A Dance at the Slaughterhouse

by Lawrence Block

  “I was in a few of the West Street bars before I came here.”

  He shook his head. “They don’t let the young stuff in those places. And the hawks don’t gather there, either. They’re mostly bridge and tunnel types, cruising in their cars, then going home to their wives and kiddies.” He put a fresh squirt of seltzer in my glass. “There is one bar you should try, but not until later on in the day. Not before nine-thirty or ten, I wouldn’t think. You won’t find boys there, but you might run into some dirty old men with an interest in them. That’s at the Eighth Square. On Tenth Street just off Greenwich Avenue.”

  “I know it,” I said. “I’ve passed it, but I never knew it was gay.”

  “You wouldn’t necessarily know from the outside. But it’s where all the most dedicated chickenhawks do their drinking. The name says it all, doesn’t it?” I must have looked puzzled. “Chess,” he explained. “The Eighth Square. That’s where a pawn becomes a queen.”

  I had called Elaine earlier and she’d begged out of our dinner date. She had either flu or the worst cold ever and it had knocked out her energy, her appetite, and her ability to make sense out of what she was reading. All she could manage was naps in front of the TV. I stayed downtown and had spinach pie and a baked potato at a Sheridan Square coffee shop and went to a meeting at a storefront clubhouse on Perry Street. I ran into a woman I’d known at St. Paul’s. She’d sobered up there, then moved in with her boyfriend on Bleecker Street. She was married now, and visibly pregnant.

  After the meeting I walked over to the Eighth Square. The bartender wore a tanktop with a German eagle on it and looked as though he spent a lot of time at the gym. I told him Gordie at Calamity Jack’s had suggested I ask him for help, and I showed him the sketches of the boys.

  “Look around,” he said. “See anyone like that here? You won’t, either. Didn’t you see the sign? ‘Be twenty-one or be gone.’ It’s not purely decorative. It means what it says.”

  “Julius’s used to have a sign,” I said. “ ‘If you’re gay please stay away.’ ”

  “I remember!” he said, brightening. “As if anyone who wasn’t a little light on his feet would ever darken their door. But what would you expect from those Ivy League queens?” He leaned on an elbow. “But you’re going way back. Before Gay Pride, before Stonewall.”

  “True.”

  “Let me have another look. Are they brothers? No, they don’t really look alike, it’s more attitude, isn’t it? You look at them and you think of wholesome things, Scout hikes and skinny-dipping. A paper route. Playing catch on the back lawn with Dad. Listen to me, will you, I sound like The Donna Reed Show.”

  He didn’t recognize the boys, and neither did the few customers he showed the sketches to. “We really don’t allow the sandbox set in here,” he said. “We come here to complain about how cruel they are, or how much it costs to keep them happy. Wait a minute, now. Who’s this?” He was studying the third sketch, the one of Rubber Man. “I think I’ve seen him,” he said. “I can’t swear to it, but I think I’ve seen him.”

  A couple of other men came over and leaned over me to examine the sketch. “Of course you’ve seen him,” one said. “You’ve seen him in the movies. It’s Gene Hackman.”

  “It does look like him,” another said.

  “On the worst day of his life,” the bartender said. “I see what you mean, but it’s not him, is it?” I said it wasn’t. “Why use drawings, though? Isn’t it easier to identify someone with a photograph?”

  “Photographs are so common,” one of the others said. “I’m all for drawings, I think they’re a very fresh idea.”

  “We’re not thinking of redecorating, Jon. This is about identification, not redoing the breakfast nook.”

  Another man, his face wasted with AIDS, said, “I’ve seen this man. I’ve seen him in here and I’ve seen him on West Street. Maybe half a dozen times over the past two years. On a couple of occasions he was with a woman.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Like a Doberman pinscher. Black leather from the toes up, high-heeled boots, and I think she was wearing spiked cuffs on her wrists.”

  “Probably his mother,” someone said.

  “They were definitely hunting,” the man with AIDS said. “They were on the prowl for a playmate. Did he kill those boys? Is that why you’re looking for him?”

  The question startled me into an unguarded response. “One of them,” I said. “How did you know?”

  “They looked like killers,” he said simply. “I had that thought the first time I saw them together. She was Diana, goddess of the hunt. I don’t know who he was.”

  “Cronus,” I suggested.

  “Cronus? Well, that would fit, wouldn’t it, but it’s not the thought I had. I remember he was wearing a floor-length leather coat and he looked like a Gestapo agent, somebody who’d come knocking on your door at three in the morning. You know what I mean, you’ve seen those movies.”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought, these two are killers, they’re looking for someone to take home and kill. You’re being silly, I told myself, but I was right, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You were right.”

  I took the subway to Columbus Circle and picked up the early edition of the Times on my way home. There were no messages at the desk and nothing interesting in the mail. I turned the TV on and watched the news on CNN and read the paper during the commercials. Somewhere along the way I got interested in a long article on drug gangs in Los Angeles and reached to switch off the television set.

