Wearing Black to the White Party

by David Stukas

  “They’re the same thing, aren’t they?”

  We made our way into the kitchen, where Marc had a plastic bag filled with ice cubes waiting for my aching head. He tenderly applied the ice with loving hands, making me feel warm and cold all at the same time.

  “Before I can get to work, I need an important ingredient,” she said as she reached into a grocery bag and pulled out a bottle of tequila that needed two hands just to lift. “There,” she said, staring at the bottle in a self-satisfied way, as if she had given birth to it. “Come to Mama, you precious. Marc, could you make some margaritas? There’s margarita mix in one of these bags. Make ’em good and strong. So, Marc, we talked with Vince and Colorado today.”

  “Boy, no wonder you’re looking forward to a drink,” Marc commented. “Not that Vince is much trouble, but Colorado—whew!”

  “Don’t worry, Robert and I knew how to handle him. I have a few questions, though.”

  “Whatever helps. Go ahead and ask.”

  “Good. Now, jump in anytime, Robert, if I leave anything out. Colorado told me that his part of the Red Party has something to do with swags.”

  “Scrims.”

  “Oh, right—scrims. What else does he do?”

  “As far as I can tell, not much more than that,” Marc answered. “He tells everyone he’s responsible for the event’s overall theme and look. It’s something a half-wit could do, but Rex seemed to tolerate him. Why, I’ll never know.”

  “So he’s not a partner in T-Rex?”

  “No, thank God.”

  “So the only partners are you, Rex, Leo, and David McLeish?” I chimed in.

  “That’s right.”

  Monette paused while cutting her vegetables. She pointed the chef’s knife she was holding at Marc, to emphasize her point. “So how did Rex withdraw all that money without the consent of the rest of you partners?”

  “Because T-Rex is a general partnership. Rex structured it that way because there aren’t a lot of assets with party production, so there’s not much value in it to protect from lawsuits. In the agreement, Rex had control of a larger part of the partnership, so he worded it so he could sign checks without the rest of us approving them. Stupid of us, huh?”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Marc. Rex was a very shrewd businessman. I don’t think there was ever a moment when he didn’t know what he was doing.”

  “Except when he went to pay off his killer to ensure that the Red Party went off without a hitch. I don’t think he figured that he—or she—could turn out to be a cold-blooded killer,” I theorized.

  “Now, that’s another thing that’s bothering me,” Monette said, pointing the knife at me this time. “You and I are saying ‘he or she’ all the time. What’s preventing the killer from being them?”

  “Monette, that’s brilliant!” I almost shouted.

  Monette tried to be humble. “I wouldn’t exactly say it was brilliant, but it’s something we’ve been overlooking until now. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, we have a whole handful of people who want Rex and his party out of the way. What’s to say that they didn’t all work together, huh?”

  Marc shook his head in agreement. “It’s so simple and obvious. Someone had to place those calls to Rex at Leo’s party; someone had to poison Leo, then meet Rex at my pool and receive the money and finish him off. It’s going to take a lot of people to carry something off like that,” Marc added, as if the case had been solved.

  “It’s a distinct possibility,” Monette responded. “After all, they’re the people with the most to lose. I think tomorrow we need to see this Clifford and Grayson you mentioned. We’re getting into unfamiliar territory, and we need people who know their way around town. Do these guys know the White Party people?”

  “No,” Marc replied, “but don’t let that stop you. Grayson may be small and elderly, but he’s got a lot of nerve. You had to in order to be a man and wear a dress out in public back in the forties.”

  “The forties! Wow!” I exclaimed.

  “Oh, yeah. Nowadays, no one would even bat an eye if you walked down Market Street in San Francisco wearing a dress, but back then you were taking your chances.”

  Monette again: “So tell us about this Clifford and Grayson. They sound like a hoot.”

  “You have no idea. For starters, they live in a pink house. Totally pink, from the pool to the Formica in their kitchen. They even have a vintage pink Rolls Royce. You can spot it all over town.”

  Monette and I laughed hysterically.

