Cobalt

by Aldyne, Nathan

  “No you don’t.”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” she admitted.

  “Maybe it is just coincidence, but don’t you think it’s murky that two people who came in direct contact with Jeff King that day pulled disappearing acts with the first light of dawn?”

  “Noah,” said Clarisse with a frown. “But who was the other?”

  “Scott DeVoto. Axel told me that he drove off that morning also.” Valentine was looking past Clarisse as he spoke. He took a swallow of one of the beers he held. “Scott seems fond of exits and entrances.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just told me that Axel was alone on Kiley Court.”

  “Scott’s in New Hampshire, at one of those lakes with a summer-camp name.”

  Valentine smiled and tilted his can to point across the room. “Then the nearly naked Mr. Braun is in for a surprise.”

  Clarisse spun around and saw Scott, his tank top removed and draped over his shoulder. His hair and face were damp, and he was nodding in time with the music as he swayed on the edge of the dance floor.

  She looked at Valentine. “Axel specifically said Scott was in New Hampshire.”

  Valentine sighed. “I was contemplating hot nights cuddled up to Axel braiding his chest hair with my teeth. Life is one cruel disappointment after another.”

  Clarisse sighed too. “I hope those two are not going to stage impromptu productions of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in the courtyard.”

  “The Prince may upstage them. If what you say is right and Noah is going to kick him out, I’m sure the Prince can beat anybody at the ungracious-jilted-woman game.” He raised the second beer can in another direction, and Clarisse looked.

  The White Prince was just coming out of the ladies’ room. He paused to cinch in the belt of his trench coat before he headed for the door.

  “Did you see him in here before?” asked Clarisse.

  Valentine shook his head. “I—” he began, but Clarisse jabbed him in the ribs and cocked a thumb over her shoulder.

  He peered cautiously around her, and saw Terry O’Sullivan staggering up to the bar and gripping the edge of it for balance. He ordered something, and Valentine was very surprised to see that the bartender poured out of a liquor bottle.

  “Everybody in the world you didn’t want to see tonight is in this bar!” exclaimed Clarisse. “I thought Terry didn’t drink.”

  “That’s my doing,” said Valentine. “I started him off this afternoon.”

  “Poor baby must be unhappy. Did you send him packing again?”

  “I’ve saved the best for last,” replied Valentine, and he told her what Terry O’Sullivan had revealed to him at the Throne and Scepter.

  “No sympathy! No sympathy!” cried Clarisse, when she heard the end of it. “I hold that man personally responsible for Ann Richardson’s death!”

  “Shut up!” said Valentine, peering over her shoulder. “He sees us and he knows we’re talking about him.”

  Clarisse whirled around and glared at Terry O’Sullivan. “I don’t care what he thinks,” she said, turning back around. “Oh God,” she said, in another tone of voice, and nodding in yet another direction. “Here comes your friend the midget. With all those chains, he looks like Marley’s Ghost come to cruise.”

  “He can pull aside my bed curtains any day.”

  “Go talk to him.”

  “I can’t. Terry O’Sullivan’s on his way over.”

  Clarisse smiled maliciously. “Let me talk to Mr. O’Sullivan for a few minutes. By the time I get through with him, he’s not going to be in any shape to make dates.”

  She turned smoothly around to intercept Terry O’Sullivan. He was almost directly in front of her, but he stumbled awkwardly. His glass dropped from his hand and smashed on the floor. His cheeks and forehead were flushed a ghastly red-purple, his eyes were wide with fright, and his mouth gaped as he gasped for breath.

  Clarisse stepped aside, and jerked Valentine up beside her.

  Terry O’Sullivan struck his breast once with his right fist, and then crashed to his knees at Valentine’s feet. He tumbled backward and hit his head on the cement floor. The sickening crack could be heard above the disco.

  Valentine clutched Clarisse’s forearm and yanked her down onto the floor next to Terry.

  “Give us room!” he shouted to the men who had quickly crowded around. They shuffled back a little.

