Mew is for Murder

by Clea Simon

  The difference between the clubs could be counted by degrees. I’d left the house with a sweater on, worn it during my hour at Kate’s, and hadn’t thought to leave it in the car. I should have. The Casbah was warm and damp with flesh.

  “Hey, Theda!” Mark, a drummer with the regulation tattoos all over his thickly muscled arms, waved to me. I’d written about his band a few months before. He was sitting with his girlfriend and another couple as I walked over.

  “Hi, Mark, Susan.” Nods all around. “Do you know Ralph from the Mail or his friend Connor?”

  “I know Ralph, why?”

  “Have you seen him tonight?”

  “No, sorry.” The three other faces looking up at me smiled, but clearly none of them had anything to add. There were no extra chairs, and besides I hadn’t been invited. I thanked them and walked on through the club.

  “Nick, hey. Where’s Lucy?” My garage-loving friend had emerged from the men’s room and twirled me around in a hug.

  “She’s in the music room.” He released me. “You coming in?”

  “I’m actually looking for someone.” He paused, waiting. “You know Ralph, the critic from the Mail? I’m trying to get in touch with his friend Connor—tall guy, thin, dark hair?”

  “Sorry I can’t help you, love. Come in later if you want to dance.”

  I didn’t, and he was gone. I squeezed into the bar to order my fourth Diet Coke of the night and caught myself tapping the bar with my fingernails. My skin was crawling, as if someone was watching me. The caffeine was beginning to make me jittery; without all those greasy ribs, my ears would probably be ringing from the buzz. I put the thick bar mug down, pushed it away. Time to move on, at least to free up the bar space.

  “Suze, hey, what’s up?” I was happy to see my old roommate standing in line for the bathroom.

  “Theda! Oh, hey, not much. How’s Rick?” It had been a while.

  “We broke up.” Saying that didn’t hurt anymore. “He moved to Arizona, actually. Can you believe it?”

  “Wow, sorry.” A stall opened up and she took it. I grabbed the next and when I came out, she was gone. A quick perusal of the room revealed a few more familiar faces, but none was the one I was looking for. Could that be Ethan over there? I cringed and closed my eyes, realizing that I didn’t want to hear more stories of how he’d been screwed over. But when I opened them, the sullen writer was nowhere in sight. Suddenly I felt very tired. I was imagining things, and that feeling that someone was looking at me returned. Fatigue, age, and now paranoia? What did I expect, cruising the rock clubs, anyway, at thirty-three, looking for a guy I’d made out with once? What kind of connection could I have made with someone based primarily on volume and beer?

  That way madness lies, I told myself. Besides, I had legitimate questions for Connor, in addition to my romantic longings. Pushing off the wall, I made my way through to the back room, where Ted the bouncer waved me in.

  “Arr-arr-arr-arr-arr.” Okay, that wasn’t what the band was shouting, but that’s how it hit me, the volume amped up strong enough to blow my hair back. “Arr-arr-arr!”

  Through the crowd I could make out Nick and Lucy, both jumping in the peculiar head-bouncing dance they’d made their own. It wasn’t pretty, but I knew if I could see their faces, they’d both be beaming. Somehow they’d found each other. They’d bonded in a way Rick and I never had. Maybe it was because Rick would never dance. Maybe I should have known from that. I went up to the bar.

  “Diet—no, club soda.”

  Kelly, the back bartender, raised her eyebrows. I nodded. It was too loud to explain fatigue, age, and a pointless quest. She garnished my plastic cup with a wedge of lime and I tipped gratefully, glad to have something in my hand as I continued on through the room. I couldn’t shake the feeling that eyes were following me, and turned around. A tall figure over by the soundboard looked familiar, and I headed over.

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry.” At least it was only club soda, I thought as I shook my drink off my hand and arm. The hulking shape bounding past me had already disappeared into the dancing mob. I looked back to where I’d thought I’d seen something, but the tall figure had disappeared.

  “Was there a tall guy here, black hair, like a minute ago?” I yelled into the ear of the band’s manager, pushing one of her braids out of the way to get through.

