Death trick ds-1

by Richard Stevenson

  Bowman said, “Where’s Deslonde?”

  “We haven’t seen him,” the cop said. “The door to his apartment looks like it’s closed, but we can’t get close enough to see for sure.”

  “Is there another entrance to the apartment?”

  “The super says no.”

  “Get a ladder up to a side window,” Bowman said. “And get a second ambulance out here. Cut through the window if you have to-but don’t bust in, it’ll be too noisy and might spook the jumper.”

  Bowman reached through the car window, pulled out his radio mike, and asked the dispatcher to dial Mark Deslonde’s phone number and to patch Bowman through. We heard the clicks of the 434 number being dialed, and then the ringing. It rang twenty times before Bowman said, “Okay.

  Okay, that’s enough.”

  He looked at me ruefully and shrugged. We stood there for a moment considering the possibilities, and then our eyes went back up to the figure on the ledge.

  I said, “I’ll get Blount. I’ll need a car.”

  Bowman nodded and instructed a patrolman to take me wherever I wanted to go.

  I said, “Ten minutes.”

  “In fifteen minutes,” Bowman said, “we’re going up there whether the kid jumps or not. The guy in the apartment comes first. There’s no sign of him-he could be hurt in there.”

  We drove slowly up Madison until we’d rounded the corner onto Lake, then sped north toward Central and the baths.

  I found them lounging on a cot in a closed cubicle, towels draped over their naked laps, surrounded by orange-juice cartons and Twinkie wrappers and looking sheepish. Teilhard de Chardin was nowhere in evidence. The ambiance did include, however, a certain distinctive combination of aromas.

  I said, “We’ve found Eddie. You’ve got to come right now. Get dressed.”

  Timmy said, “No, first you’re supposed to say, ‘Holy smoke, I hope I’m not interrupting anything.’”

  “Eddie Storrs is threatening suicide. Mark Deslonde may be in trouble. Hurry up. Move.”

  They moved.

  A ladder was being raised up the right side of Deslonde’s building from the narrow yard that separated it from an old second-empire Victorian house. Eddie Storrs still sat motionless on the window ledge in front.

  Billy Blount stood in the shadows of the autumn foliage and gazed up at him. Up the street a second ambulance moved quietly into position behind the first.

  Phil had arrived. He was arguing plaintively with a uniformed police captain now on the scene who was not allowing anyone to approach the yard with the ladder except “family members.”

  I said, “He’s Deslonde’s best friend,” and looked at Bowman, who saw what I meant.

  Bowman said to the captain, “He’s the guy in the apartment’s boyfriend, Lou. It’s up to you.”

  “Family members only,” the captain said blandly. He turned and walked away.

  Phil started to lunge, and I stepped between them. Timmy and I wrestled Phil back into a yard across from Deslonde’s building. He collapsed onto the ground and sat there, flushed, teeth clenched, his chest heaving.

  Timmy stayed with Phil, and I walked back into the street where Bowman was standing. He said,

  “I make it a practice never to argue with a captain,” and looked away.

  I said, “That’s not the way it happened. You were petty, and callous.”

  He looked back at me with hard eyes. “You people are going to make an incident out of this, aren’t you? Blow it out of proportion.”

  I said, “I think so, yes.”

  “I’ll deal with you later, Strachey. For a man who’s broken as many laws as you have in the past week, you’re acting pretty goddamned pushy with me. I want you to know I’ve just about come to the end of my rope with you.”

  “Do you want your defendant in the Kleckner case alive or dead?”

  “Alive,” he said. “It’s expensive for the taxpayers but it’s tidier on my record.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll bring him down for you in return for an apology to Phil Jerrold, the guy you just fucked over in a particularly vicious manner.”

  He snorted and shook his head in disbelief. He turned toward the spot where Billy Blount was standing under a tree and gazing up at the man on the ledge. “Hey, come over here! You Blount!”

  Billy Blount walked into the middle of the street to where we stood.

  I said, “Don’t do what he says.”

  Bowman said, “Billy, you and I have got to go in there and say something soothing to your friend there. It might take awhile, so let’s just relax and go up and sit on the stairs for a time and let the fellow hear the sound of your voice. Let him get used to it. Then we’ll see what we can make happen. You got me?”

  I said, “Don’t go. Not until the sergeant here has offered an apology for his homophobic cruelty toward a friend of ours-a friend of Mark’s.”

  In the side yard a patrolman with a tool kit strapped to his back was moving up the ladder.

  “Come on, Billy, we’ve got to get that troubled lad safely onto terra firma. Let’s go, kid.”

  Bowman moved toward the building. Blount stood still.

  Bowman turned around, glowering. He said, “You’re both under arrest.”