  “You think I’m kidding, don’t you?” Marc asked, swallowing a fair bit of laughter himself. “And you know what the funny thing is? They didn’t come up with that color. The straight couple they bought the house from had a thing for pink.”

  “No!” came the reply from both Monette and me.

  “Yes. They tell everyone they were going to change the color immediately after they moved in—which was ten years ago, but they discovered that the color did wonders for their skin. At least that’s what they say.”

  “Oh, my God. That’s wonderful,” Monette said as she chopped away. “I cannot wait to meet them. This makes my whole trip worthwhile!”

  I was instantly intrigued with Clifford and Grayson, even though I hadn’t even met them. “So tell us a little more about them. What do they do?”

  “Right now, nothing. They’re retired,” Marc reported. “Apparently, Grayson is loaded because his family used to own a huge sausage company—ironic, huh? He did a lot of drag in San Francisco, and he does a charity drag show here in Palm Springs now and then—he’s quite hysterical. Let’s see, what else have I heard?” Marc asked himself, racking his brain for any more tidbits. “He invented the title for himself: empress dowager of the Most Imperial and Hierarchical Order of Almost-Vestal Virgins. Oh, yeah, he used to be very active in gay rights in San Francisco. Most of the mayors have been afraid of him, and he hasn’t lost much of his spunk since he landed here. The city council members used to be a bunch of old Republican farts who never wanted anything to change here, but Grayson used the political tactics he learned in San Francisco and really shook up things at City Hall. More than one council member’s ass has Grayson’s heel mark on it.”

  “So what about his partner, Clifford?” Monette asked.

  “Complete opposite. Quiet, cute as a button, sweet as can be. It’s amazing how opposites attract. Grayson will be up there at a city council meeting, spitting fire at the members, and Clifford will sit there quietly.”

  “I love this town,” I said. “And drag queens . . . God love ’em! They’re so ... so ... bigger than life.”

  “Some of them are bigger than a ship, if you remember Rotunda in The Battleships: Aground in New York. That was quite a show,” Monette recalled. “I prayed that the stage was specially reinforced. Plus, you neglected to mention that for a brief and shining moment in Provincetown, you were one.”

  “Just to solve a murder,” I defended myself, especially in front of Marc. “I’m proud of my part in solving a murder and as a drag superstar opening to rave reviews.”

  “You had one line, and you never got the chance to speak it,” Monette said, pricking the balloon of the one time in my life that could truly be called exotic.

  “You gotta admire them.”

  “Who?” Monette asked.

  “Drag queens,” I said. “They’re so colorful, so unafraid. They don’t care what anyone thinks about them. I could use a dollop of their courage sometimes.”

  Marc nodded his head. “I guess that’s where the term fierce came from. Oh, I was going to ask you what you found out from Vince and Colorado.”

  “Vince is now very comfortable, and Colorado received an extortion letter similar to yours,” I said.

  “No kidding. Colorado?” Marc asked. He seemed stunned.

  “Yes! He showed it to us,” I remarked.

  “What is he doing about it?”

  “Nothing,” Monette added.

  “Nothing?�
� Marc asked. “No police or anything?”

  “No, Marc, nothing,” I said.

  “Well, that sounds like Colorado. He does whatever he wants. It just seems foolish.”

  “I guess his reasoning is that the killer has the wrong impression that he’s a partner in T-Rex,” Monette said. “I have another question, Marc. How much space does two-point-five million dollars fill up?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Will that much money fit in a suitcase?”

  “I can answer that question because I’ve already tried to figure it out. The answer is yes. The bank teller told me that hundreds are bundled in packs of a thousand, five thousand, and ten thousand—thousand-dollar bills aren’t in circulation. Now, you see dollar bills in stacks of one hundred all the time. It’s not even an inch thick. So if we figure that a stack of one hundred hundred-dollar bills equals ten thousand dollars, then it would only take two hundred fifty stacks to equal two-point-five million dollars. I would think that would fit in a suitcase or a large briefcase.”