  “What?” She was standing behind a table of merchandise—tee shirts, CDs, bumper stickers—at the far back of the club, but the volume was still deafening.

  “Tall guy? Dark hair?”

  “Sorry!” I didn’t know if that meant she hadn’t heard me or hadn’t seen anyone like that, but I didn’t think I’d get anything else from her. I smiled and made my escape.

  “Loud, huh?” Ted the doorman didn’t look surprised to see me emerge so soon.

  “Oh man, and I forgot my earplugs! Who are they?” I stood to the side as he collected five-dollar bills from a steady stream of black-clad patrons.

  “Noise Toy, from Rochester. Not your thing?”

  “I’m too old, Ted.” He didn’t contradict me, and I made my way back to the bar.

  “Risa! What’s up?” I actually found a seat. “No, no beer tonight. Just club soda.”

  “You on the wagon?” She put a clear mug in front of me, but waved away my money.

  “Just tired. I’m actually looking for someone. You seen Ralph’s friend Connor here tonight?”

  She wiped the bar. “I thought I did, earlier. Did you check the music room?” So that had been him!

  “He’s not there anymore.”

  “Can’t help you then, hon. Gotta work.” She moved off down the bar, leaving me to my unwanted soda, looking out over a room of strangers.

  “You know, you might try Iggy’s.” I looked up. Risa had returned to my end of the bar. “I shouldn’t be saying this.” She shot a glance over at Lou, the manager, who held court about five feet away. “But they’ve got a killer bill tonight. That’s where all the over-thirty crowd is probably hanging.”

  So it wasn’t just me. I thanked her and grabbed my sweater from where I’d stashed it, behind a pillar. Next stop, Iggy’s.

  mmm

  If I’d thought the Casbah was crowded, I’d obviously not been out in a while. Not at the right places, anyway. Iggy’s was so packed, I’d had to park three blocks away despite the emptiness of the Financial District neighborhood at this hour. The sounds emanating from the club served as a sort of wavering beacon, growing loud as the door opened, then muffled again as it shut.

  “Seven dollars.” Iggy’s had come up in the scene since this winter, and I wasn’t known here as a writer. I forked over the cover and offered the back of my hand for its third stamp of the night. I’d remembered to leave my sweater behind, and was grateful. The room I stepped into was as hot as a sauna, packed nearly to capacity as far back as the bar. It was going to take me a while to work through this crowd, and my eyes were already gritty from cigarette smoke and lack of sleep. Time for more caffeine.

  “Diet Coke?”

  The bartender filled a plastic cup without looking up, and I pushed a few singles over the wet wood. The cool helped, and I held the sweating plastic to my brow. The band didn’t hurt either. Unlike the Cashbah’s hardcore attack, this trio had more of a slow grind going, its punk roots made deliberate and weighty as a sledgehammer. I leaned against the bar and closed my eyes. No chance of falling asleep here, not standing up anyway, but the music washed over me. This is what drew me back, I realized as one song gave way to another.

  My reverie was broken by a sharp jab. I caught my drink from falling and looked over to where the knock had come from. The couple necking next to me had grabbed each other, and a flying elbow was oblivious to my bare arm. Love, that’s right, I thought. Careless love. But I took my cue to begin working through the room, starting down the bar and then weaving through the crowd.

  “Hey, watch out.” I’d stumbled, too tired to keep up with the heav
ing crowd, and this time it was me who spilled my drink, all over a young guy in leather and his goth-looking girl.

  “Sorry, man. Sorry.” I made feeble brushing motions at the wet spot on his biker jacket.

  “Bitch.” I could read the word in the sneer of his girlfriend’s lip rings, but what could I say in response?

  “Sorry,” I repeated, to the space they’d left. Not wanting to repeat the mishap, I finished what remained in my cup and maneuvered over to the side bar to leave it. There it was, a glint of light. A flash as if someone was shining a lens on me. But when I looked up, it was just the mirror that ran along the back of the bar. Sunken eyes, floating on huge bags, stringy hair curling every which way, no wonder I was spooked. I placed my cup down and turned away. The music seemed to have lost its power.

  “Theda, hey babe. Whatcha doing?” Like a vision, Tess appeared before me, as cool and calm as a young tree at an oasis. “You want to hit that party later?”

