One Dead Drag Queen (10 page)

“I can find another agency.”

“Yes, you’ll probably find someone to take your money. They may even lie about how effective they will be.” Faslo shrugged. “I can’t prevent that.”

“What about the note at the hospital?” I asked. “You must be able to ask questions about that.”

Faslo said, “I need to talk to my partner for a few moments.” They rose and left the room.

“I wish I knew more about these guys,” McCutcheon said.

“You want me to have you investigate the investigators?”

“Lot of that going around these days. Might not hurt for me to make a few more calls. Having a reputation is one thing. Knowing their real background is another.”

After fifteen minutes Borini and Faslo reentered the room. Borini said, “The police are better equipped to do any investigating in what is undoubtedly a complex matter. However, if you give us a retainer of fifty thousand dollars, we will commit resources to finding out who has been threatening you. Obviously this will include asking questions at the hospital about the note. We will not directly involve ourselves in the bombing investigation. As we said, even if we cared to, we do not have the resources for such an undertaking. We promise to follow up every lead we get. As long
as you understand, Mr. Carpenter, that we guarantee nothing. That if we come up with any information about the bombing, we will be giving it to the police as well as you. It is most likely that we will come up with nothing. Your offer of a million dollars is out of line. I hate to let it go. At the moment we’ll take the much lesser amount. As I’m sure you know, money is not always the answer, nor is greed. Who knows, we might get prestige from having Scott Carpenter as a client.”

“I want to be there when you ask questions at the hospital.”

“No,” Borini said. “You are hiring us because we’re professionals. We know our business. You would be in the way.”

“I’m the client.”

“And you’re rich,” Borini said. “We know that, but we’re going to do this our way.”

“I guess you will.” They weren’t giving me a lot of choices. So much for throwing my money around to get instant gratification. Tom would advise me to stick with chocolate to fill this latter need.

We left. It was after six. The Loop was nearly deserted of traffic. The weather continued perfect. The sunset was golden orange, soft pinks, and soothing blues. The enjoyable warmth of the day was fading to a pleasantly cool evening. I slumped in the passenger seat of McCutcheon’s Hummer. Several times I almost nodded off as we drove to the hospital.

The last streaks of sunset hung in the sky as I talked to the doctor and Tom’s family outside his room. There had been no change in his condition.

10

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was dull pain all over, and a feeling that I’d been drugged. I noted that I was in a bed, and I was looking out a window at the end of a sunset or the beginning of a sunrise. I heard the murmur of voices at some distance. I wondered why an IV tube was attached to my arm. I shut my eyes and slept.

11

McCutcheon drove me home.

I phoned Tom’s school number for substitute teachers and left a message on the machine. I called several of Tom’s close friends from work to give them the news.

In the living room I turned on the stereo system and then shut off all the lights. I let the glow from the city outside and the digital readout on the stereo illumine the white carpet and the white furniture. I picked out a tape I’d made from all my county-and-western CDs. It consisted of the softest ballads and the most melancholy and sappy songs of the past thirty years. The best part was all of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s slow songs at the start of the first side of the tape. Even Tom likes those. I rewound it to the beginning. I lay on the couch and let her voice soothe me. I did my best to suppress the still undimmed memories of the carnage I’d seen. My exhaustion finally overcame my swirling thoughts. The last song I remembered was Lyle Lovett singing “Step Inside This House.”

I woke in the living room to full morning. I called the hospital. They thought Tom was sleeping and not in a coma anymore. I showered, dressed, and called security. McCutcheon picked me up, and we hurried over. Tom wasn’t awake, but the doctors were hopeful.

