The Granite Moth (12 page)

Paranoid. Perhaps not the first trait that you would list on a personal ad, but I didn't plan to be dipping my un-pedicured toes into the online dating scene anytime soon. I would cop to paranoid any day of the week. And obsessed while we were at it.

When my personal cell phone rang, I jumped and Dolly squeezed my hand. I flipped open the screen and squinted at the unknown number with a Manhattan area code. I stopped
Dolly and kept my eyes on the cruiser when I hit the answer button.

“If I say I could kill you, will you take it the wrong way?” Ellis asked.

“Probably,” I answered. “Why are you having me followed?” There was a long beat, and I knew I had asked the wrong question. “Wait, you mean you're watching the parents?”

That question was also greeted by a pause, and I knew I was right.

“I'm not confirming that.”

“Gotcha. Would you confirm a possible link between Ernesto Belasco's murder and the Halloween explosion?”

“No, I would not.”

Ellis had never been an adept liar, letting me talk us into bars underage and garner pity from our professors the next day by pleading sinus infections. I shouldn't have been surprised that our class valedictorian was a step ahead of me, aware that The Skyview victim was gay and, if I interpreted the nuance correctly, looking into any hate crime connections. There were definitely moments when I wished I were still on the force if only to be in the loop, but the macho office politics I could leave behind.

“Thanks, pal. You've been helpful.”

“I know you're not going to drop this, and I won't tell you to,” Ellis started, begrudgingly. “But be careful.”

He'd said those three words to me a lot lately and still my throat constricted for a moment. I flipped the phone closed, staring at the scratched surface.

“You know, a badass spy like you should really have an iPhone.”

“And be tracked by the NSA? Disposal living is the life for me,” I sang, making Dolly smile again even if it didn't reach his eyes. “Come on. Let's go find some hate mongers.”

It was after 6, and all I really wanted was a shower, but Dolly had been a good sport to accompany me all day. The least I could do was look into the print shop that made the brochures for the Zeus Society. As we waited on the A train platform, I asked Dolly to fill me in on Carlton Casborough, Bobbie's dish on the side. Almost everyone I've ever met would have asked, “Do you think he's behind the float sabotage,” but Dolly wasn't predictable. Instead, he told me about their first meeting after Dolly had been hired. Dolly described him as an equal-opportunity flirt, always a compliment ready and never back-handed like some of the others.

“He would never say, ‘I love how you make those extra pounds work for you' or something like that.”

Dolly was trying to keep an objective tone and mostly succeeded, but I guessed that he liked Carlton.

“Is he fake?” I asked, knowing it was at least a slightly offensive question, if not easy to misconstrue. I wasn't talking wigs and eyeliner, though. Dolly considered for a moment. His attention seemed to be absorbed by a mangy-looking rat that was nosing around the tracks, looking for loot. After a minute, Dolly shook his head.

“No, I don't think so. Maybe unaware. A few of the other performers and waiters had crushes on him.”

“Which ones?” I asked. The train lights appeared in the tunnel, and the rat scurried into an opening in the wall. I stepped back from the platform edge a few inches before the first cars screeched by. It was too loud to hear over the noise, and Dolly waited until the doors dinged open to answer. He couldn't be sure of anyone but Aaron Kline, describing him as “puppy doggish” when Carlton was around.

On the thirty-minute ride, Dolly filled me on a few other details: where Carlton was born, when he moved to New York. I wanted to ask Dolly if he knew who had stormed out
of the emergency room after the deaths were announced, but I thought that a question better left for Big Mamma. Dolly had still been in an exam room at the time.

My head hurt by the time we pushed open the door to The Fountain, and I realized that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. Of course, I had stuffed myself the night before at Circo, so maybe it all evened out. I flushed thinking of dinner with Lars, which made my head pound even more. The smell of toner and ink didn't help much.

It was a small, high-end shop, appropriate for the increasingly posh West Village. The walls were lined with stationary, and I longed to compare the death threat note to the samples, but figured I had best talk to the manager first. She was blonde, pony-tailed, and efficient, sizing me up even before I'd said so much as “hello.” I wasn't worried because Charlotte—according to her blue name tag—wasn't sizing me up, but Kathy Seasons, who usually lived on the Upper East Side but for the evening's purposes was a West Village neighbor, irate about a pamphlet she'd received earlier that weekend.

