“Now, I know this is naughty, but these are very old friends of mine. And, Brian, daahhhling, we’ve only got one member!” He rolled his eyes theatrically under azure lids. “Oh, I’m so tired of that gag.”
“Members sign,” Brian said, handing the pen to Hebdon. He stared hard at Haskons and Lillie, who were hanging back, attempting to merge into the wallpaper. “Are they for the cabaret?”
Red let out a little trill of amusement. “No, dear, but they just want to learn from me! Don’t they all? You remember that bitch that came up with me a few months ago-she’s only ripped off my act!”
Brian checked Hebdon’s signature against his membership file on the computer screen. He gestured the party to go through, but he still needed some convincing about Karen and Jackie. His eyes never left them. “There’s no table free, not until after one, but there’s a booth, far side.”
Red linked arms with Haskons, sweeping him on, and ushered Lillie quickly forward. “Booth will be fine, we’re not staying long, just until my act’s over…”
He pushed the two of them on ahead, toward a doorway swathed in red velvet, and leaned back to Brian.
“Anybody in I should know about? Film producers? Casting agents? I need exposure.” Brian shook his head. “Back room busy?” asked Red, but Brian’s attention had switched to some new arrivals emerging from the elevator.
Haskons and Lillie stood just inside the red velvet curtain. The club was dark and smoky, and Haskons was having trouble with his false eyelashes. He had to keep looking down, about three feet in front of him, to see where he was treading as Red led them past the crowded tables and up a short flight of steps to a small balcony on the left-hand side of the stage, which at the moment was empty. The cabaret was due to start in a few minutes.
Haskons was half blind, but Lillie was taking it all in. The clientele was certainly an exotic mixture. The bar area, to the rear of the club, was favored by groups of elderly, distinguished men, most in lounge suits, but a few in evening dress. Ostensibly chatting with their cronies, Lillie could see them casting glances to the tables in front of the stage. This was the unofficial “stage show,” where the young boys sat with their companions and the transvestites congregated, drinking champagne and shrieking with laughter. The butch boys wore white T-shirts and leathers, one or two in Marlon Brando leather caps. The more overtly gay were elegantly dressed in velvet jackets and frilly shirts, long shiny hair draping their shoulders in the style of Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar Wilde’s bosom chum.
The transvestites and transexuals were fabulous creatures. Lillie felt dowdy by comparison. All, without exception, were tall and willowy, with masses of either blond or red hair tumbling down. They wore glittery evening gowns slashed low to reveal shaved chests and the sensuous slant of their backs, curving to tiny waists and slender, nonwomanly hips. The makeup of each one was in itself a work of art. Lillie, contrary to what he had expected, was fascinated rather than repulsed. It wasn’t in the least a threatening experience, just endlessly engrossing.
Having got them seated, Red went off on a circular tour, flitting like a vivacious gadfly from one group to another. Vera Reynolds had seen Red come in with the others. Furiously, she tried to attract Red’s attention. What the hell was the stupid bitch playing at? The management weren’t thick. They’d have a blue fit when they found out-as they soon would-that the fuzz was around. And not only would the management find out; that was the least of it. Vera’s blood ran cold when she thought of the consequences of what the crazy queen had done, bringing them in here.
It was Vera’s spot any moment now, and she only had time for a quick, explosive word in Red’s startled ear as she headed backstage to prepare for her act.
Hebdon brought drinks to the table. Luridly colored cocktails in long-stemmed glasses. Haskons had all but given up trying to peer into the gloomy depths of the club. “I can hardly see myself, never mind clock any faces,” he complained morosely. The blue shadow on his square jaw was even more evident now. He had the horrible feeling that the straps in his corset had gone. Would this fucking living nightmare never end?
Finger extended, Lillie took a dainty sip of his drink. “How much did these set you back?”
“A lot-buy a bottle for the price of one,” Hebdon replied. “Knock ’em back, you both look like you need something…” He turned his head. “Here’s Red now.”
Red leaned over the table, his eyes hot and agitated. Vera’s word in his ear had got him seriously rattled. “I’ve not much time before I’m on, so let’s make it snappy.” Haskons and Lillie started to rise.
“One at a time,” Red hissed. He cast a nervous glance to the private members’ bar behind the curtained door. “I don’t know if I can get you in the back bar, it’s jammed in there. Maybe you can work it yourself.”
Haskons and Lillie stared miserably after him as he went off. Left to their own devices, their chances of getting in there were zilch.
Two spotlights stabbed through the smoke, and there was a spattering of applause as the compere came on, a comically stocky figure in a leather bomber jacket and leather pants cut off to reveal fat, hairy calves. He grabbed the mike off its stand.
“It’s cabaret time! And we have a great favorite, a truly beautiful, talented act. Please welcome-Vera Reynolds!”
Taped music started up. A twenties-style dance orchestra with muted cornets and plunkety percussion. Vera’s tall, lithe figure glided on, clad in a high-necked flesh-colored costume speckled with sequins, the spotlight making a dazzling halo of her platinum-blond wig. Her red-tipped fingers caressed the microphone suggestively.
“I wanna be loved by you, just you, and nobody else but you…”
The breathy voice was uncanny, the luscious pouting lips a perfect replica. It was Marilyn to the life.
Thinking of Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, alias Karen and Jackie, Haskons kicked Lillie under the table. “Well, we got the whole cast now!”
“I wanna be loved by you alone… boo-boo-bee-doo…”
Down by Waterloo Bridge, Otley was on his own private one-man patrol. He’d had no luck in the Bullring, drawn a blank at St. Margaret’s Crypt. At the hamburger stall, in the shadow of the iron trelliswork, he caught up with Alan Thorpe. The boy was sullen and uncooperative. Otley didn’t blame him. These kids lived on a knife edge. As young as fourteen and fifteen, they had to fend for themselves, keep body and soul together, survive in a hostile, uncaring environment.
“I just want to buy you somethin’ to eat. Have a talk, Alan.”
Otley put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, as much to reassure him as restrain him.
“Leave me alone!” Alan squirmed away. He pointed to his right eye, puffy and shiny purple. “I got this ’cos I talked to you before!”
“Nasty,” Otley said. “So who did that to you, then?”
“It’s always questions wiv you, innit?”
“You want a hamburger or not?”
Alan jerked his thumb to the group around the smoldering fire.
“What about me mates?”
“You hungry?” Otley called to them. He put a tenner on the counter.
Alan Thorpe stared down at the cindery ground. He said bitterly, “Jackson done me, Sarge. Okay?”
Vera came storming into the dressing room. She tore off her wig and flung it down among the pots of cream, tubes of glue, foams and sprays. “Are you crazy? Why?” She thumped Red in the chest, hard. “Why did you do it?”
“Because they asked me to!”
“Well, I’m out of here-and if you’d got any sense you’d leave too.”
“But you’ve got another spot-”
“You do it!” Vera was throwing her makeup into her vanity case.
“But I haven’t done my own yet!” Red protested.
“They stick out like a sore thumb,” Vera snorted, grabbing her wigs off their stands and ramming them into plastic bags.