Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 2 - Stellium in Scorpio (17 page)

"Not
at all," Callie said. "Have you met Elmo?" Rose knelt down and
put her pretty manicured hands around Elmo's head, swooning over how beautiful
he was. I noticed a man watching us from the hotel. He was a security type with
headset and radio.

"There
are some other things I wanted to tell you that I didn't get to say in the
sauna. I don't know what they mean," Rose said, and started to get up.

I
touched her shoulder, signaling her to stay on the ground with the dog.
"Pretend you're just admiring Elmo, because there's a guy watching us, and
I'd just as soon have him think this whole meeting is about your love of basset
hounds."

"Okay."
She stroked the Milk-Bone shape on the top of his caramel-colored head.
"Every night, money from the tables is put in a vault, and the vault has a
slot for the money to go in, but no way to get the money out: no opening, no
key, no combination, and no door. They call it the ghost's money."

It
was odd that we'd just heard this tale from Giovanni, and now we were hearing
it in more detail from Rose, who seemed overly distressed about it.
Rose
said "money from the tables. " That’s certainly more than the
innocent nightly dollar Gio described.
When I asked her why anyone's
putting money into a slot for a ghost who protects the hotel was a concern, she
said because it was somehow tied in with what was going on with the male
performers, something sexual that they talked about among themselves in a dark,
joking way.

"I
think some of them double as prostitutes. Joanie told me she was seriously
thinking of going to the police to try to put a stop to it. I guess it's gotten
worse over the years. First boys, then really young boys. Sometimes they get
hurt, depending on who the guy is they're meeting. They talk about that."

"So
you think the money from the prostitution ring goes into this vault?" I
whispered.

"I
don't know. ..there's talk, you know, about how much could be in the vault.
Guys saying things like, 'Hey, I humped for 400K of it!' Jokes like that."

"Would
Joanie talk to us about it?" Callie asked.

"I'll
ask her," Rose said and then paused. "A very good friend of mine
could be put in danger by my talking to you. I might not be able to be in touch
anymore."

"What's
your friend's name?" I asked, but Rose ducked her head and wouldn't
answer.

"Be
careful. Everyone here plays many different parts. It's fun but it's dangerous.
No one is who he appears to be...just like the
Boy Review
says. I have
to go now," she said.

"Well,
Elmo likes you as much as you like him. He's a sucker for pretty women," I
said loudly. "Stop by anytime and say hi, and we'll try to get over and
see your show."

"Great."
She waved goodbye and proceeded into the hotel. We waited a moment and then
took Elmo back up to the room. He'd had meatballs, a walk, and an evening with
a pretty girl. What more could a guy ask?

"Well,
I guess now we know part of the dark secret—child prostitution," Callie
said.

I
told Callie that while the discussion with Rose was interesting, Rose could be
overreacting. After all, she was a young girl in a grownup world. Prostitution
was a timeless game, and young showgirls or boys being exploited was a crime,
but most likely not a crime anyone would investigate until the story was
bigger.

"Like
someone dying?" Callie said, unhappy with my jaded opinion.

"You
could knock out a million prostitution rings, and in a week, like weeds,
they'll be back, because there are always creeps who want to run them and naive
kids who need a quick buck."

Callie
said nothing in reply and I knew she was thinking about Rose and how deeply
involved she might be. I was wondering about the truth behind Rose's statement
that everyone played many roles. The performers seemed to roll off the stage
and out into the hotel like a thick human fog, morphing into staff and vendors
and guests...no one knowing who anyone really was.

"You're
the only one I really know is
you!"
I said to Callie. "On
second thought, you could be an alien!" Callie just smiled at me.

Giovanni
Gratini's estate was a massive stone and marble structure protruding off a
promontory that looked like a large sand dune. The wide circular drive was dotted
with valet parkers poised to assume the burden of parking cars fifty feet away
from the mansion. The rough-finish stone walkway lit by centurion torches and
the night air filled with celebratory chanting that echoed outside the home
made me feel as if I were about to join crowds at the Colosseum for a large
sporting event. The doorman, looking stiff and starched, held the door for us,
and a woman stood by to inquire if we'd like our coats checked. Ten feet
farther on, a servant offered us a drink; another ten feet and we were served
hors d'oeuvres. Finally, at the end of the food gauntlet, Giovanni, in a purple
velvet dinner jacket and black silk slacks, smiled at us as if we were the most
important arrivals of the evening.

"You
made it, my lovely friends!" He kissed Callie's hand as I held her drink
for her. He had positioned himself against a large sculpted fireplace with a
mantel shaped like birds' wings and an oil painting of an Italian opera singer
above it. He was obviously a man of drama. The room was sprinkled with young
men from various theatrical venues, several we recognized from their pictures
in the
Boy Review.
They stood in gay groups of twos and threes,
interspersed with the occasional heterosexual couple, and made smart jokes and
drank heavily.

Off
to Giovanni's right, around the massive marble pillars separating the drawing
room from the dining hall, came a recognizable figure dressed in a
tight-fitting, long-sleeved, low-backed black gown: Karla Black, her massive
head of curls looking coiffed in an intentionally disheveled sort of way. She
swept into the room, in far greater control of her faculties than when I'd last
seen her, and she gave Giovanni a big kiss on the cheek. He ran his hand idly
down her back and over her rump but I noticed his focus was divided, half of it
going to Marlena, who was giving him the eye from across the room.

Karla
smiled appreciatively at Giovanni and then caught sight of Callie and me.
"Hello, I was hoping you'd come," she said.

"We
were glad to be invited." I shook her hand.

