Which leaves me with no clear answer to my original question, whether Waldo, with his arch manner, malicious wit, and flaunted superficiality, was, beneath it all, a bit of a cheap crook. And though my first impression, upon hearing this from Chip's mother, was that if it were true it made Waldo scum, I now take a gentler view. In fact, I decide, it's the first thing I've heard about Waldo that makes him truly interesting... as does the fact that his boyfriend was a hustler. And perhaps, I think, since Waldo obviously didn't need to blackmail people for money, perhaps he did it as a kind of social service, his way of ripping the masks off the people he wrote about, a confirmation also of his world view — that everyone was some kind of hypocrite.
* * * * *
8:00 p.m.
The rain's stopped so I decide to walk to Jürgen's girlfriend's place. The address seems odd for a residence, a 1930s-era office building ten blocks from Calista Center. A uniformed doorman admits me to a restored art deco lobby embellished by contrasting slabs of marble and alabaster.
She I express surprise that people live here, the doorman tells me several upper floors have been converted to apartments.
"Very private, one residence to a floor," he says. "Ms. Hanks is expecting you. You're to go right up."
A high-speed elevator whisks me to the penthouse. Stepping off into a small foyer, I hear the wonderful old Ella Fitzgerald/Cole Porter album playing behind the facing door.
When Jürgen lets me in, the vision before me is so stunning I pause to draw my breath. We're on a balcony overlooking a double-story living room with a gracefully curving staircase leading down. The room below has been done up with a studied absence of color — black leather upholstery, black and white rug, black and white framed photographs on the walls. The wall opposite is a broad expanse of glass revealing a spectacular view: the entire Calista Valley from Irontown to Delamere Lake caressed by the light of the setting sun. The Calista River, a soft buff red, snakes its way through the ruins of the mills, while Lindstrom's twin glass towers catch and reflect the pink mackerel sky.
It's a drop-dead view from a drop-dead room in a drop-dead apartment. I'm amazed. If this is who a high-class call girl can live in Calista, I wonder why any girl in ‘the life’ would stick around L.A. or New York.
"What a fabulous place!"
Jürgen nods. "Dove inherited it from a client. He liked her, set her up here, then he died here, heart attack ‘in the saddle,’ as they say. His wife and children were pissed when they discovered Dove was in his will. Tried to buy her off cheap. I got her a good lawyer. Now she owns it free and clear."
As if on cue, Dove Hanks appears. Jürgen introduces us and we formally shake hands.
I smile and Dove giggles — we both know why I'm here. She's a lovely, tall, willowy black woman, mid-twenties, with rich, dark skin so silken smooth I'm tempted to reach out and touch it just to see how nice it must feel. Her features are cover-girl gorgeous and there's nothing at all call girl avaricious in her eyes. On the contrary, they convey a tender dreaminess. She's wearing strappy sandals and a simple white dress looped over her bare shoulders by spaghetti straps. Glossy, precision-cut black hair surrounds her face like a helmet.
"Been looking forward to meeting you, David. I've posed for plenty of photographers. You'll be my first real artist."
"I'm more an illustrator than an artist."
She smiles again. "I saw your drawing of Jurgy. Caught him just right, I thought."
She's well-spoken and knows how to flatter. I find her immensely likeable.
"I brought along some large sheets of paper," I tell her. "I thought we'd work on a bigger scale tonight."
"Speaking of sheets," she giggles, "I hear you want me to pose on mine."
"Only if it makes you comfortable."
"I'm always comfortable in my skin." She beams at Jürgen. "Ain't I, sweetpea?"
"Dove's always comfortable, " Jürgen affirms.
He pours each of us a flute of champagne, then the three of us sit on the glove-black leather couch, chatting and listening to Ella while watching the sun set and all color drain from the view. Finally we go silent, awed by the noir vision before us — Calista as night city, towers twinkling, river black as oil, traffic in the streets becoming ribbons of flowing amber light.
