by Chris Wiltz
In twenty minutes the party had beefed up considerably, and the front rooms were crowded with people. I stood in the wide doorway that opened into the hallway from the second parlor and scanned the room for Chance Callahan. Richard was standing near the window opposite me talking to several people. His tuxedo looked as if it was made out of cashmere. He was elegant and at home in it, not zoot-suited as I undoubtedly appeared in Mr. D.’s polyester-blend special.
I walked on in so I could see who was in the next room. The dull glaze was broken by rainbows flashing. Paula Cotton passed in front of me to get to a couple standing off to themselves. There were radiant smiles, exclamations, hands extended, kisses exchanged. Boy, did they know how to have a good time.
I watched Paula for a few moments. All of her smiling and kissing and laugh-touched talking seemed very artificial, but because her animation was accompanied by the glitter of white sequins, and because it was directed to other exquisitely dressed people who responded with such pleasure under the gracious high ceilings and crystal chandeliers, it seemed appropriate, and, finally, attractive. The lure of the rich and beautiful. Her alabaster arm moved, the fingers on the hand at the end of it rippled, the heavy rocks rode the third finger and stayed put.
My eyes left the glitz and filmed over again. But just for a few seconds—what they found next was Lee. She was standing in front of the long window I’d thrown the iron chair through, almost perfectly framed by blue velvet curtains except for a man who was talking to her and whose back was to me. I knew she’d spotted me first. Maybe it was that her eyes had flicked back to him just as I saw her. She didn’t look at me again until I took a step toward her. Immediately I got warned off with a swift eye flash. The man saw it, too. He started to turn around, but she touched his arm lightly and said something that kept his attention on her.
I moved off to the side where I could see her better. He was talking to her very closely now. Her head was bent so that her hair, not elaborately done, but softly curling around her face as always, grazed his chin every now and then as he spoke. He flipped a hand after making a statement, rhetorical perhaps, and then the hand landed on her forearm. Then on her shoulder. Now it was grasping her elbow. He was awfully touchy. And I was awfully jealous, thinking who wouldn’t want to touch her. There wasn’t a woman in the room who came close to her, I thought, and she wasn’t decked out in beaded brocade or bugled satin. She wasn’t encased in sequins or dripping with jewels. She had on no jewelry at all, and her dress was very simple, a black floor-length tube held up by two round thin straps, but hardly shapeless. The top was scooped so a hint of cleavage showed. The material stretched just tight enough across her breasts, and fitted just close enough to her waist and hips. The material, I also noted, and it turned up my lips, was a black-on-black design of diamonds. I was awfully glad to see her.
I got around to noticing that this man she was talking to was almost as pretty as she was. He had jet-black hair that reflected the blue of the curtains, and fine smooth skin, and that kind of bone structure that men in magazine ads have. Those men, though, don’t look like they can talk. They don’t look like they can eat, drink or go to the bathroom. They pose. But this one was talking a blue streak; he was on a roll, touching and gesturing, getting closer to Lee, his shoulders hunched forward intimately in an effeminate way, then backing off, his eyebrows raised expectantly for her reaction. He was very dramatic, and I was beginning to think he would go on all night. When a uniformed maid passed with a tray of champagne, I took two.
Because I was thinking he was gay, it didn’t occur to me until he shifted position and seemed to start in on a new subject that perhaps Lee was with him. The implication of this was that she had deliberately lied to me and so was through with me. I drained off one glass of champagne and slid it on a passing tray. But then she put a hand on him, interrupting him, and said something to him, dismissing him. She walked slowly across the room to me, trying not to smile that smile.
She stopped in front of me and put her weight on one hip. I kept my shoulder to the wall I was leaning up against.
“Hey,” I said after about an eternity, “wanna go home and stay up all night with me?”
“Yes,” she said. She moved a little closer to me. She said something about missing me that was barely audible, but I didn’t have to hear her; I was watching her lips bump each other softly.
I got off the wall and straightened up, which put me close enough to her to smell her. One hand was occupied with the glass of champagne; the other hand, with a mind of its own, reached out to her. A rosy tint began to spread across her chest and up her neck. It was the first time, and maybe the only time I was likely to see Lee Diamond flustered. She stepped back and looked to each side guiltily, as if she expected everyone to be able to see the sparks that were flying between us. I half expected it myself.
I said, “I’ll see you after the party.” I turned away from her with effort and went off to the bar to get a real drink.
Chance Callahan’s arrival was the arrival of a celebrity. He was past being fashionably late; he walked in at the peak of the party. I was wrong to think Callahan might try to avoid anybody. He was enjoying his fame. People twisted and craned their necks to get a glimpse of him as he and his entourage made their way into the gathering, shaking hands and waving.
Callahan had that quality called presence shimmering off him like an aura. Part of it had to do with his looks. He had enough of a translucent Irish complexion that his skin glowed without being at all ruddy. His head was sleek and oval, like an egg, the ears set close to it. The rest of his features were clumped together in the middle of his face. His forehead sloped back gently into his hairline, and his one-tone gray hair was combed straight back. It fitted his head like a pewter skullcap. Viewing him in profile, as I was, he looked like a silver seal.
