by D Keith Mano
And I needed a grace period. I pulled out half my mustache
in fidgets of anxiety. I wanted Kay, but I resented her moral
superiority. I wanted Berry, but reason told me that no permanent relationship could thrive there. I was apprehensive about Sunday—Plunk would not be pleased. Most of all, I was pissed
at God. My resignation (inevitable as it might be) was part spite.
If I can’t have what I want (the life of a promiscuous male), then
(capital Y) You (God) can’t have me either. Amen.
And—I know it was partly self-dramatization—I began to take
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blame for the murders. Suppose some avatar of myself, some
extemalization of my lust and anger, was stalking The Car. Such
things are not unheard of. A priest in a topless bar—those are
deadly extremes of the spirit. Even if I hadn’t literally put my
fingers around Tanya’s neck, perhaps I had set a demonic notion
free on Northern Boulevard.
I was trapped in The Car from noon to four a.m. (We got a
summons for blocking sidewalk traffic.) Jane Healy of National
Enquirer sent a note asking me out for lunch. I declined. I
wondered how much money Tanya would’ve made working the
crowd: it was, after all, another tribute to her drawing power.
We couldn’t chill beer fast enough. Lazarus, in disgust, absconded for two days. He was sick of getting stepped on.
Willow didn’t help (yes, I had invited her back). During her
9 p.m. set, Willow began to stagger, then wobble, then gag.
Then she collapsed. There was absolute silence—silence heard
over the music. The two other dancers panicked. I fought my
way forward and—“ Hi, there’’—up popped Willow, big joke.
I yelled at her. And, during her ten p.m. set, Willow staggered backward, hand to heart, as if she’d been shot. When she took the hand away, red liquid—from a theatrical blood bag—
ran down into her navel.
At about midnight (TT) Joe Solomon led me aside. I had just
spoken with Ethel—Kay and she had gone to see Cats. Kay was
jet-lagged and would spend time with me tomorrow morning. I
was optimistic. Ethel seemed upbeat. So what Joe said took me
off guard. He said:
“ Let’s go outside t’the backyard. In case there’s a trial we
shouldn’t be seen together.’’
“ In case there’s a trial?” I said, outside, sitting on an old
soda cooler.
“ I ’m your entire defense,” he said. “ We don’t want the jury
thinking there’s collusion between us. So I ’m gonna come less
often t’The Car. I wanted you t ’know—I ’m not avoiding you.
I ’m doing it for your sake. ”
“ Thanks. Everyone thinks I did it. Pearl thinks I did it.”
I know he wanted to say “ Did you?” But Joe held back.
Instead he said, “ I know you’re a priest.”
“ Pearl told you?”
“ Not really. I ’ve been around a while. Tony mentioned his
brother the seminarian. ’ ’
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“ So. I ’m a priest. Does that .raise your opinion of me? Or
lower it?”
“ Well. It makes me think that you’ve been under terrific pressure—”
“ I ’m not celibate. Episcopal priests aren’t Catholic priests.”
“ Sure. But there’s still a certain amount of repression.”
“ Joe. Joe. Don’t go Freudian on me. Please. It’s beneath you.
If you think I did it, tell me. ”
“ I don’t think you did it. I ’ll say that in court.”
“ Thank you. I mean that. And I didn’t do it.”
“ Let me go in first, so no one thinks we’ve been together.”
At 3 a.m. I jumped into the Lincoln, which Bert had revved
up for me on a side street. Three media cars tried to follow, but
they were over-scrupulous about the law. I lost them by running
six red lights in a row on Northern Boulevard at about 60 mph.
It’s in the genes. When I reached Queens Plaza, I made a
U-turn and headed back to LaGuardia along 35th Avenue. By
chance I turned left at 103rd Street—which put me a half-block
behind Rabies.
There, parked in front of a hydrant, stood a red Cadillac.
Linese sat at the wheel. He wasn’t alone. He was talking to Joe
Solomon.
SATURDAY, JULY 23
Amy Wilson, age 5, greeted me at the door—nude. When it
came to feminine blandishments I was getting no relief whatsoever. I averted my eyes and said,
“ Hadn’t you better get dressed, Amy? It’s almost 10 a.m .”
“ Mommy said you liked women with no clothes on.”
“ Did she now?” Ethel appeared then and gave Amy a nice
twist of the ear.
“ I was joking—like Roseanne Barr, to whom I can relate. I
didn’t think Amy would strip for you.”
“ I ’ll give her a Saturday night booking.”
“ Not my child.”
“ I wish you’d been a little more protective of your brother-
in-law. Of m e.”
“ Whaddya mean? I hoofed all over New York with Kay yesterday.” Ethel lowered her voice. “ She’s in the pool. And she’s
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got some body on her. You have a good eye—and, believe me,
a good eye is required with that one. The way she dresses, so
ultra secretarial, you’d need a Mars probe t’see if she has tits at
all.”
“ Kay is reserved. She can be . . . strict. She isn’t a pragmatist like you or me—”
“ She’s perfect for you. You need a bit of a ball and chain.”
