Bad To The Bone (16 page)

So, I had a lot of bars to choose from. Too
many, in fact. But a quick call to my friend Marcus Dupree allowed
me to strike six of the men-only clubs from the list.

"Don't even bother with the boy bars," he
advised me. "There's not a lot of mingling." He suggested I try the
two lesbian bars located in Durham first. "I'll bet you dinner at
the Magnolia Grill that she hangs out at one of them," he said.
"Because, honey, when people in our community talk about the Durham
Bulls, they don't mean baseball."

"Gee," I said. "Maybe we should let the
chamber of commerce know? They could warn the local banks to stop
passing out all those free toasters."

"You laugh," he said, "but where would
Durham's championship softball team be without our Sappho sisters?"
He hung up before I could think of a retort.

There was no point in hitting the bars until
early evening, which gave me a whole afternoon to kill. Bobby had
nothing to report, my ex-husband had not called back and there was
nothing cooking at the office. I needed a way to improve my
spirits. I was considering an afternoon of working out when I saw
in the Spectator's movie listings that the Colony Theater was
showing a Chow Yun-Fat retrospective. I spent a glorious five hours
eating popcorn and ogling my idea of the world's most perfect man:
Cary Grant in a Bruce Lee package.

Having confirmed my heterosexuality, I
beaded home, showered and changed into something black, tight and
dyke. By the time I was done, I looked, well, like my usual self,
to tell you the truth. Good enough to eat.

The first bar was a wash. Everyone there
seemed barely old enough to play with Barbie dolls, much less each
other. Their youth lent them a curious asexuality. I felt like a
desperate old hag caught wearing an outdated prom dress at a
convention of the androgynous. I had a quick drink at the bar,
watched two sorority girls swapping spit in the corner, then wasted
twenty dollars on a bartender who not only didn't recognize the
redhead but pointed out that her technique wasn't all that great,
either. "But who's the blond?" she wanted to know. I assured her
that she didn't, and left.

My second stop of the evening showed more
promise. Rubyfruit Jungle was a bar for dykes with money. The decor
was heavy on tropical murals, potted plants and red lacquered
ceilings. Music played softly in the background: Joan Armatrading.
It was a clear sign that the joint appealed to the over-thirty
crowd. Low lighting levels confirmed it.

It was just before eight and the bar was
nearly deserted. I figured that most of the after-work crowd had
headed home while the evening revelers were still ironing their
white shirts and creasing their jeans.

Someone with bucks had set the place up. The
bar was mahogany with brass accents. I sat down on a cushioned
stool and looked around. Two glum-looking women sat at a table in
the corner, beer bottles lined up before them. Maybe I should ask
the bartender to bring them a round of Midol on me.

A table of five nearby was a lot livelier.
They were passing around photographs and laughing. They only made
the table of two look even grumpier.

The only other person alone in the place was
a fiftyish woman sitting on a stool at the far end of the bar. She
was wearing a black pullover sweater that showed off her slender
figure, meaning she was either in good shape or in the middle
stages of alcoholism. Her graying hair feathered back from a
handsome, angular face. Al Pacino's younger sister. A glass of
whiskey sat on the bar in front of her. She was smoking a cigarette
with a relaxed attitude that told me she felt at home where she was
and that, while others might be on the prowl, she was content to
get quietly drunk. I envied her peace. She'd found a place where
she belonged.

"Can I get you something?" the bartender
asked, appearing through a doorway behind the bar.

"Jack Daniels straight," I told her, then
pretended, just for a minute, that I was checking her out. Hey—I
like to walk in other people's shoes. It makes them easier to
understand. Besides, she was, in my personal estimation, cute as
hell. Her black hair was cropped just below her ears in a way that
framed her boyish face. She had a beatific smile and wide green
eyes that reminded me of a cat's, eyes that managed to look me over
without actually seeming to. She was wearing tight black jeans and
a man's white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. As she filled my
glass with an extremely generous shot of Jack, I admired her
athletic grace. Ah, to be young and gay.

