The Lure

by Felice Picano

  A half dozen people were in the room, most of them sitting reading magazines, unconcerned with the shooting. Noel guessed them to be assistants, wardrobe people, assorted helpers.

  Brickoff was immediately apparent, however. He was a giant—shaggy-haired, bearded, dressed in an enormous old sweater and equally worn trousers and sandals. He stalked along the edge of the paper, then turned suddenly and began shooting Alana, who was in the center of the paper set, dressed in something sheer and diaphanous. Done with the roll of film, Brickoff would hand the camera to an aide, take up another camera, stalk the edge of the paper in a small circle, mutter under his breath, then suddenly advance upon her, talking low, and begin shooting again, urging her to move in certain ways or to subtly change her pose.

  Noel remained off to the side, the envelope under his arm, watching the photo session, but mostly watching Alana. She seemed not to hear Brickoff, but moved as though in a dream, in another, unapproachable dimension where Noel could only observe and feel.

  Suddenly she stopped, then walked forward.

  “That’s enough,” she said.

  “One more,” Brickoff begged.

  “No. No. You have too many already,” she chastised gently. Brickoff kept on shooting her, even after she left her position. She held up a hand. “I said no!”

  Brickoff turned away, handed the last camera he’d used to an assistant, and sat down on the paper.

  “Ah, there you are!” Alana waved to Noel, whom she’d just seen. “Come here,” she called across the room.

  Noel held out the manila envelope.

  “We don’t need that,” she said, taking it from him and dropping it. “Come here,” she said, turning him around with both hands on his shoulders, directing him next to where she stood on the paper. “Anthony!” she whispered. “Look!”

  Brickoff stared up at them as though bewildered.

  “What do you think, Anthony?” she asked softly. “Isn’t he precisely right?”

  “Maybe,” the photographer said, squinting. He didn’t look impressed. Noel was certain he was merely being polite.

  But Alana ignored his hesitation. “Good!” she said. “Go change. Janet, he’ll wear what Peter had on before.”

  A woman Noel had scarcely noticed stood up and went to the dressing area.

  “Go on!” Alana pushed him. “Go.”

  “What for?”

  “I need a man to pose with, of course. We are in a lovely chateau garden and I am with a man, wearing the wonderful gown.”

  “We’ll bleed in the background later,” Brickoff said, standing up. He seemed a bit more interested.

  Noel now understood he was to be photographed.

  “But I’ve never done this before.”

  “You’ve been photographed before, no?” she asked. “I can’t believe you haven’t been. Everyone has.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Go, change. For me, Noel. Otherwise I have to come here tomorrow again, all day. Three other men we had and this, this fou !”—she shook a finger at Brickoff—“he made so much trouble all of them ran away. What am I to do, if you don’t stand here with me? Come back tomorrow, and the next day, too?”

  Noel wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not. He felt certain she had engineered the shooting so that he would have to pose. But he couldn’t say he minded. She had asked him so prettily, made it seem such a favor to her, he couldn’t say no.

  When he came out of the dressing area ten minutes later, he had been shaved, his hair brushed differently than he’d ever worn it, his face dabbed with various lotions and powders, and dressed, as only once before in his life, when he’d married Monica, in formal wear. The slim, frizzy-haired blonde thrust a sheet of paper and pencil into his hand.

  “It’s a release,” she explained. Then to Alana, “Who’s his agent?”

  “I am!” She laughed. “You look so wonderfully handsome. Come look in the mirror.” Then to Brickoff: “You see, my foolish Anthony, I was right. He will do charmingly. Now I will look as meltingly romantic as you wish.”

  Noel joined her on the gray paper, wondering what he had to do. She immediately took both hands and shook them hard until she was satisfied they were loose.

  “You must relax all your body like your hands. Then just follow me as I move.”

