The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  She was cut off by the ringing of the telephone. They exchanged a look and then he jumped up and went to it.

  Jeff’s deep voice came on in response to his hello. “Peter? Are you really here?”

  “Of course. What’s the idea of going off without saying good-bye? You promised to tell me about last night, remember?”

  “It was all sort of complicated. I’m sorry. What’re you doing here?”

  “Odds and ends. I have to see you, for one thing. Did you think I’d let you go without another glimpse of those beautiful eyes?” Peter winked at Judy. There was a rumble on the instrument that might have been brief laughter.

  “Did the parents send you?”

  “No, but what if they had? Don’t you want to see me?”

  “Of course. More than anybody I can think of. I just——”

  “Is Mike there?” His and Judy’s eyes held and he shook his head at Jeff’s monosyllabic negative. “Well, then, can I come see you?”

  “You mean now? Here? Oh, God, yes. Please do. Can you?” The deep voice suddenly sounded tormented.

  “Of course. I’ll be there in two seconds.” He hung up and returned to Judy and leaned over and kissed her mouth lightly. “It’s perfect. He’s alone. I don’t think he’ll mind my having a snoop around. I’ll try not to be long, sweetheart.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll have a wallow in the tub and go to bed. That’s where I prefer being when you’re around.”

  He gave her shoulders a little hug with his hands and hurried out. He walked down a long corridor, rose several floors in the elevator, followed another long corridor till he found the number and knocked. Jeff immediately opened the door and took his arm and pulled him in and closed it behind them. Peter gave his lips a chaste little kiss and pulled hastily away as he felt them open for more. He stood back and looked at Jeff and laughed.

  “I’ve never seen you with so many clothes on.” He was wearing a tie and a summer jacket and slacks. His angular body made the rather ill-fitting, thrown-together costume look as if it was about to fall off.

  “Just some things Mike bought for me,” he said with a little note of pride.

  Peter observed immediately that he seemed more at ease in his body; he slouched less and there was a slightly feminine provocation in the way he moved. He held Peter’s arm again as they headed for chairs. The room was furnished as a living room with doors at each end giving into bedrooms.

  “Well, this is a far cry from our stark island simplicity,” he said. “You’re entering into the big world in style.”

  “We have separate bedrooms. Mike doesn’t like to sleep with anybody. Is Charlie here too?”

  “No. I came up with a girl I met yesterday. She has a yacht. We’re all pretty stylish.”

  “Did you really come to see me?”

  “There were several things that all sort of worked together. You’re the part that interests me most. I want to hear all about it.” He stopped and turned to face Jeff, freeing his arm. Adoration shone in his extraordinary eyes before they clouded and dropped. The boy ran his fingers through his hair. “I saw Sid,” Peter pointed out. “What in the world have you been up to?”

  “Is Dimitri still in jail?”

  “I don’t know. Come on, Jeff, honey. Tell me the whole story.”

  The dark eyes lifted in appeal and dropped again. “It’s so difficult. You make me feel like such an idiot.”

  “Don’t be silly. We can tell each other anything. I told you that yesterday. I knew you were upset about something.” His power over the boy had been confirmed by look and touch. He moved in close to him and took his arms. He could feel the tremor of response run through the young body. “Come on. You told Sid. I want to hear it all from you.”

  “I don’t want you to hate me. Please. I——” He lifted his eyes once more, filled with adoration, young, helpless, touching. “I had no intention of stealing it,” he asserted vehemently. “I never dreamed Dad would go to the police and get Costa into it. I was going to put it somewhere in the house where he’d find it. That’s all there was to it.”

  “Okay. I didn’t think you were a thief.” He gave him a hug and disengaged himself and propelled him to a chair. He sat opposite him. “Did Dimitri put you up to it?”

  “No.” Jeff sprawled in his habitual fashion but with a difference. His knees were parted and his hands were on his thighs making a conscious point of his crotch. “Don’t you understand? I was ready to do anything to make him pay attention to me. He was short of cash. I told him he could have the money if he’d let me spend the night with him. I don’t think I said it quite like that, but that’s what it amounted to. He had his customers all lined up and was going to make a quick profit. Then the police loused everything up.”

