Agnes Among the Gargoyles

by Patrick Flynn

  "Shoot away, my friend," says Whitey.

  "Who do you think this is under here?" says Tommy. "It's the last Halloween drunk of 198_. Big deal."

  Dov Bloch must identify the Pinboy. A lineup is arranged. Meanwhile, Chief of Detectives Codd holds a press conference.

  "Settle down, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll give you the straight poop," says Chief Codd. "And I promise to speak slowly to accommodate the gentlemen of the Yiddish press."

  The Chief recounts the details of the arrest. He congratulates Agnes and Wayne for their roles in the capture. "It's that sort of involvement that makes this city safer."

  "What do you mean, Chief?"

  "I mean they gave the department invaluable assistance by trailing the suspect and then alerting us."

  A reporter asks, "Would you advocate the average citizen taking that much on himself, Chief?"

  "Well, no, not really."

  "They did everything but make the arrest, Chief."

  "Ideally, we should have been brought in sooner," the Chief concedes. "We're here to help."

  "Help, Chief?"

  "Help is a bad word," says Chief Codd, as twin globules of perspiration trickle down his cheeks, racing toward his numerous chins. "The police department will naturally do the lion's share."

  "Lion's share of what, Chief?"

  "Surveillance, pursuit, arrests—we'll take care of all that."

  "Gee, that's nice of you, Chief."

  Inside, the lineup theater empties. Detective Diaz, dressed in a suit and no tie just like the Pinboy and the other decoys, struts over to Agnes and breaks the news to her.

  "The Jewish kid picked me out," he whispers. "That little putz never saw John Speer in his life."

  Tommy comes over to Agnes. He folds his arms. "All right. What do we do now?"

  "I don't know," she says. "You're the cop."

  He shakes his head. "I'm just watching. And when Razumovsky calls me into his office and asks me why our case is all fucked up, I'll say, 'Gee, I don't know, Inspector, we'd better ask Agnes.'"

  "I'm sorry," she says.

  "It's not your fault," he says wearily. "But while we're on the subject, why is our case all fucked up, do you think?"

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  "I have some rather bad news for you, Agnes," says her mother. "I'm afraid you're illegitimate."

  Agnes is cooking dinner. She cradles the telephone receiver while whisking butter and flour together for a roux. "What are you talking about?"

  "We couldn't find the divorce papers because there was never any divorce," says Hannah. "Your father and I were never legally married. You're a bastard."

  Agnes stops whisking. "Ma, I'm so sorry."

  Hannah is mysteriously cheerful. "It's no big deal, Agnes. Years ago we didn't worry so much about paperwork. I'll bet half the couples I've known in my life aren't really married."

  Agnes doubts that strongly.

  "Does this mean you're not entitled to Daddy's Social Security money?" Agnes asks.

  "We weren't legally married," says Hannah, as though her daughter is dense.

  "I'm getting off the phone now," says Agnes, trying to stay calm. "I'll call my lawyer."

  "If the first spouse doesn't contest, I can still get the money," says Hannah. "I'll have to go to a hearing."

  Agnes shakes her head. "God damn Daddy."

  "It wasn't his fault."

  "Yes it was. You can be mad at him, you know. You're entitled."

  "He didn't do it on purpose," says Hannah.

  "Of course not. He just fell victim to classic Travertine thinking. It never occurs to the Travertines that everyone else in the world might have a good reason for doing what they're doing. We think the rest of the world is stupid. The Travertines have their own way of doing things, thank you. So what if couples have been getting legally married for thousands of years? What do they know? I swear, Ma, if the Travertines had a coat of arms, that would be the perfect motto: What do they know?"

  Agnes gets off the phone and dials her lawyer. She is blind with rage. Her dialing is inaccurate. Twice she gets the West End Florists. She feels sorry for her mother, and resents having to clean up the mess. In an orderly world, children use their parents' lawyers, not the other way around.

  Agnes makes her appointment, then calls the telephone company to report the two wrong numbers.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  "Barbara's mother called to thank me for catching Jack," says Agnes. "Isn't that sad? I wanted to die."

  "Just a phone call?" says Tommy. "Not a little note?"

  "Stop," says Agnes. "I guess now I've done everything humanly possible for Barbara. Do you still want to go out?"

  He nods solemnly. "I'm ready."

  So they have a date. One Sunday morning Tommy appears at Agnes's door. His hair is freshly cut.

  Without distractions, without a corpse and floodlights and reporters, without Speer and Razumovsky and the mayor, without the Wegemans, Tommy and Agnes aren't quite sure how to proceed with each other.

  They stay on familiar ground. Speer's arraignment, Tommy tells Agnes, was a joke. The offices of Razumovsky and the district attorney were not in communication; Speer, in handcuffs and belly chain and leg irons was charged with nothing more serious than Impeding the Progress of an Investigation. The reporters laughed. The judge, aware of Dov's blown identification, angrily set bail at $500. Speer used his Gold Card to come up with the cash.

