Strachey's folly ds-7

by Richard Stevenson

  "It sounds," I said, "as if Maynard came away from his affair with Suter uncharacteristically unscathed. So, who among Jim's long list of boyfriends that you know of was permanently embittered, even traumatized?"

  Mosel still had her notebook on her lap, and when Hively glanced at it apprehensively, Mosel said, "I'm just listening."

  "I hope so," he said. "If anybody asks, none of what I'm about to tell you came from me. I could probably name fifty gay men, if I really thought about it, who have been shit on by Jim Suter over the past twenty years. And most of them, if I asked them about it today, would probably chalk it up to experience and let it go at that. They'd just laugh it off and say, yeah, they had their own heartbreaker of a Jim Suter story, too. But four or five people that I know of were devastated by the way Suter treated them and are very, very angry. And one of them might still be mad enough to play a macabre joke on Jim, such as sending a panel to the AIDS quilt with Jim's name on it."

  Mosel had shut her notebook, but now she was flipping its cover up and down absently. Hively's refusal to be used as a source for anything he had told her was plainly driving Mosel nuts. She blurted out, "Oh, come on, Bud. Let me have the names. I promise I'll keep you out of it and I can check them out discreetly."

  "You can? I doubt that that's possible." "All right, so maybe it wouldn't be so discreet. But I won't mention your name. I can just call these guys up and say,

  'I heard you dated Jim Suter and it ended unhappily, and do you have any idea how a panel with Suter's name on it made its way into the AIDS quilt?' Maybe I won't find anybody who'll admit it, but I might come across a Suter hater who knows who did do it, and who's mad at that guy, too, and who'll rat on him to the Post."

  I said, "That sounds like a promising approach to me."

  Hively slowly massaged his hairless head, as if to stimulate the cells responsible for decision making. "We can't be sure, of course, even that it was one of Jim's wounded lovers who sent in the quilt panel. The quilt stunt could be totally unrelated. And if it was an old boyfriend who did it, why would he and somebody else then vandalize the panel at the D.C. display?"

  "To call attention to it," Timmy said. "So nobody in Washington would miss the act of revenge."

  Hively let loose with a little sigh and said, "I guess you might as well go ahead.

  I'll give you the names. Just don't tell anybody the names came from me."

  "Agreed," Mosel said. "I'm wondering something, Bud. Is there any particular reason, other than mere privacy, why you don't want these guys to know it was you who ID-ed them as former Suter boyfriends?"

  Hively laughed. "It's not the ex-lovers I'm worried about. The problem is, I already gave the names to the Blade reporter covering the quilt display, and I don't want her to find out I also turned the names over to the Post."

  "I guess I'm going to have to work fast," Mosel said dryly.

  "Anyway, thanks."

  Hively grew serious and said, "I'm telling you because I want to do everything I can to help expose the person who used the quilt in such a shabby way. I've got too many friends on there not to care a lot about this. I know that in the big picture the quilt is indestructible, and what it means is indestructible. But this was a miserable, selfish stunt, and it just hurts. I'm sure an awful lot of people have been sickened by it."

  "I think so, too," Mosel said, "and so does my editor. That's why it's news."

  As Bud Hively described the five men whose detestation of Jim Suter was, Hively believed, abiding and even potentially violent, Mosel took notes on-and I carefully memorized-the sketches of Jim Suter's attenuated love affairs with Martin Dormer, Graham Houston, Jason Leibowicz, Bill Walker, and Peter Vicknicki.

  As Hively spoke, I listened for any biographical suggestion that any of these men might be connected, however slightly, to Betty or Nelson Krumfutz, to Maynard, or to Mexico. I didn't hear any. But I picked up plenty of data to serve as a conversational icebreaker with Jim Suter, well-known Washington writer, heart-throb, and-the word that came to mind was an oddly old-fashioned one cad.

  Chapter 13

  By four Monday afternoon, I was back in the hotel room working the phone.