  “They certainly did. I hope you realize how bad this is. You’ve let an innocent man suffer for something you did.”

  “Oh, God, Peter. It’s been driving me crazy.” He lifted his hands and clutched at his hair. “I couldn’t tell you yesterday when it was still going on with Dimitri. Then it all got so confused that I would’ve left with Mike even if I weren’t in love with him.”

  “You should’ve stayed, you know,” Peter said. “You should’ve done everything you could to clear Costa, even if it meant telling your father the truth.”

  “Oh, God, I suppose I should have.” His eyes filled with tears and he flung his hands out pleadingly. “Please, Peter. Everything’s happened all at once. I’ve hardly known what I was doing. I told Dimitri last night he had to give the money back. He said he has to lie low till the fuss dies down. That may be true as far as the dope goes, but he could get the money somewhere. He just laughed at me. I told Sid to make him see that it’s to his own interest to get Costa out of it. What more could I do? Tell me. I’ll do anything you say.”

  Peter was moved by him. He felt things deeply, often excessively, but his instincts were right. He had broken his sexual bonds and needed time now to test the implications and learn discipline. Peter’s manner softened. “I think you should tell me what you ought to do.”

  Jeff’s chest heaved with a deep breath. “Go to the police? Would I have to go back to the island?”

  “I don’t see why you should. We’ll find out who to see here. When are you planning to go to the States?”

  “Tomorrow. After lunch. I’m pretty sure Mike wouldn’t wait for me. Will they let me go if I tell the truth?”

  “You don’t have to incriminate yourself. We’ll fix up a story. Make it sound like a practical joke. Ha-ha. Are you willing to do it?”

  His eyes widened and his lips struggled to form the word. “Yes.”

  Peter leaned forward and patted his knee. “Good boy. That’s what I hoped you’d say. Okay. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. To begin with, we have to produce the money. I’ll get it in the morning. I want you to write a statement. You can say—say you found it around the house and kept it to show your father how careless he’d been. You lost your head when the police were brought in. Anything like that. You can go with Mike and I’ll carry on from there.”

  Jeff pulled himself up in his chair and took Peter’s hands in his. “You really are my god.”

  Peter kept his hands motionless and in a moment withdrew them. “I want you to write another statement telling the exact truth, pot and all. That’ll be for me. I’d be happy to give you two thousand dollars if you were in a jam, but not Dimitri. I intend to collect from him. In the morning, we’ll have your fake statement notarized with your passport.”

  A ghost of a smile played across Jeff’s lips. “I almost forgot to bring it. I had to sneak back to the house this morning to get it. You should see the place. The earthquake cracked open a whole wall.”

  “No! What a damn shame. Your father’s getting it from every direction. I think you ought to write him and tell him what you’re doing.”

  “About Mike and everything?”

  “Why not? Remember what I told you. Don’t start
out feeling guilty.”

  Jeff sprawled back in his chair. “All right. I will.”

  “Are you expecting Mike soon?”

  “Not for an hour or two. He didn’t come home with me just to prove that I don’t matter. He says I’m too young to go to the kind of bars he likes. I guess that’s the way it’s going to be.” He uttered the rumble that was intended as laughter. “I haven’t told you about last night. I waited for Dimitri for hours until he closed the bar. When he turned up, he had Mike with him. There we were, all three of us together. My first time. Mike tells me he paid Dimitri two hundred dollars to have me.”

  Peter passed a hand over his eyes. He found his face set in a grimace of disgust. He shook his head. “Christ, Jeff. Get out of it. Go home.”

  Jeff dropped his head back and closed his eyes. “No. It’s not as bad as I make it sound. When he takes me, it’s incredible. There’s no doubt about his wanting me then. It’s just the rest of the time he has to prove he doesn’t need me. He knows even less about love than I do. I’m going to show him.”

