled Lucy with a sigh that said, not again, please.

  I thought to bow out gracefully, but, like the night before, bowing was technically difficult, if not entirely impossible. Plus, and most importantly, I didn’t want to. No ma’am, no how. Oh, and of course, I was still on the case if I stayed. That was really the most important. Or, you know, just as important. Or, you know, a close second. And so, I said, “I’d be delighted to join you ladies tonight.”

  Luna picked at her teeth with her Lee Press Ons. “Of course you would be.”

  Lucy sighed. “She’s actually quite nice out of drag.”

  Luna nodded. “It’s the wig. And the girdle. And the heels. Makes me cranky.”

  “So why do it?” ventured Maureen.

  Luna turned our way. “One does what one does for one’s art.”

  We all blinked her way. Was she being serious? Picture Louis C.K. in a dress and a wig, and a cheap wig at that, and you wouldn’t be far off the mark. If this was art, it was of the abstract variety. Though, to be fair, her lip sync was on point and she had remarkable rhythm for a woman her size. Plus, her bitchiness translated to funny behind the mic. Behind the stage was another matter entirely.

  Lucy took my hand in hers. “You look amazing tonight.”

  I nodded. “Borrowed from a roller derby queen.” All three of them laughed. I laughed as well. In the annals of history, I tended to doubt that anything even close to this conversation had ever before occurred. “And we can thank the makeup lady at Macy’s for the rest of it.”

  Luna was crying now she was laughing so hard. “Stop it; you’re killing me.”

  Lucy squeezed my hand. “Then, by all means, please don’t stop.”

  “Please,” said Maureen.

  But stop I did. The show was about to start. I had to prepare. That is to say, I had to down my scotch. Then I had to get a second scotch. Then I had to flirt with Ray. In between, I watched Lucy perform. Lu
cy was a vision in cream chiffon tonight. She was stunning as she worked the stage, performing to each of the tippers as they lined up, one after the other. Here was a star. Heck, here was an entire fucking galaxy. Chills would’ve run up my spine, but the bar was warm to begin with and the clothes added ten degrees to it all.

  “She’s incredible,” said Ray from behind the bar.

  I nodded and turned back his way. “So why does she only perform twice a week?”

  “The way I hear it, her old man only lets her out those two nights.” He smirked. “Emphasis on the old.”

  “You ever meet this old man?”

  He shook his head. “Never been in here. Weird, too, because she goes on and on about him. How kind he is, how generous, sexy for his age.”

  “How old is he?”

  He poured me a third scotch. I took it but dumped it when he wasn’t looking. When on a case, it’s important to keep your wits about you. Two scotches and I was, um, witty, but three was definitely one too many.

  “Eighty, or so I hear it,” he replied.

  I laughed. I knew Arthur could hear all this through the spy cam that was hidden in my wig. Served the asshole right. “And why would Lucy be with an eighty-year-old man?”

  Ray shrugged. “Takes all kinds. Why are you in a dress and heels?”

  I wished I could’ve told him the truth, but that was the biggest no-no of all in my business. Separate your lives. Don’t bring your work into your personal life and vice-versa. Telling him why I was wearing enough fringe to make even Annie forget her gun would’ve broken that barrier. And so, “Takes all kinds,” I replied.

  He toasted me with an imaginary glass. “Amen.” He pointed to the stage. Maureen had replaced Lucy. She was doing Adele, and passably at that. In the light of the bar, you might’ve thought you were seeing the real deal—had Adele been six-feet tall, out of heels. “You’re on next,” said Ray. “Hope you know how to vogue.”