  Timmy had the list of Jim Suter's family and friends that Bud Hively had given Dana Mosel on Sunday, and I had the names of the five embittered Suter ex-lovers that Hively had described to Mosel earlier on Monday. After several unproductive calls-answering machines and services, or no answer at all-I reluctantly called the airline and postponed my reservation to Cancun from Tuesday to Wednesday morning. I immediately felt pangs of regret, even irritation-mixed with a strange but powerful sense of relief-that I would not be leaving for the Yucatan first thing in the morning. But at the time I didn't realize what those pangs meant.

  I was able to reach two of Jim Suter's friends, as well as his mother and brother in Maryland. With the friends and relatives I identified myself as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. This was a low subterfuge that would have disgusted my journalist friends but which I justified by Suter's own alleged precarious life-or-death situation. Admitting that I was a private detective might have tipped off one of the people Suter was afraid of that someone besides Maynard might be aware of Suter's terrible danger.

  I guessed, though, that the angry ex-lovers would be unwilling to speak with a reporter, so I told the two I reached late Sunday afternoon that I was a private investigator employed by Jim's mother to look into the disturbing AIDS quilt panel.

  Timmy termed this particular lie "squalid," but he couldn't come up with an approach that was morally superior.

  Anyway, it worked. By 5 P.M. Monday, I had interviews lined up with Suter's mother and brother at six-thirty, with Peter Vick-nicki and Martin Dormer, two of Suter's angry former lovers, later in the evening, as well as two of Suter's friends at lunchtime Tuesday.

  Timmy phoned his boss, state assemblyman Myron Lip-shutz, in Albany and requested several days off "for personal reasons. " He told the politician he was unable to explain exactly what was going on, but he said he wanted Lipshutz to know how gratifying it had been working for him over the years and how much respect and affection he felt for the assemblyman.

  It was obvious from Timmy's end of the rest of the conversation-"No, don't worry, I'm fine, Myron, really"-that Lipshutz had been unnerved by Timmy's remarks, which could easily have been interpreted as (a) a prelude to suicide, (b) the veiled announcement of a fast-moving terminal illness, or (c) an indication that Timmy had fallen under the influence of Deepak Chopra.

  Afterward, I said, "It sounds as if you may have scared Myron to death."

  "I guess I did leave him a little bit shaken. I didn't mean to frighten Myron. But after what happened to Maynard, I've got this heightened sense of the fragility of human existence-everybody's, including my own-and I feel impelled to tell people how I feel about them before it's too late."

  I had never been seized by the need to exclaim my love to anyone other than my lover-for a WASP Presbyterian from New Jersey, that was chore enough but I liked that Timmy could be selectively, though not promiscuously, spontaneous with his affections. He didn't need to tell me how he felt about me-he'd done it countless times over the years with all the force and clarity of his strong Irish heart-but he did tell me yet again, and I replied unexpectedly in kind. We made love, and it was excellent.

  Soon, though, my mind divided, and part of it began to wrestle with ways of clearing up the Jim Suter-Maynard Sudbury complex mystery at the earliest possible moment, and of extrieating Timmy and me-and Maynard-from it.

  Just as I did not want to live in a state of fear and paranoia, neither did I want to live with-or to live with a man with-a twenty-four-hour-a-day overwhelming sense of doom. As Timmy and I excitedly generated sweat and other fluids, I also couldn't seem to help imagining, a bit guiltily, my upcoming encounter with the beringleted former wrestling star, Jim Suter, although I did that only for a fleeting moment.

  My six-thirty meeting with Jim Suter's mo
ther and brother at Mrs. Suter's condo in Silver Spring was not only unhelpful in any specific way-neither George nor Lila Suter knew much about Jim's private life, they told me several times-but I immediately sensed that both of them were continually lying, at least by omission.

  Both Suters were handsome, conservatively dressed people who looked as if they would have been comfortable posing for a Buick ad in Town amp; Country.

  They served cocktails and hors d'oeuvres and chatted volubly about themselves in a way that felt just a little forced. Mrs. Suter was a real estate agent and George a computer-program analyst for a big Maryland HMO. It came out in the conversation that Mrs. Suter had been married four times and George twice.

  Both were currently unattached.