  Tommy suggests that they go to an afternoon concert at Julliard.

  "I hope you like chamber music," he says as they take their seats.

  "Oh yes. It's very relaxing."

  "That means you hate it. It should be involving, not relaxing."

  The first piece is a Brahms horn trio. Like everyone else who knows nothing about classical music, Agnes pages furiously through the program, looking for clues. She needs something to latch on to: an analysis of form, the story of a movement's inspiration—anything but the music itself which, though pleasant enough, is maddening to her. There's a nice tune! she thinks and, whoosh! it's gone, like an attractive man glimpsed on a crowded subway platform.

  "I find it helpful not to read the program," he suggests gently.

  "You would."

  Agnes has to hand it to him. Everyone she knows seems to enjoy sitting through arty films and plays, but not one in ten has been able to vault the classical music hurdle. Agnes's mind wanders.

  The Brahms horn trio, Schumann's piano quartet, and they are back out on the street.

  "Was it the worst two hours of your life?" he asks.

  "I had a great time."

  "You were a little fidgety. I think you distracted the cellist."

  "I didn't notice."

  "That's why she moved her seat. They usually face the audience."

  They stop to buy groceries. Agnes will make an early dinner in Tommy's apartment.

  He lives on Eighteenth Street off Eighth Avenue in Chelsea. After the Revolutionary War, most of the city's brothels were located there, and the district takes its name from an infamous prostitute. Chelsea Newles was from St. Croix. She was heart-stoppingly beautiful. She had a long, graceful neck, which she adorned with nine rings, one atop the other. She carried around a little case containing nine smaller rings, and if the gentleman could put on all nine at once, there was no charge.

  Tommy puts the key in the door. "I have to apologize for my apartment."

  "I don't mind a mess."

  "It's not messy. It's just a rotten apartment."

  It is an impossibly small studio, about the size of a boxing ring though not so nicely shaped. There are two windows. The plasterboard walls, which are new, don't match the ceiling molding. It looks less like a discrete apartment than a collection of spare corners and leftover alcoves assembled from all the other, proper apartments in the building.

  "I never should have moved in here," says Tommy. "I should have just stayed in the U-Haul. I'd have as much space for the same price. I
'd have three windows."

  Agnes uses the bathroom. When she closes the door too forcefully, a cork panel from the ceiling drops down on her head.

  "That's why it's called a drop ceiling," says Tommy. He wrestles the panel back into position. "And drop ceilings are only good for hiding pornography."

  Agnes heats oil in a big black skillet. She chops olives and anchovies for spaghetti. Tommy opens a couple of beers.

  "I hate for you to see this place," says Tommy mournfully. "It's such a stupid apartment. But I won't be here much longer."

  "Where are you going?" says Agnes. She feels a shaft of anxiety.

  "My father and his girlfriend bought an abandoned brownstone in Fort Greene. They think the neighborhood's going to turn white soon, and they'll be rich. But I'm the only white person they can get to live there now."

  "Is your mother dead?" Agnes asks.

  "Not dead enough for my old man," says Tommy. "They're divorced. She still lives on City Island My father's the one with the new, glamorous life. Silvia, his girlfriend, makes jewelry. She deducts a bedroom on her taxes and he thinks it's hot shit."

  Agnes separates eggs into two bowls.

  "You're good at that," Tommy notes.

  Agnes knows City Island. Like the neighborhood she grew up in, on the other side of the Bronx, it was filled with cops and firemen whose sons followed in their fathers' footsteps. They were the boys Agnes grew up with, and in high school their familiarity and low horizons rendered them devoid of interest to her. Tommy makes her wonder, for the first time, about those boys. What made her think they were stupid and commonplace? (He pulls a table to the middle of the room and she wonders if all the Bronx boys turned out so straight-backed and so sweet.) Which leads to troubling questions about herself. Who has she been looking for all this time? And what else has she overlooked?

  After dinner, Agnes and Tommy embark on the next stage of their relationship. It has been forever since Agnes was this close to a man. She pulls Tommy to her and he responds but not immediately, and Agnes remembers that being with a man is like driving one of those big army rigs: you've got to think ahead, you've got to turn the wheel before you even reach the curve. They are big beasts, men.

  But Agnes breaks it off. She sits on the edge of the bed, panting.

  "This is going too fast," she says.

  "Not fast enough," Tommy murmurs. "Come back over here. I want to fuck you twice."

  "No."

  He sits up in the bed. He props the pillows behind him and looks ready to settle in with a book. "No?"

  "It's not you. It's me."

  He shakes his head. "Gather ye rosebuds, Agnes. You're almost fifty years old. What's the matter?"

  "You're going to think I'm crazy, but I won't fuck you without an AIDS test."

