Kissing the Beehive

by Jonathan Carroll

  Out on the street he shot his cuffs and walked over to an unmarked Chevrolet. "Hop in."

  Driving down the street in a police car with McCabe at the wheel made me laugh. "Frannie, I wish there was some kind of magic available where I could go back and say to fifteen-year-old me, 'Do I have something to tell you,'

  "He'd never believe you. Here, look at this shitty store. You buy a pair of shoes in there, you're barefoot in two months. Remember Al Salvato?"

  'Green Light'?"

  "Right." He looked in the rearview mirror at Cass. "Al Salvato was a svacim we grew up with. Whenever someone said something he agreed with, he'd say, 'Green light.' He thought it was cute."

  "But Frannie didn't. He punched him in the nose for it."

  "That's right. Salvato owns three stores here now. This is one of them. He brought cheap shoes, a sex store, and bad Greek food to town. Ran for mayor last year and lost, thank God."

  Chief McCabe's tour of Crane's View went up and down and all around. He pointed out who owned what, who of our old friends still lived there, and gave a funny running history of what had happened since I'd left. His information only furthered what I already assumed: New money had moved up from Manhattan, thus terminally yuppifying much of the old homestead. There was a cafe now that served cappuccino and croissants, an Audi dealer, a vegetarian restaurant. What was left existed in a time warp that made the rest of the village look like it hadn't changed a bit. Witness Scrappy's Diner.

  Cass asked more questions than I did. From them, I was touched to hear she remembered many of the stories I had told her over the years. She and Frannie chatted away as he drove us around. After a while I tuned them out.

  We drove up Baldwin Street and took a right on Broadway. I smiled, knowing where we were going. He stopped the car in front of a well-kept red and white house with a wraparound porch. Large chestnut trees flanked it on both sides. It was in much better condition than when I had last seen it.

  "You know this house, Cassandra?"

  "No." She was leaning forward, her elbows resting on the seat between Frannie and me.

  "This is where your dad lived."

  "Really? He never showed it to me. Can we go look?"

  We got out and stood on the sidewalk in front. "How come I've never been here before, Dad?"

  "Because I haven't been back since you were born."

  "But you're always telling me stories about Crane's View!"

  I was about to answer when Frannie climbed up on the porch and went to the front door. "You want to look inside?" He held up a bunch of keys and jigged them to show he could get in.

  "You have a key?"

  "To my own house? Sure! Are you nuts?" Without waiting for our reactions, he opened the door and walked in. I caught up as he was walking into the living room. I wanted to ask a dozen questions, but also wanted simply to stand there and remember.

  "You live here? You bought my house?"

  "Yeah! I've had it seven years."

  "What'd you pay for it?"

  He looked to see if Cass was near. "None of your fuckin' business. Bought it when I was married. My wife was an executive producer at NBC so we had a lot of money then. When we split up, she gave me the house."

  "Congratulations! Every time 7 got divorced, I had to check to see if I still had all my body parts after the settlement. Can we look around?"

  "Sure. You want something to drink? Cassandra, you want anything?"

  "Could I have a beer?"

  "Sam?"

  "Nothing. I'm in too much shock. Frannie McCabe owns my house. You bought it from, who, the Van Gelders?"

  "Their son. They moved to Florida and gave it to him." He started for the kitchen. "You wanna look around, go ahead. Go upstairs if you want."

  "Dad?" Cass looked at me expectantly.

  "You go. I'm going to sit down here a little while."

  Frannie was back in a few minutes with a glass of beer in one hand, a glass of milk in the other.

  "Milk? You?"

  "It's good stuff. Now what's with the Pauline thing? How come you want to write about her?"

  "Because it's too interesting to pass up. I've been thinking about it awhile now. Why don't you think her boyfriend did it? You've got to tell me everything because I don't know a thing."

  He sat down across from me and cradled his glass in both hands. "I'll show you the files. She and this Edward Durant went out the night it happened. He'd come down for the weekend to be with her. His story is, they went to the river to drink and make out. What he remembered was they drank too much and got into a bad fight. Really bad. They were hitting each other. Then they stopped and drank some more."

