Cobalt (10 page)

“Love is a many-splintered thing,” remarked Clarisse. “Do you think Jeff actually stole those clothes?”

“Axel says they were lost in the laundry,” replied Valentine. “But who knows? I wouldn't put it past Scott to have thrown them out himself just so he could accuse Jeff.”

“Axel supports that twerp, doesn't he?”

“Scott ‘takes lessons,'” said Valentine with distaste. “Car repair, home cosmetology, computer programming, weaponless self-defense, sensuous massage, tai ch'i. He's not sure yet
what
he wants to do.”

“When I think of the number of men in this town who are lover-subsidized…!”

Valentine nodded, and rose to pour more coffee. When he sat down again, Clarisse said, “Well, I had a little poolside chat with Ann and Margaret last night. They tried to induce me into a threesome.”

“Were you polite in refusing?”

Clarisse sighed. “The approach and the denial were carried out with the utmost discretion and good taste.”

“Tell me what they had to say.”

Clarisse recounted the pair's assessment of Jeff King, concluding with Jeff King's astounding assertion that Noah Lovelace was his lover. “But that, of course, is not possible,” she concluded.

“Why not?” said Valentine. “I'll bet you can't name Noah's last three affairs.”

“Yes I can,” said Clarisse. “Truck-Stop Betty, Butcher-than-Thou, and Amtrak Bob.”

“Those aren't real names,” argued Valentine. “How do you know that Jeff King didn't have a nickname as well?”

“You mean like the Cobalt Clone?”

“Or something. Anyway, it doesn't look like Jeff King was addicted to truth-telling—that man couldn't be trusted the length of his zipper. But if you're worried about it, why don't you just ask Noah?”

Clarisse replied uneasily, “The only time Noah and I have had together was at the party on Saturday night, and that was for only about five minutes.”

Valentine eyed her. “Are you afraid you'll find something out?”

Clarisse didn't reply to this directly. “After the girls dropped their little bombshell, they went inside. I sat outside waiting for Noah to come home so I could ask him all about it. But the White Prince arrived first, and I said, ‘Is Noah with you?' And the Prince said that Noah had gone to Boston early yesterday morning and wasn't expected back before tomorrow.”

Valentine was puzzled. “Was it an unexpected trip?”

“I asked the Prince. ‘He never tells me anything, how do I know?' he said.” She glanced at the clock. “Oh, God, I'm late. The hordes will be beating at the door.”

She rose and hurried upstairs to the bathroom. In a couple of minutes she came down again. “Listen, Val, I've had a thought,” she said. “If you see the White Prince this morning, tell him to drop by and see me in the shop.”

“You think he might have known Jeff King too?” Valentine said, and then looked thoughtful. “I wouldn't be surprised. Everybody in town except me seems to have screwed him—or been screwed by him.”

“Don't tell him what it's about. Let me do a little fishing. Okay?”

The White Prince was tall, as thin as Jacqueline Onassis' little finger, and had immaculate, deeply tanned skin and classically regular features. His cheekbones were high and his eyes were green and cold. The White Prince's crowning glory was the shock of absolutely white hair that grew luxuriantly and with no sign of receding; the rest of his body was hairless. He couldn't even grow a mustache.

His history was vague and had something to do with Missouri and the wrong side of the tracks. Though his public manners were languid and refined to a degree more appropriate to a hedonistic Olympian god than an ex-schoolteacher living by his lover's grace, it was rumored that his mother paid for his piano lessons after a successful appearance on
Queen for a Day
.

He appeared in the doorway of the Provincetown Crafts Boutique an hour after Clarisse had opened the shop. His sandals were carved of birchwood and laced with ostrich-leather thongs. His drawstring pants were of raw cotton. His pink shirt of the same material was ornamented with tiny scraps of mirror sewn about the collarless yoke. Despite the intense heat of the day, a lightweight white sweater was thrown over his shoulders, with the arms loosely knotted just beneath his throat. His large sunglasses were rose-tinted and red-framed.

The White Prince always posed as if a candid fashion photographer were lurking behind every bush. Clarisse conjectured that he must have had a costumier, makeup man, and hairstylist just off-stage. The shop was filled with tourists, who stopped their browsing to stare. The White Prince took no notice of them; to him, heterosexuals were invisible.

“Daniel told me to stop in. Here I am.” He advanced toward the counter, but stopped suddenly when the plastic whale in the barrel suddenly shot up a geyser of water. “Is that likely to happen again?” he asked.

Clarisse nodded. The White Prince gingerly lifted the whale from the water and dropped it onto the floor. There was a loud crack of plastic. “Oh, sorry,” he said.

“Don't worry,” said Clarisse with a broad smile. “It could have happened to anyone.”

“Daniel said that you wanted to talk to me about Jeff King.” The White Prince's voice was loud and quite conversational in tone; it was a voice that took no notice whatsoever of those standing all about them.

“Valentine gives everything away. He's got no subtlety.”

“What did you want to know?” The White Prince had long ago given up wrinkling his brow, for fear the lines might then never go away.

“
Did
you know him?”

“Of course. Everybody knew Jeff King. He's been a regular in P'town the last few summers. Three or four years ago, he stayed here all summer long, and became the largest-scale dope dealer we had. Summers after that he'd come back every weekend or so, just to deal.”

The customers in the shop gave up all pretense at browsing, and listened intently. The White Prince stood a few feet away from the counter—so that Clarisse would have a full view of him—and Clarisse saw that it would be pointless to ask him to use anything resembling a confidential tone and volume.