  “I wonder if Vince knew what Rex was doing,” Monette mused. “Withdrawing the money, I mean.”

  “Why, are you looking for incriminating evidence against Vince?” Marc asked.

  “I don’t have to,” Monette replied. “We don’t know where Vince was after he left Leo’s party in search of Rex, plus, Vince had ample opportunity to pull all three attempts on Rex’s life. He knew where Rex was hiking; we found a bow saw in the potting shed—with sawdust on it, so he could have cut the tree down. Hey, wait a minute. Robert, was Vince with you every minute before the tree fell on Rex’s bedroom?”

  “Let’s see,” I said, trying to reconstruct the dining room in my head that night. “I was sitting at the table, Rex and Michael went to go hide the salami, and Vince was either with me or in the kitchen preparing the next course. Come to think of it, he did disappear into the kitchen for extended periods. He could have run out to the tree and cut it down while I was waiting in the dining room.”

  “That seems a little far-fetched. Even if the blade was sharp, to cut down a sizable palm would take at least ten minutes—that is, unless it was partially cut already. Then, Vince would only have to disappear from the kitchen for a few minutes to finish the job. And look at the third attempt,” Monette pointed out. “The exploding barbecue grill. Vince had easy access to that.”

  Marc was listening intently to every word Monette said. “I hate to agree with you, Monette, but you’ve made some very good points. I don’t want to think that Vince could be the murderer, but facts are facts.”

  I was watching Monette’s breathtaking examination of the case thus far, when her face suddenly changed its expression. She shot me a worried look and then pursed her lips, as if a thought were struggling to escape her lips but she wouldn’t let it. She waited a minute and then spoke.

  “I don’t know about you two, but I’ve had enough talk about these murders for now. Why don’t we put a moratorium on this kind of talk and just have fun for a while—and go for a swim?”

  “That sounds wonderful,” I said, wondering if Marc had added more chlorine to the pool since Rex was found floating in it.

  “I second the motion,” Marc added cheerfully. “I think we should dine outside under the stars and have your famous five-alarm nachos.”

  Before you knew it, the three of us were seated outside under a canopy of stars, in a breeze that was so warm and soft, it caressed your skin like silk. We had a pitcher of margaritas, Monette’s famous fire-hot nachos, and the bicarbonate of soda nearby just in case. As usual, Monette’s nachos made my nose bleed, meaning I had to sit at the table with my head tilted up to the sky, which wasn’t such a bad position to be in. At least there was plenty to look at.

  Marc carried some of the plates into the house, ordering us to sit and enjoy while he did some washing up.

  “Robert, can you hear me?” I could hear Monette asking just above a whisper.

  “Yes,” I replied, my head still tilted up. “It’s my nose that’s bleeding, not my ears.”

  “Oh, right,” she conceded. “It looks like you are really falling for Marc—and vice versa.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m so very happy for you.”

  “Thank you, Monette.”

  “You do realize that he could have killed Rex—and Leo.”

  “Yes, I reached that conclusion about an hour ago, when I saw your face turn ashen white, a feat that isn’t easy with your freckled complexion. Oh, and thank you for reminding me about this fact. I will remember it clearly when I’m sleeping next to him in the same bed tonight—if I don’t bleed to death first.”

  “Just keep your head back. What I said was that Marc is a suspect—I didn’t say he is the killer. The one thing in Marc’s favor is that whoever made attempts on Rex’s life, then killed him and Leo, seems to have done his or her planning—that or there’s more than one person involved. It’s like the murderer is everywhere. It just seems impossible for one person to have done it all.”

  I was looking up at Betelgeuse, the center star in the Orion constellation’s belt, when I heard the telephone ring in Marc’s kitchen. “I know what you mean—either this killer is very cunning, or we have more than one person to contend with.”

  “Yes, it could be like in Murder on the Orient Express, where everyone on the train had some part in the murder of a very unlikable person.”

  As Monette and I pondered this prospect, Marc came and sat at the table; the pupils in his eyes were black and fearful.

  “That was the police on the phone just now. It seems that someone took a shot at Colorado while he was driving down Highway 111. He’s in the hospital.”

