Part 13 (1/2)
She said, ”You're a cop, are you? Just a cop?”
”I beg your pardon?”
”I don't believe you. I don't believe you're a cop, and I want you out of here, right now. Sooner than now.” She was standing again and looming, prepared to bully me if it came to that.
”I'm not here to make any trouble for you,” I babbled. ”I spoke to your parents last night.”
”Get out.”
I stood up, too, since I wasn't willing to be the only one with my b.u.t.t that close to the floor, and I wanted to give her the impression that I wasn't the kind of girl who takes bullying lying down. ”I won't get out, not until we have a chat about your sister,” I said, running with my practically-totally-obvious theory that I was talking to the estranged brother.
She was visibly thrown, for all she tried to hide it. Her breathing was suspended for a pair of shocked seconds, and beneath a trowel's worth of cream shadow, her eyes widened, then contracted. ”My sister?” she asked, committing to nothing, but not ordering me out of the dressing room, either.
”Your sister. Your little sister,” I added, extrapolating from the approximate age of the person in front of me. Sister Rose was in her late twenties or early thirties, by my best approximation. ”Isabelle deJesus, who went missing about ten years ago.” I then parroted everything I knew from the closed and semi-sealed police report. ”She never came home from school.”
Rose went from discreetly shocked to stricken. She wanted to know, ”Why now? Why you you? I don't even know who you are. You say you're a cop, but I'm sorry, I still don't buy it, and I want to know what's really going on. What do you want from me?”
”I only want to talk about your sister. I know you've had a falling-out with your family; I went there first, and it was your father who finally gave me this place, and your...your stage name, as a lead.”
”But why?” she demanded, more desperate than commanding. ”Are there any new leads? n.o.body cared a decade ago. Why now?”
I held out my hands and said, ”Please, sit down. Let's both sit down, and just have a little talk. I'll tell you what I know, and you can tell me what you know, and maybe we'll have a productive conversation, okay?”
”Okay,” she said, not certain that she meant it, I could tell. She descended slowly back onto her seat-a small, round vanity-style stool that didn't look large enough or strong enough to hold her. ”Okay, but you have to tell me the truth.”
I agreed and likewise backed down gingerly into my seat, being careful to keep eye contact. ”Let me start over,” I tried. ”My name is Raylene, and yours is Adrian-yes or no?”
”Yes.”
I was almost surprised. I almost expected a token denial, or at least an insistence that it used used to be her name, and now it was Rose, et cetera. But no. All she said was, ”Yes.” So I said, as a gesture of good faith, ”You're right, I'm not a cop. But I don't work for the government, either, and that's what you're afraid of, isn't it?” to be her name, and now it was Rose, et cetera. But no. All she said was, ”Yes.” So I said, as a gesture of good faith, ”You're right, I'm not a cop. But I don't work for the government, either, and that's what you're afraid of, isn't it?”
She didn't really answer, except to flip her head in a disdainful shrug. She said, ”Motherf.u.c.king meatheads.”
”Right now, those are my sentiments exactly,” I commiserated.
She countered loosely with, ”Oh yeah? What have they done to you lately? Did they ever kidnap your little sister and refuse to give her back? Did they ever try to hunt you like a dog, and chase you into hiding?”
”The first part, no. The second part, actually yes. yes.” I was already out on a limb anyway; I figured I'd go in for a pound if I was in for a penny. ”That's how I ended up here, in a roundabout way.”
”Looking for my sister?”
”Sort of.”
”Sort of?” It wasn't quite a question. It was more of an accusation. ”Who are you really, besides some very pale woman named Raylene?”
”I'm not a cop, but I am am an investigator,” I said. an investigator,” I said.
”What kind of investigator? And why won't you tell me what you know about my sister?” Something funny in her tone made me wish I was a stronger psychic; I wanted to surrept.i.tiously poke around in her mind while we talked, but I'm not good enough to get away with it. It's not like walking and chewing gum at the same time. It's like patting your head and tying your shoes.
