The bedroom had seen the same blind malice. My photographs had been taken from the frames and torn into pieces, then scattered on the floor. The phone had been thrown against the wall. That explained the busy signal. The news drawing of Nathan had been cracked and propped, with a macabre and brutal humor, at the head of the bed, as though to identify Nathan as the corpse.
SEVEN
I don’t know how long I stood there, leaning against the door jamb, my breath coming in little jerks. Part of me wanted to go to Nathan, dead as I knew he was, and touch him, my touch miraculously bringing the pinkness of life back to the gray skin. Another part of me wanted to turn around, walk out of the apartment, and start over. Maybe this time when I turned the knob I’d find everything in place, cheerfully messy. Or maybe Nathan would be sitting on his ugly vinyl couch giving a statement to a stolid but helpful member of the Burglary Squad. It’s not fair that you can open a door, and in those ten seconds your whole life turns upside down. It’s not fair.
Finally, I turned away and, clutching the wall for support, made my way back to the living room. My knees were so shaky I was afraid I’d fall on the slippery papers. So I made for the green plush chair, only to find when I got there that cans of soup had been opened and dumped into the seat. It looked like vomit.
My stomach lurched, and I raced to the bathroom, sliding on the way and nearly falling. I barely made it. I was on my knees, in a cold sweat, hugging the blue toilet and throwing up my Cozzoli sandwich. It felt like the worst morning after of my life. I hung over the bowl, panting, coughing, retching, trying to pour into the toilet bowl all the ugliness I had seen.
Finally I hauled myself up, threw cold water on my face and rinsed out my mouth, then looked around for a towel. I found one buried under The New York Times crossword puzzle shower curtain, which had been pulled down and left crumpled in the tub. Still shaking, I lifted the towel to my face, then threw it away with a scream. There was blood on it.
I had to get out of there. That was the only thing I could think about. I took a deep breath and strode through the debris with my eyes fixed straight ahead, like a self-conscious bridesmaid walking up the aisle. I stumbled a few times, but I kept going. Getting out, shutting the door behind me, those were my only thoughts.
When I’d done that, when I stood in the hallway breathing in its institutional calmness, it was with some annoyance that I realized getting out was not the whole story. The police had to be called. I would have to see the man at the sign-in desk. I panicked at the thought. How could I find words for what I had just seen?
My knees still wobbly, still holding onto the walls, I made my way to the elevator and pushed the down button. When the door opened, I saw a young woman with a toddler and a laundry basket. She smiled at me, then saw something in my face and shrank into the corner of the elevator, pulling her little boy with her. She must have been relieved to see me get off at the lobby.
I went straight to the sign-in desk. The attendant put down his paperback book and looked at me with annoyance.
“Whatcha want, lady?”
I opened my mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Hey, lady, what’s the problem? I ain’t got all day.”
“Nathan,” I began, and then the enormity of it hit me. Nathan dead. My dear, good Nathan, lying up there naked and dead. I began to cry, noisily and violently. I reached for my purse and a Kleenex, only to remember that I’d left it upstairs in the bathroom of the apartment. In my near-hysterical state, this seemed as tragic as Nathan’s murder. I cried even harder, wiping my nose with my shaking hand.
Something in my voice got through to the attendant. He guided me to a little office, sat me down, and provided me with a box of Kleenex.
When I could talk, I told him as calmly as I could what had happened, and then waited while he called the police.
When he finished the call, the desk attendant gave me an apologetic look and said, “I gotta go back outside, lady. It’s the rules. You gonna be okay in here?” I nodded and he left.
I was grateful for the solitude. Relieved. I took a couple of deep yoga breaths to steady myself, then got up and began to pace. The room was about the size of a prison cell; it took me four paces to go from one wall to the other. I must have logged a good five miles before the cops arrived.
