“Where were you born?”
“I can’t see that it matters in the least.”
“Still, I’d like to see your résumé.”
He looked as if he were about to explain divergent schema again. He said, “I think not.”
“You see,” I said, “according to the State of Georgia, the Open Records Law, I can request your personnel file from the university’s Human Resources Department. It’ll take a while to get a response, a couple days, but . . .” I shifted my backpack, “if I must, I must.”
I waved and started for the door. He muttered, “Bitch!”
I glanced over my shoulder and grinned. “Evaluating the concepts, I’m happy that we share cognitive ethics, aren’t you?”
35
I drove the Bentley down Decatur Street, wondering if Whitney’d found out that the car which had turned around in his driveway that time was mine. Probably, like he’d probably known Eileen had an investigator on him. I looked in my side and rear mirrors and didn’t see a Chevy Caprice. I slowed for a stop sign and saw Lake’s unmarked parked at a meter. His butt leaned against a front fender, and his arms were folded. He unfolded them to wave, and I pulled up behind his cruiser. He met me at the window. “Care to get a bite? I got news.”
“What news?”
“Lunch? On me.”
“You’re on.” I gave in to the prospect of news. I hadn’t thought about food in a while.
He got into the Bentley and pressed my hand. “Still hounding the scientists?” In a phone call earlier, I’d recounted my visit to Brommer at Curriculum Paradigms, Inc.
I pulled into the flow of traffic. “Dr. Whitney appears to be trapped in divergent schema. I can’t figure if he’s a mobility theorist or a reproduction theorist.”
“Mobility. Upward.”
I drove toward Thelma’s diner. “What have you found out about him?”
“He’s not Old Atlanta. Guarantee.”
Lake’s ex, Linda Lamont, was Old Atlanta. She knew the social register like the back of her cotillion dance card. “You ask Linda?” I said, keeping my voice steady.
“She never heard of him. Where he lives, Old Country Place, sounds old money, but it’s not. All new money.” He put a finger under his nose and raised it in the air. “Sniff. Sniff.”
I smiled. It was a tribute to Lake’s charm and good looks that, ten years ago, he snagged Linda, the belle of the Piedmont Driving Club. Officer Lake had arrested her for DUI, but something happened to the ticket on the way to the courthouse. I’d never been jealous of Linda, even though I knew he was still fond of her. She couldn’t hack being a cop’s wife; he couldn’t hack society—although I’ve seen him in a penguin suit. Simply fabulous.
I dropped the reverie. “Whitney doesn’t want to part with his résumé.”
“I’ll drop by HR this afternoon,” Lake said. “They’ll hand over the résumé.”
I parked in front of Thelma’s. It’s a meat-three-veg, carbo-loader—the kind of food Lake loves. I should talk, my plate was piled with mac-and-cheese, fried okra, and mashed potatoes. I selected banana pudding for dessert and added a big plastic glass of overly sweetened ice tea. Southern comfort foods.
After a bite of macaroni, I asked, “So what’s the news?”
Ripping into his chicken, Lake said, “I can get into The Cloisters.”
My temples began to pulsate. “What about me?”
“Wrong gender.”
We’ll see about that. “When?”
“When Mr. X can set it up” He stuffed hot white meat into his mouth. As if by infusion of protein, he looked his faultless self. “Guests are invited on select nights.”
“When was the last time you ate?” I asked.
He savored the creamed corn. “Couple weeks ago.”
“What select nights?”
He washed his food down with iced tea. “Don’t know yet, but Mr. X said guests are vetted as possible members.”
I pushed my plate away. “Who’s Mr. X?”
“A rich pedophile turned snitch.”
“Whose snitch?”
“Vice’s.” Lake dug into the mashed potatoes.
“What’s he done?”
“Got caught in the men’s at Chastain going after an under-ager. Dickheads like him are dumb. Can’t they think maybe a sting is going down at two in the morning?”