The other part of his presence was his enormous self-confidence and total lack of fear. This was a man who did not need to avoid anybody—ever. He was up to handling anything. He did not worry about anything, either. He had said there would be no riots after the project killings, and there hadn’t been. He defied the anger of the black community by refusing to discuss the police shooting of a black youth. I had the feeling he would pull it all out of the bag in plenty of time.
He and Richard toasted each other with champagne and exchanged remarks that had everyone near them laughing and nodding. A couple of women even clapped at one point. But as I watched the two candidates together, I got diverted because I suddenly remembered what it was about the Bucktown Tavern I had forgotten. The tavern was mentioned in the newspaper article I’d read that day at the old man’s house while he yapped at me.
When I got my turn, I went up to Callahan and told him who I was. Even though he and I were about the same height, he seemed to be looking down at me. He had on his face that look of complacency people get when everything in their life is going right, and so they think they’re superior. I could taste my dislike for him.
“Oh, yes,” he said pleasantly, “you’re the one who kept saying Mr. Angelesi was a murderer.”
He didn’t bother to keep his voice down. Anyone who was within hearing distance turned around.
“I’m also the one who was in your office yesterday about Marty Solarno’s murder.”
The party didn’t seem to be so noisy anymore.
Callahan ignored what I said. “You know, there are a lot of people who say that if it hadn’t been for you, Mr. Angelesi would still be the district attorney.”
What was this—some kind of cloaked way of saying, “Gee, thanks, pal"?
I was ready to go on having two different conversations for as long as it took. “Maybe you already know everything there is to know about Marty Solarno’s murder.”
At this point, I’ll admit I was causing a scene. But Callahan didn’t mind; he was still smiling down at me. Before he had a chance to reply, Quiro was in my ear.
“Richard wants to see you in the back, boss.”<
br />
“Okay.” But I wasn’t about to get led off by the host’s manservant now. I waited for Callahan.
He spoke as much to the crowd as to me. “I know this much: He used to sing anywhere, too.” He rocked forward on the balls of his feet when he said “used to,” and because he said it like he was telling a joke, people laughed.
I spoke to him quietly so not many could hear. “Seen any interesting movies lately?”
“Please, come.” Quiro was in my ear again, but this time he took me by the forearm, and tightly enough that I would have had to scuffle with him not to follow. But I had said everything I wanted to say to Callahan.
Richard and Paula were out in the hallway. Paula’s pink lips twitched with anger. I apologized to her, but Quiro kept me moving toward the back of the house.
“He didn’t start it,” Richard told his wife. She did some angry whispering, and then—I just caught it—Richard said, “Well, if you wouldn’t have invited her, I wouldn’t have invited him.”
Quiro let me precede him through the dining room. When we got into the den, I said to him, “Private detectives don’t seem to be very popular right now.”
“Not right now,” he agreed. He motioned me to go into the library.
“The worst that can happen is that the party will be the talk of the town.”
“You will be the talk of the town, boss.”
Richard came up fast and the two of us went into the library. He closed the big sliding double doors behind us.
“Paula is deathly afraid of any kind of unpleasantness,” he said.
“There wouldn’t have been any unpleasantness.”
“I know. Callahan wouldn’t have allowed it.” He got a cigarette out of a crystal box on the desk.
“Neither would I.” I guess I felt a bit defensive.
“Of course not.” He fumbled with a book of matches. I took out my lighter and lit his cigarette. “Thanks.” He inhaled, his head tilted back. “What was that last you said to him?”
“I asked him if he’d seen any interesting movies lately.”
“Oh God.” He sort of crumbled onto the edge of the desk.
“Don’t be so nervous, Richard. One of the best ways to get information is to give it—selectively.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I can tell. What I don’t like is Rankin coming to my place at midnight to ask me what Solarno had on you.”
“What?”
“That’s right. He’s suspicious that I wanted to get into Solarno’s apartment for reasons that weren’t personal.”
“It’s all getting so twisted.” He rolled the cigarette around in his fingers and took a short, inelegant drag.
“I’m doing my best to untwist it.”
He nodded, but without much conviction, and put out his cigarette. “I can’t be gone long. A lot of people are going to be leaving for the ball.” He got up and started toward the door.
“Richard.” He turned around. “Do you remember the kid on the motorcycle who was gunned down by the cops?” He said yes vaguely. He looked distracted and depressed. “He worked at the Bucktown Tavern. Did you know him?”
He stared at me. “No. I’ve got to go.”
Maybe he did know the kid, or maybe he was too much of an aristocrat to notice a busboy.
I went out into the den after he left, but I didn’t want to go up front. I figured I’d upset Paula Cotton enough for one night. I waited until I saw Quiro come through the passageway and into the kitchen. I signaled to him. He slid into the den on those cat feet.
“Quiro, would you ask Miss Diamond to come back here?”
“Sure, boss.” He did his quick dancerlike movement and floated away to get Lee.
We left through the kitchen. As soon as we got into some shadows at the side of the house, I pulled her to me and kissed her for a long time, willing myself to forget about Solarno and Callahan and the Cottons. But Lee wasn’t ready to forget yet.