  “Then you’d better forget your sophisticated debut. If you can’t make it decent, it’s not worth what it’ll do to you. You can go just so far with sex and then it loses everything. Love becomes just one more cock up your ass. You don’t want to be another Dimitri. It would kill you.” He looked at the boy as he lay sprawled out in the chair, eyes closed, as motionless as if he were already dead.

  “I’m sorry,” Jeff said at last. “You know what the trouble is. I’m still lost in my dreams. Mike’s reality. I know that. I know I have to try to make it good.”

  Peter nodded to himself and rose and looked around the room. There was a litter of letters and papers and magazines everywhere, but no pictures, except for the hotel prints on the walls. He peered into the bedrooms, trying to see which was Mike’s. “Has Mike said anything to you about some pictures he bought here?” he asked casually, turning back to Jeff.

  The boy opened his eyes and shook his head. “What kind of pictures?”

  “French Impressionists, I think he said. He wanted to talk to me about them. We had a date at noon for him to show them to me. Needless to say, he didn’t show up. Do you think it would do any harm to look around while I’m here. We’re all apt to be busy in the morning.”

  Jeff pulled himself out of the chair and approached with the new little sensual glide in his walk. “Is it all right now? Do you still mean what you said yesterday, that we’ll always belong to each other a little?”

  “Of course, but don’t let me down again. And don’t let Mike mess you up.”

  “I am a mess. I know that. Mike’s a pretty tough proposition for somebody who doesn’t know much about life, but every time I talk to you I feel as if everything will be all right. I’ll think of you when I feel I’m getting out of my depth. May I kiss you right?”

  “Right, yes.” Jeff’s kiss was as chaste as Peter’s had been. Peter laughed and mussed his untidy hair. “Good boy. Which is Mike’s room?”

  Jeff led him to it. There was a great deal of luggage about and expensive-looking haberdashery had been dropped here and there on the furniture. Peter looked around the walls where a package of pictures might be propped. He opened closet doors. He was closing one when he caught sight of a flat package on the top shelf of a wardrobe closet. He reached up and took it down. It felt right to his expert hands, stiff and rough and the right weight. The brown wrapping paper had been folded but not taped or tied in any way. Peter looked at Jeff.

  “Do you think it would be prying to see what’s in here?”

  “If it’s pictures, he was planning to show them to you. Go ahead.”

  Peter pushed some silk handkerchiefs out of the way and lay the package out flat on a table. He unfolded the paper carefully and spread it open. Even though he was prepared for them, he felt a little shock at seeing Raoul’s pictures here, looking rather shabby without frame or stretcher. He flipped through them quickly and began to fold the paper around them again.

  “Wasn’t that a Modigliani?” Jeff asked over his shoulder.

  “It looks like one. I doubt if it is.” He flattened the paper into its former folds and put the package back on the closet shelf. He turned to Jeff. “I don’t think you better tell him I took a peek,” he said with an excited twinkle in his eye. “Tell him I’m here on business and came to see you. I’ll call him in the morning and find out if he still wants to talk to me. Do you know what time he usually gets up?”

  “He said we had to be up at ten tomorrow. He wants me to do some errands for him before we go.”

  “Right. Let’s see.” He took Jeff’s arm and they returned to the living room. “How about meeting me downstairs at noon? Have those statements with you. You can make them brief and to the point, but I want all the facts in the one for me. I think we can have the other one notarized in the hotel. If you want to change the time, call me when you get up. I’ve got a lot of calls to make in the morning so I’ll be here.” When they reached the door, he turned Jeff to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll see each other tomorrow, but we might not have a chance to talk. Promise you won’t play hookey from school. That’s the important thing.”

  “I promise. Try to convince Dad that I’m not a mental case.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’ll be difficult. Your father is a very wise and understanding guy. I don’t think he’ll like its being Mike but neither do I. If it weren’t so nearly time for you to leave anyway, I’d do everything I could to stop you. As it is—six weeks—well, you can get awfully hurt in six weeks. Send me your address. I’ll come up and see you as soon as I’m home.”

