Part 23 (1/2)
Escape tip 31: Look like a lady, fight like a fiend
As I unwound led hts by y silver floor-length goith the plunging neckline, tummy control panty hose, and killer heels My faux-blond hair isted up in a chignon with strands wisping down to partially conceal my face I wore the centipede lashes and carried a beaded purse the size of a gumball
After a week of perfect weather, the skies had opened and it was spitting rain The limo driver held an umbrella over my head as I tottered forward on my torture-device spike heels Labeck shambled behind, rained on and unnoticed, mere scenery as far as the driver was concerned All around, i from their Mercedes-Benzes and Audis and old-fart Olds the museum steps to the site of the BodyWorks Ball
Protesters lined the sidewalk, waving signs and catcalling Grave robbers! Hitler did it, too! Sharand out three thousand dollars a plate for this event hurried past like hedge fundthe perp walk
The driver leaned down and whispered ins, the pony hawk and the wispy goatee He looked like a professional chauffeur in his dark uniforenta's Halloween costuuessed that Rico's usual mode of transport was a rip-stick The liest, shi+niest Cadillac in the Hertz fleet
”If that kid puts his hand on your ass again I'rowled I wanted to tell him to shut up, but ainst the hard struts of s tres as alked up the steps and into the building
The litzed up for the occasion White fairy lights twinkled in a forest of shway billboards hung froo and the words: Funded by the Brenner Foundation Sponsored by Senator Stanford T Brenner Way to get yourself publicity, Bear, you intestinal parasite
We followed the crowd of tuxed oomen up the staircase to the second floor and into an enormous room The suits of armor and the Aht and the room had been transfored around the roo candles An orchestra was tuning up on a raised platform and the Channel 13 news crew, tipped off by Labeck, were setting up their equipment in a corner
Labeck led me to a table near the center of the room, next to the coht of hand worthy of David Copperfield, he shi+fted the guest placards set there to an adjacent table and pulled out a chair foratop the table Who was the moron who'd decreed that wooith purses so useless you could barely cram a Tylenol into them?
Every female eye in the room was riveted on Bonaparte Labeck He looked fabulous, his tux e his wide shoulders and tri off his ruddy skin His hair was trimmed, he'd shaved to within an inch of his life, and his dark eyes glinted with mischief and excitement
Phase One of Operation Payback was acconized me
A waiter materialized next to us ”Would you folks care for drinks?” he asked
I looked up at a grinning Eddie Arguello He looked splendid, too His hair was back to its natural black, his little mustache looked like it had been hair-sprayed, and his Hombre fumes overpowered the cut flowers He wore black pants, a white shi+rt, and a black bow tie he'd borrowed from a cousin as a priest
”Any trouble?” Labeck asked
He was talking out of the side of his rinned He set a glass of cha dark pants and a white shi+rt, looking like all the other Mexican waitstaff, and they figure I' s one out for me”
”You look very authentic,” I told Eddie
Wonderful s from somewhere close by, but I kneouldn't be able to eat I'd be happy if I just ed to not throw up The e crowd and the food was being prepared by a catering staff I happened to know this because Labeck and I had spent the last two days researching every detail of the gala, trying to anticipate proble out which co for the shoerful its sound syste the PowerPoint presentation
Drinks in hands, people were slowly drifting toward their tables These were Milwaukee's elite, people able to pay six thousand bucks a couple to prove what culture vultures they were A lot of thenized from my days as the little-nobody wife of a Vonnerjohn scion Beer barons, floor wax nates, politicians, media people-anyone anted to see and be seen and could finagle a tax credit off the cost of the ticket
Gazing around, I suddenly caught sight of Vanessa Vonnerjohn a few tables away She angled her head in our direction and I quickly ducked behind my menu When the seconds ticked by and she hadn't leaped onto a table, pulled out an Uzi, and sprayed ured she hadn't spottedher usual bouffant helmet, freshened up with a coat of black lacquer for the occasion What was that thing she earing? A sequined gold tube that flared out at the hips into swirls of spangled, poufy net So its skirt She had defied the fashi+on fatwah decreeing teensy evening bags in favor of a quilted klunker the size of a mail pouch What did she have in there-a boorenade launcher?