  “Oh, Tess, I can’t. You wouldn’t believe everything that’s been happening.” I almost threw myself against her.

  “Come here, girlfriend.” She wrapped one arm around my shoulder and led me over to a corner. Somehow it seemed quiet in her presence. “Okay, what’s wrong?” Her dark brown eyes looked straight into mine. “What’s going on?”

  I wanted to tell her, wanted to get the whole damned mess off my mind. But what would make a complicated story over coffee would be incomprehensible in a club. So instead I just said I was looking for someone.

  “That guy Connor. You met him the other night, at the Casbah? Was he around here tonight?”

  “Why are you looking for this man—and looking so wrought up about it? I don’t like the feel of this, Theda.” She put her long fingers under my chin and raised my face up to hers. “What does this man have on you? Why are you so hung up on him?”

  “No, no.” I shook my head. If I hadn’t have been so tired, I would have laughed. Her questions were the same ones I’d been asking only a day before. Now such different ones were crowding them out of my head. But there was no time, and I lacked the energy. Instead, I pulled away. “I don’t know him well enough for that.” At some point later I’d tell her about our one date, time enough if all worked out and he was innocent of my paranoid suspicions. “I need to talk to him about something else. Something about a story I’m working on.” I hated lying to Tess, but it was the quickest explanation I could come up with.

  “Well, I haven’t seen him, girlfriend. Not here.”

  “What about Ralph? They hang together a lot.”

  She looked at me for another moment, considering. “No, not that scumbag either. Look, I don’t like the sound of this and I don’t like the way you’re looking. But if you’re set on finding either one of those guys, they might be at that party, the one I called you about. It’s happening over on Thayer Street. One of the old lofts that’s going condo. I think it started soon after dark, and I know it’ll go on till dawn. That’s Ralph’s scene, at least it was the last time I was in town. You might check that out. But maybe you’ll wait for me? I’ve got to talk to these guys after their set. It might mean a gig, but I could head out right after.”

  “Thanks, Tess.” The idea was appealing, but I didn’t have the time. “I can’t wait.” She took my shoulders and looked once more into my face, but I shook her off with a smile. “I’ll probably be there and gone by the time you show up. Home asleep. But we’ll do something soon, I promise.” With one last appraising glance and a hug, she let me go. I wanted nothing more than to go home to bed. Or, if I couldn’t, to hang with her in this calm corner, and let the music soothe me. But I had questions I needed answers to, and so I made my way to the door, out into the relative quiet of the city at night.

  mmm

  I hadn’t asked Tess for the loft’s street address, but I didn’t really need one. The area had changed a lot since I first started clubbing, the industrial bearing works and paint wholesalers giving way to galleries and high-priced housing. But the big brick buildings still had a style of their own, evoking the Boston of a century before, when industry and shipping more than high tech or higher education had been the city’s claim to fame. This end of Thayer still grew quiet at night, at least during the week, and once I parked it was easy to locate the party from the sound and light that drifted down four stories to the street.

  There was an elevator, a huge one for loading machinery, but I opted for the stairs that wouldn’t announce my arrival in such a grand manner. Two flights up, I started to regret the decision, but then I was there and a door opened onto red light and music, the sound of laughter and in the distance a bottle breaking.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.” I nodded to the slumped figure that leaned against the wall. A large plastic mayonnaise jar by his side was labeled “Donations,” so I shoved a few bucks through its wide neck and walked on by.

  The wall he was supporting was a fake one, I noticed, erected as a baffle to subdivide the room. It ended as soon as I turned the corner and entered the loft’s dim main space, lit as much by the continuous highway construction outside as by the few red bulbs someone had plugged into a standing lamp. Over by the windows, a wall of glass divided into small dirty panes, a couch covered by a tattered chenille throw invited me to sit, or even sleep. But the real action was farther back, where I could see the silhouettes of dancers. They were illuminated by a primitive stage spot, red again, focused on the two blues women I’d seen on Saturday. The music they were grinding out was intimate and low, a sexier, lazier sound than they’d been working on the weekend, and all the dancers were moving slowly. Tuesday, in the middle of the city, but there had to be forty people here at least. After midnight I knew the crowd would double.