  Jeff put his hand over Peter’s and pressed it against his shoulder. “I want so much to kiss you,” he blurted. “I don’t think I can do it right again. Say good-bye to Charlie for me. See you at noon.”

  Peter nodded and smiled and let himself out. He sped along the corridor and ran down a grand staircase, not waiting for the elevator, and arrived panting in front of Judy’s door. He knocked and she let him in and he took her in his arms triumphantly. “A hit. A palpable hit,” he exclaimed. “Right on the nose. Tim should give you a whopping bonus for this. Did you finish the champagne?’

  She laughed at his excitement. “We’d made rather a dent in it.”

  He released her to ring for the waiter. When he turned back to her he saw that she was wearing nothing but the dressing gown that made her look so beautifully naked. Her dark hair fell softly around her scrubbed and radiant face. He was supposed to give this adorable creature a baby and think nothing more of it? Beware of scheming females. He threw off his jacket and began to unfasten his tie as he returned to her. There was a knock on the door and he veered off to it and ordered another bottle of wine. He threw his tie on a chair and went to her.

  “Tell me everything,” she demanded as she began to unbutton his shirt for him.

  “He has five of them,” he said, looking at his fingertips as he touched her face lightly with them. “Braque, Modigliani, and three Pisarros. The Braque is real. I know them all well.” He traced the exquisite curve of her upper lip with his forefinger. He started to lean forward to kiss it. There was another knock on the door and he closed his shirt over his chest to admit the waiter and the wine. When the waiter was gone, he opened the bottle and filled their glasses. He gave Judy hers and took a swallow of his before sitting to remove his shoes.

  “What do we do now?” Judy asked.

  “I’m going to call him in the morning and see if he still wants to talk to me. If he does, I’ll tell it to him straight. If not—well, we have a choice of saying the word and letting them put him through the wringer here, or turning it over to Tim and the U.S.A. I’m sort of in favor of the latter. It lets us out, so we have our time to ourselves, and Tim can make sure the pictures get back to their owner. God knows what might become of them here.” He pulled off a sock and waved it absent-mindedly while he made sure he had checked all the possibilities. “How
ever it works, I hope Mike is ready with a good story.”

  “Unless I’m much mistaken, he will be. How’s the island mystery?”

  Peter shrugged and kicked off the other shoe. “All okay. I’ll fix it up tomorrow afternoon.” Barefoot, he stood and pulled off his shirt.

  “You’re a very nice man, aren’t you?”

  “Who? Me? What do you expect? Costa’s my friend.” He unfastened his trousers and peeled his shorts off with them. His sex sprang out from its confinement. He disentangled his feet and straightened and laughed. “That’s more like it. Take that thing off. I like to look at you too, you know.”

  She unfastened the tie of her dressing gown and bared her shoulders and let it fall from her, revealing his ideal woman. He made a slow contented survey of the delights of her body. His loins tingled at the thought of filling it with life, but he knew he couldn’t accept her conditions and that therefore it mustn’t happen. That this was so told him how nearly she had brought his shadow self to life. Nearly, but not quite. If it remained a simple happy romp in the hay, maybe even he wouldn’t be hurt.

  Peter was awakened by a knock on the door. In the moment it took him to emerge into consciousness, he became aware that the knock was being repeated in a private familiar rhythm. He twisted his head quickly and saw that Judy was still asleep. He slid away from her without making any abrupt movements and then leaped from the bed and ran to the other room, his erection subsiding as he went. He closed the communicating doors and locked them and hurried to the hall door. He stood behind it and opened it and peered around it. Charlie was standing at the next door. His first thoughts were guilty ones as if he had been caught red-handed. He reminded himself hastily that he had nothing to hide and had a moment to register his astonishment at this new arrival. “Hey,” he called and ducked back behind the door. “What in the world are you doing here?” he exclaimed as Charlie entered. Had something gone wrong at home?