  "I don't have it," he says.

  "I'm a very careful person," she says.

  "You read too many newspapers," he says sourly. "You're panicking."

  "Do you not want to go out? I would understand," she says.

  "Every woman has a secret lunacy," he says.

  "We can still kiss," she says, moving toward him.

  "I'm agreeing under duress," he says. "But I need some serious sublimation. Let's have dessert."

  Agnes has made oeufs a la neige, Floating Islands. The only problem is that they have waited too long to eat it. The islands have run together into a single mass.

  Agnes barely touches hers. "Do you hate me?"

  "No, I don't hate you."

  "We can't have the test tomorrow, you know. We have to wait six months. That's how long it takes for the antibodies to show up. Now do you hate me?"

  He doesn't reply.

  "Before you know it, everybody will be having AIDS tests," she says. "You're in the vanguard."

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The newest waiter at the Crosskeys Diner on Woodhaven Boulevard stacks an order of lasagna, a bacon Swissburger, brisket of beef and eggs over easy up the length of his arm and limps out of the kitchen. The food is for a group of performers from a nearby parish theater. Fresh from a performance, they are still in their make-up. One of the men hasn't washed the gray dye from his hair. "It depends how fast you can do the bell kicks," another man is saying. He leaps to his feet and, taking advantage of the diner's scarcity of customers, demonstrates the choreography, almost knocking Bezel over.

  Everyone at the table laughs. They are still giddy from that evening's performance.

  "Fear not, sir, you shall have a second chance," booms Bezel. "I will be right back with the side dishes."

  He turns to the kitchen but Doris is already there with the monkey dishes of carrots and broccoli and a side of wheat toast. Plucky, cheerful Doris. Doris who won't leave him alone.

  "You didn't have to do that," says Bezel when the table is served.

  Doris is marrying half-empty bottles of ketchup. She never stops working. "You'd do the same for me. What goes around comes around."

  The hostess walks by them with the Frenchman and two other men. Bezel hasn't seen him since the last binge. He looks right at Bezel but says nothing. The hostess leads them to a table near the kitchen.

  "She chews that gum like a cud," says Doris of the hostess before bustling over to the table.

  "Good evening, gents," says Doris. "Since there's three of you, you might be more comfortable in the front. Frankly, this table is Siberia."

  "Thank you, lovely lady, but this is fine," says the Frenchman. "We're just having coffee."

  "Suit yourself. We've got the tables. No one's storming the doors tonight."

  She pours the coffee, then gathers up every sugar bowl in the diner. She has persuaded the boss to switch his brand of artificial sweetener. Bezel watches the Frenchman and his cronies. Soon they are joined by Mr. Parker—Mr. X—from the Blarney Castle.

  Bezel thinks back to that meeting in the cellar. A lot of crazy plans were made. He never thought anything would come of them.

  Perhaps, for once, the Frenchman is not full of shit. Perhaps there really is money to be made from his scheme.

  How did the Frenchman find out where he is working?

  Doris buzzes in Bezel's ear. She tells him about her daughter's plans for college. "She's applying to Creedmore—whoops, that's a mental institution, I think— well, that makes sense too, I guess—shoot! Bryn Mawr, that's the name of it. Lord, I swear it's Alzheimer's." She tells him about the problems of being a single mother. She tells him how hard it has been to balance family and career. "As you might say, mate, it hasn't been all porter and skittles. But we've pulled through." She pretends to strangle herself.

  As the four men file out, there are flecks of mischief in the eyes of the Frenchman.

  Doris buses the table.

  "Did those fellows leave you anything?" Bezel asks casually.

  "Nope. They're European. They're used to a service charge."

  Doris goes off to rewire the dishwasher or something. Bezel picks up the matchbook in the ashtray. There is a message written on the inside cover.

  Urgent

  20 min

  White Castle down the road

  parking lot

  near the moat

  Bezel takes off his apron and heads straight for Doris.

  "I have to go," he announces.

  "Why?"

  "I just got a call. It's an emergency."

  Doris freezes. "What is it?"

  "My brother's wife. She's been in an accident."

  "Oh my God!"

  He can almost hear the frenzied beating of Doris's worried heart.

  "There was a car crash, fire, I don't know...."

  Doris is shaking.

  "Go!" she says, pushing him toward the door. "For God's sake, I'll explain what happened."

  "Thanks, Doris."

  "Do you need my car?"

  It is a tempting offer. She is really too trusting.

  "I'll get a cab," he says, and is out the door.

  The owner of the diner,
who has just come in, asks Doris, "Where does that prick think he's going?"

  Doris explains the situation breathlessly. The owner is a dapper Greek gentleman with a small moustache and an addiction to mints and toothpicks. He listens, then delivers a succinct verdict on Bezel and his emergency.

  "Hmmph. More bullshit."