“I was sharp with you this morning,” apologized Valentine.
“Yes, you were,” said Clarisse, and no more was said. “Tell me, how did you end up with Axel last night? We saw them go off arm in arm.”
“Unfortunately, Mount St. DeVoto erupted again at the door of the A-House. Axel left, and he was the first person I saw when you left me at Back Street. He was in sore need of consolation, liquor, and cuddling. I saw to it that he got all three.”
“I didn’t know he had come home with you. No wall-banging to announce the presence of a second party in your room.”
“We fell right asleep. All he needed by that point was a couple of arms around him. You know, you could probably use a dose of consolation, liquor, and cuddling too.”
“I’m getting it,” said Clarisse. “Tonight. It’s my date with Matteo.”
“Can I give you a piece of advice?”
“If you do, I pour the Perrier over your head.”
Valentine shrugged. “I’ll risk anything for your welfare. If you want to snag that cop for a summer fling, don’t talk shop. Don’t ask about the progress of the investigations. Don’t ask him if they’ve located Margaret of Toronto. Don’t ask him if he can sneak you in for a second gander at Ann’s body.”
Clarisse poured the water over Valentine’s head.
But she took his advice. That evening Clarisse and Matteo had dinner at Ciro and Sal’s, and then drove to nearby Truro. They sat and talked on the edge of the sand cliffs, and then returned to Kiley Court where Clarisse expressed a desire to show Matteo how her percale sheets worked. Not once that evening did either of them mention the murder of Jeff King, or Ann’s suicide. And it was only when Matteo lay sleeping with his head pressed against her breast and the room was quite dark that Clarisse thought of the naked man she had seen the night before in the courtyard; the man who had dressed in the alley, and who might not have been a dream after all.
Chapter Twenty
A WEEK TO THE DAY after Ann Richardson’s death, Valentine lay on an oversized emerald-green beach towel on the slanting strip of sand between the Boatslip and the Bay. Like all the other men on towels around him, he had not got enough sleep the night before, and now—despite the din of a dozen portable radios, each tuned to a different station—dozed under the late morning sun, trying at once for recuperation and a tan. The man on the next towel, getting up, inadvertently kicked sand in Daniel’s face. Valentine rose groggily on his elbows and stared drowsily out over the sun-speckled water. Beside him were a bottle of Bain de Soleil, half a pack of Luckys, and the paperback edition, generously smudged with oil, of No Orchids for Miss Blandish.
He yawned, looked about him to see whether the configuration of sunbathers had much altered itself (it hadn’t), then lighted a cigarette. He buried the match in the sand. He yawned again, and guessed the time to be about quarter past twelve. Craning to see the watch on the arm of the man behind him, he found himself correct within two minutes.
The music at the Boatslip, begun at a low volume half an hour before, had edged louder. It did something to cover the cacophony of the radios. Holding his head back with the cigarette in his mouth pointing straight up into the air, Valentine squeezed lotion from the bottle and rubbed it over his chest and arms. The unpleasantness of that sensation cleared his mind.
He exchanged a polite smile with a man sitting four towels down in the grid of bathers, and wondered if he knew him (no), if he wanted to know him (possibly), and if he would be worth the trouble of polite conversation, assignation, and follow-up (probably not). He turned back and spread more lotion on his legs. Clarisse, he considered, overestimated his libido.
He lay on his stomach and had just shut his eyes again when above the radios and the dull laughter—and even duller conversations—floated the distant but unmistakable yodel of Angel Smith. Valentine raised his head, but did not see her on the deck of the Boatslip. He craned to the left and the right, but could not locate her among the sunbathers.
The yodel came again, this time distinctly from behind him—out over the water. He rolled over on his back and sat up. Several hundred feet from shore Angel Smith stood astride an orange surfboard, gripping with one hand the slender mast that had been attached to it, and with the other deftly maneuvering a cord controlling the purple sail. Swimmers shrieked curses at her when she came perilously close to decapitating them, but Angel yodeled merrily. She glided into a wide arc, neatly avoiding the merging wakes of two speedboats, and turned for shore. Valentine waved, and she waved back.
