Hell to Pay Page 13

  Eleanor shrugged angrily. “He’s a teenager. For me, that’s so long ago I can barely remember what it was like. I try to be understanding, but…he’ll get over it. I raised Paul to be his own man, not Jeremiah’s. I just wish he’d talk to me more…”

  “Do you believe Melissa was kidnapped?” I said bluntly.

  “Oh yes,” said Eleanor, not hesitating for a moment.

  “But it must have been done with inside help to get past all the security. Not anyone in the family. I’d know. More likely one of the servants.”

  “How about Hobbes?” I said. “He seems to know everything there is to know about the Hall’s security. And he is a bit…”

  “Creepy?” said Eleanor. “Damned right. Can’t stand the fellow, myself. He sneaks around, and you never hear him coming. Gives himself airs and graces, just because he’s the butler. But no…Hobbes is Jeremiah’s man, body and soul. Always has been. What bothers me is that there hasn’t been any ransom demand yet.”

  “Maybe they’re still working out how much to ask for,” I said.

  “Maybe. Or perhaps they believe they can find the secret of Griffin immortality by interrogating her. Or dissecting her. The fools.” She looked at me appealingly and put her hand on top of mine. “John, I might not be as close to Melissa as I should, but I still wouldn’t want anything like that to happen to her. You rescued Marcel for me. Rescue my niece. Whatever it takes.”

  “Even though her return could disinherit you?” I said.

  “That’s only a whim on Daddy’s part,” Eleanor said flatly. She drew her hand back from mine, but her gaze was just as steady. “He’s testing William and me, to see how we’ll react. He’ll change his mind. Or I’ll change it for him.” She smiled suddenly, like a mischievous child. “William never did understand how to work our father. He always had to go head to head, and you never get anywhere with Daddy like that. He’s had centuries to build up his stubbornness. And William…has never been strong. I know how to get Daddy to do what I want, without him ever realising that it’s my idea and not his. Which is why I have a life of my own, away from the family and the family business, and a child of my own, and poor William doesn’t.”

  “There is a story,” I said carefully, “about an adult grand-child leading to the Griffin’s death…”

  “No-one believes that old story!” said Eleanor, not even bothering to hide her scorn. “Or at least, no-one who matters. Do you think for one moment I’d let my Paul live in the Hall with the Griffin if I thought he was in any danger? No, that story is one of the many legends that have grown up around my family and my father, down the centuries. Most of them contradictory. I think Daddy encourages them. The more stories there are, the less chance there is that someone might discover the truth. Whatever it might be. I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does anymore, except Daddy.”

  She paused, and looked at me in a thoughtful, considering way. “I find myself…drawn to you, John Taylor. You’re the first man I’ve met in a long time who genuinely doesn’t seem to give a damn about my family’s wealth, or power. Who isn’t scared shitless of my father. Do you have any idea how rare that is? Every one of my husbands all but fainted the first time I dragged them into the great man’s presence. Could it be that I’ve finally found a real man, after so many boys…?”

  “I’m hard to impress,” I said. “You never met my mother…And you should remember that I’m only passing through your life, Eleanor. I have no intention of staying. I have my own life and a woman I share it with. I’m just here to do a job.”

  Eleanor put her hand on top of mine again. There was a sense of pressure, not unpleasant, as though she could hold me there by force. “Are you sure I can’t tempt you, John?”

  I gently but firmly pulled my hand out from under hers. “You haven’t met my Suzie. Has it ever occurred to you, Eleanor, that what you’re looking for isn’t a man, but another Daddy?”

  “I am never that obvious,” said Eleanor, not insulted.

  “Or that shallow.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” I said, not unkindly. “I have to find Melissa, and I’m on a very tight deadline. I can’t help feeling I’m missing something…I’ve talked to everyone in your family now, except Paul. You said he and Melissa were very close. If I were to go back to the Hall, would you happen to have a spare key to his bedroom?”

  “He isn’t there right now,” said Eleanor, looking away for the first time. “He has…friends he goes to see. At this club…He thinks I don’t know. If I tell you where to find him, John, you have to promise me you’ll be gentle with him. Treat him kindly. He is very precious to me.”

