Dead on Your Feet

by Grant Michaels

  “Sometimes it’s best to yield to emotions as they happen.”

  “I don’t think I could survive it,” he said with a jocular laugh.

  Whatever his doctor had prescribed was certainly effective. Far from the weepy hysteria and accusatory outbursts of yesterday morning, Marshall Zander today was as carefree as a vacationer returning from an island paradise. Either that, or perhaps this man had no feelings to confront, or surrender to, or survive.

  He asked me, “Are you here to see Rafik?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m trying to find out more about Max’s death.”

  He narrowed his eyes momentarily, then blinked twice as if to expel a mote of worry that even his drugs couldn’t block.

  “Are you working for the police, then?” he said with a small vague laugh.

  “Not for, not against,” I said. “In addition to.”

  “I see,” he said with an approving nod. “Good luck then. Sorry I can’t talk any longer—board of directors meeting—kind of an emergency. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

  “I’m sure we will,” I said.

  Marshall Zander was about to leave me, but then he added, “By the way, about yesterday … ?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m afraid I behaved badly toward you and said some things I didn’t mean.”

  “It happens sometimes in extreme situations.”

  “Still, I didn’t mean to implicate Rafik. He is devoted you.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I don’t really believe he’s involved with Antonia. You know who I mean?”

  I nodded.

  He said. “It was probably just panic and confusion.”

  I nodded again.

  “I mean, I didn’t actually see them doing anything, though they did look guilty when I arrived. Then again, I probably imagined everything.”

  “Except for Max’s body,” I said, hoping to break through Marshall Zander’s drug-induced vacuity. I wanted to challenge him, to make him face the death of his friend instead of running from it. Aren’t there moments in life when grief should be met head-on and not avoided? Yet we invent fantastic psychic machinery to protect ourselves from such horrors as finding a person we claim to love laid open and bled to death.

  Marshall Zander shuddered. Then I saw on his face a sorrow that no narcotic short of a sledgehammer could suppress. I guess I’d succeeded in putting him in touch with his feelings, for whatever good it did either of us.

  Just then Scott Molloy came into the lobby. He’d put on extra-tight blue jeans and an oversized shirt of brushed cotton twill unbuttoned down the front to show the top part of his leotard, still wet with the exertions of Rafik’s rehearsal. The snug denim covering his legs and haunches, and the loose cotton shirt around his torso tended to reproportion his boyish physique. Now he looked like a young man, a very desirable young man. Seeing Scott, Marshall Zander quickly recovered his composure.

  “There’s someone I’d watch out for,” he said with a mistrustful look toward Scott.

  “He’s a nice dancer,” I replied flatly, hoping my feigned lack of interest might encourage him to elaborate on his comment. It worked.

  “Scott would never admit he was in love with Max,” he said. “And it was so obvious to both Max and myself that it often amused us—for very different reasons, obviously.”

  “Meaning?” I ventured.

  Marshall Zander smiled a melancholy little smile. “Max was heterosexual. I am not. And Scott is entangled in his own precarious and moralistic doubts. It’s too bad when people do that. It creates trouble for everyone around them.”

  I felt myself redden with embarrassment. Marshall Zander’s words reminded me of my own appalling insecurities, and his simple insight made me wonder if there was more to him than the bumbling nebbish.

  “I’ve got that meeting,” he said abruptly. And he was off.

  Again I stood as though stuck in mud, watching Marshall Zander depart in one direction and Scott Molloy in the other. I seized the moment and followed the young dancer’s tightly clad buttocks out into the early-afternoon sunlight.

  8

  Dancing for Daddy

  I CAUGHT UP WITH SCOTT MOLLOY and walked alongside him.

  “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” I asked.

  “I don’t drink coffee,” he said with a scowl that looked alien on his creamy-skinned young face.

  I sensed his pace quicken.

  “Tea, then,” I offered. “Milk, punch, whiskey, whatever.”

