Anonymous Rex (12 page)

Laughing, Glenda moves the small ceramic bowl peppered with basil crumbs away from my seat. “That’s enough of that shit,” she says. “What case you working on?”

“Fire. Out in LA.” My words are coming slower now, syllables showing up late at the station though my thought process is right on schedule.

“And some leads brought you back here?”

“McBride. Again.”

Her eyes open in surprise. “Oh yeah? Good fucking luck, buddy. Tough nut to crack, right there.”

It takes a special concentration of effort to fight past the vines that
are growing, spreading, thickening my mouth, but I’m able to stammer out, “You know … you know the … McBride case?”

“Do I know McBride?” she drawls. “I worked on that goddamn friggin’ bastard shitpile of a case for a friggin’ month.”

“Must have been … fascinating.”

“Fuck no. Boring as all hell. You ever run surveillance on a goddamn sixth-floor walk-up before?”

“A … walk-up?” I don’t think these things exist in LA.

“Over a business, no friggin’ elevators,” she explains. Now I know these things don’t exist in LA. Even the poor would faint at the thought. Any distance over twenty feet, vertical or otherwise, must be driven. Preferably with air conditioning. If we want our exercise, we’ll use a Stairmaster, thank you very much.

“I mean, the work’s okay,” she continues. “But lemme tell you—you get pretty goddamned sick of stale air and friggin’ take-out food after about the fifth day. And the friggin’ goddamned bugs, crawlin’ on the floor, on my friggin’ food …”

“McBride was … having affairs … in a tenement?” I ask. Can’t be—the man had millions, maybe billions.

She shakes her head, picks her nose. This is one classy lady. “Wouldn’t call it a tenement, just a shitbag building. Just across the way, in the East Village—it ain’t on skid row or anything, just not kept up so nice. Anyway, we was across the street, snapping photos all friggin’ day—the building they were screwing in was a little better. The bimbo’s place, I think. I bet they had a friggin’ exterminator. Goddamn roaches …”

Eventually, I work my mouth around enough syllables to steer the conversation toward the human with whom McBride had been photographed in flagrante delicto. I ask for a name. “I give it to you, you can’t let it out,” she says. “It’s my ass on the line. So I didn’t tell you this, right?”

“Cross my heart and hope to fossilize.”

“We know the little pervert slept all over the city—musta had a frigid wife or something—but that bimbo we caught him with is a real wang-doozer.” Is this a curse word with which I am unfamiliar? “Human bombshell, tits out to here, legs like stilts.” Why is it that I’m more embarrassed hearing this language than she is using it?

“Her name’s Sarah,” she continues. “How many friggin’ times did I have to hear that on the bug? Oh, Sarah, you’re beautiful, Sarah. You’re amazing, Sarah. Do it, Sarah, do it. Makes me friggin’ ill, something that unnatural. I almost puked once, I tell you.”

“Sarah …?” I’m searching for a last name.

“Acton … Archton … something like that.” The Hadrosaur with the muddy mouth shrugs it off and tosses back the last of her thyme. It goes down rough; a few hearty coughs, and she comes up for air. “Screw it. I don’t remember exactly, but she sings at a joint up near Times Square. Real friggin’ songbird, that one.”

In an instant, I’m alert, all traces of basil temporarily banished to some forgotten part of my brain that doesn’t deal with speech or decision. “Is she singing tonight?”

“Whadda I look like, her freaking manager?”

“Do you
think
she’s singing tonight?”

“Yeah, sure, I guess. It’s been a few months since I seen the file, but I think it’s a pretty steady gig. What, you wanna go see the human? What the hell for?”

The basil floods back, a mellow rush that melds with my excitement at finding a new witness, a way around the roadblock of missing evidence and cagey answers, a path to McBride, and a path to Ernie.

I lick the bowl of all its remaining morsels and tell Glenda simply, “I wanna hear a song.”