  He couldn’t though. He felt awkward, uncomfortable, until suddenly, during one pose, she turned into his arms and her hair brushed against his cheek. For an instant he was thrown back to that evening at the Window Wall, when he had raised his head from the myriad impressions that had inundated him and smelled her perfume, heard her voice, and then seen her hair so close to him. From that moment on, the shooting was like being part of a slow, intricate ballet where he knew all the steps but needed her to give one little prod, one tiny push to set him into motion.

  They were walking through the chateau gardens, a distant string quartet played Mozart, the delicate interweavings of the music wafted across the night air, picking up the freshness of fountains, the sparkle of candles, perfumes from unseen flowers. A warm buoyant evening in spring. He. She. Their silent, wordless conversation—all gesture and touch and the slightest movements, each filled with meaning. Somewhere in the distance a man’s voice was quietly urging, inciting them, forcing their tacit bond closer, closer. He lifted her face and kissed her.

  “Perfect! Yes, wonderful! Very stately. Hold it. Hold it! Fine! You can stop.”

  Alana had to pull away from him, away from his light grasp on her shoulders. When she did break contact, Noel suddenly came to his senses, but reached for her again anyway.

  “No!” she said curtly, pulling away and stepping out of range. “That’s enough, yes, Brick?”

  “Wonderful, là ! Yes, enough for now. We might need one or two later. I doubt it. Those will do. Good partnering,” he said to Noel. “Best I’ve seen all day. You’ll look good.”

  Noel scarcely heard him or cared. The magic night had been disrupted. Illusory as it had been, Noel felt nothing but loss.

  Alana had left the room, to change, the blond girl said, suggesting Noel do so, too.

  He waited outside the studio, in the tall-windowed hallway, until she emerged. She was wearing jeans, a big hat, and a tiny vest over her turtleneck sweater.

  “I have the car if you want a ride,” he offered. She had moved away from him so completely before, he wasn’t sure how to approach her.

  “Of course,” she said brightly, as though the photo session had never happened. “Let’s get something to eat. I’m so hungry!”

  They ate across the street in a delicatessen.

  “Thanks for the opportunity,” he said, trying to get to the subject that most interested him in the least direct way.

  She saw it only as he said it, not as he intended it. “Once Brick likes you, everyone will want you.”

  “I don’t know if I could do it any other time. You know. By myself.”

  She insisted on being matter-of-fact. “Of course you can. Just be as you were with me.”

  “That’s what I meant. I don’t know if I could.”

  “Don’t be foolish. It was all for the camera.”

  “It didn’t have to be.”

  “Of course it did.” She avoided looking at him. “Where is that waiter with our food?”

  He took her hand, she pulled it back sharply. “Don’t make me angry with you. Don’t think you can use me as a way to make certain your injured masculinity is intact. I will not be used that way.”

  There was no way for him to defend himself from her charge, even if he knew she were wrong, and he wasn’t at all sure. So Noel remained chastened, silent until their sandwiches arrived, overflowing the plates, and Alana cheered up again, munching pickles and borrowing condiments from the next table.

  She began to talk, but with nearly every sentence she referred to Eric—something Eric had said, or Eric had done, or Eric had thought to say or do. Much as he disliked hearing this, after his own rebuke, th
ere was much new information.

  “The way you go on about him, Eric must be extraordinary.”

  “He is.”

  “How? What’s he done? What’s he accomplished?”

  “You don’t know?” She was astonished. “Why when he was a boy of fourteen he developed the basis of the transistor that all the Hull-Redfern products use. It wasn’t the first, but it was the smallest, the most enduring, the most inexpensive and easiest to use. And it was the reason Redfern dominated the electronics industry. The reason for the family’s great wealth. As a boy, Eric developed seventy-nine patents in his father’s laboratories that are used today. He still goes to the big upstate laboratories when he has some wonderful new idea. He custom-designs all the music systems in Window Wall, in Clouds, all over!”

  “Is that true?” Noel asked. “He was a boy genius?”

  “He was a very sad little boy genius for a long time. Until he met me. Now I do everything to make certain he is never sad.”

