CHAPTER FOUR: Red Ballerina
Ahead of them all,
a woman wraps herself around
red-silk strips,
and spins with verve,
until
she herself
she proceeds.
The next morning I saw Red Ballerina in the Bijou lobby. Her tutu swished as she hurried towards me. I had never seen her stray from this uniform in public. She pulled me behind a rose-quartz pillar. "I have something to tell you."
My heart quickened as she grasped my wrist. “Um. Hello?” It must be important, I thought. We hadn’t even been introduced.
“It’s about Bigalow. You’re his husband, right? He took me to see Madame Dodi before she died,” she said.
“When?” I was hungry for information.
“Two weeks ago Saturday, out-of-the-blue, he caught me downtown and invited me.”
I pulled out my cell and scrolled through my calendar. The date was well before I joined Bigalow in Seattle. “Let’s go in.” We crossed the diner’s aqua-and-cream checkerboard floor and found a booth in the back.
“Why just then?’ I asked as I sat on the red-vinyl bench. “Haven’t you had countless opportunities for Madame Dodi to tell your fortune?”
“I generally avoid soothsayers. But this time I felt I had to.’ She pulled a compact from her red purse and checked her make-up. “I could sense that moment coming.”
“Is that reverse déjà vu?” I wondered out loud.
She pointed her finely made-up face directly at me and said, “No. It’s recognizing fate.”
The waitress took our order for coffee, then left us menus on the chrome-edged table.
“We went Tuesday evening,” Red Ballerina said. Her face was very still, but her blue eyes danced above her button nose. “He was wearing a Gucci white puffer coat over white jeans.”
###
Madame Dodi greeted Bigalow and Red Ballerina in a kimono cascading like a midnight waterfall over a black catsuit.
“Oh! Wunderbar! I’ve just stepped out of the shower,” she’d exclaimed. Her damp hair was swept up into a bun secured with two chopsticks. She had just finished applying eyeshadow and lipstick.
Her overstuffed chair almost swallowed Red Ballerina while she examined the fortune teller’s tabletop roller coaster.
“What brings you? Are you dissatisfied with life? How can you plan accordingly if you don’t see the forks in the road?" Madame Dodi posed the question not seeming to expect an answer.
Red felt a speck of dust at the end of her nose and flipped her mane in response.
Bigalow looked up at her. "It’s better if you have a question in mind when she drops the eyeball," he said.
“I want to know about the future of my career.”
Their hostess left the room. She returned decked with a tremendous obsidian necklace. She held a tiny pyramid set with semi-precious stones in her outstretched palm. The sight reminded Red Ballerina of a priestess. When the seer opened the triangular case, it emitted a glow similar to a dime-store nightlight.
Perched in her gold-brocade chair, Madame Dodi removed the magic eyeball from its pyramid with her thumb and forefinger. Her fingers were affixed with large onyx rings. "Without further ado," she pronounced. Her eyes gleamed as she dropped it into the contraption.
The three of them watched in rapt attention as the orb embarked on its journey. It spiraled through corkscrews, rolled over miniature hills, and loopedy-looped on parallel wire tracks. All the while, it only stared forward, never toppling its vision.
Turning their heads, they witnessed the tracks up close as it showcased its gravity-defying ride on TV.
“How odd,” Red exclaimed. “It rolls, but the eye only looks forward. How could that be?”
“The eye has an independent glass shield. It hovers a fraction of an inch inside it, suspended by electromagnetic energies,” Madame Dodi told her.
Red saw the magic eyeball flip levers and initiate chain reactions—mimicking perpetual motion in a delightful cacophony until the last crest of its hills yielded to the final lever flipped flat.
“The apparatus shakes the eyeball from its reverie and focuses it on my client’s fortune,” Dodi explained. “It’s like rolling dice.”
The glass eye fell to the floor and clattered into a drain at the center of the room.
“Oh dear,” Red was confused. “How do you get it back?”
“It makes its way through time to get back to its case,” Dodi explained. The monitor became enveloped in darkness. Several seconds passed until light reappeared on the screen. The stage of the Bijou came on.
Their gaze fixed on the image of Red twirling high above the stage. Two red Dutch windmills full of twinkling lights turned their sails behind her. Near the ceiling, on a narrow platform that looked like a diving board, a Blue Velveteen Dormouse wielded a dagger. He severed her silk.
A gasp escaped them as the fabric frayed and snapped. They held their breath as Red Ballerina watched herself hurtle toward the stage floor. The TV lapsed to black, never allowing them to see how she landed—or if she survived.
###
I turned to make sure that none of the other diners could hear us. I found Red’s story fascinating, but couldn’t see how it helped Bigalow’s case. In fact, it made things look worse. The waitress returned with two mugs and a pitcher of coffee. I put down the laminated menu and ordered a hamburger, shake and fries. Red asked for a salad.