I pushed the offending literature from the Zeus Society toward Charlotte, who opened it and flicked off a piece of lint that had attached itself to a corner.

“I left a message yesterday. I suppose no one saw fit to return my call. Do you find anything wrong with this?”

Charlotte didn't glance at me, but instead studied each panel for a few seconds before flipping to the back and repeating the process.

“No ma'am. This seems to be of excellent quality, per our usual standards. Would you like to see our price list?”

Part of me marveled at her moxie. This girl couldn't have been out of college for very long, if at all. She could be fully matriculated down the street at The New School for all I
knew. I could tell that Dolly wasn't pleased by her nonchalant response. He didn't say anything, but stiffened beside me.

“So this establishment supports hate speech,” I stated, trying to get a rise out of her, but she looked back at me calmly. “I'm sure a few online forums would be happy to know. It deserves its own hashtag, really. Maybe #thefountainbigots.”

“We don't judge the content, ma'am, just print it. Stylishly,” she added, her confidence disorienting.

I paused to regroup, acknowledging that if she wasn't concerned about bad press, Charlotte had the power here. She had the intel I needed, too.

“In that case, we'd like to print our own materials to balance this filth. I will take a look at that price list after all.”

Charlotte acted as if she knew that would be my answer all along and grabbed a mint green sheet from behind the counter to discuss my options. “The eight by four flyer is nice on stock paper, if you want something to distribute that won't be as likely to end in the gutter. We can print it right now for you if you'd like. We're open until nine on Sundays.”

I glanced at the clock to see that it was nearing seven, then took out my legal pad to make a quick design. Drawing's not my forte, and I hadn't drawn so much as a heart doodle since freshman year of college, but I traced a quick jack-o-lantern and wrote in capital letters: INFORMATION ABOUT THE HALLOWEEN EXPLOSION WANTED $$$

“Let's start with 500, shall we?” Charlotte asked, not batting an eye over the fact that my flyer wasn't related to the Zeus Society brochure I'd been railing against. I've always valued a discreet doctor, but a discreet printmaker might be equally valuable. “What number would you like listed?”

Charlotte was already typing up a prototype for me to approve, and I gave her my office number. While Dolly and I waited, I texted Meeza that all office calls should go to
voicemail. I doubted we'd get anything other than pranks and drunks, but it was worth a shot.

Dolly had yet to say anything since we'd entered the store. We were too close to the parade site for this to be a comfortable outing.

“We'll get them,” I said, the words catching in my throat as if my brain disapproved of how trite my mouth was being. But Dolly nodded.

“You bet your sweet angel ass,” he said.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

M
other's
bindi, what is that?” Meeza exclaimed as I scooted past the new floor secretary, Meeza's not-so-efficient replacement, and into the office. I assumed my assistant wasn't referring to the bag of bagels squeezed under my arm because she took that from me and helped herself to a garlic and onion. And she probably wasn't referring to my blonde “Kate” wig, a bob I thought of as soccer-Mom chic, because she'd seen me in it on multiple occasions by now, including our very first stakeout together. No, it had to be the gray flowered dress that I'd picked up from a thrift shop. Turns out, Dolly didn't own anything that screamed “I hate gays, too!” so I'd popped into a Washington Heights Salvation Army and picked up this winner. I held it out in front of me, trying to decide whether the black flowers looked understated or goth.

“It's not so bad,” I began, noting that it was pilled in a few places and seemed to have a (fingers crossed) coffee stain along one seam. The lace collar had probably been white in a past life.

“That thing needs to be de-loused.”

I agreed that a quick tumble in a washing machine wouldn't hurt, but there was no time for such luxuries. According to the woman I spoke to after calling the brochure number, there was a Zeus Society meeting today at a Brooklyn warehouse. The phrase “Brooklyn warehouse” brought back too many unpleasant memories to think about, so I pushed them away and focused on wardrobe. Seriously, did anything good ever happen in a Brooklyn warehouse? Even the art openings often had sub-par bathroom situations.

