Vermilion (14 page)

They were on a landing, and Valentine pushed her against the wall. “What'd you see?” he demanded sternly. “Were the curtains open?”

She nodded. “I hunched against the bricks and looked in.”

“Did they see you?”

She moved down the stairs, and whispered to Valentine over her shoulder. “No, they were busy…”

“Whips and chains?”

“Talk about wall hangings. You can see why Hougan wanted those beams.”

“Somebody was hanging from the ceiling?”

Clarisse wasn't to be rushed into this. “They were doing it by candlelight, so I didn't see everything, and I couldn't look directly in, because they would have seen me…”

“Who was hanging from the ceiling?”

“Well, Hougan had on some sort of leather contraption, all straps and buckles and studs…”

“Was Boots there?”

“Valentine,” said Clarisse, “Boots has a figure like a pair of Dixie cups nailed on a two-by-four. All black leather and spiked heels.”

“What about Searcy?”

“Val,” she said excitedly, as she pushed open the door into the vestibule, “did you put that glass back in the kitchen?”

“No,” he said, unperturbed, “it's still in the bedroom, and it's got our fingerprints all over it. Not to mention the doorknobs and the light switches. Are your prints on file anywhere?”

“Not that I know of.” Clarisse paused, with the door open. “Oh well,” she said, “the two Michaels aren't the type to prosecute anyway.”

Valentine followed her out into the cold. “What about Searcy?” he hissed.

“Better looking with his clothes off than on. Real definition. But Hougan certainly isn't, I'm sure that man doesn't work out. He ought to join—”

“What? Searcy already had his clothes off?”

“No. He was wearing chaps, black leather chaps…”

“And?”

“And nothing else.”

“Was he…”

“He was getting there,” said Clarisse. “Now this is embarrassing me, Val, and I don't want to talk about it anymore.”

“Embarrassed? You drag me into someone's apartment in the middle of the night, and we're liable to be caught and prosecuted, and then you crawl out on a third-floor fire escape when the windchill factor is twenty below and stare in somebody's window, and you tell me you're embarrassed?”

“I'm not going to say another word. If you weren't so lily-livered and had come out on the fire escape with me, you would have seen everything yourself.”

“We're going back to the Vendôme, and you're going to tell me everything you saw.”

“You're paying,” she said, “and I get the bartender.”

“I'm paying,” he said.

Half an hour later, Valentine had got all the details and a date with the bartender. Before parting, Valentine and Clarisse decided to walk once more past Hougan's building to see if the lights were still burning, and if the blue Fairlane were still there.

They stood at the edge of the boulevard, in the light of a streetlamp, and stared up at the lighted windows of Hougan's apartment.

The door of the building opened and Searcy appeared at the top of the stairs.

In one swift graceful movement Clarisse dropped her cigarette, and threw her arm over Valentine's shoulder. Her coat falling open obscured both their bodies, and she pressed her mouth hard over his. Her thick black hair covered both their faces from the policeman's sight.

Biting at Clarisse's tongue with playful malevolence, Valentine peered through her black hair at Searcy descending the steps. The man hailed a taxi.

Clarisse and Valentine held the embrace. “Tremont and Boylston,” they heard Searcy say to the driver, and listened with relief to the slamming of the vehicle's door.

Clarisse pushed Valentine violently away from her. “Beast!” she cried.

Valentine leaned against a tree trunk and gasped dramatically for breath.

“Forty-five minutes, wouldn't you say?” said Clarisse, staring up at Hougan's window.

Valentine stood beside her. “When you're playing with toys, forty-five minutes is just a quickie.”

“Maybe forty-five minutes is all a cop can afford.”

“He's got enough to take taxis.”

“Here to Tremont and Boylston won't cost him more than two dollars, with tip,” said Clarisse. “Probably he just parked over there.”

“Or maybe he's going to Nexus.”

“Why? You think he's interested in little boys? Christ, Val, the man just did a performance with the Lunt and Fontanne of the leather set.”

