Jade in Aries (12 page)

“You don’t take it seriously?”

“Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.”

“Like Ross’s novena,” I said.

He gave a snort of surprised laughter. “Are we back there again? Oh, I suppose Leo was at his grubby novena, he does do that sort of thing. In any event, he wasn’t killing anybody. Not Jamie, not Ronnie.”

“Why not?”

“Leo suffers at the hands of others,” he said. “It would take away some of his pleasure to cut down on the number of hands.”

“In other words, you say he’s a masochist.”

“I find labels embarrassing,” he said. “Leo doesn’t like to be whipped, which is the implication I get from that particular label. But his life-style is to be mistreated by other people and to miss opportunities for success because of the distraction and agony of that mistreatment. It’s Leo’s individual answer to the problem of having success thrust upon him as an alternative.”

“Are you one of the people who mistreat him?”

A smile with down-turned corners, a shake of the head: “I am Leo’s father figure. I am the one whose task it is to tell him he should succeed anyway, no matter what the bad people do.”

“What were you arguing about, before I came in?”

“He wanted me to see you. I didn’t want to see you.”

“Why not?”

“I find your line of work distasteful. As bad as psychoanalysis, in its way. I am a very private person, Mr. Tobin, I think of myself as a desk with many small drawers, each containing some small private treasure of value and interest to no one but me. I don’t want you poking about in my drawers, if you’ll forgive an inadvertent sexual remark. Under other circumstances, perhaps we would get along, would have inspiriting conversations together. But when you come to me with one purpose in mind, to peel me open and pluck tiny facts out of me, you make me extremely uncomfortable. I would have preferred to avoid this meeting altogether. Failing which, I notice that my tactic has been to smother you in words.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Ross argued against you?”

“As you heard. He was afraid you would think me guilty if I refused to talk with you. But I’m on your suspect list anyway, am I not?”

I said, “Who do you think killed Dearborn?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you agree with Cornell’s list?”

“I don’t know that I know the list entirely. Leo and I are on it, Cary is on it, David Poumon is on it.”

“Stewart Remington and Bruce Maundy.”

His face brightened. “Those two! Both of them? I have nothing to fear!” He looked and sounded as though he were only half-joking.

I said, “You think it’s one of them?”

“Either or both,” he said. “Both violent, both bad-tempered, both strong and active. Arrest them both and try them alternately.”

“I’m not a policeman.”

“Yes, I know. And I am not really homosexual.” He smiled at me.

“I mean I’m not on the force.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Do you have an alibi for Monday?”

“Of course not. Would Leo have been so upset?”

“What do you think he was doing Monday?”

“He? Leo?”

“Yes.”

“He was at the novena, as he said.”

“And if he wasn’t?”

A shadow crossed his face. He contemplated not answering me at all, I could see that, and when he spoke he said, “That’s the sort of thing I meant before. You want to pull all the little facts into the open air.”

“Do you think he has a lover somewhere, is that it?”

He laughed aloud, harshly. “
A
lover! Do you know what the word ‘cruise’ means?”

“In this context,” I said, gesturing to include the building we were in, “it would mean walking around some specific section of the city trying to pick somebody up. Somebody homosexual.”

“Yes,” he said. “Very good.”

“Ross cruises?”

“I have never said so. I have never entirely articulated the thought. Do you wish to force me to?”

I said, “Where were
you
Monday night?”

“We have a shop on the first floor,” he said. “In back, we restore old furniture. I was there, working on a Bentwood chair. Alone, naturally.”

I said, “Did Jamie cruise?”

“God knows.”

“You must know,” I said. “You people know almost everything about one another.”

“Ronnie believes that Jamie was faithful,” he said carefully. “I have never seen anything to lead me to believe he’s wrong.”

“Why do you say it like that? Why keep a little bit back?”

“Probably,” he said, “because I can’t really believe the little bastard was true to anybody. Possibly, after Leo, I can’t believe that any black man can be faithful. Probably because I would prefer to think badly of Jamie in every possible way. You see how you have me opening drawers? I hope, once this conversation is over, it will never be necessary for you and me to meet again.”