A half hour later, we're in the bedroom — Dove sprawled naked on her rumpled sheets, Jürgen seated in an easy chair beside the bed, I perched on a stool facing her and my portable easel, outlining her sprawled nude form in the manner of Matisse, trying to depict her as a twenty-first-century odalisque.
Dove does a line of coke, while Jürgen and I continue to sip champagne. Occasionally we nibble from a platter of cold hors d'oeuvres he's brought over from his restaurant cooler.
I enjoy drawing Dove. She makes for a gorgeous subject, and the wrinkled, white bedding surrounding her chocolate body sets up delicious contrasts between furrowed and smooth, light and dark.
"The other day I heard a surprising thing about Waldo Channing," I tell Jürgen, as I draw the undulating curve of Dove's back. "I heard Waldo and Maritz had a blackmail racket going. Did you know about that?"
"I think Jack mentioned it a couple of times. Like I told you before, he had no use for Maritz. He liked Waldo well enough since Waldo always mentioned The Elms in his column."
"Why would Waldo, with so much going for him, have to stoop so low?"
Jürgen smiles. "That he didn't have to was probably why he did. He wrote all that gossip about the Happy Few, but I think he really hated them. Jack, on the other hand, truly liked those people. They were fun and spent a lot of money at his club. But what do I know? I was just maître d'."
"Maître d' at The Elms — that would've been a good position to observe."
"Yeah," Dove drawls, "don't put yourself down, sweetpea. Maître d's and whores, we know folks' secrets like servants always do. We know all about them, but they don't know batshit about us."
Jürgen blows her a kiss.
"So tell me, Jürgen, from the maître d's point of view, what was it between Cody and Barbara Fulraine besides sex?"
Jürgen raises and eyebrow. "Isn’t it always sex?"
"For me it always is," Dove says.
I draw the sweet crevice between her buttocks.
"There must have been more to it. People say Cody was stringing her along about her daughter the same way you told me Maritz did."
"Not true!"
Jürgen's annoyed. I've discovered something interesting about him: that he's still such a loyal acolyte of Jack's that the slightest hint that Jack was less than admirable spurs him to tell me things he'd probably prefer to keep to himself.
"That's what the cops say."
"They don't know anything. Mrs. Fulraine believed her daughter was still alive. Jack knew better. Still he wanted to find out who took her. If he could find one of those people, he'd beat the truth out of him, then track down the rest of them and administer his own kind of justice."
"Kill them?"
"In the Legion we called it exécution préjudicelle."
"So in the end what did Jack find out?"
"He developed some leads. He was sure it was a child porno ring. The nanny had performed in porn so she knew those kinds of fucks. Jack figured they put her up to the snatch, then something went wrong, the kid died on them, they got scared, killed the au pair, cut her up, and tossed her torso in Delamere Lake."
Now that I've got Dove's body down, I start on a more elaborate rendering of her face.
"I've heard that theory," I tell him. "It's also the police theory. But the cops never got anywhere with it."
"They didn’t have Jack's connections. He had ways of finding out who made those kinds of films."
"You're saying that for the two and a half years of the affair, Cody was trying to track those people down?"
"He was financing it. It was an expensive project, not an easy one either. People who do that stuff operate undercover. ‘I'm finally getting close t
o the fucks, Jurg,’ he told me that summer. He hated people who'd kill a kid. He couldn't wait to get his hands on them, make then wish they'd never been born."
"Okay if we take a break?" Dove asks.
We break, she gathers herself into a soft white robe, and withdraws to her bathroom for a while. When she comes out, her eyes flash brilliantly and there's sassiness in her gait.
"Kitten's gettin' hungry," she says, reassuming her position on the bed. "Daddy Cat want to feed his bitch?"
I smile at the mixed metaphors while Jürgen fetches the platter of hors d'oeuvres, brings it to the bed, dangles food above her mouth, then feigns fear when she grins, snaps her jaws, lasciviously chews and swallows.
"She snaps like an alligator," he says.
"Alley cat," she corrects.