  Noel began to get a glimmer of their relationship.

  “And what does he do for you?”

  “He doesn’t have to do anything at all,” she said quickly. “Just be Eric.”

  “Then he’s a lucky man.”

  “He helped me. When I needed help and no one else could or would. A long time ago in Paris. Years ago. I was very unhappy. I wanted to end my life, and Eric came along and he changed all that. Now I have this wonderful work that I love, and this country, which I love, and Eric and all his wonderful friends that I love.”

  “But you’re not in love with him?” Noel insisted.

  “What do you mean by love? Obsessed? Infatuated? No. I don’t love Eric that way. I am grown up now. No more of that for me.”

  “Once was enough?” Noel probed.

  She smiled at him. “You ask so many questions, Mr. Cummings, that sometimes I think you are not a sociologist but a psychiatrist!”

  Noel wondered again how Eric had discovered his real profession. Had Paul Warshaw told Chaffee? Another student? Or Vega? Noel concentrated on Alana.

  “Who was he?”

  “A boy.”

  “Do you ever think about him?”

  “Oh, sometimes. He’s dead. He was almost a man. But with a boy’s sense of life. Ideas, foolish ideals, a boy’s ideals. He died with those ideals. He was surprised by that. Surprised to die also.”

  “It makes you sad; don’t talk about it.”

  “I don’t mind anymore. Once, yes. But not now. It was at the manifestations de mai that it occurred.”

  Noel didn’t know what she meant.

  “The demonstrations of the students. At the Sorbonne. In Paris. In 1968. He ran out with them the second day, knowing what the police were doing to people with their sticks and tear gas.”

  Noel remembered seeing film clips of the French demonstrations on TV news programs when he was in college. It seemed so long ago.

  “You were there with him?”

  “No! I went to the movies. Or shopping. Stupid me. But he was clubbed, beaten, they say the flics got him and hit him until he couldn’t move. He went into the hospital. He was released. He was arrested. He was released. Everything seemed fine. He was so proud of it, so proud he had been there.”

  “But you said he died.”

  “That is the sad part. It was maybe eight, nine weeks later. We were at a café on the Boul’ Mich, he and I and his friends, and they were arguing as usual about something political. That is when Robert stopped talking. He put a hand to his head, here, what is this called, ah, yes, the temple. He put his hand there and looked very white. I remember the wine he was drinking just dribbled out of his mouth, and I wondered if he were sick. Then he looked, oh, I don’t know, terrible suddenly. He stood up and he shouted in terrible pain and he fell down. And he died then. Right then, with me and all his friends around him. They said it was an aneurysm in the brain, that’s what the médecin examinaire said. How do you say that?”

  “The coroner?”

  “Exactly. An aneurysm brought on by a previous blow to the head. At the manifestation, of course. Grimaud and his cochons of policemen said no one died, no one was killed. They lied. Robert died. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  She slumped back in her chair and lighted a cigarette. They were silent as the waiter came and gave them coffee. Noel nervously forked apart a piece of rich cheesecake.

  “I apologize,” she said. “It is very morbid.”

  “I asked. I’m glad you told me.”

  “At any rate, those who have ideals that must be tested in real life will always die like that. They are doomed.”

  “Well that eliminates everyone whom I know.”

  “I hope so,” she said. “Not for me, though.”

  “You still have ideals?” he asked, but realized whom she meant. “You mean Eric does?”

  “Yes, he has ideals. He is very political. He is in this gay movement. He helps with money, with important people, with the government. I don’t know what else. He is very busy, very busy…and very stupid.”

  “And doomed?” Noel asked, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

  “I think of you sometimes,” she said, “as someone who might become foolish over an idea. No?”

  It struck Noel as a warning. He was quick to dispel the notion. “You’re kidding? Look how easily I’m bought off. I’m just a whore.”

  “I hope that is so, Noel. I really do hope so.”

