Mary, Queen of Scotch

by Rob Rosen

  Ironically, I found myself in what looked like a den. I say ironically because I really couldn’t find the bathroom. In any case, when I spotted the laptop on a mahogany desk the size of Panama, I gently closed the door behind me and, heart again madly pumping, sat down in the leather chair.

  The laptop flicked on with a swipe of my finger. The laptop was password protected. I was an excellent detective; I was a lousy computer hacker. Not surprisingly, they don’t teach you how to break the law in detective school. Which is to say, I hadn’t a clue how to get beyond the password. Also not surprisingly, the word password and 12345 didn’t work. Arthur was a jerk, but not a stupid one.

  My eyes, now accustomed to wandering south, soon landed on a drawer. Mahogany, it should be noted, is hard to password protect. Lock up? Sure. But a lock, ah, now a lock I could pick.

  Long story short, there was a paper clip on the desk, not a bobby pin. The lock was old. It took all of fifteen seconds to open it. See, short.

  There were loose papers inside, a few pens, a watch, a Chinese takeout menu. I’d broken into a drawer that held typical drawer stuff. Including, drumroll please, a checkbook. In fact, it was Arthur’s checkbook. I knew this because of the monogrammed A.S. on the leather cover.

  I opened the checkbook. I flipped through the pages. Chad was sad. I quickly realized why. Yes, he and his husband had a vast house, but as to vast fortunes, nope. Actually, they seemed to be practically broke. But how? And why?

  “Huh,” I said, setting the checkbook back in the drawer.

  “Uh oh would be more appropriate.”

  I jumped. I looked up. “I, um…” It was Arthur Slade. In the flesh. And the flesh was holding a gun. And aiming it my way. “I was looking for the bathroom.”

  He closed the door behind him. “Please don’t piss on the desk, Barry; it’s an antique.”

  “Takes one to know one.” I gulped. I was nervous. Well, terrified, really. And so, my mouth was a bit quicker than my brain on that one. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  He grinned. It wasn’t a nice grin. With Arthur, it never was. “I could say the same for you, detective.” He moved in closer. “I already knew what was in the lab report. After all, you used my credit card. All I needed to do was call the lab and give them my number. They gladly emailed me the report a minute later.”

  “So why did you agree to meet with me then?”

  He shook his head. “Because I knew we wouldn’t be meeting. Why would we? Why would you want to share that lab report with me now? You’re off the case. And if you really wanted me to have the information, you would’ve already given it to me. All that is to say, I knew you were up to something.” He pointed at me, at the desk, at the closed drawer. “Something.”

  “Maybe I was just trying to protect Chad.”

  He nodded. “Yep, and I’m guessing that’s why you’re in my den right now. Chad is worth protecting. I know because that’s my fucking job, not yours.” The grin, as one would guess by the language, was no longer on his face.

  “Is that why you’re broke? Does protecting Chad require a lot of cash?”

  The gun was now three feet away. I could see down the barrel of it. “I never liked you, you know.”

  I nodded. “The feeling was immediately mutual.” My gulp came back with a vengeance. “You hired me because I’m a middling detective with an online education. Your once-partner hired my father because he was a middling accountant with a family to support. History repeated itself. And yet, we were both too smart to fall for either of your shit.”

  “Pretty brave for a man with a gun held his way.”

  I shrugged. “Chad is down the hall.”

  He tilted the gun sideways. “Silencer.”

  I gulped. I pointed at the rug. “Blood stains.”

  “The rug isn’t an antique. It can be tossed. It and you both.”

  I sat back down. This wasn’t my day. Or week. Or month. Starbucks was looking better all the time. “You hired me to spy on Tom Nolan and Lester Smithson, not Chad, right? On Pearl Necklace and Auntie Bellum? On the ex-cons who are anything but ex-drug-dealers.”

  He sat across from me. “You’re surprisingly smart for an idiot.”

  “I’ll be sure to put that on my LinkedIn page.”

  “You like Chad, right?”

  I nodded. “He’s a likable person. Very talented, too.”

  And now he nodded. “Which is why I fell in love with him. Most everyone does. As you’ve seen. And taped.”

