Beware the Solitary Drinker (22 page)

“They didn't exactly let the dogs loose on us, but they do have dogs patrolling the grounds,” Janet said when my father went to the kitchen. She told me that the butler took her message and came back with a lawyer's card, saying Mr. Barthelme wouldn't talk to me, and if I wanted anything else I should call the lawyer. “I called,” said Janet. “But the lawyer wouldn't answer any questions.…That's not unusual, you know,” she went on, speaking rapidly, in case I'd mistakenly planned on disagreeing with her. “Don't think it means they're hiding something, because it doesn't. It just means Mr. Barthelme's interest isn't served by talking to us, and the lawyer's job is to protect his client's interest. So he said not to talk to us.”

Janet was on a roll, lowering her head like a bull about to charge, leaning across the table to make sure she had my attention. “This has been all wrong.” Why didn't I follow up on Carl? she wanted to know. What about Reuben? He'd had time to cover all his tracks. And maybe Danny did do it. How did I know that he was such a good guy?

“I'm not going to do what you say anymore. I'm going to do this on my own. You keep making me do the wrong thing.”

She would not be comforted. I didn't understand her anger; maybe I didn't want to. She pissed me off, so I let her leave by herself. After she left, I moped for a while and then talked with my father, while Kevin's video game boinged and beeped in the background. I told Pop about Janet's mother's version of Angelina's rape.

He thought for a long time, then asked, “Did you ever learn why she came to New York or why you came to know her?”

I recapped what Janet had found out about Carl and my feeling that Angelina might have come looking for someone on the Upper West Side.

Once more, he thought for a long time. Pop wasn't self-conscious about long silences. “Have you considered blackmail?” he asked.

“No. Who's blackmailing whom?” We sat at the dining room table, Pop in his customary seat in the armchair at the head.

“The girl would be the blackmailer. Who do you think might have done something in the past they wouldn't want discovered?”

I did a quick count of Oscar's rogues' gallery. “Everyone, as far as I can tell.”

“Two threads in the stories you've told interest me. The first is the businessman who doesn't fit with the girl's lifestyle, yet has drinks with her. I don't know why you haven't tried to track him down. The second is the girl who accuses the man of raping her and turns out to be from the same town as the one she accuses. This one I can help you follow up on. What was her name?”

“Sharon Collins. But I don't see the connection between her and the businessman.”

“I didn't say there was a connection.”

Pop went once more to his spring-open phone book and made two or three phone calls. “Sharon Collins went to New York six months ago. The captain said she'd been arrested for prostitution in Stamford. He didn't know she was back in town. Nigel Barthelme, he never heard of. He didn't know Barthelme had a son. Barthelme's long been divorced, lives alone.”

Pop also called to make sure a friend of his still worked for the
Stamford Daily News
. “Go see him. Albert Hawkins.” Pop's eyes took on the faraway quality they always did when he traveled back into his memory. “He's a fighter. He held one of the first half-dozen books from the Newspaper Guild. Blacklisted. Spent ten years laying linoleum and another ten covering Zoning Commission meetings, until they discovered affirmative action and made him an editor. He'd know what went on in Stamford.”

***

I met Albert Hawkins in the
Daily News
newsroom Monday afternoon. I hadn't slept except for dozing for forty-five minutes on the train out there. Monday was my day off, so I was hanging in for the duration. Albert Hawkins had a broad black face that wrinkled around the eyes and mouth when he smiled, curly hair with gray specks scattered through like snow flakes, a soft southern accent, thick working man's hands. I'd met bunches of my father's former comrades when I traveled around the country in the Sixties to this peace demonstration and that anti-war conference, thinking I was part of a revolution that was much smarter than my father's had been.

The old comrades put us up, we with our long hair, guitars, and sleeping bags, feeding us and listening to our tales of tear gas and billy clubs, cheering us on in our battles with the establishment. They were the folks we went to for contributions for the April Days of Protest or for Summer of Peace, and the people we went to for bail when things went sour.

