The Lure (38 page)

The setting for all this was lovely enough, Noel had to admit in his decreasing moments of objectivity during his stay at the Pines. The seaplanes had set them down on the bay shore of the island, less than ten yards of ankle-high water away from the property line of the gorgeous, cedarwood two-story house Redfern had built a few years before on the far eastern edge of the community. The top-floor deck overlooked a glorious view of the Great South Bay edged with the service communities of Sayville and Patchogue where fireworks erupted all night long, the first week of his visit. Looking east or west, the island narrowed, and from this height you could see the next few towns in either direction, each separated by considerable woods and dunes. The highest platform on the roof looked over a small grove of pine trees that stepped down to rooftops of other houses between Redfern’s land and the beachfront. Birds whistled to each other cacophonously every morning at dawn and played flight games during the day. Deer families, rabbits, even raccoons foraged quietly on the beach plum and Russian olive bushes around the house, until they heard a sound, pricked up their ears, then slid or crashed back into the foliage. A garden of lilies to one side of the house offered irises, tiger lilies, a dozen other varieties Noel had only seen in the flower show in the Coliseum where Monica had dragged him a decade ago. And the double mirrors of the bay north, the ocean south, only a quarter of a mile apart and easily seen in a single glance from several rooftop spots. But above all, the feeling of being away from it all, being out afloat, adrift, at sea, offshore. On the edge.

If it were only true, Noel told himself, he could have dealt with the sudden immersion in the social whirlpool that surrounded him, with the bizarre hours everyone kept, with the scattered household—everyone off doing exactly what he or she pleased, until as by magic or telepathy, they all suddenly converged. He could have gone along with the constant partying, the total devotion to disco dancing and drugs and public promiscuity—but once sex was added to it, he found he couldn’t cope at all.

Changes in the house were rapid, enigmatic, unexplained. Eric dropped McWhitter as a boyfriend, just as Alana had predicted, but that didn’t mean Redfern was drawn back to Noel. Hardly. Instead Eric had one tanned, Speedo-bathing-suited, good-looking boy or man coming and going out of the house after another: sometimes more than one a day, and often two or more at a time.

Noel would enter any one of the three bathrooms and find an attractive stranger stepping out of a shower or shaving. He would go to the first-floor kitchen for a morning cup of coffee and discover a blond giant he’d never seen before cooking a full breakfast for another stranger. Two dark-haired, bearded strangers would be lying out on the bayside deck, another one diving into the pool. A minute later, a young black, built like an anatomy model, would pull a wagonload of groceries into the side door, no delivery boy but a high-fashion model merely doing a favor for someone somewhere on the premises. In the living room, two blond Germans who could barely speak English would be sunk deep in the cushioned, wraparound sofas, stoned, laughing uproariously at morning TV cartoon shows. All of them knew someone in the house by name. All of them were attractive, did some work or other in the city, and were interested in him. They were like sea tar stuck to the soles of Noel’s feet: always present, unavoidable, impossible to get rid of.

Worse, the entire population of Fire Island seemed to be in love, about to fall in love, or just getting over a love affair. McWhitter found adequate compensation quickly. Everyone Noel met—Richard, Robert, Don, Bill, Jim, in endless duplication so he could never recall their names—paired up within an afternoon. Even Alana had a visit from an old friend that first week—a slender Argentinian named Guillermo, with an accent, a superb tan, and according to one of the Bills or Jims a shitload of money. She was gone from the house for two nights, which didn’t help Noel’s head a great deal. Not with couples of all genders kissing on the dance floor at the harbor disco, necking on the beach, making love at poolside, on the terrace, on the roof, in the bushes, on the boardwalks, anywhere and everywhere Noel was.

Then there were the drugs: coke in the morning, a joint of grass over breakfast, mescaline or psilocybin or simple, everyday LSD to go to the beach. A down would get them laid back enough to nap after Tea Dance. But after dinner anything went: Noel once counted thirty-eight different pills or spansules or capsules divided in a few minutes among eleven people.