  "Why were they fighting?"

  "Because she wanted to break up. Said she didn't respect him and wanted out. Now, the last thing he remembered was her getting out of the car and him following. She went over to the water and he was right behind her. She said get away. He hit her. Slapped her across the face. She fell down and started screaming. Said all kinds of nasty things and kinda went nuts. Way over the top, even for crazy Pauline. That spooked him, so he went back to the car, hoping she'd cool off. While he was waiting, he kept drinking till he passed out.

  "When he came to, it was an hour later. Eleven-thirty, because he looked at his watch. She wasn't back. He got out again and looked all around, but she was gone. He thought she'd walked home. He was so angry at what had happened that he just drove right back to his house in Bedford."

  "But you said he confessed when they caught him."

  "He confessed to being there alone with her, to fighting, to hitting her, to passing out. They had a lot of proof from his past that whenever he drank he got violent. They put two and two together. And that, my friend, is usually enough to convince a jury."

  "But why would he admit to all those things if he did kill her? That they fought and he hit her? It makes no sense. He never actually admitted to killing her?"

  "No."

  "And you don't think he did it?"

  "Nope." He drank the glass of milk in one slug.

  "Who did?"

  "We're talking off the record here?"

  I held up both hands. "I'm not taking notes and I ain't wired."

  "Take it easy, Sam. What do you think this is, NYPD Blue? Do you remember David Cadmus?"

  Cass came back into the room. Frannie stood up and handed her the beer. "Sure you remember him. Real little guy? Hung around with Terry Walker and John Lesher?"

  I thought about it until a picture from our high school yearbook came to mind: three boys standing stiffly around a 16 mm movie projector, all wearing white shirts buttoned to the top and thick black Clark Kent eyeglasses. "The worms! Sure I remember."

  Frannie sat down on the couch next to Cass. "Back when we were in school, any guy who carried around a slide rule, was good in math or science and didn't take many baths was considered a jerk. We called them worms."

  Cass rolled her eyes. "Worms? God, you guys were so mean."

  "And proud of it. But look, Cassandra, you kids got your own terms for them now. How about geeks? Nerds? Call 'em what you like, for us they were worms.

  "But I found out something I bet you didn't know, Sam: David Cadmus's father was Gordon Cadmus. The Gordon Cadmus."

  "No! The gangster?"

  "That's right, bud. Crane's View's very own Mafia man. We just didn't know it then. We thought he was a business guy. He owned some companies in the city. We wouldn't have teased that kid so much if we'd known who his dad was."

  Cass looked at me, then Frannie. "Who was Gordon Cadmus?"

  "Eleven years ago in a New York restaurant three men were having dinner: Gordon Cadmus, Jerry Kargl and George Weiser. Two men in raincoats walked into the restaurant and shot all three. Nobody in the place remembered what the shooters looked like of course, only that they were both wearing raincoats. See no evil, hear no evil. Story has it that after they finished shooting, one of the guys walked over to Cadmus's body and stuck a chocolat
e eclair in his eye. Then they walked out and that was that. You had something like it in one of your books, right, Sam?"

  "The Tattooed City. That's how the damned story ends! My God, if I'd known one of the real victims was Cadmus's father . . . But what did he have to do with Pauline's death?"

  "Pauline knew who he was back then. She had been seeing him on and off for two years."

  "Frannie, she was nineteen years old when she died!"

  He shrugged. "Some kids start young. Especially ones like Pauline."

  The room was silent awhile. Frannie tipped his empty glass up to get the last drops. To my surprise, Cass was first to speak.

  "Dad, remember the girl I told you about, Spoon? The one with the tattoo? She sounds like Pauline in a lot of ways. Her motto is 'Do it now because you might not get a chance later.'"

  Frannie laughed strangely. "Exactly! When you start looking into Pauline's life, you'll see she was either fearless or totally nuts. I've never been able to figure out which."

