You Don't Know Jack (5 page)

"Oh."

He wound the scarf loosely about my neck, then checked his own appearance. "I need something too... ah, yes, this will do."

He plucked the deadman's tie from Ken's shoulder and held it up to his chest. It was gold with flashes of blue like fireworks star bursts. Pleased, he plopped it around his neck, leaving the knot to gape at his collar bone. Then he glanced at me again. "Now, there's just one more itsy bitsy thing. Do you suppose you can manage to
sound
more like the Diva of Twang?"

I considered that, dredging memories of Dolly singing and speaking voices from my mental storage bank and tried, "How about this, ya'all?"

Apollo made the sign of the cross. He's not Catholic.

"I don't suppose you want me to try singing like her?"

"God, no." He shuddered. "Don't sing. And stop worrying. It's not like you'll be performing at the club, just night clubbing."

Night clubbing. As though I'd been grabbed from behind by a mugger the smile left my face, leaving only a belly full of fear.
The Black Boutonniere Killer
chose his victims from among those who partied at clubs like
Jaded Edge.
What might I be dragging Apollo into? I caught his wrist. "Promise you won't leave my side... even for a minute."

"Even to go to the men's room?"

"Promise."

"Okay, okay. I promise not to leave your side. I'll only go to the men's room when you have to pee, too." He laughed, his mood light, jubilant. "Can't wait to see you use a urinal."

"On second thought, you can't come."

"What?" The smile fled Apollo's face. "Just because we'll be in a men's room together? You can't be serious."

"I am." I had the sudden fear that my need for a pal on this adventure might very well put Apollo in real danger... from a serial killer. Maybe I was being foolish, but I would not risk my BFF's life.

"Really Nancy, I thought I was your Helen Corning, your George Fayne and Bess Marvin..."

Nancy Drew's sidekicks
. I rolled my eyes. Not easy with the double faux lashes. "Normally you are. Just not tonight."

"Why not tonight of all nights?"

"If I tell you that I'll have to kill you."
If you come with me, you could end up the next victim of the Black Boutonniere Killer
. I couldn't tell him that, and I wouldn't put him in jeopardy. "Promise me you'll go home and stay there. Promise."

He didn't like it, but he nodded with a drama queen sigh. "Only if you promise to text constant updates."

"Deal." Relief swept through me, followed by an eerie sense that despite my precautions something awful was going to happen tonight.

I stood before the double wide, copper entrance to
Club Jaded Edge
, a converted Seattle warehouse close to the waterfront, grappling with my nerves. The damp night air was doing nothing good to my Dolly Parton makeup. If I put off entering much longer —

"'Bout time you showed up, girl." Apollo appeared at my side like a bouncy, flashy apparition.

I almost wet my pants. I swore and glared bug-eyed at him. "What the hell are you doing here? You promised you'd go home and stay there."

Nervous energy sparked off of Apollo. "I went home, but it felt wrong. I couldn't miss your special night. Your debut. First time undercover. First time in a gay bar. Oh, stop frowning, you'll end up more wrinkled than a limp dick."

I sighed, resigned. Containing Apollo was like trying to bottle a genie without a cork. "You better stick to me."

"Like Velcro." He laughed, and my stomach clenched.

The beat of the live band playing inside, the boom of the bass bouncing off the aged brick and reclaimed pilings, had my foot tapping happily, in complete disregard to my anxiety.

Apollo said, "You're about to lose your gay-bar virginity."

"Seems like there should be a ceremony to commemorate this moment," I said.

"You mean, like a bar mitzvah or a Confirmation?"

Or a fairy dust sprinkling dance
. "Yeah, something like that."

"Get over yourself." His nervous hands gave me one last swipe. "There. Rock star. Now, show us some Crest Whites."

My mouth muscles wobbled. "I can't shake the feeling something awful is going to happen if we cross that threshold."

"Only thing you're dreading is straddling a urinal."

Yeah, there was that, but it was only part of my nerves. My goal for tonight's investigation: Find out how Stone was using Lars' life partner Bruce to help catch the BBK.

An awful thought struck me. "What if Stone is here?"

"Stone? Why would he be here?"

Oops
. "No reason. He wouldn't."

"You have Stone on the brain."

Too true.

"You need to get over that man — or under him."

Again, too true.

"It's opening night jitters."

"You're right. This is my first real undercover investigation. I should be nervous." Especially since there was a real possibility I might rub shoulders — or something — with a serial killer.

And Stone. Though Stone didn't really bother me. I could handle him. Probably. Maybe.

Besides, chances he'd be here tonight were fifty/fifty. Thirty/seventy, even.

Why not zero/zero?

Apollo grabbed my purse. "You did remember the tools of your trade, yes?"

"Why don't you check?" As though he weren't already doing that.

"Digital camera, cell phone, recorder. All here."

"Too bad you didn't find Valium or chocolate." Or tequila. I reclaimed my clutch. "How am I going to carry this off? With my wits? My experience? My non-existent brass balls?"

"You'll think of something."

That was the problem, I would.

He pulled me inside to a foyer that might have been lifted from a forties movie palace, every detail art deco — in shades of gold and turquoise with marble flooring.

Lively music and jubilant customers beckoned from the lounge beyond, but Apollo insisted on introducing me to the current performers — via their life-sized publicity posters. Bruce was the only one I recognized because he looked enough like Britney Spears to be her clone.

"And this is the late Jade Edger." Reverence reverberated in his voice. A whole wall bore framed images encased in glass of the late Jade Edger decked out as Liza, Barbra, Bette, Cher, Madonna, and Tina.

