by M. J. Bosse
When I went to work that evening, I was still having this awful image coming abruptly into focus—Virgil in a military uniform all bloody on the floor of our apartment—and I must have looked like what I was feeling, because even Thing asked me was I on a downer. Three nights a week for extra money I worked as a waitress in this Village discothèque called Eros, and Thing worked there too. Actually, as I discovered through rather sneaky means, she was Ethel Schmidt from Waterbury, Connecticut, but I admit the nickname Thing suited her, even though it was too too cute, like the names of my turtles. She was the perfect stereotype of a hippie, with hair dirty and down almost to her large, curvaceous ass. She had good legs, long and slim. She also had a pasty complexion, and she snorted Methedrine. I saw her do it many times in the band room. The funny thing is, she made me feel old, and she was only two years my junior. It’s a fast-moving world, I’d say, when a girl feels old at twenty-two, but that’s what I felt when I looked in a mirror after having passed by that slouching, cute-assed Speed-head who was so cool she never—and I mean never—smiled. Thing was the Feeler’s girl friend—whatever that meant sexually, because unless they were high on something, they neither of them seemed to have the energy to sit up straight in a chair. And yet that is catty and unfair of me when you consider that the Feeler, all of twenty-four, was about the finest guitar player around. His touch on the guitar was the reason for his name. The current group, E. Rotic and the Fornicators, featured him more than the actual leader, E. Rotic, a vocalist whose idea of singing was to screw the microphone and howl in ecstasy.
The Feeler had big round eyes and hair that stood straight out the way Orphan Annie’s does when she’s scared. I liked him—Dennis Pearce, alias the Feeler, who called his native Boston “Baaaston” the way the Kennedys do—and because I liked him, I felt sorry for him for having such bad taste in women: example, Thing. When he saw I was on a bummer that evening, the Feeler offered me a snort of Meth, but I never use Speed, so I compromised and accepted some authentic Lebanese hash. Was it groovy, and by the time Virgil arrived at Eros, I was off and awaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Virgil sat near the bandstand, cocking his ear to the music with that absolute intensity of his. I took him a rum and Coke, his favorite drink. I saw him frowning from a hundred miles away, as I approached, but I kept giggling anyway. I couldn’t stop because I was really stoned. He looked terribly square, eyeing me from the table like somebody’s father. I bent over, giggling, and told him so, and I told him I wanted to do all kinds of weird sexual things right then and there. Oh, was I funny, even though all I got out of Virgil was a thin-lipped stare. But thank God, he never stays angry very long, especially when there’s music around to distract him. At closing time, when we left together, he took my arm with an unfatherly smile.
In the cab going home I kept telling him I loved him, but I’d love him more if he smoked something else besides straight tobacco in those damn pipes. I remember laughing a lot. By the time we reached home, my mood had gone all sour and I was calling Virgil just another stubborn Taurean for not getting high with me. “You’re trying to reform me,” I complained on the sidewalk, “by—by not trying, that’s how!”
He guided me gently but firmly into the building and up the stairs, which I seemed to take in great floating giant steps. Then we were at the door, then inside—and even as spaced-out as I was, I understood instantly what had happened to our place. Someone had paid us a visit, gone wild. I hadn’t seen anything like it since sorority days back at the University of Nebraska. I mean, chaos: clothes and things flung everywhere, drawers pulled out, the closet ransacked. I remember screaming when I saw the fishbowl broken on the floor. Where were my turtles? Where were my boys? I got down on my hands and knees and through thousands of miles, through a fierce desert sunlight that could bake their shells and fry them to a crisp, I searched for them, pleading for them to answer me: “Pablo? Henri? Georges? Where are you? Boys? Where are you?”
