“That’s not the only place I’m dangerous,” I said.
17
I was so tired when I went home that afternoon that I fell into a deep sleep and didn’t hear my alarm until it had been sounding for more than half an hour.
Consequently, I was late getting to the Gecko that evening, and the parking lot was completely full when I arrived, only fifteen minutes before the show was scheduled to start. I had to park down the road a hundred yards and jog up to the stage door with my cowboy boots and a little bag of cosmetics.
I was hurrying to put on mascara when Bennie dashed in holding a foam head block with a black-haired wig on it. “Here’s your cover, kiddo,” she said. “Quick, let’s put it on.”
“But it’s black!”
“Wynetta said that was all she had.” She helped me pull my own hair up into a flat bun and put on the wig. I looked in the mirror and didn’t even recognize myself. It occurred to me that wearing this wig might be a good idea. It would serve as a disguise.
Bennie seemed to read my thoughts. “You don’t need to worry about someone recognizing you, kiddo, they won’t be looking at your face anyway. Now hurry up and get out there. Wynetta is about to bust a gasket about you being so late.”
I darted out of the dressing room, tugging at the bustier to keep things from falling out. The other girls were all lined up by number, and I tried to slide into my spot without Wynetta noticing, but she turned and fixed her eyes on me like a snake.
“You’re late!” she snapped. She pinched her lips together and scanned me from top to toe. “I suppose those boots will do,” she said. “How did the number three pancake work out? Turn around, let me see.”
I grimaced. “I forgot!”
Wynetta had already seized me by the shoulder and spun me around. “You cannot go out there like that!” Her voice was as sharp as a siren. “Someone go get Ernie!” She squeezed her eyes shut as she shook her head rapidly back and forth and drew in a long breath. “You,” she said, pointing at the dressing room door, “go get some number three pancake on that cowgirl ass!”
Within a matter of seconds, I was standing on one leg, my other hiked up on a bar stool with a blown-out seat, pointing my behind toward the dimly lit mirror, trying to see around a wavy spot and some spattered paint blobs on the mirror’s surface. I heard Bennie at the mic, thanking everyone for coming and for supporting the wildlife rehab center. A man’s voice shouted, “Get the girls out here! Let’s see the show!”
I picked up the tin of pancake makeup and tried to open it, but I couldn’t get the top to twist off.
Out front, Bennie introduced Wynetta, and the band did a short blast of music as an intro.
I used the T-shirt I had worn to the club to get a better grip on the makeup tin, and squeezed and twisted until I got the cap off.
Wynetta worked the crowd like a pro, promising them a good time for a good cause, and telling the audience they were in for a real treat. She touted the lingerie designer and then finished with, “And let’s hear it for our all-girl band, Ailsa Ten and the Decade!” The audience applauded, the band started playing, and I heard the cue for Number One to start her strut down the improvised runway that was the Golden Gecko’s stage.
Looking over my shoulder, I swiped my fingers across the pancake makeup in the tin, then tried to camouflage the bruise on my right cheek, all the while cursing the day I met Bennie and hoping to hell that damn bear was off somewhere in the wild having a good old time while I paid the price. I blotted at the makeup to try to get it to blend in with the skin nearby.
The band kept up its driving rhythm, and I recognized Number Two’s cue.
I had gotten some of the makeup on the top part of the thong. I looked around for some water, but there was none.
I heard the cue for Number Three. I could hear the audience whooping and roaring, even over the band.
I grabbed a paper towel, spit on it, and dabbed at the thong.
Number Four.
A few more dabs. I had gotten most of it off; that would have to be good enough.
Number Five.
Ripping off another paper towel, I hurried to clean the excess makeup off my hands. The audience was now creating a near-constant roar.
I heard the cue that would have been mine as I raced to take my place at the front of the line.
Wynetta seized me by the shoulder before I could get there and whispered harshly in my ear. “We had to switch you with Number Seven. Now get ready.”
I took a deep breath and waited for the cue. When it came, I stepped out onto the stage, remembering to place one boot directly in front of the other, trying to take as long a stride as I could. The stage was flooded with bright light, and I couldn’t see much beyond that, but I could certainly hear the audience clapping and cheering. I walked in time to the beat that the band laid down, and when I got to center stage, I paused and posed, the front two rows now visible beyond the lights, the seats filled with wide-eyed men looking as wired as if they’d just taken amphetamines. I was so nervous that my pulse was racing. I turned around as in the rehearsal, ready to pause and pose, the men going wild and whistling, the beat from the band driving, when suddenly there was a loud crack, then a thud, from backstage, and the spots above the stage went out, leaving only footlights shining up at my near-naked backside.
A woman screamed from the wings, stage right. The band stopped playing. I heard muffled shuffling, then a chorus of screams. A voice from backstage cried, “Oh, my God!”
I stood mired at front and center in my black leather and lace. The audience went silent, the faces I could make out like a school of carp, mouths open. The curtain abruptly dropped, the weights in the hem of the old velvet making a dull whomp against the apron of the stage.
Ernie rushed past me, behind the curtain. “Oh, God, oh, God! We have a situation back here!”
18
Deputy Sheriff Jerry Padilla looked at me with a lecherous grin. “Did Roy know you were doing this thing tonight?” A toothpick bobbed in the corner of his mouth as he spoke.
I shook my head.
“You’re gonna have to let him know, or somebody else will. Your name will be in my report. Word will get around, especially about something like this.”
“Yeah, I know.”
We were sitting at one of the small round bar tables in front of the stage at the Gecko. The audience members and everyone in the show had been questioned and then sent home. Padilla and another deputy had taken statements from Wynetta and the rest of the models, leaving me until last.
Bennie had announced that the club would be closed indefinitely and left the keys to the front door dead bolt on the bar. “Holler at me when you get ready to leave, kiddo,” she had said, her voice thin and strained, on the verge of tears. Then she had taken a bottle of Dewar’s into her office.
“Can you think of any reason why someone would’ve wanted to kill Nora?” Padilla asked.
“Jerry, I don’t even know Nora. I just met her today. I knew her as Number Seven. I was Number Six. I don’t do this all the time, you know. They just needed someone to fill in because one girl sprained her ankle. Is Nora going to be okay?”
“Don’t know, Jamaica. The EMT said they’d need to do an MRI. They rushed her to the head trauma unit in Albuquerque. Whoever did this meant to put her lights out for good. She had a real bad blow to the head, and she was unconscious for a little while after it happened. I’m no doctor, but I know that’s not good.”
“Have you figured out exactly what happened?”
“Well, you know most of it. A steel bar mounted with four of those big stage lights dropped on her as she was exiting the stage. I went up in the rafters and looked around. Two cast-iron pipe clamps that should have held that mounting bar in place with no problems had been tampered with. It looks like someone took a pipe wrench up there and loosened them, had the whole thing ready to go with a quick twist of the fingers. After he dropped the bar, the bad guy must have scooted out the stage door when the lights went out, or maybe during all the commotion after it happened.”