"Run a tab?" she asked.

I nodded. My kind of joint. I waited it out
while the bartender checked on the older woman sitting at the far
end of the bar, brought a tray of fresh beers over to the large
party, then wiped out a couple of glasses. When she came back to
check on me, I told her I wanted to ask her some questions.

"Yeah?" she said, putting a toothpick in her
mouth and parking one foot high up on a cooler. "Questions about
what?" She leaned forward, stretching her back, showing off how
limber she was. The road not taken was looking better and better.
It was tempting to ask for directions.

"I'm trying to identify someone. If I show
you photos of two women, do you promise not to freak?"

Her eyes grew wide in mock horror. "So long
as they're not ironing or doing the dishes, I think I can handle
it."

"Actually, they're having sex. Or, at least,
one of them is. I'm trying to identify the one who's doing all the
work."

A shadow crossed her face. "Why?" she asked,
averting her eyes as I took the photos from my knapsack and laid
them face down on the bar. "Why are you looking for this
woman?"

There was no point in lying. Most gay women
automatically protect other gay women unless there's a damn good
reason not to. And this gal wasn't the type who would take a twenty
to betray her sisters. I explained who I was, what I was doing and
why I thought Tawny Bledsoe had taken the photos.

"So you're trying to stop this woman from
blackmailing other people?" she asked, moving the toothpick around
as she thought it over. "It's not for a custody case or anything
like that?"

"Look," I promised. "I'm telling you the
truth. But I can't prove it. You'll have to take my word for it.
But once you see how bored the woman I'm trying to stop looks,
you'll know I'm telling you the truth."

"Let's see it," she said.

As I turned the photos over, I was conscious
that the older woman at the far end of the bar was watching
carefully. Her relaxed posture became guarded.

The bartender stared at the series of photos
in silence, turning the glossies first one way and then the
other.

"Recognize either one of them?" I asked,
sipping my drink.

"Maybe." She looked up at me. "Could you
excuse me for a moment?" She took the photographs and disappeared
into the back room. Less than a minute later, the older woman slid
off her stool and quietly left the bar area. I had no doubt that
she was taking another route to that back room. A minute later, I
heard voices murmuring, but I couldn't make out the words.

Finally, long after my drink was gone, the
bartender returned. She put the photos down on the bar in front of
me, then reached for the bottle of Jack Daniels. She refilled my
glass without asking. "Got identification?"

I pulled my fake PI license and photo ID
from my pocket. By the time she had finished examining them, the
older woman with gray hair was at my elbow. She exchanged a glance
with the bartender, then nodded.

"Let's go into my office and talk," she said
in a voice made husky by too many cigarettes smoked late at night
in bars.

"You're the owner?" I guessed, slinging my
knapsack over my shoulder and following her as she led me down a
hallway toward a red door.

She unlocked it and motioned for me to
enter. "I'm Roberta," she said, not giving me a last name. "Have a
seat. Start from the beginning."

I started over, telling her about Tawny
Bledsoe and how she had conned me. When I got to the part about
Robert Price being dragged from my office, she winced and lit up a
fresh cigarette. Her only comment was to ask to see the other
photographs when I told her the part about finding them in Tawny's
safe.

Her eyes flickered as she looked them over,
then she slid them back across her desk toward me. "Continue," she
said calmly and I did.

When I was done, she leaned back in her
chair and looked up at the ceiling. She blew a series of smoke
rings, sending perfect ovals toward the light fixture. "Let me make
a call," she finally said. "Wait at the bar. I'll be out in a
minute."

I returned to my Jack Daniels and was
rewarded by a smile from the bartender. The smile seemed familiar,
until I realized that I was looking at the female version of my
friend Jack. Weird. And exciting in an odd way.

