Beware False Profits Read Free Page B

we’re just seeing him everywhere,” Ed said at last.
    “Or maybe we’re looking at the real reason Joe Wagner comes to New York once a month.”
    We both stared at the photo a minute longer. Then Ed sighed. “Exactly what are we going to say to Joe if we find him in there dressed like that?”
    I took Ed’s arm and pulled him toward the door. “‘I Got You, Babe’?”

2
    Dorothy Gale wore the requisite ruby slippers, although this particular pair looked to be a size twelve. She also wore lace-trimmed ankle socks and a blue gingham dress and accessorized with a brown terrier named Toto who thought I was the Wicked Witch of the West. Toto hadn’t stopped baring his sharp little teeth in my direction since Ed and I accepted the invitation into Dorothy’s dressing room. Growl rumbling, beady eyes narrowed, Toto was plotting how to rid the Land of Oz of another interloper. And not with a bucket of water.
    “Oh, he’s just too sweet, isn’t he?” Dorothy cooed, rubbing noses with her pet.
    Ed was trying to look comfortable. He was finally warm, which was a good thing. The dressing room was maybe seven by eight, minus two feet of metal clothing racks and another three of table jutting out along the longest wall. The stained white Formica surface was flanked by mirrors and overflowing with what looked like Macy’s entire range of cosmetics. Dorothy, Toto, Ed, and I were sharing body heat, and Ed was beginning to sweat. Although the reason was up for grabs.
    “Tell the dog I have no intention of siccing my flying monkeys on the pair of you,” I told Dorothy.
    “Oh, little Totes is so not violent.” Dorothy rubbed her nose with Toto’s, then straightened. She held the little dog out to Ed. “Here. He’ll love you.”
    Ed had no choice but to accept. Had Dorothy been standing she would have loomed over us. Ed is tall, but Dorothy had inches on him, about six foot four, with shoulders that suggested when she wasn’t skipping along the Yellow Brick Road, she was working construction. One whack of her punching bag hand, and Ed—no slouch in the physical department—might end up flying through the dressing room door to sprawl on the stage twenty yards away, where a trio of drag queens in skintight sequined dresses were lip-syncing the old Pointer Sisters hit “I Want a Man with a Slow Hand.”
    Ed might have a slow hand, but I don’t think he’s willing to demonstrate for this audience.
    Toto licked Ed’s beardless chin. The dog’s beady little eyes were now a liquid, adoring brown. I kept my distance, which meant I edged ten inches away from my husband and his new canine groupie.
    “I’ve got to finish getting ready,” Dorothy said in her gravelly voice. “You can stay if you like.”
    Having never in my unusual life watched a man change himself into a woman, I was fascinated. Ed, for all the predictable reasons, seemed less so. But he was also a guy who spent his life fighting stereotypes. He stood his ground and didn’t even pull his collar away from his neck when sweat began to trickle in that direction.
    “Thanks for letting us be here,” Ed said, as if he meant it.
    “No problem. I’ve been worried about Josephine. I’m totally thrilled somebody else is worried, too.”
    I shifted my weight, lurching an inch toward Ed. Toto growled menacingly.
    Shifting back, I beamed at Dorothy as if I wasn’t about to be shredded by pointy little teeth. The stage manager had been less than thrilled to let us backstage, but Dorothy had overheard our questions, interceded, and led us through narrow winding corridors to her dressing room. Unfortunately, it all happened too fast to suit me. I missed an on-stage rendition of Madonna’s “Material Girl” performed by a guy whose ice-cream cone breasts made the real things, well, immaterial. And when would I ever have a chance to see anything like this in Emerald Springs?
    “We’re glad we found you. Were you the one who answered Joe’s cell phone