  It was past midnight when the phone rang. A soft voice said, “Matt, it’s Gary at Paris Green. I don’t know if you care, but the fellow you asked about the other night just walked in and took a seat at the bar. He might drink up and walk out the minute I hang up, but if I were guessing I’d say he’ll stay put for a while.”

  I’d taken my shoes off, but other than that I was ready to roll. I was tired, I’d had a late night last night, but to hell with that.

  I said I’d be right over.

  * * *

  THE cab ride couldn’t have taken more than five minutes, but before it was half over I was wondering what the hell I was doing. What was I going to do, watch the man drink and figure out if he was a killer?

  The absurdity of the whole thing became still more evident when I opened the door and went in. There were just two people in the whole place, Gary behind the bar and Richard Thurman in front of it. The kitchen was closed, and before they’d left the waiters had put the chairs on top of the tables. Paris Green wasn’t a late joint, and Gary usually closed down the bar around the time the waiters finished and went home. I had the feeling he was staying open tonight on my account, and I only wished there was more sense in it.

  Thurman turned at my approach. Some people barely show their drink. Mick Ballou is like that. He can take on a heavy load and the only outward sign of it is a slight hardening in the gaze of his green eyes. Richard Thurman was just the opposite. One look at him and I knew he’d been making a night of it. It showed in the glassiness of the hard blue eyes, the suggestion of bloat in the lower part of the face, the softening around the pouty mouth.

  He nodded shortly and went back to his own drink. I couldn’t see what it was. Something on the rocks, neither his usual light beer nor his pre-dinner martini. I picked a spot eight or ten feet down the bar from him and Gary brought me a glass of club soda without asking.

  “Double vodka tonic,” he said. “Want this on your tab, Matt?”

  It wasn’t vodka and I didn’t have a tab there. Gary was one of the few bartenders in the neighborhood who wasn’t trying to make it as an actor or writer, but he had a head for drama all the same. “That’ll be fine,” I told him, and I took a long drink of my soda water.

  “That’s a summer drink,” Thurman said.

  “I guess it is,” I agreed. “I got in the habit of drinking it year round.”

  “The Brits invented tonic. T
hey colonized the tropics and started drinking it. You know why?”

  “To keep cool?”

  “As a malaria preventive. Preventative. You know what tonic is? What’s another name for it?”

  “Quinine water?”

  “Very good. And you take quinine to prevent malaria. You worried about malaria? You see any mosquitoes?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re drinking the wrong drink.” He raised his own glass. “ ‘Claret for boys, port for men, and for heroes it’s nothing but brandy.’ You know who said that?”

  “Some drunk, it sounds like.”

  “Samuel Johnson, but you probably think he plays right field for the Mets.”

  “You’re talking about Darryl Strawberry now. He a brandy drinker?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Thurman said. “What am I doing here? What the hell is the matter with me?”

  He put his head in his hands. I said, “Hey, cheer up. Is that brandy you’re drinking?”

  “Brandy and crème de menthe. It’s a stinger.”

  No wonder he was shitfaced. “A hero’s drink,” I said. “Gary, give my father here another hero’s drink.”

  “I don’t know,” Thurman said.

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “You can handle one more.”

  Gary brought him another stinger and set up another glass of soda for me, whisking away the one I’d barely touched. Thurman and I raised our glasses at each other, and I said, “Absent friends.”

  “Jesus,” he said. “Not that one.”

  “How’s this, then? ‘Here’s to crime.’ ”

  His shoulders drooped and he looked at me. His full lips were slightly parted. He looked as though he was about to say something, but then he changed his mind and took a long swallow of his drink. He made a face and shuddered a little as it went down.

  He said, “You know me, don’t you?”

  “Hell, we’re practically old friends.”

  “I’m serious. Don’t you know who I am?”

  I looked at him. “Wait a minute,” I said.

  He was waiting for me to recognize him from his picture in the papers. I let him wait another beat. Then I said, “Maspeth Arena. The Thursday night fights. Am I right?”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “You were the cameraman. No, I’m wrong. You were in the ring telling the cameraman what to do.”

  “I produce the telecast.”

  “On cable.”

  “Five Borough Cable, right. I don’t believe this. We give the seats away and we can’t get people to sit in them. Nobody even knows where Maspeth is. The only subway anywhere near there is the M and nobody in Manhattan can figure out where you go to catch it. If you saw me there, it’s no wonder you recognized me. We were just about the only people there.”

  “Pretty good job,” I said.

  “You think so, huh?”

  “You get to watch the fights. Get to grab a pretty girl by the ass.”

  “Who, Chelsea? Just a tramp, my friend. Take my word for it.” He downed some more of his stinger. “What brought you out there? You a big fight fan, never miss a bout?”

  “I was working.”

  “You too, huh? What are you, a reporter? I thought I knew all the press guys.”

  I gave him one of my cards, and when he pointed out that it had only my name and address I showed him the card I used when I worked for Wally, a business card for Reliable Investigations with their address and phone number and my name.

  “You’re a detective,” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  “And you were working the other night when you came out to Maspeth.” I nodded. “What are you doing now? This all part of the job?”