  “I shall be politeness itself,” I said. “I can be civilised, when I have to be. There just isn’t much call for it, in my line of business.”

  “You have to promise me you won’t tell anyone else,” Eleanor insisted. “People wouldn’t understand.”

  I put on my most trustworthy face. Eleanor didn’t look entirely convinced, but she finally told me the name of the club, and at once I understood a lot more about Paul Griffin. I knew the club. I’d been there before.

  “It’s so good to have had a real conversation, for a change,” said Eleanor, a little wistfully. “To actually talk about something that matters…” She looked out of our booth at the Ladies Who Lunch, and her gaze was not kind. “You have no idea how lonely you can feel, in the middle of a crowd, when you know you have nothing in common with any of them. Some days, I could turn my back on the family and walk away from it all. Make a new life for myself. But I couldn’t leave Paul to my father’s mercies…and besides, I don’t know how to do poor. So I guess I’ll go on being a goldfish in a bowl, swimming round and round, forever. I enjoyed meeting you, John Taylor. You’re…different.”

  “Oh yes,” I said. “Really. You have no idea.”

  SEVEN

  Divas! Las Vegas!

  There are all kinds of clubs in Uptown, and Divas! is perhaps the most famous. Certainly the most glamorous, Divas! is where men go to get in touch with their feminine side by dressing up in drag as their favourite female singing sensations. They then channel their idols’ talents so they can get up on the big raised stage and sing their little hearts out. At Divas! girls just want to have fun.

  I’d been to the club once before, during the Nightingale case, but I was hoping the management had forgotten about that by now. It wasn’t my fault all the trannies got possessed by outside forces, attacked me and my friends, and we were forced to trash the place. Well, technically, yes it was my fault; but for once I was pretty sure I had the moral high ground as I did save the day, eventually. It really wasn’t my fault that the club had to be practically rebuilt from the ground up afterwards.

  I stood outside Divas! and looked the place over. It looked as I remembered it—loud, overstated, and tacky as all hell. That much flashing neon in one place should be declared illegal on mental health grounds. You couldn’t criticise the club’s taste because it gloried in the fact that it didn’t have any, but I still felt the neon figures over the door engaged in what I’d thought at first was a sword-swallowing act was way over the top.

  Bright young things and gorgeous young creatures sauntered and sashayed through the main entrance. They came in groups and cliques, in ones and twos, laughing and chattering and arm in arm, their heads held high. This was their place, their dream, their heaven on earth. And this…was Paul Griffin’s club. I wondered what (or who) he’d look like when I finally tracked him down.

  I strolled casually towards the main entrance, feeling positively dingy in my plain white trench coat, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t run into anyone who was involved in the previous…unpleasantness. The big and burly bouncer at the door was Ann-Margaret, in a leopard-skin print leotard, a flaming red wig, and surprisingly understated makeup. The illusion was fairly convincing, until you got close enough to spot the over-developed biceps. He moved quickly to block my way, a distinctly unfeminine scowl darkening his
face.

  “You are not coming in,” the Ann-Margaret said flatly. “You are banned, John Taylor, banned and barred and banished from this club for the rest of your unnatural life. We’d excommunicate you and burn you in effigy if we thought you’d care. You are never setting foot in Divas! ever again, not even if you get reincarnated. We’ve only just got the place looking nice again. And even you can’t force your way in now, not with all the really neat new protections we’ve had installed since you were here last. I have new and important weapons to use against you! Mighty weapons! Powerful weapons!”

  “Then why aren’t you using them?” I asked, reasonably.

  The Ann-Margaret shifted uneasily on his high-heeled feet. “Because there are a lot of really nasty rumours going around just now as to how you really won the Lilith War. They say you did some really awful things, even for you. They say you burned down the Street of the Gods and ate Merlin’s heart.”

  “Does that really sound like something you think I’d do?” I said.

  “Hell, yes! Whatever happened to Sister Morphine? What happened to Tommy Oblivion? Why have their bodies never been found?”

  “Trust me,” I said calmly, “you really don’t want to know. I did what I had to, but I couldn’t save everyone. Now let me in, or I’ll set fire to your wig.”