Finally the door opened, and a black plainclothes detective came in. It was easy to see he was a cop. The bulge under one arm where the gun went. The old man comfort shoes. The eyes that had seen it all. He extended his hand. It was small and neat and brown, like an animal’s paw. “I’m Detective Button,” he said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
He sat in the other chair. It felt a lot like being in the Criminal Court interview booths. Only this time I wouldn’t be the one asking the questions.
Button took out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. When I declined, he put them back in his pocket without taking one himself. “Gave it up,” he explained. “I just carry them for witnesses.”
And prisoners, I added mentally. It’s standard cop tactic—offer a guy a smoke and win his confidence. It’s especially effective if you’re the good guy in a Mutt and Jeff routine. I tensed up in spite of myself. Now I really felt like a defendant.
He started with the easy stuff. Routine. Name, address, phone number. He wrote them in his memo book. My lawyer’s mind flashed ahead to a future trial—how many cops had I cross-examined on their memo books? Somehow that made it even more real. “How did you know the deceased?”
“His name,” I answered, between clenched teeth, “was Nathan Wasserstein.”
“Yes,” Button replied blandly, “that’s what the desk attendant said.”
I explained that we’d worked together, that he hadn’t come in to work, and that when I found out he’d missed an appointment, I came over to see what was wrong. We went through it piece by piece. It rapidly became clear that Nathan and I were more than just office friends, that Nathan hadn’t called in at work, that the phone had been off the hook.
“So you came over, unlocked the door with your key, and found his body,” Button summarized. It was a neat trick. I’ve pulled it myself in court. You lead the witness along by weaving an assumption into something he’s already testified to. With luck, he agrees with your whole statement, thus conceding something he hadn’t admitted before.
But I’ve been around the block myself. “No, Detective, I didn’t use a key to get in. I didn’t have one.”
Button raised his eyebrows. “The de—Mr. Wasserstein didn’t give you a key to his apartment?”
“No, he didn’t.” I was keeping my temper with difficulty.
“Then how did you get in?”
“I followed someone with a key into the front door, and the door to the apartment was open.”
“Did that surprise you?”
“Of course it did!” I exploded. “Nobody in New York keeps their apartment door unlocked.”
“If you thought the door was locked,” Button said insinuatingly, his little sharp teeth showing in a predatory grin, “why did you try it?”
“I don’t know.” It was the best I could do. “I rang the bell; there was no answer, but there’d been a busy signal on the phone. If he was home, he might have left the door unlocked. Or maybe I just hated to come for nothing, to leave without trying everything. I just don’t know,” I repeated.
“Okay.” Button nodded decisively. “Now, about your friend’s social life. Did you know of any lovers—other than yourself?”
“No,” I answered. “But it wouldn’t have mattered. We weren’t seeing each other exclusively. It would have been okay with me if Nathan took out other women.”
The predatory smile was back. “But what about other men?” he asked softly.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Button said harshly, “that we got a guy upstairs tied to the bed in what the sex manuals call a D and B position—do you know what that means,
Miss Jameson?”
“I live in the Village, Detective. I’ve heard the term. But it has nothing to do with Nathan! Just because some nut tied him up doesn’t mean—”
“Let me finish, please. Not only was your boyfriend tied up, naked, but we found a few souvenirs in one of the night tables.” Button opened the door and bent down, picking up a stack of magazines. He tossed them into my lap, saying, “Go ahead, look them over. They’ve been dusted for prints.”
The nightmare deepened. The magazines were graphic. Some were slicks. Macho. Stud. Glossy color pictures of young men wearing nothing but leather and erections. Some were pulps. Muddy black-and-white photos on cheap paper. Articles like “Chained and Chastised.” “Boys in Reform School.” I would have thrown up again, if I’d had anything left to vomit.
“This—this is crazy,” I whispered. “Nathan would never have looked at this filth.”
“You never saw it before?”
“Of course not! It wasn’t there!”
“Oh, you’ve looked in every one of your boyfriend’s drawers, Miss Jameson? In every closet?”
“No. But I didn’t have to. Nathan wasn’t gay and he—he hated pornography. Said it was inhuman, exploitative, obscene.”
“You discussed pornography?”