  “What are you doing!” cried Clarisse as Valentine ripped open Terry’s shirt, scattering buttons.

  “You took the CPR course, not me!” he snapped as he pulled Terry’s arms flush with his sides.

  Clarisse quickly angled Terry’s head back into an arching position, raised her clenched fist and brought it down powerfully against the man’s unmoving sternum.

  PART IV

  Prostitution through the Ages

  Chapter Thirty-one

  FOUR DAYS LATER Valentine and Clarisse were somewhat recovered from the trauma of seeing Terry O’Sullivan die on the floor of the Back Street bar. The paramedics who arrived eleven minutes after Terry’s collapse concurred that Clarisse had done, and done correctly, all it was possible to do—and Terry had still died.

  Clarisse went to work the next day, however, and the next and the next, but when Valentine’s own day off came around, she begged Beatrice to let her off, without pay if necessary. Beatrice agreed, and early in the morning Valentine and Clarisse walked out to Race Point Beach. They had lain several hours on adjoining towels, reading and napping, and not done much talking. They had swum together, strolled along the beach together, and together they had avoided talking about Terry O’Sullivan.

  It was now almost noon. The day was hot and the sun high in the clear sky. The ocean lapped gently not twenty feet from them, and they lay just at the unofficial demarcation line between the gay beach and the straight. Clarisse noted that the division was not hard to see. To her left the men and women were mostly either pale or red, unused to the sun; the men had fleshy unkempt bodies and the women sprawled and shrieked in a desperately unattractive manner. To her right, however, the towels and blankets were adorned with browned, toned, or muscular bodies carefully oiled. Men and women read, slept, or conversed in whispered voices that never rose louder than the waves. If there was laughter it was deliberately musical. Even the music was decisive: to her left was old disco and to her right new wave. Beyond the sunbathers the dunes rose starkly against the washed-out sky. Gay men alone or in pairs now and then went up the sandy mounds and disappeared over the crests. Heads bobbed up occasionally but then dropped quickly out of sight again. If earnest cruising were not sanctioned in Provincetown proper during the day, it was a constant activity in the dunes of Race Point.

  Valentine sat up and peeled off his tank top. He pulled it through one belt loop of his cutoff jeans. His sunburn of the previous week, by the careful nurturing of his less affected side, had evened out and deepened. He wiped a sheen of perspiration from his face and lay back on his elbows.

  Clarisse held her hand up before her face, flexing the fingers before the large lenses of her gray-tinted sunglasses. “It’s still bruised,” she said. “I’m surprised his chest didn’t cave in.”

  “You were wonderful,” sighed Valentine. “Clara Barton must be smiling in her grave.”

  Clarisse grimaced. “I’ll bet Terry’s not smiling in his, though. I’m just glad I didn’t faint at the sight, like that friend of yours in the leather and chains.”

  “Listen,” said Valentine, “I want to apologize to you.”

  “About what?”

  “About making light of the trauma you suffered finding Jeff King and Ann Richardson dead at your feet.”

  “Now you know what it feels like.”

  “It doesn’t feel good,” said Valentine. “It’s not nice to see somebody you know die. I keep trying to tell myself that Terry was responsible for Ann Richardson’s death—and so he deserved what he got.”

  “
Do you think he died of guilt?”

  “No. He died of a massive heart attack.”

  “That’s what I don’t understand,” said Clarisse. “He was too young to die of a heart attack.”

  “For all his yammering about the care and feeding of the gay body and soul, I don’t think Terry took very good care of himself. Did you ever have dinner with him? All hamburgers and French fries. Always. And lots of milk shakes—he had an ulcer. He never went to the gym, and when he was in Boston he put in a twelve-hour day. All work and no play makes Jack a cardiovascular statistic.”

  They were silent for several minutes. The subject was not yet one they could treat lightly.

  “I’ll accept your apology,” said Clarisse. “On one condition.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll listen to me for five minutes without getting upset, without interrupting, and without rolling your eyes.”

  Valentine rolled his eyes. “All right.”