“ On Sunday—if the world hasn’t zeroed in on me before
then—I ’m resigning from the priesthood.”
“ Shit.”
“ I don’t hold you responsible, Ethel. Probably what I did,
running The Car, was at least more dramatic, classier than, say,
having a lukewarm affair with some lonely housewife in Nebraska. Which I would’ve had, I ’m sure, somewhere down the line. At least I just hurt myself this way. I won’t be compromising an entire congregation. ’ ’
“ Mike. Anything I have, you know, money, whatever—it’s
yours. You—” it seemed she got shy “ —you could stay here. If
that apartment’s too dull. I was thinking anyhow maybe t’build
another room out over the porch. For you. ’ ’
“ I ’m fine.”
“ I just want you t’know you’re welcome. Those kids think
of you as their father.”
“ They’re good kids,” I said. “ How is, ah, Kay’s mood?”
“ She’s coming around. Listen, she loves you, she’ll forgive
you. But just lay off Berry from here on in .”
“ I ’m finished with Berry.”
“ She ain’t finished with you, but . . . Go ahead, go on out
t’the pool. Kay’s waiting.”
And, of course, Mr. Tact, I went and did the wrong thing
right off. Instant trauma. Kay was standing poolside, back to
me, head down, toweling off—in a black one-piece suit that was
certainly scandalous in, oh, 1918.1 came up, all sincere like we
were taught in seminary, and touched her ever so gently on the
shoulder.
Kay, however, stood bolt upright, saw me, covered her body,
SCREAMED and dove into
the pool, towel and all.
Glub.
She came up, snot in her nostrils, nearsighted without corrective lenses, and yelled,
“ You bastard.”
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“ That,” I said, “ was a rather extreme reaction.”
“ You were looking at me, you were judging my body.”
“ Kay, you’re wearing a nun’s bathing suit. Where did you get
it, from Frederick’s of the Vatican? I couldn’t see anything. ”
“ Don’t get cute and easy with m e.” Kay had come to the
side near where I was kneeling down. She was clothed by water.
“ I ’m not competing with those low-lifes who dance for you. I
won’t compete on their grounds.”
“ You compete just fine—”
“ No, I don’t.” Time to switch the tone.
“ I hear you and Ethel had a nice time in New York. ”
“ Oh, yes—Ethel is peachy, she’s afraid of losing her meal
ticket.”
“ Tty t’be kind. The kids are great, aren’t they? She can’t be
all bad—that’s what I tell myself. With kids like that.”
“ You know what I saw in New York?”
“ What?”
“ A woman hit by a car. A lot of men with sores on their legs.
TRANSVESTITES. Two cab drivers fighting—”
“ I thought Cats was a musical—”
“ Ha-ha. And when I saw all that, I thought, He lives here.
He was bom here. He’s comfortable with all this misery. Who
are you, Mike?”
“ Why don’t you climb out of the pool and talk?”
“ Who are you, Mike?” she said again. And I, well, I like a
dashing gesture (though I did take my wallet out first)—what I
did was splash, clothes and shoes on, into the pool, beside Kay.
And put an arm around her: figuring all that wet inconvenience
deserved an embrace. But I was wrong—Kay detached my arm
from her shoulder with an athletic shrug. My left shoe came off
and sank.
“ Who am I?” I asked. “ I ’m a guy with very good intentions.
And bad judgment, I guess. I guess there’s a lot of anger inside
me. And lust, of course. And I guess I ’m insecure. Otherwise I
wouldn’t be fucking up the best part of my life because I feel
unworthy of it. I don’t like myself. And I ’m playing hard-to-get
with God. When I should be running to Him.” She stared at
me. “ Jesus, Kay—give me a break. I don’t know who I am.
This last month has turned me inside-out.” She still stared.
“ Say something.”
“ You’ve hurt me terribly,” she said.
And then Kay kicked off, back-stroking across the pool. I put
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my head down on the blue tile edge. When I looked up Ethel
was standing above me. She was nude under her housedress, I
saw that.
“ Hm m ,” said Ethel. “ I have some clothes of Tony’s you can
put on. ’ ’
They fit me perfectly.
Meanwhile, The Car was turning into an upscale disco with
nudity. The sort of place you went slumming in. Mercedes and
Cadillacs pulled up outside. We were getting—a sure sign of
acceptance—well-dressed fem ale customers. People started ordering liqueurs I ’d never heard of. We took out the ravioli buffet and fit in two extra tables. Between Thursday and Saturday I
sold more than half a month’s liquor supply. I went to three
dancers a shift every day. Little Norm said to me, “ Linese is
thinking of having someone killed at Rabies—just so he can
com pete.”
Mike Wilson was the cynosure of all thrill-hungry eyes. A
middle-aged woman, well-preserved by science and very drunk,
said, with her hand on my shoulder, ‘‘You can come home and
kill me any tim e.” Not tonight. And the watcher of watchers
was Pearl—we were not getting along well. I resented her suspicion. Pearl, apparently, thought I ’d garrote her with my shoelaces some night. And there were moments when I wanted to.
