Name Games (12 page)

Neil jumped to my rescue, pouring more coffee while changing the topic. “On Friday, Thad talked to Mrs. Osborne, his English teacher, about the school play. She’s directing it, and she encouraged him to audition.”

“Oh yeah?” With the events of the weekend, I’d forgotten about Thad’s budding interest in theater. He needed
something
to get enthused about, and drama was vastly preferable to homicide. I asked him brightly, “What’s the play?”

“
Arsenic and Old Lace.
” He actually licked his lips while leaning to explain, “It’s about two old ladies who poison a bunch of men and bury them in their basement!” He’d risen a couple of inches from his seat.

I laughed, telling him, “I
know
what it’s about, Thad.” Hell, in my day there wasn’t a school in forty-eight states that hadn’t produced it, and the movie version with Cary Grant had been on television countless times. But to Thad and his contemporaries, this theatrical chestnut was brand-new, and I understood his delight in discovering its ghoulish humor. Recalling that the play is often produced in the fall, I asked, “When does it open—Halloween?”

Thad’s eyes bugged, as if I’d performed a psychic feat. “Mrs. Osborne said she
wanted
the play to open on Halloween, but she’ll need a couple more weeks.”

Neil told him, “I was
in
that play, Thad.”

“You
were?
” we both asked him.

“Wasn’t everyone?” Neil began peeling an orange.

“No,” I assured him. “Who’d you play?”

“Just a small part, one of the cops. But the role I came to love was the aunts’ goofy nephew who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt.” Neil broke the orange into sections, sharing one with each of us. He asked Thad, “Is there any role you’re particularly interested in?”

“I’ve never seen the play,” he reminded us, “but Mrs. Osborne said I could borrow a script today. I’ll start reading during study period this morning.”

“Good idea,” I told him. “Be prepared.”

“Well”—he squirmed—“I can try to get the script read, but I don’t know how to prepare for the tryouts. I’ve never done it before. It makes me sort of nervous.”

Neil smiled. “That’s perfectly natural. Just do your best. Most of the others won’t know what they’re doing either. Listen to the director—that’s why she’s there.”

Thad nodded, weighing all this, taking courage. “All right,” he told us. “If I like what I read, I’ll go for it.” He stood. “Nothing to lose, right?”

“Right,” we both answered.

“Then I’d better get going.” He wiped his mouth, picked up his dishes, and carried them to the sink, telling us, “Mrs. Osborne is usually in her office early. If I catch her, I can get the script.” He grabbed his books from the counter.

Neil and I rose and sandwiched him in a hug. “Have a great day at school,” I told him, “and good luck with the audition.”

Neil reminded me, “Don’t wish an actor good luck—it’s a jinx.” He told Thad, “Break a leg, kid.”

I rolled my eyes in response to this superstitious ritual, but I let it pass, smiling, without comment. Thad, though baffled by it, chalked it off as the first of many lessons he was willing to learn as a novice seeking entry into the world of theater. Returning our hug, he thanked us for our wishes and headed for the door.

“Take a jacket,” Neil told him. “It’s wet.”

Leaning into the back hall, Thad grabbed a zippered sweatshirt from a coat hook before leaving the house with an upbeat “Later, guys.”

Neil and I shared a soft laugh. I asked, “Think he stands a chance? It’s great to see him revved up about this, but it could backfire. He might be setting himself up for a bitter disappointment.”

“That’s just a chance he’ll have to take,” Neil answered with the voice of common sense. Stepping to the counter, he tidied some breakfast debris while reminding me, “His teacher encouraged him to audition—that bodes well.”

“True,” I admitted. Returning to the table to finish my coffee, I sat and turned the newspaper back to page one, which silently trumpeted news of the local murder. Gesturing toward the story, I thought aloud, “I wish Thad weren’t quite so intrigued by the gruesome details.”

Neil sat next to me, having poured himself a bowl of cereal. “He’s at that age—kids, growing up, seem fascinated by death. Thinking they’re immortal, they defy death with that adolescent brand of gory humor. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Again the voice of common sense.

I nodded. Silently, I sipped my coffee. Finding it tepid, I warmed it with more from the pot.

Neil looked up from the cereal he was eating. “You’re rather pensive this morning. It seems Carrol’s murder has really thrown you.”

