Tuki feels her head starting to spin. She starts for the stage to sit down for a moment. But her knees are buckling.
The next thing she knows she is lying on the stage, Delta is pressing a wet towel on her cheeks, forehead.
“You faint, la. But you okay.”
She tries to rise up on an elbow. Delta pushes her shoulders back down against the stage.
“Not for you. No more look. This terrible sadness.” Tears are running down her cheeks.
“I don’t understand.”
Delta turns her head and starts to cry. “Not your business.”
He gulps his beer, hardly tastes it because his mind is racing. If you believe the police reports, she is a cold-blooded killer, a psychopath, an arsonist, and a high-priced escort tied into a nasty nest of tranny prostitutes. But from the stories she is telling him about Bangkok, she seems hardly the type to trade sex for money. Or murder. She does not sound crazy. Maybe a little out of touch with reality, but not nuts. He sees her as loyal and loving, and nearly obsessed with performing. She seems to idolize her surrogate mothers. And she is attached to a homespun morality that she keeps reinforcing with a collection of Thai proverbs.
He thinks that she is a little sad, definitely in need of approval. Even her deceptions, the shoplifting, the sneaking out in drag as a teenager, seem remarkably innocent for someone who has grown up as she has. Hell, he did a lot worse back in high school in Nu Bej. He and his buddies boosted a beer truck once and threw a party at Horse Neck Beach for a cast of hundreds. But Tuki? She left flowers when she stole from the boutiques. True, she seems to have a tendency toward revenge when she is betrayed, but who doesn’t?
He tosses down the last of the beer as if he is eighteen again and the police are chasing him down a dark road. He crunches the can in his fist to destroy the evidence.
“Everybody, back off,” he feels like howling. Prostitution, murder, arson just do not make sense here. Not with the Tuki he knows. Not unless someone has been squeezing her.
Forget about a restaurant meal tonight. He has got to order out for a pizza again, sit here at his table, and read the cop reports. He wonders how he can get his hands on the videotape that supposedly puts the stolen knife, this dha, that killed Big Al in her hand. He wants to see what the police and the D. A. already think they know, exactly why they charged her. And he wants to see what they have missed.
He needs to start putting together a list of suspects that does not include Tuki. Other people with motives, opportunities, means to kill Big Al and torch P-town. People who maybe have something against Tuki, too. People who would frame her. Maybe people from the Follies. Maybe from this escort service that she has talked so little about. Maybe business associates of Costelano. Or someone from Thailand. Maybe even some kind of international mob.
Time to dig in. Do the research, pal. No big deal. Just about six months worth of work in … how long until the trial? Twenty-seven days.
EIGHTEEN
He has polished off most of a pepperoni pizza, and still tastes the salt and grease, even after downing a bottle of water. Michael stares out the window at the fog glowing more yellow than ever in the lights of Chatham’s Main Street. He can hear chords seeping from a piano bar up the street, a soft, female voice sings “As Time Goes By.”
This Thai detective. What the hell’s he mean he has reason to believe that she may well be in immediate danger?
Maybe the guy is jerking him around. There is something kind of sketchy here. Something about the way the detective talked, like he was reading a speech. But the phone number he left looks real. It has about twelve digits.
His instinct is to call Tuki, tell her about the second phone message and grill her about Thailand. So he does. But she has shut off her cell. She is probably at the Follies getting ready to go onstage. So now he punches in the number of the Thai dick. It seems to take forever before the phone rings. But it finally does. And before he is ready, there is a voice at the other end, speaking in Thai at first, then English.
“Hello. Hello. Who there?
He just listens.
“Speak … please, speak.” A cough. A grunt. A rough phrase in Thai. The voice sounds hollow, not menacing exactly, but more ragged, less easy with its English than the smooth one on the tape. He pictures an emaciated little ferret, chain-smoking in a window-less, concrete cubicle.
“Hello?”
This call seems all wrong. He clicks off. He needs to get control of what the cops already know before he goes wading into a Bangkok swamp. But he better get on the stick. The guy says she is in danger. Start with the escort service. What else did she tell him this afternoon?
The sun is warming her face as she wakes up in the hammock on the bedroom deck of the Glass House at Shangri-La. There is no noise except bird songs and the light rush of wind in the trees. The water on the inlet is a perfect topaz. Alby is nowhere in sight. But someone has put a knit blanket over her.
She hears a woman’s voice saying that she likes to see a girl smiling to herself. The voice is Ruby’s, the hostess. She is standing in the doorway between the bedroom and the deck in a sheer burgundy robe, holds a tray with orange juice, coffee, English muffins.
Tuki stretches her arms over her head, swallows a yawn.
Ruby says that everybody but Alby sleeps late around here. It is after ten.
Tuki yawns again, listens while Ruby tells her how Alby said not to disturb her. How she looks like an angel when she sleeps.
She smiles, takes the tray on her lap. Wonders if she can just stay gently swinging in this hammock, listening to the birds sing … maybe forever.
Later Ruby sends her off with a cup of coffee for a morning shower in what she calls Bungalow Number Three. Alby is kind of particular about the bathroom here in the Glass House. Let it be.
