The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  “The whole island had reason to celebrate. No one was seriously injured. Only minor damage. I believe the clock tower was the most serious. We were lucky.”

  George took a thirsty swallow of the beer that had been put in front of him. His head reeled slightly and then he felt everything inside him settling into place. “And what about my money? Any luck there?”

  “Ah, no. I am sorry. So far, we have failed. Costa is very stubborn. My men tried many forms of persuasion, but he would tell nothing.”

  “In that case, he’s innocent. You’ll have to let him go.”

  “Let him go?” The captain’s stare dismissed the suggestion. “We sent him to Piraeus on the morning boat.”

  George leaned forward. “What does that mean?”

  “It is normal routine. He will wait for four or five months in a very uncomfortable prison until his case is heard. He has a record. With Mr. Peterson’s accusation, he will certainly get a year. How much more because of your—suspicions, it is hard to say.”

  “Without any evidence?” George objected.

  “With stolen money, what evidence can we expect to find? Do you think Costa will go around with sixty thousand drachmas in his pocket?”

  George was momentarily silenced, his disgust with himself reviving as he was presented with the result of his failure of nerve. His protests yesterday seemed feeble in retrospect; his behavior seemed completely foreign to the way he was used to conducting himself. Wreck a man’s life for the sake of two thousand dollars? He must have been out of his mind. He drained off his beer and sat back with decision. “Very well. I’ll have to go to Piraeus, too. I’ll find the best lawyer in Athens. I’m going to get Costa out.”

  “As you wish. You are a philosopher, Mr. Yorgo. Such matters are not for a policeman. I do my job as best I can. To me, Costa is a troublemaker. If he has a few small bruises, can I allow him to display them and claim the police gave them to him? No, no, no. You want quite rightly your money back. I do what is required to get it. With what result? I arrest Dimitri because Costa accuses him of peddling the dope. I search the bar. Nothing. Costa makes a fool of me. He gives me a list of Dimitri’s customers because people who want dope will steal for it. Am I to lock up all your foreign colony? No, no, no. I will catch the source. If it’s Dimitri, I will catch him soon. No fear. But dope is a serious matter. Costa takes his story with him. We will have special—do you say narcotics?—yes, special narcotics police here spying on everybody. You hear him put blame on your son with his story of passing money to Dimitri. You want to free such a man? Forget your philosophy, Mr. Yorgo. Leave Costa to me.”

  “I can’t. I’m responsible for him.” He had seen how Joe lived. His certainty about Costa’s guilt was an absurdity. Anybody could have picked up his thousand-drachma note without even wondering whose it was. “I can’t sit back and see him taken off for months for something he probably didn’t do.”

  The uniform crackled ominously as the captain took a sip of his drink. “You were sure yesterday that he did do it. Why did you sign that paper? You weren’t forced.”

  “I lost my head. You made it almost impossible for me not to. You’re good at your job, Captain.” He was almost glad that Costa’s difficulties hadn’t been resolved. It gave him a cause. His stiffening determination to free the Greek made him feel that, at least until he had succeeded, life might still be worth living. His memory of the talk with Jeff and Dimitri was a bit fuzzy, but he had the impression that it had ended on a note of friendly understanding. If he could free Costa, if he could establish a link with Jeff as he moved into adulthood, there was still hope for decency and integrity. He was glad for anything to divert his thoughts from Sarah.

  The captain was smiling with self-satisfaction. “You have noticed how you signed even when you were maybe a little unwilling? I have pride in my work. I tell you, it would be not convenient in the performance of my duty to have Costa back at this time. He would make it look as if I had made an error. Get him a lawyer if you wish. He has the right to one. Then drop it.”

  “You mean, you don’t think a lawyer could do anything for him? All right. I have important friends in Athens. We’ll see what they can do.”

  The captain put his glass down with a little bang. His uniform seemed to fill out dangerously. “Again your influential friends? If you mean to interfere, I must warn you. Your permit will expire in five—six weeks? I have the authority to refuse to renew it. The foreigners are welcome so long as they remain with their own affairs. You may do as you like, but don’t fool yourself about the consequences.”

