The Caveman's Valentine (32 page)

Instead Matthew looked to a control room at the end of the platform. Three dark slabs of window. A tiny red light inside, no bigger than a wolf’s eye. Maybe Matthew also saw, in the gloom, the suggestion of a shadow.

The shadow would be Rom. Rom had said he’d be in there, watching.

And he had told Matthew not to budge until the little red light in there went out, and a little green light came on.

So Matthew kept waiting.

Leppenraub gave off a faint reek of antiseptic, and though it was the same smell Matthew had been breathing for a week, coming from Leppenraub it made him sick. Just being this close to the bastard made him sick. Matthew wanted to do the thing now. He was ready. He knew what he was going to say.
You killed my love. You
killed Scotty Gates. You killed. You killed, fucker, and now you’re going to
be
killed.
And he would look in Leppenraub’s eyes, and
know,
and Leppenraub would know that he knew.

But then what?

That part he didn’t know. Rom would have to take it from there.

He glanced at the dark control room. Still the steady red light. Oh Jesus, what was Rom waiting for? Rom, let me do this before I chicken out. Before the sense of this guy makes me so sick I can’t face him, before I have to run. Please, Rom—before I start thinking about Scotty.

But it was already too late for that. Scotty was moving through his thoughts, Scotty was caught in his throat and stinging his eyes. And Matthew was crying again.

And he knew that when he confronted Leppenraub, the man wouldn’t fear him. Leppenraub would laugh him to scorn. Matthew glanced over to the control room, but still the red light was burning. That tiny blob of red shimmering through his tears. What the hell was the matter with Rom? Shit, maybe the light was broken. Maybe, Matthew thought, maybe he should just do it anyway, do it now. No, damn, a train was coming in, on the local track. He’d have to wait some more.

The train squealed and rattled its bones behind him. Matthew heard the doors open. He heard the passengers getting out.

Over the PA the train’s conductor was saying, “Stand clear of the closing doors.” Over and over. “Please stand clear of the closing doors.” Matthew could hear, behind him, the doors start to close and then kick open again. Somebody was holding them open. And Matthew flicked his eyes and caught a quick glance at the first car, where somebody was just standing there, holding the doors open and checking out this platform.

Matthew lowered his eyes.

And then he heard the doors slide shut, and the train pulled out.

He looked toward the glass room.

The little light was green.

But it was too late. Matthew was weeping. His throat was wrenched closed with sorrow, and fear, and sweat was seeping from every pore of him and he had to get out of here. I can’t help you now, Rom. I’ve lost my nerve, I don’t have the guts to face Leppenraub. What does it matter anyway? What matters is that Scotty’s dead, and nothing’s going to bring him back.

Then he heard a voice behind him. Someone talking to Leppenraub.

“I got what you want. You got what I want?”

For a moment, a fever-instant, Matthew thought he knew the voice. Then he realized he was only going crazy, he had caught Romulus’s craziness and he had to run, he had to get out of here.

But then he heard the voice again.

“Answer me, Leppenraub. You got what I want?”

It couldn’t be, but it was. It was
his
voice. Matthew pushed himself up, and turned. Faced the man who was standing before Leppenraub.

The man was looking into Leppenraub’s attaché case. Then he raised his eyes, and saw Matthew.

They stared at one another.

The two lovers.

Matthew and Scotty.

B
ut you’re dead! They said you were dead!”

Scotty’s ghost cast him as cold a look as the living Scotty ever had, and there was also sudden terror in his eyes. He took a step back.

Matthew came around the bench. Came toward him, saying, “Scotty?
Scotty!
Don’t you know me?”

Leppenraub spoke softly. “Sir, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. This man’s name is Joey Peasley.”

Then Scotty turned his cold gaze on Leppenraub. “What the hell is this? You setting me up, fuckhead? What the fuck is Matthew doing here?”

Said Leppenraub, “I swear to you, I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

Scotty snarled, “Then what’s he doing here? What, this is some kind of coincidence, he shows up here? It’s just fucking
coincidence?”

“Scotty,” said Matthew. He reached and touched his fingers to his lover’s cheek. Nothing more than that, a gentle caress, but Scotty flinched back from it.

“Get your hands off me, you stupid cunt. Scotty’s
dead,
haven’t you got that through your fucking head yet?”