  I listened for a while, enjoying the seductive ebb and flow of reverb, and realized I was drifting off on my feet. I started walking to the makeshift bandstand, the better to view the assembled throng. Dark hair, but—no, in the moving spot I saw the reflection of glasses. Not Connor.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me.” I seemed to have two left feet, tripping over dancers and earning myself some hard glares. Nobody looked familiar anymore; nobody looked up at my voice. I reached the end of the room and turned around. From the edge of the stage, caught in those red spotlights, everyone’s face seemed flat. The warm blood-tint made them all appear strangely cold, their eyes dead. But someone somewhere was alive. Again, I felt eyes on me, like a butterfly pinned to a mat. I turned away.

  “Beer?” I looked up and saw Ralph. Dear old Ralph. I could have hugged him.

  “Ralph! Oh, no thanks. Do they have soda?” He shrugged and I looked past him, to where two large plastic garbage cans were filled with ice and cans. I found something with sugar and caffeine and snapped the pop top. The cold alone was refreshing.

  “What brings you here?” I was watching Ralph, but he was looking elsewhere.

  “Oh nothing. Not much.” He was watching the dancers, though I couldn’t tell if he’d picked out his prey for the evening.

  “Is Connor here?” I tried to sound casual and followed my question with a large swallow of soda.

  “He was, somewhere.” Ralph looked at me. “You know, you should really let him pursue you, Theda.”

  I choked on my drink and coughed, and he had the graciousness to pat my back. “Here, put that down.” He took my can and placed it on the speaker behind us and turned back to me. “Now breathe.”

  “I’m breathing. I’m breathing.” I bent over, my hands on my knees, the air returning to my lungs. “But what did you mean by that?”

  “We were out at some other clubs earlier, knew this wasn’t really going to heat up until midnight, and someone—that bartender at the Casbah maybe?—said you were looking for him. No man wants to be chased, Theda.”

  “Thanks, Ralph. It’s not what you think.” He shot me a look and I reached back for my drink. I needed to cool the hot blush that had risen up my chest. I took a long swallow. “But anyway, is he
here?”

  “Can’t help you if I don’t know,” said Ralph, his attention clearly elsewhere. I saw him eye a single woman gyrating in front of the band, and with a muttered farewell he left to make his move.

  What was I doing? For the umpteenth time that night I asked myself the question, and the answers that surfaced weren’t ones I liked. I was clutching at straws, seeing conspiracies that leaped social boundaries and linked people who lived hundreds of miles apart. I was out of it, weaving an identity out of imaginary crimes and half-forgotten acquaintances. I was lonely, I should face it, and had let thoughts of one bad date grow to assume nightmare proportions. Maybe it was time to throw in the towel and go home, take a shower and go help Violet. But first, one more circuit around the room. If I could only find Connor, it would put so many questions to rest.

  I turned back toward the speaker, thinking to leave my empty can there. It was only about a foot away, but as I turned it seemed to waver, to ripple in the stage light, and I couldn’t quite reach it. Funny thing about those lights, those flat red lights. I took a step closer, but the floor started bucking and heaving from all the dancers and all the movement. I stretched out my arm to reach for the wall and then it too seemed to weave up and down and down again as the can grew too heavy to hold. I heard rather than felt my hand release the empty as it dropped to the floor with a bang that echoed and echoed, and from a great distance I saw it start to roll away and swim and whirl. I opened my mouth to yell at it but my mouth was too dry, and all that left was my breath. With great effort, I looked up, at the red light, which pulsed and glowed and grew till it covered the stage and the ceiling that swam to meet it. Until it turned to black.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I woke up to the rasp of a warm tongue and the feel of fur in my mouth.

  “Musetta? Whoa, kitty.” I removed the small beast, who had been carefully washing my face, and sat up. From the pounding of my head, it seemed not all of that fuzzy mouth could be blamed on the kitten. “What happened?” I was on top of my bed, fully clothed, though my shoes were off. The clock said 7 a.m. I had no memory of how I had gotten here, or where the rest of the night had gone.