“Would you like to end it now?”

“I would like it to have never begun. But now that it is, let’s make it as encyclopedic as possible, and get it over with forever.”

I said, “Why does Cary Lane think David Poumon killed Dearborn?”

He looked surprised. “You noticed that? I wonder what you’ve noticed about me.”

“Do you know why?”

“I have no idea. I would tell you if I did.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“The only one I can think of,” he said, “who disliked Jamie strongly enough to want to see him dead was me. And I didn’t do it, so I’m at a loss.”

“Thank you,” I said. Turning away, I put my hand on the doorknob, then looked back at him and said, “You really don’t have to be that cautious. You’re better than you think you are.”

His smile was bitter. “Next, you’ll be telling me I’m strong enough to go to the party. My Fuehrer, I can walk!”

If he preferred himself as he was, I’d be wasting my time saying anything more. Besides, that wasn’t what I was here for. “Thank you for your time,” I said, and left him.

D
AVID POUMON WAS AT
the bar in the small yellow room downstairs. I went over and stood beside him and made myself a drink. I discovered a long time ago that dry vermouth on ice makes an acceptable drink that can be sipped over a long period of time without having much of any effect, so that’s what I made for myself now.

Poumon noticed me, said hello, and I said hello back. I thought he was going to let the conversation lapse right there, but when he picked up his drink—something and ginger ale—he said, “Are you learning things?”

“I’m still in the first stage,” I said. “I’m learning what questions to ask.”

That was an obvious lead-in; the long hesitation he made before making the inevitable response told me he believed he had things to hide. But so have we all, to one extent or another. Did his concern murder, or was he simply another one like Henry Koberberg, afraid primarily of being forced to be self-aware?

In any event, he finally did make the response I’d been angling for: “What kind of questions?”

“For instance,” I said casually, “why your friend Cary thinks you’re the one who killed Dearborn.”

He frowned at me, but didn’t show much surprise. Some people came over, wanting to make drinks, and we separated slightly as we moved to the opposite corner of the room, near the kitchen doorway but out of the general flow of traffic. Then he said, “If that’s supposed to be a clever trick, I think it’s kind of dumb.”

“No trick,” I said. “It’s a question that’s come up, that’s all, and I’d like to find an answer to it if I could.”

“The thing that’s wrong with that,” he said, “is that Cary wouldn’t ever say such a silly thing. Not even if he thought it.”

“I didn’t say he said it. I said he thought it.”

“You read minds?” He wasn’t angry with me so much as he was contemptuous and disappointed; he’d thought more of me than this.

I said, “Have you ever found it really very hard to read Cary Lane’s mind?”

“I’ve known Cary a long time.”

“Look,” I said, “I have no more reason to think you’re a murderer than I did when we met last night. You say you were at home working on your music when Cornell was attacked, and I have no reason so far to believe otherwise. I’m not saying that I believe Lane, I’m merely saying that Lane is afraid you killed Dearborn, and he’s afraid I’ll find out about it.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Poumon said. “I’ve never killed anybody.”

“I’ll accept that, for the moment. But why does Lane think you did?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s afraid I’ll be arrested and he’ll lose me. How can I say what’s inside his head?”

“Did you and Dearborn ever have a fight? An argument? Any kind of disagreement?”

He shook his head at all three.

I said, “What about Lane? They were both models, did
he
have trouble with Dearborn? Is he afraid you did it to revenge him, or something like that?”

He went on shaking his head, and when I was done, he said, “Neither Cary nor I had any reason to kill Jamie Dearborn.”

“And yet he’s afraid you did it.”

“I’m sorry if he is, I don’t like to see him upset. Particularly when there’s no reason for it. Will you excuse me now?”

“Yes, of course,” I said.

T
HERE WERE OTHER CONVERSATIONS
. I talked briefly with Stewart Remington, and he told me that I was the only one present who was not in some sort of financial arrangement with him, mostly through his law office. These were his clients, and he was prouder of them as clients than as friends. He pointed out those whose income tax he handled, those whose contracts and mortgages and wills he had taken care of, those who had him on an annual retainer.