But Matthew wasn’t listening. He tried to embrace him, crying,
“Scotty!
Oh for God’s sake, Scotty—”

“Get the fuck off me!”

Scotty gave Matthew a violent shove. Dropped the attaché case. Money, wads of hundred-dollar bills, slid out, scattered on the platform.

Just as another local train came down the tracks.

Matthew pointed to the scar on his face and cried, “Did
you
do this to me, Scotty? Did
you
carve this? It was
you,
wasn’t it?”

Scotty ignored him. He was gathering up the money. He was scared and his gaze flickered all around him.

Matthew came toward him again. “But it doesn’t matter, Scotty. I love you, I still love you!”

“I’m
dead!
I’m
dead,
you dumb cunt! Stay the fuck away from me!”

“Scotty, we gotta run, we gotta get away. They’re here, Scotty, they want to catch you, come on,
run
with me—”

Scotty looked at him. Then at Leppenraub. “Is this a setup, Leppenraub?”

He pulled a pistol from under his jacket.

He looked everywhere. He looked at the drunk on the ground. He looked at the train coming and at the other passengers way down the platform. He tried to look in the glass room, but that was still dark except for its green light. He pointed his pistol at Leppenraub and said:

“If this is a setup, I swear your little home movie will play in every bar in the country! You perverse asshole, you want the whole world to know?”

Matthew cried out, “Scotty, I
love
you!”

“Shut
up,
faggot!”

Scotty glanced again at the approaching train. He tucked the gun into his jacket pocket.

The train stopped, and the doors opened. In the first car there were half a dozen passengers, and Scotty quickly slid in among them. Matthew tried to step aboard, too, but the drunk got up from the floor and came up behind him and caught him in a bear hug.

Matthew screamed, “Scotty! It doesn’t matter! You’re alive! You’re
alive!”

The doors closed. The train went nowhere. Matthew looked at the other cars and they were all empty. Then he looked back to the first car and he saw the half-dozen passengers pull out guns and take aim at Scotty. They flashed badges and they shouted and one of them moved up swiftly behind Scotty and clamped handcuffs on him.

Matthew cried, “It’s OK! Scotty, I love you! Don’t worry, I still love you!”

But Scotty didn’t see him. He was staring out the subway windows at Leppenraub and raging:
“This’ll ruin you, you shit! You sick
shit!”

He tried to spit in Leppenraub’s direction but the spit caught on his lip and dribbled down his chin. And with handcuffs on he couldn’t wipe it off.

And then David Leppenraub got up and walked away down the platform, went the way he had come.

B
y the time Romulus stepped out of the little control room there was no one left on the platform but Matthew. The cops had hustled Joey Peasley away. It was just Matthew and when he saw Romulus he went for him. Hitting at him wildly, and Romulus grabbed his arms and held them and Matthew shouted:

“You lied to me!
Rom! YOU LIED! You didn’t tell me you were setting up Scotty!
YOU LIED!
YOU FUCKER! YOU FUCKER!”

Then he sagged, went down to his knees, and Romulus let him go and Matthew was just a well of tears.

Romulus knelt beside him. He said, “Matthew, that wasn’t Scotty. You never knew Scotty Gates. That was the guy who killed him. You remember he never wanted you to look at the pictures Leppenraub took? Because he was afraid if you looked long enough, you’d figure out it wasn’t him in those pictures.”

“I don’t . . . I don’t understand, Rom. I don’t . . .”

“Remember when you told me that Scotty had this heart tattoo on his ass? That Leppenraub’s boys had put it there? But then I never heard about it again. Wasn’t in any of the pictures Leppenraub took. And it wasn’t in the videotape either. I kept wondering, whatever happened to the heart? Where the hell had that valentine vamoosed to? Finally I guessed, but I checked the autopsy report just to be sure. No mention of it. And then I called Scotty’s girl-friend, Cassandra. And I asked her about the heart, and she thought it was a weird question to ask, but she did remember the thing. But not on Scotty. She’d seen it on Clive Leif, the actor. She’d slept with him, too. And Clive Leif’s real name is Joey Peasley, and that’s the man you just saw. That’s the man you loved, Matthew. That’s the man who killed Scotty Gates. And he told you so many lies that you’ll never get them all untangled—so don’t even try. You’ve got to tell yourself you just had the worst nightmare anybody’s ever had and you’ve got to keep waking up from it, Matthew. Keep trying to wake up, you hear me, Matthew? There’s nothing else you can do.”