“No,” said Valentine. “I don't think he's interested in little boys, but if he's into humiliation, getting worked over by a pair like Hougan and Slater, he's probably also into aggression. He's probably feeling like shit now, and he's probably on his way over there to take it out on somebody.”

“That's the cheapest psychology I've heard since the Happy Hooker told Dinah Shore why she was so damned cheerful.”

“Look, Clarisse, I don't want Searcy over there messing with Mack. It's too easy for a cop to threaten an ex-con.”

“Is Mack one of yours?”

Valentine nodded. “He was in Charles Street for five-to-seven. Part of a car theft ring. Out of the whole gang, he was the only one caught and sentenced. He was in charge of painting the cars. I got him furloughed once a week to take the bartending course at Harvard, and then when he was released, I got him the job at Nexus. I thought he'd move on to a straight bar, but he says he likes it there. Mack's one of my success stories.”

“Into the breach then! You throw yourself in front of Mack, and I'll hold Searcy off with a can of Mace and a cattle prod!”

“When you were out on that fire escape—”

“What?” demanded Clarisse.

“I should have locked the window.”

S
EARCY'S TAXI LET him off at the Trailways terminal. He walked, a little unsteadily, through the parking lot, craning his head to make sure that his unmarked car hadn't been stolen from its place on Carver Street. The half a joint he'd smoked left him depressed and uncoordinated; he wondered sullenly if it had been treated with something.

As he approached his car, he had his keys out of his pocket. But with his hand on the door, he changed his mind, thrust the keys back into his pocket, and hurried past Herbie's Ramrod Room up to Tremont Street. He turned in the direction of the Combat Zone and Nexus.

Searcy was angry, with himself and with the entire confused investigation. For an insignificant teenager, who probably wasn't any colder in his grave than he would be on the streets tonight, William A. Golacinsky certainly had caused the police force a great deal of trouble.

The papers had by no means downplayed the murder, and this was certainly because of Scarpetti's involvement in the case. The representative, in a muddleheaded way that was characteristic of his entire life, public and private, had not yet determined for himself whether it was a good thing or a bad that little Billy's corpse had been discovered beneath his hemlocks. In general, corpses of hustlers couldn't help but be an embarrassment when they were strewn over the landscape, but Scarpetti dimly reckoned that he might turn the circumstance to his political advantage. He decided to take it as a personal affront. He first accused the homosexual community of murdering one of their number, and leaving the corpse upon his lawn in order to discredit him. There was a homosexual in his very neighborhood, he said indignantly, who might well have engineered the entire thing. He had also hinted that liberal legislators in the House had stolen the body from the morgue and planted it in retaliation against his having worked to defeat so many of their precious bills. He even dug in a little at Mr. Golacinsky himself, just in case it turned out that the teenager had committed suicide in obscure protest.

Because his mind was entirely fastened to the notion of putting the corpse to account, Scarpetti had been surprised by the attacks that had been leveled against him.
The Gay Community News
and
Esplanade
, the weekly gay newspapers in Boston, published extensive accounts of the crime on Wednesday, and included long interviews with mindless hustlers who had known Golacinsky. The papers suggested that some zealous adherents to Mr. Scarpetti's political beliefs had run out, murdered a hustler in an excess of admiration, and brought the corpse to Scarpetti's doorstep, as it were—rather after the fashion of a faithful but stupid dog that kills rodents and lays them as devoted offerings at the foot of its master's bed. The daily papers, on their editorial pages on Thursday morning, had reprinted these speculations without comment.

Scarpetti suddenly found himself on the defensive, and was very angry. Thursday noon, he made a personal appearance at District 2. Searcy missed that scene, but the effects were brought home to him by his immediate supervisor. Scarpetti wanted an arrest; he didn't care how unlikely the suspect was, so long as the murder could be pinned on somebody. If the jerk was innocent, then he'd get off; but it was essential that Scarpetti be exonerated, and that would only come with somebody's being brought in for murder. It would be very convenient, Searcy was given to understand, if the suspect were homosexual.