I told him about Nigel and Sharon Collins. Albert was a big man with a raspy voice, quick, intelligent eyes, and a brisk manner, as if he were used to getting things done. At first, he looked at me hard and long. Then, he chuckled. “You're Kevin McNulty's son all right. Your dad knows me all too well. Edwin Barthelme owns the floor you're standing on. He owns the paper.” Albert cuffed me on the shoulder and grabbed his jacket off the coat rack. “I've got a file at home that might interest you.”

Albert drove me by the Barthelme place before he took me to his home after work. He wouldn't hear of a hotel; he went back too far with my old man. I would sleep on his foldout couch.

A ten-foot-high stone wall wrapped around the Barthelme estate, which was at the Stamford-Greenwich border on the top of a hill overlooking a golf course and the town of Stamford beyond. We sat for twenty minutes or so in the driveway of another walled estate across the street and looked at the wooden gate that blocked the entrance to the Barthelme place while Albert Hawkins told me an incredible story.

“A deal with the devil, for sure,” said Albert. “But in his case the devil took the form of God.”

He looked steadily at the estate across the street from us. “Edwin was a copy editor at the old
World
,” he began. “He might even have been there in your father's time. Not a particularly good editor, kind of nondescript. During the first Guild organizing drive, the publisher did a management shake-up. Bernie Ross, the managing editor, was a good guy, so I guess he didn't fight the union hard enough. One day we came to work, Bernie was gone and Barthelme had taken over.”

Albert looked at me; he was holding back a smile. “That's only the beginning,” he said cheerfully. “A few months later, I came into work to find that the publisher was gone and Barthelme had taken his place.” Now Albert let go and laughed heartily.

“Some years ago, Edwin hooked up with a group of backers—rich, right-wing religious fundamentalists. He kissed their asses, and the money rolled in. He bought this paper, cut the editorial staff, brought on old war horses like me, who couldn't command big salaries, subscribed to news services instead of hiring reporters, and everybody got rich. Except the workers, of course.” He laughed again. “They bought up small and mid-sized dailies like this one all over the country, using the same approach.

“Everything was fine until his son got in trouble, and I know for a fact that he did. The trouble had to do with sex and a young girl and would have ruined Edwin Barthelme. He'd have lost his backing from the holy rollers, so he squashed the story and disappeared his son.”

Albert lived with his wife in a brick garden apartment. The walls of the living room and the upstairs hallway were lined with bookcases, overflowing with books, many of the same old International Publishers editions my father had on his bookshelves. We drank a martini before dinner, then ate pot roast, mashed potatoes, and collard greens. Afterward, we drank coffee and Albert looked through his file.

He sat surrounded by six or seven piles of that old brown newsprint reporters used to type their stories on in the old days. It was the paper my father had brought home from work for me to write and draw on when I was a kid.

“I got it,” Albert shouted. The story was on one of those old sheets of newsprint. He handed it to me.

***

“A Stamford man was taken into custody last night on a warrant issued on the complaint of the parents of a 12-year-old Glenbrook girl.

“Nigel Barthelme, 18, of Palmer Hill Road, has been charged with six counts of corrupting the morals of a minor and three counts of statutory rape. He is scheduled to appear in town court this morning for arraignment.”

***

“There never was a court appearance.” Albert laughed, humor mixed with bitterness, “and there never was a news story.”

This was what I went looking for, yet it stunned me. The girl who'd accused Nigel that night in my bar told the truth. The charge was statutory rape, which meant he didn't use force; it was sex with a young girl too young to know what she was doing. The date on Albert's story was August 11, 1971, two years before the same kind of non-forcible rape happened to Angelina. My hunch on Nigel was borne out, just as my hunch on Reuben had held up. Reuben was a murderer. Nigel was a child molester of at least one young girl. Now what?

Before I left the next morning, I remembered Patricia the adorable hooker mentioning Nigel's college jacket and asked Albert if he knew anything about Nigel's college days—where he went to college, for instance.