D
etective Jack Cork sat in the confessional at St. Veronica’s and bowed his head, and was a true penitent.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have really made an ass of myself.”

Caveman’s voice:

“You should have listened to me from the start.”

“That’s true, Father. Although if I
had
listened to you from the start, I’d have clapped David Leppenraub in irons, wouldn’t I?”

The Caveman conceded, “I was thrown off the track for a while. Stuyvesant’s deceit—”

“Oh, yeah. And I would’ve had to raid the Chrysler Building with a fucking SWAT team—”

“Never do that! Never try to assault Stuyvesant head on! He’ll crush you. He’s more powerful than you can imagine.”

“I bet he is.”

“Yes. Well. For your penance, say twenty Hail Marys every time you take a drink.”

“Please, Father.”

“OK, one. Say one Hail Mary every time you take a drink.”

“Deal.”

“And tell me how much Joey Peasley spilled.”

“I think just about the whole cup of soup. You want it?”

“Yes.”

“Every drop?”

“Please.”

“Ah, every drop means all his pitiful boyhood in North Carolina—you know, all the sick stuff about how his saintly sick fuck of a father believed in him, but his mama never did—the kind of nasty dog shit that bores me to death. But along about last summer, things get interesting. That I’ll give you. But speaking of drops . . . did I ever tell you how confessions always make me thirsty, Father?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, they do. So I was wondering if, please God, we might adjourn us outta here? Down the street?”

“Cecil’s Bar? Are you saying that?”

“Please God, Father.”

A
t Cecil’s, Cork drank Scotch and Romulus had a vodka and cranberry juice, which every now and then Cork stopped to shake his head at. While he related the troubled history of Joey Peasley.

“See, by last summer, the kid’s great directing career in New York was a big fizzle. But he did manage to get work in that summer stock company run by the Leppenraub Foundation. Joey figured now here were the connections he’d been looking for all his life—and he started hustling.

“One night last August Leppenraub had the whole theater company over to his farmhouse for a reading of this old play called
The Cherry Orchard.
Leppenraub’s favorite, and he himself took the part of this Russian merchant, Lopahin. Didn’t think I knew my Chekhov, did you, Caveman? Truth to tell, two days ago I didn’t know Chekhov from Mr. Spock. But anyway, Joey was quite an accomplished techie, and he ran the video camera for this little event. Jesus, you’re really
drinking
that stuff. Don’t you think it’s going to make you sick?”

Romulus shook his head. “Any kind of drinking’s going to make me sick. I don’t hold alcohol well. But I’m obliged to celebrate, right?”

“Right. It’s your civic duty. Ready for another?”

“Let me buy this one?”

“How can you? You’re a fucking bum. You don’t have any money.”

“Right. I forgot.”

“Another one, Cecil!”

Cecil brought the drinks, and Cork put away three-quarters of his Scotch in one swallow. He held that swallow in his left cheek for a moment, let it nestle there—then slipped it quietly down his gullet. He looked down at Romulus’s vodka and cranberry juice and shook his head. He said:

“So. After that, Joey turned himself into Leppenraub’s unpaid assistant. Did everything—lugged the cameras, mixed the chemicals in the darkroom, fetched the coffee. Hell, he even modeled for him. There was one time when our boy Scotty was too chicken to climb a tree for this weird picture Leppenraub wanted. So Joey, he looked a lot like Scotty, and he went up in his place. And I guess Joey thought he was getting to be Leppenraub’s protégé or something. ’Cause when he comes down out of that tree and puts his pants on, he’s got these stars in his eyes, and he tells Leppenraub, ‘You know, maybe we ought to try a little collaboration, you and me. What do you say?’ And Leppenraub—he was in a real nasty mood that day—he says, ‘But we
are
collaborating, Joey. I’m making art. You’re looking gorgeous.’

“Now this hurts Joey very deeply. He quits Leppenraub in a huff and goes back to New York and starts getting sicker and sicker in his head. Feeling more and more humiliated by Leppenraub’s disrespect. Joey’s daddy had always told him he had a wild, glorious, radiant mind. Who the fuck was this asshole to call him a pretty boy?

