The Dangerous Edge of Things

CHAPTER 34

The first thing I did was try Dylan Flint at his Snoopshot’s number, but he wasn’t answering—again. I left a message asking him to please get in touch with me, then spent the rest of the afternoon with a bunch of manila folders and a note pad. And it gave me a lot to think about.

If Eliza was lesbian, she’d been hiding it, which meant she thought it was something to hide. Which put a whole new spin on Jake Whitaker’s comments. Was this the reason he didn’t believe the rumors about her and Mark? Was that what he’d been being “technically true but deliberately evasive” about? It made sense, especially considering some of the things Nikki had said about him, like how Eliza had caught him peeping into windows.

Still, I knew that people were too complicated to jam into rigid sexual categories. Even Rico had had a girlfriend once, back when we were in high school, when he was still Richard Worthington and I was still…confused.

I smiled at the memory. I’d learned a lot since then. Of course, none of that mattered. I needed smarts beyond what I’d gotten in Sex Ed 101 to explain Eliza. I didn’t have time to ponder the possibilities, however. It was two-thirty, and I had a 302 to complete.

Whatever the hell that was.

***

Trey showed up in the copy room an hour later, 302 report in hand. I had just slipped mine into the feeder, and the copy machine was humming itself to life. I hopped onto a work table. “Got a quick question for you, Mr. Seaver. Did you know Eliza was lesbian?”

“No.” Trey’s expression sharpened. “Do you know that?”

“It’s a theory at this point.”

The machine coughed and clunked to a stop. Trey knelt and opened the doors to find about seven million little lights blinking at him. He started turning knobs and rollers, threading his fingers into dark hot metal places.

“A theory requires evidence.”

“I’m getting to that. But first things first—Garrity called.”

“I know.” He pulled out a mangled, blackened piece of paper and handed it to me. “He called me first.”

I threw the paper in the trash. “Then you know that story. Factor in this—I called Whitaker. He said that the police told him that Bulldog was trying to break into Eliza’s apartment.”

Trey fished the paper out of the trash and put it in the recycling box. “Had broken into. He was hoping to retrieve the drugs he’d sold Eliza, but he couldn’t find them.”

I snorted. “Did it not occur to him that the police would have confiscated any drugs when they searched the place?”

“He thought she might have hidden them well enough that the police had missed them.”

“Had they?”

“No.”

I put a hand on his elbow. He looked at it, then looked at me.

“This lesbian thing is a big deal, Trey. A very big deal.”

“If it’s true.”

“I know of only one way to find out.”

The copy machine whirred and spat out my report, along with its duplicate. Trey fed his in next. I was expecting it to wheeze and rattle, but the contraption practically purred as it got to work.

“And that would be?” he said.

“We need to talk to Eliza’s friend Nikki. I think they were lovers.”

Trey shook his head, but I interrupted whatever he was about to say.

“Just come with me and talk to her, okay? Call it personal protection, call it whatever you have to, but I need you there to tell me if she’s telling the truth.”

“I’m in a meeting until six.”

“When you’re done then. I’ll go back to the shop, change into something less corporate agenty, then pick you up on the way.”

He collected his report from the tray and tucked it into a file folder. I noticed that it already had a label on it, neatly typed.

“Look,” I said. “Even if you don’t come along, I’m just going to do it anyway, and then who knows what will happen. You might end up bailing me out of jail tonight. Or worse. I mean, I’m not an idiot, but I’m no investigator either.”

“Fine. I’ll do it. You’ve made a compelling case that you’re in need of professional supervision. But we’re doing this on my terms.”

“Okay.”

“We stay together at all times.”

“Okay.”

“My role is not investigatory—I am there as your personal protection as per the original contract extension, not as an official representative of Phoenix.”

“Okay.”

“And whatever we learn remains confidential until the proper paperwork has been processed. Is that clear?”

“As a bell.” I extended my hand. He shook it solemnly.

“I’ll pick you up at the shop,” he said. “Stay in the suit.”