She beached the craft, flipped it over on its side, and pounded up the beach toward the Boatslip. The swimmers were no longer in danger, but now the sunbathers were. She left deep footprints in the hard-packed sand. Valentine waved again, and Angel broke into a lumbering run across the map of cowering sun worshipers.
Breathlessly, she dropped down on one end of Valentine’s towel, excavating a large bowl in the sand beneath. “Oh,” she gasped, “what are you doing here? I’m so glad to see you! Where’s Clarisse? Give me a cigarette before I die!”
Valentine lighted cigarettes for them both. Angel took a long drag and fell back on one elbow. Her bathing suit was black with a pleated flounce about her hips. She sighed, and a cloud of smoke wafted slowly from her mouth.
“I feel just like Diana Dors in The Unholy Wife,” she breathed.
Valentine rolled his eyes. “You’ve been to the movies.”
“Every showing this week. Along with the rest of the town. Haven’t you been to any?”
“I can only take Miss Dors in small doses.”
“Honey, Diana’s like me—she doesn’t come that way. Anyway, I have seen Clarisse there. When I’m coming out, she’s going in. And she always has the same hunk in tow. A man’s man—if you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” said Valentine, “Clarisse has been occupied lately.”
“Ohhhhh,” said Angel, and patted Valentine’s thigh. “Feeling neglected?”
“No. Jealous. Matteo is the hottest man in town. And Clarisse got him.”
“Matteo is straight, Daniel. You weren’t even in the running.”
“You know him?”
Angel shrugged. “You think I wouldn’t remember a man who looks like that? And when he’s a cop in uniform? Matteo’s great at stopping fights. Two gay men are going at it, and Matteo comes up and they drop their teeth just looking at him. Straight man and woman are fighting, and he comes up—the woman just melts.”
“What if it’s two lesbians fighting?”
“He knows karate,” replied Angel. “Besides, aren’t you glad Clarisse found somebody here? You wouldn’t want her completely dependent on you for companionship, would you?”
“I don’t know.”
Angel eyed him closely, pressed her cigarette into the sand, and reached for another. “You are jealous,” she said, “but not of her. You’re jealous of him!”
“No I’m not,” protested Valentine. “I’m just not entirely comfortable around him.”
“Why? Because you think he’s going to take Clarisse away from you?”
Valentine shrugged. “Maybe it’s just that he’s a cop. I guess I’ve never gotten over the feeling that cops are on the other side.”
“I begin to smell the double standard somewhere around here,” said Angel with a wagging finger.
Valentine sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Clarisse has had breakfast with enough of my tricks, and she doesn’t pass judgment.”
“You mean, she doesn’t pass judgment as to number and frequency. But you can’t really be worried about her,” said Angel.
“No, I’m not, of course—not really. It’s just strange to hear all those noises in her bedroom at night.”
“Are you hungry?” asked Angel.
“No,” said Valentine, “but I could go for a drink.”
Angel considered this, biting the end of one of her braids. “To tell the truth, I was planning to go back to the restaurant and shoot a can of ch
eese spread down my throat, but I guess I could settle for a gin and tonic.”
They got a table just beneath the edge of the deck canopy, so Valentine could remain in the sun while Angel got the shade. Valentine took a sip of his scotch and grimaced—it was thinner than he’d ever think of mixing a drink. He and Angel said nothing for a few moments, and he dropped his head over the back of the chair, trying to allow the sun to work on the underside of his chin. When a few minutes later he raised himself, he found Angel staring blankly at the swimming pool.
“I’d say a penny for your thoughts, but this one might deplete my account. What’s wrong?”
She shrugged, and picked at the straining stitching in the canvas of her chair. “I was thinking of poor Ann drowning in your pool last week.”
“You knew her?”
“Oh, yes—I introduced her to Margaret, in fact.”
Valentine looked at her with some interest, shading his eyes with his hands. “You?”