“And in early October when Joey heard Leppenraub had gone into the hospital—well, he decided to make another visit to the farm.

“There was nobody there except Scotty and that retarded guy Elon. Vlad was in Europe. The sister was staying in a hotel next to Leppenraub’s hospital. So the field was clear for Joey. He visits, he stays, he goes to work on Scotty Gates. And makes his fucking art. The same kind of stuff that Leppenraub did—only Joey’s making
videos,
see, the true medium of the times, you follow me? I mean Joey’s stuff is really
alive.
Like he does a scene of Scotty’s ass with blood all over it, and ants crawling in the blood. Crap like that. Or for example we see Scotty fucking something—humping away, you get me?—and we zoom in and what is it he’s diddling? A dead bird. Something they scraped off the highway. I mean really. I mean what we’re talking about is
an explicit assault on American violence.
You like that? I should have been a critic, huh? I’m telling you, these videos, they were really . . . bold—huh? And, and
vital
and . . . all that shit.”

Romulus said, “If you’re a critic, you can’t say things like ‘all that shit.’ ”

“You can’t? Why not?”

Romulus said, “I don’t know. Truthfully, I have no idea.”

“Yeah, well, all right, I’m still a cop then. Boo hoo. But anyway, Joey Peasley, you couldn’t tell
him
he was no critic. He thought he had it all scoped out—what really great art was. It was these sicko videos he was making with Scotty Gates.

“Only problem was, Scotty Gates had no aesthetic taste, no imagination whatsoever, and he never quit whining. He said he didn’t
want
to fuck dead birds. Joey had to smack him around a little. And still Scotty was such a brat. Once he even lashed out at Joey—he said, ‘You call this art? You’re just a maniac.’

“Which pissed Joey off no end. But also sort of inspired him. He came up with a great idea for his next video. It would be called
Chill.
It would make Scotty very sorry for ever saying anything nasty about Joey’s artistic gifts.

“He took Scotty up to the coach house and put him in that big walk-in freezer and he locked him in.

“After a while he opened the door. He brought lights in, and the video camera, and he taped a torture show.

“And yet still Scotty didn’t seem repentant enough. He was weak, but he was still whining. So Joey let him freeze some more. Then he went back in and shot another torture episode, and finally Scotty came to understand and appreciate Joey’s gifts.

“Joey felt much better. But he locked Scotty in again anyway.

“Because he realized that now he’d gone too far to turn back. He’d gotten carried away. The way sometimes geniuses will. There was no letting the kid loose
now.

“He’d have to kill him.

“Joey sat outside the freezer, and let his imagination run wild, and then he came up with this scheme—a way to punish Scotty and Leppenraub at the same time.

“But the way he had it worked out, one very important detail was that Scotty have the HIV virus.

“OK, no problem.

“He took a trip down to the city and paid five bucks to a homeless guy with AIDS for a pint of his blood. He came back up and injected that blood into Scotty.

“But while Joey was injecting Scotty, the retarded guy walked in on them. That guy Elon—and he started bawling. And Joey had to do a real song and dance to persuade him that this was all for Scotty’s own good, and Elon was being a
bad boy,
and leave us alone,
we’re playing,
three’s a crowd, you know?

“As soon as Elon was gone, Joey locked the freezer up tight and left Scotty in there to die while Joey drove down to North Carolina. To visit his mama, what a good boy. And that’s where he edited the videotape.

“On the sound track, he spliced in snippets from that reading of
The Cherry Orchard,
from Leppenraub doing the part of Lopahin.
‘Don’t cry, little peasant.’ ‘You’re too soft.’ ‘I’m fed up with you.’
So anyone seeing the tape would think that Leppenraub had been right there watching Scotty getting tortured, getting his jollies.

“Joey made one copy of the tape and buried the original. Then he came back up to New York and put on his amazing show. He became the man he’d killed. Are we ready for another round?”

“Huh? I guess so,” said Romulus.

“Except the problem is, if I have another round, I’m not going to be able to drive home. Wait! Wait! I just remembered—my wife’s staying at her sister’s tonight. How about a change of venue?”

Cork got up.

Romulus said, “Your place? You sure?”

“I don’t have any cranberry juice though. We’ll have to pick some up. Come on. I’ll show you my roses.”