  He stopped abruptly and faced me.

  “What do you want from me?” he said.

  My eyes drank up the sight of his compact muscular body, enhanced by the snug jeans and the loose-fitting shirt. Once again I couldn’t help noticing how basically similar were our body types, though we hardly matched in any specific measurement. Did Rafik perceive that essential likeness as well?

  “You knew Max Harkey,” I said after a few seconds.

  “So did a lot of people.”

  “But I’m trying to help.”

  He sneered. “Help who? Why don’t you mind your own business?”

  I felt no urge to correct his grammar, having abandoned my mission to teach the proper use of case to the huddled muddled masses. What intrigued me was the young dancer’s portrayal of the world’s first angry man. I presumed that his hostility, like most, was driven by fear. But fear of what? Me? Gay men in general? Or was it something deeper? Fear of discovery? If I was going to get him to talk to me, I’d have to show more empathy.

  “I watched you in rehearsal,” I said. “I really admire your dancing.”

  He narrowed his eyes in a tough, defensive squint. “I don’t need your opinions about my dancing.”

  “But I mean it,” I continued. “Whether or not you like me, I like the way you move.”

  That seemed to disarm him a bit.

  “And so does Rafik,” I added, even though he’d never said it.

  “Really?” replied Scott Molloy.

  “Isn’t it obvious? You’re featured in his new work.”

  I could see that my words were creating hairline fractures in his resistance to me. The mean squint was already relaxing, a sure sign that he wanted to be receptive, that despite his antagonism he wanted to hear me talk about him.

  He said, “Rafik never tells me what he thinks.”

  “That’s his way,” I replied. “But he respects you a lot. And I ought to know.” The unctuous lies felt like drool on my lips, and I had the urge to wipe my mouth.

  Then, as though confessing something, Scott Molloy admitted quietly, “Rafik is hard to work for.”

  I concurred with a warm and understanding look. “Nothing less than perfection for him.”

  Scott attempted a small smile. “It must be really hard for you, too.” Then as if to clarify, he added awkwardly, “I mean, being with him and all …” His voice trailed off.

  “He is a constant challenge,” I said. This time I wasn’t lying.

  Scott said, “Are you still offering that coffee?” His cool detachment failed to conceal his eagerness to hear any other accolades I might bestow—or else invent.

  “Sure,” I said, trying to hide my small sense of victory at winning him over for the time being.

  We strolled to an outdoor café around the corner from the studios and took a table under a big colorful umbrella. You’d think with the arrival of warm weather we Boston natives would be eager to sit in the sun, but Scott and I, both being fair-skinned, opted for the protective shade. I ordered a double espresso and Scott took steamed milk flavored with almond syrup.

  “When did you start dancing?” I asked, further pursuing his trust by asking about his career. Dancers, like most performers, love to talk about their favorite subject—themselves.

  Scott Molloy tried another self-effacing smile and failed again, but he deserved an A for effort. Then he looked outward, as though into the far distance, and began the story of “How I Became a Dancer.”
/>   “I was twelve,” he said. “But my life was already a mess. My father was gone. My mother worked two jobs. I was pretty independent, but I had a lot of time to kill and I didn’t mix with the other kids.” He glanced across the table at me with sincere eyes. “I had a girlfriend though,” he added. “She used to take ballet lessons and one day she invited me to go along with her, so I did. And that’s when everything changed.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I know this sounds weird, but I knew from the second I went into that ballet school that I wanted to spend all my time there. My girlfriend’s teacher must have seen it too, because she told me right off that I could take lessons for free, ‘on the house,’ she said. I was back there the next day.”

  “And the rest is history,” I added.

  Our beverages arrived and Scott went on.

  “The ballet studio was like another home, a place where I could play make-believe and do beautiful things and not be called a sissy for it.” He feigned another innocent smile. “And I could hang around with girls too.”

  “Not to mention what the training did for your body.”

