I asked her, “Any regrets, doll?”
Ineffable as ever, Sugar replied, “Wowr.”
“I agree,” I said, and went to shower.
When I stopped by Snips I was surprised to find that Nicole hadn’t arrived yet. Ramon told me that she’d called earlier to say she’d be in late. I grabbed the chance to do some more legwork on the Max Harkey case, and what better place to do it than the Boston City Ballet?
I arrived there just in time to watch the end of company class, the grand allegro that included the biggest jumps and the aerial tours. Madame Rubinskaya was teaching this morning, marshaling the dancers with a voice that rode high on the wild storm of piano music. From the open door of the studio came the warm moist air of a ballet class well in progress. At the far end of the studio ranks of ballerinas dragged their tired bodies into position, prepared themselves grimly, and then called upon unnatural energies to send their beings aloft, suddenly leaping and spinning like airborne furies. Row upon row of women executed and repeated the intricate combination, the enchaînement, while the music surged louder and stronger from the piano, cramming the air with intense sound as if to saturate and replenish the poor dancing creatures with sonic energy. On and on it went, until one final crashing chord declared an unquestioned completion of the exercise.
All was silent.
Then Madame Rubinskaya spoke with a practiced stage whisper, uttering a single word, a single syllable.
“Men.”
The first quartet of male dancers silently took their places at the back of the studio and set themselves into preparatory positions. Among them was Scott Molloy in all his youthful, plump-muscled glory.
“Eeeeeeee!” screeched Madame Rubinskaya, and the piano responded with renewed vigor, with sonorous chords and driving rhythms even further beyond the torrents of sound it had produced for the women, as though the measures of music were now being expanded and filled to reflect the blunt potency of masculine strength. And accordingly the men launched themselves upward and lingered midair to execute their movements as if in slow motion, in brazen denial of gravity. Their sculpted, finely honed muscles defied such mundane limits as the earth’s downward pull. And when their flight was spent, they descended from the heights without surrender, still arrogantly buoyant, eschewing a pedestrian thump for the feathery whisper of a leather slipper settling softly onto a wooden floor. Ballet, like other wonders of the world, seemed to define itself by contradicting nature. Yet watching these men and their feats of derring-do, I couldn’t help wondering about the source of their machismo, the fierce energy that propelled them into the air, especially since I’d seen some of them in tulle skirts and en pointe.
Just about the time my attention was beginning to flag from the unceasing visual and aural stimulation, the men finished their grueling work. Then the entire company quickly arranged itself on the vast studio floor for the révérence, which is the traditional show of formal respect and gratitude to the teacher, the musician, and the art itself. Coming at the end of class, when the body’s adrenaline and confidence are surging, the révérence was probably devised by some clever Russian ballet master to keep his dancers humble. It forces them to subvert that rush of power into the calmest, simplest movements. Times have changed though, and many dancers use the révérence to improvise extravagant curtain calls, some of which will never be taken on the stage.
After the final chords had faded, and the dancers’ poses were placidly fixed, Madame Rubinskaya spoke humbly, as if addressing her own Muse.
“Tank you, ” she said.
Those two words caused an ovation from the dancers. The modest smile on Madame Rubinskaya’s face proved that she still enjoyed the sound of applause.
The class dispersed and eventually Scott Molloy came out of the studio. I stepped up to him and said hello.
“What do you what?” he said brusquely.
“Just a few minutes with you.”
“What now?”
“I want to ask you about Max Harkey.”
“I thought we already did that.”
I smiled an obsequious smile. “That was round one.”
He said, “I don’t have time today.” He looked around the lobby nervously, as though he expected to see someone there, someone he really didn’t want to see. Once again I was struck by the young dancer’s complexion—the lack of any lines or pores—and by his slim hips. How could everything be so firmly defined? He began to walk away.
I said, “What was the last thing you said to Max Harkey?”
Scott Molloy turned back toward me, thought a moment, then said with a sardonic grin, “I said good night.”
“Was that at the dinner party, or did you see him again that night?” He narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
I pressed him. “I keep hearing that you were in love with Max.”
“From who?”
“Quite a few people. Marshall Zander, Alissa Kortland, even Rafik.”
“Especially Alissa,” he said with an angry little snort. “She’d enjoy saying something like that.”
“Is it true?” I said.
Our eyes connected long enough for me to sense that behind the façade of Scott Molloy’s angry young man dwelt an extremely hurt and lonely little boy. Keeping my gaze directly focused into his eyes, I repeated my question with all the sympathetic fervor I could muster.
“Were you in love with Max?”
Something shifted in his face. Perhaps because I had asked the question so directly with so much applied warmth and concern, or perhaps because a gay man was asking it, or perhaps because Scott Molloy’s defenses were down after the rigors of ballet class, or perhaps because this young man’s moment of truth had finally arrived and I happened to be the catalyst for the event. Whatever the cause, I sensed that he wanted to open his heart at last, to break through the oppressive bonds of his past, to disclose the news of his truest self.
