Chris laughed and so did Liz. He wanted to tell her about the painting, about the unlocked door.
“Where is your staff? Where are the actors?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “There isn’t any power, either.” He led the way back into the kitchen; tried the door to the basement, locked. “Liz, in that drawer there, there should be a ring of keys.”
Liz opened the metal drawer, the keys rattled. “No wonder people come and go here like they own the place, you leave the keys to the castle laying around like this.” She shook the keys toward Chris.
“Not the time.” He took the ring.
“Sorry. There should be people here. Something has happened,” said Liz.
Chris fumbled through the dozen or so keys, found the one he wanted, and pushed it into the lock. A twist of the key and a turn of the knob and the door flung open. “Hello?”
“Do you hear that?” Liz whispered. The former detective took the lead and ran down the stairs. The door between the kitchen prep area and the rest of the basement was closed and locked.
Pounding echoed through the door.
Chris rushed to it, tried two keys before he found the right one. Finally, it opened. There were cheers and tears and then silence.
“What the hell happened?” Liz asked.
Nancy Ann stepped forward. We were all doing our prep. Three guys with rubber Nixon masks wielding machine guns—”
“Assault rifles. Like the M-16, sort of—”
She cut the actor off. “They were loud, aggressive, forced us down here, took out the big fuse, and locked the doors.”
“Sweet Jesus, Mother of God, Buddha, Allah, Mary, Joseph, John Travolta! Is anyone hurt?” Chris asked; a catch in his throat. It was one thing to come after him, but a very different thing to come after the young people—his friends and staff.
“No. No one fought back. No one did anything stupid.” As she spoke, she patted the back of the actor who knew about guns.
“Why didn’t you call someone? Everyone here has one of those cell phone contraptions.”
“They collected them as we were hustled down here,” said one of the guys.
“Okay, everyone up and out of here.” Chris headed deeper into the basement. The folding file cabinet had not been touched or moved. From the top drawer of a nearby dusty cabinet, Chris pulled out a fuse. He took it to the box, put on the gloves, positioned the fuse in the tool, and shoved it into place in a light shower of sparks. Lights and sounds burst from all over the club.
“Sometimes, you’re so butch,” said Liz as Chris pulled off the oversized black rubber gloves and then raised his arms and showed off muscles that he didn’t have.
“I have to tell you something,” Chris whispered.
Liz moved closer.
“It’s gone.” Tears welled into Chris’ eyes.
“What?” Liz shouted.
“It’s got to be what they were after. Everyone is okay, the club is okay. The Streetwalkers seems to be the only thing that’s missing.”
“The Picasso?” Liz pulled Chris into a hug. The two stood there, embracing, supporting each other.
Finally, still clenched together, Chris whispered: “I’m sorry I haven’t been taking all of this more seriously. You’ve been trying for weeks…” The tears spilled and turned into sobs.
“We’ll get through this. We’ll figure it out together.”
Forty-four
Chris paced the loft. Into the living room, into the kitchen, into the bedroom, storage room, and office at the other end, and back again he walked, his bare feet slapping off his steps against the old floors. As he paced, he wracked his brain for anyone who might have something against him, anyone he knew of, at least. Being an old, performing drag queen, there were certainly a lot of people over the many years who weren’t thrilled Chris was on the planet. Not only bigots, but disappointed tricks, heartbroken boyfriends, the exes of men who’d dropped their lovers to be with Chris. There were parents of the guys who came out; those who worked at Tamburlaine over the years, too. And, spouses of… Anger mixed with fear mixed with anxiety as he explored his past in random images and bursts of memory.
He stopped in the kitchen. Elmer sat at the table, his feet up on a chair, a half-finished beer in front of him next to a legal pad. He’d scribbled names and doodles on the pad.
Chris poured more bourbon into a glass, downed the shot, poured more, sat with Elmer. “I wish I had a cigarette.” The mumbled words weren’t a request, but another random thought that connected this moment back into his past. “I think we’ll have to do it.”
