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and it slipped from my hand. Fell on the floor and broke into
six pieces.” He laughed. I laughed. He has charmed this diocese into bewildered submission for twenty-two years. “ That’s how old my sermons are.”
He got up and walked to the French doors that overlook the
cathedral and the Scissorhands circus out there. I was befuddled. Concelebrate—with Saturday night’s topless receipts under my vestments. I ’ll knock the chalice over, sure as anything.
And they’ll all know I ’m a sinner.
“ What’s Nebraska like?” he asked.
“ It’s like a long, enforced meditation,” I said. He laughed.
“ You’re a bright kid,” Plunk said. “ Mac knew what he was
doing. Must be culture shock t’come back here. Why not talk
about that? And the drought, we hear about the drought a lot.
Whatever you want, naturally. But the Nebraska, New York thing
might be interesting.”
Oh, yes. I ’d been thinking about that. Uh-huh. Just what I
need now—to write a sermon. Keep the old rhetorical sinews in
shape.
“ It’s a date then?” I nodded. “ I ’ll drop Bishop Watts a note
t’say you’re not chain snatching or smoking crack back here.”
He shook my hand. “ Just stop by that big office down the hall—
give Gus Manning your phone and address so he can put it in
the sacred computer.”
And I thanked him. And—in a total daze (I’d gotten away
with it!)—in a total daze I walked down the hall. In a total daze
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I came to the office door. REV. AUGUSTUS MANNING, the
sign said.
And in a total daze I saw that Augustus Manning was—is—
The Man in the Floppy Hat.
He didn’t see me. He was in profile, bent over a computer
keyboard. I backed out like a disembodied spirit—pure ectoplasm. And ran until I got halfway across the cathedral grounds.
From Jamaica I called in my (Ethel’s) phone number and address—using a fake midwestem accent. Manning didn’t seem to make any connection. I ’m safe for now. But, if he sees me, if
he goes to St. Lebbeus’s on the 24th, say . . . I ’m dead meat.
Or maybe not. My mind is whirling. It cuts both ways after
all. Manning can’t want the Bishop to know he’s a topless bar
devotee. I ’ve got him, he’s got me. But, most of all, I remember
what Jako told me—how Manning dropped that shot of vodka
on Lazarus’s open wound. Good God, what kind of man is this?
I may be a pander and a satyr, but I don’t torture cats. This is a
sick man.
Sick . . . Judge not that ye be not judged.
My time is running out. Mike Wilson is a common name,
but Manning or someone will make the connection before long.
This is my last chance. I could quit tomorrow, and yet I ’m—
That was Bert. He lost his set of keys. Gnnnnnnnnng . . .
Gotta get back to my new vocation.
6 a.m.
My God.
Colavecchia and Daniels came in tonight. While I was playing chess with Joe. And I thought, Uh-oh, this is it, they’ve found Tony. My brother is dead. Their attitude toward me had
changed, I was no longer just a useful civilian—I was something
else.
But it had nothing to do with Tony or Rita.
They think Bubbles was MURDERED. She didn’t die of a
narcotic overdose. They found strychnine in her system.
W ho, who would com m it such a heinous crim e? My God,
can it be? One of those damn Brazilian girls . . . OK, truth
is, Bubbles was a bit pushy-cute. She could get on your
nerves . . . but enough for murder? And hideous m urder,
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too. That last excruciating convulsion, where she bit my
mouth, that was brought on by the poison.
Remember when Bubbles threw beer in Linese’s face?
The cops grilled me about Pearl’s party. You might’ve thought
we’d never met before. Who had access to the women’s locker
room? Well, of course, everyone had access. The place was
bedlam that night. Anybody could’ve slipped in. So we settled
for cataloguing women—dancers and bar girls. (And I could
only remember 9 of the onstage women—gotta check my records and call tomorrow.) But then I asked—smart ass me—who says the poison was given to Bubbles in The Car? Someone in
Brooklyn, where she lived, might’ve had access to her bag. And
Daniels said,
“ You had access to her bag.’’
“ Me?” —I ’m a suspect. I suppose it’s just a formality, but
now I ’m a murder suspect. Great. “ I guess,” I said.
“ You guess? That’s what you told narcotics.”
“ I had access to her bag—as much as anyone.”
“ More than some.” I got peevish then.
“ Should I use my one phone call and retain a lawyei?”
“ Mike,” said Joe. “ They’re doing their job. They watch old
Dragnet re-runs, they can’t help themselves. No one thinks you
killed her—if she was killed. It could be an accident, it could
be suicide—”
“ You know I was super-fond of Bubbles. Everyone was—she
was like our mascot here.”
“ But, in fact,” said Daniels, “ in fact you were having a
sexual relationship with her.”
“ In fact, I wasn’t. I ’ve run into this rumor over and over.
And I guess nothing I say will correct it. I never went t’bed with
her. I never even made-out with her, ’ ’
“ Bubbles,” said Joe, “ had a terrific crush on Mike. We all
knew it. She wanted people t’think Mike and her were getting
it on. Listen, for that matter, I had access to her stuff. Bubbles
left her bag around everywhere.”
