Slugfest

Forty-four

The air at El Quixote smelled of beer and barbecued chicken wings. Even without the famous red dress, Brian, the bartender, greeted me as if I were an old friend. He pointed toward the back, where Rolanda was ensconced in a booth that was more private than the table we’d occupied the night before. She was already sipping a drink, so I ordered an Amstel and waited at the bar until he came back with the frosty bottle.

“No glass, right?”

“Thanks.”

I slid into the booth opposite Rolanda. The cold beer went down easy.

“Nikki called to cancel, dinner with Russ. I smell a reconciliation,” Rolanda said. “You look in the makeup bag yet?”

“I thought we’d share the moment.” I pulled the white plastic bag Nikki had given me out of my backpack. Inside was a freebie cosmetics case from one of the department-store makeup companies—a free-with-purchase offer. Spend seventy-five dollars on face cream—which should come with a label 100 Percent Delusional—and we will give you this stylish, nylon, made-in-China pouch that cost seventy cents. What a deal. I’d fallen for it myself.

“High-end label,” Rolanda said. “Our lady doesn’t shop at the drugstore.”

“We don’t know that yet. I’ve gotten some of these special-offer packages at Marshalls.”

“Good tip.”

I unzipped the case and upended it over the table with all the drama of someone unlocking a safe from the Titanic. The contents spilled out, and Rolanda and I spread our hands to make sure nothing rolled off the edge. It was the stuff that dreams were made of. Whoever left the bag in the ladies’ room before the blackout was an equal opportunity shopper. Everything from Maybelline Great Lash to Yves Saint Laurent concealer to Guerlain spray bronzer. This woman was prepared for every contingency.

“That concealer goes for forty or fifty bucks, and it’s only slightly better than Almay’s,” I said.

“Want to leave her a note?”

I thought of the women I’d spoken to that day, starting with my breakfast meeting. Fake Cindy didn’t look like she could afford fifty-dollar concealer. Besides, when you’re that young, how much do you have to conceal? Let me rephrase that—how much under your eyes do you need to conceal?

The rest of the items were pricey—lipsticks, expensive hair cream, and a tube of brow gel. I took a swig of my beer and pulled out my copy of the show directory.

“First off, there’s no guarantee this bag or the argument Nikki overheard has anything to do with Garland Bleimeister, although it’s tempting to think so given the reference to ‘a kid that had to be taken care of’ and the ‘guy who worked here.’”

Rolanda was unconvinced. “Weren’t they the words Bleimeister used in his note … ‘I have to be taken care of’?”

It was a common expression, but it was one more thing that made us think the two events were connected. I told Rolanda about my visits with Terry Ward and the real Cindy Gustafson.

“The honey lady had a sister who went to the same school as the dead kid?”

Rolanda thought that was promising, but I didn’t see it. “There’s probably a big age difference, even if the sister was ten years younger. Cindy’s a mature woman, very comfortable talking to me about her ex-husband, his indiscretions, her finances. She even made a few jokes.”

“So that’s it—if they’re funny, they can’t be the bad guys? I must have been out that day at cop school.”

“Okay, not scientific. I admit it.” Still, Cindy had been so at ease with me, it was hard to think of her as a criminal. Or a potty-mouthed, castrating she-devil like the one Nikki had overheard in the ladies’ room. Maybe that’s what sociopaths do. They get you to trust them and let your guard down before they strike. But I couldn’t see her spray painting her face with bronzer. She wore her porcelain skin like some badge of honor, the way women did in the nineteenth century.

“What about Terry Ward? The Bag Lady?”

“It’s Bagua.”

“What does that mean anyway?” Rolanda asked.

I wasn’t really sure. I seemed to recall bagua was some kind of map or grid used in feng shui. It told you where things were supposed to be in your house. Not your keys or your eyeglasses, which might be more helpful—your chi, your energy. The good news was, almost anything negative could be counteracted with a mirror, which Terry could cheerfully provide in every price range. I liked the idea of easy fixes but didn’t totally subscribe to the practice.

“Shoot, I’ve got mirrors in every room in my apartment.”

“Well, then you’re covered,” I said. “Terry seems like a nice, agreeable woman. Hardworking, sensible shoes. That’s exactly who you have to watch out for. Those nice-sounding women in boring shoes. They’re the ones who snap. Don’t trust a women who doesn’t care what she puts on her feet.”

It was true—shoes tell.

“She could be in financial difficulties, but didn’t seem desperate and didn’t strike me as someone who’d do anything illegal, much less commit murder. She also said she’d rather be selling outdoors at the flea market. Didn’t sound very cutthroat to me.”

“Single?”

“I didn’t ask and she didn’t say, but no ring.” I twisted the ring on my own ring finger; it was one I’d bought myself and I wasn’t married, so what did rings mean? Inconclusive.

“Question mark. But if we’re definitely adding the makeup case to the mix, I’d say no. At the risk of sounding mean, she had a unibrow. I doubt the woman owns a tweezer much less a tube of Anastasia Beverly Hills brow gel.”

Were we really making assessments of guilt or innocence based on health and beauty products? Footwear?

Connie Anzalone’s name was the next on the list. She could certainly afford anything in that makeup bag, and hadn’t I seen her in full war paint, even coming back from the ladies’ room at the St. George, even when she knew she’d be back in her room in half an hour? But her husband wasn’t at the show on Friday night. Could she have been arguing with someone else? Who? Fat Frank? Another man?

“Wouldn’t her distinctive manner of speaking have registered with Nikki?” she said.

“That was very diplomatic of you and it’s a good observation, but we know what Connie sounds like. Maybe Nikki doesn’t. I’ve never seen Nikki and Connie together, have you?” Rolanda hadn’t. Nikki hadn’t even run over that first day to see Connie’s meltdown when her veronicas died. She had just repeated the gossip she’d heard in the ladies’ room.

As much as I didn’t want to believe it, there was something about the woman’s cutting remarks in the lounge exchange that smacked of the same casual viciousness I’d heard when Connie and Guy had had their brief but volatile tiff in the hotel bar. And the memory of the lye comment was still, uh, seared in my brain.

“I had drinks with Connie at her hotel. When Guy arrived, I got a glimpse of their relationship. Talk about a thin line between love and hate.”

“Were the Anzalones funny?”

“Shut up. This is serious. The husband may be involved in some not quite legal activities. And he’s got these two—I don’t know, goons, flunkies—at his beck and call.”

“Fat Frank and Cookie, I remember. There’s legal and there’s illegal. Just what does he do?”

“He lends money. Maybe takes bets. Is that illegal or just unsavory?” Rolanda didn’t know. She hadn’t taken that class yet.

“If my cop friend is right and greed, lust, and revenge account for most of the crime in this world, chances are we can eliminate the Bagua Lady on all three counts. Cindy Gustafson could have revenge on her side of the ledger if Garland knew her sister and something bad had gone down between them. The Anzalones are at least two for three—they have money and there’s a beautiful woman involved. It doesn’t please me to say this but we may need to put them on the Possibly Involved list.”

“Keep your voice down,” Rolanda said, looking over my shoulder. “Guess who just walked in?”