That Noel even considered the offer shocked him. He wasn’t a doer, he was a thinker. Despite all his exercise, he thought himself an intellectual. Others he’d grown up with had sailed on merchant steamers, worked their way across the Pacific and Indian oceans. Some hitchhiked across country, lived on ashrams in India, communes in the Oregon woods. Not he. He wasn’t adventurous. Yet the last few minutes had made Noel feel this was the way to find adventure, to break out of the routines he’d fallen into since Monica’s death. He was swept off his feet, riding a higher altitude than he had since…since when? Of course, since the morning of the slaying three weeks before.
And then he remembered Kansas, bleeding, faceless, dying in all the garbage and fallen timbers. No. It was too dangerous. He couldn’t accept.
“I don’t know if you can understand my point of view, Mr. Loomis…” he began.
“Wait a minute,” Loomis interrupted. “Please. Let me show you how this could be an experience of the most crucial importance to you. Maybe I’m stepping out-of-bounds by saying it, but I happen to know that your current position is not the most secure, so I…”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know. Let me be blunt with you. If you come to work for Whisper you’ll be able to save your career.”
Noel was surprised, amused. “Really? How?”
“Let’s say you were doing work on one of the tribes of the Amazon jungle, what would you do to find out how they really live, how they really think? You’d go into the jungle, wouldn’t you? You’d find that tribe, live with them, eat their food, even learn their language, follow their customs—”
“Wilbur Boyle,” Noel said suddenly.
Loomis looked as though he’d never heard the name before.
“The chairman of my department at school,” Noel explained. “You’ve been talking to him.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because he wants a study on homosexuals as seen from the inside. For his Current Ideas book line. Right?”
“And you need a study to keep your job,” Loomis said, without flinching. “So here it is.” He waited for Noel to protest. When he didn’t, Loomis went on: “We figure there may be more than a half million homosexuals in the city. A huge subculture. Not much studied. I’ll place you literally at the crossroads. I’ll prepare you better than any anthropologist setting off into the jungle. Whisper has operatives all over the Lower West Side. You’ll be trained how to behave, what to expect. On the job, too.”
“Sounds terrific.” Noel meant it to be sarcastic.
“It is terrific. When’s the last time someone handed you a gift like this—all wrapped up with fancy paper, placed on a silver platter?”
Noel didn’t answer. Instead he asked, “Did Boyle approach you? Or you he?”
“What’s the difference?”
“I just want to know.”
“Are you afraid of homosexuals, Mr. Cummings?”
“I’m afraid of you, Mr. Loomis.”
“Don’t be like that. Give it a try. You don’t have to commit yourself. I’ll provide a guide, you go take a look. Then go talk to this Boyle.”
“What if I decide not to do it?”
“Then I’m out of business again until I can find someone who looks like you and knows what you know.” Loomis sighed heavily. “I don’t like looking for second best, when I can have the best,” he said. “It will take time. Meanwhile Mr. X is getting fancier every day. More and more people are going to be put through his slicing machine.”
Noel didn’t care to be made to feel guilt over something that really didn’t involve him. Coolly, he said, “I’ll think about it.”
“Take a look first. Then think about it. I’ll have someone call on you.”
He stood up, and Noel walked him to the apartment door.
“I suppose you read the financial section,” Loomis said, looking wistfully at the Times.
“Take it, if you want.”
When Loomis had his coat on and his papers under one arm, he began to shake Noel’s hand vigorously.
“You won’t regret this, Noel.”
“I haven’t committed myself to anything,” Noel reminded him.
“I know, I know.” Loomis withdrew his hand. Noel held the door open as he left, watching the other man standing in the hall pushing the elevator button. “By the way,” Loomis said as though realizing something, “Vega’s his name. Buddy Vega.”
“The guy who’ll call me?”
“Shh,” Loomis cautioned, looking around. There were two other apartments on the floor, both doors closed.
The elevator arrived, Loomis stepped in. Noel was turning back into his apartment when he heard his name whispered.
