Mary-Alice felt her heart pounding as she guided her beloved Oldsmobile 88 along the narrow dirt-and-crushed-shell road. She was nervous about the prospect of walking into one of the roughest bars in the bayous. But Mary-Alice’s main worry was her car. Gertie’s Cadillac wasn’t reliable enough to make a quick getaway, so Mary-Alice had volunteered to drive. But as the road narrowed, the bristling blackberry thickets on either side menaced her metallic paint.
To make matters worse, Mary-Alice felt she could barely breathe, thanks to the black vinyl corset that Gertie had laced her into before they left.
“You can’t walk into the Swamp Bar looking like you just came from a ladies’ prayer breakfast,” Gertie had explained. “You have to blend in.”
In addition to the corset, Mary-Alice sported fingerless lace gloves, leopard-print leggings, and a spiky platinum wig complete with black roots. At least Mary-Alice’s feet were too small for Gertie’s shoes. She was able to wear her own comfortable tennis shoes, thank goodness.
Gertie had gone in for Harajuku style. Beneath a frilly pink-and-white mini-dress, white lace thigh-highs gripped Gertie’s bony legs. Tarantula eyelashes and thick liner ringed her eyes. A huge white satin bow teetered atop Gertie’s candy-pink wig.
Mary-Alice, who was unfamiliar with Japanese fashion, assumed Gertie was dressed as Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Just as Mary-Alice was wondering whether she had gotten them hopelessly lost in the black woods, Gertie cried, “There it is!” Mary-Alice glimpsed light through the trees. The narrow road opened up to a crushed-shell parking lot. Gertie climbed out and led the way into the building, crunching across the cracked white oyster shells in her pink high-heeled boots.
“Gertie,” Mary-Alice asked, “are you okay? Those heels seem awfully high.”
Gertie was taking tiny, mincing steps, her knees bent and her arms held out for balance.
There’s no beauty without pain,” Gertie said.
“Wherever did you hear that, Gertie?”
“At a toddler pageant. One of the mothers said it.”
At least Mary-Alice’s feet were comfortable in her sequined tennis shoes. The rest of her, not so much. The platinum wig made her scalp itch, and the hooks of her mobile-sized earrings tugged on her earlobes like a cheese-cutter.
The Swamp Bar was a one-story building on the edge of the bayou. It had a rust-splotched tin roof, tiny windows, and a general air of hopelessness. Mary-Alice had parked close enough that her car was in the light, but not so close that drunks would bump into her car or be tempted to relieve themselves on her tires on their way out.
It was so dark inside the Swamp Bar that Mary-Alice felt like she was stepping into a cave. A cave that reeked of stale booze, drugstore cologne, and a hint of vomit. For a moment, the only light she could see was from Gertie’s glow-in-the-dark heart-shaped earrings.
Mary-Alice gripped Gertie’s shoulder and followed her in.
“I can’t see a thing,” Mary-Alice whispered. “Is the power out?”
“No, it’s like this on purpose. So you can’t get a good look at the cockroaches. Or the customers.”
The Vanishing Victim
Mary-Alice’s eyes adjusted as she followed Gertie over to the bar. Sunday was a relatively slow night at the Swamp Bar, so Gertie was able to get the bartender’s attention. He wore a too-big green t-shirt with “Swamp Bar” printed across the chest in crooked iron-on letters. He wore his sandy hair in a mullet, cut short in front, and long down his back. Tattoos covered his skinny arms, and his nails were crusted with dirt.
“What’ll it be, ladies?”
“Bourbon, straight,” Gertie cooed coquettishly. “Make it a double. Mary-Alice, what’ll you have?”
“I’ll just have a Coke, please,” Mary-Alice said. “I’m driving.”
“Yes, ma’am. Diet or regular?”
“Whatever you have in a can. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t act too prissy about germs,” Gertie whispered when the bartender had moved on to the next customer. “We have to act like normal Swamp Bar customers.”
“I know, but did you see his fingernails? He looks like he’s been digging up graves with his bare hands.”
“You’ve been reading those vampire mysteries again, haven’t you? Oh, there, I believe that’s Leonie.”
It wasn’t hard to spot Leonie Blanchard. She wore a halter top that showed off the lioness tattoo covering her bare back. She coquetted with the men at her table, tossing her auburn hair so it brushed her bare shoulders. When Leonie turned her head to the side, Mary-Alice caught a glimpse of a hardened but still-pretty face, caked with pale makeup that didn’t quite match the skin on her neck.
“I’m going in,” Gertie said. “Cover me.”
Mary-Alice perched on a bar stool and watched Gertie totter over on her ridiculously high heels, pausing now and then to straighten her pink wig as it listed to one side or the other. Leonie seemed to recognize her former third-grade teacher despite the latter’s exotic disguise. She half-stood to give Gertie a hug, one of the men pulled out a chair, and soon Gertie was part of the festive group.
When it was clear Gertie would be a while, Mary-Alice strolled around the perimeter of the bar. Occasionally a man would pop out of the darkness to accost her with a boozy “Evening, darlin’,” or “Hey, now, Blondie.” She responded each time with a polite “How do you do?” and continued on her way.
Once Mary-Alice had completed her circuit, she decided to check on her car. She pulled the front door open a crack and peered out to the parking lot.
“Go! Go! Go!” Gertie slammed into Mary-Alice’s back, and they tumbled out onto the wooden porch.
Gertie was only wearing one high-heeled boot. She yanked it off and flung it tomahawk-style back into the darkness of the Swamp Bar.
“Ow!” cried a woman’s voice, followed by a stream of curse words. Gertie pulled Mary-Alice up by the elbow, and the two women sprinted across the lot. Mary-Alice heard a loud crack of splintering wood, followed by the babble of an excited and intoxicated crowd.
“Nice job,” Gertie panted. “She slipped on your Coke can and busted the railing.”
They jumped into the Oldsmobile, Mary-Alice floored the accelerator, and they peeled out in a spray of oyster shells and dirt.
Neither woman spoke until they were well out of range of the Swamp Bar.
“How are your feet?” Mary-Alice asked, surprised to hear her voice crack. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Are your feet okay, Gertie? Those broken shells are sharp.”
“I wore thick socks.” Gertie propped one fuzzy, dirty foot on Mary-Alice’s dashboard. “I thought I just might have to make a run for it. So I came prepared.”
Mary-Alice glanced at the rear-view mirror, but saw only the red glow of her taillights illuminating the blackberry bushes and kudzu that crowded the road. She gripped the steering wheel tighter to keep her hands from shaking.
“Don’t worry, no one’s behind us,” Gertie said. “She just had to make a big production back there. I suppose she did make her point.”
“It seemed to me that you were getting on well with Miss Leonie,” Mary-Alice said. “Why did she chase you out of the bar?”
“Oh, that wasn’t Leonie after me.”
“Well, who on earth was it, then?”
“I ran into an old friend, is all,” Gertie said primly. “He was happy to see me, and was just giving me an innocent little old hug when his girlfriend walked in. She didn’t think it was such an innocent hug, I suppose.”
“My goodness, Gertie. You’re quite a femme fatale.”
“You too, Mary-Alice. You look smoking-hot as a platinum blonde.”
Mary-Alice didn’t much feel like a femme fatale. Her scalp was itching like crazy, and her corset felt like a particularly vindictive boa constrictor. Most unglamorous of all, she really had to pee.
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