  “You mean, you’d have me expelled?” It was George’s turn to stare incredulously. “On what grounds?”

  “Grounds can always be found, Mr. Yorgo.”

  “You’ll get yourself some headlines if you try it.” The more obstacles that were put in his way, the more value attached to his cause. If his very existence here were jeopardized, the fight became a major challenge.

  “Headlines are quickly forgotten,” the police chief said. “But come. I am neglecting my duties as a host.” He snapped his fingers again. More beer and ouzo were put before them. “I was surprised you didn’t appear this morning to say good-bye to your son.”

  “Good-bye to my son?”

  “That’s not correct? You don’t say good-bye to one who is leaving?”

  “Yes, indeed. But who’s leaving?”

  “Your son and Mr. Cochran, of course. We arranged for Mr. Cochran——” The captain stopped, doubtlessly startled by the look of consternation in George’s face. “But surely you knew. You will not tell me that Mr. Cochran took your son——”

  “No, no. Of course not.” With an effort, George got himself under control. He took a swallow of beer while he tried to organize his thoughts. “I was thinking about something else. Yes. My wife——”

  “I thought it a wise decision. He will be well with your friend, Mr. Cochran. He and Dimitri were——” The captain hunched his shoulders and tilted his hand back and forth, suggesting ambiguity, a lack of balance.

  “I had a talk with them last night,” George heard himself saying while incoherent questions tumbled wildly through his head.

  “Ah, yes. Confidentially, when my men went to arrest Dimitri, they found him in bed with your son committing an unnatural act. We all do many things when we are young that mean little in later life, but it is well perhaps for him to be with your distinguished friend now.”

  George remembered his parting threat to Mike, something about not trying any funny business with the boy. Had Mike taken Jeff off simply as a final taunt? Sarah, with her suspicions, would never have permitted it. If she were right, if Mike had set out to seduce a romantic and susceptible boy, nothing he could do would be sufficient punishment for the crime. “It all came up rather suddenly,” he said carefully, hoping not to further betray his ignorance. “I had expected Mr. Cochran to take the afternoon boat.”

  “Of course, but when your son explained to me that Mr. Cochran was eager to be away, we naturally attended to it. They were to catch a plane to the States, is that not so?”

  “Yes, a plane to the States,” George repeated. In his mind he was replaying the scene with the boy yesterday afternoon. Jeff had made it clear that he hated life there. Perhaps the banning of the bar had been the final straw. Perhaps he had sought Mike out and asked to go with him. Perhaps he had said things that had made Mike agree as a discreet act of friendship. In all fairness to Mike, it was a possibility. He could hope that that was the way it had been.

  He drank his beer and made the necessary replies to the captain’s remarks. Courtesy required that he stay a few more minutes. When he indicated that it was time for him to go, the captain gave him a portentous look.

  “Don’t forget what I have told you, Mr. Yorgo. These are not idle threats. I prefer to direct events here in my own way. It is for the best of the many. I do not permit interference.”

  “I’m going to look into it. I have to d
o what my conscience dictates. Thanks for making your position clear.”

  They nodded to each other and George rose and left. He crossed the square purposefully, but as soon as he was out of sight, his pace slowed. Out of the chaos of thoughts and feelings in him, he singled out his indifference to the captain’s final warning as a guarantee that his principles couldn’t be shaken. Justice was justice. His commitment to it was unwavering.

  Admirable, unless it was based on an inability to believe that it could happen to him. Countries didn’t expel the George Leightons of this world; he had a whole cultural apparatus behind him. If he could be expelled, he had deceived himself about all the foundations on which his life and work were built, and Mike Cochran was right.

  Mike Cochran. He mustn’t admit his suspicions about Mike; he couldn’t permit himself to imagine Mike finding pleasure in his son’s body or all his purpose would be swept away in mindless rage. Their old intimacy would forbid it; it would be incest of an inexpressibly obscene nature. He and Mike had loved each other deeply, so deeply that it had always hovered on the verge of some physical expression. At the time, he would have been indignant at the suggestion of homosexuality but with the passage of years, understanding and tolerance of himself as well as others had opened his eyes to the fact that only the slightest alteration in the chemistry of either of them could have turned it into sexual passion.