***

At Boomers, the first of the after-work crowd had reported for action—ties loosened, inhibitions too, oiled by the two-for-one drink specials. Boomers was kind enough to keep its website up-to-date with the dancers’ performance schedules, and I’d noticed that Nikki was due to go on stage in an hour. Only she was using her professional name—Sinnamon.

Trey flashed his ID, and the bouncer called back to see if she’d see us. We then had to go through the strip club den mother, who seemed even less enthusiastic than the bouncer. But in the end, Nikki said we could come on back.

We found her in a crowded dressing room putting on her stage make-up. She sported a platinum wig, plus fishnet hose, five-inch heels, and a tiny white blouse and seersucker skirt.

“You got something to tell me?” she said.

Trey stood politely at my side, hands folded. All around us, half-naked women pulled on thongs and shimmied into breakaway tops. He didn’t even glance their way.

“I was hoping you had something to tell me,” I replied.

“Like what?”

“Like how you and Eliza were lovers.”

She reached for a bottle of water and unscrewed the cap, her expression unchanging. Trey studied her, his eyes focused on her mouth. She didn’t acknowledge his attention.

“None of your damn business,” she said.

She turned her back on us and went back to applying her make-up. The dressing room was a buzzy cacophony of female sounds and thumping bass from the stage. I met her eyes in the mirror.

“You were at the party with her, the Mardi Gras Ball.”

Another shrug. “So? I told you we went to those things.”

“You didn’t mention this specific one, which makes me curious, especially since Dylan was there too, taking pictures of you and Eliza and the Beaumonts. What were they up to?”

“I told you, I don’t know. We got into a fight, and she left with him.”

“What was the fight about?”

“She kept dragging me around the room, following the Beaumonts around. She said she wanted pictures with them and wanted me in them, too. I told her that was stupid, she told me I was stupid, and I told her if she liked those people so much, she could get them to take her home.”

Nikki stroked mascara on in thick swipes. Her eyes grew darker and more recessed the more she talked.

“Why didn’t you tell anybody about the two of you?”

“What the f*ck good would that have done? It wasn’t like they were ever gonna make her one of them. She was redneck white trash. That’s all she was and all she was ever gonna be.”

“Was that why she was so infatuated with Charley, because she used to be white trash too? Did she think that would make her sympathetic?”

“Give me a break. Neither of them had nothing to do with her. She thought they shit gold, though. Everything she wanted to be.”

She stood up then. She was an Amazon. Impenetrable.

“You think Eliza would be dead if she was some rich woman like Charley Beaumont? She was broke, and she was a nobody, and the only thing she had going for her was that she was white, and I ain’t got that. And you wonder why I ain’t told anybody about me and her?”

She pushed past me to leave. Trey had been standing there silent the whole time. She looked up at him. “You got any questions, Mr. Suit and Tie?”

Trey cocked his head. “Did Eliza’s sister know about your relationship?”

Nikki cocked her head back. “Yeah.”

“How did she feel about that?”

“That tight-assed bitch?” Nikki made a noise of disgust. “She told me I was gonna burn in hell, and Eliza with me. That’s what she thought about that.”

***

The ride back to Kennesaw was rather subdued. Trey didn’t speak and neither did I. I just watched the city roll by, the procession of organic food shops and cigar emporiums and adult movie stores. And always the road work, the perpetual bustle, the endless growing pains of a city forever too big for its britches.

I gathered my things. “So this turned out to be a successful trip, right?”

“My role was to keep you safe. I accomplished that.”

I didn’t argue. He liked proper categories, naming things. I found that I appreciated it too. It kept me honest. Mostly.

“We make a good team, me and you,” I said.

“We’re a team?”

I thought about that. “Yeah. A team.”

“Okay.”

I looked over at him, sitting there all neat and polite and—it hit me with a pang—so singular, so alone with all he was and all he could never be. I felt a keen sensation of loss, almost familiar now, and I suddenly wanted more than anything to hug him, and if he’d been anybody else in the world, I would have done it.

But he was Trey. And he was separated from me by a gulf far wider than a few feet of leather upholstery. I watched him drive away and thought of empty spaces.

But I also thought of bridges.