  We looked at him.

  He said, “You, William Blount, for suspicion of murder. You, Donald Strachey, for aiding a fugitive from justice. I’m obliged to remind you that you have a right to remain silent, you have a right to-”

  “Bi-l-l-leeee!” The voice sliced through the night. The crowd froze. The man on the ladder stopped and listened.

  This time the figure raised one arm from the window frame. “Bi-l-l-l-eeeee!” The crowd gasped, and someone behind us said, “Oh, God.”

  Blount yelled, “I’ll be right up, Eddie! Hang on! “I’ll be up!”

  Blount trotted across the street, up the brick walkway, and into the building. A minute later two arms were wrapped from behind around the figure on the ledge. The figure began to turn as if on a pinwheel, and then it doubled up and disappeared through the window.

  We charged into the building and up the stairs. Blount and Storrs were sitting beside a blue gym bag on the floor of the fourth-floor landing, their backs against the wall under the window.

  Blount was holding Storrs’s hand. They hardly seemed to notice us banging on Mark Deslonde’s locked door.

  There was no response from inside the apartment. Two firemen bounded up the stairs with axes; Bowman and I and three patrolmen stood back. I could hear the radio blasting away inside. Disco 101-the Three Degrees’ “Jump the Gun.” After three well-placed blows the door splintered and fell away.

  The living room was empty. The face of the man on the ladder was visible through the window.

  We moved into the bedroom and found no one. A second set of stereo speakers carried the roar of the music into the room where we stood. Bowman said, “Somebody shut that goddamn thing off!”

  The bathroom door opened. Mark Deslonde stepped out in his nylon briefs and stared at us with the most astonished look I’d ever seen on a face.

  I said, “Jesus! Are you all right? Where the fuck have you been?”

  “I’ve been trimming my beard. What is this? What the hell is going on?”

  “Trimming your beard? For an hour? For a fucking hour?”

  Deslonde shrugged, tilted his head, and grinned.

  24

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming in here, Strachey. Because we’re such nice guys, the DA and I decided during the excitement last night not to go to the trouble of prosecuting you and your pal Blount, and now you waltz in here like you owned the goddamn city of Albany and start badgering me and asking for favors. I’ve run into some pretty deluded perverts over the years, but, Jesus’ mother, you take the cake, Strachey, you surely do.”

  I said, “What a crock. You owe me a big one, and you know it. I just want to borrow the thing overnight. You’ll have it back first thing Sunday m
orning. By noon, anyway. Or one.”

  He shifted in his chair and caused the holes and nodules on his face to move around. “I’d have to know your intended use for the device,” he said. “That thing is worth a lot of money, and if it got damaged in any way, they’d make a note of it and take it out of my pension when that holy day comes, and that pension is already so piss-paltry the wife and myself will probably end up in some trailer parked by a meter on Central Avenue. Now, what the hell are you gonna do with it?”

  “I can tell you this much, Ned. The device will be used in a manner your department will approve of entirely. I’m talking about law enforcement. It will be used to collect evidence against a felon. I plan to provide the DA with another warm criminal body for Judge Feeney to pounce on and gobble up. And if you’d like, I’d be happy to mention your name in connection with the apprehension of this disgusting public menace.”

  He cringed. “You can skip the last part.”

  An hour later, before I had lunch with Timmy at his apartment, I phoned Sewickley Oaks.

  “This is Jay Tarbell, calling for Stu Blount. Mr. Blount’s son William has been located, as you may know, and Mr. Blount wishes now to proceed with the boy’s treatment. He would appreciate your picking up the boy late tonight, and I’d like to discuss the arrangements-the boy is rather distraught, I’m afraid, and might put up some resistance. I’m sure, though, that your staff can come prepared for any eventuality.”

  “Oh-I see. Well, Dr. Thurston has stepped out, but I know the doctor thought perhaps Mr.

  Blount might have changed his mind. I mean, considering what happened last night-we saw the TV reports, and we thought-”

  “Not at all, not at all. The boy is no longer under suspicion of murder, of course, but, sad to say, young William is still queer as a three-dollar bill, so to speak, ahem. And you do have Judge Feeney’s order in hand, do you not?”

  “Oh, yes-”

  “As well as the substantial first payment of Dr. Thurston’s fee.”

  “Oh, certainly-”

  “Well then, let’s get on with it, shall we? Let’s lay out a plan. Now I must tell you that young Blount has altered his appearance and that he has assumed an alias. I’ll be calling later tonight with further details, but for now, let me just pass on to you Stu Blount’s instructions���”

  Saturday night at Trucky’s. After a warm-up at the Terminal, we drove out Western just after eleven. As we went in, Cheryl Dilcher’s “Here Comes My Baby” was on. Truckman was at the door, drink in hand, and I told him I’d like to see him in his office, that I had an apology to make.

