The Book of Lies

by Felice Picano

  And saved the entire morning’s messages.

  Conchita chose then to come into the library. She was holding up two long thin dark-plastic tubes, each ending in bright orange fluffs. Pulling along a light plastic wheeled cart filled with her cleaning materials. For the first time since we’d all arrived last night I wondered if she’d been in the house. There was no way I could have checked without disturbing her, as she always kept her maid’s room door closed.

  ‘I won’t be too much longer in here,’ I told her.

  ‘I’ll leave all this stuff out here and come back,’ she said, standing the space-age dustmops up in a corner made by two bookshelves. She was clad in her usual sweater and tights get-up.

  ‘I slept late,’ I fished, pulling her back into the doorway. ‘Didn’t hear you drive up this morning.’

  In fact, I’d awakened early. Strangely refreshed despite how late I’d been up last night. And I hadn’t remembered seeing her old Corolla sedan in the porte-cochère or in the motor court last night.

  ‘I didn’t. I slept over.’ she said.

  ‘But your car wasn’t …’

  ‘My sister needed it today to go to Burbank Ikea-Town for some shopping. She dropped me off last night.’

  ‘Then I hope we didn’t disturb you when we all came in. My guests and all. Did we disturb you?’

  ‘I heard a little when you first came in. But then the sleeping pill took. So I don’t, you know …’

  She stood there still.

  ‘Some of my students. From class,’ I added stupidly. ‘One was having a birthday, you see.’ It came awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry if we disturbed you.’

  And now I felt my face redden with a thought: what if she’d been awake and had seen Ray Rice and me in the hot tub?

  ‘Like I said,’ she said, ‘no problem.’

  ‘Sure. Mr Von Slyke said I could have occasional guests.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that,’ she said, which sounded as though she did.

  ‘You know, as long as we weren’t too noisy, he told me,’ I went on. ‘I figured that they wouldn’t be too noisy. I’m their teacher, you see. At school. UCLA,’ I added lamely.

  ‘Let me know when you’re done here,’ Conchita winked.

  I don’t know, maybe it was that wink, but I reddened all over again, I mean what was I thinking of last night, when I let that stupid boy …? Wait a minute! Damon Von Slyke and his lover lived here. If Conchita saw anything last night, which I doubted, it probably wouldn’t be the first time she’d seen it. After all, the hot tub was right off their room and bath. They must use it all the time, no? Must cavort at night. Cavort. Was that what we were doing? Cavorting? Jesus. I was trying to get him off me. Away from me. But of course to an onlooker, that wouldn’t be obvious, would it? No, probably not. But then she would have had to have awfully good eyesight to see anything from the kitchen-corridor window doors. She’d really have to be standing close to see anything going on at all in the darkness. So, no, she couldn’t have. She mustn’t have. God, I hoped not!

  I dialed information for the San Fernando Valley exchange and did locate a phone number for Camden Phoenix. That seemed too easy. I dialed and was told the phone number had been changed. To a 714 exchange. That meant what? Orange Country? Reuben Weatherbury down in Irvine had that prefix. So I dialed and of course that number had changed to – you guessed it – another 818 prefix number for the Valley. Okay! Let me try that one.

  It rang. Actually rang. Did not switch me to another number. Was picked up. A very affected-sounding, perhaps British West Indies-inflected voice said, ‘You’ve reached the Harmonious Fist Martial Arts Academy and Meditation Center. We can’t pick up the phone, but if you leave a message, we’ll get you! Ha ha … Peace. Ommm.’

  I managed to hang on long enough to give my name and phone number and what I hoped would sound like a message filled with potential dollar signs. Even so, I had to wonder, really wonder if I’d reached Camden. What had Tanya said about him? He moved around a lot. Held a variety of jobs. He was ‘more or less’ literary. What did that mean? Could aikido and jujitsu be in the realm of the possible? I suspected even if this was his number, it still might be a while before I actually made contact.

  Conchita arrived back at the library door and despite her once again saying she didn’t want to bother me, I figured she wanted me out so she wouldn’t have to alter her cleaning routine schedule. I took the laptop and cellular phone to the breakfast room. I would have preferred being out of doors, but the marine layer was a thick mist in the courtyard and garden. From the breakfast nook, I could see both inner garden and outside to the little dining terrace partly blocked by a fence of screen. A few ringdoves were on the grass, pecking what? Seeds? Shoots? Insects? I couldn’t tell. I decided to try Irian St George again, despite my poor luck in reaching him lately.