  She finished her coffee, and stared at Noel disbelievingly until, unnerved, he asked for the check.

  18

  “You didn’t tell me Eric was an inventor. You said he was a playboy.”

  “He is a playboy.”

  “Alana said he was some sort of child genius. His inventions made the Redfern fortune. His father merely administered it.”

  “What did you think? That Mr. X would be a schlemiel? I told you he was smart, didn’t I?”

  A pause, as Noel didn’t answer. Then Loomis again:

  “Tell me again about this economic conspiracy.”

  “It’s not a conspiracy.”

  “Well, whatever it is, then.”

  “It’s a combine of successful gay businessmen.”

  “Including some illegal ones.”

  “Most are perfectly legal,” Noel said quickly. “There’s a Wall Street brokerage firm, at least one bank here in the city, and another out of town, a department store, and a bunch of other businesses a step down from that.”

  “And Redfern provides the protection?”

  “It’s more like he provides the investment capital. But several of the others do also.” Then: “You know something that bothers me the more I think about it? In all the talk I’ve overheard, not a word, not one word has been said about pornography, about brothels, about prostitution rings, about wholesale thefts or drug smuggling.”

  “Why should they mention it in front of you? You’re an outsider. He still distrusts you. It’s your own fault,” Loomis said flatly. “He’d be a fool not to.”

  “I’m not sure. After all, I do spot for him in the gym. He must trust me to some extent.”

  “That’s meaningless.”

  “It’s not meaningless at all!”

  “I said it’s meaningless. Now get back to this conspiracy.”

  “I didn’t say it was a conspiracy. You did.”

  “What are you, on the rag today, Lure?”

  “What’s wrong with you? You keep twisting and distorting everything I tell you. Do you want to know the truth or do you want your own version of it?”

  Noel remained quietly furious for the next minute of silence.

  “Get back to the financial thing,” Loomis finally said in a quiet tone of voice.

  “Just don’t keep distorting what I say,” Noel put in, then went on: “It’s not exactly clear. According to Alana, he’s devoted to the gay political movement, providing large sums of money for equal rights legislation in various parts of the country. His idea is to form
an economic council to guide the funding. To my knowledge they have no direct links with any militant gay groups you read about in the papers.”

  “To your knowledge?” Loomis put in.

  “That’s what I said. None of the militant leaders has been in the town house, or even been mentioned except in critical terms. But they might be funded in specific campaigns. Evidently, Redfern doesn’t trust them that much.”

  “All right. You made your point. What’s this council?”

  “Redfern wants to form it, with himself and another half dozen prominent gay businessmen as permanent members, and another half dozen businessmen coming in and leaving every year.”

  “From New York?”

  “From all over. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, Miami, D.C., Denver, and New Orleans. Cities with large and wealthy gay communities. It will be nationwide. They haven’t a name yet. When they do, they’ll announce it to the press. It sounds like a good idea.”

  “They’re not going to be too happy when the press gets wind that it’s being funded by criminal activities.”

  “If Redfern’s as smart as you say he is, wouldn’t he make certain the money is clean?”

  “Maybe he can’t keep it clean anymore.”

  “Dorrance could. He’s a genius at that. He was the senior Redfern’s accountant for twenty years. Because of him, the old man kept so much of the money he made.”

  “You seem real impressed by these guys, Lure. You ought to hear yourself. This one’s a boy genius. That one’s an old genius. This one’s a world-famous model. That one sold a million records in a month. Even this conspiracy is a good idea: perverts running the country.”

  Noel allowed a long pause before answering. He was angry at Loomis’s unreasonableness, but he wanted to try to get past that anger so he could discover why the Fisherman was being so purposefully deaf to the information he wanted Noel to provide, that he was providing. More important, what was Noel supposed to believe? What he was seeing every day—but perhaps not clearly, perhaps incompletely, perhaps distorted by his own fears and prejudices—or what the Fisherman insisted the facts were? Stymied for the minute, he said: