Beware the Solitary Drinker (21 page)

***

Before work, I went downtown to check out Hanrahan's and The Pub, the joint where Janet had spoken to the bartender who remembered Angelina with the older man. The bartender, Frank, was an older man himself: A bartender from the old school, you could tell at first glance—starched shirt, immaculate tie, creased dress pants. He was freshly shaved, his half-bald dome shining. The bar was squeaky clean and his movements reminded you of a close order drill. He was friends with Eric the Red and had been in Oscar's a couple of times, so he recognized me.

“He drank Jack Daniels, right?”

“Yeh.”

“And he stood, right? He never sat down.”

“No. They used to sit together at a table in back.” He pointed.

“A southern accent?”

“No southern accent.”

“They came in a lot?”

“A few times,” Frank said. “Angelina came in a lot but with different men. She came in with the guy in the suit a bunch of times but only for a short time.”

“Why'd you remember then?”

“He didn't seem the kind of guy she'd be hanging out with.”

Frank tried to be helpful but wasn't able to describe the guy, beyond his wearing a suit and looking like a capitalist. Since we're talking New York City here, arguably the business capital of the world, this information wasn't all that helpful. I tried to describe Edwin Barthelme to him, since he was the only capitalist I could think of, but, my powers of description being not much better than Frank's, got a blank look in response.

From The Pub, I went to Hanrahan's. The day bartender I'd spoken to once before didn't know the senior Barthelme. Angelina chatted and flirted with a lot of businessmen customers, he said. He didn't think she had a special relationship with any of them, didn't remember anyone who fit the description I gave him.

***

That night at Oscar's, I got Michael the waiter to watch the bar for a few minutes around midnight so I could slip off to see Carl. I was pretty sure he knew about whorehouses and such things. Since he already approved of everyone—including himself—being investigated, I figured he might as well help.

“On 39th Street between Fifth and Madison.” Carl knew the place right away. “It's a brownstone. Very classy place—and expensive. Two hundred dollars a shot. But the girls are beauties.” Carl smiled. His eyes closed. He was a man with a vision—of the whores on 39th Street. “I went with Nigel once. He goes to an adorable little wench named Patricia. But I'm sure she'd never tell you anything.”

We thought that over for a few minutes. I suggested a dozen reasons why she should talk to me.

“Those are all highly moral reasons. But this isn't a convent we're talking about,” Carl said. “It's a whorehouse.”

After another moment Carl began to smile mischievously; he had a plan.

“You're crazy,” I said.

“No. This will work. You're an actor, right?”

Carl's plan was for me to impersonate a priest. This plan was based on his belief that a prostitute's morality would allow her to share confidences with someone else who abided by the seal of the confessional.

Carl knew the madam, Ms. Trinkle, and he knew the phone number. We practiced a couple of times, and I called her from his phone. I was the priest, and Carl would be Nigel if I needed him.

“I'm terribly sorry to trouble you, madam,” I said unctuously. “But I am here in my office with a terribly troubled person. My name is Father John Henry.”

“Good evening, Father,” a cultivated voice said gently. “What might I do for you?”

“I know this is a terribly unusual request,” I said, modulating my voice, speaking carefully in the tone of one used to addressing an audience of worshippers. I built my character around a large church in Manhattan, where I was a veteran, first-string curate. Holy though I was, I was a man of the people. I knew the score. I was a forgiver. That's why sinners came to me. I wasn't going to throw the first stone. “I would like an audience with one of your employees.”

“I understand, Father,” she said, softly and reassuringly. “We are the pinnacle of discretion.”

I paused while that registered. “Uh, that's not what I had in mind,” I said, almost losing my character. “You understand I can't reveal the concerns of my client. But if I can speak in complete confidence.”

“Of course,” said the woman, a little more cautiously.

“My client wishes me to speak on his behalf to a woman named Patricia.”

“About what?”

“I can't say, madam, as you, I'm sure, understand. But it is of great importance to him and of little trouble to her, I can assure you.”