  In that sense, his son was their son and, no matter how depraved or perverse, Mike would be as incapable as he himself of having a physical relationship with the boy. No, Jeff had seen in him a godsend and had talked him into giving him the trip. After all, he was due to leave in a few weeks anyway. As for Dimitri, if that was the way Jeff was going to go, better for him to be where his choice wouldn’t be limited to bar boys. He couldn’t be deeply concerned about the “unnatural act.” He could think of no act of which the body was capable that could be reasonably deemed “unnatural.”

  Sarah would know the details of the boy’s departure, but he couldn’t speak to her. Not yet. Perhaps Jeff had left him a letter of explanation. If not, he knew several trusted friends who could check up on him in New York or Hollywood or Cambridge or wherever he ended up.

  He came to a street that led down to the port and hesitated but went on. Everybody would be heading home for lunch by now. Since he was powerless to pursue Jeff and was uncertain whether he should even if he could, Costa remained his first immediate responsibility. He was shocked by his ignorance of the country’s legal system. He would have to go to Athens and find out. There were a number of people he could go to for guidance. But to go to Athens involved going to the house and he couldn’t imagine any confrontation with Sarah that wouldn’t leave him permanently crippled and incapable of action. Perhaps only expulsion from the country would force an awareness on him of how finally and completely and thoroughly his life here had run its course.

  He came to a street that led back and up and would eventually, in a roundabout way, take him past his house. He turned into it and started climbing. He might try to sneak in without seeing Sarah. Or perhaps she was off being consoled by Pavlo. An image of the naked girl he had been sleeping beside passed through his mind. He remembered that she had been very sweet and willing up until the time he remembered nothing. Peterson’s girl Lena.

  He would have to borrow some money for the trip to Athens. He thought of Mike’s check again. He felt his pockets and found nothing but an almost empty pack of cigarettes. He remembered suddenly that he had torn up the check some time during the evening. He remembered the bits fluttering away behind him. Money from Peter. Clothes and passport from the house.

  Lena’s long seductive body crossed his mind’s eye again. It was too late to catch the afternoon boat. He wouldn’t be able to get away until tomorrow morning. The police chief wasn’t likely to put special transportation at his disposition. If life had to be rebuilt from the beginning, a body was as good a start as any. Forget for a moment the big experiences, the big aspirations and passions and commitments. Were people incapable of bearing happiness? Had life been too good? Had Sarah’s impulse to destroy felicity been a normal and inevitable one? Begin all over again with a body. Lena’s was a lovely one.

  At the next juncture of small stepped streets, he altered his course once more and headed across on the level for Joe Peterson’s house.

  Charlie was dissatisfied with his afternoon’s work. He put down his brushes and took a turn around the studio, stroking his naked chest as he paused in front of the half-dozen unfinished canvases propped up here and there, trying to redefine his intentions in each. Their cool mathematical elegance, which had won him considerable fame, stirred a curious uneasiness in him. Were they as dead as they seemed to him now?

  He had been restless ever since he found Peter’s note on the bed before lunch. A sudden crisis had apparently arisen, but he couldn’t adjust to this unexpected departure. He was glad Peter was having fun with the girl but their being off on a yacht together changed it somehow, cut him off more completely than he found easy to accept.

  Martha had returned from the port late for lunch bearing strange tales of arrests and additional departures. Jeff and Mike Cochran. Jeff and George’s money. Apparently Peter was to play some part in untangling the snarl. Jeff was gone and Peter had gone after him.

  The thought nagged at him all afternoon. Peter was with the girl, he repeatedly reminded himself. Jeff was with Mike. If they saw each other it would be only about the money business. Or perhaps Martha had got it wrong. Perhaps Jeff hadn’t gone off with Mike in the way everybody was assuming, but was fleeing justice in his overwrought way and would be sent back by Peter. Since they were all traveling on yachts or under police auspices, anybody could turn up at any time, independently of the regular boats. He would go down and find out what was going on as soon as he was finished for the day.