  My luck held. He was in conference, his secretary told me. I wondered if he could be avoiding me. Why? He had led me to Reuben Weatherbury. What a find that had turned out to be – a storehouse of stuff about Len Spurgeon.

  Maybe I was being unduly sensitive today. Because of last night. Because of Ray Rice. Damn. It had been such a great night before he showed up again. I felt I needed positive reinforcement, so I dialed Aaron Axenfeld’s number in Florida. I owed him a thank-you anyway.

  ‘It’s a terrific piece of writing you sent me!’ I enthused.

  ‘Do you think?’ he asked in such a sincere tone of voice I had to wonder if he were the real author of the piece.

  ‘Don’t you?’ I asked back.

  ‘It’s different,’ he allowed.

  ‘Different from the other fragments Len wrote, perhaps. More of an evolution, I think, than a radical break. Wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘If you put it that way …’ he hedged. Then suddenly, ‘I’m not definitely saying it’s by Len. It’s not signed. It has no byline on it.’

  He was right of course.

  ‘But it’s not yours?’ I asked.

  ‘Mine? No!’

  Said so definitively, I quickly replied, ‘I mean clearly it’s not like any of the Axenfeld work ever published. Not nearly as styled or as individual or … Tell me, though, how did you happen upon it? De Petrie never told me the exact circumstances.’

  ‘So you did speak?’ Axenfeld asked. He had the most irritating way of answering one’s question with one of his own.

  ‘We did. By e-mail. I was frightened nearly to death when I realized it was Mr De Petrie live, on-line,’ I said, deciding a not far from true statement would melt further ice. ‘I was De Petrified,’ I joshed. ‘But he wasn’t at all the ogre he pretends to be.’

  Axenfeld laughed. ‘Wait until you know him better.’ He laughed again, then added, ‘I’m kidding, of course. But he has been rendered tragic. And while some us all but thrill to wear the ebony of mourning, others, I’m afraid, were meant for brighter hues and resent their lot.’

  I tried to recall what specific tragedy and mourning De Petrie had undergone. I really ought to reread some of the group biographies. I remembered. It wasn’t one death; De Petrie suffered through a chain of deaths. A favorite brother died in a motorcycle accident. His mother died of a sudden heart attack. A beloved sister-in-law lingered for years with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. All the while those were going on, De Petrie lost friend after friend to the AIDS epidemic. Including Mark Dodge, Jeff Weber, Cameron Powers, Mitch Leo and Frankie McKewen. And when that seemed over and the endless hospital visits and memorial services done with, his closest pal, his oldest and longest friend in Manhattan, Rowland Etheridge, committed suicide. A remarkably bad run of luck. No wonder De Petrie was bitter and isolated. No wonder he’d dropped out of the book tour circuit, out of book reviewing and article writing, the publishing world altogether. No wonder he’d stopped writing. Or at least stopped publishing books. It would have taken far less than that to stop me.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I began in a somber tone, ‘whether I’m more sorry for Mr De Petrie or for all
of us he’s left behind.’

  ‘I suppose he has left us behind,’ Axenfeld agreed.

  ‘And the manuscript fragment,’ I gently nudged, ‘was among some papers? Other manuscripts?’

  ‘What happened was a very nice woman from some British periodical had written asking for one of those essays I used to toss off on a monthly basis in the ’80s. She had three in mind for this anthology she’s putting together. I went looking for them. After about two days of the usual madness, I at last located two. Lo and behold, stuck to them was “The Flamingos”.’

  ‘“The Flamingos”? Is that the title?’

  ‘Who knows? I sent it to you as is. Who had any idea what it was? But I was speaking on the phone to Dominic not ten minutes after I found it. We thought it might be the kind of thing you’d want to see.’

  I tried another tack. ‘Can you think whom else might have written it? Say, Mr De Petrie or …’

  ‘I was still in Manhattan much of the period. On the other hand, this particular batch of manuscripts was under a copy of Tales of the Offeekenofee. Which meant it’s been here in this room a while.’

  ‘Because …’

  ‘Because that was my father’s book and he used to refer to it and periodically tell me to read something in it. He’s been dead since … well, a long time. Dominic and I tried to figure out who’d been here in this house. You see, the little manuscript was typed on my old Remington manual. That old machine hasn’t been out of the house.’