Bungalow is not exactly what she would call the little building she finds among the trees near the inlet. Number Three is more like a miniature fisherman’s house along the klongs of Thonburi—but not so rickety and not so poor looking.
It has a big picture window, a porch with a hammock near the water’s edge, baskets of hanging ferns … everything gray and woody. The shower is a cedar enclosure outdoors on one side, but it has one glass wall looking right back into the cottage. When she takes her shower, she can gaze inside at the studio apartment with potted palms, a giant turtle shell on the wall, a queen-size bed on a low frame, a tiny kitchen. Maybe the best part of all is that she can look right through the house and out the open picture window to watch a family of ducks paddling on the inlet.
Ruby meets her as she walks back toward the main house, the party place. She is still wearing the burgundy robe. She kisses Tuki on the cheek, asks her if she would like a little tour of Shangri-La.
After about thirty yards of walking, they come to another little bungalow, identical to Number Three, except that the fabric on the curtains and the bed are all pinks and greens instead of oranges and yellows. Before the walk is over, they have circled around the knob of a small hill, seen two more places just like her bungalow hidden in the forest on the hillside. She notices that these three bungalows are occupied. Women’s shoes are scattered here and there, lots of clothes in the closets. Ruby says she stays in the bungalow nearest the party place. She calls it the Lodge. It is strictly for entertainment. For the first time since she has been here, Tuki realizes that Shangri-La is on a small island. Cars cross a little bridge over a lagoon to get here.
Ruby says that when Alby is here, he keeps off by himself in the Glass House. But he is hardly ever around to help with the day-to-day needs of the compound. That is Ruby’s job. He is always at the office or flying off in the Lear to one place or another. He rarely shows up at Shangri-La, except on the weekends to throw parties. The long-term guests pretty much have the place to themselves.
There is a Jacuzzi looking out over the inlet. It bubbles away on one end of the deck at the Lodge. The spa is the size of one of those large wading pools for kid
s you see on TV. When Tuki sees it, there are two silhouettes that seem to wiggle like fish beneath the waves. Sheryl Crow is whining about leaving Las Vegas over the sound system.
Silver shoots her a plastic, eff-you smile.
Nikki gives a little wave.
Tuki smiles, cannot think of what to say. She cannot figure out what is going on here at Shangri-La. Why are these other queens here? In Alby’s spa?
Nikki pulls herself up on the side of the Jacuzzi, groans, says that she has had enough of men in the last twenty-four hours to last her the whole summer. She is looking unusually girly in a purple one-piece. Little buds of breasts. She looks at Ruby standing there beside the spa and says she needs a night off. Nikki is not pleading, she is coaxing—or is it flirting?
Ruby reaches over with a wet hand and brushes the hair off Nikki’s forehead. Calls Nikki “sweetheart.” Says why doesn’t she crash after her show? Nobody will disturb the little Russian tart.
Suddenly Tuki is starting to get a picture. Nikki, Silver, Ruby. They all live here.
Silver says, “For the moment, honey,” and growls, like maybe she is thinking about a change. She has a margarita going for herself in an ice-filled beer mug. Takes a long drink, closes her eyes, turns her back on Tuki.
Nikki smiles again. “This is home, sweet home, padruga.” Tuki still does not get it. How can showgirls afford a plush place like this?
Nikki says Richie works a deal. Takes a hundred a week out of their salaries.
Tuki raises her eyebrows. That is peanuts. She thinks she smells rotten fish. She just does not know how rotten yet.
Ruby says that the Great One, Alby, likes the girls to be around when he throws parties for his friends.
Tuki feels something hard and heavy in her chest. Alby is a collector. Shangri-La is a tranny stable. Now she wonders what last night with him was really all about. And she is thinking that it is time to leave when Nikki catches her eye.
She says Shangri-La is not what Tuki may think. You do not have to date anybody if you do not want to. The queens are Alby’s stars. He has other girls and boys for the dates.
“We are hoping you might like to join our sisterhood,” says Ruby. “Say, the word, Number Three is yours for the summer, meals included.”
Nikki gives a hopeful grin.
Tuki still smells rotten plaa, but her body is whispering shamelessly in her ear, “Take a little risk, la. You can walk anytime.”
NINETEEN
The screeching of gulls outside the window wakes him. It is morning. He is still in his clothes, at his worktable, his face planted against a yellow legal pad. He rubs his eyes and stares around him at the shambles of his attic as if he has never seen it before. He still has one foot in a dream about riding out a wicked storm on Georges in the Rosa Lee. When he raises his head, his eyes catch on a note that he must have scribbled on the legal pad before he fell asleep last night.
WHAT WENT DOWN THE NIGHT OF THE MURDER?
He staggers to the sink, spoons two tablespoons full of instant Folgers into a cup, adds water, locks it in the microwave. When it is hot, he settles at his table and finds the police report about events leading up to Alby’s murder.
Tuki gets to the Follies a little late. Silver is already onstage. Richie is running around croaking like a bullfrog, worrying whether she is ever going to show up, when Tuki comes through the door. His eyes shoot lasers. She gives him a look. She is in no mood to take any of his you-know-what.