  He returned to his brushes and cleaned them carefully. It was early to quit, but his concentration was broken. He crossed terraces and courtyards and went to his room and showered. Drying himself, he stood in front of the full-length mirror and checked his body critically. Bearing up. And there was that, he thought wryly as he dropped his eyes down to the base of his flat abdomen. After a good toweling, it was startlingly conspicuous, exaggerated esthetically, throwing the lines of his body out of balance. Monumental. It was the reason why parading naked in front of somebody seemed to him very nearly a sexual act. Considering the attention it had always commanded, it was surprising that he had been able to discipline it so easily into assuming the relatively minor role it now played. Ridiculous what power this length of flesh had wielded—over himself and others. Peter was still fascinated by it and would still gladly offer his body to its demands, but his craving for it had been broken and he wouldn’t do him the disservice of subjecting him to its tyranny again. After the years of taking, it was a joy to be able to give himself for Peter’s satisfaction. A joy, and so much safer. At times, he was filled with a wild urge, directed at nobody in particular nor toward any particular act, to give full rein to the extraordinary instrument, to let it rage through life as it had once done. The fire was not completely extinguished.

  He looked at it in the mirror, long and jutting massively after the toweling, an entity that seemed somehow separate from himself, the adversary identified in his mind with the baseless sense of superiority that had been bred in him in his youth. Rather a waste to keep it so thoroughly under wraps, he thought wryly, but that was the way it was. He moved a hand to it, startled as usual at what a handful it was, and gave it a few long strokes, watching it lengthen, swell, stiffen with the reinforcement of blood. That was all it was—a flexible vessel filled and stretched to capacity with blood until it was forced to stand upright. Ridiculous.

  He dressed in well-cut, closely fitting linen slacks and a pale-blue sports shirt that showed off his deeply bronzed body to advantage, taking more trouble with his appearance than he generally did, feeling like showing off a bit in spite of
himself. He heard the children clattering about somewhere in the house and his private smile broadened. He hoped Peter would come back tomorrow. The children missed him almost as much as their senior daddy did.

  He went down through the house to Martha’s quarters and found her just emerging from the bath in a peignoir, looking sweetly plump and dewy. Her eyes lighted as he entered.

  “My. Aren’t we looking gorgeous this evening,” she greeted him.

  “Hi, honey. How about going down to the port for a drink? I feel like a stroll and a gossip.”

  “Oh, darling, do you mind going without me? I promised the children I’d read to them. I’m luxuriating in the house now that that ghastly heat has broken.”

  “That’s all right. Mostly, I wanted to talk to Sid.”

  “Do. You’ve been working too hard. Thanks for asking me, sir.”

  He laughed and approached her from behind where she had seated herself at her dressing table and leaned over and kissed the top of her blonde head. She held his big hands and dropped her head back briefly against him. He gave her hands a squeeze. “I won’t be long. There might be some new developments.”

  In the old days, at the start of Peter’s business trips, he had always been slightly self-conscious with her, sensing in her a suppressed keyed-up anticipation that corresponded to nothing he felt in himself, but it was a phase that had passed. She might still want him to make love to her, but it no longer seemed a great need. Perhaps they would get together tonight. It was probably the break in the heat that was making him feel sexy. He wished Peter were here.

  He dropped her hands and turned from her. “See you in an hour or so.”

  He found the port looking oddly deserted. A few men, young and old, were scattered around the tables in front of the cafés. The only females in sight were at Lambraiki’s where the big table was only half-occupied. Everybody recovering from the earthquake? He saw that Sid was there and the Varnums and the nice writer-painter male couple and Sarah without George. He was greeted with an enthusiasm that made him feel like the fellow survivor of a shipwreck. He started to sit with Sarah, his best friend on the island, but he didn’t know how much she knew about Jeff and decided he’d better be briefed by Sid. By the time he had pulled up a chair beside him, half a dozen conversations had been resumed.