The City of Strangers (15 page)

Stefan remembered very clearly now the wry, almost idle half smile that suggested Mac Liammóir found everything and anything he encountered amusing and entertaining. He also remembered the sharp eyes that said the actor and director saw far more than the vague smile indicated. The receptionist, wearing carpet slippers and with a chipped enamel badge that bore the word ‘concierge’, brought the coffee, which was very good; although as Stefan would discover, there wasn’t anywhere in New York where the coffee wasn’t good, as there was nowhere in Dublin it was.

‘Handy for the theatre of course, and extremely flexible, so flexible that they rent rooms by the hour. I’ve no idea why, but it did seem a good idea that the ladies should find another hotel. For myself, I wouldn’t stay anywhere else.’

Micheál Mac Liammóir laughed.

‘It’s been a long time, Sergeant.’

‘
The Taming of the Shrew
,’ replied Stefan, remembering.

‘And other things,’ said the actor quietly. The dead were the other things; for a moment silence gave them their due. ‘You’re still in Dublin?’

‘I’m in Baltinglass. I have been for four years.’

‘And the woman, there was a woman? I’m sure I remember.’

‘It’s a good memory then.’

‘A boon as an actor,’ smiled Mac Liammóir, ‘a curse as a human being. But the two occupations have very little in common of course. However, I do recall her with you that evening. She sticks in my mind.’

‘She stuck in mine too, Mr Mac Liammóir.’

‘I see, but not in your life.’

‘She does send me a Hanukkah card every Christmas.’

The director of the Gate smiled.

‘Humour always sticks, I think, more than good looks. But it’s a long time to carry a torch at your age, well, at any age where men are concerned.’

‘Not really a torch, maybe a penny candle.’

‘The mess of life must wait, Mr Gillespie. We have the mess in hand.’

‘We do, sir.’

‘Partly of my making, I’m afraid. Unfortunately Mr Harris was less enamoured of the prospect of the journey home than I thought. It seemed to suit everyone, except him. Quickly and quietly, those were my words.’

‘I imagine they were the words everybody wanted to hear.’

‘You’re kind, Sergeant. And it’s true enough. The politics! I never go near politics without burning my fingers. I should have had the courage to ignore it and trust to the old adage that no publicity is bad publicity. I should have called a press conference to announce that the Gate was the only theatre company in New York with a murderer in its midst. Before long every theatre on Broadway would have wanted one!’ He chuckled quietly. ‘If only we’d been doing
Crime and Punishment
! There’s a rather good poster, with me as Raskolnikov, wielding an axe. An opportunity missed.’

Mac Liammóir looked down and shook his head.

‘It seemed the right thing to do.’

He looked back at Stefan.

‘I don’t really know Owen. I certainly don’t know whether he’s capable of killing someone or whether he isn’t. But I think he has a quite fragile grasp on reality, that’s the only way I can put it, talking to those who do know him. I’m not suggesting there’s a question about his sanity, only that he lives, well, in a precarious place. And as he was with us in New York, for better or worse, I felt the least I could do was to help him hold on to whatever grasp of reality he has. I felt that shackles and police sirens would not be helpful, and that kindness would. And you sprang to mind. Since Mr McCauley at the consulate wanted to do the thing quickly and quietly too, we all took up that cry. And the boy himself seemed amenable. He seemed quite content to go. It was a simple solution to all our problems.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Stefan. ‘Why did he change his mind?’

‘There was no indication that he had.’ Micheál Mac Liammóir shook his head. ‘I think the young man from the New York police was under the impression that we’d been keeping him in a room under lock and key. Of course it wasn’t like that at all. I simply left his friends to keep an eye on him, chat to him, play cards with him, whatever was best. Naturally enough the bedroom window wasn’t nailed down, so when he decided to go he simply climbed out of the window and down the fire escape. Even that was more dramatic than it need have been. There was someone with him most of the time, but it was hardly like the changing of the guards up there. And the truth be told he could have just walked out of the hotel, very easily indeed, without any clambering down ladders at all.’

‘Did he know anyone in New York?’

‘Not as far as I’m aware. Charlie Mawson’s closest to him and he doesn’t think so.’ The actor smiled. ‘Harris is always rather keen to tell us who he knows. I think if he had friends here we would have heard about it.’

‘Did he have any money?’

‘I’m not sure. Some I imagine.’