“Yep. Just a couple of days before they came down on the ferry. One night Ann came into the Swiss Miss in Brookline and she was sitting by herself and didn’t seem happy to be alone. Not long after that I spotted Margaret waiting to be seated and they caught each other’s eyes and were staring craters into each other. I know what that look means so I simply showed Margaret to Ann’s table.” Angel paused to heave a sigh. “How did I know Ann was suicidal? Now I feel like Cupid with a flamethrower.”
“Clarisse doesn’t think it was suicide. Clarisse says that people commit suicide in the winter, not in the summer.”
“Oh, no,” said Angel. “More people commit suicide on July Fourth than on any other day of the year. Sales of razor blades and sleeping pills skyrocket June through August. But God, I miss both of them!”
“You don’t happen to know Margaret’s last name do you? Or maybe you’ve got her address?”
“I think her last name is Richardson.”
“No, that was Ann’s last name.”
“Then I don’t know. But you might ask Ann’s boss—he would know. He’s got that kind of mind.”
“Terry O’Sullivan? How do you know him?”
“The night Ann and Margaret got in, they all came to the restaurant. They had just seen me at the Swiss Miss in Brookline, and were surprised to find me here. I did the whole routine for them. I yodeled my eyelashes loose. Then Ann introduced her boss, and I thought she said his name was Mary instead of Terry, and that set me off again. I couldn’t get control of myself until the Prince came up and said I was giving everybody in the place indigestion. Meanwhile, Mary O’Sullivan was sitting there, not laughing.”
“Thin skin.”
“Well, he was such a droopy, pushy, opinionated little wimp—” Angel broke off suddenly and looked at Valentine with mild apprehension. “I haven’t just insulted a friend of yours, have I? Ann said he was renting one of Noah’s apartments.”
“I know him,” said Valentine blandly. “That’s all.”
“Good. You know, Ann and Margaret invited me over to Noah’s to use the pool, but I figure I see enough of the White Prince every day without going to his house, so I asked them to meet me here. So on Monday and Tuesday morning last week we had our own little pool parties. They were lots of fun, but Mary O’Sullivan was always hanging around, talking shop with Ann. He hated Margaret—probably because he knew Ann’s real lover back in Boston—and he treated me like the only book I had ever read was the one published by Ma Bell. Ann tried to get it across to him that she was on vacation, but he wouldn’t take a hint.”
“Thick head.”
“Ann didn’t want to say anything obvious—he was her boss, after all—but Margaret and I got her courage up. She went to his room here at the ’Slip but when she came back she was upset. Apparently he ‘threatened her job security,’ the little twerp. Margaret wanted to rip his face off, but I told them that they’d have to avoid the Boatslip and that was the end of our pool parties. Next morning, Ann was dead. I’ll bet Mary O’Sullivan rides herd over his secretaries with a bullwhip and a cattle prod.” She picked up her glass and drained half of it. She coughed. “They always make my drinks so strong here,” she wheezed. “It’s an odd thing—people see me once, and they don’t forget. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be so memorable.”
“No,” said Valentine, “I suppose not.”
Angel sat up with a start. “What time is it?” she cried.
Valentine grabbed the wrist of a blond-bearded man in a transparent white bathing suit just then passing, and studied his watch. “Little after one,” he said, smiling at the bearded man, who seated himself at the next table.
“Movies start at one-thirty,” cried Angel. “Gotta flee. Don’t you want to go?”
Valentine glanced at the next table. The bearded man subtly shook his head. “No,” said Valentine.
“Can’t I convince you? They’re doing a special matinee of An Alligator Named Daisy and I Married a Woman—Diana’s Hollywood period.”
“You go on,” said Valentine. “I just formed myself a previous engagement.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“AHHHHHHHHH,” SIGHED Valentine in guarded ecstasy, but then he pulled his breath in sharply, “Oh, God. Oh, God, damn!”
He had lowered himself into the tub of cool water and now carefully reclined his head against the tile wall. He gingerly laid his arms on the edges of the cold porcelain.
“I’m miserable,” he said.