  “Jeff King,” Clarisse said, “went swimming in the bay, and despite what the autopsy said, hit his head on some pilings, lost consciousness, and drowned. Ann Richardson mixed MDA and angel dust, jumped in the pool, and didn’t come up the third time. And Terry O’Sullivan, seeing your gorgeousness once more from across a crowded room, gave up the ghost and tumbled dead at your feet. Right?”

  Valentine nodded once.

  “I still can’t get over the feeling they’re connected,” said Clarisse.

  “Why?” asked Valentine politely.

  “Well, if for no other reason than that they all knew one another. When was the last time you heard of three people who knew one another dying within three weeks of one another—and the deaths weren’t connected?”

  “Ann didn’t know Jeff,” protested Valentine, “she said she didn’t.”

  “All right,” admitted Clarisse, “but there was a connection there, through Terry. He knew both of them. Now here’s what I’m getting at. Just suppose that all three of these deaths were murders—I’m not saying they were, I’m just saying suppose they were.”

  “All right,” said Valentine, “I’ll close my eyes and make believe.”

  “Thank you,” said Clarisse. “Now, you and I knew all three victims—or at least I knew all three victims. Not well, but I knew them.”

  “Got it,” said Valentine. “Now what?”

  “Doesn’t it also make sense that I know the murderer too?”

  “I’ll accept that,” replied Valentine. “But check your assumptions, Lovelace.”

  “What assumptions?”

  “You’re assuming that only one person killed all three. What if two people got together and killed all three? Or what if one person killed Jeff King and somebody else killed Ann and Terry? Or what if five people killed Jeff King—I think we could find five who would have wanted him dead—and two killed Ann and Terry? Or—”

  “You promised to listen!”

  “I am listening, and I’m not making fun of your idea. I have to make another apology. I’ve been coming down on you for all this talk about murder and the ‘person who did it’—but now I think you may be right. I’ll certainly admit that Jeff King was murdered, and that it looks very strange that Ann Richardson and Terry O’Sullivan should die within the next three weeks. I’m not sure they were all murders, or if they were, that one person did it—but I think that, on the whole, you were right and I was wrong.” He lowered his head on his chest with a jerk, as if the confession had cost him.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Valentine.

  “It’s still June,” said Clarisse, “and I’ve seen three dead bodies. Is this going to continue?”

  “You’d think,” said Valentine, “that we could have figured this out by now. Maybe the sun is bleaching our brains,” he said, glancing up into the sky and squinting.

  They were silent for several moments.

  “Is Matteo on duty today?” Valentine asked. “Desk duty, I mean.”

  “Yes,” said Clarisse. “Why?”

  “Do you think he would let you look at the autopsy reports again?”

  “No, he’ll kick and scream and rave.”

  “Bribe him.”

  Clarisse lifted her glasses and peered at Valentine. “Hey,” she said, “this means you’re on my side now, doesn’t it?”

  The police station was crowded, and Matteo protested in whispers. But he brought out the files—including the one pertaining to Terry O’Sullivan—and slipped them into an issue of Life, which Clarisse took into the ladies’ room. She brought them out twenty minutes later, having sat in a stall, read each of them through twice, and taken a few notes.

  Meanwhile Valentine went by the Plymouth House where Angel Smith was in frantic preparation for Friday evening’s pageant. He stood at the back of the Amaretto Room, and she rushed toward him. He braced himself against the doorframe, but she stopped in time.

  “You’re coming, aren’t you!” she cried.

  “I want to reserve a table for two,” he said, smiling.

  “Sure,” Angel replied, looking about the room. “Which one?”

  Valentine pointed to an enormous round table in the back corner that would seat at least eight, and replied, “That one.”

  “How many comps is this going to cost me?” she grimaced. “You know how much it takes to put on a show like this? The uppers alone…”

  Valentine took out his wallet. “I’m buying eight tickets. Tonight we’re paying guests. Just put a reserved sign on the table.”