“Just let me put on my makeup in peace and quiet, la!”
Nikki is in the dressing room adding the final touches to her Janis Joplin gear. She is in a panic to talk and sits down on the stool next to Tuki at the makeup mirror.
Tuki is just about to brush some static into her dreddy curls. Tonight, for the new show, she is going with her own wild-woman hair. Nikki takes the brush. A little look, an understanding, passes between the two. Then Nikki starts stroking Tuki’s curls while she works on her eyeliner.
Nikki says that things have gone from bad to worse at Shangri-La.
Some kind of special knife or letter opener that Alby got in Vietnam is missing. His favorite thing. And Silver says she is missing two DVDs, her greatest music video gigs. The ones she uses for promotion. Tuki sighs.
“Padruga,” says Nikki, “Silver is telling Alby and everyone at Shangri-La that she saw you sneaking around the Glass House when it was getting dark this evening.”
Alby and Silver were having an intimate moment when Silver claims that she spotted Tuki coming into the room, taking the DVDs from the TV stand, the knife from the desk. But the Great One did not see. And Silver did not try to stop the robber because they were in the middle of having sex. And it was good sex.
Tuki does not know what is cutting harder in her heart—news that Silver is accusing her of theft from the place where she has only been once in her life, or that the man who said he loved her just forty-eight hours ago is having sex with Silver.
She is way past crying. She thinks her head is splitting from the sound of her screaming heart. But when she opens her mouth, nothing at all comes out. Her body is suddenly shivering all over … Nikki hugs her until they hear hoots and clapping for Silver’s last number.
Nikki stands up and smoothes out her pink mini, gives her friend a big soft kiss on the lips. She says forget about the prick, Alby. Get out of town while there is still time for a clean escape. Then, like almost everybody else Tuki has ever loved, Nikki goes.
Tuki is weighing her options when Silver comes back into the dressing room in a platinum wig and a blue sequined evening dress.
“You are a lying rat,” says Tuki.
“Come again?”
“You told everyone you saw me steal his—”
“Just stuff it, love, will you! Nobody is buying any more of your poor-little-miss-space-cadet bullshit. Your stupid little wannabee twat is toast, dearie.”
The Ice Queen raises her chin, looks down her nose at Tuki, gives a real Sharon Stone, eff-you-for-ever-living smile. Then she reaches into her big sequin purse.
“Here, darling, you might want this.” Silver throws a pink dildo in Tuki’s lap.
“Go sit on it … when the cops lock you up, babe!”
Tuki is beginning to taste blood. She has a rat-tail teasing comb in her hand, moving in, turning the tables on the Ice Queen.
“Oh, bugger off, you cheesy wench,” says Silver. She is backing away. “You don’t have the balls to—”
“You set me up, la!” She is closing in on Silver, holding the tail of the comb out in front of her. “You are jealous! So maybe you are the one who steals his dha. Maybe you take your own DVDs. Maybe you are saying you saw me do it because you are so—”
“In your dreams, darling. Please, spare us this little scene. Just cut the crap. Face the facts, bird. You’ve been caught for the lousy thief that you are. I saw you, the new security camera saw you. Now Alby has seen you. You slipped right into his room in that stupid blue bathrobe of yours. Then you took my DVDs and the knife. Got it, love? Your skinny little mulatto ass is grass. Caught in the act. And if you think Alby is going to stand between you and the cops, you are dreaming!”
Maybe she hears all this. Maybe she does not. But either way, Tuki’s head is spinning from the stench of this mound of dead river carp that Silver is trying to shove her way. The truth about where she was when the dha and DVDs were stolen? She was taking one of her long walks along the Race Point beach with her friend Prem. She was not even within ten kilometers of Shangri-La.
So! So the Ice Queen is lying through her teeth about watching her steal … Alby seeing her … all of this new security camera trash.
“Ja long thii nii,” This is where I get off.
“Speak English, you stupid gash. Face it, you had him. But you lost him, Tuki, because you’re a greedy, jealous, vengeful, little low-class cunt who thinks jewelry and paint can make her what she ain’t. Just like bloody Ruby!”
Smoke is filling T
uki’s head. Now she is backing the witch out onto the balcony that hangs over the alley. And when she has her up against the railing, she spits in her face.
“That’s it, you stinking piece of bung fodder. I promised Richie I’d let you finish your show before I kicked your cunt all over Commercial Street. But that’s it, bitch. You lose. Kiss your ass goodbye!”
The next thing she knows, Silver’s hands are around her neck. Her eyes are starting to pop out like a couple of plums.
Her heart screams.
Then she slashes. Really slashes! She feels the pointy end of the aluminum rat-tail comb sink into Silver’s left breast and rip toward her belly. She screams. Her hands fly off Tuki’s neck. Blue sequins shoot everywhere. The top of the dress tears open and splits right down to the waist. Blood spreads across her torn white slip. And when Tuki pulls the comb away, it has a size-D falsie stuck on it.
Provincetown Follies, Bangkok Blues Page 8
