You Don't Know Jack Page 3

  The experience moved him to make his body a tattoo temple to the species. Sharks on his chest, his back, his legs, his arms, his neck... and places I imagined, but haven't confirmed.

  Of Hungarian Gypsy descent, he stood over six feet with a mass of muscles, blue black hair lashed in a thong at his nape, and curly lashed ebony eyes that could be liquid as oil one moment, hard as dried pitch the next.

  If I ever need muscle, I call Sharkey first.

  And he comes. We're sort of family. His cousin, Endré Boldizsar — yes, my missing ex — disappeared on our wedding night, before consummating the marriage. Neither Sharkey nor I have seen or heard from him since.

  Well, maybe I had.

  Not that I wanted to. I'd only agreed to the marriage so he wouldn't be deported. Okay, the fact he was drop dead gorgeous and mysterious as hell, and roused the green eyed monster in Stone, had sweetened the prospect of being Endré's pretend-wife. But it was a really dumb move. Illegal even. Best not to dwell on that.

  By unspoken agreement, Sharkey and I didn't discuss Endré.

  It was ten when I shoved into the tattoo parlor, setting off the bell over the door. The smell of burnt coffee tainted the air. I could hear Sharkey in the back, in the private room where he plied his craft. He wasn't alone. I waited, hoping he wouldn't be long. My gaze drifted to the sheets of drawings plastering the lobby walls, designs from goldfish to sharks, from demons to religious symbols, from wizards and witches to birds and butterflies, from ropes of thorns to delicate flowers. And hearts. Too damned many hearts.

  The sign behind the counter read:

  Follow exactly the instructions on

  cleansing your new ink or you'll

  end up with a Fucked Up Tattoo.

  This didn't really seem to cover all the ways a tattoo could be fucked up, I thought, glancing at my wrist.

  The door to the private room wrenched open and Sharkey emerged trailed by a lean, mean vegan machine. My Aunt Mamie. Did I mention the Crain family tradition of naming female offspring after former first ladies? Aunt Mamie, after Mamie Eisenhower, is my mother's baby sister. She's forty-five, passes for thirty-five, and hankers after biker dudes; the more tattoos they sport, the more irresistible she finds them. Sharkey fits her criteria on all cylinders.

  Mamie was tugging down the hem of a navel length tee shirt purchased in the teen department of the local Walmart. New tattoo? If so, it wasn't currently visible.

  "Hi, guys," I said, startling them.

  My aunt turned red to the roots of her crewcut as though I'd caught her doing something... naughty? Had I? Did I really want to know?

  Her wide Crain blue eyes went warm as they landed on me. "Good morning, Jack B. Whatever brings you here this time of day? Isn't there a cheater who needs followed, or dogs that need walked, or a bloody murder scene you should be writing?"

  Auntie M was rambling, a thing this sure-mouthed woman never did. She was rattled. Had I actually interrupted her and Sharkey while they were, you know? Had she seen the location of his every shark? I cringed, then wondered why the possibility of that shocked me so much? Just because he was younger? Hah! Age never stopped a Crain sister from landing a man she'd set her sights on. Why should this time be any different?

  "Well, er, ah, I have a permanent to do in ten minutes," Auntie M said, tapping her watch as she sidled toward the exit. "Nice to see you, Jack B. Thanks for — ah, thanks, Peter."

  Peter? She called Sharkey by his given name? No one called Sharkey by his given name without threat of injury.

  "Any time." Sharkey crooned. He wore a sleeveless muscle shirt and a wolf in sheep's clothing grin. Unwanted images bounded into my mind. I threw up a little in my mouth.

  Sharkey watched her leave the store, his gaze pinned to her tight little heinie until the door closed behind her. Then that penetrating gaze landed on me. "You aren't due to work on the books for another two weeks. What gives? Can't pay your rent again, babe?"

  "No. That's handled."

  When I didn't elaborate, he said, "You want that tattoo of yours finished?"

  I covered my wrist to shield it from danger. "It is finished. I'm meeting Lars here. I need you to notarize something for me."

  He wrenched back as though I'd struck him dumb. Then he shook his head and hunkered down, his bulging arms resting on the counter like a man about to do push-ups. "Well, I'm the second son of a son of a bitch. What fuckin' fool thing are you doin' with that bastard Larson that needs to be notarized?"