  I looked around the room where I'd spent so much time as a kid. In that corner we'd always put the Christmas tree. Over there our dog Jack used to stand on his hind legs and look out the window. Frannie had been here too. Sitting uncomfortably on the edge of a chair, utterly ill at ease talking to my parents while waiting for me to come downstairs so we could go out and make trouble.

  "This is serious business, Frannie. Why haven't you done something about it? Talked to people?"

  "I have! I've talked to a lot of people. I'll tell you about it sometime."

  "Now you're suddenly getting mysterious on me? Where's David Cadmus now? Do you know?"

  "Hollywood. Runs an independent film company. They put out that big hit recently, The Blind Clown?"

  "Sounds like your worm turned, huh?"

  Frannie pointed his finger at Cass. "Touche."

  "Why would Gordon Cadmus kill Pauline if she was his mistress?"

  "Because Edward Durant's father was a federal attorney investigating racketeering. Guess whose case he was assigned to three weeks before Pauline died?"

  Unfortunately I had to go out on a book tour to promote the paperback edition of The Magician's Breakfast, so I wasn't able to return to Crane's View for a while. Before leaving, I asked if I could rent a room in Frannie's house so I could set up shop and not worry about bringing things back and forth from Connecticut on the many trips I knew I would be making to my old hometown. Frannie said I didn't have to pay rent so long as I dedicated the book to him. I didn't know if he was serious but I'd promised the next one to Cass.

  From the way he lived, it seemed my old pal could use all the money he could find. His house was beautifully furnished. I knew enough about furniture from my second wife to recognize that some of the pieces he owned were very expensive. He also drove an Infiniti and had a closet full of clothes that reminded me of the Great Gatsby's shirt collection. When I asked how he afforded these things, he laughed and said he'd once been married to a rich woman. I didn't know how far that explanation would fly but it wasn't my place to probe. Despite the fact he was chief of police and had apparently turned his life around since I'd known him, I had a lingering suspicion that somewhere behind Mr. Solid Citizen, old rogue McCabe was up to some kind of mischief that allowed him to live way beyond his means.

  Book tours can be irritating and exhausting. Too many cities in too few days, "interviews" with people who haven't read the book but need you to fill up a few desultory minutes on their TV or radio shows, meals alone in dreary restaurants . . . When I'd first done them, I thought tours romantic and exciting; now they were only part of the job. Worse, I found I lived in a kind of empty-headed limbo for days after they were finished. This time I resented the fact I couldn't get to work on Pauline's book until this was out of the way.

  Trying to find some way to cheer up the inevitable, I hit on the idea of asking Veronica to come along. I was hesitant at first because two weeks on the road with anyone could end in disaster. But by the time I did ask, we had been having such a nice time together that I was willing to try. So was she, and the way she accepted the invitation gave me hope. Her face lit up, but she said, "What a nice idea. Are you sure we won't drive each other crazy?"

  "No, I'm not sure."

  "Me neither, but I'd like to try."

  Because of earlier commitments, she couldn't go to Boston or Washington, but would catch up in Chicago and we'd go west together.

  The trip began dreadfully. In Boston, the tail end of a hurricane was visiting the city. As a result, about twenty sodden people showed up at the bookstore for my signing. The next morning while the weather continued to eat Bean Town, I dutifully showed up on time for an interview with an "alternative" newspaper. The woman asking the questions arrived half an hour late and immediately started launching verbal assaults at any person who'd ever been on a bestseller list. Things between us went quickly from coldly polite to open warfare. When she smugly asked if I ever read "serious" writers, I suggested she should stop reading Georges Bataille awhile and go get laid instead. Then I got up and left.

  Because of the weather, the plane to Washington was delayed two hours so I sat in airport hell wondering once again why there is nothing to do in airports. Why hasn't some enterprising genius yet realized all us bored ticket holders would adore, flock to, pay hard cash for . . . any diversions that lasted longer than a cruise through the magazine racks or dull necktie store?

