Slate (18 page)

They were silent for several moments. The waiter brought their drinks. They all reached for them greedily. Clarisse paid.

“Is there any chance you'll forgive me? Both of you?”

“Of course,” said Clarisse. “I never hold grudges.”

“If you promise not to lie again,” said Valentine. “You know it takes less energy to tell the truth than it does to lie.”

“I promise,” said Linc, holding up his hand in the Scout's pledge. “Never again.”

“Now that we've got you here on a truth-telling binge,” Clarisse began in a businesslike manner, “tell us why you met with Sweeney Drysdale after Mr. Fred's party. Just before he got killed.”

“What!” Linc and Valentine exclaimed in unison.

Clarisse glanced at Valentine. “That's another thing I found out tonight. Susie said that after she and Julia got home from Mr. Fred's party that night, they looked out the window and saw Sweeney and Linc down on the sidewalk.”

“It wasn't me! ” said Linc excitedly. “It must have been somebody else. It was dark, she couldn't have seen…” His voice trailed off under their insistent gazes. “It was me,” he admitted. “But Sweeney and I were just talking. I mean, we'd just met, so we were just talking.”

Valentine and Clarisse silently looked at him.

He went on carefully: “You said you were going over to the library to look for Clarisse, and I said I was going home— and I had planned to. But when I got out on the sidewalk, there was Sweeney. He was out in front of Mr. Fred's— waiting for a taxi or something—and he called my name.”

“What did he want?”

“To talk.”

“About what?” asked Clarisse suspiciously.

“He said Mr. Fred had told him about my plans for Rent-a-Wrench, and he thought it was a great idea.” His voice inadvertently brightened, recalling the compliment.

“So you stood out on the street talking about
hardware
,” said Clarisse. “For how long?”

“I don't know. We went for a walk.”

“Where?” demanded Clarisse.

“Around—around the South End.”

“Where did this walk end up—his place or yours?” said Valentine.

“Or mine?” added Clarisse with a grimace.

“Back at Slate,” said Linc weakly. “We went back to Slate. He said he had a roommate. My place was on the other side of town.”

“Why the hell would you want to do anything with Sweeney Drysdale in the first place?” demanded Valentine.

“I did it for you! ”

“For me?” Valentine echoed incredulously.

“He said that when he was in the bar the first time he didn't get a chance to really look the place over,” Linc said quickly. “He told me he wanted to see the whole building. He said that he'd write it up in his column, tell how I'd done all the renovations and what a good job it was—and he'd say that I was going to open Rent-a-Wrench. It would be free publicity for everybody. He said we'd all benefit if he put it in his column.”

“All this,” said Clarisse carefully, “on condition that you and he…fool around?”

Linc nodded and said in a low voice, “Yes.”

Valentine shook his head.

“
But I didn't do anything to him!
” Linc cried.

Clarisse ignored this and asked, “Why did you choose
my
apartment to do it in?”

“I knew that Joe and Ashes were down in the cellar, and I was afraid they might come up to the office if we went in there.” He looked miserably at Valentine. “I couldn't take him to
your
apartment because…” He shrugged helplessly.

“Because you didn't know when I'd be back, but you knew Clarisse was planning to be at the law library until at least twelve,” Valentine concluded for him. “Did you card the door open?”

“I still had the keys from the renovation,” said Linc. “I forgot to give them back.”

“How long were you up there?” Clarisse asked.

“Five minutes. Maybe ten,” said Linc, and then added hastily, “but we didn't even go into the bedroom.”

“Where did you do it then?” demanded Clarisse.

Linc wiped perspiration from his forehead. “On your couch.”

Clarisse turned to Valentine. “Tell that waiter to bring me the Yellow Pages. I want the name of the nearest emergency upholstering service.”

“We didn't have sex on it,” Linc protested. “I mean.”

“Mean what?” asked Clarisse.

“You mean,” said Valentine, interpreting, “that Sweeney had sex, and you just sort of looked down and watched, right?”

