Provincetown Follies, Bangkok Blues Read online

  It’s happy hour in the attic he rents over the liquor store in Chatham at the elbow of the Cape. The rain started before he got back to town from the mental hospital. Now it’s coming down like a shower of marbles on the cedar roof. A drizzly gray light seeps in through the single window in the dormer. It will be dark soon.

  Whiskey boxes full of law books and clothes are scattered around the room. His bed is just a mattress in the corner with an old sleeping bag for a comforter and an Elmore Leonard crime novel where the pillow should be. There is a metal garbage can, full of pizza boxes and soiled paper plates, next to the sink and the fridge in the corner.

  He puts on his favorite Red Sox shirt to help him think, and then leans back on two legs of his folding chair to stare bleary-eyed at the mound of stuff before him—eight-by-ten, black-and-white photos, police reports, and old newspapers. All of this crowds the top of his Formica kitchen table, circa 1965, that he calls his office. A laptop is pushed to the side, playing a John Coltrane CD. The tenor sax moans about ecstasy, heaven, and hell … “Naima.”

  What is he going to do about this case? When he got out of law school, he signed on with a legal aid group on the Cape because he thought he would be doing good deeds like tenant-landlord arbitration, representing the underprivileged in divorce and custody battles. Civil stuff. He liked the idea of being a sort of legal Robin Hood. But the public defender’s office is chronically short of staff. And in the three years he has been practicing, the state has thrown him just about the whole range of criminal work. First, it was the DUIs, prostitution, drug possession charges. His boss said he was a natural. And after a year in court, he was already getting tagged for assault cases and B&Es. Pretty soon he was sitting second chair on homicide cases, watching the senior on the case pleading them out, one by one. The murders never went to trial. No way. It was too risky, and too expensive for everyone involved.

  The writing was on the wall, so to speak. He knew his time was coming to get nailed with a murder case of his own. But he never expected this. You would think the state could come up with someone better suited for a high-profile murder one and arson case. Somebody with more homicide experience. Someone who does not feel twitchy about gays, Provincetown transvestites. Someone who can at least talk their language. But it is summer and most of the PD’s top guns have other cases or have vanished on vacation. So now Tuki is all his. Perfect. He has a client who looks like a cross between Halle Berry and Miss Saigon, but who can pee standing up.

  Sometimes he just plain wishes he had stuck with fishing. His father Caesar put the case to him one day a few years ago when they were having a slammer trip a hundred miles east of Nantucket.

  “What the hell you want to waste all that time and money for on law school, Mo? You haven’t heard enough lawyer jokes from me yet? You think the world needs another shyster? You got the world by the balls out here on Georges. Bright sky, blue sea, a good boat, a mess of fish for catching. Your old man and Tio Tommy. The Sox game playing on the radio. Cristo Salvador! Leave that legal crap for the weak and the angry. You’re a Portagee. Your family comes from Sagres. You have the blood of Prince Henry the Navigator in your veins. We’ve fished out of Nu Bej for four generations. You were born to fish for king cod, bacalhau.”

  He tries to picture his father and his father’s brother, Tio Tommy, out there right now on the Rosa Lee. The rain is going to stay northwest of Georges Bank. The sky will be a fortress of crimson pillars at sunset. He can hear the winch cables as they start to haul back. Smell the pungent scent of struggling fish as they boil to the surface in the net. The birds wheeling and diving for a free—

  A headline shouts at him from the heap of newspapers.

  “Drag Queen Charged in P-town Blaze!”

  The words rap him in the chest.

  The cops already seem to have a read on the escort service she is hooked into. And from what he can tell, this is just a sideshow. The client is always hiding something. That is what he has learned in three years of criminal work for the PD. So, what is she holding back? How much is she lying? She left some kind of mess back in Bangkok….

  He takes the last gulp of beer, kicks out of the chair, heads to the fridge for another can.

  He has to get his head on straight, has to remind himself that Tuki is no girl. She’s a tranny, pal. Plain and simple. He does not know why he has started thinking of her as female. It’s ridiculous. She looks like a woman. An amazingly good-looking one. Hell, maybe it’s easier to think of her as a showgirl than as a gay guy in a dress. That is just too weird for him.

  Gay is not a lifestyle he cozies up to. He wouldn’t call himself homophobic, but he cannot help it. He gets a sour taste in his mouth when he thinks about the gay boys and what they do behind closed doors. It is not like many gays come out in the Portuguese fishing community of New Bedford. Good old Nu Bej. Where men are men; women are women. Or at least they keep quiet about it. He has only known about five gay people, only discovered their orientation after they moved away. And trannies? He has never even been to one of their drag shows out in Provincetown.

  Still, there is something about her. He cannot just write her off as a perv. It’s confusing. She is already starting to take up space in his memory. He already has begun to see pictures from her life in his mind. He sees her swinging in a hammock in a dingy room somewhere. He sees a toddler with dark, curly hair. Golden skin. A teenager dripping sweat at the outside baggage check, the airport in Bangkok. No makeup, a man’s suit, hair tied back. The jets whine in the morning heat. Her surrogate mothers’ makeup running down their cheeks in little streams.