  “This? Drinking and bullshitting? No, they don’t pay me for this. I wish they did, I’ll tell you.”

  I had put the card from Reliable away, but I’d let him keep the other and he was looking at it now. He read my name aloud and looked at me. He asked me if I knew his name.

  “No,” I said. “How would I?”

  “It’s Richard Thurman. Does that ring a bell?”

  “Just the obvious. Thurman Munson.”

  “I get that a lot.”

  “Yankees haven’t been the same since the plane crash.”

  “Yeah, well, I haven’t been the same myself. Since the crash.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Never mind. It’s not important.” He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You were starting to tell me what you were doing in Maspeth.”

  “Oh, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “You wouldn’t be interested.”

  “Are you kidding? A private detective, everybody’s fantasy job, of course I’d be interested.” He dropped a friendly hand onto my shoulder. “What’s the bartender’s name?”

  “Gary.”

  “Hey, Gary, another stinger, another double vee-tee. So what brought you to Maspeth, Matt?”

  “You know,” I said, “the funny thing is you might be able to help.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, you were there,” I said. “You might have seen him. He was right at ringside.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The guy I was supposed to follow.” I got out a copy of a sketch and made sure it was the right one. “Here we go. He was sitting up front, had his son with him. I picked him up there the way I was supposed to and then I lost him. You happen to know who he is?”

  He looked at the sketch and I looked at him. “This is a drawing,” he said after a moment. I agreed that it was. “You do this? ‘Raymond Galindez.’ That’s not you.”

  “No.”

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “They gave it to me,” I said. “So I would recognize him.”

  “And you were supposed to follow him?”

  “Right. And I went to take a leak and when I got back he was gone. Him and the boy both, like they disappeared while my back was turned.”

  “Why were you following him?”

  “They don’t tell me everything. Do you recognize him? Do you know who he is? He was right in the front row, you must have seen him.”

  “Who’s your client? Who told you to follow him?”

  “I couldn’t tell you that even if I knew. Confidentiality, it’s everything in this business, you know.”

  “Hey, c’mon,” he said winningly. “We’re all alone here. Who’m I gonna tell?”

  “I don’t even know who the client is,” I said, “or why I was supposed to follow him. I caught hell for losing the sonofabitch, believe me.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “So do you recognize him? Do you know who he is?”

  “No,” he said. “I never saw him before.”

  HE left shortly thereafter. I slipped out myself and crossed to the downtown side of the intersection so I could watch him walking toward Eighth Avenue. When he had a good lead I tagged along after him, just keeping him in sight. He went into his own building, and a few minutes later I saw the lights go on in the fourth-floor windows.

  I went back to Paris Green. Gary had locked up, but he opened the door for me. “That was a nice touch,” I said. “Vodka and tonic.”

  “Double vodka tonic.”

  “And on my tab at that.”

  “Well, I couldn’t charge you six dollars for club soda, could I? Much simpler this way. There’s still some coffee left. Want a cup before I shut down for the night?”

  I had a cup and Gary uncapped a bottle of Dos Equis for himself. I tried to give him some money but he wouldn’t hear of it. “I’d rather keep my efforts as a Ninth Avenue Irregular strictly pro bono,” he said. “I wouldn’t enjoy it half as much if I took money for it, as the actress said to the bishop. Well, have you reached a verdict? Did he do it?”

  “I’m sure he’s guilty,” I said. “But I was sure before, and I don’t have any more evidence now than I did then.�
�

  “I overheard a little of the conversation. It was fascinating the way you became another person. All of a sudden you were a saloon character and about half lit in the bargain. For a second there you had me worried that I’d put vodka in your drink by mistake.”

  “Well, I put in enough time in ginmills. It’s not hard to remember the moves.” And it wouldn’t be hard to be that person again. Just add alcohol and stir. I said, “He was this close to talking about it. I don’t know that there was any way to crack him open tonight, but there were things he wanted to say. I don’t know, it may have been a mistake showing him the sketch.”

  “Is that what it was, that sheet of paper you handed him? He took it with him.”

  “Did he? I see he left my card.” I picked it up. “Of course my name and number are on the back of the sketch. He recognized it, too. That was obvious, and his denial wasn’t terribly convincing. He knows the guy.”

  “I wonder if I do.”

  “I think I’ve got another copy,” I said. I checked my pocket, unfolded sketches until I got the right one. I handed it to Gary and he tilted it to catch the light.

  He said, “Mean-looking bastard, isn’t he? Looks like Gene Hackman.”

  “You’re not the first person to point that out.”

  “Really? I never noticed it before.” I looked at him. “When he was here. I told you Thurman and his wife had dinner here with another couple. This was the male half of the couple.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure this chap and a woman had dinner at least once with the Thurmans. It may have been more than once. If he said he didn’t know him, he was lying.”

  “You also said he was here with another man sometime after his wife’s death. Same guy?”

  “No. That was a blond fellow around his own age. This man”—he tapped the drawing—“was closer to your age.”

  “And he was here with Thurman and his wife.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “And another woman. What did she look like, do you happen to remember?”