Linc nodded miserably. “But I didn't do anything to him,” he repeated.

“You left the building together?” asked Valentine.

“I took him down to the landing, and I went into the office. He went on down and out.”

“He must have gone back upstairs,” said Clarisse.

“I didn't hear him go back up. I don't know how he got back up there. I didn't do any—”

“Stop saying that,” Valentine insisted.

“I'm telling the truth! ”

“How long were you in the office?” asked Clarisse.

“Five minutes. Ten minutes. I packed up the tiles to take them back to the store. And then I went down to the bar and just looked around.”

“What about Joe and Ashes?” asked Clarisse.

Linc shook his head. “The trapdoor was closed, and I couldn't hear anything. But they could still have been down there. I left by the front door to the bar.” He got up unsteadily and lurched off, muttering, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Clarisse and Valentine were silent a moment, then Clarisse asked, “So, do we drag him over to District D?”

“All we know is that Linc got him into the building,” said Valentine glumly. “We don't know if Sweeney hid at the bottom of the stairs and then went back up, or if he left and was brought back in by somebody else. Either way, what could he have been after in your apartment?”

“I don't know,” said Clarisse. “It doesn't make any sense. Of course, Linc could be lying again.”

“I don't think he is. It's just that there are still a few pieces missing.”

“Yes,” Clarisse sighed, “such as a motive—and a murderer.”

She put her drink down. “I'm going to go. I don't think I want to be here when he gets back.” She paused for a beat, and then asked, “Are you depressed?”

Valentine smiled slightly. “No, I'm not. I didn't say anything to him because he felt bad enough as it was, but nothing turns me off more than lying. It's the one thing I don't think I can forgive.” Clarisse pushed back the cuff of her coat, and studied her watch for a moment. Valentine went on: “I have to keep him on for the sake of the bar, of course, but he won't be warming the other side of my bed much anymore. That's all right, though. It's hard to manage a new career and a love life at the same time.” He took a swallow of his drink. “It's one less problem that I have to deal with.”

“One minute, four and a half seconds,” Clarisse announced. Valentine looked at her questioningly.

“That's how long it took you to rationalize the failure of your latest love affair. You're getting better. It used to take you nearly five minutes to dispel the trauma. Five minutes plus two fast drinks.”

Valentine swallowed the remainder of his bourbon.

Linc came out of the bathroom, but instead of returning to the table he went toward the bar.

“I'm leaving too,” said Valentine. “I've had enough of Linc for tonight.” They rose together. Clarisse waited at the door with her back to the room while Valentine spoke briefly with Linc once more. Then Valentine and Clarisse went out into the rain.

“What's the verdict? Are you and Linc going to patch it up with Band-Aids and string?”

“I don't think so. All I wanted was a promise that he'll be in on Monday morning. He said he would.”

Valentine snapped open the umbrella over their heads, and they trudged off toward Warren Avenue.

“Will he be in?”

“I reminded him that finishing this job properly was a major stepping-stone on the road to Rent-a-Wrench.”

They had reached their corner when Valentine stopped suddenly. “I'm not ready to go home yet.”

“My God, you're not even going to give your bedroom a single night to cool off? Are you afraid that if you don't have two people holding down the bed, it'll snap shut with you in it?”

“You're welcome to come with me,” he said politely. “I was thinking of the Eagle.”

“What? To the Eagle?” Clarisse cried. “And get dizzy watching the video screen go up and down every two and half minutes? Get my eardrums punctured with last year's Top Ten amplified to a hundred and ten decibels? Get trampled by the stampede of men running to the restroom every time somebody they don't like walks in the door, which is about as often as the screen goes up and down? And then, after all that, get abandoned when you do find somebody to mend your broken heart?”

“Sounds like a good time to me.”

“You go on. I'll be all right. I've got two hundred and thirty cops within hailing distance if someone tries to attack me. Just leave me the umbrella.”