  Mrs. Suter had agreed to meet with a reporter, she said, in order to reassure me. She said she was certain that the quilt panel with her son's name on it was "a prank." The vandalism of the panel was harder to explain, she said, but

  "nothing James gets mixed up in ever surprises me," she added with a laugh.

  "James has always gone his own way." She said she had told the Post reporter the same thing and was surprised that editors might continue to consider the incident newsworthy.

  "I've been told," I said, "that Jim may be out of the country, and that's why he hasn't responded personally to the quilt-panel mystery. Is that the case?"

  George Suter glanced at his mother, who hesitated for just an instant before replying, "I think he is, yes. That's the case in-sofar as any information I have."

  Her language was flat and without nuance, but she spoke to me in the "gracious" tone I guessed she employed with potential buyers and sellers in her real estate business.

  "You aren't sure where Jim is?" I asked.

  "No, not precisely," she said. "He did say he thought he might be abroad for some time. But Jim's travel plans hadn't quite firmed up the last time we spoke."

  Mrs. Suter and her son both peered at me now in a way that said no additional information would likely be forthcoming on this topic.

  "When were you last in touch with Jim? Either of you."

  "To tell you the truth," George said, "I haven't seen Jim-or talked to him at all since early summer sometime, I'd say it was. I don't recall his discussing any particular trip he had planned. But Jim has always been something of a gadabout, and he doesn't always inform me or Mother where he's off to or when he'll be back. It's actually a rather annoying habit Jim has." Suter, who appeared to be in his midthirties, had a head full of the famous male-Suter locks, and they were indeed golden and fell across his brow fetchingly.

  "So Jim might not be out of the country, just out of the Washington area?"

  "That's right," George said. "Jim hasn't answered his telephone or returned messages for some time. So I'd say there's a good possibility that he's out of town."

  "That would be my guess, too," Mrs. Suter added.

  Jim Suter's mother and brother sat watching me with eyes that looked as if they were going to reveal nothing because the Suters did not intend for them to reveal anything. I guessed they were not only lying-poorly-but that they knew Suter was in trouble and probably that he was in trouble in Mexico. But if that's all they knew, then there was no point in pressing them, for I already knew that much and more. And if they knew more than I did, they certainly weren't about to reveal it to a newspaper reporter from Baltimore. They had agreed to see me, they said, only to dampen interest in the strange quilt panel and the vestigatory quest, and I headed back out in the direction of the Silver Spring metro station.

  As I — walked away from Mrs. Suter's building-La Fuente, it was called, spelled out next to the entrance in a silvery script- I turned and looked up at the location where I estimated her third-floor balcony must have been. In the dimness behind the glass door at the rear of the balcony, two figures were standing and seemed to be watching me go.

  Chapter 14

  When I met Timmy at eight at a Thai restaurant near Dupont Circle that had been recommended by one of Maynard's friends, he was despondent. He told me that he had just visited Maynard again. And while Maynard's condition had been upgraded from stable to fair, Timmy hated seeing his friend so weak and damaged, so helpless, so not the person Maynard had always been.

  " 'Fair,' they're labeling him," Timmy said. "He didn't seem so 'fair' to me. I asked him if he felt 'fair,' and he shook his head. But I told him he was improving, day by day, and he nodded and-I think-tried to shrug. But if what Maynard is is 'fair,' I'd hate to see him doing poorly."

  "You did see him doing poorly Saturday night, on that sidewalk in front of his house. 'Fair' is preferable to that."

  "True."

  "Any estimate on when Maynard will be able to speak?"

  "Maybe tomorrow, the nurse said. And I'm not the only one waiting to talk to Maynard. You-know-who was up in Maynard's room nosing around a while ago."

  "Ray Craig?"

  "Smelly Ray."

  "When you and I met, I must have smoked as much as Ray does. I must have stunk that way, too."

  "You did. It was awful."

  "How did you stand it?"

  "You said you intended to quit. And you did. Anyway, I'd spent a month once visiting an Indian friend who lived next to a chemical-fertilizer factory in Poona.

  So I'd developed an adaptability toward vile odors when the cause was good."

  "Lucky for me."

  "Yep. Me too."