“Yes?”
“Thank your neighbor for the Times. It was laying beside 4-D,” Loomis said, letting the door close on his smile.
5
“Is this Noel Cummings?”
“Speaking.”
“Vega here.”
“Who?” Noel placed the pencil he’d been chewing on to mark the place in the Levi-Strauss book he was reading, then put it down on the desk, and took a deep breath.
“Buddy Vega. The Fisherman told me you’d know who I was.”
“I know who you are,” Noel answered, his voice suddenly small and tight. He remembered Loomis’s visit all right. He’d been replaying it in his mind all week.
“Good,” Vega said. His voice remained flat, expressionless. “What are you doing in half an hour?”
Noel wanted to say he was going out, that he’d changed his mind about the whole business, that Vega ought to forget it.
“Nothing,” he answered. “Preparing for tomorrow’s class.”
Noel heard a child’s voice in the background, and joining its shrill piping, a woman talking rapidly in Spanish.
“You got the time to go over to the Grip?”
He didn’t. He couldn’t. Not end up like Kansas, blood pouring out of his eye sockets.
“That’s the name of the bar?”
“Yeah. Get ready. I’ll be at your place in half an hour.”
Before Noel could tell him not to, the line was dead. He cursed himself for not getting Vega’s phone number, and tried to concentrate again on Levi-Strauss and primitive consciousness. It was useless. Exercising was no better. When he looked at himself in the mirror all he could think of was how much he resembled the men in the photos Loomis had shown him. Mr. X’s victims.
He finally gave up. He’d just finished dressing when the buzzer rang, and Gerdes announced Vega, garbling the name so it was scarcely recognizable.
Perhaps because of the name, Noel had expected someone different from the man who swaggered into his apartment, looked around disdainfully, made a point of avoiding Noel’s hand extended for a shake, and dropped onto the couch.
Not small, wiry, ethnic-looking, as Noel had pictured him, Buddy Vega was large, broad-shouldered, with light hair that probably bleached blonder in the summer, a scraggly beard and mustache, wearing a getup from an old Hell’s Angels movie—soiled, antique black leather jacket, fat buckled garrison belt, faded skintight denims, and a ragged work shirt open to his navel, exposing a hairy chest and an abdomen rapidly going to flab.
“I thought you’d be ready,” Vega said, annoyed.
“I am.”
“You’re not going to the Grip looking like that?”
“Why not?”
Noel looked himself over. He wore a turtleneck with light-colored chinos, brown oxfords, and a poplin windbreaker.
“Because I won’t be seen with you dressed like that. That’s why. I’ve got to work there four nights a week, you know. Come on now. If you’re serious about this…”
“I am serious. What’s wrong with how I’m dressed?”
“It’s postcollegiate fag. It’s East Side. Worse, it’s East Side five years ago. No good. No good at all.” Vega pulled himself out of the couch, and Noel wondered if Buddy were on drugs, he seemed
to move so lethargically. “Let’s see your duds.”
Vega pawed through the dozens of slacks in the closet, shaking his head. “For Chrissakes, don’t you have any jeans?”
Noel grabbed a hanger with a pair of denims.
“Put them on.”
Noel undressed quickly and was pulling on one leg of the pants when Vega stopped him with a pained expression.
“Oh, man. Nobody wears fucking underwear anymore. Chuck ’em.”
More self-consciously, Noel did as he was told. Vega held up the discarded drawers.
“Jesus! I haven’t seen a pair like this since the Marines. That turtleneck job’s gotta go, too. And the jacket.” He began to rummage through the neatly stacked shirts in Noel’s bureau, then turned around. “Those jeans shit!”
“What?”
“They’re too baggy. Look!” He dropped onto one knee and began pulling at the pants in various places.
“They’re too loose. They should hang low on your hips, be tight in the ass and the legs and especially full at your basket. They shit! Take ’em off. What else do you have? Old things.”