I asked him about Jammer, and it emerged that he handled all the legal and financial arrangements for the store, from the lease for the building through the payment of local and state and federal taxes to the keeping of the books. Cornell kept the non-financial records for the store, but Remington served as the place’s accountant. He had also sold them their fire and theft insurance.

And what about Jammer’s financial health? Cornell had told him about the arrangement where I was to have a fifteen percent interest in the store if I produced the murderer, so Remington misunderstood my question to be mercenary in intent. He assured me that Jammer was doing fine, that my fifteen percent could only increase in value, and that the store had never had a financial worry of any kind. They had managed to get favorable mentions in two of the right men’s magazines shortly after they’d opened, four years ago, and had never lost momentum.

When I asked him if either Dearborn or Cornell was extravagant, he laughed and waved an arm to include all his guests, saying, “Extravagance tends to be a way of life when you expect to have no heirs. We all love our plumage, even me.”

“Could Dearborn have been in some sort of financial jam?”

“Definitely not. Between Jammer and his modeling fees, Jamie was making a minimum of forty thousand a year. Plus the real estate he and Ronnie own.”

“Real estate?”

“Three houses here in the Heights.”

“They’ll be worth a lot of money.”

“Close to four hundred thousand. Of course, most of that is tied up in mortgages. But the rentals cover expenses and leave a little profit.”

“Cornell inherits?”

“In a way. It’s not precisely like a marriage, of course. We drew up legal partnership papers on everything they did together. Jamie had a savings account in his own name; I believe that money will go back to his family in Omaha.”

“How much?”

“About twelve thousand.”

“Parents? Back in Omaha?”

“Two sisters, I believe.”

“Do you know if he was in any kind of contact with them?”

“Ronnie could tell you for sure. I tend to doubt it. Jamie wasn’t interested in the life he’d had before he came to New York.”

I next began to ask him about my other suspects, but he refused to make any comments at all. “Whoever you wind up putting the finger on,” he said, “will undoubtedly hire me to represent him. I feel I shouldn’t discuss my future client with you.”

“What if it turns out to be you?”

He looked surprised, then laughed his booming laugh and said, “Who
will
I get for my attorney? Excuse me, please.” And he went off to laugh and talk and clap the backs of his clients. His guests.

I walked around, watching and listening, carrying my glass of vermouth. Twice, guests engaged me in conversation, both times patently trying to ease a certain curiosity about me. One of them said, “I never saw anybody in Warner Brothers drag before. It’s fascinating.” I didn’t volunteer any facts about myself, nor did I cut the conversations short. I was as interested in their milieu as they were in mine. I would also have liked a casual word dropped about one or more of my suspects, but that didn’t happen.

I saw most of my suspects as I walked around. Not Koberberg, of course, he would still be upstairs in the library, the remote-control chaperon of Leo Ross. But I did see Ross, a charming smile under his bushy mustache, in apparently seductive conversation with a slender young man with gray eye make-up and incredibly hollow cheeks. David Poumon and I crossed paths a few times, both of us nodding, neither speaking. Cary Lane fluttered by once or twice, always pausing to say something sprightly and cheerful. I considered asking him why he was so afraid about Poumon, but decided I would get no coherent answer, and let it go.

I didn’t see Maundy anywhere. At first I wasn’t actually looking for him, but eventually he became noticeable because of his absence, and then I did do an actual search, culminating in the kitchen, where Jerry Weissman was now in the process of preparing coffee in two large electric coffeemakers. Two cardboard boxes from a bakery stood on the table in the middle of the room, waiting to be opened.

I said, “Have you seen Bruce Maundy? Did he go upstairs?”

“Bruce?” He was like a very dedicated young student nurse, ready at all times to rush off on an errand. “He hasn’t been through here. Sometimes he gets turned off and goes home early.”

“Thanks.”

“Coffee and cookies pretty soon,” he announced, and I nodded and waved from the doorway, and went on back to the party.