  In contrast to Boston, Washington was going through an ugly heat wave that melted your brain into raclette cheese. Who wants to leave the great god air-conditioning to go listen to some thriller writer read from a book they've already read?

  When it was over, I ate sushi across the street from my hotel and stared at a couple nearby. Watching them was like seeing a terrific film in a foreign language with subtitles: No matter how much you enjoy it, you know it would be even better if you understood what was really being said. Looking at the passion and electricity between them, I knew I wasn't in love with Veronica, although it was still a possibility. I loved seeing her, but not all the time. She seemed full of the kind of engaging contradictions I like in a woman: tough in her profession but vulnerable and affectionate with me, strong-minded and intelligent but also curious about the workings of the world and thus open to suggestion. One of the best things about our relationship was how well we communicated, including long conversations in bed after sex – that dangerous, sometimes magical time when people tend to tell the truth more than usual.

  In Chicago, she was waiting for me in the hotel room. Sitting on the edge of the bed with the TV remote control in her hand, she was wearing a crisp white T-shirt, black skirt, white socks and black Doc Martens tie-up shoes. Her hair was back in a ponytail and the whole package made her look eighteen years old.

  I walked over to the bed and put a hand on her shoulder when she started to stand up. She turned off the television and smiled at me.

  "I hope you don't mind me sneaking into your room, Mr. Bayer. I'm your biggest fan. Will you sign my heart?"

  I moved my hand to her cheek. "It's nice to touch your face again. I'm glad you're here."

  Her eyes were all eagerness. "Are you really? You weren't worried or anything?"

  "I'm worried and everything, but I'm still glad you're here."

  From Chicago we went to Denver, then Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and finished in San Diego. One radiant morning in Seattle while walking by the water, I told Veronica all I knew about Pauline Ostrova and the book I wanted to write. I told her about Frannie McCabe and growing up in Crane's View, what came after, and then about some of the people who had mattered along the way.

  We were sitting at a Starbucks coffee shop when I finished. The air outside was cool and crisp, full of delicious smells that kept changing with the breeze – wood smoke, ground coffee, the sea. Veronica wore a pair of large black wire-rimmed sunglasses that made her look alluring and powerful. Her face was so changeable. One moment she was Loli
ta, the next, the president of some multinational conglomerate.

  "Thank you."

  "For what? You look famous in those sunglasses. Aren't you Veronica Lake?"

  "I mean it, Sam. Thank you for telling me your story. It's a dangerous thing to do. Telling someone leaves you open and vulnerable. I think I've done it a total of three times in my life."

  "Think you'll ever tell me?"

  She slipped off the glasses and put them on the table. Tears glistened in her eyes. "I don't know yet. Whoever says I love you first, loses. That line has always frightened me. You already know I love you. If I tell you my story too and then things go wrong between us, I won't have much left."

  "You sound like a member of one of those tribes that believe if someone photographs them, they lose their souls."

  She put the heels of her hands to her eyes and rubbed them back and forth. "Your story is your soul. The longer you're with someone, the more you trust them, the more you're willing to tell. I believe when you find your real partner, you tell them everything until there's nothing left. Then you start from the beginning again, only this time it's their story as well as yours."

  "No separation of church and state? You even have to use the same toothbrush?"

  Her voice was low but very firm when she spoke. "You buy two blue toothbrushes exactly the same and keep them in a glass so you never know which is which. Yours is mine and mine's yours."

  "Those are pretty tight quarters."

  The offices of Black Suit Pictures were in a modern high-rise a few streets back from the ocean in Santa Monica. You parked way below the building and rode up in an elevator to an altitude you did not want to visit in that forever shaky part of the world. Two nights before in San Francisco, a small earthquake had jolted us very much awake minutes after we got into bed. Sex that night was more "please hold me" than anything else. We laughed about it, but that didn't stop either of us from sitting up very straight any time we felt the slightest anything the rest of the time we were in California.