I could have dismissed my mood by simply concurring that I’d found the murder unexpectedly disturbing. “Actually,” I explained, “there’s something else on my mind.” I paused—did I really want to get into this with Neil? “I had a strange dream last night.”

He put down his spoon. He grinned. “A hot one?”

I’d made him privy to some previous reveries. Returning his grin, I admitted, “It was a scorcher.”

Common sense again: “Then enjoy it. Why the angst?”

I leaned over my cup to tell him, “Because the young object of my middle-age lust was none other than Grace Lord’s
nephew.
”

Neil’s grin sagged. With a look of blank astonishment, he said, “I wasn’t even aware that Grace Lord
has
a nephew. How’d you meet him? And, uh—just how young
is
he?”

“Relax.” I felt my mood lightening even as we spoke. Voicing my concerns had put them instantly into perspective, and I now found the dream considerably less vexing. I explained to Neil, “I didn’t meet him—I only saw his picture, once, while helping Grace move some things out of the coach house. And don’t worry—he’s not twelve, more like twenty, at least when the picture was taken, which must have been years ago. He’s Grace’s brother’s son. His name—get this—is Ward Lord.”

Neil twitched a brow. “Yow. Sounds hunky.” With a laugh, he added, “Sounds like a porn star.”

I laughed with him. “Believe me, he
looks
like one! And in fact, my dream had the feel of a porn video, as if I were a detached spectator, watching him perform on a screen. There was even a cheesy sound track of background disco music.”

With a heartier laugh, Neil remembered, “Those were the days. Production values have come a long way since then, but some of those early videos, crude as they were, remain some of the best. The video medium was still new, still defining itself. That early work was seminal—no pun intended.”

Amused by the near academic slant of Neil’s interest in porn, I reminded him, “This stuff isn’t
art
—we’re talking about jackoff tapes.”

“Even trash,” he lectured drolly, “can rise to greatness in its execution.”

Though I found this assertion dubious, I conceded, “Ward Lord certainly ‘rose to greatness’ in my dream.” I leaned back with my coffee, sipping. Neil resumed eating his cereal.

The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became why I had spun my dream with Ward as a porn star. Undoubtedly, my nighttime subconscious was still dealing with pornography because, for several days, my waking mind had been wrestling with matters related to smut. The obscenity ordinance, the looming trial, the report of the County Plan Commission, my editorial endorsement of Doug Pierce—all these concerns rose from the issue of pornography. Also, while visiting Carrol Cantrell at the coach house on Saturday, I had absorbed an eyeful of hard-core erotic images from the open magazines scattered on his worktable. No
wonder
these snippets of my waking life had taken the form they did in my dream.

Neil got up from the table with his bowl and rinsed it in the sink. Loading the dishwasher, he said wistfully, “My interest in collecting gay videos goes back fifteen years or so, to my college days. Can you guess who got me started?”

From the tone of the question, and from my limited knowledge of his college circle, I had an inkling where he was headed.

He answered his own question, “Roxanne. She’s a couple of years older than I—and had no qualms about procuring my first tape for me on the day she turned twenty-one.” He chortled at the recollection.

I laughed with him—this revelation came as little surprise. Roxanne Exner, the spunky Chicago lawyer who had introduced Neil and me, had first befriended Neil during college, and I could well imagine that she’d taken perverse pleasure in purveying to him the forbidden fruit of pornography. I would later come to know her as a news source while working on several high-profile stories at the
Journal.

Younger than I but older than Neil, Roxanne had set her sights, romantically, on both of us. As for Neil, she was simply barking up the wrong tree. As for me, though, before committing myself to a new way of life with Neil, I did in fact indulge in a brief fling with her. The experiment was destined to disappoint both of us, and she seethed with resentment at the irony of having played matchmaker to the two men she wanted most. But in time, Roxanne’s affection for both of us won out, and we came to think of her as our best friend—a relationship we managed to maintain in spite of my move to Dumont.

Having learned a hard lesson, Roxanne kicked the habit of falling for gay men and was now in a serious relationship with Carl Creighton, twelve years her senior, a deputy attorney general for the state of Illinois. Neither Neil nor I had seen much of Carl lately, but we still saw Roxanne with surprising regularity, considering the distance. Due to my board work at Quatro Press and Neil’s involvement with the plant expansion, there were ample excuses to call in big-gun Chicago legal talent to handle the thicket of issues routinely faced by Quatro or by any thriving industry. And the person we called, of course, was Roxanne.