He said quietly, “Let’s talk somewhere else.”
He led me down a corridor and through a door that opened onto a stairwell. We ascended two flights of stairs to a door that led outside, onto the roof of the building. The sun was bright and the sky was clear. With all the old rooftops of the South End in view, we could have been in Europe. I half expected some kind of garden cafe up there, but there was nothing except the huge pebbled asphalt roof and numerous skylights. Scott was quite sweaty from ballet class, so we sat in the sun on the warm pebbles with our backs propped against one of the skylights.
He began, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” and then he paused.
I encouraged him. “Sometimes it helps to tell someone, especially someone who doesn’t know you well. Like me.”
“I guess,” he said uncertainly. “But I don’t know how to begin.”
“Just say the things that want to be said. You know what they are.”
He looked at me with those little-boy eyes.
“I wanted Max Harkey to be my father.”
I nodded as if I understood and accepted his statement, though I wasn’t sure if he meant father-and-son or daddy-and-boy.
“But I wanted more, too,” he added, then looked away.
“Go on,” I said. “Just talk. It’s all right.”
“I wanted him to love me back. I wanted to be his favorite dancer. I wanted him to choose me first of all the other men.” Again he turned his eyes on me. “Isn’t that disgusting? It sounds so weak when I hear myself say it.”
“Not at all,” I said. “We all want unconditional love and acceptance. It’s a human need. Don’t be ashamed of it.” After all, didn’t most organized religion exploit that very need?
Scott continued, “But it was in everything I did, everything I said and pretended to want. I did it all to please Max.”
“That’s part of love. It’s okay,” said the unauthorized expert on such matters.
“But he didn’t notice me. He only wanted women. So I began dating women too. But even that was just to please Max,
to make him accept me.”
“Did it work?”
He shook his head. “But I didn’t know what else to do. So I tried to give up on him, but it was all an act. No matter what I told myself, in my heart I still loved him. Then Max finally did something that really pissed me off. It changed everything.”
Another long pause.
“Well?” I said.
“He chose another dancer, an obviously gay guy, for a big role that I should’ve got. I was perfect for the part, and instead this raging queen got it. And all that time I thought Max hated gay men. I was pretending to be straight, all for him, and it didn’t even matter.”
“So how did that change everything?”
Scott hesitated. “One day I went to see him at home to tell him finally how I felt about him. I told him everything, that I loved him, and then I asked him if he felt anything for me.”
“And?”
“He laughed at me.”
All became quiet around us. A slight breeze played with Scott Molloy’s fine blond hair. Strands of it fluttered like golden threads in the bright sun. Max Harkey must have been genuinely straight, for how else could he have refused the proffered love and beauty of this dancer, who possessed all the natural grace and strength of a young palomino stallion?
“What happened after that, Scott?”
“I made a big scene. I was screaming at him, blaming him for making me pretend to be straight when it didn’t make any difference to him. It was all for nothing.”
“Worse, it may have worked against you,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes people can accept others more easily when they’re honest about themselves, rather than hiding who they really are.”
“I think you’re wrong. Most people hate the truth.”
“Well, somebody always will,” I said with a shrug.
He went on, “That’s what happened with Max. After I told him. everything, confessed to him, the next thing I knew the whole company was gossiping about how I was in love with him. First they talked behind my back, then right to my face.”
I recalled Alissa Kortland’s version of the same story, how Scott had confronted Max in front of the ballet company, not in private as he was telling me now.
I said, “It’s too bad Max handled it that way. Telling the company, I mean.”
“I guess I got what I deserved,” he replied with vexation.
“That’s not true, Scott. You had a dream of love, but it was one that could never materialize, at least with Max. The only mistake you made was to deny your own needs and try to become someone else to win him over. But the important thing is that you didn’t run away in shame. You stayed with the company.”
“I had no choice.”
“You did have a choice, and you did the brave thing.”
He laughed cynically. “I’m not brave. In fact, if this is what it’s going to be like,” he said, “I don’t want to be gay. At least with women there’s no punishment or shame. You don’t have to hide anything. You can do what you want in public.”
“And live a private lie,” I said. “Is that why you’re dating Alissa now?”
His young face tightened suddenly, then he admitted, “If I couldn’t have the great Max Harkey, I could at least get his mistress.”
I thought of myself and Rafik, how I was willing to accept the crumbs of his love by washing the hair of his girlfriend.
Scott added, “Max had already dumped her anyway.”
“And so you swooped in to save her.”
“You make it sound bad.”
“No. Just desperate. Like me, in fact.”
“But you have Rafik.”
“That’s a saga in itself,” I replied.
“I know,” he said.
“You do?”
His little-boy eyes were suddenly back in action again.
“Don’t you know how much Rafik loves you?” he asked.