  He smiled feebly and said, “Sure, Don, sure. Gimme ten minutes.”

  We ran into the alliance crowd and learned that the judge had denied a restraining order against the Bergenfield police, and that Jim Nordstrum, out on bail, was planning to close the place if it was raided one more time. Despite the absence of any discernible warm feeling for the Rat’s Nest and its approach to gay life, there was real anger among the movement people over the sour indifference of the legal establishment toward the harassment of a place that detracted from the moral fitness of no one who chose not to go there. The human machinery of the law was smug and petty and substantially corrupt; that was what hurt. No one could figure out what step to take next, and I did not tell what I knew.

  I went looking for Mike Truckman, found him, and ushered him almost forcibly into his office.

  I said, “I did think you had something to do with Steve Kleckner’s death, Mike. It was mainly because of the company you keep. And your booze problem didn’t help-you’ve got one and you’d better do something about it fast. Anyway, I was stupid and wrong-headed, Mike, and I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  He raised his glass, tried to smile, and set the glass down. “Forget it, Don. Shit, I guess you had your reasons. Let’s pretend it never happened. I’m game if you are. We need one another, all of us. Gay people can have their differences, sure, but when push comes to shove, we gotta stick together, right, buddy?”

  “That’s well put, Mike. Which brings up a painful but related matter.”

  He’d been glancing at the manila envelope I’d carried in with me, and now he watched me open it and spread the photos out across his desk. He sat blinking, his mouth clamped shut, and peered at them.

  I said, “You know what you have to do, don’t you? If you’re going to get your head together and come back to us, Mike, you’ve got to start by dealing with this shit.”

  He managed to get his mouth open far enough to rasp, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I know.”

  I took off my jacket and shirt. I removed the Albany PD microphone and wires and recorder from my torso and placed them on the desk alongside the photos of Truckman handing money to the Bergenfield police chief and his plainclothes associate, in payment for their raids on the Rat’s Nest.

  I said, “Before I show you how to work this thing, I’d appreciate your answering a couple of questions.”

  He blinked boozily at the display on his desk and said, “Oh, God.”

  I called Sewickley Oaks from a pay phone up the road from Trucky’s. Then I walked back to the disco and danced with Timmy, among others, until closing.

  The usual crowd was on hand-Phil, Mark, Calvin, the rabbi-and while most people were subdued at first, only just beginning to recover from the shocks of the past week, one by one each of us gave in to the New Year’s Eve atmosphere that gay life can, with luck, produce two or three times a week. By the time Billy Blount arrived with Huey Brownlee at two-thirty, the mood was entirely festive, even celebratory. The DJ played “Put Your Body In It,” and everybody did.

  At four-forty Timmy and I crouched behind the pile of tires next to the Bergenfield police station. We watched while Mike

  Truckman handed over a roll of bills. Timmy took more pictures. The three men lingered longer than they had the last time we’d watched this scene unfold; Truckman was making sure everyone’s voice was recorded, that he got it all.

  Truckman drove away first, as he had the last time; then the chief; then the plainclothesman, the asshole in the windbreaker who’d frisked me and spoken disrespectfully during the raid at the Rat’s Nest.

  As the plainclothesman pulled his Trans-Am onto Western, two unmarked vans that had been parked nearby came to life and pulled into his path, blocking him. The man in the windbreaker jumped from his car cursing and sputtering, and we could make out the look of befuddlement on his face when the back doors of the vans were flung open and seven extremely large men in white jackets poured out and surrounded him. One of the big beefy fellows waved a document in the cop’s face, and then they carried him off. He fought, but the straitjacket fit nicely. Within three minutes they were gone, and Timmy and I fell laughing raucously into the pile of tires. end user

  Epilogue

  Eddie Storrs was locked up again, this time forever. Stuart and Jane Blount fled back to Saratoga.

  Chris Porterfield returned to Albany; Timmy and I had a nice Sunday brunch with her and Margarita Mayes, and they sold us a February vacation trip to Key West. Billy Blount moved in with Huey Brownlee, at least temporarily. Mark Deslonde-who had gone back to his apartment that Friday night to pick up some belongings and gotten distracted by his mirror-moved in with Phil permanently. And I moved in with Timmy.

  Late on the first night in my new home, I said to Timmy,

  “One thing. When you and Blount were in that cubicle at the tubs that day-what did you two do all that time?”

  “Oh, fucked and whatnot. Blount was worried about his sexuality. He said he needed reassurance. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, just wondering.”

  Some Jesuit. This wasn’t going to get easier.

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