  ‘That left …’

  ‘In our little group, Cammy – Cameron Powers. He was here a weekend or so in 1979. Finishing off some research on an article on St Petersburg he ended up never publishing, I don’t think, and he phoned out of the blue and came by. A few years later, Dom stayed a week. But he carried his own little laptop computer with him even back then. When was that? 1989? 1990? Far too late for this to go under Tales of the Offeekenofee. None of the others visited. I mean, it’s just a bungalow.’

  ‘But Len Spurgeon did stay there?’ I interrupted. ‘Which is why you and Mr De Petrie think he may have left it.’

  ‘He did visit. He did stay here.’

  ‘Before you left Manhattan for good.’ I tried to clarify it. ‘In what year was that, 1982?’

  ‘It was in November, I remember. The three of us lived here together. My father. Len. Myself. They got along well. Better than my father and I ever did, really. He was housebound by then. A first stroke had limited his range. I thought, why not keep Father and Len together. Len had nowhere to go.’

  ‘This was when, exactly – ’78? He’d just moved out of Jeff Weber’s apartment in the Village?’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Axenfeld asked.

  ‘Bobbie Bonaventura told me that when he moved out, Len “vanished” several months. People don’t usually “vanish” within New York City. And Mitch Leo’s niece showed me Mitch’s letters. According to both Bobbie and Mitch, Len reappeared and the Leo-McKewens invited him to their teas.’

  Axenfeld didn’t contradict this, so I went on, ‘Unless, of course, this was in the winter of ’81-2, when Len moved in with Cameron Powers for close to a year, helping him finish writing Along the Via Appia. But you already knew that.’

  ‘Reuben confided in you,’ Axenfeld said rather than asked, confirming for me that he had already known.

  ‘He sure did. And it wasn’t until somewhat later that Len and Damon Von Slyke began their S/M affair. That would have been when, 1985, 1986? Mark Dodge and Len were together first. Before the rest. In what, 1976?’

  When Axenfeld didn’t reply, I prodded. ‘Mr Axenfeld, look, I know I must sound terrible to you …’

  He sighed. ‘No. No. It’s your job to get it all down right.’

  ‘I’m afraid to ask the next question, but exactly what was Len to you? To any of you?’

  I expected Axenfeld to answer me with a question. He did, but not any question I expected. ‘What about the others? What did they call Len?’

  That was a loaded question. ‘Mitch Leo said he was merely an attraction. Len did something pretty cruel to Mitch.’

  ‘Yes, the scene at the opera,’ Axenfeld murmured.

  ‘I thought he didn’t send you the letter about that?’

  ‘He didn’t. He told Rowland. The first time Frankie was so ill.’

  ‘When Len moved into Rowland’s place? In, what was it, 1983?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure. Mitch did warn Rowland. Of course, Rowland didn’t take it to heart. Who would?’

  They all had stories of Len. How could I get Axenfeld to talk?

  ‘They weren’t lovers, Len and Rowland?’

  ‘They were … whatever Len wanted. He took what he wanted. Gave what he wanted. For some it was enough. For others not.’

  ‘But he never ever defined the relationship?’ I asked.

  ‘Why should he have to?’ Axenfeld asked back.

  ‘For clarity. For peace of mind,’ I answered. ‘Because calling someone a lover implies that love is the emotion involved. And if not reciprocated by both parties, then at least acknowledged.’

  ‘Oh, Len acknowledged!’ Axenfeld burst out in what for him was passion. ‘He acknowledged all the time. Acknowledged beautifully, and usually without words. That was his virtue, don’t you see? How beautifully he acknowledged and reflected back at one the clearest, the least distorted of images. Who could resist it? In a world of such astonishing egos as ours, who could possibly say no to his least disfiguring of looking glasses?’

  As he spoke, some things were forming in my mind. ‘During the time Len was living with you and your father … what were you working on?’

  The passion was gone from Axenfeld’s voice, the friendly diffidence back. ‘This and that! A lot of false starts.’ As I’d expected him to answer.

  ‘The reason I’m asking is that in an interview you gave when your From the Icelandic was published, you said, and I’m quoting from memory so correct me, “I actually began this book ten years before. But it was all so fresh and unformed, too close to the original all of it, it had to be put aside.” Is it possible that your character, Laurence Grace, is actually Len Spurgeon?’