“How do I know who's sending you?” Her carefully modulated tones were slipping a little too.

I whispered, “He's quite broken up, but you might have one word with him, if you're careful.” I handed the phone to Carl.

He muffled his voice and tried to make it sound cracked and strained. “Yes,” he said. “Ms. Trinkle. I'm Patricia's friend, Nigel.”

He listened for a second. “Yes, please,” he said. Then, I yanked the phone away and whimpered into it for him. A poet is not an actor.

Returning to my priestly role, I said, “I'm sorry, the poor man—perhaps I shouldn't have done that.”

“Yes, Father,” the woman said. “I know him. I'll ask Patricia. But it will be up to her.”

In a minute she came back to the phone and told me Patricia would meet me at four the next afternoon in a lounge on Madison Avenue between 39th and 40th.

In the morning, I went to a wardrobe shop over on 50th to pick up a priest's outfit that I put on in their dressing room. Murray the clothier, a long-time friend, wasn't in the store. The new guy was a pain in the ass.

“Is this for a part?” he asked sharply. “You can't use my costumes for panhandling.”

I showed him my Equity card.

The girl I soon spoke to in the living room-like lounge on Madison introduced herself as Patricia.

She wore a short yellow wool skirt that slid up her thigh as she sat down beside me on the couch and crossed her legs. She sat close enough for me to touch her, and I could feel immediately why someone might pay two hundred dollars: her legs were slender and muscular, her body taut, her breasts high and firm and bra-less against her maroon sweater. I also liked her smile, the way the auburn ringlets of her hair curled around her pale forehead, and her dark brown eyes. She looked quite young and being young talked easily about herself. She seemed flattered that a priest wanted to talk to her.

When she ordered a split of champagne for fifty dollars, I realized the lounge was a front for the pleasure palace around the corner. “You can drink the champagne,” she said. “I don't really want it.” Her leg brushed against my hand as she settled in comfortably beside me. She didn't wear stockings, and her skin felt cool.

“Me neither,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

She stretched, so her breasts pushed against her sweater. She twisted in her seat to face me, and her skirt slid farther up her thigh. My priestly character was falling apart. I wanted to bury my face in her lap.

“I'm on duty in a little while,” she said. “So this has to be pretty quick.”

“What's on duty?”

“I need to move around the bar and socialize.”

“Socialize?”

“Make men horny.”

“Oh.”

“It's my job.” She smiled into my eyes.

“What if I want to spend more time with you?”

“You got a credit card? For a hundred dollars we can go in back in private for a while. Otherwise, I have to move around up here and socialize.”

“I don't have a credit card,” I told her honestly. “And I can't afford a hundred dollars.” I regained my composure, handed her a twenty-dollar bill, and asked her to sit for as long as she could.

She talked easily about herself, no pretenses. It was as if she needed to tell her story. When we had talked long enough for me to have a good sense of her, I began to like her. She reminded me of Angelina. I wondered what might have happened if she'd become a waitress instead of a prostitute. She'd come to New York from New Orleans to be a dancer, she said. From a strict religious upbringing. Her father was a fundamentalist who, just before she left home, made her strip naked before he beat her. First, she was an exotic dancer. “Now I'm an escort,” she said. “I'm not really a prostitute. I only go to bed with men I want to go to bed with.” She seemed certain she was moving up in the world.

“Nigel?”

“My relationships are private,” she said primly.

I told her about Angelina. She kept her eyes on mine while I spoke. When I finished, I was holding her hand. “I'm trying to find someone who killed a girl. A young pretty girl who wanted to be a star, just like you.”

She nodded, her eyes narrowed into seriousness. Serious, she looked even younger.

“Tell me about Nigel,” I said.

“Everybody gets their kicks in weird ways.”

“Does he hurt you?”

“No, not really.”

“But it's rough?”

“He takes me instead of me giving. He talks hard, but he doesn't hit me.”

“What does he talk about?”