I killed a few minutes sipping my drink and
watching the two unhappy women sitting on the other side of the
dance floor. One was starting to cry and the other looked
pissed-off. I guess we all have our romantic problems, no matter
whom we choose to romance. When some new customers walked in the
door and headed toward the happy table of five, the pissed-off
woman followed them with her eyes. Her expression changed from
anger to envy. She was ready to get on with a new life, her
narrowed eyes told me, and her old girlfriend was just dragging her
down. I was sorry I'd been privy to the moment.

By the time the bar's owner, Roberta,
returned from making her phone call, I was at the bottom of my
triple shot of Jack and starting to feel a little wop-jawed. The
more I drank, the cuter the bartender got—a personal phenomenon of
mine apparently not confined to straight bars.

"How long do you have?" Roberta asked
me.

"As long as it takes," I said.

"Good. I've made a phone call. There's
someone on her way in to see you."

"The redhead?"

"That's right." She slipped onto the stool
next to mine and leaned closer. Her voice dropped, and what had
been a charmingly husky edge became a warning. "If you do anything
to harm her," she told me, "I will personally track you down and
see that you are very badly hurt. Understand?"

"Perfectly," I said. "I won't harm her."

"You better not. She's been through enough."
Roberta settled back as the bartender returned and poured her a new
drink: Scotch straight up, no ice. Before I could stop her, she did
the same for me, using the bottle of Jack Daniels. I looked at my
glass dubiously and considered whether I was close enough to my
apartment to walk home—ignoring the fact that once the issue even
became a question, it was a sure sign you ought to stop right then
and there.

The bar owner saw me looking at my whiskey
and raised her glass in salute. "Cheers," she said. "Real women
don't eat ice." She downed her drink in a single long shuddering
gulp, waved away the bartender and pulled out a fresh cigarette. "I
know the blond," she said flatly.

"She's been in here?"

"Sure. Until I had her thrown out."

"What for?" I was relieved that I had
finally met someone else who had glimpsed the real Tawny
Bledsoe.

"I told her it was because of fighting," she
said. "Which it was. But I knew about the other thing and that was
the real reason." She nodded toward the photos. "You got the
negatives with you?"

"That's right."

"Good. I expect you're going to leave them
when you go?”

I measured her gaze. "Probably."

"That's good to hear. Let me tell you
more."

I sat back and listened while she filled me
in on Tawny Bledsoe.

"We get all kinds in here," she explained.
"I've been here twenty years, and I've seen just about every type
of woman you could name coming through the door. I get young girls
who just got here for college and can't believe that there's other
women like them. They come in, the self-hatred just melts off their
shoulders, then they hit the dance floor and go wild with freedom."
She paused and blew a smoke ring. "I love to see their faces when
that happens. Helps me remember why I opened this bar in the first
place."

I was just drunk enough to be in the mood to
listen— and to start wondering whether there was an advantage to
choosing experience over youth.

"Then I get the older dykes," she said, "the
ones who feel comfortable with themselves. They have jobs, they
have lovers, they have their problems. But they work them out and
they're kind to one another, even if they do talk about every
detail of their relationships endlessly, usually within my
earshot." She shook her head, exasperated, then motioned for a
fresh drink. "I think I'm going to get drunk tonight. Feel free to
join me."

"About the blond?" I prompted.

"Right. I'm getting to her. Anyway, then you
get your dabblers coming in here. Repressed housewives who wander
in on their one night out each month, wanting a place where they
can get good and drunk without having some salesman slob drooling
on them. They're looking to flirt and feel pretty, maybe dance with
their bored housewife friends, then go home and tell people how
wild they were." She blew another perfect smoke ring toward the
ceiling. "Your blond wasn't one of those, either."

"Then what kind was she?"

"The worst kind. The minute she walked in, I
knew she was trouble."

"Why?"

"For starters, she was completely femmed
out, from head to toe, but she went right for some of my regulars
who are, shall we say, a little on the homely side. Created quite a
stir at the bar her first night. It was about a year and a half
ago, maybe. Something like that. I made it a point to sit near her
when she returned."

"And?"