  He can tell she has been well loved. Maria, his mother, says that nothing matters more. And the name on her passport … Dung, courage. With all that she has been through, from Vietnam to Bangkok, New York to Provincetown, she must have dung in spades. That is something you do not see every day. So who is he to judge?

  On the fishing boat with his father and Tio Tommy, he has never spoken up when they bash the fags in P-town. Now he thinks it must be payback time. Fate has singled him out for some special kind of torture.

  Cristo Salvador! Provincetown. He has seen it. Drove out there last year in the fall for a weekend with Filipa. Miles of the most beautiful beaches he could ever imagine, sweeping sand dunes, and an ocean that has some of the best whale watching and fishing in the world. It’s a village that goes all the way back to the Pilgrims. It overflows with colonial cottages, cutesy guesthouses, millions of flowers, narrow streets. Commercial Street offers a long winding business strip of shops, clubs, and restaurants, all right at the edge of Cape Cod Bay.

  The scene throbs with fishing folk and summer vacationers on a lark, all the while harboring the largest gay resort scene in America. P-town is the last place you might expect to find murder and a monster fire.

  But he knows it is a place where you must always wonder where reality ends and fantasy takes over. It is a haven for an unbelievable collection of queens, cowgirls, calendar boys, dragons, vampires, and hoes. Tuki’s world. Now it is about to be his. Jesus. Like it or not.

  He hears her sob, Please, PLEASE, do not let them send me back to Thailand … I swear I did not kill anybody.

  He pictures the media circus that will be her trial. The protestors with placards. “Unnatural Sinners Burn in Hell!”

  His stomach churns.

  THREE

  The public loves Provincetown, quirks and all. It is a money machine for the Cape. The fire, coming at the height of the summer, feels like a death in the family. So at Tuki’s initial arraignment, the court responds to cries for the queen’s blood and sets her bail at a million dollars. It is a figure that guarantees she will rot behind bars until her trial.

  But a week later, with the spotlight off the district court, the presiding judge is willing to entertain the notion of a hearing to reduce the suspect’s bail. She has heard about how the suspect has tried to shred her wrists, and maybe she does not want a senseless death on her consci
ence. Careers crumble when someone dies from foul play behind bars.

  The bail hearing is a botch job from the moment he calls his client “she.” And it ends with the judge beckoning him to the bench and telling him in soft tones to get a grip.

  The D. A. argues that Tuki is a runner, to keep the bail high, but he really has no hard evidence. And in the midst of the whole fiasco, Michael pulls a rabbit out of his hat. He manages to get a state psychologist to say that while Tuki’s lifestyle is unconventional, she does not suffer any identifiable disorder. She is a transsexual, and comfortable with her gender role. It would definitely be in the best interest of her mental health if she could get back to work.

  In the end the judge grits her teeth and reduces Tuki’s bail to two hundred thousand dollars. Her employer, Provincetown Follies, Inc., posts the bond. They want her back. The Diva Extraordinaire is a cash cow.

  “You saved me!”

  Standing before the front entrance to the hospital, Tuki throws her arms around her attorney and rocks him in an enormous hug. She is just an inch or two shy of his five feet ten. The hospital has given her back her clothes so she is wearing the black spandex dress, the tummy chains, the white panty hose, the red rhinestone pumps. Her braids are in a ponytail, bursting like a fountain from the top of her head. And she has a mango scent. One of the inmates lent her skin cream.

  He stiffens. People are staring at them. This is too strange. Getting hugged by a … what the hell is she anyway? An illusion. Her body presses against him. Any instant he expects to feel a cock grinding against his leg. But the cock never comes. Just firm, pert breasts and soft lips on his cheek. It is so weird. She could almost be Filipa. God, would Filipa freak if she saw this scene.

  He slides out of the hug.

  “What’s the matter, la? Are you afraid of me?” She is giving him a cockeyed look, trying to read him.

  For some reason he hears the judge’s last words echoing in his head. “Plead this case out, young man, or the D. A. will eat you alive. You have thirty days for discovery. We go to trial right after Labor Day.” Christ, Labor Day. He is getting married on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. Filipa has invited half of New Bedford. They’re supposed to go to Sagres and Lagos, the old country, for a week on honeymoon. How is that going to happen?

  “Look, Tuki. I’m going to drive you back to your friends in P-town. But we’ve got to talk.” He nods to his green Jeep parked at the sidewalk. It has not been washed in months. The winter cap is still on it.

  “If we are going to find out who set the fire, who really killed Alby Costelano, who is setting you up and why, you have to start telling me the truth, do you understand?”

  She feels a jagged knife twist in her belly and stares out the window at the Cape Cod Canal below them as they cross the Sagamore Bridge.

  “I do not know what you mean. What is wrong, Michael?”

  That name again. It feels too familiar. He pauses, heaves a deep sigh. He says he needs to hear about the night the vampires went running through the streets shrieking, “P-town is burning!”