  The slightest voice possible to hear over a phone wire asked, ‘Whatever would make you think that?’

  This time I held my words and let him stew in both questions.

  ‘Thanks again for sending “The Flamingos”. I think it’s really important. I hope you don’t take my prying as gossip-mongering.’

  ‘I don’t at all,’ he replied, once more all sincerity. ‘I respect the fact that you’ve got such an overwhelming interest in it all. Really. It’s only that … well, you know, it could turn out to be such a quagmire, all this business.’

  ‘A quagmire?’

  ‘Exactly, dear, and I wouldn’t want to see poor, serious, intelligent you sink into it, without leaving a trace.’

  If he’d meant to dishearten me, he’d succeeded. ‘You think that’s likely?’ I asked.

  ‘Not yet “likely”. Certainly “possible”.’

  On the lawn now more than a dozen, maybe a score, of birds, ringdoves as well as the large local bluebirds, all with their heads down, were assiduously and methodically pecking the grass, moving forward in almost perfect, even synchronized, rows like little machines of death.

  After Axenfeld and I disconnected, I scanned the rough sketch I’d put together on the computer screen while talking to him. It read:

  LEN SPURGEON AND THE PURPLE CIRCLE

  (AND THE WORKS HE INFLUENCED)

  1976-7 Lover of Mark Dodge – SF & NYC – Keep Frozen

  1978-9 Lover of Jeff Weber – NYC – Story ‘In the Tree Museum’

  1980-1 Lives with Axenfeld – Florida – From the Icelandic

  1981-2 Lives with Powers – NYC – writes last parts of Via Appia

  1982-3 Lives with Rowland Etheridge – NYC – ???

  1983-5 Tea with Leo-McKewens – NYC – ???

  One name was not to be found
on that list: Dominic De Petrie’s. I wondered why not. I still had no clue if Len’s relationships to the others were as I’d had them. Even so, it was beginning to look to me, in the words of Irian St George, ‘Aw-ful-ly damn sug-ges-tive!’

  Ray Rice didn’t show up in class, which calmed me a little. I didn’t know how I’d lecture with his smirk before me. Instead the class was filled with faces of newly minted young friends: Danielle and Michelle Tsieh, Bev Grigio, Kathy Tranh, Ben-Torres, Pam Agosian, Perry Valentine, Cheryl Taylor. As the lesson was on Black Elk Speaks, our Bruin linebacker pal had also come: Taponaupoa’s girth filled out the back row of the usual jocks.

  Once again the ghost dances came up. I told them what I’d told the young men the previous night. Kathy Tranh had heard her grandfather tell stories of time-crossing rituals of the Montagnard tribesmen in Vietnam. Hector Chuevo talked about a book The Teachings of Don Juan, where time and space could be crossed by sorcerers and initiates after much training, by eating datura plant seeds. Jane Hirschorn spoke of the sixteenth-century Hassidic ‘Saint’ Baal Shem Tov’s trances across time, allowing him to converse directly with patriarchs of the Pentateuch. When the period bell rang, a few students actually said ‘Aww!’, unhappy for it to be over. I reminded them to read Capote’s In Cold Blood over the weekend. I promised a scary read.

  A group of ten or so continued to hang on as I tried to get out of the room, asking questions as I led them downstairs and out.

  I lost half at the door. I headed to the parking garage at Westholme and Hilgard, and I’d crossed Dickson Plaza and already started down the ramping sidewalk and still had students for company. Perry and Ben-Torres turned off, headed to the men’s gym. Pamela and Kathy broke next, to the Luis Alfaro Student Center. I still had the Tsieh twins, Jane Hirschorn and Kathy Tranh arguing over the efficaciousness of Native American rights efforts of recent years as we came into view of the faculty center down a sloping road.

  My mood had improved so significantly, first as a result of the phone conversation with Aaron Axenfeld (despite his final warning), then as a result of the class, that I almost didn’t register what my eyes were seeing. When the appropriate connection was made to my brain, I still chatted about Wounded Knee Two and the Devil’s Tower Incident before I actually comprehended what I was seeing: St George, in his usual sport coat and tan chinos, under the faculty lounge access, nonchalantly speaking with Waterford Machado.