  10

  Think Pink

  “No shit!” Monette exclaimed.

  “Yes, the police said he was driving along 111 when a bullet hit his car. The car ran off the road and into a ditch, and he was knocked unconscious. They took him to Eisenhower Medical Center. Thank God he’s in stable condition.”

  “Boy, that’s a statement you don’t hear every day,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Marc asked.

  “That someone’s concerned for Colorado’s welfare. I’ll bet he was trying to run some elderly woman off the road when he picked the wrong senior to cross. She pulls a snub-nosed thirty-eight out of her purse and blows him away.”

  Monette was musing something in her head. “I guess that pretty much eliminates Colorado as a suspect.”

  “Now you and David McLeish are the only partners left to T-Rex,” I said. “Are the police still out front in the car, Marc?”

  “Are you kidding? As soon as I hung up the phone, I checked. We’re safe. If it weren’t for the steep cliff behind that wall, and the tall hedge, I’d ask that we move this party inside while I go hide in a closet until this is all over.”

  “I think that is a good idea, actually,” Monette said. “It’s been a long day, and I need to get some sleep.”

  “You don’t want to go for a swim?” Marc asked.

  “No, I’m just bushed.”

  Marc looked Monette right in the eye. “I put more chlorine in after they hauled Rex out.”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Monette said. “I’ve got to get some sleep. Good night.”

  We were alone. The night was so pretty and the sky so magnificent, that Marc and I sat out on chaise lounges by the pool and talked late into the night. And the more we talked, the more we realized how much we had in common. It was almost spooky. When I confessed a developing attraction to policemen, Marc looked at me with surprise. Perhaps, in the rising heat of passion, I had confessed a little too much. I said that you only had to spend some time around Michael and you ended up thinking the same way. Or, perhaps Michael unleashed what was already inside me.

  “Really?” he said. “Me too!”

  Could this get any better? I thought to myself. A guy with the same turn-ons as myself?

  We talked further. I discovered that
Marc, like me, knew a million pointless facts. He knew, for instance, that yak milk is pink. He knew what an event horizon is on an interstellar black hole. And most impressive was the fact that he loved the ribald songs of Rusty Warren. It’s not like my boyfriend had to be Jeopardy champions, but it was nice to know that your heartthrob has a desire to know things just for the sake of knowing things. Marc also preferred watching black-and-white movies on Friday night instead of going out, he swooned over the smell of a fireplace on an autumn night, and linguine with pesto sauce was his favorite dish. They say that there’s someone out there for everybody, and I was beginning to feel as if this might be that someone. I know I was maybe jumping the gun, but I understand that when people have waited so long for the special person, it’s only natural to be gunning the engine instead of just sitting there in idle.

  But what if this one was a murderer? I didn’t even want to think about this possibility—a possibility that was made more remote since Marc was with Monette and me when someone took a potshot at Colorado. Of course, Marc could be working with someone else who actually did the shooting, but I didn’t think so. I’ve been wrong before, but Marc was the type of person who didn’t want two and a half million dollars. He knew that it wouldn’t make him any happier.

  Nonetheless, after we went inside and just fell asleep in each other’s arms, I waited for him to drift off before I closed my eyes. Then, in the darkness, a thought came to me. Take a chance. Just let go. And I did. I have to say, I never slept better in my entire life.

  The next morning, I heard Monette’s voice in the kitchen. Marc was in the shower, so I got up and poured myself a cup of coffee. I sat down next to her at the kitchen counter, watching her scribbling maniacally on a notepad as she held the phone against her ear.

  “So he never told you that he had withdrawn the two and a half million? Uh-huh, you stayed at the setup ... he took the car ... gone an hour ... uh-huh, had a briefcase with him ... not his normal briefcase . . . I see ... and when you left the party that night, did you go straight home to look for Rex? ... I see ... yes, uh-huh ... Did anyone see you come home? ... Did you remember what time it was when you got home? Okay, thank you so much for answering these questions at a difficult time like this.”