I mulled it over. “Nope,” I replied. “That should just about do it.”
“And how long do you think we have?” she asked. “Before said salt runs out?”
I shrugged. Kind of. Still, the point came across. “Couple of days, maybe three at most.”
“Plenty of time.”
My shrug remained. “In theory.”
Her sour puss turned rancid. “You always this positive?”
“Sure, except when I’m stuck in a DJ Booth in the disco from hell,” I quipped. “Otherwise, I’m all moonbeams and lollipops.”
She stared out the window of the booth, zombies moving this way and that, Blondella nowhere in sight. “Yeah, I see you’re point.” She again glanced my way. “Two days then. That’s what we’ll shoot for. Two days to trick her, get her alone, and . . .” She made a slashing move across her pinkish gray throat. “Think we can do that?”
Since my shrug was now stuck in the up position, I replied. “Sure as hell gonna try.”
She pointed out to the dance floor. “Well, we’re in the right place for it,” she grumbled. “Hell, that is.”
I closed the gap between us and patted her shoulder. “You get used to it, you know.”
She nodded, ever so slightly. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
***
Then it was just a matter of formulating some strategy, which we did, just before Lola thought of something I had not. All things considered, that wasn’t too surprising. All things considered, however, what she thought of was.
“So, let me get this, for lack of a better word, straight,” she said. “You can use your radiation to cut through flesh.”
“And speakers.”
She grinned. “And speakers,” she echoed. “And you can use your radiation like a sort of X-ray machine.”
“Uh huh.”
“And what else?”
“What else what?”
Her grin widened. “What else can you do? I mean, radiation, I’d imagine, is, or at least was, used for a lot of things, way back in the day.”
“Such as?” I asked, curiosity strangle-holding my cat.
Her grin promptly flatlined. “I’m a Tony Award winning actress, Creature.”
I squinted my eyes at her. “Yes, I believe we’ve covered that already. And?”
Her squint matched my own. “And I wasn’t cast in the role of Madame Curie.”
I chuckled. “Ah, so not so genius after all, huh?”
“Says the drag queen.”
“Touché,” I grunted in reply. “In any case, what you’re getting at is that neither one of us has a master’s degree in science, got it. But maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe it’s something basic, something we can glean from our past.”
Her squint went squintier. “Our past? Too bad I left my yearbook at home then.”
“No need,” I informed. “See, when you, well, um…”
She gulped. Or at least tried to. “Died?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that. When you did that, all the cells in your body, in your brain, sort of froze. In other words, all your memories are retrievable. In fact, it’s pretty easy. Just try and think of a memory and, poof, it’s there.” I grinned. “And the poofter knows poof.”
She managed a nod, her squint turning to eyes shut tight. “Huh, I can see it.”
“What?”
She smiled now. “My wedding day. Clear as day.” Her eyes popped open. “Neat.”
“Now go back further. Sort of like scrolling through a Rolodex,” I told her. “Stop on a card that might hold a clue as to what else I can possibly do with my radiation.”
Again she closed her eyes. “Okay . . . going back . . . going back . . . no, no, not that . . . hmm . . .”
“Hmm, what?”
And again her eyes popped open. “Before I made it to Broadway, I used to work at a radio station, behind the scenes, but I did pick up a rudimentary understanding of how everything worked.”
“Lucky you,” I said. “Before I was a drag queen, I worked at The Cheesecake Factory. So I have a rudimentary background in how to make an oversized salad with a monumental fat content.”
She didn’t seem impressed. Oh well. “Right. In any case, radio waves are, if memory serves, some sort of electromagnetic radiation.”
“Ding, ding, ding,” I chimed. Then I paused. Then I contemplated. “Lost me.”
“Then why did you ding?”
“You said radiation,” I replied. “After that came the lost thing.”
She rubbed my cheek with her index finger. “Well, at least you’re pretty.”
“Really?”
She stopped rubbing. “In any case, back to the radio. What if you can transmit?”
“Nice deflect.”
She grinned. “You’re welcome. In any case, you already told me that you could modulate the radiation inside of you, which allowed you to go all Superqueen. What if you could modulate it again, create some sort of radio wave instead of an X-ray.”
“Fine,” I allowed. “Then what?”
“Then we talk to our husbands, fill them in our plan, let them know that we’re out here trying to save them,” she replied. “A little bit of hope goes a long way, you know.”
She had me there. “Maybe I should practice first then.”
She nodded. “Yes, but on a zombie, not me. Just in case you screw up and slice a hole in my money-maker.” She ran her hand around her beautiful face as she said this.