“Scott, so many people have been saying ‘Rafik loves Stan’ to me lately that it’s beginning to sound like a household phrase. I guess my version of the story is a little different.”
“Then you’re in for a big surprise,” he said, modulating his voice to give the cliché the weight of an irrefutable maxim.
I checked my watch. It was almost noontime.
“I’ve got to get to work.” I gave him one of my business cards. “If you want to talk some more about this, call me. For some people coming out is the most difficult milestone they face. Just don’t settle for the easy way, Scott, unless that’s what you really want.”
He pursed his lips, then drew them back into a smile.
“You know, I didn’t like you at first,” he said. “But I guess you’re all right, maybe even kind of nice.”
“More persistent than nice,” I replied. I had, after all, got him to confide in me while I’d given little of my own self. My early shrink’s training still came in handy.
We got up and went back inside the building. When we descended the stairs and re-entered the lobby outside the Grand Studio, I noticed a small group of police officers waiting in there. I also saw Alissa Kortland talking with them. She turned toward us, and after a moment’s recognition gave a startled look.
“There he is!” she yelled to the police, and pointed at us.
Scott Molloy and I froze in our tracks. The police ran toward us and grabbed both of us, wrenching our arms behind our backs and shoving us up against the wall. In spite of my panic, I was hoping that Scott wasn’t seeing this encounter with the cops as yet another punitive experience for a gay man.
“Which one of you is Scott Molloy?” said one officer.
Scott identified himself and was rewarded by having his arm pushed harder up toward his shoulders. The officer who was restraining me released me immediately. No apology. I watched the cops haul Scott away while Alissa followed them. Her face had a look of victory. The only thing I heard Scott say was, “I didn’t lay a finger on her.”
It was then that I finally realized that even though I had no idea about who had done what to whom—or why—during any of the events surrounding Max Harkey’s death, I had already become too involved with the case and its attendant personalities to quit now. Anything half-done is not done at all. There was nothing to do but see this thing through to the end.
I was just leaving the ballet studios, heading toward the main door, when I was intercepted by Marshall Zander. He looked tired and his voice sounded weary and disillusioned. Apparently his tranquilizers were losing their effect.
“The police act in the most illogical way. Instead of finding Max’s killer, they arrest a young dancer on charges of assault and battery of a young woman.”
“Is that what happened?”
“According to Alissa,” he said. “Apparently she and Scott had a big fight this morning and Scott threatened her.”
“He seems incapable of violence like that.”
“You can never tell,” said Marshall Zander. “By the way,” he added, “did you enjoy your lunch with Rico?” He punctuated his question with a sluggish wink, a failed attempt at camaraderie. Rico had assured me that Marshall would never find out about our extravagant room-service meal, yet he obviously had.
“It was very pleasant,” I said. “Thank you for your generous hospitality.”
“It doesn’t cost me a thing. I own the hotel and everything in it, except of course Rico.” He raised his voice when he added, “He was yours for the taking.”
I scanned the lobby to see if anyone had heard him, especially if Rafik might be nearby. The coast was clear.
Then he continued speaking more discreetly. “Your friend Rafik will be receiving some good news regarding Max’s will.”
“You’ve seen the will, then?”
“I’m Max’s executor,” he replied.
“Then you must know what happened to his diary.”
“If there was one, it would be with the rest of his belongings.”
“It wasn’t,” I said.
“Maybe the police have it.”
“They never found one.”
“Then perhaps there never was a diary.”
“Rico said there was.”
“Rico fabricates,” he said quickly. Then he chuckled and added, “I should think you would know about that.”
I ignored his taunt. “Can I ask you one more thing?”
“By all means,” he said agreeably. “I’ll help you any way I can.”
“Do people who support big arts organizations always spend so much time on the premises?”
“You sound suspicious of me. I’m sorry you feel that way, because as I’ve said before, I do like you. As for your question, I can give you an honest, direct answer. Some benefactors like to write a big check and have done with it. Then they show up for the gala events and opening nights. But I prefer to be actively engaged, to see where my money is going. Besides, I love ballet. I love everything about it—the rehearsals, the classes, the dancers, the choreographers. It’s my only passion.”
“I can understand that. And I apologize for sounding suspicious. I guess I suspect everyone at this point.”
“That’s to your credit as the unofficial investigator in this case. Anyone who knew Max probably, at one time or another, wished him gone forever. I know I certainly did.”
“You did?” I said, failing to conceal my astonishment.
“My dear boy,” he said with a loud chortle. “I may have felt that way, but I would never act on such an impulse.”
“Then the question remains,” I said. “Who would?”
Marshall Zander forced a smile. “I’m sure you’ll find the answer and put this horrible matter to rest. Just remember that I’m always available for any help you might need.”
“Thanks,” I said as I tried to suppress a slight shudder.
Dead on Your Feet Page 19