  Timmy and I were seated at a table for four against a side wall at the Bangkok Flower. We were waiting for our two dinner companions, Martin Dormer and Peter Vicknicki, two of Jim Suter's embittered former lovers who had since met and become friends. We didn't know what they looked like, but the maitre d' had been alerted to send them our way.

  I asked Timmy if Ray Craig had spoken to him, and he said, "Yes, and he asked where you were."

  "What did you say?"

  "I told him you were dropping some clothes off at the dry cleaner's."

  I laughed. "Why did you say that? I think I know."

  Timmy laughed, too. "You probably do. It was the first thing that popped into my head, and I guess I was trying to plant the idea that maybe Ray ought to have some clothes dry-cleaned, too. Although, Don, even Freud said, sometimes a cigar is only a cigar."

  "No, I don't think Freud ever actually said that. That was disinformation put out by the behaviorists."

  "Right. Next you're going to tell me Freud never said, 'Round up the usual suspects.' Or, 'At least we had Paris.'" _ t "No, those are both Freud."

  "Anyway," Timmy said brightly, "if Craig was in the hospital checking up on Maynard, that means he wasn't following you. That's reassuring."

  I could have said, "Yes, but maybe Craig had you under surveillance and one of his junior officers was following me," but Timmy already had enough gnawing on his mind. Anyway, I had watched carefully for a tail out to Silver Spring, and I hadn't spotted any.

  I said, "I suspect maybe Ray has done some checking on us, Timothy, and he's been reliably informed that we're not likely to turn out to be agents for the Medellin cartel. Did he say anything to you about how the shooting investigation was going?"

  "No. I asked, but he didn't answer me. He just asked where you were. Maybe it's because he's an orthodox Freudian that he always answers a question with a question."

  I said Timmy's analysis of Officer Craig sounded as good as any I could come up with and went on to describe to Timmy my unsettling meeting with Jim Suter's chilly and unforthcoming mother and brother.

  "Jeez," Timmy said, "it does sound as if they know more than they're letting on.

  Do you think they're protecting Jim, or even that they're in on it?"

  It again. "I'm clueless. I was able to extract precisely nothing out of them. In fact, that's what made me suspicious, the care they took in chatting me up lengthily about themselves while revealing no fact at all about Jim."

  "So I guess it's more urgent than ever that you track Suter down yourself
."

  "That's what I think."

  The maitre d' now appeared briefly alongside our table and left behind two men.

  The shorter and more compact of the two, a tidy, clear-skinned, strawberry-blond, preppy-looking man with a cream-colored sweater tied around his neck, said, "Don Stra-chey? I'm Martin Dormer."

  There were introductions all around, with Dormer, and with Peter Vicknicki, a tall, thin man with a bushy, dark beard and small black eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He had on faded jeans and a well-worn black sweatshirt with SWEATSHIRT spelled out across the front.

  I thought about the four former lovers of Jim Suter that I had laid eyes on-these two, Bud Hively, and Maynard-and saw no physical resemblance among any of them. I guessed that the men who turned Suter on were simply those men who were strongly attracted to him, and they had come in a broad spectrum of types.

  As soon as we'd all been seated, with no preliminaries, Vicknicki asked, "Is there something really weird going on? The Post story on the quilt said a panel with Jim's name on it had been vandalized. And then somebody told me that a detective- I guess that's you-was asking around about Jim, who seems to have disappeared. At least, nobody we know has any idea where he is."

  "And," Dormer added, "we heard that Maynard Sudbury, another one of Jim's exes, was shot in front of his house Saturday night and he's in the hospital in bad shape. Although I don't suppose there's any connection between that and Jim's disappearance and his name turning up on the AIDS panel. Is there?"

  "We don't know if there's any connection," I was able to say honestly.

  "I just hope there's not some bizarre conspiracy unfolding here," Vicknicki said, and I glanced at Timmy, who looked alert. "Jim Suter probably has more ex-lovers in Washington than all the Kennedys combined-a very large number of people fall into this category-and Sudbury was the second one of them inside of a year to be shot on the street on Capitol Hill. Maynard's expected to live, though, unlike poor Bryant Ulmer."

  Timmy fidgeted with his water glass and said, "Who's Bryant Ulmer?"