  His smile grew to an open grin. “It did turn out pretty well, didn’t it?” he said, finally brandishing his immodesty outright. “Funny thing is,” he went on, “I discovered a lot of the girls were tough, not soft, the way I thought dancers would be. And then I liked them even more.”

  And what fabulous role models for a closet case!

  I’d heard similar accounts of a dancer’s beginnings from friends of mine. Of all the artistic disciplines, dance seems to attract the highest number of social outcasts. Maybe it’s the group aspect of dance class that appeals to those sensitive lonely souls. Dance is usually learned with other people around, which creates a kind of community, a surrogate family that continues to function in spite of a tragedy in its midst. Father died yesterday; rehearsal today at noon.

  “So you’re happy,” I said, not quite sure what I meant.

  Scott answered, “I guess so. I wouldn’t mind having more exposure, bigger roles. Max kept me pretty limited.” He paused, then said, “I guess I shouldn’t talk that way about him.”

  “Death doesn’t make anyone better or worse than they were alive,” said Pontifical Stanley.

  “At least I have that big part in Rafik’s ballet, and that’s a sure thing now.” He paused again, and this time his face flushed with color. He took a deep breath and recollected himself. “Well,” he said, “it sure beats selling ties at Filene’s.” He chuckled. “I never did that though. Dancing is all I’ve ever done. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to stop.”

  For all its human interest, Scott Molloy’s autobiography sounded like a prearranged script, a sad story that he’d dreamed up long ago to be recited on suitable occasions. And it was also a socially acceptable shield to hide behind. But I had the feeling that Scott Molloy was using that shield as a decoy to distract me while he subtly turned the tables so that he could study me. For all his sincere efforts at direct eye contact, I found his glance always darting about me, as though he was taking a geological survey of my body’s terrain. Here I had intended to find out about him, and instead I found myself feeling scrutinized. Self-consciously I rotated my cup on the tabletop using my thumbs and middle fingers. Scott Molloy proved my suspicions by analyzing the gesture and then mimicking it exactly, as though he was in rehearsal practicing how to be me.

  I asked him directly, “Who do you think killed Max Harkey?”

  The young dancer bristled. “Is that what this is about? Not me or my dancing, but Max?”

  I nodded. “I told you that right off.”

  He made a sour face. “Max Harkey forevermore,” he said.

  “Maybe you feel more for him than you’re admitting.”

  Scott laughed—guffawed—at my remark.

  “If you want the faggot, go after Marshall Zander. He’s the one who chased Max around the world all his life. I wasn’t even born when they met.”

  “That doesn’t preclude you from the chase.”

  He gave his mug of steamed milk a sudden and violent shove and spilled some onto the tabletop. He wiped it up with his napkin, then said, “I know how I feel about Max Harkey, or any other man. I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m gay, but you shouldn’t believe everything people tell you.”

  “Including you?”

  “Look, I don’t know who killed Max, but if you’re looking for motives, maybe you ought to talk to Alissa.”

  “Isn’t she your partner?”

  He grimaced. “She’s my partner all right, but onstage only. She saved the rest for Max.”

  With my questioning eyes I encouraged him to continue.

  He smiled cynically. “She was his mistress. Don’t tell me you didn’t know. She snared him as soon as she arrived here, the golden-haired nymphet from Southern California.”

  “You sound like a jilted suitor.”

  Scott Molloy thrust his jaw forward. “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but some men really prefer women.”

  I ignored his taunt and pressed him further.

  “Do you think Alissa was involved with the killing?”

  At first Scott appeared to shrug my question off, as if he wanted to do the right thing and not implicate Alissa Kortland. But his urge to acquit himself won out. He leaned forward in his chair and put his forearms up on the edge of the cafe table. He spoke in a whisper, like a secret sharer.

  “Alissa is a devouring bitch. She takes all her strength from the people around her.”

