Burn

28

A waitress at Lip Gloss said she thought she recognized Marla, but not Willa Krull or Portia Brant, which left Carver still only 90 percent sure that Marla and Willa shared a romantic relationship.

There was no dance floor at Lip Gloss, and only soft, piped-in music that sounded vaguely Middle Eastern to Carver. Art Deco was the theme. In the corners were large, curved banquettes that looked as if they’d been bought when the Stork Club closed. There were Egyptian murals on the walls, and the bar was constructed of glass bricks with glimmers of light inside them. Centered on the ceiling was an ornate silver-and-crystal chandelier. Small silver candelabra sat in the center of each white-clothed table, echoes of the chandelier.

Carver walked over to the woman behind the bar, a petite blonde who was wearing brilliant red lipstick to exaggerate a cupid’s-bow mouth and who looked like a 1930s Hollywood starlet.

“You look like Carole Lombard,” he told her.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I feel like Carole Lombard.”

“I’m relieved,” Carver said. “You’re young and I was afraid you weren’t going to know who she was.”

“I like her old movies. She’s sexy.”

“Sure was.”

“Is,” she corrected. “Stars like that live forever through their films.”

“That’s what they say on the movie channel.” He placed the photos on the bar’s sleek gray surface. “Do you know any of these women?”

“That one used to come in here occasionally.” She pointed to Marla’s photo. “She’s pretty enough to be a star herself, isn’t she?”

“She has a certain appeal,” Carver admitted uncomfortably. He did still find himself drawn to Marla, despite her apparent sexual preference.

“I never saw the other women,” the bartender said.

“How long’s it been since you’ve seen Marla?”

“So that’s her name. Probably a good one for movies. I guess a month or so. She was usually with other people. I got the impression she was a journalist or something, doing interviews. I mean, the customers here are mostly from the east side of town and are pretty wealthy. We see more than a few designer originals in here on Saturday nights. Marla was usually stylishly dressed in a kind of funky way, but it was easy to tell her clothes weren’t expensive. You develop an eye for that kind of thing working in a place like this.”

“The other people she was with, were they usually women?”

The bartender smiled her starlet’s smile. “Always. Sometimes we get men in here, but they’re usually cops.” She winked.

Carver wondered if she assumed he was with the police or had some kind of official authority. He decided not to ask.

“I’m not a vice cop,” he said, “so I’m not clear on some things. Does Del Moray have a large lesbian or bisexual population?”

“Who knows for sure? It’s large enough to keep us in business, along with a few other places across town on Victor. But there are plenty of women who are lesbian or bi and stay in the closet and never socialize, or who travel in circles too discreet for public places.”

“Your clientele would be especially discreet, I suppose, among those who do frequent public places.”

“Ha! People with their kind of money don’t have to care as much as other folks about reputation or image. They don’t have jobs to lose, and usually they have similar friends with plenty of money and time to get into bizarre stuff with them.”

“What kind of bizarre stuff?”

“The kind straight people engage in, only with variation. Our customers aren’t sex fiends, it’s just that they’re rich. You know, the devil and idle hands, idle this, idle that.”

Carver said he knew, then ordered a beer. It was too early for happy hour and he was the only customer, so he didn’t feel at all out of place.

“You a Marlins fan?” the bartender asked.

He said that he was, and she told him she enjoyed working in an upscale lounge, but that it wasn’t the kind of place that featured a TV, and she missed seeing televised ball games and discussing them with the customers. He wondered if she was lesbian or bi herself, or if this was just a job to her. That was something else he decided not to ask.

It seemed odd to be talking baseball with Carole Lombard, but that’s what he did until he finished his beer and went back outside into the heat and the straight world.

He drove into Orlando and parked outside police headquarters on Hughey a little after five. Desoto didn’t seem surprised to see him.

“I suppose you have questions,” he said. He was seated behind his desk, listening to a Spanish music station as usual while he did the paperwork that converted the chaos of crime into the order of fact and law, so that an illusion of understanding was created and it could be dealt with like any other service or commodity.