He said he didn't but he'd see what he could find out.

Chapter Eleven

I called Janet when I got back to the city, figuring she'd gotten over being mad by then.

“I've found out a number of things,” she said excitedly. “Your good friend Carl may be in the clear, after all. I think it was someone else.”

“Who?”

“I'm not going to tell you because I'm not sure. But if I'm right, you'll be amazed.”

“Let's not keep secrets from one another,” I said, calmly I hoped. “It's too dangerous now to go nosing around by yourself.”

“Talking about secrets, your father said you went to Stamford. Why?”

“Checking on something.”

“I thought we weren't keeping secrets.”

“Who's your suspect?”

“Never mind.”

“Why is Carl in the clear?”

“I talked to him. All of what he told me makes sense, and it brings up the possibility of this other person. I'll have all the information I need by tomorrow night. Then we can compare notes. I will tell you one thing,” she said. “Nigel Barthelme called the police to tell them Angelina had been with Danny.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, at least, I'm pretty sure it's him. Peter found out they had a tape of the call, and they let him listen to it. He said he recognized the voice.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“You'll see.”

“You're doing this wrong.” My voice was rising. “It's too dangerous now to go off doing stuff alone.”

“Now you want to work together. You don't want any help from me when you're talking to prostitutes. Why didn't you tell me about going to Stamford again?”

“You walked out before I had a chance.”

She hung up.

I felt like a four-year-old who couldn't make anyone, particularly this pain in the ass Massachusetts banker, understand what I meant. I wondered what she was on to. I needed to see Carl to find out which way he'd pointed her. But, first, I wanted another crack at Barthelme.

***

Once more, I resorted to my borrowed suit and followed a group of pin stripes into Barthelme's building and onto the elevator. I didn't want to be announced by the concierge this time around.

I knew I'd have to move fast once the elevator door opened, so I tried to picture the layout of Barthelme's suite. The elevator opened into the reception area where Janet and I had met him. His office was beyond the reception area, and, if I remembered correctly, there was a reception desk that no one was at the last time, but someone might be at this time. The trick would be to get past and through his office door.

When the elevator door opened, I caught a glimpse of Barthelme's back as he went into his inner office. Taking my chances, I rushed across the reception area, waving my copy of Lew Archer. “Oh, Mr. Barthelme, you forgot—”

Before anyone could react, I was in. As soon as I got through the door, Barthelme turned on me, his face hard, his expression contemptuous. He was a lot taller than Nigel, taller than me, and I'm a shade over six feet and wear a hefty size forty-four.

“What do you want?” His tone suggested my answer had better be good. Dressed in gray this time, too, he bent forward at the shoulders toward me, although clearly this time he had no desire to get closer.

“Maybe to save your son.”

“I don't know what you mean.” His eyelids came down over his eyes like hoods.

“I'm speaking of your son Nigel, the child molester.”

His eyes opened, registering the news without losing their imperiousness.

He stood behind his desk. I stood in front. “Who are you?”

“A friend of Angelina Carter's.”

He leaned farther forward, peering at me more carefully. “You're that bartender.”

“You should remember Angelina. You paid off her mother to keep her from pressing charges against Nigel a few years back.”

His clear gray eyes never left mine, nor did his expression show anything except contempt.

“Was Nigel with you on that Wednesday night and Thursday morning two weeks ago?”

No answer.

“Do you know another girl named Sharon Collins? Did you know Ozzie Jackson? Did you go to visit Angelina when she was working at Hanrahan's? Did she put the bite on you again?”

His eyes bored into mine.

I was really glad I'd gotten a chance to talk to Edwin Barthelme. For some stupid reason, I thought he might answer something. What do you do when the guy doesn't answer?

What the hell? I tried one more. “It's hard to believe that a son you hadn't seen in ten years was with you on the very night he most needs an alibi. Was he with you the night Ozzie was killed, too?”