"Tell Bigalow that a couple of days after we saw Madame Dodi, I went back without him to see what I could learn. The magic eyeball told the same fortune again. Only this time, it went further. Nobody tried to kill me. I fell to the floor only to be caught by a ring of Blue Velveteen Dormice. I never hit the stage,” Red told him.
"You saw more than one blue dormouse together?” I asked.
“Too many to count. She said only the dance would bring her murderer to justice.”
I took a sip of strong coffee. “If she knew she was going to be murdered, why didn’t she try to stop it?”
“How could she?” Red stood and adjusted her tutu, then sat back down in the booth. “It was her fate.”
“Whoever killed her had a pretty good way of hiding their tracks,” I observed. Anybody with access to one of the suits could have done it.
“Only the dance will solve the murder,” she repeated.
I wasn’t sure how literally I should take her, but felt it was something I should tell Bigalow. I was starving, and glad to see our food arrive. The fries were perfect. Crisp and golden.
###
“Are you doing okay?” I asked Bigalow the next day, then put my fingers up in the shape of a heart.
“Better now that I see you,” he said.
“I had the strangest conversation with Red Ballerina. She mentioned she visited Madame Dodi with you while I was still in L.A.”
Bigalow rolled his head back and raised a hand. “Glory hallelujah! That prophecy really freaked me out. I’m sure Red Ballerina thought it meant I was going to kill her.”
“Well, actually, it freaked her out too. She went back and saw how that scene ended. Turns out it was all part of an act. At the end she’s caught by a ring of Blue Velveteen Dormice. Madame Dodi said only that dance would solve her murder.”
“A ring of dormice? It makes no sense whatsoever,” the big lug said.
“Right?” I answered. I could picture the ring of blue dormice catching her vividly in my mind.
“Leave it to Dodi to leave us with a prophecy like that—a puzzle.”
“What should we do?”
“Tell Eduardo about it, and that you want to see the red windmills in the basement. See how he reacts. . . “
“Windmills in the basement?”
“Yeah. They’re left over from an old act.”
“Hmmm. Interesting. Will do.”
“Any word from Babs?” he asked. His voice was muted. It was as if he was talking from the other side of a tunnel, whereas before he had been. . . what? Almost clownish.
“I got proof of the spell from her. She certainly seems to believe it works.”
Bigalow jerked his head a fraction. “Do you?” he asked.
“I might. Or maybe it’s just hype, an urban legend.”
Bigalow huffed a bit, and wrinkled his brow. “If you don’t believe me, everything’s pointless. Would you believe the spell is true if you experienced it for yourself?”
“I couldn’t otherwise. But how?” I asked. “The other dormouse suit is being held by the police.”
“I know. And it would be simplest if you and I could just try them on and see. But—and you can never tell anyone besides Babs about this—there’s a ring of cities that have them in pairs. The original eighteen were split into nine sets of two.”
“That’s what Babs said. All the other costumes disappeared over the years.”
“Two costumes in the same city can link anytime, no problem. For some reason, the spell only works near the 47th latitude of the northern hemisphere. The costumes can link between cities around that latitude for two hour windows when the moon is in the proper phase.”
“How did you come to learn all this?”
“By being with the Bijou dancers over the years. What do you say? Are you willing to strap on a blue dormouse head and teletransport? Just to prove to yourself the spell works?”
“Is it dangerous?”
“The costumes aren’t. I’ll send you where you can safely experience it. Will you do this for me? So that we can get rid of your doubts?”
I wanted to believe, but couldn’t. And now Bigalow was offering me a way to get proof firsthand. If I really loved him, I should have no reservations. I had to go forward, just to know for sure this wasn’t all pure hooey. “Yeah. I’ll give it a test drive.”
Bigalow relaxed and grinned. “That’s my boy. You’ll find a key taped beneath a barrel by a garage in an alley off Jackson and Twenty-Third. It goes to a station wagon in a parking garage at the corner of Bellevue and Pine. There’s no fence. It’s in a parking pavilion underneath some funky 70s apartments. Open the back-left car door and look inside the fort made from boxes. I call it the Cardboard Castle. You’ll find a Key of Solomon. ”
“What’s that? Is it literally a key?”
Bigalow smiled. “No silly, it’s a book on metaphysics. Take it and give it to Babs.”
“What after that? Wait. Which should I do first?”
“Visit Eduardo first, and ask about the windmills. Then get the book, give it to Babs and tell her you want to occupy Lucien in Paris.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” I laughed. I ached just to hold him.
“Love you always,” my husband said. “Keep up the good work.”
I nearly skipped out of the visiting room while listening to Elton John sing “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on somebody’s boombox. Just being near my man had made me high.