Without waiting for Noel, Vega continued his rummaging, throwing clothing onto the carpet, stopping now and then to examine something, then tossing it with the others, muttering all the while.
“I thought the Fisherman had you outfitted. I don’t know why the hell I’m supposed to do it. I’m no nursemaid. You’ll have to get a full drag tomorrow. And listen, this is your story. You’re hard up for work. Unemployment benefits ended a month ago in San Francisco. That’s where you’re from. Ever been there?”
“Not recently.”
“Too bad. You used to work in a bar called South of the Slot. Remember that. And also the Barracks. That’s a bathhouse. You’re new in town, right? You got here by driving a car someone wanted transported from the Coast. All it cost you was gas and oil. Got all that?”
“I think so.”
“Aside from that, keep quiet. You’re bound to fuck up. Don’t you have any guinea T-shirts?”
“An old one,” Noel said, pulling out a shirt he’d gotten back from the laundry a month ago with a large bleach hole. He’d been saving it to use as a dust rag. “It’s no good. Look!”
“It’s perfect. Put it on. And what about these?” He pulled out a pair of jeans Noel didn’t recognize at first. “Here. Put these on.”
“Those were my wife’s.”
“They look like men’s pants. Put them on. We don’t have all night, you know.”
“They’re too small for me.”
“I’ll decide that. Don’t you have any sneakers?”
Noel pointed to his Adidas. Vega said, “Finally, the man has a wearable item of clothing. Hallelujah! Put those on, too.”
Monica’s jeans had been secondhand when she bought them. The pockets and cuffs were frayed. She’d worn them on hiking trips, and that last time at the lake. They felt tight, too tight to wear.
“It’s no good,” Noel said. “I won’t be able to close all the buttons.” The metal fly buttons, he meant.
“Leave the bottom one open. They look fine. Now, do you have a file or sandpaper?”
When Noel came out of the bathroom with a fingernail file, Vega was in the kitchen helping himself to a beer.
“Put one hand in your pocket. All the way down so you can hold your dick. Do you hang left or right? Right, I think, hold it there, now file it.”
“Is that how you got that rubbed look on your crotch?”
“You’re kidding! The way I got mine would take too long. Go on. File away!”
“How’s this?”Noel asked.
“It’ll have to do. Your hair is all wrong, too. That style is too straight.” Then: “Hell, you are supposed to be from out of town. Don’t go to your regular barber next time. We’ll have Vinnie style it. You know, the windbreaker might do after all. I don’t suppose you have any leather? Let’s take a look.”
He turned Noel to face him, and looked him over as critically as though he were a model about to go out on a runway with a new line of fashions. Noel was able to check his own image in the mirror. The T-shirt was close fitting; the hole stretched tightly from his armpit to expose one nipple, the edge of the shirt was only barely contained by the low-slung jeans. Monica’s jeans. He couldn’t get it out of his mind: these were the last clothes Monica had worn.
Vega chugalugged the rest of the beer. “Let’s go.”
“You’re not serious?”
“Why not?” Vega was sincerely surprised.
“Look at me.”
“I’m looking. Man, you look so fucking hot those queens are going to trip all over themselves. Get something straight, Professor, I don’t know what kind of crap the Fisherman laid on you, but your job with Whisper is to look as pretty as you can. That’s all. Don’t act smart. Don’t talk to anyone more than you have to. Don’t try to be a hero. Just keep quiet, even mysterious. Hide everything you can about yourself. Stand behind that bar and look pretty. That’s all we need you for: the wrapping. You’re the bait for the big motherfucking fish to bite on. You got that?” he asked, patting Noel on one cheek with a dirty fingertip.
“That’s what Loomis said, but—”
“But nothing. You fuck up on this, you talk too much, and you are D-E-A-D, man. Let’s go. I don’t want to be late for work.”
They hailed a cab and Vega directed the driver to West Street. Noel had felt funny entering the lobby dressed so uncharacteristically, but no one else seemed to notice: not the doorman, not the teenaged girls who lived on the next floor, not even the cabby.