  I exhaled with a knowing sigh. “You had me use the cam, not to spy on your husband but on what’s happening down at the bar, the drug dealing, Auntie Bellum, your ex-partner, Pearl Necklace.”

  He smirked. “I gave him that name. He has his proclivities, you see. But all is not what it seems, just the same.”

  I smirked. “They’re being blackmailed by Lester. Lucy and Pearl, I mean.” A light flickered above my head, as said lights tend to do, though perhaps a tad too late. “Ray, perhaps? Maybe even more of them?”

  He groaned. “Like I said, surprisingly smart. Like father, like son.”

  It was a compliment. Hell must’ve frozen over. “Which is also why you hired me. My father knows too much about you. Or so you reasoned. If he should come forward with what he knows, for whatever reason, you could always use me as a bargaining chip. Perhaps set me up for a fall. Or…” I pointed at the gun. “Threaten me with bodily harm.”

  The gun got shook my way. Or maybe it was me that was shaking. “But we’re beyond all that now, I’m afraid to say.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You know far too much. You know surprisingly more than I ever would’ve assumed you’d figure out. All you needed to do was spy on my husband. It was an easy case, given that he really does love me and would never cheat. I gave you an impossible mission, and one that would eventually need a cam, a cam that could spy beyond just Chad. But I didn’t take into account my husband’s likeability, or you getting curious about more than just his fidelity.”

  I nodded. I now saw the bigger picture. “You love Chad.”

  “Told you so.”

  “And he loves you.”

  “Very much.”

  I retrieved the checkbook. “You went straight, so to speak.” His nodding returned in full force. “Much of your money came from illegal doings.” The nodding continued. “But Chad had already been in prison. You didn’t want him to go back or maybe didn’t want to have him visit you there. So, you gave up the illegal shit.” I shook the checkbook as he shook the gun. “Now, you’re broke.” His nod stopped nodding. He frowned. “Does Chad know?”

  “Chad knows. Chad is protecting me.”

  “So, you’re getting blackmailed,” I said. “By Auntie Bellum. Either Chad works for her or you get turned in by your ex-partner.” Which explained why the very talented Lucy still worked at a rinky-dink bar in the middle of nowhere.

  “Tom Nolan can implicate me in certain activities and can do so without implicating himself. He set me up for a fall and then bided his time before pushing me over the edge.”

  “And Auntie knows that. So, she’s blackmailing him, too. She has all these people running her drug ring through a series of blackmails. She was in prison with them, knows all their dirty, little secrets. She hired them and then turned on them. And Chad potentially risks losing everything just to save you. And you, therefore, hired me so that you could keep a watchful eye on him and on your enemies.”

  With gun still in hand, he clapped, frowning all the while. “Funny,” he said.

  “Not really,” I replied. “Maybe you should look up the definition of the word.”

  “No, I meant, funny that you pieced all that together, and yet, you missed a piece. And it was sitting under your nose all the while. Sitting under any number of various body parts, I would imagine.”

  I stared at him, at the gun. That lightbulb of mine dimmed, then flickered, then burned bright enough to make my eyes water. Everyone was being
blackmailed. I said it. Arthur agreed. Everyone. “No,” I practically cried.

  He nodded. “They were all in prison together. Well, not Ray, but Ray worked for me, for Tom, in his much younger days. Auntie has something over on everyone. “Even—”

  “Jeff.”

  He stood. He walked my way. “Come on. Before Chad finds us in here.”

  I stood, my legs trembling, heart breaking. Jeff had promised me that he was on the up-and-up. I believed him. I believed him because he was my boyfriend, because I more than likely loved him, because I desperately wanted to believe him, to believe that people could change. But who had changed here? There was no ex- anything. A leopard doesn’t change his spots. You can cover said spots with makeup and a boa, but they’re still there, just below the surface.

  “Where are we going?” I barely managed to squeak out.

  He was behind me now, the gun poking at my back. I wondered if I was agile enough, if the age difference was enough for me to tackle him, to wrestle the gun away from him. But when you have a gun poking you in the back, you tend not to wonder too long. Meaning, he said go, and so I went.