###
Late the next morning, I found Eduardo the Impresario and Charlie the Crow sitting in the diner. Eduardo wore a black velvet vest over a white shirt. His dreadlocks resembled lint from a dryer.
I pulled my hoodie off my head. I approached their Formica-topped table. “Hi!” I smiled and stood, hopefully casually. “Bigalow wanted me to pester you for something again. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Bigalow? Yes, Bigalow. How is he?” Eduardo asked.
“Very excited to prove his innocence, actually. He mentioned some big red windmills in the basement. Would you be willing to show me?”
“What on Earth for?”
“Have you heard anything about Madame Dodi’s prophecy for Red Ballerina and the Blue Velveteen Dormice doing avdance in front of red windmills?” I asked.
“Not a word. What did her magic eyeball show?” Charlie the Crow asked.
“Only a dance that will solve her murder,” I told them.
“What dance?” the crow asked.
“Red Ballerina being caught by a ring of eighteen dormice after a long battle to Ravel’s ‘Bolero,’” I answered.
Eduardo scratched at the base of his Brillo-pad beard. “How odd. Good news for our Bigalow. Hip hip, I suppose. A ray of hope. Perhaps someone else did it.”
Was his response ironic? Underneath, was he secretly concerned? He revealed nothing but enthusiasm at the prospect of clearing Bigalow. He seemed not at all worried for himself.
Eduardo crumpled his napkin and escorted me to the Bijou service elevator. It was tiny by modern standards, barely four feet square. The lift creaked and hummed into the bowels of the building.
“Thank you for taking the time,” I said. “Hope it’s no bother.”
“Of course, of course. You’re Bigalow’s husband, so that makes you a partner. Silent, I hope.”
I’d see about that. “About that. Bigalow said I didn’t have to worry about my tab.”
Eduardo peered up at me. “That’s true,” he said.
I hadn’t intentionally married Bigalow to become part-owner of the Bijou. “Surely, there’s something I can do around here to help out?” I asked. I was embarrassed to admit I had little left for spending money.
“Ever worked in hospitality?” Eduardo asked.
“In L.A.”
“We can put you on the bar, I guess.”
“Great! Thank you. . .” Becoming the house choreographer would have to wait.
The elevator stopped, trapping us for several moments. My shoulders tightened. I rolled my neck, and saw a pattern of crystals on the ceiling. Curiosity piqued, I asked, "What’s that? A constellation?"
"Ophiuchus. Some say it’s the thirteenth sign in astrology," the impresario replied. "It’s only visible on the edge of the southern sky."
I noted its distinct shape, like the head of a bull resting on its left side. I counted the rhinestones in the ceiling. There were nine. “Um. Should we jump up and down, or do something to get this thing going?” I asked.
"Charlie, would you do the honors?" Eduardo directed. The bird did as instructed, flying up to push the biggest star on the upper left horn with his beak. There was a faint rumble, soon the elevator resumed its descent through several floors.
“A hidden button?”
“Something from a previous renovation,” Eduardo said. It seemed to take an eternity for the doors to finally slide open to darkness. "Maximus Illuminus!" the wizard commanded. The hidden grotto revealed itself as though by the light of day. “Voice activated.”
An empty Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool waited thirty feet before us. “We have entered the long closed Bijou Natatorium,” Eduardo told me. We inched closer to the empty pool’s edge, where we saw the remnants of two large red windmills filling the dry bottom.
“As far as I can gather, these old pieces were part of a Bijou tribute to the Moulin Rouge. Bigalow wanted them preserved. They could prove valuable for future acts,” Eduardo explained.
I bent over the ledge to get a better look. “How could such massive things have found their way down here? There’s no way they could fit in the elevator.”
Eduardo chuckled. “This gem was a state-of-the-art grand hotel when it was built. I wish I could have seen it in its heyday.” He pointed up. "There’s a retractable roof cleverly hidden beneath the stage. It’s complete with tracks and rollers."
“That’s wonderful. These must be the windmills in Madame Dodi’s prophecy of the dance. Bigalow saw them too, on Dodi’s TV. Do you think we might do the dance here?” I asked.
“If Dodi prophesied it, I guess there’s no way around it,” Eduardo said. “Dodi was a pretty big deal around here. I miss her.”
###
The next day, I took a twenty-block bus ride on the number 14 through the old red brick district of Pioneer Square and Chinatown to retrieve the car key in the alley off Jackson, then rode it back to lower Capitol Hill. There I found the junk station wagon marooned in the apartment complex—a brown 1971 Pontiac Bonneville—next to a van for Bupkus Plumbing. DIY Plumber? You don’t know Bupkus! was stenciled in bold-italic letters on the van’s side.