“A bunch of guys at the office wanted to go to the porno movie house on Court Street,” I explained. “They asked Nathan to go with them. He went off on this absolute tirade about porno degrading both the people who make it and the people who see it. He turned some people off. They said he was being moralistic. But that’s how strongly he felt about it.”
“This wouldn’t be the first time a guy has said one thing and done another,” Button said. “Besides, that movie house only shows girlie stuff. Maybe he felt differently if boys were involved.”
“Why are you doing this!” I cried, nearly in tears. “Can’t you see I’m upset? My friend is dead, and you’re calling him dirty names.”
There wasn’t an ounce of sympathy in Button’s face or voice. “The dead man may have been your lover, Miss Jameson, but it looks to me like he was somebody else’s too. And that somebody else killed him. I want that guy, and I want the truth from you. Did you know your boyfriend was AC-DC?”
“He wasn’t!” I screamed. “He wasn’t!”
“Okay,” he rapped out. “You didn’t know. Do you know if he hung out at any special bars or if he had any particular male friends?”
I shook my head, too angry to talk. “What about his clients?” Button barked. I shook my head again. At that moment, I think I hated Button even more than I hated Nathan’s killer.
“Look, Miss Jameson.” Button’s voice went back to being soothing. “I know this is hard on you. But it looks very much like your friend picked up the wrong guy this time. All I want is some cooperation in catching that guy. If you think of anything later, any little thing that could help, just let me know.” He handed me a card with his name and phone number on it, then stood up.
“If you’d like me to drive you home—” he began.
The last thing in the world I wanted was to be alone in a police car with Button. The second last thing I wanted was to go home. Face it, the cheerful colors, the instant furniture, the political posters were fun when you were in a good mood, but it was no place to go for comfort.
“No,” I shook my head, “I’ll stay with a friend in the neighborhood.”
When I looked up, Button was staring at me. A steady, sad gaze. The pity in his eyes hurt more than all the nasty things he’d said about Nathan.
EIGHT
A young cop in uniform brought me my purse and tote bag. I thanked him and meant it; I’d have left them there rather than go back up to Nathan’s apartment. He also warned me to leave right away. They were bringing the body downstairs in a green bag, and he didn’t think I’d want to see it. He was right.
I headed straight for the Promenade. Ordinarily its panoramic view of Lower Manhattan gave me a thrill, but now I had only one thought—getting to Dorinda’s apartment.
I followed the Promenade to its end, then up an incline to Columbia Heights. There was a steep hill. I walked down it slowly, my semi-good boots too high-heeled to permit easy navigation. I could see Dorinda’s building, once a whorehouse for local sailors, but I didn’t dare look up in case there was no light in the window.
Dorinda Blalock’s been my friend since our freshman year in college. We went to Kent State before it became a headline. She split in our junior year to go live in the East Village with an experimental filmmaker, the first of a series of men she’s followed to various artsy locales. Now she’s on her own, living under the Brooklyn Bridge and cooking for a natural food restaurant in the Heights. Dorinda’s a pretty good cook, if you can forget you’re eating soybeans instead of steak.
When I reached the bottom of the hill, I looked up and sighed with relief. There was a light. I called Dorinda’s name in a voice ragged with tears and damp cold. She looked out, waved, and tossed me the key. The buzzer system in that building hasn’t worked since they took the red light off the front door.
I let myself in and ran up the three flights to Dorinda’s floor. The corridors are long; not every space in the huge building is developed. I stood, breathless, before the door. At my knock, she came, smiling, filling the doorway with her five foot ten inch farm girl’s frame. Her thick braids were wound around her head like something out of I Remember Mama. I blurted out what had happened and suddenly began to shiver. I don’t know if it was the cold or the events that were catching up with me, but Dorinda helped me take off my clothes and put me into one of her huge flannel nightgowns. She gave me thick handmade wool socks for my icy feet and sat me down in the kitchen while she brewed herb tea. Usually herb tea appeals to me about as much as wet hay, but tonight it was wonderful—hot, honey-sweet, and spearminty. I drank it greedily, letting its soothing warmth flow through my body. There was a warm afghan and a purring cat on my lap. It was as though no cold, no horror, no death could penetrate this place of warmth and comfort.
