First Lady Read Online Free Page A

talking about. Finishing the song to the fervid applause of her small audience, Mavis accepted another Guinness someone offered her. As she reached out for the bottle with her slim lean-muscled bare white arm, I noticed that she had a tiny dark red birthmark with points like a star just where her neck joined her shoulders—as if, pleased with His Creation, God had stamped her with the star as a sign of her destiny and then sent her out into the world to claim it. On both her hands she wore silver and gold rings (sometimes two or three) on all her fingers, including her thumbs. The fingers were strong and restless. The nails short, purple as hyacinths.
    A very pretty waitress had pulled away from the young man next to her and pressed to the front of the crowd where she listened in an ecstasy of infatuation. The waitress obviously believed imitation was at least the most manifest form of flattery for she had the exact same hair cut, hair color, nail color, multitude of rings and black wedge open-heeled sandals as Mavis Mahar. All she didn’t have was the talent and that inimitable luminous glow. Holding up a throwaway camera, she was breathlessly asking if Mavis would mind if someone took their picture together. Mavis didn’t mind at all, and asked the girl her name.
    â€œLucy,” the waitress said as she jumped effortlessly up on the platform and impulsively hugged the singer. When she did, I noticed the young man move sullenly back to the shadows, staring angrily at the waitress. Handsome, with sideburns and a pouty mouth, in a black leather jacket and tight black jeans, he looked as if he’d styled himself on motorcycle movies made before he was born. I recognized him as someone I’d seen being booked at HPD, although I couldn’t remember for what.
    The flash of the camera flared as the two young women smiled, looking almost like twins in a play. “We’re exactly the same size!” Lucy shouted at her coworkers, thrilled. Then she asked the star if she’d sing “Coming Home to You,” and Mavis looked at her with an extraordinarily seductive sigh of a smile. “Ah, daarlin’, can’t we feckin’ forget that feckin’ bloody song!?” But with a shrug she handed the red tulips to the ardent girl, walked to the piano, and played the opening chords, known to much of the world, of her No. 1 hit.
    The shabby drunks, worn-out barmaids, and skinny dishwashers cheered and stomped their tired feet on the sawdust floor. They knew—even before what was to happen later that night—that they were in the midst of a memory they would keep until they were old. They knew they were standing close to magic that was no part of their own lives and never would be, so close to the light of fame that it made them radiant too.
    â€œAre you leaving again then, beautiful boyo?” Mavis called over to me as I walked to the door. “Is there no song would make you stay this time?”
    I turned in the doorway. Everyone was watching her look at me.
    She ran both hands from her throat down to her stomach. “I’m all filled up with music.”
    â€œI know,” I said. “You have rings on your fingers. Do you have bells on your toes?”
    She smiled. “Stay and find out.”
    But I waved and left the bar because I knew I’d order a drink if I stayed. Outside it was raining again; the black limousine sat patiently by the curb, wipers slowly moving over the windows. I assumed the driver was waiting behind the wheel, but with the dark tinted glass, I couldn’t tell for sure.
    â€¢ • •
    I spent the rest of the afternoon at the construction site near where we’d found G.I. Jane. When I returned to the Cadmean Building at dusk, the two small dark women were back on the street corner side by side in the same motionless positions, with the same shopping bags beside them. Nearby Sergeant Brenda Moore and our forensics photographer