“So Mr. X is coerced into getting you into The Cloisters? How’d he know you wanted to get in?”
More chicken followed the potatoes. “I spread the word around the shop, vice. When this guy was brought in, he says he’s sorry for the misunderstanding at Chastain. Then he babbles on about being on the wagon about boys, but he can’t help falling off. He cries. He says he spends thousands a week in The Cloisters to get over his addiction. That’s when the vice cop says, maybe we can work a deal. The slimebag listens, then he says, “Sure, I’ll get your man into the The Cloisters. Just cut me some slack, and I’ll be a sponsor.”
I mused, “The slime’s got money apparently.”
“He owns his own company. It’s a holding company that owns a slew of fast-food joints on the south side.”
“Is he black?”
“No. Far’s I know, The Cloisters is not an equal-opportunity leering joint.”
“When’er we going in?”
Lake carefully put his fork down. It was full of mashed potatoes. “I’m going in when I get the invitation.”
“Get your sponsor to issue two invitations.”
“Wrong gender, Dru.”
“That can change.”
“A quick trip to Sweden?”
“No, a quick trip to Sircher’s.”
“Sircher’s?” The proverbial light bulb lit in his face. He laughed. “That queen of switcheroo?”
“Cross-dressing is not a one-way street.” Lake didn’t look happy. “We need to find out what nights Bradley Whitney will be at The Cloisters?”
“Zone Two guys say he’s there every night.”
* * * * *
I’d never been into disguises. I could dress up or down as need be, or wear a pair of glasses, or a wig, or a hat, but that’s the extent of changing my appearance for the sake of the job. But those simple things weren’t going to convince anyone that I was a man. The person for the job was Sircher. Bless her contour-changing heart.
Her palace is on Peachtree Street just south of the Five Points Marta Station and Underground Atlanta. She shares the tacky commercial part of the famous street with cheap costume shops, makeup emporiums, sex toy joints, plastic-shoe stores, and other assorted holes-in-the walls.
I pulled up at a curb in front of Sircher’s Contour Palace.
Sircher’s shop took up three storefronts. The windows were painted white and black—in an opaque harlequin design. No one was getting a gander of what went on inside the contour palace. Sircher equipped the theatrical community and the transvestite community, which sometimes was the same thing.
I jangled the bell and heard the lock pop. Inside, the odor of perfume and wax overlaid the centuries-old smell of bricks and moldering lath and plaster. A hall went off to the left and another continued straight ahead. Behind doors were rooms in which clients were taught to alter their appearance—and pony up goodly sums to do so.
Tapping on the inner door, I waited. Sircher expected me.
I’d called an hour ago. She’d been surprised, more than a little suspicious, until I told her I wasn’t on the force any longer. “I heard that,” she’d said, her masculine voice cawing through the cell. “But y’all have a habit of resigning and going undercover.”
“Not me, promise. I’ve got my own agency now. I’m not investigating you.”
“Okay, so no one’s been blaming me for their cock-a-doodle carryin’s-on. So who’re you investigating?”
“Now Sircher—”
Her laugh was a donkey’s bray. “What you want from me, dear girl?”
“I want to be a man.”
“Now you
’re talkin’.” Many thought Sircher was a man. But not the APD. Sircher’s real name is Ethel Wallace, and it’s anyone’s guess about her sexual orientation.
I said, “Just for a night.”
“Just one? What if you like it?”
“Sircher, it’s not a sex night.”
“Every night’s a sex night, even if you’re not married—especially if you’re not married.”
An odd prickling crept under my skin, and I thought of my dead fiancé. Hell’s bells, I couldn’t even talk to an old farce like her without ghosts of the past haunting me. “Can I come see you?”
“Sure,” she said. “When?”
“Now.”
“As long as you don’t have a search warrant.”
“A thing of my distant past.”
“C’mon girl, we’ll get to work.”