The lights suddenly diain,” and a spotlight played on Senator Stanford Brenner as he jogged jauntily up the steps to the orchestra platforh this guy was donating a kidney, for Pete's sake-all he'd done was cough up a chunk of change from the Brenner corporate coffers He probably saved his personal piggy bank for thugs and slugs
”Please” Bear held up his ar hed I alhed, too Hand it to hi e of conscience had buried me alive and when that had failed, had ordered his toadies to burnI'll be quick-that's what hter Good one, Bear
”And you can have your dinner while I' on, so you can block me out and concentrate on your lobster” What modesty, what charain, glancing down at the cheat cards in his fist ”BodyWorks is currently the top-selling oes, people ht to marvel, because the bodies are real The bodies are carefully preserved through plastination, a process similar to lamination Each one of these marvelous sculptures is insured for half a ot the CEOs' attention Bear flashed a grin ”Noe've all had to endure that gauntlet outside, those protesters who claim these bodies come from executed Chinese prisoners Not true, I assure you In fact, when I die, I want to be plastinated, too They can prop me up at the Yacht Club Bar My staffers assure hter You're slaying 'ean handing out salads ”Everything's set to go,” he whispered ”I switched the couy a hundred bucks to disappear”
”You'll all have a chance to tour the exhibit after dinner,” Bear was saying, ”but right now, here's a little appetizer”
Doors at the side of the roo open and two museum staff members rolled in the appetizer on a wheeled base The orchestra launched into ”Touch My Body,” a version so white-bread it would have h the crowd as the wealthy benefactors craned their necks, oohing and ahhing and applauding
It was a horse and rider Both had been skinned and had parts of their muscles and skeletons exposed It should have been repulsive but was oddly beautiful, like a da Vinci anato done in three dimensions Muscles flexed, tendons tautened, sinews stretched, bones burst from epiders, his long golden mane and tail preserved The skeletal rider, whose spinal coluh he were about to lasso a runaway steer Blue glass eyeballs, set into the skull sockets, were fra, real eyelashes It was beautiful and macabre at the same time; the Rider of the Apocalypse does the rodeo
Bear was ha around the sculpture, hands clasped behind back, playing this for all it orth ”This looks like the nag I bet on last tihter The VIP bets on loser horses, just like the rest of us What a swell guy
”I'd like to take credit for bringing this show to Milwaukee We beat out Baltio”
Wild applause Milwaukeeans hate Chicago
”But it was our fabulous co with the museum staff, who are responsible for this wonderful exhibit I think the following presentation will highlight their contributions”
My stomach loop-de-looped and ripped , warin
The horse and rider rolled away at a snap of Bear's fingers, ato the stage, Bear started reading frolided to the computer and tapped keys Slides scrolled across the screen
”These are our hardworking committeeVanessa Vonnerjohn, huddled around a table, s for the camera
”So mission” Apparently the fact they'd found was that they could charge their poolside roo our budget” Bear and the co lunch at an expensive restaurant
”And here we have-” A scrawny teenaged boy next to a half-nakedup to block the camera
The audience tittered at first,the photo was a put-on, part of the show Bear turned to see the screen, and his face went as pale as his shi+rt
”The boy in this photo was naenta, in full macho male mode ”He's fifteen years old in this picture The ly shorts is an American businessuel's brother, Luis Both boys were off-the-books employees at a Brenner container plant in Janos, Mexico”
”Turn that thing off,” bellowed Bear, squinting against the light, trying to see as running the computer
”Stan Brenner had another off-the-books activity,” continued the voiceover Photos appeared on the screen in rapid succession, their details now sharp and clear, thanks to Labeck's techno-juju