  Which is how I found myself in the basement with him a moment later. “Chad will never forgive you if you killed me.”

  He nodded. “Yep. True.” I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a short-lived sigh. Which made two of us—short-lived, that is. “So, I’m going to kill you, and he’s never going to find out. You’re a detective. You went missing. Probably happens all the time.”

  “Well, not all the time.”

  The gun was aimed at my face. Ugh. “Enough of the time.” He pointed with his free hand to an overly large cask in the corner of the also overly large basement. “A gift from a friend.”

  “You have one of those? Huh. Never would’ve guessed.”

  He grimaced. I think. With Arthur, it was hard to tell, what with that being his usual look. “Pretty smart-ass for a guy with a gun to his face.”

  I shrugged. “Nervous tic. Some guys blink a lot; me, I nastily quip.” I pointed at the cask. “Besides, I won’t fit.”

  “Care to make a bet on that?”

  FYI, as we all well know, I lost that bet. I mean, that’s how this whole thing started, with me in a giant whiskey barrel filled with, of all things, scotch, right? And to repeat, dying inside a whiskey barrel is not how I pictured myself going. But, to be fair, whoever could’ve imagined such a scenario? Not me, and I was in such a scenario. In fact, I was in a giant cask of scotch with a very limited air supply, shouting for help.

  “Help!” I was also pounding on the wood—which, for a change, wasn’t a pleasant euphemism. “Help! Help! Help!”

  Suffice it to say, I was helped. I mean, I’m telling this story, so, clearly, I didn’t die in that scotch barrel. Got a little tipsy, sure, but die, no, not so much. Nope, the lid lifted maybe five minutes into my imprisonment, and up I looked, into the light, into a man’s face above, haloed like an angel.

  I squinted into his eyes. “I’ve been meaning to tell you: I think we should break up.”

  He winked. For a change, I didn’t pop a boner. But, given the circumstances, which were dire at best, I think my dick needed a break. “That’s a funny way of thanking me for saving your life. Again.”

  “You’re a drug dealer, Ray.”

  He shrugged. “Not by choice.” He reached a hand in and helped me up. Dripping and reeking of booze, I shook off the excess like a dog in a rainstorm. He wiped the scotch from my eyes, which, even for me, was an odd occurrence. “I was young, Barry. Still a teenager. I worked for them, for Tom and Arthur. Easy money. But money with consequences.”

  I nodded and peeled off my shirt. “They own you now. Turn them in, turn yourself in. That sort of thing.”

  He frowned. “I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you. I couldn’t tell you. And I didn’t know what you were up to anyway.” His frown stayed frowny.

  “I wish I could’ve told you.” My frown joined his for a little do-si-do. “Water under the bridge now.” I licked my lips. “Or maybe scotch. Speaking of which, how did you find me so fast?”

  “You found the envelope in the microwave.”

  “How did you—”

  “You didn’t stick the envelope back right. It fell. I spotted it maybe a minute after you left. You didn’t just find that envelope; you must’ve been looking for it, or for something. I figured, since everyone else at the club had a secret to hide, that must’ve included you. And since you found out my secret, maybe, for my own safety, I needed to find out yours. So, I followed you, and since you stopped limping as soon as you left my place, I knew I had good reason to follow you. I’ve been following you ever since.” He pointed to the open cask and allowed a brief smile. “Guess I was smart to do so.”

  “But how did you find me down here, and so fast?”

  That little smile of his grew a tad bit bigger. My dick did the same. Guess my dick had recovered from its near demise. Guess that made two of us. “I snuck around the back. I saw you and Arthur through a window. I saw the gun. There was an open window. I climbed in. I saw you two head down here. I waited a bit, saw Arthur return, but not you, and, voilà, Ray to the rescue.”

  “But what if I’m the bad guy and Arthur is the good guy?”

  “Are you the bad guy?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Seems like I’m the only one who’s not. And I’m a detective, not an accountant.” His frown returned. “Sorry. And, to repeat the previous question, are you really a bad guy, Ray?”