  “Beast!” hissed the Ann-Margaret. “Bully.” But he still stepped aside to let me pass. The painted and powdered peacocks waiting to get in watched in disapproving silence as I entered the club, but I didn’t look back. They can sense fear. The hatcheck girl in her little art deco cubicle was a 1960s Cilla Black in a tight leather bustier. He clearly remembered me from last time because he took one look and immediately dived beneath his counter to hide until I was gone. Lot of people feel that way about me. I could sense all kinds of weapon systems tracking and targeting me as I strolled through the lobby towards the club proper, but none of them locked on. Sometimes my reputation is more use to me than a twenty-third-century force field.

  I pushed open the gold-leaf-decorated double doors and stepped through into the huge ballroom that was the true heart of Divas! I stopped just inside the doors, stunned by the make-over they’d given the old place. The club had gone seventies. Las Vegas seventies, with a huge glittering disco ball rotating and sparkling overhead. Bright lights and brighter colours blazed all around, gaudy and tacky by turns, with rows of slot machines down one wall, a mirrored bar, and a row of long-legged, high-kicking chorus girls slamming their way through a traditional routine up on the raised stage. It was as though the seventies had never ended, a Saturday Night Feverdream where the dancing never stopped.

  Gorgeous butterflies in knock-off designer frocks fluttered around the crowded tables on the ballroom floor, crying out loud in excited voices, catcalling and laughing and shrieking with joy. It was all almost too glamorous to bear. The chorus line trotted off-stage to thunderous applause, replaced by a Dolly Parton in hooker chic hand-me-downs, who sang a medley with more enthusiasm than style. I wandered through the tables, nodding appreciatively at some of the more famous façades, but no-one ever smiled back. They all knew me and what had happened here before, and they wanted to make it very clear I was not at all welcome. I get a lot of that. Up on the raised stage, the Dolly gave way to a Madonna and a Britney, duetting on “I Got You Babe.”

  I was still looking for Paul Griffin, or somebody like him. Eleanor had given me a rough description of her son and what he might be wearing, but all I knew of him for sure was a frightened voice on the other side of a locked bedroom door. I was going to have to ask someone; and getting answers here wasn’t going to be easy. As in Hecate’s Tea Room, the girls at every table grew silent as I approached, glared at me as I passed, and gossiped loudly about me after I’d moved on.

  And then I caught a glimpse of Shotgun Suzie, moving among the tables on the other side of the room. My Suzie, in her black motorcycle leathers, with a shotgun holstered on her back and two bandoliers of bullets crossed over her chest. What the hell was she doing here? She was supposed to be hunting down a bounty out on Desolation Row. I pushed my way through the tables and the crowds, but even before I could call out her name she turned to look at me, and I saw at once that it wasn’t my Suzie at all. He stood and waited as I went over to him. People scattered in all directions, fearing a confrontation, but the Suzie look-alike stood his ground, calm and cold and unconcerned. Or perhaps he was just staying in character. Up close I could see all the differences. Still looked pretty dangerous, though.

  “Why?” I said.

  “I’m a tribute Suzie Shooter.” The voice was low and husky, and not that far off the real thing. “Shotgun Suzie is my heroine.”

  I nodded slowly. “I still wouldn’t let her catch you looking like that,” I said, not unkindly. “Suzie tends to shoot first and not ask questions afterwards.”

  “I know,” said the tribute Suzie. “Isn’t she wonderful?”

  I let him go. I sort of wondered if perhaps there was a tribute John Taylor out there somewhere, too, but I didn’t like to ask. With my luck, it would probably be a drag king. While I was still considering that, I was approached by a towering Angelina Jolie, dressed in shiny black plastic from head to toe, along with an absolute proliferation of straps and buckles and studs. She crashed to a halt before me, stuck her hands on her shiny hips, pursed her amazing lips, and looked down her nose at me. It was a hell of a performance. I felt like applauding.

  “I am the Management,” the Angelina said flatly.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Taylor? Wasn’t the contract we put out on you enough of a hint? Haven’t you caused us enough trouble?”