He had tried to keep up with them the first few days, but just maneuvering the boardwalks was a discouraging prospect. Even when he cut his intake down to a third of the usual dose, he’d be crashing all morning, sleeping off one drug or strung out on another or sotted out on the sand, while a new party was announced to take place in six minutes.

The last straw broke two weeks after they’d arrived. Noel had gone to sleep early, at 1:00 a.m., just as everyone else in the house had gone out. He woke up at dawn. Unable to go back to sleep, he went down to the kitchen for a glass of milk and a sandwich. On the balcony overlooking the two-storied living room, he heard the low throb of taped rock music. It was a common sound by now, and he didn’t even think about it. It was only when he’d gotten down the stairs that he noticed the sofas had been pushed to the walls, the huge pillows spread, and the entire area from the kitchen to the deck and pool was covered with dozens of bodies—he’d stepped into a postdawn orgy.

He felt as though he were stranded on another planet—everything alien and incomprehensible. Which explained how sincerely glad Noel was later in the day of the big orgy to hear Little Larry Vitale’s drawl behind him, as he stood in the crowded doorway of the Tea Dance. In front of Noel, a buxom, beautiful South American girl in a dance frenzy was having her paper dress slowly but surely ripped off her body by the gleaming teeth of her equally frenetic partner.

“Do you think he’ll stop when he reaches her kazoo?” Noel asked, as the couple spun only inches away from him and Larry, and the man bent down, still dancing, and began snapping his jaws at the back of what was left of the high-hemmed skirt. “Oops! Spoke too soon.”

“I saw that old club act at Clouds in January,” Larry drawled, sipping a drink the same aqua as bathroom tiles in a suburban home. “Let’s get out of here. Too crowded. Too many losers.”

The deck was packed to the railing, so they finished their drinks and went out to the boat dock that jutted out into the bay at the harbor’s mouth. The benches were already taken by couples who were practicing necking so as to look picturesque for the spectacular sunset over the water. Noel and Larry kept away from them, sitting down on the side of the jetty, their feet almost touching the high tide water.

“You out here with the rich kids?” Larry asked.

“What do you think?”

“How do you like the island?” Larry asked. Clearly he loved it. “Have you made it down to the Meat Rack yet? No,” he answered himself, “you probably haven’t had a chance what with all the local talent falling over themselves to get a whiff of you.”

Noel knew what the Meat Rack was—a strip of woods between the two communities given over to alfresco sex, day and night. Sex! That’s all he heard about, thought about.

“The whole place is a little too frantic for me,” he admitted.

“You kidding? Get into it.”

“I can’t. Not yet. I’m sort of laying off sex for a while.”

Larry looked at Noel’s eyes. “No yellow so it ain’t hepatitis; it must be VD.”

“It’s neither.”

“Then it’s mental illness,” Larry declared. “You’re out of your tree. That’s like a diabetic locked in a chocolate factory.”

“Something like that,” Noel admitted.

“No wonder you’re so upright.”

“It shows?” Noel asked. With Larry he felt comfortable; he could be himself, whatever that seemed to be at the moment. For a fleeting minute, he wondered if he ought to ask Larry about Loomis and Whisper, about Vega and the profiles he’d shown Noel.

He was gingerly leading up to the subject when Larry hushed him. Some friends of the boy had just come onto the dock, and they soon got Noel and Larry high on Thai stick, an imported Indochinese marijuana, then they dragged them back to the Tea Dance. Noel arrived just in time to bump into Eric and Alana and McWhitter. His questions to Larry were lost in intoxication and the zaniness of the dance the others pulled him into.

By the time they returned to the house it was filled with people. Having had to spend the previous long holiday weekend in town, all the club managers of Redfern’s enterprises and their boyfriends and lovers had come out to Fire Island for this one. All six bedrooms were in use, with McWhitter back in Eric’s room and Noel asked to share his with Geoff Malchuck, the quiet, cool manager of Clouds. Naturally the house was noisier and more full of people coming and going than usual. Noel’s mood, which had been irritable before he encountered Larry at the Tea Dance, worsened.