Apollo said, "Some memorial, huh?"

I couldn't answer due to a sudden surge of hatred for HIV and AIDS and the damage it inflicts on the lives of so many in the gay community and the world beyond. With a knot in my throat the size of a microphone, I dropped a ten spot in the AIDS research jar beneath the last Jade photo, one taken without makeup and in the late days of his battle to survive the combination of diseases that ravaged his body.

"Come on, girl, move, move. The fun is calling." Apollo urged me into the main salon, lured by the body-swaying rhythms, the bursts of laughter.

I don't know what I imagined a gay bar would look like, but certainly not this. Had I been teleported to Vegas? Would the Pussy Cat Dolls materialize before my eyes? The entrance was on the fourth tier of four tiers. Half-moon shaped booths served as seating and a staircase ran through the middle down to a packed dance floor and an open bar. All of it centered around the stage.

"Isn't it grand?" Apollo gushed.

"That's an understatement. It's breathtaking."

"It is
the place
to be and to be seen."

Apollo might think this nightspot was the bomb, but to me it was a world of potential heartache, of sexual promise — where one night with the wrong person could change your life forever — leave you emotionally destroyed, or infected with an STD, or bleeding in an alley with a black carnation on your chest.

Just like any normal bar — except for the being murdered part.

"Our table's this way." Apollo pulled me down the stairs, toward the stage and bar.

As we passed one booth after the other I made a discovery. "Hey, I'm not the only Dolly Parton here."

"I told you no one would notice you."

"For once in my life, I might blend."

"As long as you keep your lips zipped."

"I'll pretend I have laryngitis." And keep my ears and eyes open, my guard up.

Apollo shuffled down the stairs to the beat, his little fanny gyrating like matched ball bearings, his shoulders shimmying, his head bobbing. "Our table is on the main floor next to the dance area."

As we descended, I realized beautiful women were everywhere. At tables, on stage, and kicking up their heels to a Barbra Streisand favorite. I caught hold of the tip of the starburst tie and tugged Apollo to me so my mouth was near his ear. I gestured to the room around us. "I had no idea so many men were transvestites."

Apollo arched an eyebrow and smirked as though I were funnier than Jack Black. "My God, I really must get you out on the town more, girl."

He pointed to a couple at the table nearest ours. "Husband and wife."

"No."

"Yes. A lot of the women here
are
women. Even heteros enjoy quality entertainment. Dinah Edger puts out great show."

I felt as though I'd thrown open a window blind and discovered daylight where I'd expected night. "Why didn't you tell me I could have come as myself?"

His hand hit his waist and he cocked his hip, glancing at me as if I'd asked whether or not blood was red. "I thought you didn't want to be recognized. I thought you were working undercover?"

Oh, sure, throw the obvious at me. "I'm just surprised."

I'd expected
Club Jaded Edge
would be exclusively male, a dark, smokey dive. Brilliant deduction, Sherlock, what with current laws prohibiting indoor smoking. But that wasn't the real hiccup in my thinking. Somewhere in my blond head, I'd decided a person as skewed as a serial killer would hang out — as well as choose his victims from — a place that honored, welcomed, and even embraced a slightly off the norm lifestyle.

As opposed to somewhere I might normally hang.

This same kind of thinking occurs when we hear of a horrible crime committed against a stranger and think:
Thank God, that could never happen to me.
But the fact is, anyone can become a victim of violent crime. Ted Bundy, after all, selected his victims at a public lake access, for God's sake, and since
Club Jaded Edge
was like every other night club in the city, the reminder that we weren't safe anywhere flushed a chill through me.

"Apollo, maybe this isn't such a great idea. Maybe we should leave."

"Getting cold feet again?"

"No, but..." I should have told him about the Black Boutonniere's connection to
Club Jaded Edge
and how it was at the heart of Lars' reason for hiring me, and how I feared he might end up on the killer's radar, and how I desperately wanted to avoid that. But life was unavoidable. I couldn't bubble wrap Apollo and lock him in his apartment so that nothing bad ever touched him.

Another chilling thought hit. If the murderer was hunting his next victim at this club, I was also at risk, since I was passing myself off as a gay man.

"Stop second guessing yourself." Apollo admonished, obviously in reference to my frowny face. "You're on a mission, girl. You signed a contract."

That contract was the only reason I didn't
insist
we head back to the exit.

"This is our table. Sit." Apollo reeked of energy and excitement. "I've got to get out there and participate."

"You promised to stick to me like Velcro."

He pointed toward the dance floor. "I'll be right there in sight of God and everyone."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Signal a waiter. Order a bottle of merlot."

I arched a pointed brow.

"Oh, you mean the spy thing. Well, honey, I'm not the one who does private inquiries, that's your area. So, do what you always do. Inquire. Just. Don't. Talk."

Inquire, but don't talk?
Order wine, but don't talk?
I pondered how to do that as I scanned the room. I spied Frankie near the bar, his thatch of red hair like a flame atop a giant white candle. I shrank back on the booth seat.

Apollo followed my gaze. "Definitely don't talk to
him
."

"I don't see Bruce anywhere."

"He's probably in his dressing room."

As Apollo headed out to the dance floor, I signaled a wandering waiter and pointed to the wine menu. I wanted hundred proof tequila shots, but it wasn't on the wine list. Just as well. I needed a clear head. I was officially on duty. Like a cop. Like Stone. My gaze darted as I searched the crowd, half of me praying I wouldn't spot the one face that haunted my dreams, my fantasies.

The other half hoping I would. The other half ruled itself winner of the tug of war, and fear headed South, chased by my damnable deep-seated yearning for that man.