  That condemnation didn’t exactly fit the young woman Scott Molloy had giggled and flirted with the night of Max Harkey’s dinner.

  He went on. “When we’re working together she pulls all the energy out of me. She makes it hard to dance. Sometimes I think being straight means being attracted to someone like Alissa, and then being used up and dropped.”

  It was odd to hear him tallying his sexual drives with cool logic.

  He continued, “Sometimes I wonder if straight men should have sex with other men, just to keep their masculinity.” He lingered on the word and relished it. “I mean,” he said, “every time I have sex with a woman, I feel like I identify with her a little bit. I wonder what she’s experiencing with me, what it’s like to have a man inside you. And as long as that happens there’ll always be a part of me that’s exactly like the woman I’m with. But with a man it would always be one hundred percent male.”

  The young dancer’s words recalled my own obsessive concern with Rafik’s bisexuality. Then again, Scott Molloy’s perverse theory appealed to the part of me that has always been more intrigued with why people do things rather than what they actually do.

  “You sound unsure of yourself,” I offered.

  “Oh, I’m sure,” he said quickly. “It’s women for me all the way. I just think about it sometimes, what it might be like with a man.”

  My place in the realm of sexuality was obviously with male-male connections, and I found myself relieved that whatever sexual frustration I might have endured before meeting Rafik, at least I had never cowered behind a facade of heterosexuality while wondering about the alternatives. But recent rejection had turned Scott Molloy against the woman he claims to have wanted. It hadn’t been enough for him to base their relationship on complementary ballet techniques and body lines. He’d had to prove himself by possessing her sexually, and he’d failed. I wondered how much of his anger was strictly the result of losing Alissa Kortland to Max Harkey and how much might have come from his blindness, purposeful or not, to his own suppressed urges.

  “And the pisser is,” he continued, “the only reason Alissa seduced Max in the first place was for her career. I know she hated him.”

  Terms from my old Freudian primer flew through my mind: repression, projection, transference.

  I checked my wristwatch. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “You’ve been really helpful.”

  “Don’t you want to hear any more?” he as
ked, as crestfallen as if his shrink had announced that the time was up.

  “I’d love to, but I have to get back to work.”

  It was the second time that morning I’d told him the truth. Fortified with caffeine, sugar, and prospective leads, I got up from the table and headed back to Snips.

  As I set out I realized I was only a few blocks away from Station D, police headquarters. I recalled that Lieutenant Branco had wanted to talk to me, and though he’d asked me to call first, I decided to drop in unannounced.

  Branco’s police home used to be a smaller station deep in the South End. But that granite structure, small and perfect, became one of the city’s crown jewels of gentrification. It had been so lovingly and authentically renovated that it was promptly named a historic landmark and appropriated for police administration only. That way it could retain its new cleanness. There’d be no more criminals with their dirt and their bugs traversing the hallowed halls of old Station E.

  At headquarters luck was with me, or so I thought. Branco was not only there but free. I pushed against the heavy oak door with the frosted-glass panel that bore his name. His office was small and compulsively neat. He greeted me with a question.

  “Things all right at home?”

  “So far,” I answered.

  “That’s good. Sit down. Coffee?”

  Though the recent espresso doppio was already sending gigavolts of energy through my nervous system and causing the kind of high-tension cerebral activity that distorts even a great artist’s eye-to-hand coordination—the kind of hyperenergy that can turn a client’s request for a “light shaping” into a total restyle the likes of which are rarely seen outside a prison camp—despite that kind of rush, I could hardly refuse Branco’s atypical hospitality.

  “Sure,” I said. Then, hoping to buffer my stomach from the onslaught of another dose of caffeine, I asked, “Do you have cream?”

  “You’ll have to take it straight,” said the cop as he filled a paper cup with brown sludge and handed it to me. No delicately roasted and cautiously brewed Arabica for that guy. This stuff had come from a supermarket can and had cooked and reduced for at least an hour on the hot plate.