Girl Watcher's Funeral (11 page)

I drew a deep breath and my mouth felt dry and that damn pulse was still beating in my throat. I walked away from her. “All right, let's talk about fashion,” I said. “I don't know anything about the person who's in the center of this madhouse—Lazar. You're all here because of him. You moved in to the Beaumont like an army—you, Nikos and all his satellites. Two people have been murdered and you'll probably go right on, beating your drums, and laughing, and dancing. Lazar is what charges your batteries. What about him? All I've seen is a campy young man, propping himself up on the mantelpiece so that he won't fall down from an overdose of martinis.”

Jan laughed, as if she was enjoying herself. I was proving her point, of course. We would not talk about fashion and Max Lazar and we would continue to think about sex.

“Don't sell Maxie short,” she said. “You are the Wall Street­–Madison Avenue kind of man, Mark. You are very male, and you wear nice conservative clothes, all gray, and brown, and blue. You are thirty-five. More than half the world is younger than you, Mark. So the young men let their hair grow long and turn peacock. That's today, Mark. Nikos understood, and he was really old.”

“Good for Nikos,” I said, feeling nasty. “He understood everything except that somebody was planning to kill him.”

“Poor Nikos,” she said.

“Lazar was his boy,” I said.

“You are angry because Maxie is different from you,” Jan said. “You're angry because I'm different from your girl in Europe. Do I have to like educate you, Mark?”

She wasn't as dumb as she pretended. “Go ahead, educate me,” I said.

“Just because Maxie wears tight pants, and beads, and no socks on his feet doesn't mean he's a homo. He's camp, not homo. You use both words to mean the same thing. Camp is taste; homosexuality is a sexual problem. Camp is against being serious; it likes being eccentric especially if it's vulgar and banal; it likes old styles that are funny now, like feather boas and beaded dresses, and old movies. Batman in his Batman outfit is camp; Batman as the millionaire philanthropist is square—is you, Mark.”

“Thanks for everything,” I said.

“A lot of homosexuals are camps, but not all camps are homos. Maxie is camp, not homo.” She smiled faintly. “He's all man, and don't you forget it.”

So little Jan had “come to the point” with Maxie, I thought.

“You don't just drape materials on a dressmaker's dummy to come up with fashion,” Jan said. “A designer like Maxie has to understand today's woman. He has to be a historian, and an economist, and a sociologist, and a psychologist. He doesn't come up with what he wants; he comes up with what women want. Oh, they don't know what they want till he comes up with it, but if he was wrong, they'd leave him and his ship to sink. Only Maxie is never wrong, because he's all the things I said he had to be, plus he's a man and he knows what women's clothes have to do with what we're not supposed to talk about.”

“Sex.”

“Yes, Mark.”

“Go on about this superior male.”

“Maxie comes up with a design and says ‘this is it.' But then there has to be money to manufacture and promote; that's where Nikos comes in. Then the clothes have to be properly shown. That's where Monica Strong comes in. You watch on Friday. The clothes will come out, worn by Suzie Sands, and a girl who looks like Julie Christie, and a girl who looks like Audrey Hepburn, full of life and health and joy, and everyone in the room will begin to feel better, and their hearts will beat faster, and they'll already feel ashamed at the idea of walking out on the street in anything but a Max Lazar creation. Monica knows how to stage it, and Suzie and the other girls know how to sell it. But if Maxie wasn't right, if he wasn't exactly Today, the show would flop.”

“And is he Today?”

“For certain,” Jan said. “Would Nikos invest a half million dollars in him if he wasn't?”

I looked at my glass. It was empty. I looked at Jan. We were going to have to find something else to talk about, and fast.

I went over to the sideboard and poured myself another Jack Daniels. I looked at her glass and saw it was still three quarters full. I took two steps toward her. It was very mathematical. I mustn't go too close.

“I've heard a lot from Tim Gallivan and Rosey and you about Nikos's private dislike for vulgarity,” I said. “You say camp likes vulgarity. Did Nikos and Lazar clash? Did Nikos censor his designs?”

Jan laughed. “You don't know Maxie,” she said. “He'd throw a million dollars in the wastebasket before he'd let anyone tell him how to create.”