A foil sunshade blocked the Pontiac’s windshield. From the exterior, the inside looked filled by a jumble of packing boxes—the Cardboard Castle Bigalow mentioned. I supposed this helped avoid detection by the landlord.
I used the key I’d found and crawled into the fort. A twin mattress fit the cabin’s rear. I laid down like a bottled ship sending out an S.O.S. My heart settled. I reached up to tap a battery-powered LED light. I studied the ceiling plastered with pictures torn from magazines—a dreamscape of destinations that spanned the globe—then started searching beneath the mattress.
My hand pulled up the Key of Solomon, a torn paperback version. I flipped through its pages until a glint of yellow highlighter caught my eye. I opened it to a Table of Planetary Hours. Certain times were highlighted; each had a name and city written next to it in the margin. Glancing up, I realized the cities were the same as the ones on the ceiling.
###
“What do you suppose it means?” I asked Babs in her fussy front parlor. Old books, porcelain urns and figurines, and stuffed birds filled every available cranny. Murky seascapes in gilt frames decorated the walls above the wainscotting. I settled into the velvet sofa and stifled a sneeze from the dust. I filled Babs in on everything Red Ballerina had told me earlier. “If only the dance will solve the murder, then maybe we should just do the dance and skip the investigation.”
“We can’t do that. Bigalow’s trial is coming up.” Babs sat in her leather armchair and adjusted her cat-eyes glasses to look at the Key of Solomon. “These charts show when the Moon is in specific aspects. Bigalow told me it’s a schedule of when Blue Velveteen Dormice can switch,” she said. “For instance, the window of opportunity for Bennet in Vienna is Saturday at seven P.M.”
Light poured in from the bay window as I tried to make sense of it. I took the book from her, flipped through the tables, and read the written notes aloud. “Bennet, Vienna. Nico, Krasnoyarsk. Kingston, Prague. Byron, Montreal. Lucien, Paris. Kadir, Belgrade. Sullivan, Minneapolis, and Xander, Kazakhstan. I wonder which of them is the killer if it’s not Eduardo.”
Babs picked up her basket of knitting. “Is the time of the murder highlighted? It was Friday between ten and eleven that night.
I flipped through the pages. “That time is for Nico, Krasnoyarsk. Where’s that?”
“Russia.”
“That doesn’t sound like friendly territory to me. Bigalow suggested we start with Lucien in Paris,” I said. “It might be a good place to snoop. Paris is the home to the Moulin Rouge, famous for its red Dutch windmills.”
I could hear the hushed roar from traffic on wet streets outside. Water for tea brewed on the gas stove. We moved to the kitchen.
“Seriously?” I asked. “How can I switch places with Lucien and have him not know what’s going on?”
“We’ll knock you out,” Babs replied. “He’ll just experience your blackout. Are you allergic to sleeping pills?”
She must be insane. I bent over to fix the cuff on my jeans and said, “No. No known allergies.”
She nodded. “Perfect.” She went to a shelf and pulled off a tin box.
This jived with my husband’s story. “According to what he said in court, Bigalow was blacked out during the murder. But why?”
“I guess the only way we’ll find out is to try.” She set the ornate tin on the kitchen table and opened it. “I made these tablets myself with valerian. Following the Key should allow you to switch at the allotted time and find the real murderer,” Babs answered.
I was puzzled. “And do what?”
She looked surprised at me. “Spy. Look for clues. If you find yourself in an awkward situation, take the head off. Don’t let on that a switch has been made. It can only last two hours. Then the moon is no longer in the right phase and the portal for the switch will close, returning you to Seattle.”
My thoughts swirled in my head like confetti. It was like they all immediately assumed I was trained in this sort of thing. I was 21. I hadn’t been to detective school. “You’re crazy. You want to drug me and lock me up in your guest room?”
Babs adjusted her eyeglasses and looked like a concerned goat. “But how else can we prove his alibi?”
I squirmed in my seat. “I don’t know exactly. I don’t suppose Bigalow would put me in any real danger. But there is a real murderer out there after all, and he can’t be too far behind in knowing about Bigalow’s arrest.”
“It’s risky business for sure. You’ll need to be very brave.” She leaned toward me. “You do want to prove the spell works, right?”
“If I have the balls. What if I fuck up?”
“Again. Just take the head off. According to the Key of Solomon, Tuesday morning at 4:00 A.M. is your next opportunity for Paris. You can sleep in my spare room. If you won’t do it, you might as well kiss your future with Bigalow goodbye.”
I thumped my fingers on my temple multiple times. Perhaps this would promote blood to my brain and stimulate some courage. “I guess not many people get a chance to swap bodies. And it’s for Bigalow.” I had to admit the opportunity to find out if magic was real was tantalizing. My heart raced. I grimaced and fisted my hands. “Alright, I’ll do it.”