About nine, one of Tom’s friends, a drag queen named Myrtle Mae Zagglioni, swept in. Myrtle Mae was known to a few of us as Bryce Bennet, scion to an agribusiness fortune. Myrtle Mae would rather lose his entire wardrobe than have this fact broadcast. The way I heard the story was that ever since he’d run away from home when he was sixteen, Myrtle Mae had tried to live down his wealthy background. When he was young, he supposedly lived a raucous and exciting life: driving a garbage truck in New York for a while; being thrown out of the Peace Corps for radical activities in South America; and picking grapes in California with the United Farm Workers, an avocation particularly offensive to his family. How much of any of these and more were true, I didn’t know. Tom wasn’t sure and claimed he was too discreet to ask. I thought this was a crock. Tom loves gossip as much as the most notorious queeny Hollywood reporter, he just hates to admit it. I know better. I think he just hadn’t found anybody who was willing to tell.

With Myrtle Mae was his sometime companion John Werner. He was in his late sixties or early seventies. Werner always dressed in pastel colors or washed-out grays. He seldom spoke. With Myrtle Mae, if you looked beyond the layers of makeup and the glitter to the lines around his eyes and the wattles he tried to cover over, you could tell he had to be near Werner’s age. It was rumored that they had once been lovers. While they did not live together, Werner accompanied
Myrtle Mae to weddings, funerals, and I guessed now, hospital visits.

Werner I didn’t mind. I disliked Myrtle Mae intensely. As far as I knew, he never appeared outside of drag. I don’t mind drag, but like most gay people it irritates me that the straight media usually shows only pictures of drag queens after every gay pride parade. I am unable to explain, and I’m not sure anyone can, the endless fascination the straight media have with drag queens. I hesitate to embrace the theory that this emphasis comes about because drag is seen as the safe way to deal with gay people. The semitragic, overemotional, clownish buffoon as role model? As acceptable icon? Think Amos and Andy in the fifties and how offensive that is today. I believe the prevalence of drag portrayals is a way to keep us marginalized, to keep prominent the message to the silly and righteously Christian that drag is all that gay people are. That we are as pathetic if occasionally amusing as most drag queens are portrayed.

Unfortunately, the straight media’s interest in the dragqueen phenomenon is only slightly greater than that shown by the gay media. I don’t understand that either. Don’t get me wrong. I have a soft spot for drag queens, as I suspect all gay people do, because of their role in the Stonewall riots. Plus, I don’t mind if people want to do drag, but dressing up, costumes, and exaggerated effeminacy are not my thing. What can I say? I flunked Halloween as a kid.

The real reason I can’t stand Myrtle Mae, though, is his condescending attitude toward me. I’m sorry that he was picked on by the more coordinated and athletic of his classmates in school. I had nothing to do with it. He always manages to make some snide crack about my being a jock, usually connecting the comment with a vicious swipe at my IQ level. Lots of gay people look down on me because I’m a jock. Even
worse, I don’t like opera, don’t know the name of the trendiest art galleries in New York, and don’t know the names of very many long-dead actresses. Nor do I particularly care to change their notions about me. I’m comfortable with who I am. The truth is, I graduated summa cum laude from college. Yeah, my major was PE, but I minored in both philosophy and math. I liked the logic of them. I would be damned if I would defend myself to this or any other shallow creep by mentioning these facts. Tom knows how I feel about Myrtle Mae. I won’t let Tom tell about my college record either. On the other hand, I have also discovered that a college degree is no defense against stupidity.

This morning Myrtle Mae’s impressive bulk was enshrouded in pink chiffon, which barely hid his jiggling flab. I could picture him eating himself to death, a dead drag queen on a heap of candy wrappers, and felt immediate guilt for this thought.

In deference to the slight cooling from yesterday, Myrtle Mae wore a fur wrap. He often proclaimed he did this deliberately to annoy the pro-pet, antifur crowd.

He said, “I saw on the news that Tom was injured. I watched every bit of coverage from the moment it came on until early this morning.” He glanced through the doorway at Tom’s sleeping figure. “Will he survive?”

“They think so,” I said.

After I gave him an update, he commented, “Well, darling, they’re using all that medical jargon, are you sure you can keep up?”