  She remembers stories of Vietnam that she heard as a child. Stories about the maw sa sum—the monsoons of fire from the American jets. She pictures how the flames came sweeping across the rice paddies and everything seemed to freeze, the air cold as night. Time stopped for a few seconds, and the spirit of the fire sang her angry song. The night Provincetown burned, it was the same way. The fire screamed. The sky grew cherry red. Buildings turned into silhouettes. A whole neighborhood became a shadow … then nothing at all. This is what she sees every time she tries to fall asleep now.

  “But that night in Provincetown, Tuki. What happened?”

  Her gaze returns out the window.

  The clubs and bars of Provincetown are just letting out. The boys go arm in arm. The girls go arm in arm. Someone is playing blues on a clarinet in front of Town Hall. Laughter bubbles from the crowd loafing on the patio of Spiritus Pizza. The bikers crank their Harleys in front of the Old Colony. Then they start to roll through the lamplights and the neon glow. Commercial Street is in party mode again.

  But not Tuki. She’s a girl beyond sad and angry. She needs to get away, slips down an alley to the harbor. The fog swirls in off the bay in cold waves. She does not know how much time passes. She just walks.

  The next thing she knows she is alone on the beach in the fog, waiting for the storm that is sure to come.

  She cuts her bare foot on a broken shell. “Let it bleed,” she thinks. Wua hai lom khok? It is too late. Why build a cattle pen after the cow is lost?

  This is the thought that is running through her mind when she smells the smoke and hears the sirens.

  The air at her back makes a big rushing sound. In the time it takes her to turn and look, the sky turns the color of blood, the fog disappears. She can see everything on the beach like it is noon. From a half mile

  away she can see the fish piers, the little boats aground on the sand flats, a forgotten beach chair, all as if they have been magnified. Even from this distance the patios and back porches of the shops, restaurants, and bars look almost close enough to touch. And towering over it all is the Painted Lady with her turrets and widow’s walks … surrounded with a halo of fire.

  “Burn baby burn. Just take it all away, la,” Tuki screams. “The lights, the costumes, my faithless eff. Take him. Take the bastard. And take my miserable little luk sod self while you are at it!”

  She is drawn back to the flames, back up the beach to the heat of the fire. Her eyes study the comets of burning gas that arch into the sky and leap from building to building. A wind whips her braids and red robe.

  Fire trucks wail in the streets. Men in raincoats with hoses scurry and start to circle the beast. Sparks flare and fly. Police push back the gathering crowd of refugees and spectators on the beach. But she passes through them. An invisible moth fluttering closer.

  “This is your destiny, la,” she says to herself. “This is why you are always drawn to the water … to find your balance. You are the fire. You are the flame. Feel the heat. Feel the power. The Evil Empire is burning.”

  Then she sees a figure burst onto the beach. It appears out of a wall of orange flames nearly surrounding the Painted Lady. He is burning, trailing feathers of fire from his legs and arms and head. He seems the only dark thing left of the night. He looks about as big as King Kong as he staggers across the beach toward her, flapping his arms, screaming, “You fucking whore!”

  Something cold pierces her heart. She knows that voice. She loved it once. But in two or three seconds, its echo is all that is left of Alby. That and a heap of flesh with a knife in its belly, lying among the ribbons of seaweed near the high-tide line. Smoke rises from the body in little clouds.

  FOUR

  He sees the dunes of Provincetown National Seashore looming a couple of miles ahead and wishes he could have more time with her in the Jeep before he gets her home to the Follies. He is still just scratching the surface here. She is not really telling him the whole truth about Provincetown. Or Bangkok. Not close to it. He knows that. But she is talking now, seems to have lost her guile, dropped her guard. The trick is to keep her going.

  “So you’re not really Thai. You came from Vietnam?” He raises his eyebrows, pushes out his lower lip. Puts two and two together. “One of the boat people?”

  She grins, just the ghost of a smile, maybe having another memory.

  “Your mother was Vietnamese, but your father, American?”

  “Luk sod,” she says. In Thailand they call people like her luk sod. Two races. Half-breed.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he is catching a glimpse of her dark skin, her thick black hair and its fountain of braids. He cannot help looking at her. Something is not adding up here.

  “Was he white?”

  “Who?”

  “Your father.”

  She gives a sudden shiver like she thought for a second maybe he was asking about someone else.

&nbs
p; “No.” Her lips purse as if she is holding back a secret. She cocks her head and gives him the eye. Wants him to take his best guess.

  He considers her Latin surname, his own dark-skinned fisher-folk second cousins in Nu Bej. “Was he Cape Verdean?”

  “No.”

  “Puerto Rican?”

  “No.”

  “Indian?”

  “Like Pocahontas?”

  He nods, “Yes.”

  “Noooo!”

  He closes his eyes and smiles that boyish smile again. “Black, right?”

  “They call me the Tiger Woods of drag, la.”

  He gives a little chuckle.

  “You sing your words.”