"You
asked about the ghost of the ghoul pool, well, you can now say that you've met
the ghost firsthand. We hold the party every year at the hotel. It's the most
fun. People love it! Hard to get an invitation!" Karla said, in contrast
to her earlier statement of knowing virtually nothing about the event. I
chalked it up to her having been in a near-drugged state at our last meeting.

"In
fact, you just missed the last one.. .too bad," Karla lamented.

"We
have a friend, though, who made the list. Rose Ross," Callie said brightly
as if Rose Ross had won a scholarship.

"Oh,
Rose." Karla elongated the name lovingly. "What a cutie. To be that
young again."

"I
like my women just your age, and your height with your looks," Giovanni
said gallantly, and squeezed her buttocks right in front of us.

"Ghostly
promises." Karla giggled. "Now you two go enjoy!" Karla moved on
to other guests.

One
look around and it was easy to see that this was a hookers and mafia kind of
party. The men looked tough and suspicious, the women were dolled up and used
up, and the young boys were there for decoration and entertainment. Several of
them had a Ouija board set up on a table in the corner, and they were asking
questions, watching the planchette move across the board, then squealing over
the answers and accusing one another of moving the planchette themselves.

Callie
joined them and asked if Joanie Burr was at the party.

"Ask
that queer over there." One of the young men pointed, and Callie and I
strolled over to the handsome, metrosexual man they'd indicated, who was seated
at a horseshoe-shaped bar in the middle of the room. He wore a dark pair of
pants and a dark shirt and sunglasses despite the dark room. Unlike the very
feminine drag queens in all their finery, he seemed to be gay publisher chic,
or record industry executive chic. I could imagine him holding down a job in
the entertainment industry, marching about with a clipboard, and snapping a
pencil down on it in aggravation over something late or wrong. I wondered what role
he played in the
Boy Review
since he didn't seem to be as exotic as the
other performers. He extended his hand as if we were there for a job interview.
"I'm Elliot Traugh, rhymes with how, or as my roommate at Princeton once
said, 'How now, Elliot Traugh, will you fuck the bull or kiss the cow?' I was
having some gender confusion at the time," he said, his tone acerbic.
"So you know Karla." Elliot Traugh laughed. "She changes
boyfriends more often than I do underwear, but then this whole town's about
who's doing who. So are you two with someone?"

"Each
other," I said.

"That's
refreshing." He flipped a cigarette ash onto the floor with disdain.
"Most everyone comes here to hook up; you arrived already hooked."

A
female hand slid onto Callie's shoulder, and we all turned in unison to find
Rose Ross in our midst. She was smiling radiantly. "I had no idea I'd see
you here," she breathed and then swirled around our tight circle to kiss
Elliot, who presented his cheek to her as one would a hand to the manicurist.

"And
they're an item," Elliot Traugh said. "Isn't that nice?"

This
was apparently new and startling news to Rose, who perhaps hadn't contemplated
that a woman who was a friend of her father's could have a sex life, much less
one with me. She stared at us with renewed interest. "Really? You're
together-together? Wow." Rose introduced her friend Sophia. I recognized
her immediately as the woman we'd spoken to when we went to the theater for the
first time. She'd thanked us for being interested in helping her friend Rose.

Rose
could barely take her eyes off Sophia, who was easily ten years her senior.
Sophia was taking in the room, aware of her surroundings, seemingly sensitive
to what was safe and what could explode. Rose was only taking in Sophia.

Suddenly,
a large, rough man on the far side of the room yanked a woman to the ground by
her hair and twisted her arm. She screamed, and he slapped her. As things were
about to get decidedly rougher, a gay man stepped up and playfully cupped him
in the balls, distracting him from the woman. There was muted conversation
between the two, the attacker left for the bar, and the gay man shot the hooker
a look that warned her to be more discreet.

"Rough
party," I remarked.

"They're
all on good behavior tonight because it's a mixed bag." Elliot Traugh
spoke in a bored way, and his eyes scanned the room, seemingly in search of
people more interesting than us. Callie asked Elliot if he'd seen Joanie Burr.
Elliot, his focus waning, replied that it was too early. Joanie liked to arrive
late and make a dramatic entrance.

Callie
and I had hoped to get Joanie alone and ask her about the very thing she wanted
to report to the police, but the odds of that now appeared slim.

Sophia
slipped her small black lacquered makeup mirror out of a thin slit that was her
side pocket and began running the lip liner around the edges of her full
Italian lips as Rose watched, visibly aroused, if one could judge by the
condition of her nipples inside her tight silk blouse.

"Sophia
must be the one who left us the newspaper article," Callie barely
whispered.

"Why
do you say that?" I asked.

"The
way she looks at me, as if she's trying to ask if I got her message."

"She
could just be cruising you, in which case I'll be sending
her
a
message," I said.

"She's
not cruising me," Callie said.

Sophia
glanced up at me, then trailed her fingers across Rose Ross's shoulder as she
departed to talk to someone else, smiling as Rose involuntarily shuddered at
her touch.
You’re right. She's cruising Rose,
I thought as I steered
Callie out into the large ballroom past the massive dining hall. Rose trailed
along behind us out of earshot, most likely trying to see where Sophia had
landed.

The
ballroom was a sea of mottled terrazzo with gold inlay separating the five-foot
squares. The windows on the south and east part of the room were tall and
arched at the top, overlooking a beautifully landscaped garden that must have
required enormous tending in the midst of the desert. A few other people had
made their way into the room, admiring the architecture as much as anything. I
asked Callie if I could freshen her drink. She nodded, and I moved back across
the floor that made me feel as if I were gliding across ice in my search for a
bartender. Rose went with me, saying if there was food I'd need more hands.

As
we walked, Rose leaned in to my ear, ducking her head just slightly to talk to
me since she was taller than I.

"So,
how long have you been gay?"