Valentine nodded, relinquished the umbrella, and bade her good night. Cinching up his coat over his head, he headed across the bricked expanse at the corner of Berkeley and Tremont streets.

Clarisse watched after him a moment and then turned onto Warren Avenue in front of the police station. She sidled between two parked cruisers, then ran across to her building. As she fished for the keys in her pocket, she saw that the light was on in the back of Mr. Fred's Tease ‘n' Tint. It gave an eerie illumination to the purple walls within. She walked over and peered inside but saw no one inside.

She at last found her keys, held them up to the light from Mr. Fred's, and picked out the one to the front door. She then became aware of an odd scraping noise, somewhat like that of a foot being dragged through gravel, from somewhere above her. She looked up and squinted. Rain splashed into her eyes and blurred her vision. She wiped away the moisture with the back of her hand, and in that instant heard a
whoosh
as something square, black, heavy, and metallic smashed onto the sidewalk no more than six inches in back of her.

Clarisse froze, her heart hammering. She listened. She heard another scraping sound—like a step on gravel—above.

Then nothing.

She stared at the wreckage of the object behind her and then cautiously looked up along the edges of the buildings. She saw nothing. She glanced down again and prodded the metallic wreckage with the toe of her shoe. Then she turned and walked swiftly across the street to the police station, keeping an eye over her shoulder.

In her wet fur, she quickly attracted the attention of one of the officers behind the desk. He came over, clicked open a ballpoint pen, and slapped down a blank report sheet on the counter between them.

“Someone just tried to kill me with a video cassette recorder,” Clarisse blurted.

The officer flicked his eyes up from the report sheet and looked her over. With his pen poised over a box halfway down the page, he asked, “VHS or Betamax?”

A
FEW MINUTES AFTER eight o'clock on Christmas night, the screech of the casement of one of Clarisse's front windows being thrust up drew the attention of two policemen coming out of the quiet District D policestation. A moment later the bottom of the Scotch pine was thrust through the opening. It wavered there a moment as if testing the air, and then the lower branches of the tree, temporarily caught by the window frame, were suddenly released as more of the tree was pushed out. The boughs of the pine were laden with glass ornaments, strings of lights, ropes of glass beads, and silver icicles. A number of the colored glass globes were shaken loose and dropped with little shattering explosions to the sidewalk below. The icicles fluttered in the frigid night air and caught the reflection of the station's blue neon light.

The two policemen watched with curiosity as the tree was eased farther and farther out of the window. At last, as the tree bent of its own weight and hung against the side of the building, they caught sight of two gloveless hands clutching the narrow top just below the lopsided silver star.

The hands suddenly let go of the tree, and it crashed—decorated boughs, silver star, and all—to the sidewalk midway between the doors to Slate and the gutter. Clarisse poked her head out the window and stared down at it with a satisfied smile. She then pulled back inside the window and slammed down the sash. This second screech, louder than the first, echoed eerily down deserted Warren Avenue.

Inside the apartment, Valentine sat comfortably sideways in an easy chair, his legs hooked over the arm, sipping his third bourbon and water of the evening.

Clarisse walked casually toward him, picking pine needles off her white blouse and gray wool slacks.

“Some people would at least wait until the day is officially ended before getting rid of the tree,” Valentine remarked.

“I've been dying to get rid of that vision of Christmas Present ever since I walked in yesterday afternoon and found you decorating it.”

“I shudder to think what you would have done if I'd erected a life-sized crèche in here.”

“No problem,” said Clarisse, removing a final needle from her cuff. “I still have that acetylene torch in the closet.” She grabbed the metal tree stand and then snatched up the small mound of wrapping paper and ribbon off the table and carried them into the kitchen. She came back a moment later with a scotch on the rocks. “The neighbors are going to start talking,” she said, sitting back in the chair opposite Valentine. She reached out and edged the table lamp back a bit so that she could see him.

“About what?”

“Every time they look out the window, somebody's hurling something from an upper story onto the sidewalk. And usually it's being aimed straight for my head.”