”You've already expressed some hate for the government. Was that because they had your sister's case closed?” The scowl I received wasn't a satisfying response, so I kept pus.h.i.+ng. ”Someone went to great lengths to seal your sister's case. Were you aware of this?” I asked, which pretty much exhausted my guesses and credible suspicions.
”Yes.”
”And?”
”And what?” She drummed a set of flawless acrylic nails on the vanity table and pretended to adjust the dress around her knees.
”And you know more than that, don't you?” I only realized it as I said it. ”It's more complicated than that, isn't it?” I had this moment of epiphany, and there was almost nothing I could do about it, because a knock on the door interrupted us. It wasn't the firm, secure knock of I Totally Belong Here; it was a knock of Jesus Christ Get Your a.s.s Out Here.
This was heartily confirmed by a b.i.t.c.hy tirade on the other side of the door. ”Honey, all G.o.d's children need that G.o.dd.a.m.n dressing room, and Dave's screaming about the electric lemonade. You going to get out here and set the bar, or am I going to tell him you're holed up with a date?”
”f.u.c.k off, f.a.n.n.y,” Rose growled-all man, all of a sudden.
Rose swiveled, stood, and leaned the two steps across the dressing room to the door. Whipping it open, the drag queen added, ”I'm having a little conversation with the police right now, if you don't mind. I'll be done here when I'm done here, and until then, you can p.i.s.s right off, do you understand me?”
f.a.n.n.y got it, but f.a.n.n.y made a scene about it. ”Oh fine, sir sir. You big scary b.a.s.t.a.r.d b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you. I'll pa.s.s it along, you giant f.u.c.king c.o.c.k-up.”
Rose slammed the door, and under the makeup I was having a hard time not seeing Adrian, who was big and angry, and rather startlingly masculine. I questioned my p.r.o.nouns as well as my personal security, for all that this was silly, I was undead, and what was he going to do, scratch my eyes out?
This stupid thought made me think of Ian, and I almost thinked myself into a panic spiral.
Rose was still standing there, hand on the back of the door, either holding it shut or holding herself upright with it. The performer was pondering something, a.n.a.lyzing something. Evaluating something-me, I guessed-and I was worried about where the roulette ball was going to settle.
On Rose's left biceps I saw a shadow that had a funny shape to it, and it took me a second to figure out that I was looking at a tattoo covered in makeup. I wondered what it looked like when it was unhidden.
I wondered what Rose was going to say, and then she started talking.
”f.a.n.n.y will be back in under a minute. I swear to G.o.d, I don't have time for this.” There was no softness, feigned or otherwise in what Rose was saying. If I hadn't been staring at her, I would've a.s.sumed she was a thirty-year-old man who was royally p.i.s.sed and ready to punch something.
”For what? For me?”
”For you. For this conversation. For right now. The doors open soon and I have to start the night working the bar, because our guy is out sick and there's no one else who can do it, and if I don't do it, I'll blow this gig. This cover,” Rose added, almost as an afterthought.
Footsteps came clipping down the hall, and it was the sound of high heels on carpet that didn't have any padding under it.
Rose said quickly, ”Here she comes now, fresh from tattling. Look, you have to leave.”
”Not until-”
”No. Right now Right now, but we can talk later. Not here. Not like this. I don't trust it, and I don't trust some of these people.” She waved at the door, indicating the people on the other side of it in general, maybe f.a.n.n.y in particular. ”And I don't trust you, exactly, but I get why you're holding back, and maybe we can help each other. I don't know. But I'm willing to talk.”
”Later?”
”Later,” she said as the knocking on the dressing room door commenced afresh. ”When I'm off tonight. Around the corner and down the street there's an all-night diner. Meet me there.” The knocking grew louder and grouchier, and it was underscored by obscenities. ”I won't talk here. I can't talk here, and you shouldn't shouldn't talk here.” talk here.”
”Me? What do I have to do with anything?”