“I have information, too,” Carver said. He told Desoto about Marla and Willa Krull’s probable sexual involvement.

“I don’t know what that changes,” Desoto said.

“That’s what Beth said. I don’t know, either, but maybe it changes something.”

“Hmm,” Desoto said, and folded his hands on the desk, his rings and gold cuff links sending light dancing over the walls. Sometimes Carver wondered if he kept the office so bright mainly so he could enjoy his jewelry, sitting there shooting his cuffs and putting it all on display. No other cop Carver knew dressed like Desoto, suave and handsome enough to be in the movies with Carole Lombard.

“Anything fresh on Charley Spotto’s murder?” Carver asked.

“Nothing resembling a clue, amigo. Except that his neck was broken by a powerful twisting motion, as if his head had been gripped and rotated like a cap being unscrewed on a bottle. That’s the M.E.’s description, not mine.”

“He should write mysteries, the M.E.”

“Speaking of mysteries, your giant attacker is still one. No data bank anywhere in the country seems to contain anything on an Achilles Jones. It’s an a.k.a., no doubt, though he doesn’t seem the sort to be interested in Greek legend. It’s possible, even if unlikely, that nobody has anything on him. It happens, even in the era of the information highway. This guy might have avoided any priors and recently jockeyed his Harley here from Alaska or someplace.”

“Or Atlantis,” Carver said.

“Your friend in Miami, Lloyd Van Meter, is plenty pissed about Spotto being killed. He’s leaning on us for action.”

“He’s probably frustrated. He has contacts outside the regular lanes of law enforcement, and apparently he’s had the same luck as you when it comes to finding anything on the goon who worked me over.” Carver thought about mentioning to Desoto that he’d glimpsed a huge motorcycle rider in his rearview mirror, but decided against it. There was probably nothing to it other than imagination and the fear that had been instilled in him when he was beaten. It would pass with time, like the pain in his ribs and his occasional headaches. “Are there any lesbian hangouts around Marla Cloy’s old apartment on Graystone?” he asked.

“Sure. The corner of Graystone and Zella. Place called Lari’s. Gays hang out there, too. Rough trade. It’s kind of a dive. We get peace disturbance calls there every month or so. Nothing serious, just misunderstandings that turn into assaults.” Desoto unclasped his hands and rested his elbows on the desk, releasing more shimmers of light. “Have you told Mc shy;Gregor about any of this?”

“Not yet. Maybe not ever.”

Desoto rubbed his chin, thinking it over. “Wise choice,” he said. “What’s his take on the assault in your office? He come up with any information?”

“He’d probably thank the guy who beat me, if he could find him. Which he can’t, because he’s not looking very hard if at all. His latest slant is to view me as a possible accomplice if Brant actually kills Marla Cloy.”

Carver was hoping Desoto would scoff at the idea, but he merely rubbed his chin again. Not very reassuring.

Someone knocked, then a sergeant Carver didn’t recognize entered Desoto’s office carrying a file folder beneath his arm and holding a plastic bag containing a knife. His uniform was impeccable and he wore an expression that suggested his stomach was upset and he was irritated.

“Crime marches on,” Desoto said with a smile.

Carver stood up and thanked him for his help, then left him to busy himself with his paperwork and whatever grief the sergeant had brought.

Before returning to Del Moray, he decided to drive over to Lari’s and see if Marla or Willa had been there. Their meeting that Carver had observed in the Holiday Inn lounge in Del Moray had carried no hint of romantic entanglement, and Willa had certainly been hesitant about any further public physical contact by the fountain outside her apartment building. It was possible that Willa, a religious woman whose sexual nature would almost certainly cause conflict and secrecy, would meet with Marla more openly here in a different city, where it was unlikely anyone would see them together and guess their relationship.