We were still leaning against each other. My hands were doing laps up and down the length of her back.
“I’m not sure what went on back there, Neal, but is it too strong to say that you accused Callahan of Marty Solarno’s murder, and that he threatened to kill you?”
My hands stopped on her hips. I pushed on her so we were standing apart, took her hand, and started down the driveway.
“You put it like that,” I said, “it makes me queasy.”
16
* * *
The Silver Seal
No one even looked at me funny when I walked into the Euclid at nine o’clock the next morning wearing a tuxedo that had spent the night wadded up on the floor. Part of this was because not much looked strange at the Euclid anymore. The other part is that nothing at all looks strange during Mardi Gras.
I changed clothes, took the tuxedo, and went down to the office. The answering service was clear, and Mr. D. didn’t answer. I threw the tux up on a file cabinet; if Mr. D. wanted it back, he knew where to find me.
That afternoon, as I walked over to Lee’s, was the first of many times during the next few days that I had the sensation there was a colony of crawlers living under the skin on my back. I was walking down Dauphine Street. Normally, it’s one of the quieter streets in the French Quarter, but because of Mardi Gras it was busier with pedestrians than usual. If there was someone following me, he would have to be pretty lousy at it for me to spot him in the Mardi Gras crowds. Not that I didn’t try. I stopped on the street during a lull in foot traffic and lit a cigarette, listening for any footsteps that stopped behind me. None did. I took a right on Conti and lingered in the doorway of a bar about a half a block down. No one came speeding around the corner. No one passed me up only to wait a little further along the street. After the first day, I thought maybe I was being paranoid. After the next few days, even though I still hadn’t spotted anyone, I knew I wasn’t.
There wasn’t much else going on to keep me on my toes. Right before Mardi Gras everyone gives up trying to get anything done, or else they disappear until afterward. So on the Monday before the big day the only phone calls I’d got were from my mother. The first time she called to find out how many people were going to be at my apartment the next day to watch the parades so she could make enough potato salad, and to tell me to pick up a king cake at the bakery near the Euclid. The second time was to tell me not to pick up the king cake because she and my sister’s kids had decided to make one. When the phone rang the third time I figured she was calling to tell me the king cake was a disaster, and to pick one up after all. But it wasn’t my mother. It was Chance Callahan telling me to be at his office in an hour.
When I got there everyone was gone except Leonard Yastovich, who watched me closely until Callahan got off the phone. He told me where to sit, giving me his reluctant, puckered smile, then sat across from me at Callahan’s secretary’s desk. After that we didn’t speak. Yastovich had that look about him, in his tight mouth and his wary eyes, of someone who wanted something badly and would do almost anything to get it. It reminded me of Richard asking if I remembered how it was to be young and reckless. But it showed all over Yastovich that he would do whatever anybody told him to do if he thought it would put him ahead. I didn’t think he would wise up. What he was best at was being a lackey, yet he wanted to be more than that. He would be used, as I figured Callahan was using him now, and then discarded when he tried to reap the rewards.
Callahan had me wait long enough to show me how eaten up he was with his own importance. In this business, I’ve gotten used to those types. What they don’t realize is that they’d be respected more if they were on time. It seems childishly simple to me.
Once I was inside, though, he started right in, but not curtly or hurriedly. He was his usual relaxed and smiling self. His sleek head was gleaming.
“I hope you haven’t been running all over town telling everyone I killed Marty Solarno,” he said.
“I get the feeling it wouldn’t bother you much if I d
id.”
“Of course it would. You are known to be a very persistent man.”
“If you are referring to my accusations against Angelesi, I don’t mind telling you that there is a large qualitative difference in my mind between Marty Solarno being murdered and Myra Ledet being murdered.”
“In your mind.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?” I demanded, getting hot that he might be making a slur against Myra.
“In this office, Mr. Rafferty, murder is murder no matter who it is.”
“Right.”
“I’m curious about you, Rafferty. I’d like to know what it is that drives a man like you.”
“And that’s why you called me over here? It’s probably nothing you could understand.”
“Nothing so crass as ambition—am I right? What is it—love, loyalty, ideals?” I was really getting sick of that smile. “Are you working for Richard Cotton?”
“I work for him sometimes.”
“Were you working while the rest of us were partying?”
“I’m also his friend,” I said.
“I doubt that. Richard Cotton has no friends. He’s too selfish and ambitious, too aware of his superior social status. Of course, he’s so aristocratic—one of the beautiful people—that it’s difficult to see. Unless you’ve worked with him.”
My hands itched to pound the smugness out of his face. “I’m getting tired of this conversation.”
“Then let’s talk about Christopher Raven.”
“What about him?”
“About how a police informant and junkie lets himself into the candidate’s house, makes a fire in the candidate’s fireplace, and makes himself at home. And how the candidate says he doesn’t know him.”
“What are you trying to say, Callahan? Is that the kind of stuff you plan to talk about during the campaign?”
“Oh, really, Rafferty. What’s wrong with you? The press will talk about Raven. I’m sure I’ll be asked to comment. Of course, I would never make a subjective comment. I think what I just said is a fair representation of what happened.”