“ Stop acting like Mike’s lawyer, Joe,” said Colavecchia. “ He
can answer for himself.”
“ Fuckyou, Cola.”
“ Fuck you, Joe.”
Which interchange, thank Joe, gave me time to regroup. Daniels then said, “ Can you think of anyone who might’ve had a motive?”
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“ No. No one.”
“ You mean this topless dancer was perfect? Nobody had a
hard-on for her?”
“ No one that I know of. Maybe her good spirits were a little
forced, a little irritating. But you ask Jako, our custodian, he’s
been crying ever since Monday. ’ ’
‘ ‘Did you know she was pregnant? ’ ’
“ Yes.”
“ W ho’s the father?”
“ She gave me the impression it was done—so t ’speak—by
committee. ’ ’
“ Gave you the impression—”
“ All right. She told me there were several candidates. She
didn’t give nam es.”
“ You weren’t one of them ?”
“ Joe,” I said, “ aren’t they supposed t ’read me my rights or
something? I mean, would you tell them I ’ve only been in New
York three weeks. When Bubbles conceived I was 2,000 miles
away in Nebraska.”
“ We’re just jealous,” Colavecchia said. “ We’d like your job.
Daniels is the only cunt I get t ’woik with. But you can be sure
we’ll stop by t ’question you a whole lo t.”
“ W ell,” I said, “ a
t least one good thing. At least you know
Tony didn’t do it.”
“ Do we?” said Daniels. “ Do we really? That’s interesting.”
I showed them around after that. Men’s room, women’s room,
kitchen, etc. It was a slow night and the presence of two homicide men did not lend it a finer aspect. Word soon got out—
policial— and one of my Brazilian girls, Aleesha, panicked. (She
thought they were from Immigration.) Aleesha simply walked
out onto Northern Boulevard in her bra and G-string. I found
her hiding around the comer, where the side entrance to Big
M arty’s, the dead dry cleaning place, is, surrounded by ten-
year-old boys who were quite impressed by her proportions.
Aleesha wouldn’t come in. Finally I went back to pick up her
clothing and duffle bag. I felt sorry for her—it isn’t Aleesha’s
fault she was bom in that giant modi closet, Brazil.
Well, Bubbles has gotten my attention at last—that muscular
waif, that sexy clown. There was a dangerous energy around
her—and she was a lightning rod for it. “ I ’m accident prone,”
she once told me, ‘ ‘but never prone by accident. ’ ’ Bright and
lost. She said a lot of amusing things that took me by surprise.
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I shoulda treated her better. But that’s me—even when I ’m being
“ moral,” I hurt people.
I can’t get Manning out of my mind—that image of him pouring vodka on Lazarus. Of course, I can’t even remember if Manning was around on Pearl’s birthday. But my suspicion is
nothing more than my fear projected. I ’m afraid of Manning—
and I want him (a priest) to be more corrupt than I am. The
more corrupt he is, the smaller the threat he is to my cover.
But, after all, why should it surprise anyone—I mean, that
there is a murderer amongst us? The Car exists in a twilight
land—just on the thinnest edge of human civility. A border
crossing. People come and go from here to their depravity. And
in the crossing and recrossing Bubbles got snuffed out.
Maybe they’re right—maybe I did do it. I dream terrible
things.
I ’m going to hide this journal from now on.
Bert sat on a barstool and broke it. But he is the only one
among us presumed innocent.
Lord God, I am steeped in my sinfiilness. I can’t remember
when last my heart was comfortable. I have no assurance in me
now.
Lord God, I ’m afraid to consider You—because now You are
the God of judgment to me, not the God of grace and forgiveness. I ’m in a dusky place and unrepentant. I ’m stepping over.
Protect me. Teach me.
Yes.
My prayers are too glib, I know it.
FRIDAY, JULY 15
Afternoon
Eight-line item about Bubbles in the Post: my name—praise
Him—not mentioned. Pearl, on the other hand, is miffed. The
article said only, “ an employee’s birthday party.” Ah, the vicissitudes of N.Y. celebrity.
In fact, Pearl has been, shall we say, unforthcoming with me
of late. I get quizzical, even hostile glances from her. These I
attribute to Pearl’s own sense of guilt. I just KNOW she couldn’t
resist telling the cops that Bubbles was seminude in my apart-
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ment. Some sense of decency kept her from blowing the whistle
about my vocation—but, if the right moment arrives, Pearl will
barter my soul for a paragraph on Page Six. Ethel, of course,
would squeeze Pearl’s head as though it were a loofah. And that
may keep her quiet.
Rita and Bubbles—and Tony. Everyone except Ethel (and me)
seems to think there is some connection. But how could that be?
Rita and Tony were intimate—Bubbles hardly knew him. The
methods of execution have been totally different. The first was
angry, male, physical—strangulation. It required great strength.
The second was clever, female, secretive. An ambush, not a
confrontation.