‘Enough to leave the city?’

‘I can’t imagine it would have been a great deal. He took nothing with him when he left. No one’s been paid this week, and we were all on rather short commons on the boat over. I’d say it was unlikely he had much at all.’

‘That might fit,’ said Stefan.

‘With what?’

‘The police have a description of a man who was in a diner in Times Square last night, who could easily have been Mr Harris. He ate a meal and then didn’t have enough money to pay the whole bill. There was an argument. He ran off without paying at all. The owner said he was English.’

‘Yes, he can sound very English, especially when he wants to.’

‘If it is him, he hasn’t travelled far then.’

Micheál Mac Liammóir nodded; he hoped that was the case.

‘You know he really wasn’t someone I wanted on this tour. The poor boy can’t act to save his life, and as a stage manager he leaves a lot to be desired. He inhabits his own world most of the time. The trouble is we were struggling to cover our costs. We could pay the wages and the hotel, but everyone in the company had to stump up for the passage. A lot weren’t able to and in some areas we couldn’t be too choosy. Hilton Edwards and I rather hoped Harris wouldn’t find the money, but in the end he came up with it. And we did need an acting stage manager. So we took him, without enthusiasm.’

‘If he hasn’t gone far,’ said Stefan, ‘it won’t take long to find him. And if he’s wandering the streets without any money, it’ll be even quicker.’

The actor looked at Stefan for a moment, his lips pursed.

‘Charlie Mawson doesn’t think he killed her you know.’

‘Is that what Harris told him?’

‘I’m not sure he did, not in so many words. I don’t know what they talked about while he was here. And I have the impression that most of the time he’d been talking about everything but what happened to his mother.’

‘That’s not so surprising.’

‘I’m just repeating what Charlie Mawson said.’

‘And does Mr Mawson know him well.’

‘Better than the rest of us. They had been lovers until recently.’ Mac Liammóir said it without apology and without expecting it to be taken for anything other than the straightforward statement it was. Stefan knew it would not have been something the actor would have said to Superintendent Gregory. ‘I don’t know what that counts for as far as knowledge goes. Does it make us more perceptive about the people we love, or less perceptive?’

Stefan didn’t reply.

The actor shrugged.

‘No, I haven’t got an answer either, and if I pursued it I’d probably only find one that depressed me. Let’s just say Charlie’s opinion should count for something. I only repeat it because I gather from Mr McCauley that it isn’t an opinion, even a question, as far as the Gardaí are concerned. Even the New York detective had no doubt he was looking for a murderer.’

‘No one’s in a position to make that call, not before Mr Harris has been questioned. No one can know what happened to his mother, not yet.’

Mac Liammóir sat back in his chair.

‘You wouldn’t make much of an actor either, Sergeant.’

Suddenly his expression changed. He was looking past Stefan and Stefan turned his head to see Sergeant Phelan of the Headquarters Detective Division walking towards him. The easy smile he had worn before was there, but it was broader, and he carried an air of satisfied expectation.

‘Didn’t I tell you it wouldn’t take us long?’

Stefan and Micheál Mac Liammóir stood up.

‘We’ve found him.’

The actor nodded, looking genuinely relieved.

‘Where is he?’ asked Stefan.

‘He’s in a club on 52
^nd
Street. He’s been in a couple of bars, cadging drinks and drawing a bit of attention to himself. But we’ve got a tip off now. It’s not far, so you might as well bring him in with me. I’ve called a patrol car. From what I’m told I’d say his first stop is going to be the drunk tank.’

52
^nd
Street had the same kind of busy, sleazy vitality that was everywhere around Times Square, but in the late afternoon, before the night brought it to life, it was the sleaziness rather than the vitality that had the headlines, and even after dark most of that vitality was underneath the dingy brownstones, in the cellars. As Michael Phelan walked from 8
^th
Avenue into West 52
^nd
Street, he was on his territory; he wanted Stefan to feel that. This was the centre of the world as far as he was concerned; whatever you could find anywhere else, that was about what had happened, history; New York was now.

‘This is called Jazz Alley,’ he drawled. ‘It does what it says. There are clubs the whole length of 52
^nd
Street, down in the basements. It’s the only place this far from Harlem you’ll find black musicians playing with white musicians, or where you’ll find anybody black downtown doing anything other than serve food and clean floors. It’s quiet enough now, but later on it’s full of people you wouldn’t want your sister to know, along with the whites who haven’t got the money or the guts to go to Harlem. That’s along with the more select clientele, you know what I mean, pimps and whores and drug dealers and the usual mob of hangers on. It’s a busy place after dark.’