“But if Nikos was riding him, maybe he'd figure he could put up with it for awhile if he knew it was going to end; if he knew that the next time Nikos had an attack it would be all over. Then, no more censorship and another half a million dollars to go on with his business. According to Gallivan, that's what's in Nikos's will for your Maxie.”

Jan stared at me steadily.

“The same idea occurred to Rosey,” I said. “She went back to the party and she told your Maxie that she wanted to talk to him, and they went to your room. Then she laid it on the line for him. Maybe she remembered something, like a time she saw him fooling with the pill bottle. And so your all-male Maxie heaved her out the window, and came back to his mantelpiece and his martini, and his admiring Scarsdale housewives.”

Jan continued to stare at me, her eyes widening.

“Your Maxie would throw a million dollars in the waste-basket if anyone interfered with him, you said. So what about a couple of lives? Would he hesitate?”

She still didn't speak. And then I did something I didn't mean to do, not then, not ever. I went over to her chair, took both her hands in mine and pulled her up onto her feet. I pulled her hard against me and I kissed her. It was long, and sweet, and non-acrobatic. I felt as though I was drowning and enjoying it.

I was aware of a loud voice out in Miss Ruysdale's office. The hell with it. Miss Ruysdale could take care of any situation I could imagine. I wanted to whisper things to this astonishing girl, but I didn't want to go away from her warm, soft mouth.

And then the office door burst open and I had to disengage, reluctantly.

Standing there, face as white as chalk, wearing his chocolate-brown ensemble, was Michael Faraday. His eyes were red with rage. His lithe, graceful, powerful body was balanced on the balls of his feet. And then he came at us, jet-propelled. It was so fast I was only just able to push Jan away toward her chair.

He never spoke a word. He just came at me, swinging both murderous fists. I remember raising my hands in an absurd attempt to ward off that first punch. It smashed through my guard as though it was a paper doily. I caught it flush on the chin, and I had no legs. I sat down on the Oriental rug, hard. I heard Jan scream.

I said something meaningless like, “Now, wait a minute!”

I was on my feet because he pulled me up. I tried to clinch, looking over at his shoulder. Miss Ruysdale must be getting help. I hoped she wouldn't stop for a short beer, because I knew, instinctively, that Faraday was going to kill me. He had blown his stack so far that nothing would stop him. I kicked at his shins, but they might have been encased in armor for all the good it did. I tasted blood that was filling my mouth, and he was out of the clinch and beating me down to the floor like a man armed with iron maces. I think I screamed, because I was completely helpless in the path of a murder machine. Roman candles went off in front of my eyes; I felt an agonizing succession of blows at my ribs and stomach.

And then, mercifully, the lights went out.

I
SMELLED DRUGSTORE SMELLS
, antiseptic smells. Someone was touching my cheekbone with something, gently, but there was the stinging pain of something put on a cut.

“I think he's coming around,” I heard Doc Partridge say. You'd know his voice anywhere. He always sounds angry with the patient, as though he had no right to be hurt or sick.

I tried moving, and it was unpleasant. It was all coming back. I saw Faraday's murderous red eyes bearing down on me. I tried opening my own eyes, but only one of them seemed to work. The room came into a kind of blurred focus.

I was stretched out on the daybed in Chambrun's dressing room, just off the office. I saw Chambrun, his face looking as if it was carved out of stone, with Jerry Dodd just behind him. I tried to grin. My lips felt thick and swollen.

“Thanks for getting here,” I said.

Doc Partridge, who had been bent close to me, straightened up. “Nothing too serious—unless there are internal injuries,” he said. “Bruises, cuts—maybe a slight concussion.”

“What happened, Mark?” Chambrun asked in a cold, hard voice.

“It—it was all so quick,” I said. “Miss Ruysdale can tell you better than I can,” I said. “He came barging in here and it was all so quick—”

“Ruysdale can't tell us anything,” Chambrun interrupted. “She's in the ICU at the hospital with a possible fractured skull. I found her—and you. We have no idea what happened.”