“Sounds like it’s going to be an ambitious undertaking.”
“Making a good-looking sliver of a female into a man’s surely a challenge,” she said, sounding as if she were rubbing her hands in glee.
* * * * *
Sircher filled the door when she opened it. At least six feet tall, she had to weigh three hundred. Her hair—which was done up in a mass of dark purple and held in check with several large combs—had originally been black, and sometimes still was. She wore a red-sequined muumuu, and I thought the cow pun was apropos. There were dozens of strands of beads around her corrugated neck. In a few past lives, she’d been a palmist, a crystal-ball gazer, and tarot reader.
I held out my palm.
Taking it, she said, “Sorrow.” She looked at me—her large brown eyes abject. “You got troubles.” Dropping my hand, she stepped aside and swept her hand toward her emporium.
“Then I sure as hell don’t want to see the cards,” I said, taking in the shelves of potions and lotions and jars and wig stands and pestle pots. MGM’s makeup lab couldn’t have been more extensive.
She shook her head sagely. “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”
Spies? Of all the sweet sorrows in Shakespeare, she’d chosen that one. I quoted back, “When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”
Sircher spread her hands, and cried, “Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
“I’m afraid I’ve exhausted my Shakespeare,” I said.
“I could go on and on,” she said. She put her large hands on her vast hips. “You need to tell me more. First off, why do you want to be a man?”
“Let’s just say, for the fun of it.” Sircher knew too many people and too many places in this town, which could be small when it wanted to be. She stepped up to me, and, all of a sudden, ran her hands across my chest. I flinched and she laughed. “Don’t have to camouflage much here.”
A good look would have told her that, but I suspect she wanted a feel. She asked, “Are you going to be on a stage?”
“I hope not.”
“I see,” she said, and maybe she did. “So whoever you encounter in your new guise, you’ll be up close and personal?”
“More or less.”
“Which means we got to make you look natural.” She wrinkled her brow. “Kissing involved?”
“Not that close,” I said. “I told you. We’re not talking sex.”
She surveyed her shelves, then began pulling things off them. “Where’s this deception taking place?”
“Not sure,” I said, looking at the array of women’s wigs. None for men.
Sircher asked, “Who you trying to fool—men, women, or both?”
“Men.”
“Easier than women. What’s the lighting?”
“Don’t know. Dim, I would think.”
“Where?”
“Don’t ask.”
“I am discreet. Very. Ask your partner.”
“Former partner.”
“Are we talking night, day, artificial light, candlelight?”
“Night, artificial light, rather dim, candles maybe. I don’t know.”
“Anybody there might know you in your former capacity?”
“As a cop? Doubt it.”
“Ever been at this place before.”
“Not inside. Now quit with the questions.”
She got theatrical. “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer.”
“You’re getting warmer,” I said.
She lowered her eyes. I thought she was going to snort. “You need to change your nose. It’s a nice nose for a woman. I’ve got some clients who’d die for it. Have, actually, in surgery. They didn’t have Michael Jackson’s surgeon.” She walked to an easel beside her desk and picked up a piece of chalk on the rail. “Stay still for a bit,” she said, her hand quickly sketching as she glanced at me.
She kept up the dialogue. “Three dimensional makeup builds on your own features. But you can’t use it on moving muscles like your jaws and lower cheeks. It will fall off. But on your nose and cheekbones and forehead, you have a good foundation for it.” She handed me the sketch. It looked like me. She moved to a shelf for a jar. “Nose putty,” she said. “There are other substances that you can use to build up your nose like Plastici. It’s a soft wax, but I don’t like it for a lot of reasons. One, if you sweat, get nervous, or get overheated, it can slide right down your face. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Might be dangerous, huh?”
“You’re fishing again.”
Shrugging, she said, “Remember this when you start practicing with this stuff, a little alteration can cause a big difference in your looks.” She picked up the sketch. Below the caricature of me, she dashed off three smaller sketches, showing nose changes. Me, with a wide nose. Me, with a curved nose. Me, with a bulbous nose. I grimaced.