“Do what,” asked Elmer. “Start smoking again?”
He smiled with tight lips. “Stroll through my entire past. Right? It could be anyone from my entire life, right?” He slumped into a kitchen chair, sighed.
“I don’t think a blow-by-blow meander through your sordid past will lead us to the answer.” Elmer nudged Chris with a foot.
Chris took hold of that foot. “You should put on slippers or socks, your toes are cold. He rubbed with both hands. “Why not?”
“Hmm, that feels great. I think that the major incidents are going to stick out. I think that whoever is out to get you wants more than just your demise. They want material things. If that weren’t the case, I don’t think they would have stolen the painting.”
“But, they didn’t steal the painting until they’d failed many times at bumping me off.” Chris released Elmer’s foot and picked up the other one. “People think they know what that painting means to me…”
Elmer put aside his pad. “What does it mean to you?”
“Nigel wanted Jimmy to have security. The painting—”
“No, that’s not it.”
Chris looked at his friend. “No. That’s not it. It was a joke—Jimmy tricked for cash. That’s how he raised the funds to originally buy Tamburlaine. Nigel owned the building and was a client.”
“Who stands to benefit from your death? Who does the bar go to? The artwork?” Elmer flipped to a clean sheet of yellow paper, drank more beer, held a pen at the ready.
Frustration mounted; Chris held back a scream. “Hell, just about everyone knew about the Picasso, whether they’d seen it or not. I should have listened. So many people said the paintings should be donated or sold to a museum or something. But, Jimmy…”
Elmer wrote “Jimmy” on his pad and drew a circle around the name. “When Jimmy died—”
“I’m sorry, but you don’t know anything about that time in my life, about Jimmy.” Elmer’s foot went rigid. “Sorry.” He released the foot. “When he died those paintings were there, they were his. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to move them.”
“Chris, when Jimmy died, more than thirty years ago, those paintings weren’t worth much. A few thousand dollars, ten thousand? Right? He’d gotten those paintings cheap because no one knew the artists, well, beyond Picasso, right?”
He didn’t want to give an inch, but Elmer was correct. Chris nodded.
“Now, Jimmy’s been gone nearly four decades. Those paintings have all appreciated beyond his or anyone else’s wildest dreams.”
Another nod.
“It’s amazing to me that something like this hasn’t happened long before now.” Elmer scribbled figures on his pad. “I think it’s time to admit all this and to find a better home for the paintings, even if it’s temperature-controlled storage.”
“No, not storage. Jimmy always said there was no point to storing art. It should be seen, even if only by one person who loved the work. Art should be seen.”
Elmer added that phrase to his pad. “Chris, Jimmy’s dead. You don’t owe…. Who benefits from your death?”
He resisted a long moment. He’d never told anyone this; no one knew Jimmy’s desires except for Chris and the attorney.
“Chris, tell me.” Elmer’s voice, so soft and tender, resounded inside Chris’ head.
“Okay. Okay.”
Elmer flipped to another fresh page.
“Jimmy had a nephew. His name is, well, was, Anthony.”
“Was?”
“Anthony died in the late eighties from a cocaine addiction.” Chris looked up to find Elmer glued to his every word. “Anthony married when he came into some money. He’d invested well, you remember the eighties? Everyone who had any cash got rich, easy. The woman, pregnant before the marriage, had twins. A month or so later, Anthony is found dead in a hotel room with lipstick on his dick.”
“So graphic.”
“The twins, Mary Alice and Brenda Lee—”
“The Brenda Lee?” Elmer’s eyes skeptical, his penciled eyebrows raised high.
“Silly.” Chris slapped Elmer’s foot. “They had a pretty good life—inherited their dad’s money, went to good schools, you know. Brenda Lee died in a car crash, but Mary Alice met a guy, married, and they had a daughter.”
“How do you know all this?” Elmer drew a naked tree and added the names Chris recited to the different branches.