Even Dorrance arrived for dinner, flying out on the seaplane; he would be staying the night at a nearby friend’s house, he said—obviously having experienced Eric’s place on weekends. With Dorrance there, Noel couldn’t help but notice that everyone present for dinner this evening had been present at that first company dinner in the half-moon dining room at Eric’s town house. Ages ago, it seemed now. Everyone, that is, but Randy. And everyone but Noel in extreme high spirits. Even the usually dignified McWhitter was dancing through the living room with “Marge” to the incessant beat of the disco tapes that were beginning to drive Noel to destroy the expensive machinery.

“Well, here we are,”

“Marge” said, when finally everyone had gathered at the refectory-style dinner table, “just one happy family.” He surveyed the group as though it were his own doing.

“Not quite all of us is happy,” Eric said, holding up a wineglass and pressing its wet coolness against his cheek. “Look at sourpuss over there.”

It was easy enough to follow his gaze across the long table to Noel. “What’s the matter, Noel, aren’t you feeling well?” “Marge” asked.

“He’s feeling terrible,” Eric answered for Noel. “Aren’t you?”

Noel toyed with a piece of food he’d been moving from one end of his plate to the other. Without looking up, he said, “I’ve been thinking, if you didn’t particularly need me here, I’ll go into the city tomorrow for a few days.”

“On the weekend?” Cal Goldberg asked in astonishment.

“What’s the matter?” McWhitter asked, “allergic to salt air?”

Ignoring them, Noel went on: “It’ll give you more room here.” He focused on Eric as he added that.

“You aren’t taking anyone’s space,” Alana said. “Is he, Eric?”

Eric just rubbed the wineglass against his cheek.

“Doesn’t bother me,” Geoff said.

“I’ll bet it doesn’t!” Jimmy DiNadio said.

“Well?” Noel went on. “How about it?”

“What for?” Eric asked.

“For nothing. I don’t know. To work on the book. I hadn’t planned on anything in particular.”

“Perhaps to see Buddy Vega?”

“Perhaps. If I happen to go down to the Grip and he’s there.”

“Really?” Said sarcastically. “I thought you two were real close.”

“You thought wrong,” Noel said.

“He did introduce you to Rick, got you working, didn’t he?”

“So?”

“He wouldn’t bring just anyone to work in the Grip, would he, Rick?”

“Never did before or since,” Chaffee said.

“How do you know Vega?” Eric asked Noel.

Everyone at the table had quieted to hear the exchange, aware that Eric was up to something. “Marge” dropped a fork; in the sudden silence, it sounded like a steel girder hitting the tabletop.

“We just met,” Noel answered, alert to something he hadn’t counted on.

“Balled and met? Or just met?”

“We did it,” Noel lied.

“But not in California?” Eric asked. “We all know that was a cover-up story to get you into the bar in the first place. Right?”

Noel didn’t understand this sudden interrogation, or why it was being made so publicly. His guard went up.

“Right. So I could get information on my book. We thought it would be impossible for me to just walk into the Grip off the street and get a job. Especially with my background and all.”

“We?” Eric questioned. “Who’s we?”

“My department chairman and I. He suggested the project in the first place. You know that. What’s this all about, anyway?”

“Did Vega tell you about the Grip?” Eric asked.

“He told me it was the most popular Village bar. That’s all.”

Cal’s lover caught up with the conversation. “What book?” he asked Eric, and when Redfern didn’t answer, “What book?” he asked Cal.

“Did you know Vega was married?” Eric asked.

“I found out later. Much later.”

“Did you know he used to be a cop? That he was thrown off the force five years ago for taking graft?”

That was a face-saver. The news came as such a shock to Noel that he did nothing to hide it.

“No. I didn’t know that. Is it true?”

“Eric, what’s the point of this?” Alana interrupted.

“Let him tell you,” Eric said.