Vermilion (22 page)

Now Clarisse and Valentine flanked her, and they stared hard while she checked her makeup.

“What kind of a car?” said Clarisse.

“An old beat-up thing. I was thinking that whoever drove a car like that couldn't afford to pay much, but that maybe the two men were going to split the fee. Except probably it turned out that they were fag-baiters, and they beat him up and killed him…”

“Billy wasn't beat up,” said Valentine, “he was hit only once, and that killed him…”

“Do you remember anything else about the car?”

“It was old and beat up, no class. I mean, it was blue and then it had a green front fender.”

Valentine's mouth dropped open. “Green front fender?”

Trudy nodded and pinched her cheeks to put color into them. “I hope you two have not been going around all day thinking it was me that killed that little boy. How could a woman with a repertoire of seven hundred show tunes be guilty of murder?”

Clarisse leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “This thing has been on our minds,” she said apologetically. “That cop has been getting on our nerves.”

Trudy smiled and patted Clarisse's hand.

Valentine smiled as Trudy moved past him and went back out into the Wicker Room. He turned to face Clarisse across the sink. “Frank Hougan,” he said. “Billy Golacinsky got into Frank Hougan's car the night he was murdered.”

B
Y TWO-THIRTY Saturday morning, Bonaparte's was quiet. Irene and Trudy had accompanied the last two customers out. As soon as Jack had finished sweeping up on the second floor, he left with the black-bearded man who had wanted to remove his contacts in the ladies' restroom.

Valentine was alone. He fixed himself a strong drink, his first of the night, and sat at the bar with it. A few cars drove past outside, their tires loudly crunching the layer of fresh snow that had fallen earlier. Valentine smoked two cigarettes and forced himself to think not of Billy Golacinsky or Trudy or Boots or Hougan or Searcy or even of Clarisse but rather of the two offers to go home that he had turned down earlier. His refusals had been polite but automatic, and he wondered now why he had been so hasty.

After rinsing his glass, he threw his jacket over his arm and checked the entire place to make sure that the lights were out. He left only the bulb in the foyer on, and after securing the heavy iron front door and setting the alarm system, he turned his steps homeward.

The temperature had dropped considerably, but there was mercifully no wind. Valentine zipped his jacket to the throat and made fists in his pockets as he rounded the corner onto Cedar Street. He was relieved to be out of sight of the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge, which looked like a concrete-and-neon mausoleum.

Just before he reached a small brick townhouse where he had once accompanied someone home, a fist slammed squarely into his back, and Valentine's breath forsook him in one groaning blast. His feet slipped on the snow as he reeled forward, and his arms flew up. He fell sideways onto the concrete, and his head
thunk
ed solidly against the curbing. He doubled up from intense pain and the instinctive fear of being kicked in the head.

Strong bare hands seized his shoulders and he was dragged across the sidewalk. Cinders and ice tore open the side of his face.

Valentine struggled to turn himself over, but the toe of a man's boot bashed hard into the small of his back. He groaned again and his legs shot out. The strong hands slipped under his arms. The dark silent street flashed by as he was roughly lifted and then slammed down again on his stomach. His knees hit a sharp stone and he realized that he was being shoved into a darkened recess between two brick buildings.

He struggled to get to one side, but a knee was jammed between his shoulder blades, and then a tiny circle of cold steel was pressed against his neck. Hot breath and the nauseating smell of half-digested bourbon welled up against Valentine's cheek.

“Listen you bastard…” a slurred guttural voice hissed in his ear.

A car rounded the corner a few dozen yards down and headlights fanned across the buildings just above them. Valentine was suddenly released.

The same voice, already retreating, growled, “Don't turn around…” Then Valentine heard heavy footsteps through the snow.

The car turned again at the next corner. Bay Village was quiet again.

Valentine slowly and painfully laid himself prone, more for the comfort of the snow against the burning cuts on his face than for any protection he thought the position afforded. He feared that his attacker lay in wait in another doorway, his gun cocked and aimed.