Colavecchia and Daniels and Cribbs came by—just to remind
me that I was, oh, one tongue slip away from a Riker’s Island
holding pen. I tried not to take it personally: I knew they were
embarrassed by the case. But they certainly were unpleasant.
“ Making a big profit, huh?” said Daniels. “ Isn’t an ill-wind
that doesn’t blow some good. Nice new suit you got.”
“ It’s not new. It’s my brother’s. Why don’t you find him?”
“ We don’t think he wants t’be found,” said Cribbs.
“ The Gaucho’s back in tow n,” said Colavecchia. “ How
d ’you feel about that?”
“ I don’t know—I ’ve only met the man two or three times.
Why don’t you question him?”
“ We’re trying, believe m e,” said Daniels. “ How d ’you feel
about lesbians, Mike?”
“Tout a son gout, ” I said.
“ That means everyone to his taste,” said Cribbs. Daniels
was not mollified.
“ Don’t leave tow n,” he said.
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* * *
Around 1 a.m ., on that last night of my priesthood, a dancer
named Didi yanked me toward the kitchen. I didn’t know her
well—pretty, short, from Commack, Long Island, wanted to
own a limousine service. A Jewish American Princess in exile.
But now Didi was agitated: her oviducts had really gotten in an
uproar.
“ Mike,” she said, “ I can’t go up.”
“ Why not?”
“ My boyfriend just came in. He’s by the cigarette machine.
Oh, God, if Raul sees me. Oh, God. He doesn’t know I do
topless.” By the cigarette machine was a Sylvester Stallone,
with tattoos that said DEATH and POLLUTE. “ Shit, shit, he’s
coming this way. What do I do?”
What Didi did was wave to Raul. The best defense is a good
offense. For her—not for me. “ Raul,” she said, “ Raul. Hi, over
here.” Raul, who had the distracted look of those-who-are-
about-to-urinate, probably wouldn’t have noticed Didi, if
she’d’ve shut up. Instead he went absolutely red. His nostrils
opened. His fists clenched. He elbowed through six people as
if they were nothing more than low cloud cover.
“ What’re you doing here?” he said.
“ Same as you are, sightseeing. I want you t’meet Mike, he
owns The Car. I met him this morning while I was shopping
t’buy a vibro-massage for your mother—and he said, you know,
come see the joint, since, you know, it’s so notorious these days.
So I thought I ’d peek in. ’ ’
Didi had pulled it off. She had managed to distract Raul from
her to ME. (Luckily for Didi, she had a black sheath dress on—
not a G-string and a net bra or something.) Raul looked at me.
Then he looked at his fist. His fist flexed itself like a pedigreed
animal. Then Raul simply lifted me by the chest hair and draped
me back over the bar. It was what you might call a powerful
sensation.
“ You hitting on my chick?” he asked.
“ No,” I said. My arms were pinned under me and I had no
footing. He was obscenely strong.
&nb
sp; “ You don’t invite no lady to this pusball joint. Never. This
pusball joint is for hookers and sluts. Right?”
“ Oh, so right.” He hoicked me up higher by my hair.
“ You apologize t’this lady and say you never wanna see her
again.”
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“ Would you let go—”
“ Say.”
“ I apologize, Didi, it was wrong of me t’ask you here. And,
let’s not meet again.” Raul let me down, agh, slowly. Then he
took Didi by the arm and jerked her toward the door. But she
forgot her purse, and came back. As Didi passed me, me with
both palms on my aching, hand-depilated chest, she said, “ Do
I still have a Thursday booking?” They’re another species, I
thought, dancers. They’re wired for a different kind of current.
And so, on that last night of my priesthood, I went into our
kitchen and pressed my chest against the refrigerator. The incident had been so quick and trivial—I mean, compared to the deaths of Rita and Tanya and Bubbles—and yet it was so painful,
so humiliating, that tears of frustration, just two of them, condensed under my eyes. I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted to be in power. I wanted to knock some dick loose, as Tony used
to say.
Instead I took Tony’s jacket off. It was too warm against my
sore chest. I put on a light cardigan sweater, one that I kept in
the kitchen for when our A/C got too strong.
And found a small sack of cocaine in the pocket.
I threw it from the rooftop before I hurdled (yaagh!) across
that five-story-tall airshaft on my way home. (There were still
three or four photographers staking out my apartment. TOP
LESS MURDERER GOES TO BED.) I might’ve stayed away
another night, but Tony’s clothes had begun to make me feel
eerie. Jako, for one, was totally spooked by my outfit. ‘ ‘Don’t
come no nearah,” he said. “ Some of you’s dead and some of
you’s alive—and I don’t keer which is which. ”
I tiptoed down from the fifth floor to the second and spotted
Kay on the landing there. She was sitting cross-legged outside
my door, reading Howard’s End in the dim light. She wore blue
jeans and sneakers. Her hair was down, contact lenses in. I had
the visual drop on her (she expected me to come from below)
and, for a moment, I took advantage of that. I watched Kay