Hunger assuaged, she resumes posing. I'm pleased with my drawing, think it's going to be one of my best. I also think Jürgen owes me more for it than he's given. I decide to provoke him by making another slighting remark about Jack.
"Cody knew a lot of gossip. I suspect from time to time he tipped Waldo off."
"So what? They liked to gab."
"Was Cody in on Waldo's blackmail deals? Did he get a cut?"
"You got him all wrong!" Jürgen's angry again. "Jack was a stand-up guy. Compared with him, Waldo was a creep and Maritz was just something you piss on."
"How did Rakoubian fit in?"
"Max took the pictures, Maritz squeezed the people."
"So it was a three-way deal?"
Jürgen nods. "Say Waldo found out a couple, both married to other people, were having an affair. He'd tell Maritz, Maritz would follow them, get the goods, then bring in Max to take pictures. Then Maritz would sell the pictures to the lovers and split his take with Waldo."
"Did Mrs. Fulraine know about this?"
"She might have. Jack might have told her."
"Or Max?"
"Yeah, Max might have mentioned it to her. They were pretty tight there for a while."
"When Waldo spoke to the police after the killings, he said some pretty mean things about Mrs. Fulraine. Did you hear anything about them having a fight?"
"Can't remember, but that sounds about right."
I'm rapidly finishing up the drawing, sketching the sheeting, going for a classic drapery effect.
"Something I forgot to mention the other day," Jürgen says. "Another reason I know Jack didn't order those killings."
"What?"
"I think Jack knew Mrs. Fulraine was having an affair with the teacher. I think he even approved. Don't know why." Jürgen shakes his head. "There was something going on there I didn't get."
Interesting.
I finish the drawing. Dove relaxes, slips again into her white robe, and joins Jürgen at my easel to take a look.
"Oh, real good!" she coos. She slips her arm around Jürgen. "think so, sweetpea?
"It's excellent," Jürgen agrees.
Dove slips her hand inside the waistband of Jürgen's pants.
"I'm all cramped out from lying so still."
She leans against him, whispers something into his ear while probing her hand deeper.
"Dove wonders if you'd like to party with us," Jürgen says.
I look at her. She's grinning at me, sassy and kittenish.
"That's very sweet," I tell her. "I'm flattered, but I think I'd better pass. Time for the lonely artist to be on his way."
Dove shrugs slightly to show disappointment. Jürgen looks relieved.
Dove offers me her hand. "Thank you, David. You made a beautiful picture."
"Easy," I tell her, "when the sitter's so beautiful."
We embrace, all awkwardness past, everyone happy now.
* * * * *
Outside the building. I decide against walking back to the hotel. The streets are too empty, the night too ominous. I slip the doorman a couple of bucks, ask him to call me a cab. When it comes and we take off for the Townsend, I notice headlights come on in a car parked across the street. The same car does a U-turn, then follows us back to the hotel. It slows when I get out, then, before I have a chance to see who's driving, picks up speed and rounds the corner.
I pause in the lobby. Am I imagining things? Investigating a twenty-six-year-old murder could hardly be a threat, especially as all my prime suspects — Jack Cody, Andrew Fulraine, Max Rakoubian, and Dad — are dead.
I open the door to Waldo's, check the room, survey the Monday night media crowd. Conversation seems more active than usual, perhaps because with the start of the defense presentation, the Foster trial is finally picking up.
I spot Foster's attorney sitting with Spencer Deval and an aggressive female reporter from The Star. Judge Winterson has forbidden the lawyers to talk about the case, but there's nothing to prevent them from socializing with journalists, then leaking information with little eyebrow moves and nods.
I take a seat at the bar, order a beer, ask Tony where Sylvie is tonight.
"She was here, then got bored. I think she went out to a jazz club with the guy from Rolling Stone."
I ask him about Waldo Channing's demise, whether he was working the bar the day Waldo dropped.