“You know,” said Clarisse, standing over him with two ice trays, “this is the first time I’ve seen you naked since you bought me that Polaroid for Christmas two years ago.” She flung a couple of ice cubes into the water. “I have all seventeen pictures taped to my mirror.”
Valentine’s legs, stomach, and chest were bright red. The back of his body was pale in comparison. His face, on the right side, wasn’t so badly burned, but it was much redder than the left side and gave him quite a Harlequinesque appearance. “I’m so miserable,” he repeated.
“I thought once you’d laid down a decent tan you couldn’t burn anymore.”
“Lies!”
“How long did you sleep?”
“Three hours,” he replied. “I had lunch—in someone’s room—and then went back out on the beach. I didn’t think…” He shivered violently, and in hope of relieving him Clarisse tumbled more ice cubes into the water. “Oh, God, I don’t want to talk about it. Do you think I’ll peel? I’ll look like a leper on holiday. I’ll—”
“Hysteria won’t help,” said Clarisse sternly, and turned the trays upside down. Valentine jerked his legs out of the way of the falling cubes. “I’m doing everything I can.” She uncapped a bottle of baby oil and squirted a generous amount onto Valentine’s chest. He began gingerly to rub it in, but she commanded, “Leave it there. Let it run down into the water.” She took another bottle of pink skin lotion and poured that in too.
Valentine squirmed. “Do you have any idea how unaesthetic this is?”
“Great effect though, those ice cubes coated in pink lotion.”
Valentine swept a little armada of them away from him. “I’ve never heard of this cure for sunburn. I thought you were supposed to use very hot water and baking soda. Are you sure you’ve got it right?”
“From this month’s Cosmo. It works on sunburn, dry skin, and depression. Look, now that you’re all settled, I’m going to get dressed.”
Clarisse was wearing her Come Back, Little Sheba drag—a full-length floral silk kimono and fluffy pink mules with wooden heels. “One more thing, though,” she said, going out into the hall.
Valentine heard her heels clacking down the stairs, and whispered, “I want to die. I want to die…”
Clarisse returned with a tall glass, a quart of Perrier, and a dish of sliced limes. “You have to replenish your precious bodily fluids.” Valentine stuck two slices of lime beneath his tongue, threw back his head, and upended the bottle into his mouth. Clarisse frowned, leaned against the sink and criticall
y examined her nails. “Why did you go to the beach anyway? Why didn’t you just hang around here?—you never get burned out in the courtyard.”
“Because when I went out this morning the Prince was giving himself a major facial.”
“The ninety-five-dollar job?”
“He was sitting in the lotus position in the middle of a blanket. He was wearing a turban and a jockstrap Mr. Fredericks would be embarrassed to stock. He had two rows of jars and tubes spread out in front of him, and was using a little out of each one. And he was whistling a medley of Judy Garland hits.”
Clarisse fished a snood from the shelf above the toilet and shoved her hair into it. She pushed away from the sink and stepped through the door into her bedroom. She snapped on the bedside lamp, sat on the edge of her bed, crossed her legs, and began to file her nails. Looking up, she could see Valentine suffering in the bathtub. The last light of day filtered weakly through the window at her side. The blades of the window fan whirred slowly and cast a fluttering shadow across her face.
“It’s a lesson,” she said.
“A lesson in what?”
“Social snobbery. It wouldn’t hurt you to sit and chat with the Prince once in a while.” She pointed her file at Valentine. “You might learn something.”
“Oh, yeah,” replied Valentine, holding up his hands and grimacing at the water and oil and pink lotion that dripped from them. “Like why Noah skipped town an hour after Jeff King was killed? Or what Noah and Jeff’s relationship really was? Or what Noah was really doing in Boston? Or—”
“Exactly,” said Clarisse. “The White Prince thinks women have the intelligence of doorknobs. He tolerates me, of course, but he would never trust me with any real dirt.”
“If you want to know all those things…” Valentine trailed off with a smile.
“I do!” cried Clarisse.
“Then ask Noah.” Valentine shrugged, and gasped, for the smallest stretching of the burned skin was painful.
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