Sircher said, “Make it Roman. You nose is narrow and a bit long, so putting a slight curve on top of the bone will be effective. Remember, the less putty you use to get the job done, the more natural you’re going to look. I’ll give you a sheet of instructions.”
I felt overwhelmed already.
“Now for skin changes. It would’ve helped if you’d had acne or chicken pox when you were a kid.”
“You gonna put some pox on me?”
She grinned. “A few changes with liquid latex ought to do it. It’s trickier than putty. But it can’t be beat for creating skin texture and wrinkles. How old you want to be?”
I hadn’t given it a thought before she asked. Finally, I said, “About forty will be fine.”
“We’ll get you into early middle age with this stuff. Pull your cheeks back, like this.” She pulled hers back, as if she were trying out for a facelift. “Then apply liquid latex. After it’s dried, let go. You’ll see lines.” Then she reached for my left hand. “Too damn delicate. My other clients would be green with envy. It’s so much easier to add then take off, so use the latex to age your hands the same way. You don’t have to make them larger. They’re not as noticeable as a feminine nose.” She tapped my fingernails. “And get these cut and squared.”
“Should I change my eye color?”
“With that vivid blue, like headlights. I’ll get you some contacts. You ever wear them?”
“No.”
“Get used to them first. Add eyeglasses, those skinny rimless ones. When’s this masquerade going to be?”
“I’m not going to slip up,” I assured her.
Her eyes rolled in mock exasperation. “If you get back from this undercover job okay, let me know.”
“You’re my palmist, you should already know.”
Surveying me again, she said, “You got good shoulders and your height’s okay. But you could use two-inch elevators. What size you wear.”
“Nine.”
“Perfect. What apparel is appropriate f
or the occasion? It would help if I knew where you were going.”
“Casual but elegant. I’ll be shopping the upscale secondhand stores in Buckhead.”
“No need. You need wardrobe, I got wardrobe. I usually charge a costume fee, but for you, nothing for one night.”
She wrote down my measurements. “I’m adding a little to the coat. You should pad a little in the shoulders and around the waist.” She took a wad of my hair in her hand and said, “Now for this luscious stuff.”
“I hate going to beauty shops.”
“We have an assortment of skull caps.” She motioned to the wigs.
“I don’t see many men’s.”
She swayed across the room, opened a drawer, pulled out a bald headcover, and then a salt-and-pepper man’s wig. In another drawer, she rummaged the small boxes, and got the contacts. I cringed at the thought of the cost.
She said, “Try some putty on the bony parts of your chin. If you don’t talk much, you can get away with it.” She held up a bottle. “Use this spirit gum to hold the putty in place.”
“No mustache?”
“You want to look phony?”
Out came a shopping bag. In went my new head and hands. She held up a tube. “I’m giving you this stoppel paste. It’s adhering wax with stipple hairs to give you a closely shaven look. You might want a suggestion of whiskers.”
She went to her computer and input numbers. A printer threw out the totals. I looked at the sum. Not that bad. I got out a checkbook, paid, and let her lead me down the hall with my shopping bag. “I’ll courier the shoes and suit to you Monday, if that’s soon enough,” she said.
“Sounds fine.”
At the door, Sircher said, “All this stuff has instructions. Use surround mirrors to see your profile. I got a funny feeling you need to look real natural.”
“Isn’t that what a disguise is for?”
“Just remember,” she said sagely, “False face must hide what the false heart must know.”
36
I normally didn’t work in the office on Saturday, but a restless feeling that wouldn’t be assuaged by cooking took me to the office. I showed my badge to the guard, took the elevator up, and unlocked the door to the reception room. I stepped on the envelope before I saw it. Instinct told me I wasn’t going to like what was inside.
The Last Temptation Page 16