T
wo-legged mammals are bad enough by themselves—rude, egocentric, generally sporting bad hygiene—but an entire pack of the filthy apes gives me the willies. It’s a visceral reaction, a subconscious tug at my gut that I’m sure is somehow representative of my shared genetic dislike and discomfort. My forefathers watched these creatures evolve from nothing more than hairy toads, and it must have pained them to no end to realize that at some time in the future, they would be forced to recognize the existence of this separate but sentient species. Sure, my ancestors could have killed them off, stomped the little Neanderthals into pâté with a few good whacks of a tail, but by that point they’d already decided to try and live in peace with the humans, even to mimic them if the need arose. Bad move.

Because now I find myself sitting in a human nightclub, surrounded by humans, listening to human caterwauls, smelling human perspiration,
touching
bare human flesh, and if another one rubs up against me, I think I may become ill. Smoke wafts through the air in huge spiraling waves, and though I don’t mind the occasional whiff of cigarette, I am almost overcome with the odors emanating from an impressive variety of brands, tars, and filters. A primitive lighting system brightens an otherwise dull stage, set off by a small floor riser and maroon velvet curtain.

“When’s it start?” I ask Glenda, who’s sipping a gin and tonic. Alcohol slips right through our metabolism like a kid on a water slide, but Glenda’s always been one for the When in Rome theory. I ordered a glass of ice water as part of my two-drink minimum, for which I paid enough to cover a day and a half of a good basil binge.

“Bartender said she goes on around ten.”

“Good,” I say. I can’t take much more of this. My garment bag, which is holding up nicely despite the marathon I’m putting it through today, sits on the floor by my feet, wallowing in the filth of a floor stained with the residue of alcohol and vomit.

After a few more minutes enduring the close presence of these slow-witted baboons, I cool down as the lights dim and a single spot strikes the stage. A line of bass notes pumps out of a nearby loudspeaker, a jazzy riff that repeats itself over again with a slightly different beat. Then a rat-a-tat high hat joins in with the buzz of a ride cymbal as the curtains swing wide and a soothing male voice announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to present the vocal stylings of Miss Sarah Archer.” The show has begun.

A gloved hand, emerald to the elbow, emerges from behind the curtain and snakes its way into the spotlight. Behind it, a long, lithe arm attached to a single bare shoulder waves seductively through the air. A shoe is next, three-inch heels on glittering green pumps, and a leg that, by any human standard, is on the close side of perfect. The crowd leans forward as one, and I can feel a collective breath being held, waiting for the eventual exhale. Now, as if she were there all along, a woman has appeared on the stage, a cascade of fiery red hair falling about her shoulders, across her back, framing a delicate body with ample curves in the proper mammalian positions. Hoots and catcalls momentarily muscle their way through the music, but are silenced almost instantly as soon as Sarah Archer opens her mouth to sing.

It’s one of those slow jazzy numbers with a name I can never remember, but her voice is a cascade of molasses that falls all over my body, trickling down into my ears, forcing my eyes closed until I can no longer see the human standing on stage and can instead imagine a gorgeous reptilian beauty to match that contralto. The dino flesh beneath my guise rises into anthills of delight as the warm thrill of the song envelops me. She wants a man to touch her like no man has
touched her, I am led to understand by the lyrics, and I have no trouble believing that the songbird means it. A moment later, I force my eyes to snap to attention, and the illusion is gone. It’s just another human up there.

A step or two off the stage, a stroll out into the nightclub as she sings, and soon Sarah Archer is sitting at our table, staring past Glenda, trying to catch my eye. I look away. She takes my chin, turning my face toward those pouting lips. I mask my revulsion with the best boredom I can muster and take a sip of my ice water. A playful tug on my shirt sleeve, a wink that’s more for the audience than for me, and she’s off, back to the stage once again to finish it up.

Applause, whistles, the works. Another number follows, more up-tempo, and then another, and soon forty-five minutes have passed before Sarah Archer thanks the audience and departs the stage. There are calls for an encore, lighters held aloft, but the stage lights dim, the houselights come back up, and it’s all over for the night. Drunks stagger out, forgetting to tip their waitresses.