  I'd just finished explaining when the man in question arrived in his gray Mercedes. He looked pretty much as he had yesterday, boots, Stetson, sheepskin lined jacket. All bright eyed and eager. Just a hint of smug around the eyes. How I'd love to wipe that away, but I reminded myself what was at stake, and also, that the "impulse gene" was not connected to the "in one's best interest gene."

  He carried a briefcase. His cologne arrived ahead of him, something musky and earthy. Not to my taste. Nor was the stench of animosity wafting off Sharkey.

  "See," Lars said. "Right on time."

  "Do you have the agreement and the cashier's check?" I asked, my stomach knotted. I wouldn't feel secure about this deal until the check was in my account.

  Flexing biceps the size of mountains, Sharkey took out his notary stamp. "Jack B tells me she and you require my special services."

  "We need you to witness our signatures on this document is all." Lars shoved up on the brim of his Stetson.

  "No." Sharkey's voice rumbled from deep within his throat. "That ain't all. Not by a skunk's tail. If you don't keep your word, cowboy, I'll hunt you down and feed your entrails to the rats in my back alley, understood?"

  Lars arched an eyebrow, disdain hardening a gaze that said Sharkey was the one with the cowboy attitude. "There's no need for hostility. We're all friends here. Right?"

  Sharkey grinned the coldest smile I'd ever seen and flexed his muscles again.

  "Cool it." I smacked my purse on the counter. "I don't care which one of you can out piss the other. Let's just do this, okay?"

  Lars took a step back and handed me the agreement. Sharkey and I read it together. Everything was stipulated as I'd asked it to be. I insisted Lars sign first, then I signed and Sharkey added the stamp that made the whole thing official. It was as legal as it was going to get. Lars handed me the check. He'd figured it to the penny.

  Sharkey sneered at Lars. "Generous of you to round off the amount."

  Lars' neck turned red, and his gaze narrowed. I recognized that look. Despite the fact it would be like poking an angry grizzly, he was about to tell Sharkey to put it where the sun don't shine.

  "Thanks, Sharkey," I said, catching Lars by the arm and dragging him outside into the cold gray day.

  He jerked free of my hold. "That guy's an asshole. We should have met at my attorney's office."

  I struggled not to grin. "Sharkey's lawyer enough for me."

  "He thinks he's mafia." Lars adjusted his Stetson. "Just make sure you're at the club tonight."

  The minute Lars left the parking lot, I was in Old Yeller on my way to the bank. As soon as I got home I reconnected my internet service and electronically paid some bills I'd been putting off. I would have liked to have spent hours surfing the internet, checking out sales on eBay, catching up on the latest celebrity gossip, finishing up some research on my current manuscript. But I had to come up with some sort of disguise for the night's excursion into my first undercover operation.

  Apollo showed up at ten p.m. wearing skin tight jeans, a sparkling gold tee shirt, a diamond stud in his ear and a long shimmery blue scarf around his neck. His dark hair brought to mind an agitated porcupine.

  He looked like a party animal in need of a Rave.

  I looked like a costume in need of a Halloween party.

  I wore a dead man's suit — including tie, vest and fedora — borrowed from the Crain Sisters' attic. It had belonged to one of the men who'd passed through their lives, then passed away. My pal
e blond tresses were tucked into the hat.

  As disguises go, this one needed to. I groaned and waved my hands in frustration. "Look at me."

  Apollo's narrowed gaze scanned up and down my length. "What am I supposed to be seeing?"

  "I can't pass as a gay man. Or any man."

  "Oh, honey, I agree." He clasped my shoulder and met my gaze. "No one makes a breast binder that would flatten you that much."

  I laughed, the knot of tension inside me bursting apart. "Hard to believe I spent my early teens built like a boy."

  Air hissed from between his teeth. "No F-ing way."

  I nodded. "I was so pathetic, I sent away for breast enlarging contraptions from ads in the back of gossip magazines I'd snitched from the Clip and Flip."

  "I've seen those ads." His eyes rounded. Was he wearing mascara? "But I figure if a gadget seems unbelievable..." His gaze was locked on my boobs. "Guess I was wrong."