He said it with his laid-back smile and plenty of shrugs to show how everything extraordinary was ordinary in his city. But he said it with pride.

‘It sounds like Baltinglass on a Saturday night,’ said Stefan.

‘I doubt it,’ laughed Phelan. ‘Is that your nearest city?’

‘It is. And second only to Dublin.’

‘I’ve never heard of it,’ replied the American.

‘Well, you’d want to go on market day to get the best out of it. We’re short on jazz musicians as a rule, not to mention pimps and whores and drug dealers, but you can’t move for cattle and sheep, and there’s always the chance of a bit of set dancing in the evening, with Seamus Maloney on the accordion. Not that we let that sort of thing get out of hand, Jesus no!’

‘OK!’ laughed Sergeant Phelan. ‘I get the point.’

He stopped by a set of railings and steps down to a basement. A sign that wasn’t lit up yet, but would shine brightly in blue and white after dark, read ‘The Dizzy Club’.

‘So what’s our friend Mr Harris doing in here?’

‘Like I said, getting drunk as far as I know.’

‘Hasn’t he run out of money? It must have been him at the diner.’

‘I guess he’s made some friends. You can add queers to the mix up here. I’m sure he’d sniff that out. I got the impression he was. Am I right?’

Stefan shrugged.

They walked down the steps to the club. Michael Phelan pushed open the door. The narrow entrance was dark. There was a small archway into a cloakroom. A door opened along the passage and a heavily built figure walked towards them, in a tuxedo and a shirt that hadn’t been white for some time. For a few seconds Stefan Gillespie didn’t realise that the owner of the muscular body and the surprisingly soft, feminine face was a woman.

‘We’re closed. You want to come back in a couple of hours.’

The sound of laughter and clapping drifted up from the club.

‘Come on Lois, my pal’s come all the way from Ireland for this.’

‘Do I know you?’

The detective took his badge from his pocket and flashed it lazily.

‘You called us, about a guy we’re looking for.’

‘Why would I call the cops about anything?’

‘My mistake, Lois. It must have been someone else.’

‘He’s down there.’

She pointed into the darkness, then walked back into the office.

‘Who’s she?’ asked Stefan.

‘Lois DeFee. She’s the bouncer.’

They walked into the dingy, cramped cellar. Tables and chairs were jammed into every space in what looked like a giant, brown shoebox. There was a small stage at one end, with more tables hard up against it. On one side of the room there was a bar. The only lights that were on were over the bar; the rest of the club was in shadow. There was a group of men, mostly young, some quite big and burly. There was a smell of bourbon, brilliantine and too much aftershave. They stood in a tight group, all facing the bar, laughing, watching. A voice, slightly high pitched and shrill, pierced the laughter.

In front of them stood a young man, his fair hair was slicked back, thick with hair cream, his face was red with the rouge of alcohol, his eyes had a slightly wild, startled look. His brown suit looked as if he had been sleeping in it. Around his neck was a green feather boa that he had picked up somewhere between 49
^th
Street and 52
^nd
Street. He held a tall glass in his hand. And he was declaiming poetry of some kind, in the sharp, crisp voice of the English upper classes, a voice that his audience seemed to find amusing in its own right, irrespective of what he was saying, accompanied as it was by winks and pouting lips, the occasional thrust of his torso, and the sexual innuendo that the poem had never been meant to carry.

‘It’s no go the Herring Board, it’s no go the Bible. All we want is a packet of fags when our hands are idle.’ The juxtaposition of ‘fags’ and ‘idle hands’ made the audience laugh louder. ‘It’s no go the picture palace, it’s no go the stadium. It’s no go the country cot with a pot of pink geraniums. It’s no go my honey love, it’s no go my poppet.’ More exaggerated winks and pouting lips. ‘Work your hands from day to day, the winds will blow the profit.’ He pulled the man next to him close and then pushed him away. And then his face suddenly changed. The last words were quieter, and they seemed to be addressed to the darkness in the empty club, rather than to the people still laughing and sniggering around him, as much at Owen Harris as with him. ‘The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall for ever. But if you break the bloody glass you won’t hold up the weather.’