  “I was. We all were. The entire cast of us. Auntie used that to her advantage.”

  “And now?”

  His head moved from left to right and back again. “Good guys doing bad things against their wills. Me, Chad, Jeff, all of us, every last drag queen in the place. Auntie has something on everyone. Even the man who put you in that cask.” He pointed to said cask. I trembled at the sight. “Or so I’m guessing.”

  I touched scotch-sticky finger to scotch-sticky nose. “You guessed right.” I looked at the door he came through. “We need to go.” He nodded. I nodded. “But how? What if Arthur sees us? Or Chad?”

  His smile returned. “The scotch.”

  “Good quality. Not good for drowning in, but still.”

  He rolled his eyes. I sometimes had that effect on people. “I meant, that’s a massive barrel of booze. How, do you wonder, did they get it down into this basement?”

  “Arthur and I walked down a flight of stairs.” I glanced at the door again. “Would’ve been next to near impossible to get the barrel down here that way.”

  As I said, the basement, like the barrel that now sat open inside of it, was massive. It was full of boxes, dusty furniture, discarded odds and ends. Which also begged the question, how did it all get down there?

  “There has to be another way in here,” said Ray. “An elevator or a dumbwaiter.” He moved away from me and quickly started moving boxes around. “Check the walls. Move shit around. There has to be a way all this stuff got down here.”

  I nodded. I ran to the nearest wall. I moved boxes. I moved the furniture light enough to move. I’d started to dry off, but was soon again sticky, only this time with sweat. Ironically, I found our salvation behind a six-foot-tall-plus Tom of Finland print.

  “Look,” I said.

  He squinted my way. “Too big to be an original.” He thought about it for another second. “Oh.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. Oh.” I moved the print. There was a dumbwaiter behind it, a large one, big enough to lower furniture, art, massive whiskey barrels, even two men, two men who almost, sort-of dated, until one of those men found another man, and both the other men betrayed the first one. So, even though I smiled at finding an exit, of sorts, I quickly grimaced at having to share it with both my Jesus and my Judas, my savior and my betrayer.

  Drama much? Fine, so sue me. Still, it was an odd situation at best. Better than dead, sure, but only by a smidge.

  We hopped in. He pushed my whiske
y-wet hair from my face. I pushed his hand away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “To be fair, you were being just as sneaky, lying about who you were, using me in a way.”

  Here came that sigh of mine again while I pressed the up button. “I’m sorry, too. I get crabby when someone tries to kill me.” And also when my boyfriend, the man I trusted, double-crosses me. And when I’m riding in a dumbwaiter. And when I’m surely about to go from out of the frying pan and into the mansion fire.

  We reached wherever we were a moment later, the large box coming to a smooth halt. Slowly, I slid the metal doors in front of us open. I held my breath. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. Heck, I could hear Ray’s heart beating in my ears. Worse, I could hear the sound of metal sliding against metal. Worse-worse, we were in a laundry-room/storage-room. Which wasn’t what made it worse-worse so much as the fact we weren’t alone in the laundry-room/storage-room.

  “What the fuck?” It was Chad. “Where did you run off to? Why are you in the dumbwaiter? Why are you all wet?” He waved his hand in front of his confused-looking and yet oh-so-adorable face. “And why do you stink like the bar at closing hour?” He pointed at Ray. “I don’t even know how to phrase the next question.”

  I nodded as Ray and I hopped out, the two of use now facing the one of him. Ray looked so sheepish, I half expected a baa to come out of his mouth at any moment. “It’s a long story, Chad.”

  “I have the time,” came the reply.

  “Um, yeah,” I said. “Except, we, uh, don’t.”

  “Because?”

  I again nodded. “Because someone is trying to kill us.”

  Ray pointed my way. “Not us so much as him.”

  “Confused,” said Chad. “You were jogging. You were just in the front of the mansion, and certainly not way back here. It didn’t seem like anyone was trying to kill you.”

  I blinked. How did I tell him the truth? And was he any safer to be around than his husband? “It happened in the interim.”

  “In the interim? On the way to the bathroom?”

  I touched fingertip to nose. “Bingo.”