  “You’d be surprised how often I get asked that,” I said calmly. “Relax, I’m just here looking for someone.” I paused, looking thoughtfully down at the Angelina’s impressive exposed cleavage. “You know, those breasts look awfully real.”

  “They are real,” she said frostily. “Don’t show your ignorance, Taylor. Divas! doesn’t exist only for men who like to dress up pretty. I am a pre-op transsexual. Chick with a dick, if you must. Divas! caters to transvestites, transsexuals, and supersexuals. All those who through an unkind twist of fate were born into the wrong bodies. Divas! is for everyone who ever felt alienated by the sexual identity they were thrust into at birth, and have since found the courage to make new lives for themselves. To make ourselves over into what we should have been all along. Tell me who you’re looking for, and I’ll point you in the right direction. The sooner I can get you out of here, the happier we’ll all be.”

  “I’m looking for Paul Griffin,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Don’t give me that. Everyone in the Nightside’s heard of the Griffin’s grandson.”

  The Angelina shrugged, unmoved. “Can’t blame a girl for trying. Paul comes here for privacy, like so many others. And he has more reasons than most for not wanting to be found or identified. The paparazzi always ask our permission before they take a photograph, ever since we impaled one on a parking meter, but even so…I suppose if I don’t tell you, you’ll just use your gift anyway…See that table over there? Ask for Polly.”

  “You’re very kind,” I said.

  “Don’t you believe it, cowboy.” The Angelina sniffed briefly. “You know, we tried to claim on our insurance after you happened here, but they wouldn’t pay out. Apparently you’re classified along with natural disasters and Acts of Gods.”

  “I am deeply flattered,” I said.

  I headed for the table the Angelina had pointed out. All the bright young things crowded around it were dressed up as Bond girls—female villains and lust interests from the James Bond movies. There was an Ursula Andress in the iconic white bikini, a gold-plated Margaret Nolan from Goldfinger’s opening credits, and of course a haughty-looking Pussy Galore. They all turned and started to smile as they saw someone approaching, then their painted smiles and eyes went cold when they saw who it was. But I’m used to that. I was more inter
ested in the happy, laughing, blonde-haired teenager who sat among them. She wasn’t any Bond girl I recognised. In fact, she looked subtly out of place in this glamorous company, just by looking more like a real, everyday girl. She finally turned to look at me, and I stopped in my tracks. I knew that face from the photograph Jeremiah Griffin had given me at the start of this case. It was Melissa Griffin.

  Except, of course, it wasn’t. Small subtle things told me immediately that this wasn’t a teenage girl at all, and I knew who it was, who it had to be. Paul Griffin, dressed up all pretty, and the very image of his missing cousin. I moved slowly towards him, not wanting to scare him off, and he stood up to face me.

  “Hi,” I said carefully. Paul, or Polly? Polly would seem more friendly. “I’m John Taylor. I need to talk to you, Polly.”

  “You don’t have to say anything to him, honey,” the Pussy Galore said immediately. “Say the word and we’ll…”

  “It’s all right,” Polly said, in a soft and very feminine voice.

  “We can protect you!”

  “No you can’t,” Polly said sadly. “No-one can. But it’s all right. I don’t think Mr. Taylor came here to hurt me. I’ll have a quick word with him, then I’ll come right back, I promise. And don’t you dare finish that story without me. I want to hear all the horrid, intimate details.”

  We moved away to a small empty table at the very edge of the dance floor. Polly moved gracefully, in a fashionable off-the-shoulder pale blue gown. The long blonde hair looked very natural. A dozen assorted Spice Girls sat at the next table, and after a few quick glances, made a point of ostentatiously ignoring us. I had a sneaking suspicion that one of them might be the real thing. Polly and I sat down, facing each other.

  “We all have secrets,” he said softly. “And Griffin family members have more than most. It’s as though we’re born with lies in our blood. This is my secret, Mr. Taylor. I want to be a woman. Always have. Even as a small child, I knew some terrible mistake had been made. My body was a foreign country to me. I grew up knowing that while I was Paul outside, I was Polly inside. And Polly was the real me. I had to keep it secret from the rest of the family, as well as the outside world.