C
ork paid the tab and they drove to his place in the North Bronx.

Along the way he said, “Hey listen, Caveman, something I been meaning to ask you. When I talked to Moira Leppenraub today, she was . . . she was very solicitous as to your well-being. You know what I mean? She said I had to remember to tell you to call her. Just as soon as you can. I mean I think you made quite a favorable impression on this woman. You didn’t, by any chance, you didn’t
get it on
with her, did you?”

“Let’s watch the road, Jack. You’re weaving.”

“Yeah, well I swear to you if you say yes I’m going to weave right onto the fucking sidewalk.”

“Then I won’t say yes.”

“No, answer me. You want me to accept that such a stinking bum as you could ever get so lucky? Not a chance. The very idea is disgusting. Tell me the truth.”

“I want my lawyer present.”

“You son of a bitch.”

T
hey stopped at a deli for cranberry juice and frozen pizza. While they were waiting to pay, Romulus looked at the front page of the paper and there was a picture of a cave on it. Since when were caves news, Romulus wondered. Then it dawned on him that it was
his
cave. He read the headline:

CITY
CAVEMAN
FOILS
MURDERER

So it was as big and splashy as Cork had said it would be, and that was a disturbing development. Also sort of amusing.

When they got to Cork’s place, Cork put the pizzas in the oven and took Romulus out back to look at his antique roses. They weren’t in bloom yet but even the buds were nice to look at under the yard light. Then they went back in and Cork fixed the drinks, and they sat at the kitchen table and ate their pizzas and drank.

Said Cork, “Where were we?”

“ ‘He became the man he’d killed.’ ”

“Yeah. Yeah, right. Joey moved in with the downtown lowlife. And he pretended to be Scotty Gates. He created Scotty Gates eyewitnesses all over the place. He went to gay bars and played the wounded yokel, he hammed it up all over the streets. Critics who’d said he couldn’t create theater—they should see this show! Oh, the way he got the rumors working, got the word percolating through the art world. ‘Hey, did you know that the model for Leppenraub’s tree pictures is now this homeless junkie with AIDS? Did you know that Leppenraub fucked him and ruined him and then discarded him?’

“And he found the most gullible and vulnerable and forlorn soul in the city—Matthew Donofrio—and made him the number one witness to Scotty’s suffering.

“Then when he figured the time was ripe, he snuck back to the farm and fetched the body, and brought it down and left it in your park, Caveman. Matthew had told him all about you, and he wanted you to find the corpse. He knew all about your harangues. He guessed that Matthew would talk to you, and you’d go all over preaching the word against Leppenraub—spread those rumors.

“Meanwhile he took his videotape up to the farm, and told Leppenraub Scotty had given it to him. Leppenraub said it was a fraud, a travesty. Joey said Oh sure, surely Scotty had gone off the deep end there, hadn’t he? But still Joey would appreciate a little reward for not showing the thing to anyone else.

“And Leppenraub asked him, ‘How much is a little reward?’

“And Joey said, ‘Say a hundred grand?’

“And Leppenraub was sick, and worn out, and the only thing he cared about was his place in the history of art. So he paid.

“After all, the truth about Leppenraub is that he’s kind of a timid,
gentle
guy.”

Romulus murmured, “Not gentle.”

“What?”

“Not a murderer, but not gentle. Kind of nasty, in fact.”

“Well maybe you didn’t know him at his best. You know what I mean? I had the impression he was sort of a prick myself but now think about it. I mean, he’s got that disease. He’s got that death sentence hanging over him. That’s got to be tough.”

“That is tough,” Romulus concurred.

“You know he’s got nothing but kind words for
you.”

“He threw me out of his goddamn party.”

“You were drunk.”

“No. I’m drunk now. Then I was just pitching a fit. His sister’s a better artist.”

“You were really getting it on with that broad?”

Said Romulus, “I do not understand squat. A week ago I understood everything. Then I solved this mystery, and now I’m completely confused. I’m supposed to like David Leppenraub? But he’s still a nasty son of a bitch, isn’t he? He wanted me dead. Right?”

“Forget about it,” said Cork. “My advice is, no matter what the problem is, my advice is,
forget about it.
”

“A gentle guy? Truly? I do not have a single clue as to what the world is up to.”