“The way my will is written, whoever is the youngest member of that lineage gets everything. All of what Jimmy left to me, and all that I’ve created. The only clause from Jimmy was to leave his artwork to the youngest. I added my own stuff because I don’t have anyone to leave anything to. There is no family. I am the last of my own line. No cousins, no nieces or nephews. There is the slightest possibility that I have a child, but that’s very remote.”
“What? You have a child?”
“I don’t know. I fucked a woman. The only woman I ever had sex with in my life. She played me for a while, said she’d be having my baby, but the woman turned out to be nuts, crazy as a loon.” Chris bit off a hangnail, tasted bitter nail polish, spit the particle out of the side of his mouth. “No one has ever told me or come to me or informed me I was a daddy. Nancy Ann showed me how to do a Google search. I’ve done that for names, but haven’t found anything.”
“How do you know about, what’s her na…Mary Alice?”
“Every year, I send a Christmas card to them. Each year I receive a card in return. They know me because I was their Uncle Jimmy’s business partner. The generations have grown kinder over the years.”
“That’s it? Christmas cards?”
“They’re a Christmas newsletter family. Lots of details about their family and kids. For several generations now.”
“Is it possible that they know about their inheritance?” Elmer added mounds of snow around the base of his tree.
“I don’t think so, but who knows what others really think or know.”
“Okay, so far we’ve got Jimmy’s kin, your possible illegitimate child, and a crazy real estate developer. They’ve all got motives to whack you.”
Chris smiled at Elmer’s enthusiasm. “Hey now, this is my life we’re talking about.” He laughed into his glass before downing the swallow of bourbon from inside.
“Sorry, but I do get excited about figuring out cases. That’s why my success rate was so high.”
“I’m tired of talking. Can’t we go cuddle on the couch and watch a movie? A Chorus Line came from Netflix today.”
“Popcorn?” Elmer stood up from the table; he stretched his arms high toward the ceiling.
“Of course!”
Together, the two retrieved the fixings: hot air popper, bowl, butter, corn. As the machine whirred and blew hot air and the occasional un-popped kernel, Chris thought once more about the possible son or daughter he may or may not have. They’d be thirty-six or thirty-seven by now.
Forty-five
Chris paused the movie. “A Chorus Line would be perfect for Tamburlaine.”
“Sure,” said Elmer through a yawn.
At least he continued to agree with him from that place of near unconsciousness. Chris wanted to call Jerry, but they hadn’t spoken face to face since the director had walked out of rehearsal a few days earlier. Actually, they hadn’t really talked, not like civilized people, since the fight over Nancy Ann. He brushed popcorn crumbs off his blouse and slacks. Elmer let out a little snore. Chris got up, collected their glasses, bottles, and bowls and took them into the kitchen.
He washed dishes, setting them in the rack to dry. Without thought Chris dampened a dishrag and wiped down the counters, the appliances, just as he had done a million times before. His mind’s vision recreated the thankful and fearful and angry faces of his staff and the actors and crew at Tamburlaine when he finally got the door opened. What had been happening?
The phone rang, its volume intense after the long period of silence. Chris picked up the pink princess phone before the first ring subsided, hoping it hadn’t awoken Elmer. Lately, when he thought of Elmer, said his name in his head, Chris had started to hear the musical refrain from Funny Girl, “Nicky Arnstein. Nicky Arnstein,” every moment another opportunity for musical theater trivia. Without plan, he answered: “Hello gorgeous.”
“Shouldn’t I say that to you?”
Chris smiled. “No, I should say it to myself in a mirror.” He waited for a moment, a slight crackle over the land line. “Elmer and I watched A Chorus Line.”
“Horrible movie.”
“It would be great at Tamburlaine.” Chris hung the rag over the edge of the sink.
“Hm. Who is all ginger and jazz? Maybe.”
“Hey Mr. Producer, here I am.”
“Oh, Chris. I’m sorry.”