“Not much. He talks dirty for a while, yells right into my face about my being a prick teaser and a slut. Sometimes he pushes me. In the beginning, I was scared. But I got used to him. He tells me he loves me, and he says he's sorry. Sometimes he cries. Then we fuck.”

“What do you wear?”

“Something like this,” she said, lifting the edge of her little skirt to show me, “and no top.” She ran her hand across her breasts. My mouth watered, but I had years of training. I kept my concentration.

“What does he wear?”

“Right,” she said. “That is a little weird. He always wears the same old college jacket.”

“From where?”

“I don't remember,” she said after thinking hard for a few minutes.

“How often does he visit you?”

“Every Wednesday night.”

Wednesday night didn't sound right. The answer came too quickly. Angelina had been killed on Wednesday night. “Are you sure?”

“I think so.”

“He never misses?” I was badgering her.

“No.”

“Never?”

“I'm pretty sure.” She seemed hurt that I didn't believe her.

“Maybe you forgot.”

“Maybe,” she said in a small voice.

I sat with her for a little while longer, but I had to get out before I blew my cover. Something winsome and charming about her, a kind of openness I didn't expect, made me not want to leave her. I also imagined my hands wrapped around the firm young breasts beneath her maroon sweater. I put my hand on her leg just above the knee and looked into her eyes when she handed me back the twenty. “God, you're beautiful,” I said.

“Do you think God understands?” she asked seriously.

“I'm sure he does,” I said, removing my hand.

***

Janet and Kevin arrived back at Oscar's close to midnight Friday night when the place was hopping. I didn't have time to talk to them. I was flying, and I needed to make some money to pay back that fifty bucks for the horse piss champagne I'd shared with Patricia, so, since Pop was back in town, I asked Janet to take Kevin to my father's house in Brooklyn for the night. Ntango was at the bar, so I asked how much he'd charge to take them. It really was a hell of a fare from the Upper West Side to Flatbush.

“For you, Mr. Brian,” he proclaimed in his half-teasing manner, “never a charge to go anywhere.”

I still had the twenty the hooker returned to me, so I gave it to him. I planned to make the fifty back off Oscar anyway.

An hour later, Janet called to tell me Ntango picked up a fare to the airport from my father's building, and my father offered her the spare room. I could barely hear over the bellowing of the drunks, but I finally grasped that she would stay there overnight, and I should come out there in the morning.

“How about if I join you late tonight in the spare room?”

“Don't be silly,” said Janet.

Since Janet wouldn't be around, I thought about going back to Patricia. The two hundred dollar nut talked me out of it, so I went home alone and fantasized about cuddly hookers, big brown eyes, short yellow skirts over long, slim legs, maroon sweaters lifting to expose firm pale breasts as white as lilies.

Around eleven the next morning, I took the subway out to Flatbush and found my father, my son, and Janet eating bagels at the dining room table.

“We didn't find anything,” Janet said challengingly, as if it was my fault. “We went through court records and the
Stamford Daily News
clip files, but we didn't find out anything on Nigel. We couldn't even find a birth certificate.”

“That happens,” I said.

“Next time it can happen to you.” She glared at me, urging me to say something else so she could berate me some more.

“Why are you mad at me?”

“We went to Nigel's father's house,” Janet said.

“He turned the dogs on us,” Kevin added. “Boy what a place, a big mansion like a castle. With a butler and everything.” Kevin was excited enough to have misplaced his usual nonchalance for the time being.

My father cleared his throat for attention. “Your son is unduly impressed by the trappings of wealth.”

“Yeah,” I shot back, “well, your son spent yesterday afternoon in a whorehouse.”

Janet choked on her bagel. Kevin's eyes opened wide. I never know what's going to impress that kid. Before Janet threw her coffee, I explained myself.

“That sounds like an excuse,” Janet said. “We're wasting our time on Nigel.”

I put some cream cheese on a bagel and asked my pop if he'd boil me some coffee.

“Ha, ha,” he said.