  "No... you weren't." I laughed harder.

  He seemed exasperated by the whole conversation. "Well, stop the presses and hold back the rains. You have body issues! What woman doesn't? Ye gods, I'm forever hearing the complaints. They're either too big or too small where they least or most want to be. Either they have stick straight hair and yearn for curly or vice versa." He tugged the dead man's jacket off me. "Though, you know, I can understand that big butt thing. I'd hate to have a big butt."

  I rolled my eyes. He was a mosquito, a gnat. What butt? "Trust me, you have nothing to fear." I, on the other hand had fear oozing from my pores. "I can't just waltz into Club Jaded Edge as myself. I'm not supposed to spy on Frankie at work. Dinah will fire me. Especially if she finds out I've taken on a male client. Women like knowing I don't do men. It boosts their trust in me, you know?"

  Apollo eyed me as though assessing the situation. He lifted the hat from my head and plopped it on my Ken doll. It figured: it actually looked better on the mannequin. "Stop worrying."

  But I couldn't. "And then there's Frankie, himself. What if he realizes he's seen me somewhere before — like in a Bainbridge Island coffee shop yesterday? What am I going to do?"

  "When I'm done with you—" Apollo walked around me, looking me up and down. " — I guarantee, he won't remember you."

  "Oh, he'll remember me. People always remember me." I struggled to stand still while he undid my tie. "I won't be able to follow him after that."

  "He's not going to recognize you." He pulled the tie from my neck and began unbuttoning the vest. There was a gleam in his eye. He'd come up with an idea. "No one will."

  "They won't? Why not?"

  "Passing as a man isn't your only option."

  "There's another?"

  "You've seen Victor/Victoria..."

  Light dawned. "You mean dress like a man dressed like a woman."

  "Exactly." He nodded.

  I nodded, quickly realizing we looked like bobble head dolls.

  "I'll be a drag queen... like Bruce." I didn't look much like Britney Spears, but maybe with Apollo's help I could carry it off. Maybe. "It's inspired."

  "It's brilliant." He beamed. "You'll be wonderful. You'll outdo Bruce at his own game."

  Yeah. That's what I'd do. I'd do Bruce better than Bruce. Except for one tiny glitch: I don't do men. "I don't know how to be a transvestite."

  "That's why I'll be by your side every minute." Apollo studied my face. "You already look a bit like Dolly Parton."

  Dolly Parton?

  Not Britney?

  I glanced in the mirror again and grimaced. Okay, so who was I kidding with that Britney fantasy? "Aren't I too tall?"

  "You should be thanking God for the resemblance," he said, catching my chin in his hand, twisting my face this way and that. "It will make our task so much easier. When I'm done, I'll have you looking enough like the Queen of Dollywood to pass for her twin."

  It wasn't that I lacked confidence in Apollo's Extreme Makeover skills. If anyone could do it, he could. But there were obstacles. Dolly Parton jokes her waist is so teeny because nothing grows in shadow. I suspect she has some other secret. My waist lives in shadow and expands according to my intake of chocolate. Or ice cream. Dolly Parton probably doesn't intake chocolate or ice cream for depression stress. Dolly Parton probably doesn't have depression stress.

  "My waist is too..." I held my hands away from the area in question. "While hers is..." I closed the gap between my hands, illustrating the point.

  "Oh, that." He dismissed the concern with a flip of his hand. "I've got a cincher that will make it as teeny as Scarlett O'Hara's. Just say the word."

  What was there to think about? What choice did I have? "Let's do it."

  "I have most of what we need in my car. You'll have the rest in your closet." He hurried out and I began peeling off the dead man's slacks.

  Half an hour later, I could not find myself beneath the make-up and wig. The cincher made my waist the promised seventeen inches, but cut off my breath forcing us to settle for Scarlett's sister's waist size.

  Apollo stepped back, admiring his handwork. I glanced in the mirror. The fake eyelashes felt like butterflies perched on my eyelids. Probably flew out of my stomach.

  Apollo grinned. "Lordy, I've outdone myself."

  "You're a genius." I agreed. "I never realized I looked this much like Dolly Parton."

  "Hmm." Apollo was still studying me, his heavy eyebrows bunched. He gnawed a fingernail. "Something's missing."