“Hm?” That apology could be good for a lot of offenses.
“I heard about the Picasso, about the gunmen.”
Chris moved the rag, straightened it, re-squared the corners. “I still don’t have a response to that.” He realized he missed Jericho. He’d gotten used to seeing him, to talking to him. Was he still that much in love with Jericho Taylor? Well, of course he was. He had something, some hook or something. Once he got into your heart you could never expel him, like heartworm.
“Are you there?”
That lost voice. That lonely man; the loneliest man Chris had ever met. And that said something.
“I’m here, Jerry. I just…”
“I know, kid.”
“Kid. Hah. Those days are long gone. For both of us. We know too much, have been broken too badly, have broken others so horribly.” Were they breaking up again? Really? Coming back together again? Really? No, neither were realistic.
“Are you still with me?”
“Jerry, where are you?”
“At your door.”
Chris turned on the monitor. “Hi.”
Jericho waved. “Hi.”
“Are you alone? I want you to be alone and sad and lost.”
“I’m some of those.”
“Not good enough. You’re not alone.”
“Jerry, we’re not kids anymore. You can’t show up at my door at all hours and expect to be allowed into my bed again and again. Your days of slapping my ass, of pounding my ass with that marvelous cock of yours, those days are done. We’re not that anymore. You may be that still; but I’m not.” Chris turned from the screen. He thought he might rearrange the towel again, or have a staring contest with the blue cat. But, when he turned and raised his head he never made it to the clock; instead, he found a different pair of eyes to stare into.
“No? We’re not all that?”
Chris knew he should hang up. He pleaded for forgiveness with his eyes. Elmer’s may have been too tear-filled to notice that pleading. Chris sighed, took up a paper napkin, walked to Elmer and wiped away those tears. While he pulled Elmer into a strong, honest hug, he said into the phone. “Not tonight, Jerry. Hail a cab. Go home. Sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow after the sun goes down.” And, with that, he ended the call. It felt so right, hugging Elmer, looking tow
ard the future through a few cloudy tears. Letting go of that part of the past, well, could anyone really let go of the past. Accept it? Perhaps. Allow it to be the past? Perhaps.
Chris leaned harder into Elmer. “I love you, Baby.” There, he’d said it. He moved a step further into the future, or at least a step further into the present.
“What was that call about?” Elmer asked.
It didn’t bother him that Elmer hadn’t responded with his own “I love you.” This all felt good, right. “I don’t really know. But, he’s back. He’s his old self. And, I told him I thought A Chorus Line would be a good show for the club.” For the club, not for us. A small, but important shift had occurred. “What do you want to do now?”
“Sleep. It’s the end of a very long day.”
Forty-six
Chris folded shut the Times arts section. “Still no Little Shop review.”
“By God!”
“What?”
Elmer shoved the open paper toward Chris. “They found your Picasso.”
“Stolen at gunpoint from Tamburlaine, a downtown night club, the Streetwalkers, believed to be a study by Picasso for a larger work by the same name, was recovered late last night in a warehouse in New Jersey filled with hundreds of stolen objects including art, cars, and—”
“Stolen art is rarely recovered.” Elmer added two spoons of sugar to his coffee cup. “Rarely.”
“Shouldn’t someone have called me? The police or something?”
“They should.” Elmer took the paper back. “It doesn’t say how or why they were at that warehouse.”
“I’m thinking I should do something with the painting. Loan it to the Met or something.” Chris leaned into the table, trying to view the upside down picture of his painting.
“That’s a very good idea.” Elmer turned the page.
The doorbell rang.
“Put a robe on. I might think your jingle and jangles are cute, but…”
Elmer stood, jingled his jangles in Chris’ direction, and left the kitchen.
Chris pulled up the video screen with the exterior shot. Two policemen stood squared at the camera. One of them picked his teeth with his hand practically inside his mouth.
Tamburlaine: A Broadway Revival Page 20