Lari’s was a dive that worked hard to look like one and capitalize on an outcast atmosphere. The tables were wooden and scarred, as was the long bar with its thick brass foot rail. The bar stools were red vinyl, some of them patched with black tape. An all-female band was milling about on a small stage toward the back, setting up sound equipment and tuning their instruments. There were half a dozen women at tables, singly and in pairs. Some of them cultivated the dyke look and wore items of male clothing or black shirts and studded jeans with black leather accoutrements. No one paid any attention to Carver except for one of three men seated at the bar. They all wore black T-shirts and boots and sported tattoos on their arms. The shirts were lettered WANDERBEASTS across the back. The man on the end glanced over at Carver with naked speculation in his eyes.

Carver fixed him with a firm, unreceptive look and clomped with his cane across the plank floor to where a male bartender with spiked brown hair and a painted-on black handlebar mustache was working a pencil on a clipboard.

Carver sat on a stool near him and waited. He noticed that the rest-room doors in Lari’s had unmistakable male and female symbols on them. Beneath the symbol with the skirt, “Womyn” was scrawled in what looked like lipstick. There was a flurry of amplified sound from the stage, a drum roll and a shrieking guitar slide, then silence.

“Be with you in a minute,” the bartender said in what might have been a feminine voice. Carver looked more carefully and decided he couldn’t be sure of the bartender’s gender. “We’re gonna be mighty busy in about an hour, and I gotta make sure we can handle the crowd.”

“Do you usually get busy around seven o’clock in here?” Carver asked.

“Yeah, but it’s gonna be super crowded tonight. It’s that band,” He motioned toward the women setting up to play. “The Wolverines. They’re great and they’re on the way up and they draw big.”

The electric guitar ploiiinged as one of the Wolverines fine-tuned her instrument. They favored the grunge look and were all tall, gaunt, and attractive, with straight, long blond hair. They might have been sisters from Sweden with the same consumptive disease.

Carver waited until the bartender was finished tallying figures on the paper clipped to his board, then laid the photos of Marla, Portia, and Willa on the bar. “I’m looking for my sister Marla,” he said. “She been in lately?”

The bartender glanced at the photos, then looked at him with savvy gray eyes, a young man or woman who recognized lies by instinct as well as by experience.

On the other hand, considering Lari’s reputation, and the fact that the bartender didn’t know who Carver was or what he represented, cooperation might be the wisest course. At least, cooperation within a certain range.

“She’s not my sister, actually,” Carver admitted. “But she’s a friend and I mean her no harm, and I’d like to find out if she came in here with either of these other women.”

“Marla’s moved out of town,” the bartender said. “To Miami, I think.”

Uh-huh. “What about the other women?”

“Don’t know them,” the bartender said. “And I haven’t seen Marla for a long time. Every now and then she and Gail used to come in here and drink and dance.”

Carver was silent for a few seconds while he put it together. “Gail Rogers?”

“Sure. If you knew Marla, I figured you had to know Gail.”

“Yeah. It was rough, Gail dying in the fire.”

The bartender was studying the clipboard again. “It was a sad thing. Marla seemed to go a little crazy after Gail died.”

Ploiiing! went the guitar again, this time accompanied by a light tap on the drums. “Marla ever spend time in here with anyone other than Gail?” Carver asked.

“A few times. There was a guy she used to come in with now and then. After Gail’s death.”

“Then Marla goes both ways?”

“Both ways?”

“Is she bisexual?”

Wrong question, coming from a guy who was supposed to know Marla. The bartender was staring at him again with those savvy gray eyes. The outrageous mustache made him or her look like a riverboat gambler.

“You said she spent time in here with a man,” Carver explained.

“We all spend time in here together, you might say. There’s lots of music, laughter. You should drop by some night.” There was amusement in the gray gaze now. The game had ended and mental doors had closed.

Carver smiled. “I might if I feel like dancing,” he said, setting the tip of his cane on the floor and swiveling down off the stool.

As he made his way to the door, the Wolverine with the guitar played a short, experimental riff that trailed away to a feedback whine. The end Wanderbeast at the bar caught his eye in the mirror behind the shelved liquor bottles but this time didn’t change expression.

That made Carver feel better, but he wasn’t sure why.