  Angel nodded and sighed. “You would have made a great Du Barry…”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  VALENTINE AND CLARISSE, with Noah between them, arrived at the entrance of the Amaretto Room just after seven o’clock that Friday evening. Clarisse remarked that she had never before been an hour early for anything in her entire life, and the two men believed her. The evening was balmy—as perfect an evening in fact as Provincetown weather is capable of: warm, but without dampness, with a slightly pungent breeze. The moon was waxing and the night sky was cloudless. A large banner had been suspended over the door of the cabaret announcing:

  PROSTITUTION THROUGH THE AGES

  SPECTACULAR TABLEAUX D’ART

  2 NITES ONLY

  Below this, on either side of the garland-festooned doorway, were posted four torchbearers. They wore loincloths—all four costumes stitched together wouldn’t have mopped up a glass of spilled milk. Their bodies had been covered toe to head in gold paint and their hair had been dyed a color that matched the glass of their electric torches. They were admirably stony-faced, and refused even to acknowledge their friends in the crowd.

  “Angel must have slipped them some incredible downs,” whispered Clarisse, but Valentine did not hear her. He was too busy mumbling the torchbearers’ names and bedroom predilections to Noah.

  The door would not open until seven-fifteen, but already a sizable crowd had assembled, many with their pink invitations in hand. Everyone, it appeared, had donned his summer finery, the evening being the equivalent of the opening of the opera in Boston. White cottons predominated among the men and pastel silks among the women. Valentine and Noah wore white linen suits with open-collared shirts beneath. Clarisse wore a knee-length white forties-style dress beneath a silver bugle-beaded waist-length jacket. She straightened the padded shoulders and touched her hand to her hair, which was up in a smooth victory roll. She looked over the crowd expectantly.

  “Looking for someone special?”

  “I left an invitation in Axel’s mail slot. I was hoping he might show up early.”

  “Why didn’t you just leave it under Daniel’s pillow?—then he’d have been sure to get it.”

  The door of the Amaretto Room swung suddenly open and two women in crimson togas emerged carrying long-necked trumpets. They raised them high and blasted a shaky fanfare right in Clarisse’s ear. They bowed and disappeared inside again. Valentine, Clarisse, and Noah were the first to ente
r, and immediately seated themselves at the large round table.

  Large paintings of full-bodied women languishing on beds, couches, chaises, grassy banks—and even on kitchen tables—had been hung on the walls. Small cut-glass chandeliers had replaced the usual fixtures. Enormous baskets of red and yellow flowers had been placed at either side of the stage, a raised platform fifteen feet wide at one end of the room. The red velvet curtain had been replaced with a deep purple, gold-fringed one.

  The three of them looked about, nodding to acquaintances. “It really is amazing,” said Clarisse.

  “What?” asked Noah.

  “I work all day long in that shop that is boycotted by anyone with taste. My nights I spend at home in bed reading—”

  “Or just in bed,” interjected Valentine.

  “And the only people I see are you and Val and Matteo, and yet I think I know half the people in this room. Where did I meet them all?”

  “You didn’t meet them,” said Noah. “It’s just that you see them on the street every day. I suppose that passing somebody twenty times in twenty-four hours on the same sidewalk constitutes a kind of introduction.”

  A small orchestra had set up to one side of the stage. The seven musicians tuned their instruments and then struck up a medley of obscure show tunes—but never so obscure that some man in the room didn’t know all the lyrics and insist on singing along in a cracked voice.

  “I thought Matteo was on the door this evening?” said Valentine.

  “He doesn’t come on duty until…” Clarisse faltered. Valentine and Noah were staring past her with expressions of surprise and alarm. “…eight,” she finished, and turned slowly, following their line of vision. “Oh my,” she whispered.

  Margaret stood a dozen feet away. Her hennaed hair glistened in the red spotlight over the door. She wore a black strapless gown that swept the floor. Her eyes wandered over the crowd, and when she saw Clarisse she smiled and headed over to the table.

  “Are you saving these places for anyone special,” she asked, “or may I join you?”