He never called her “Miss” Ruysdale—just “Ruysdale,” and yet I knew she was closer to him than anyone on the staff. There were rumors in the back pantries that if there was a woman in Chambrun's life, it was Ruysdale. Don't get me wrong. I know he was concerned about me, but Ruysdale was much more intimately close.

“Let's have it quickly, Mark, without frills,” Jerry Dodd said.

“I was in here with Jan Morse. We were—having a drink.” No reason to tell them any more than that. Faraday hadn't exploded when he saw me kissing Jan. He'd been under a full head of steam long before that. “I heard someone shouting at Miss Ruysdale in the outer office, and then the door burst open and Faraday came charging in. He never even said a word. He just ran at me like a runaway tank. I never really had a chance to get my hands up before he was destroying me.

The minute I mentioned Faraday's name, Jerry was gone, without waiting to hear the rest.

“What about Miss Morse?” Chambrun asked.

“She's gone?”

“There was no one here but Ruysdale and you.”

“I was out like a light almost before I knew what was happening,” I said.

“Looks like he was stomped on after he was down,” the old doctor said. “We better have X-rays of your insides, Mark.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “I feel great.”

I tried sitting up, and every inch of me hurt. But I made it. I remember fumbling in my pocket for a cigarette. It seemed the nonchalant thing to do. Chambrun took a step toward me and flicked on his lighter.

“I'd appreciate it if you could go to the hospital, Doctor,” he said. “I'd feel better if I knew I wasn't getting any double-talk about Ruysdale's condition.”

“Sure, Pierre, I'll go at once,” Partridge said. He glared at me. “You ought to come along with me.”

“I'll ride it out till morning, Doc,” I said. “It doesn't feel like anything's broken. Just a little bent. Mr. Chambrun may need me.”

“Your funeral,” Partridge said, and stalked away.

“You think you can make it into the next room?” Chambrun asked when we were alone.

“Why not? I'm really fine,” I said.

I stood up, and the room started to revolve. I thought my knees were going to buckle and I hung onto the back of a chair. I stood there for a moment, with Chambrun watching me closely, and then the room leveled off and stayed put. I followed him, gingerly, into the office. One of the big Florentine chairs was overturned. Aside from that there was no sign of the fight. Chambrun went over to the sideboard and made me a Jack Daniels on the rocks and poured himself a cup of Turkish coffee. He brought the drink and his coffee back to the desk and sat down in his deep armchair. His eyes were little black slits in their pouches.

“What the hell were you doing with Miss Morse?” he asked in an unfriendly voice.

For him, the truth. “I was kissing her when he smashed in here,” I said. “But that isn't what set him off. I heard him yelling at Miss Ruysdale before he ever came in here.”

“That bastard!” Chambrun said, his voice suddenly unsteady with anger. “Her jaw is broken, Mark. He evidently knocked her over backwards and she struck her head on the corner of the desk. So help me God—” He let it ride there, his face working.

“It was like something you wouldn't believe,” I said. “The door nearly came off its hinges when he smashed his way in. He never stopped moving. Just came right at me.”

“What do you know about him and the Morse girl?”

“They're a thing,” I said. “How did he know she was here?”

“It was no secret,” Chambrun said. “He might have asked one of Hardy's men. We didn't make a public point of the fact that she might be in danger. You brought her down here while the cops were going over her room. Was it enough of a ‘thing' for him to go berserk when he heard she was alone with another man?”

“Something set him off in a big way,” I said.

The house phone rang on Chambrun's desk and he picked it up and answered. He listened, frowning, and then said, “Thanks, Jerry.” He replaced the receiver.

“Faraday left the hotel with the Morse girl half an hour ago. Mike Maggio and Waters both saw them go.”

Maggio is the night bell captain, and Waters is the doorman.

“The last time I was at the party in nineteen-A, Mrs. Faraday was there,” I said. “She's obviously not unaware. She might know where he hides out with his extra women.”

“Can you make it?” Chambrun asked.

“Sure,” I said. The Jack Daniels seemed to have worked a small miracle on my tender insides.

Chambrun stood up. “When I come face to face with that sonofabitch, he's going to discover there are ways to be crushed that don't involve muscle!”