Valentine crawled around the stoop of the house nearest him, in the direction opposite from the way his assailant had fled. Once on the other side, he sat up and pushed himself into the corner, his back pressing against a newly planted holly shrub.

The clear clanging of a church bell signaled the hour. Valentine realized abruptly that he was in considerable pain, his stomach and his back aching very badly. He pulled his knees up and rested his head between them. He sat still a minute more, then vomited. Afterward, he leaned against the stoop with closed eyes, taking in long deep breaths, and stayed until the cold air had cleared his head.

Valentine struggled to his feet and, staying close to the brick walls and always in the darkest shadows, made his way down Fayette Street.

Once inside his apartment he bolted the door, slipped off his jacket and collapsed on his back on the sofa. He groaned miserably with volume that he hadn't allowed himself in the open air. Without turning on any lights he pulled the phone across the floor by its cord and dialed quickly. It rang six times before Clarisse answered. “This better be good,” she said in a garbled thick voice.

“It's great,” said Valentine.

“What's wrong?” She recognized his voice, and the tone of it alarmed her.

“Listen,” he said, his breath heaving suddenly, “is your place locked? Make sure it's locked—”

“What is it, Val?” she demanded, with more urgency. “Are you hurt?”

“Make sure everything's locked, and put Veronica Lake in the living room.”

“What happened?”

“Searcy's on the prowl. We ran into each other on Fayette Street.”

“What happened?” she repeated, with apparent misgiving.

“He put a fist in my ribs, and a knee in my back, and a gun up against the side of my head. He was overly dramatic.”

“Val, I'm coming right over. Hang up so I can call a taxi.”

“Stay there! That's why I called. He's prowling around and he's out of his mind.”

“Are you bleeding or anything? Did you call the doctor? Call Richard—Richard would give anything to come over and see you in the middle of the night.”

“The way I look now, Clarisse, I think even Richard would be turned off. No, I'm not going to call a doctor.” He touched his cheek and the thick lines of crusting blood there. The palms of his hands were raw, but the skin had broken in only a few places.

“Well, if you're not going to call the doctor, then call the police.”

“No, I can't. I didn't see him, I only heard his voice. I also smelled him, same cheap bourbon. Just put Veronica Lake in the living room and don't take anything that'll make you sleep soundly. I'll be all right and I'll be over in the morning. But tonight, whatever you do, don't leave the building. Don't come over, because tonight I'm not letting
anybody
in.”

“OK,” said Clarisse, after a moment's hesitation.

“Got to go and lick my wounds clean. Good-night.”

Clarisse eased the receiver back into the cradle and set the phone back on the floor by the bed. She threw back the covers and reached for her robe, which was keeping warm on a chair next to the radiator. She roused Veronica Lake by pushing the dog off her bed.

“Come on, girl. Tonight you're earning your keep.”

Veronica Lake, expecting to go out, followed Clarisse into the dark living room. Pale light from the nearest streetlamp made two small squares of light across the floor. The window nearest the kitchen was cracked a couple of inches.

Veronica Lake became very excited as Clarisse checked the locks on the door.

“No,” commanded Clarisse sternly, and much disappointed, Veronica Lake collapsed in front of the cold fireplace and immediately fell asleep.

Clarisse cautiously approached the window, and standing to one side in the shadows, she scanned the street. A single car was stopped at a light a couple of blocks down on Beacon. Nothing moved along the length of the block or around the lighted stoop beneath her window.

She was tempted to call Valentine again, but decided not to. Her eyes had accustomed to the darkness of the room; she crossed to the kitchen, filled the teakettle with water, and placed it over a high gas flame. She dumped several spoonfuls of cocoa into a mug.

She waited in the darkest corner of the kitchen, far away from the windows. She started when the branch of a dying elm scraped across one of the windows, but then she relaxed the more for its having been a false alarm.

She drank her cocoa in silence, sitting cross-legged on the floor, stroking Veronica Lake.