Tony nods. "It was ten years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was standing right where I'm standing now. He was sitting in his usual spot, the table beneath the painting. ‘Course the painting wasn't up there then. Anyhow, it was a little after 5 p.m.. Mr. C was sitting there alone like he often did afternoons, finishing up his column on a yellow legal pad. That's how he wrote it, longhand right here in the hotel lounge, then he'd call The Times-Dispatch and they'd send over a runner to pick it up. Mr. C was nursing his usual, a dry vodka martini with a twist. Suddenly he calls out to me: "Tony! I look over at him, see him rise up out of his chair, then he drops there on the carpet. Died instantly. Heart attack. None of us could believe it. The man was so alive. You'd feel his energy whenever he walked into the room. I was the first one who got to him. Was me who closed his eyes. A sad day, one I'll never forget. ‘Course a month later we had a big party here like he said we should in his will. That's when management decided to rename the lounge to honor the memory of the man."
Tony squeezes shut his eyes. When he opens them, I detect a little moisture.
"You know, he left his entire estate to Spencer Deval, the house, cars, all his art and furniture, but he also left mementoes to all the people he liked — pens, watches, cuff links, stuff like that. And not just to important people, to the little people, too, folks he loved and wrote about — copy boys, shoeshine boys, cabbies, ushers, cabbies, ushers, doormen, even the restroom attendants here at the hotel. Me, I got what he used to call his lucky piece. I'll show it to you."
Tony reaches into his pocket, pulls out a gold coin about the size of a fifty-cent piece, and places it gently on the bar.
"that's a 1918 Double Eagle, year of Mr. C's birth."
I make a quick calculation. If Waldo was born in 1918, he was seventy-two when he died, fifty-six when Flamingo took place. It seems a stretch to imagine a man that age, no matter how angry or threatened, coldly executing Barbara and Tom.
Tony flips the coin in the air, calls out ‘heads,’ catches it, smacks it down on the back of his hand.
"Heads it is," he says. "Yeah, Mr. C's lucky piece." As Tony repockets it, he nods at the glowing portrait across the room. "Mr. C always had good luck. He lived a charmed life, he truly did."
* * * * *
Tom told Susan: I think there's going to be a fire.
I put in a full day's work at the Foster trial, produce four drawings, hand them off to Harriet, then walk swiftly to the Calista Public Library across from Danzig Park, arriving just an hour before closing.
In the periodicals room, I pull microfilm of issues of The Times-Dispatch from the week of the Flamingo shootings, take the spools to a microfilm reader, and start searching for news of fires.
In Tuesday's paper, I find two house fires — one in Covington, another on Thist
le Ridge in Van Buren Heights — plus a three-alarm brewery fire in Iron City.
On Wednesday, there's mention of an explosion in a machine tool factory on Danvers and 18th and a grease-trap fire that started in a neighborhood Italian restaurant on Torrance Hill.
Discouraged, I unroll down to the Thursday morning edition to read once again the first accounts of the Flamingo murders. Then it occurs to me that if a fire took place Monday night, it might not have been reported for several days, and even if it was the sort of fire that would have been significant on a normal news day, on that particular Thursday it would have been eclipsed by the huge scandal of Flamingo.
Fifteen minutes before closing, I start searching the single-paragraph stories that appear in vertical columns in the Metro section of Thursday's Times-Dispatch.
A hit-and-run on Thorn Street; a man found dead in a parked car near the corner of Wales and Lucinda; a house fire on Tarkington near Tremont Park; another fire on Indiana; a street holdup on Gale, and, a few minutes later, a similar holdup on Pear. None of these stories is promising, but then, just as the librarian flashes the ten-minute warning, I come across a follow-up on the Thistle Ridge fire:
Arson inspectors, examining the remnants of the house at 1160 Thistle Ridge Road that erupted in flames Tuesday night, told reporters that the charred bodies of two persons, a male and a female, were found bound to iron beds in the basement.
"There's clear evidence of arson," Fire Inspector James Halloran said. "And with the discovery of these bodies, a strong inference of murder."
Halloran said that the County Sheriff's Department had been brought into the case and that the Calista County Coroner's Office will autopsy the bodies.
Dream of The Broken Horses, The Page 26