“There you go,” says Glenda. “I told ya. Don’t it make you friggin’ sick?”

I push my chair back, catching it an instant before it accidentally tips over. My balance is almost too good now that I’m a few hours off my buzz, and I feel the pressing need to pollute my brain chemistry, and quick. “I need to question the singer.”

“Now? I was hoping we’d hit Cilantro, this place I know uptown—leaves like you wouldn’t believe—”

“No, I need—I’d like to question her now.”

Glenda sighs. No one wears down a stubborn Raptor, and she knows it. “Okay. Maybe I can talk to the manager here, get us backstage—”

“You go on, Glen,” I say. “I can take this one alone.”

She shakes her head. “Forget about it—I’ll join you—”

“I can take this one
alone
,” I repeat, and this time the gal swings with my drift.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Forty dollars later, after Glenda has arranged a backstage rendezvous for me and then retired to that uptown cilantro bar for the evening, I stand at the entrance to Sarah Archer’s dressing room, a frail wooden door upon which someone has spray-painted a ragged
gold star. A crate full of old beer bottles sits against the nearby wall, the stench overpowering in the confined area. I knock on the door.

“Come in.” Her spoken voice is distinctly higher than when she sings; she must take great pains to cultivate the inflections of a smoky chanteuse.

I try the door. It sticks. I try again. Still not working, so I bang at the lock with a closed fist. From within the room, I hear a scuffle, a chair falling over. “Sorry,” calls Sarah from the other side. “Sorry about that. I’m trying to get them to fix it—”

The door pops open, and just like that we’re staring at one another. She’s out of her green dress and into a yellow terry-cloth robe, sash pulled tight across her waist. “You were in the audience,” she says.

“Second table in. You sang to me.”

“I sing to everyone.” She shifts her balance, weight resting heavily on one leg. “Do I know you?”

“I doubt it. I’m from Los Angeles.”

She laughs. “Is that supposed to impress me?”

“Does it?”

“No.”

“Then … no.” I pull out my best Jack Webb face and hold out my ID card. “Vincent Rubio. I’m a private detective.”

Sarah blows a strong gust of air up and through her hair; she’s been down this road before. “Sarah Archer. You don’t look like a detective, Detective.”

“What do I look like?”

She mulls it over. “A house cat.” And with that, she turns and slinks into her dressing room, leaving the door ajar. As per the script, I follow.

Closing the door behind me, I ask, “You knew Raymond McBride?”

“You get right down to business.”

“Why mince words? How long did you know him?”

“I didn’t say I did.”

“Did you?”

“Yes,” she says. “But I like to do things in order.” Sarah walks to the wet bar set into a niche in the far wall—why does everyone in this town have a wet bar?—and pours herself half a tumbler of Johnnie Walker Black. “Drink?”

I decline, as Sarah kicks off her slippers—lime green, no more
than size four—and curls up on a plush green sofa. There are small tears in the cushions, minor eruptions of foam stuffing, but, as a whole, the furniture is in decent condition. A single dressing mirror with three broken lights teeters above a simple wooden makeup table. Polaroids of the singer wearing an array of different hairstyles are tacked to the wall. “Did you enjoy the show?” she asks me.

“Entertaining. You have a beautiful voice.”

A smirk, a sip of her drink. She tosses her hair, presumably in a human attempt to be seductive. “And the rest of me?”

“The rest of you has a beautiful voice, too.”

“That’s cute.”

Now it’s my turn to smirk. “McBride. How long did you know him?”

A pout from Ms. Archer; I can tell she wants to carry on the banter, and though I’m not usually one to shirk away from a good game of verbal volleyball, I’d like to expedite matters. Already I can feel my allergies acting up from all the mammal sweat dampening the nightclub air. “About two, three years, I guess.”

“How did you meet?”

“At a fund-raiser.”

“For …?”

“I have no idea. Cancer, leukemia, the arts, I really don’t know.”

I mutter noncommittally. “And you were his … mistress?”