“What did he sell?” she asked.

“The usual—Black Beauties, meth, MDA, speed, 'ludes, coke. Things to get you up, things to keep you going, things to lay you out.”

“Did you buy from him?”

“I used to. When he was still bringing good stuff.”

“And he wasn't anymore?”

“No. A few years ago he couldn't have gotten away with it. P'town wasn't so popular then,
everybody
was a regular, and word would have gotten around fast that he was cutting his MDA with speed. MDA's just great—a good glow and you can have sex all night and do
everything
, if that's what you're into. MDA's the best thing that's happened to romance since they hung the moon in the sky. But once you start cutting it with speed, it makes things rocky—you'll still do everything, but you'll do it faster and harder. Lately he'd been coming back and selling to strangers, people who didn't know his drugs were no good. That may have been why he was murdered—”

There were gasps in several corners of the shop. Clarisse turned and smiled to everyone. “He wasn't a
close
friend,” she assured them.

“Somebody got hold of his bad MDA, or his bad coke, or his bad meth, and tried to get their money back, and so on and so forth. You found him, Daniel said?”

“Yes,” said Clarisse, and gave change for a ceramic clown nervously bought by an elderly woman in a puce blouse and matching synthetic pants.

“It must have been a terrible experience,” said the White Prince languidly. “I heard that you threw him over your shoulder and carried him to the courthouse. His hands were scraping the asphalt. I heard that at five A.M., it looked just like
The Creature from the Black Lagoon
, and the meat rack scattered when they saw you coming.”

“It wasn't quite like that,” said Clarisse delicately. “Did Noah know Jeff King?”

“They knew each other, but they didn't get along. Trouble in the past, I think.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Ask Noah, I don't know. I never ask questions about the past,” said the White Prince, tracing a recently manicured fingernail across his lower lip.

W
HEN VALENTINE WAS still setting up the register that Monday afternoon, he noted in the mirror that Terry O'Sullivan had sidled onto a stool just behind him. The time for polite discouragement had passed. Terry had come to Provincetown with the intention of staying only a week—from Saturday noon to Saturday noon. But when, after a week of being hounded, Valentine at last agreed to go with him to the Garden of Evil party, Terry had taken a room at the Boatslip for another two days. And now Valentine was dismayed to find Terry was exceeding even
that
extension.

Valentine did not speak. He had once thought Terry O'Sullivan handsome: a compact well-defined body, dark features, short curly black hair and a full black mustache. But his polite pushiness during the week that they had lived in Noah's compound and the absurdity of Terry's assumption, on their first date no less, of some sort of relationship existing between them had effectively dissipated that attractiveness in Valentine's mind.

“Daniel, could I have my usual?” said Terry.

“What's your usual?” said Valentine.

“You know,” Terry replied, puzzled, “club soda and lime.”

When it was set before him, Terry made no motion to pay. “That's seventy-five cents,” said Valentine shortly.

Embarrassed, Terry laid down the money. Valentine made change and then walked to the other end of the bar. He opened a
New Yorker
that was lying on the beer cooler and began to leaf through it.

“Daniel,” Terry called, “come down here and talk to me.”

Valentine slowly closed the magazine, and said pointedly, “I thought you were supposed to go back to Boston this morning?”

“I was,” said Terry nervously. “I've got stacks of work on my desk, and they're starting to call me. They can't do without me,” he added with feeble pride. “But I don't care. I've taken off two more days. I couldn't leave Provincetown until you and I had gotten the chance to really talk. I've been wanting to talk to you, Daniel, but I had to think it out first. But this is a perfect time now.” He glanced around; the only other person in the Throne and Scepter was the waiter sitting in the open doorway. He pretended not to listen to the conversation.

Valentine waited.

“Really
talk
, I mean,” Terry said in a low grave voice.

“All right,” said Valentine grimly. “But I'm going to warn you. You may get answers you're not going to like.”

There was a silence of some moments.

“I think we're good together,” Terry began in a rush. “The first time I met you, Daniel, it just about blew my mind. I got this feeling like I've never had in my life.” He paused significantly, but if he expected Valentine to echo the sentiment, he was to be disappointed. Valentine stood stock-still, hands folded across his chest, and looked closely at Terry. “At the same time I had the feeling—and I know it's right—that something good could come of it. If you'd only give it a chance.”

Valentine said nothing.

“Oh,” Terry went on after a moment, “I'm not asking for a commitment, it's too soon. I just want you to give
us
a chance. I've made reservations at the Boatslip for every weekend they had a room open. I won't be back next weekend but I will be the one after. And all I want you to do right now is say you'll set aside that weekend for
us
. That's all the commitment I want. Daniel, this could be the start of the most important part of our entire lives.”

Daniel made no reply.

“You look angry,” said Terry slowly.

“I am.”

“How could you be angry?!”

“Because,” said Valentine softly, “that's exactly what I
don't
want—a relationship, I mean.” His gaze was harder than Terry O'Sullivan was prepared to deal with.

“Yes, you do want it,” said Terry O'Sullivan, glancing away. “But you're afraid of making a commitment.”

“Listen to me.” Valentine's voice was icy. “If you will remember correctly, you and I have never had sex. We occupied the same bed for an hour and a half, while you talked. I didn't even get to take off my cufflinks. And you know what else? That was it. That was the high point of what you consider ‘our relationship.' Because that's as far as you're ever going to get with me.”

Terry was crushed.

“I would have had sex with you—but I get you into bed, and you pull out this contract you want me to sign. I have no interest in contracts.”