Searcy turned into Nexus and walked down the ramp with determined heavy steps. He pushed his way through the two dozen dancing couples beneath the whirling glitter ball. The swimming pinpoints of white and yellow lights broke across his eyes, and he tried to brush them away as if they had been gnats.

Searcy took the stool he had had two nights before, the stool on which Golacinsky had sat the night he was murdered.

Mack spotted him from the opposite end of the bar and crossed down smiling. “You thinking of becoming a regular here?” he asked in a friendly voice.

“No,” said Searcy curtly.

Mack raised his eyebrows warily. “Then you're on duty?”

Searcy looked back blankly. “I'm on my own time now, unofficial overtime, you might say. I came back to find out who the man was that Golacinsky left here with on Monday night.”

“I told you everything I know,” replied Mack. “I don't remember the man any better tonight than I did when I talked to you before.”

“I think maybe that's a lie. I think maybe if you were in the right atmosphere, and in the right place, you could remember exactly what that man looked like and maybe you could dredge up his name and his address and his telephone number.”

Mack said nothing for a moment, then remarked, “I think they must have shown Edward G. Robinson films at the training academy. If you want a drink, order it now because I'm busy. Thursday is the beginning of the weekend on this street.” Without waiting for Searcy's reply, Mack poured bourbon into a glass, dropped in ice from too great a height so that the liquor splashed over the rim. He slid it down in front of the policeman. “It's on the house. And it's also the last.”

Mack turned to go.

“Don't walk away from me!” cried Searcy, loudly enough to turn half a dozen heads.

Mack leaned forward over the bar, turned his head slowly until he faced Searcy, and then hissed, “
Listen
. I cooperated with you down the line. I told you everything I know. I could tell you some other things but I'd be making them up. Now you come in here and threaten to drag me in to Berkeley Street. That's not good for my business, and you drag me in you'll find that it's not so good for your business either. When you're on duty, I'll listen to you, but right now you're just another customer.”

Searcy took a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, extracted one and tapped it on the bar. “You've seen the movies, haven't you?” He lit the cigarette. “You watch television? You've heard of ‘withholding evidence' and ‘suspicion of being an accomplice'?”

“Your line's getting old, Lieutenant. You pulled that one on Randy Harmon last night. Didn't work then, won't work now.”

Searcy drew hard on the cigarette. “News gets around this neighborhood fast. Do the fags have a community newsletter?”

“Yes, and in today's issue there's a warning against a nasty cop with curly hair and a drinking problem.”

Mack moved down the bar, and resumed waiting on customers. Searcy fumbled with his cigarette and it fell to the floor. He lit another. Glancing over the dance floor, he saw Daisy Mae sidling toward him. She was smiling slyly, but seeing his expression, she pivoted and disappeared into the crowd.

Searcy took a swallow of his drink and looked toward the entrance.

Daniel Valentine and Clarisse Lovelace, shivering with cold, stepped into the light. They made their way down the ramp without even glancing over the room. They nodded to Mack, crossed directly to the bar and seated themselves. Mack moved over and whispered to them a few seconds. Clarisse looked up over Valentine's shoulder and stared at Searcy, without expression. Valentine turned briefly also, then back to Mack. The bartender moved away to prepare them drinks.

Searcy stared at the couple through two long swallows of bourbon.

Two of the dancers on the floor separated suddenly. One disappeared into the men's room, and the other made his way over to Valentine and Clarisse.

“Hot enough for you?” said Randy Harmon, as he moved to stand between them. He leaned back against the bar and propped the heel of one boot on the brass rail. “And I'm not talking about the temperature.” He jerked his head in Searcy's direction.

“We know,” said Valentine.

“Oh, God,” said Clarisse flatly, “I feel like Joan Crawford in
Rain
. The boys are going to start to break up the place.”

“It won't be over you,” said Valentine. “Not in here.”

Searcy, as soon as Randy had joined Clarisse and Valentine, had dropped off his stool, and now approached them slowly. He stopped directly before them. Mack hovered a few feet down, behind the bar. No one said anything for several seconds.