Above the big dark feline’s pointed ears, curled inside its tail, glowing marquee letters dripped blood-maroon: WORRY DOLLS! ZUNI FETISH! WAR KITTENS! Hard to believe these unknowns would attract a line as long as the one snaking down the sidewalk. More likely, the manager was using one of the oldest tricks in the book: Keep a line out front even though it’s empty inside, tricking people into thinking something’s going on in there, causing them to gather like curious crows.
The kids in line ranged in age from about fourteen to college kids from Reed and Warner Pacific; the younger ones dressed too old and the older ones too young. If you ask me, a fourteen-year-old girl with chili red lipstick, halter, and torn fishnets isn’t appropriate, and I’m no prude. Glo-green bands decorated many a spindly wrist, indicating the wearer was of age to drink alcohol. Presumably.
I stepped up to the doorman, a thinnish white guy affecting Poe with dark unkempt hair, narrow moustache, high velvet collar, and ascot cravat. He looked like he might be strong enough to stop that aforementioned fourteen-year-old if she got rowdy… and had one hand tied behind her back.
I smiled, flipping my back-length raven locks. “Any way into this place without standing in line?” With my black greatcoat I figured I was a shoo-in for the club’s dress code.
He grinned, all kinds of nasty thoughts going on behind dark, bag-laden eyes.
“And don’t get cute,” I warned.
His grin faded.
“I’m the War Kittens’ press agent. They just hired me.”
“Got any credentials?”
“You kidding me?”
He held out a wand. I opened my coat, let him swipe me. I’d left my silver-plated friend in the Jeep. He whipped out one of those day-glo alcohol bands to snap around my wrist.
“You sure I’m old enough for one of those? Judging by half this crowd, you might not be too accurate at guessing ages.”
He snarled, “You can’t get booze without it.”
I snatched it from him and made my way inside.
The interior was cleaner than I’d expected, given its gothic inspiration. Darkly clean, without nihilism and grim attitude; posh goth. The centerpiece of the dance floor was a fountain formed of a pile of skulls, thick red “blood” dripping from eye sockets and open snaggle-toothed jaws.
Clearly the club manager hadn’t been playing any tricks on the line outside; the place was packed. Being crowded by this many teens made my skin prickle, sort of like tiptoeing through a field of black wasps. Only I prefer wasps.
I hugged the corner of the bar, barely enough room for both lungs to take a full breath. I got the attention of one of two bartenders, this one wearing Dracula’s cape, which didn’t really go with his orange curls.
“What’ll ya have?” he asked without really caring about my answer.
“I only drink… wine…” I intoned in my best Lugosi.
He stared blankly, not getting it.
“Screw it,” I said. “Gimme a Hamm’s.”
“Let’s see your wristband,” he said without a smile.
“You kidding me?”
He popped a Hamm’s and passed it across.
The band onstage finished their set, if that’s what you call it, a minor pause in the general cacophony of the place. Five black guys playing rock and roll of some sort was a nice change, though their Watusi-style war paint and grass loincloths didn’t seem overly PC to me. This must be Zuni Fetish, saying their goodbyes to the crowd and hauling their gear off to make room for the War Kittens.
I scanned the crowd, ears throbbing from the previous racket. On the floor, some kids made out while others danced to music pumping from house speakers.
A shaggy club bouncer, looking like the orangutan from Poe’s tale stuffed into a black sport coat, pulled aside the backstage curtains and shouted. After a moment, Rex and Calico emerged, both dressed much as I’d seen them before, Calico in a short skirt and Rex in his ridiculous stocking cap, dark curls trying to escape from under it.
The bouncer said something to them, to which both shook their heads, Rex doing so with great vehemence. The bouncer nodded and turned away. Calico wore a look of sad concern. Rex put a comforting arm around her.
Weaving across the dance floor, elbowing any number of goth goofballs out of my way, I intercepted the couple just before they disappeared backstage.
“You again,” sneered Rex.
“Me again. Just a couple more questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay,” Calico readily agreed before Rex could cut me off.
I directed my questions at Calico. “I’m trying to get the timeline right. First, you and Donny are an item. At the same time, Rex has his eye on you.”
Rex protested, “Hey, it wasn’t like that.”
I continued, “Then someone attacks Gamera.”
“Not that friggin’ turtle again!”
“It’s a tortoise. Then Donny is diagnosed with cancer. You can’t handle it and break it off with him.”
Calico hung her head, ashamed.
“Then you start shacking up with Rex. Do I have the timeline right?”
Calico nodded.
Rex sputtered, “You saying I attacked the turtle because I was jealous of Donny or something? Like I thought that would get me Calico? That’s the stupidest plan I ever heard!”
I pondered a moment. “You’re right. It is a stupid plan, even for a guy who wears a stocking cap in seventy-degree weather.”
After a long second or two he realized he’d been insulted and his mouth dropped open, face scrunching like a kid trying to understand the D on his report card.
I stepped out the side exit into an alley and the door clanked shut behind me, locking me out. I looked up and down, hearing only the squeak of a rat in the dark and the whoosh of traffic at the alley mouth.
I sidestepped a stream of soapy water running down the pavement, not wanting to decorate my boots with some homeless guy’s secondhand vino.
Coming out of the alley, I swung a glance at the club entrance. The ersatz Poe was still keeping the line at bay. The orangutan bouncer was in heated discussion with a youngish girl, her hair cut in a bob, wearing a wife-beater and cargo pants. I watched the argument for a full minute before I realized I’d seen this girl before: the volunteer at the infusion clinic over at Providence Portland, Tabie.
I thought things over for a moment. A couple of jigsaw pieces fell into place, completing a picture that didn’t match the one I had on the cover of my mental puzzle box.
Tabie waved her arms at the bouncer, fingers sending him an uncouth semaphore before she stormed off.
I found her halfway down the block, leaning against a streetlight inhaling a cigarette. In the lamp’s phosphorous glow, the streaked highlights in her hair jumped out like a Siberian tiger’s stripes.
“Tabie?”
She looked up, glowered.
“We met before,” I reminded her, “At Providence.”
Her eyebrows scrunched. “Oh. Right.”
She sucked her cig, her mind heavy with other things.
“So let me ask you… Tabie. You sometimes spell it ‘Tabby,’ with a ‘Y’?”
She shrugged. “What of it?” Not the peppy girl I’d met at the hospital.
“Like a tabby cat, the streaks in your hair. You were one of the War Kittens, weren’t you? At least, until what Manx called a ‘clash of personalities.’”
“Why am I talking to you?”
I ignored her surliness. “Forget talk. Just listen. I’m filling in a sequence of events.”
“What sequence? What events?”
I counted them off: “Donny and Calico are an item. Meanwhile, in the band, you were the one with a thing for Calico, not Rex, like I thought. But Calico wasn’t feeling it. This causes friction in the band and they kick you out. In a fit of rage and jealousy, you blame Donny and lash out by hurting Gamera.”