But I hadn’t told Dorinda the whole story. I hadn’t mentioned the magazines Button had shown me, the conclusions he’d drawn. I didn’t want to. Nathan’s death was bad enough; if I talked about the rest, that cold, nasty world outside would penetrate Dorinda’s haven. And I wasn’t ready for that.
We sat in silence. Dorinda lit a joint and passed it to me. I sucked in the smoke and leaned back, some muscle tension loosening. I stroked the little calico cat, Mignonette. A new addition. The older cat, Tansy, had appropriated Dorinda’s lap as though to show the newcomer who was boss. Both cats were purring loudly; it was the only sound in the room.
I broke the silence, haltingly at first, telling Dorinda the whole story. She didn’t say much. She’s been around, Dorinda, lived with quite a few guys, one of whom was a part-time transvestite, so I knew she wasn’t shocked by the basic idea of S-M paraphernalia. Maybe, like me, she found the idea of associating it with Nathan hard to accept. At any rate, she let me talk without comment or interruption.
I was a lot calmer than I’d expected. The initial hysteria had worn off; grief hadn’t set in yet. I was in a limbo state of numbness that allowed me to think I was being objective, rational.
“I can’t believe that Nathan was—what they said he was. It just seems so out of character, him with those awful magazines. Ropes and shit.” I shuddered.
“Sometimes you see what you want to see in a person, you know?” Dorinda replied. She ought to know, I thought, a little cynically. Every starving artist Dorinda has ever picked up was going to be the next Mark Suvero or Robert Motherwell.
“I remember when I found that lingerie in George’s drawer,” she went on. I wasn’t sure I could take another rendition of The Day Dorinda Discovered George Was a Transvestite, but I listened anyway. “I thought it meant he had another old lady. I really freaked when I found out the stuff was his.”
I nodded. “But you stayed with him anyway.�
��
“Yeah. He was a pretty nice guy, you know. Gentle. He wanted me to ball him while he wore that stuff, but I wouldn’t. That would have been too kinky. But what I’m getting at is, you never know.”
“I knew,” I said flatly. “Nathan was a sensitive lover. He didn’t need to hurt anyone to get his rocks off. That’s not the kind of thing you can hide.”
“Then what was all that stuff doing there?” Dorinda asked, her gray eyes serious. “Who tied him up? And why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe somebody wanted it to look like a gay killing, to hide the real motive.”
Dorinda got up. Tansy jumped from her lap, meowing in protest. She went to the stove and put on more water. I stroked Mignonette, my hand lightly touching the soft fur with its pale calico markings. The little cat purred loudly, rubbing against me, her whole tiny body reveling in being caressed.
Dorinda was back with more hot water. She put it on the table and pushed the hand-thrown honey pot over to me. I swirled honey into my mug, also hand-made, and poured water over the herbs. Still silence. The light was soft on Dorinda’s long wheat-blonde hair. She had it out of the braid now, and it hung loose over her shoulders, making her look about twelve. A large economy-size Alice in Wonderland.
“Cassie,” she began. I recalled Detective Button’s pitying tone and thought I heard an echo of it in Dorinda’s. It scared me.
“Cassie, listen. You may be right. Maybe somebody did make it look like a gay killing. But if so, there had to be a reason. You don’t set up just anybody for a thing like that. There has to be a basis for it.”
“No, there doesn’t,” I retorted. “It’s the kind of thing people always believe about a man. Like they always believe a woman is a nympho. Once it’s said, your whole attitude changes. You can’t look at the person the same way anymore. That’s what will be so horrible, Dorinda. People who never met Nathan will read the papers and say, Oh, yes, the fag lawyer that was killed in the Heights. It’ll be believed whether it’s true or not.”
Dead Man's Thoughts Page 5