The scraping came again, fainter this time; but when Clarisse glanced at the window, she saw that it was not the elm. Once more, still more distinctly. She stood and moved quietly to the window.

Nothing moved in the street, but the sound continued. Abruptly the light from the entranceway winked out—someone had been unscrewing the bulb there. He was hidden by the small projecting roof of the building's stoop.

Clarisse stared downward and gasped when she saw a flash of dark sleeve and white hand from beneath the stone awning.

She drew back more. She heard a doorknob turned and turned again, and then a careful thud as weight was pressed against the door downstairs.

Clarisse rushed into the kitchen. The water in the kettle was still steaming. She shakily poured the water into a large saucepan, splashing some of it over the length of the counter.

She carried the pan of water to the living room window and rested it on the sill. Then she pushed the window up forcefully, with as loud a scrape as was possible.

Veronica Lake snapped her head up and growled. Clarisse held her breath and waited. A man backed out from underneath the entranceway and onto the front steps.

Clarisse seized the pan and dumped all the water out the window, directly toward the pale, unrecognizable face that gazed up at her.

A hand flashed up defensively, and the face was withdrawn. The scalding water splashed on the hand, and there was a short animal-like scream.

Veronica Lake snarled and barked. Clarisse dropped the pan on the floor. She thrust herself halfway out the window, gripping the sill tightly. Footsteps scraped down the stoop and a man fled up Beacon Street. He was quickly lost in the shadows.

Her eyes were wide and bright and she did not feel the bitter wind through her thick black hair and down the front of her open robe. Veronica Lake sat with her chin on the windowsill and barked; the sound echoed across the wide dark street.

Saturday, 6 January

“M
Y SOCIAL LIFE is wrecked for the next two weeks,” moaned Valentine, his first lament upon reaching Clarisse's apartment on Saturday morning.

“Your social life's fine,” said Clarisse, “but your sex life may suffer, unless you can find someone who's into physical disfigurement.” She brought him a mug of coffee from the kitchen. Valentine didn't try to sit up, but held it against his chest.

“How do you feel?” she asked, sitting at the other end of the couch and lifting his feet to rest them in her lap. She still wore her robe.

“Like I spent the night in the trunk of somebody's Volkswagen.” He stretched a muscle in his side to see if it was painful; it was. “I wonder if you burned Searcy badly enough for him to see a doctor.”

“I wish it had been boiling oil. You can't imagine how virtuous I felt, trying to scald a man to death.” She rested her head back against the sofa. “Val, why don't we quit fooling around and just wend our merry way over to police headquarters and tell them everything we know?”

“Cops don't like to hear nasty things about other cops. And we don't really have any proof. I didn't see the man who hit me last night, and you don't have anything but a moral certainty that it was Searcy that was trying to break into this building. All we know for sure is that he plays not very interesting little games with Mr. and Ms. Leatherette. Speaking of whom, I talked to Jack last night and he remembered seeing Hougan in Bonaparte's before. He goes upstairs and meets a doctor from Peter Bent Brigham Hospital that Jack knows.”

“So—Searcy's word against ours.”

Valentine nodded.

“I have an alternative plan,” said Clarisse.

“What?”

“We'll both get dressed up, and pretend we're taking a leisurely stroll over toward District One station, but just before we get there, we'll run across the street to the Eastern Airlines office and buy two tickets to the Canary Islands. And then we'll go. To the Canary Islands. You like it?”

Valentine took a sip of his coffee. “I'd love to, but we can't run away from this. Did you see what Scarpetti said in
today's
paper?”

“Oh God! What?”

“He said that if something isn't done soon to repress the gay community, ‘our children will be caught in the cross fire of a Homosexual Tong War.'”

“The man has a way with words.”

“He also said that a known homosexual had confessed to the murder.”

“Oh!” shrieked Clarisse. “Anybody we know?”

“He made it up,” said Valentine. “Nobody confessed.”

“Oh.”

Valentine looked closely at Clarisse. “I want you to call someone.”

“Who?”