  I glanced at my reflection again. "I have more colors than a rainbow. What could be missing?"

  "Oh, silly me." Apollo snapped his fingers. "An Adam's apple."

  "I have to have an Adam's apple?"

  "No." He removed his scarf. "We need to hide the fact you don't have one."

  "Oh."

  He wound the scarf loosely about my neck, then checked his own appearance. "I need something too... ah, yes, this will do."

  He plucked the deadman's tie from Ken's shoulder and held it up to his chest. It was gold with flashes of blue like fireworks star bursts. Pleased, he plopped it around his neck, leaving the knot to gape at his collar bone. Then he glanced at me again. "Now, there's just one more itsy bitsy thing. Do you suppose you can manage to sound more like the Diva of Twang?"

  I considered that, dredging memories of Dolly singing and speaking voices from my mental storage bank and tried, "How about this, ya'all?"

  Apollo made the sign of the cross. He's not Catholic.

  "I don't suppose you want me to try singing like her?"

  "God, no." He shuddered. "Don't sing. And stop worrying. It's not like you'll be performing at the club, just night clubbing."

  Night clubbing. As though I'd been grabbed from behind by a mugger the smile left my face, leaving only a belly full of fear. The Black Boutonniere Killer chose his victims from among those who partied at clubs like Jaded Edge. What might I be dragging Apollo into? I caught his wrist. "Promise you won't leave my side... even for a minute."

  "Even to go to the men's room?"

  "Promise."

  "Okay, okay. I promise not to leave your side. I'll only go to the men's room when you have to pee, too." He laughed, his mood light, jubilant. "Can't wait to see you use a urinal."

  "On second thought, you can't come."

  "What?" The smile fled Apollo's face. "Just because we'll be in a men's room together? You can't be serious."

  "I am." I had the sudden fear that my need for a pal on this adventure might very well put Apollo in real danger... from a serial killer. Maybe I was being foolish, but I would not risk my BFF's life.

  "Really Nancy, I thought I was your Helen Corning, your George Fayne and Bess Marvin..."

  Nancy Drew's sidekicks. I rolled my eyes. Not easy with the double faux lashes. "Normally you are. Just not tonight."

  "Why not tonight of all nights?"

  "If I tell you that I'll have to kill you." If you come with me, you could end up the next victim of the Black Boutonniere Killer. I couldn't tell him that, and I wou
ldn't put him in jeopardy. "Promise me you'll go home and stay there. Promise."

  He didn't like it, but he nodded with a drama queen sigh. "Only if you promise to text constant updates."

  "Deal." Relief swept through me, followed by an eerie sense that despite my precautions something awful was going to happen tonight.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I stood before the double wide, copper entrance to Club Jaded Edge, a converted Seattle warehouse close to the waterfront, grappling with my nerves. The damp night air was doing nothing good to my Dolly Parton makeup. If I put off entering much longer —

  "'Bout time you showed up, girl." Apollo appeared at my side like a bouncy, flashy apparition.

  I almost wet my pants. I swore and glared bug-eyed at him. "What the hell are you doing here? You promised you'd go home and stay there."

  Nervous energy sparked off of Apollo. "I went home, but it felt wrong. I couldn't miss your special night. Your debut. First time undercover. First time in a gay bar. Oh, stop frowning, you'll end up more wrinkled than a limp dick."

  I sighed, resigned. Containing Apollo was like trying to bottle a genie without a cork. "You better stick to me."

  "Like Velcro." He laughed, and my stomach clenched.

  The beat of the live band playing inside, the boom of the bass bouncing off the aged brick and reclaimed pilings, had my foot tapping happily, in complete disregard to my anxiety.

  Apollo said, "You're about to lose your gay-bar virginity."

  "Seems like there should be a ceremony to commemorate this moment," I said.

  "You mean, like a bar mitzvah or a Confirmation?"

  Or a fairy dust sprinkling dance. "Yeah, something like that."

  "Get over yourself." His nervous hands gave me one last swipe. "There. Rock star. Now, show us some Crest Whites."

  My mouth muscles wobbled. "I can't shake the feeling something awful is going to happen if we cross that threshold."

  "Only thing you're dreading is straddling a urinal."