Yet Daniels wouldn’t exempt Tony from consideration. What
are we supposed to think? That Tony murdered Rita, went into
hiding, then emerged on Monday—to enter The Car, disguised
maybe as a drunken teamster, and slip strychnine into Bubbles’s
orange juice?
Uh-huh.
Moreover, unless Daniels thinks Tony is a psychopathic serial
killer, there was no motive. Well, for killing Rita, maybe. Maybe
Rita had something on Tony. Maybe Rita was going to tell Ethel.
There are reasons, I suppose. But none of those reasons would
apply to Bubbles as well. (Unless Bubbles knew something about
Rita’s murder—No, Mike. Your wheels are spinning. That
doesn’t make sense. Start again.)
What do these murders—and Tony’s disappearance—have in
common? They hurt The Car. Girls won’t dance for us if they’re
afraid of being poisoned. Tony made The Car numero uno on
Northern Boulevard. So who profits? Linese and his shareholders profit if Tony is out of the picture.
And Bubbles, Connie tells me, used to dance for Linese at
Rabies.
Furthermore (this I also learned from Connie), Linese has a
piece of Spotlight—which is the first or second largest topless-
dancer agency in New York. It operates out of one seedy office—
couch and telephone—on 22nd Street near Sixth Avenue. But,
Connie says, appearances deceive. Like everything else in this
business.
Figure each girl gets an average nut of $70 per night (not
counting tips). Ten percent ($7) of that nut goes to Spotlight.
Doesn’t sound like much. But figure. Spotlight provides dancers
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for 80 bars (out of 300 or so)—in New York, Westchester, especially Jersey. (In Jersey girls make a bigger nut, AND they dance with their tops on—you figure it.) So . . . do the math.
$7 per girl, times 50 girls a week, times 80 bars, times 52 weeks
a year—calculator. About $1,456,000. Not counting stag parties
and strip-a-grams. Good money. All of which is well deserved
by anyone who deals with topless screwballs 365 days a year.
We, however, are the equivalent of a non-union house. Our
women are scabs, so to say—and good-looking ones at that. If
Linese were to take over The Car—well, not only would he get
rid of competition on the boulevard, but Spotlight would take
our bookings. Which are worth about $20,000 a year in commissions. And salaries would be driven down from Queens Plaza to Flushing.
It makes sense.
But so, I have to admit, does the drug angle. I remember,
that night when Chinga and Changa went berserk, how Leonard
grabbed Roxanne brutally by the pubic hair. He has rage enough
to strangle a woman. And now it comes to me what Nancy
Cortez meant: Rita had a sexual relationship with Leonard, but
“ that was another kind of thing.” Maybe a sexual relationship
based on drug dependency. It makes sense. So Leonard is supplying drugs to Rita and Bubbles, and maybe they fall behind in their dues and so Leonard . . .
But what about Tony? Was he involved in the cocaine traffic,
too? Jesus, Mike, don’t go b
lind, deaf and dumb on me—what’s
the answer? Could Leonard turn The Car into a junkie’s Quik-Stop
without Tbny’s knowledge? Be serious, /knew Leonard was dealing after two weeks. But maybe Leonard didn’t start dealing until Ibny disappeared. Is that why my brother was made to vanish?
No matter what the circumstances, no matter who the killer—
Leonard, Linese, the Gaucho, Freddy, Joe Solomon, Lars-Erik,
some TV set hijacker, ME—my brother and benefactor, my
surrogate father, Tony is dead. I can’t keep lying to myself. And
I realize—no matter how cool or callous he may have made
himself—at the moment of extinction Tony must’ve been terrified. Did he die angry, bitter, full of ripened evil, unrepentant?
Yes—most likely he did. I know now that my brother had enemies. That people, in turn, were frightened of him. That something illegal was probably going on. And that my brother, my big brother, was a desperate man.
God damn.
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* * *
There’s another motive, one I avoid thinking about, though
it’s ubiquitous here: the sex thing, I mean. Leonard was having
some kind of affair with Rita. And then Tony seduced her.
(Maybe she seduced him.) Sex makes men ugly. I see it in Daniels’s eye—he envies me my position at The Car. He has made it hard on me because of that. The truth is: sex can never be
underestimated. I heard one girl say to another this afternoon,
“ Well, I ’m only attracted to him physically. ” Only? Only? Only
the primal chemistry driving an entire genus of apes along.
Like Norm Hohol said night before last. (Norm is a strange,
decadent little man.) There was this foxy chick on stage: not
curvaceous, not big-breasted, but deer-like, awkward and shy
in a purposeful way, like she could be a prep school cheerleader.
Janice. Actually I think she’s 24. But Janice wears loafers and a
plaid skirt with a big safety pin. Very effective. In fact, the
sexiest outfits are those which most nearly approximate normal
underclothing. Feathers and G-strings with little neon lights in
them (there are such things) may be cute, but they say, This Is
An Act. I ’m Wearing A Costume. With Janice you feel like a
15-year-old peeping Tom.
So Norm is sitting next to me at the bar when, all at once, he
breaks into a lyrical reverie. “ Lookit those breasts,” he says.