“We’re late, so I won’t have the chance to run you up and down the way I wanted to, showing you off,” Vega said in the cab, lighting a hand-rolled cigarette.
“Is that grass?” Noel asked.
“Sure. You want some?”
“No. But…the driver and all.”
Vega tapped the window that separated them from the cabby. The driver’s face looked back at them. “What you want?”
“You mind if we smoke some reefer, man?”
“Hell, no, bro.” The driver smiled. “I got ripped myself.”
“Good deal,” Vega said, inhaling deeply. “Maybe you ought to have a few tokes, too, man. You’re a little nervous. You afraid of dying young?”
Noel declined the grass. “You were saying? Showing me off?”
“Going to have to do that tomorrow. I want people to really take a look at you. They will at the bar. But some folks don’t go into bars. I want everyone to see you. Everyone. So, tomorrow or the day after, we’re going to take us a little stroll. You wear those same pants, hear? We’ll go from Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street to Christopher Street, check in a few places there, then down to the pier. Everyone cruises Christopher.”
“Looking for sex?”
“Whatever,” Vega said, then seemed to come alert. “That’s a word you didn’t know, right?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Any other words you hear you’re not sure of, you ask me. But not in company, you hear?”
They were stopped at a light. Noel was annoyed with Vega. “You don’t like me, do you?” he asked.
Vega puffed on the joint, face averted to look out the cab window so that his words came out low, almost muffled.
“I don’t like or dislike you, man.”
“Why are you treating me like an idiot then?”
“You want to stay alive? Then you listen to me. Hear?”
“Or is it that I’m not a cop?” Noel asked, dropping his voice with the last word so it was barely audible. “Is that it?”
“Something like that,” Vega admitted.
“Well, don’t worry about that. I’m a professional, Mr. Vega. Maybe not in your line, but in my own. I can take care of myself. Evidently the Fisherman knows what he’s doing. No?”
“Maybe,” Vega said, not sounding convinced. “Right here,” he said in a louder voice, tapping the guard window between them and the
driver.
Noel let Vega pay for the ride and hassle with the cabby about a receipt—no doubt later reimbursed by the Police Department. Meanwhile, he stared at the bar and its environs.
The Grip was located at one end of a block that faced the elevated West Side Highway and the scores of huge moving vans parked under the closed road, a single-story building with stucco up to a series of painted over or tinted windows. The bar had two entrances, a large double door in the middle of the block and a single door at the corner. Both were painted black, with tiny windows set at eye height. Over the larger door was a plaque, the letters burnt in, ranch style, below a crudely drawn black-gloved fist holding a white cylindrical object that extended to the top and bottom edges of the sign. At first Noel thought it was a diploma. A moment later he realized it was probably meant to represent a penis. Better get used to it, he told himself.
There was another, smaller bar on the block and a closed-off four-story building, which might have been a warehouse. Right next to the Grip was another store with no identifying sign. A glance explained why none was needed. Two display windows on either side of the front door were filled with leather gear—full sets of men’s leather clothing, from boots to head-over masks, gloves, underwear, pants with front and back panels cut out. More, the windows contained sex tools of every size and description—fake phalluses in all sizes and colors, ribbed or smooth, different kinds of condoms, leather thongs, handcuffs, handkerchiefs, T-shirts printed with obscene illustrations. Floating over the wares on wires, like inane guardian angels, were two inflatable rubber dolls—one male, one female, both of them pinkly naked.
“Let’s go,” Vega snorted, pushing Noel out of the cab. Once on the street, he added, “Stupid shine, can’t write his name.” Then following Noel’s gaze to the sex emporium, he said, “You ought to go in, you won’t believe some of the shit in there. Buy yourself some cock rings and other gear, you know.”
He strode into the Grip, Noel behind him.
It was dark inside, with the musty smell of most saloons he’d been in, pulsing with the beat of rock music from speakers not immediately visible, relentless, monotonous.
The Lure Page 6