“Is Kate too blonde, you think?” I asked Meeza, turning toward her. Preoccupied, I had neglected to notice how tired she looked. There were circles under her eyes, and her usually neat hair was sloppily gathered on top of her head. If I wasn't mistaken, she was using a scrunchie. Did they even make those anymore? I tossed the dress down on my desk and gave Meeza my full attention. “You know, you really don't have to go to the 8
A.M.
classes,” I said as gently as possible.

“The diligent lad hasn't missed one, yet. The teacher, on the other hand, is starting to doubt my cockamamie story about the registrar's office. I'm not sure I'll make it through another week without being tossed out.”

She laughed, and some of my worry about her eased. I opened my mouth to say something about V.P., then stopped. I'd never meddled with a relationship before and wasn't sure I deserved to try now. What did I know about a healthy romance? Marco was the last thing I had resembling a boyfriend, and we had lived in a sort of fantasy land—a dark fantasy land, mind you—between my undercover assignment and his. The subtext on that one was clear: It would never last.

“Anyone call about the flyer?” I asked, saving the pity party for a later time. The Fountain manager Charlotte had been a vault, refusing to give us even the slightest hint about whether the brochure and Pink Parrot death threats were both printed on site. I'd
slid them onto the counter side by side, but she might as well have been looking at postcards from Oregon. “Good quality,” she had said. “If it doesn't have our logo, I can't say if it was printed here.” She admitted that most customers preferred the logo-free option even though it was more expensive, and did we want to upgrade our order?

Not ready to admit defeat, Dolly and I had wandered up and down Sixth Avenue handing out all 500 of the newly printed cries for help. Plenty were indeed thrown into the gutter despite the quality paper Charlotte had sold us, but others offered high fives and fist bumps. I wouldn't overstate our welcome amongst the other pushy flyer folks, but some locals at least were grateful that Dolly and I were canvassing for something other than strip clubs.

The West Village at night was my favorite neighborhood growing up. As a teenager, I would wander around with my gaggle of girlfriends, trying to talk our way into dive bars and usually succeeding. Everyone we passed looked like a poet or a photographer, and we were going to be muses and models. I guess that was our version of a princess fantasy, although I've seen enough strung out women during Fashion Week to know runways are no palaces. It's funny, I can't remember my friends' faces very well. I'm sure they've forgotten mine by now.

“A few, nothing promising. One climate control conspiracy theory and three men asking how much we'd pay for information,” Meeza said, checking her notes on the calls.

“Do I want to know what a climate controller is?”

“Katya,” Meeza said, as she flipped through our meager assortment of mail. I peered at her quizzically, not sure why she was using one of my aliases. Maybe there was a bill addressed to her? “Katya Lincoln. That ugly brown wig will read as down-at-the-heel crazy person. That's what you're going for, right?”

“It's not so bad,”
I said, but it was more like a Pavlovian response by now. I knew the permanently bunned style wasn't flattering, but my reluctance to wear it didn't have anything to do with vanity. I met clients as Katya Lincoln and liked to keep that identity separate. It was the one I used most often. When I dreamed, I was usually dressed as Katya, sensible Katya who lived a long way from my former, rat-invested Bronx apartment. For years, I'd lived in fear of being recognized by one of my drug dealing associates and had gone out of my way to make sure my hair was never that jet black or same length again. I slathered on sunscreen lest my tawny skin get too dark, and sunglasses were
de rigueur
. What can I say? I'd choose safe over glamorous any day of the week. My high school buddies would be ashamed of me.

In the end, I tied a scarf around the Kate wig, so that only a few blonde strands were visible. The dress smelled faintly of fish, and I tried not to think about who might have died in those threads. The one upside was that no one sat next to me on the train. I was left in peace to think over my conversation with Big Mamma. I'd called to ask who had fled the emergency room and got a funny feeling when she said Aaron Kline, the man who acted like a puppy when Carlton Casborough was around. Had Aaron known that Carlton was sleeping with Bobbie? Could he have wanted to get rid of the competition badly enough to sabotage the float?