“Is she coming up this week?” I asked Neil.

He turned to me. “Today,” he informed me, as though I should have known.

“Really?” I couldn’t recall any board matters pending that required her attention, so I assumed that Neil had summoned her for matters pertaining to construction—environmental impact or some other hoo-ha. I asked, “What about dinner? Is she spending the night?” Details, details…

“It’s just a day trip this time,” he told me, rinsing his hands, closing some cupboards. “But if she arrives in town early enough, she’ll see you for lunch—remember?”

The plan had a familiar ring to it. “Can’t you join us?”

He crossed to where I sat, standing behind me, hands on my shoulders. “Not today, I’m afraid. Too much going on at the plant—meetings all morning.”

I reached up to take hold of his fingers. “Things are bound to be busy at the
Register
too—the murder, the obscenity trial.” I sighed.

Neil pulled back, planting hands on hips. “I thought you
relished
this stuff.”

I couldn’t help laughing, embarrassed to admit, “I do. But now and then—”

A knock at the back door interrupted us. Through the window, we could see that it was Doug Pierce. I expected him to holler, Any coffee left? I expected him simply to walk in. But he stood quietly outdoors in the drizzle, like any stranger waiting to be admitted.

“Come on in, Doug,” we called to him. “It’s not locked.”

Pierce opened the door and stepped inside. “Nasty weather,” he said, thumping the door closed. He wore one of those Australian-looking rubberized raincoats with big flaps and heaps of hardware. He shrugged out of it and hung it in the hall—on the hook that had been vacated by Thad’s sweatshirt.

“Have some coffee, Doug,” Neil told him, grabbing an extra mug from the counter and pouring from the pot on the table.

“Thanks.” Pierce crossed the room and sat next to me. His mood and bearing were altogether different from the chipper afterglow that had marked his recent visits, when he’d arrived unshaven in day-old clothes. By contrast, this morning he was freshly dressed and groomed—he’d obviously spent the night in his own bed. There was no bounce to his step, no lighthearted banter—he’d slept alone.

I told him, “Looks like we’ve all got a tough week ahead.” In truth, I was looking forward to a brisk Monday of meaty news at the paper, but he seemed in need of commiseration.

“Christ, what a mess,” he muttered between slurps of coffee. “Dumont’s celebrity visitor has been dead for twenty-four hours, and there isn’t an arrest warrant in sight.” He did not need to mention that his reelection might now very well rest on a speedy resolution of the crime. Nor did he mention that he’d been sleeping with the victim—a minor but tawdry detail that, if true and if made public, would be a political windfall for his opponent.

Neil joined us, sitting at the table. “You’ll have an arrest as soon as Bruno returns to town, won’t you? I mean, isn’t it obvious?”

Good question. I waited with Neil for Pierce’s answer.

He told us, “Bruno arrived back in Dumont late last night from Milwaukee, which was the plan he’d announced to several people. On the surface, he appears to have a clean alibi—he was out of town at the time of the murder. What’s more, he’s a French national, so even though I still consider him our prime suspect, we need to treat the situation with kid gloves. There’s no point in setting off an international incident unless we have the case against him absolutely nailed.”

I asked, “Have you talked to him yet?”

“Briefly, when he got in last night after midnight. We’d been waiting for him, and I helped carry his bags from the car to his motel room. I immediately informed him of the murder, but it came as no surprise—it was all over the news yesterday, and he claimed to have heard the story in Milwaukee. He was clearly tired, and so was I. I figured that since he returned to Dumont on his own, he wasn’t likely to bolt, so we agreed to meet again this morning. For whatever it’s worth, he didn’t
act
suspicious—just his usual weird self.”

Attempting to lay out the case against Bruno, I thought aloud, “There are three classic criteria that point to a suspect: motive, means, and opportunity. First, we know that Bruno was amply motivated to want Carrol dead. Their professional rivalry was legendary, and Bruno said in my presence at the
Register
on Friday that he considered Carrol a ‘parasite,’ that he intended to ‘topple’ him. Though he claimed to be speaking figuratively, the fact remains that both Bruno and Carrol are big men, and it would take someone of Bruno’s heft to physically subdue Carrol, which brings us to classic criterion number two: means. Carrol was apparently strangled, and Bruno would have the strength to do it.”