No answer, just the icy stare.

“Look, it's been really nice chatting, Mr. Barthelme. But I have things to do, as I'm sure you do.” I smiled toothily. “We'll talk again sometime soon.”

Riding down in the elevator, I considered what I'd done. Tipped Nigel's father that I was onto Nigel's past. Found out nothing at all that might help me. Like the man said, if I'd've had a third leg, I'd've kicked myself in the ass.

***

That night, after I'd eaten a steak, and, in pursuit of normalcy, had a couple of drinks with Nick at the Terrace, I stopped off to see Carl at his guard post on West End Avenue. He was busy for a good fifteen minutes with the elevator. Every time he came down with it, someone else was waiting to go up, so I sat in his cubicle looking over a book he was reading
, Diet for a Small Planet
. I was always amazed by Carl's wide-ranging interests, his primitiveness in learning what he himself thought he needed to know in life, and how little this kind of knowledge had to do with being successful in the world as most people knew it.

“Who are the crazy people running the world?” I asked him when he finally returned to his booth.

“You were looking at that book, eh? I know. We let people starve so we can eat overstuffed deli sandwiches. Our entire food chain is wrong. No one has to go hungry.”

I watched my friend drinking his Coke and eating his hard roll with butter. He looked at me, then at his hard roll. “One must learn to practice what one preaches,” he said.

I approached this conversation awkwardly, once more wishing I could avoid confronting someone with his failings and misdeeds. But now I was afraid someone else would be killed, that Janet might be, or me, so I probed when things might much better be left alone.

“What did you talk to Janet about?” I asked.

When he started involuntarily, I realized he hadn't expected her to tell me. “I told her some personal things I'm not sure I want to tell you.”

“Oh,” I said. Certainly in any civilized world he should have that right, but not now. “I'm afraid someone is going to die,” I said.

“Who?”

“I don't know. Maybe Janet. Maybe me.”

“That's a lot to be afraid of,” Carl said. I knew nothing I could say would make him talk unless he decided himself, so I waited.

After a long time he said, “I told her about meeting Angelina in Montauk. I went there that summer to try to get my head together. Instead, it blew apart. I wound up coming back to the psych ward in Bellevue.” Carl paused to look at me accusingly, his baleful expression suggesting how difficult it was for him to tell me this. “I didn't want everyone in town to know that I was in a nuthouse.”

“I understand.”

He didn't say anything, but his stance and his manner softened ever so slightly. He began playing with the Coke bottle cap, breaking off the thin metal fringe at the bottom of the cap.

“I didn't know Angelina very well in Montauk. But when they hauled me away, she came down to visit me every couple of weeks at Bellevue. That says something about her, doesn't it? She was the only person to come and see me. Actually, she was the only one I wanted to see.

“I knew you knowing about all of this wouldn't help find who killed her, and I didn't want to tell a hundred cops and district attorneys and lawyers and bartenders about it. It was my business.” He went back to breaking up the thin band he'd peeled off the bottle cap.

I watched his fingers that were thick and stubby work on the cap. His movements were deliberate and precise as always. I was embarrassed. I would have liked to forget the whole thing and have gone back to the Terrace, but I went on. “Did Angelina come to visit you after you got out of the hospital?”

“When she still lived in Massachusetts, she would stay in my apartment for a weekend every now and again while she tooled around the city looking for a millionaire.”

“Why did she move here?”

“I told you, to find a millionaire.”

“A particular millionaire, or would anyone do?”

“I don't know.”

“Why here on the West Side? Why not the East Side where the high rollers live? Because you were here?”

“No. I suggested the East Side or downtown. I even found a place for her on Tenth. But she wanted to live in this neighborhood.”

“Did you find her an apartment?”

“The first one. The second one she got herself.”

“Where'd she get the money?”

“I wondered that, too.” Carl had broken up the strip from the bottle cap into tiny pieces that he now pushed together into two piles like he had done with the coffee lid the last time I'd visited him.

“Can you find out how she got the second apartment?”

“That's what I told Janet. I told her that I was pretty sure Angelina was set up with the apartment and with the job at Hanrahan's. Somebody made her Queen for a Day.”

“Why?”

“You tell me.”

“Blackmail.”

Carl registered the word. His face took on that owl-like expression. “That might explain it,” he said when he'd thought for a few minutes.

“What else did you tell Janet?”

“I gave her a name, Mario, he's the super for the building on 110th Street. He'd know how Angelina got the apartment.”

It was around three by now. I went home to bed and slept for a long time. Checking my mail on my way out of my apartment late the next morning, I found a letter from the union telling me I'd won my grievance and should report to work at the hotel a week from Monday. The letter jolted me back to a life that had once been normal. Who the hell had I become?

When I opened the outer door, I saw Nigel in the doorway of the building across the street. He ducked back in. I would have left him there, but he came out himself.

“Hello, Brian,” Nigel said. “Any new suspects?” He came on like a bully. Stood up close to me, his chest out. His eyes through those coke bottles of his were about the size of bar coasters. “Danny killed Angelina,” Nigel said. “Ask the cops. It's all over.”

“We'll see.”

He laughed a tight rattling laugh. “Turn up anything on me?”

“No.” I watched his eyes. “But I haven't found Sharon Collins yet.”

His eyes moved, showing a glint of interest; he forgot about me for a split second. Then his eyes turned sad. I felt embarrassed for him. It's awful to have your secrets laid out for you, right there, a block off Broadway.

“Keep it up, McNulty,” Nigel said. “You think you're going to prove I'm the murderer, but you won't because I'm not.” He stared at me, and I caught a glimpse of his father's penchant for contempt. Like father, like son, after all. “You're a good person, McNulty, despite your attempts to bury it under your degeneracy. But you're not particularly bright.”

What he said hurt my feelings, but I suspected he might have something there.

“By the time you discover I'm not the murderer, you'll have dug a couple of more graves. Your Massachusetts friend is worse. Why don't you take her to the Bahamas for a couple of weeks?” It sounded like a joke, but he wasn't smiling. “Let it go, Brian.” His eyes began to mist over and his goggles to fog up. He walked off without another word.

I went back inside to call Albert Hawkins. When he answered the phone, he laughed his hearty laugh, so different from Nigel's.

“How 'bout Amherst College,” he said. “Amherst is about twenty miles from Springfield, less than that from Chicopee. Nigel was there, a debater and a fencer, until 1973 when he left for health reasons. I found him by working my way through the ruling class schools. Somebody forgot to erase something.” He paused. “By the way, how did you get along with his dad? He cut his day short yesterday and came home.”

I needed to get to Springfield, then to Stamford, then back to New York in the same day. What I needed was a car, except I didn't know how to drive. I tried to call Janet, but I couldn't reach her. I left a message with her hotel for her to make sure I could find her tonight, then went looking for Ntango and found him having breakfast in La Rosita at 107th Street. He had the horse hire for the next twenty-four hours.

“I need to take a trip without the meter running,” I told him while I sucked down a double espresso.

Ntango, his brown eyes soft and kind, said apologetically, “Mr. Brian, I haven't made my nut for the past two days.”

“How much?”

He rested his elbows on the counter and leaned forward; his manner was patient. “Fifty for yesterday. A hundred for today.”

No wonder Lew Archer had clients pay expenses. I'd settle for twenty-five a day and expenses myself. I needed a couple of hundred dollars fast. Only one person in our circle, so to speak, ever had that kind of money in pocket. I went looking for the Boss. He was always in Sully's from noon to five to collect from the numbers runners.

“I'll be right back,” I told Ntango. “Don't take a fare even if it's to the airport.” I ran across the street, hoping the mug I'd dumped into the elevator shaft had returned to Jersey for good.

The Boss looked up, but was not his usual gracious self. “Beat it, McNulty,” he said.