*
The hash put me into a long, delicious sleep, which left me refreshed the next morning, although of course my mouth was dry. From the odor of stale smoke and the hanging blue haze in the room, I knew that Virgil must have been awake most of the night. He was sitting in his armchair dozing, a clay Goedewagen still gripped in his hand. I tiptoed out of bed and quietly made coffee, wanting him to have what little sleep he could get. While the coffee was perking, I inspected the apartment, which was actually all in order, and I found the turtles—alive, well, and living under the bed. I made the boys a temporary home in a pan and cooed softly at them while their old faces looked up at me from the wrinkled folds of their necks. Turning back to the coffee, I saw that Virgil was awake and staring at me. Instantly I went to him and kissed him lightly on the forehead. This is my kiss of penance. “I’m sorry about last night,” I whispered against his cheek. “I didn’t know the hash was that strong.”
“You were exceptionally high,” he said stiffly but without real anger.
“You have no idea,” I said, laughing. “Last night I thought the apartment was a mess—like, robbed. Was I ever freaked out.”
“We weren’t robbed, but what you think you saw was real.”
“You mean—the place really was a mess?”
“I cleaned it up while you were sleeping.”
“I’m sorry. Honestly. I should have helped.”
“You should have, but I couldn’t wait. I was curious to see if we had been robbed.”
“But if everything had been turned upside down, what else could it be but robbery?” And then I got the idea. “It was because of Don, wasn’t it?” Virgil nodded as he came over to the dining table and sat down to his coffee. “Was the person who went through our place the killer?” I asked.
“That’s logical.”
Again I had a sudden image of Virgil in military uniform awash in blood on our floor. “Then he’s after you now?”
“Don’t worry,” Virgil said, calmly sipping his coffee.
“But I do worry. I mean, how can you be so damn cool?”
“Not cool, just logical. If the killer murdered two Alpha men, he’d be asking for a full-scale investigation, and he knows it. But as things stand now, the police have closed the case on Don, and Smith is merely going through the motions of a routine check. So you see, safety isn’t a problem.” He hesitated a moment. “Not right now.”
“Then why did the killer come here?”
“Obviously he was looking for something, something Don might have given me.”
“But why would Don give you anything?”
“For safekeeping. You know how Don was, how cautious he was.”
“The cops called him paranoid when they found that camera in the laundry bag and his cuff links taped under the table—”
“—and his Purple Heart stuffed in a shoe. Yes, I’d call him rather cautious,” Virgil said. Virgil is loyal to his friends. Just try to get him to criticise them. “And though he wouldn’t trust a bank,” Virgil continued, “he might very well entrust something to a friend.”
“He’d trust you, all right. But would the killer know that?”
“We must assume so.”
“So if the killer didn’t find what he was looking for upstairs, he’d come here.” The idea of someone foraging around in our place began to anger more than frighten me. Maybe being robbed is like being raped—I mean, in the sense of being violated, of having something of yourself taken from you. I have rape fantasies now and then that leave me shaking and furious, so it was easy for me to compare the ransacking to rape. But then what about the killer’s fantasies? I remembered seeing those My Lai soldiers on television. Our killer must have seen himself in front of the cameras, imagined his mother claiming that her son had always been a good boy, watched himself walk into a courtroom full of generals. “I guess,” I said after a while, “he’d do anything to find what he was looking for.”
“And we can guess what that was.”
“Sure, I know—the package from Ikuko.”
> Virgil reached across the table and gave my cheek a quick pat. “Clever girl,” he said, smiling.
“I told you I think best when I’m jealous.”
*
I took a shower and began dressing. We were driving out with Henry and Martin to the funeral in Southampton. Virgil had called the aunt, a Mrs. Halliday, who told him that the service would be held at two o’clock. She had said, “I really didn’t know my nephew,” which I hoped didn’t mean that she was ashamed to acknowledge kinship with anybody murdered. Some people think it’s a sin to have a violent death occur in a family.
I took a long time deciding what to wear, but then I didn’t use the Magic Coin, which I will explain later. I just figured the Magic Coin wasn’t appropriate to the occasion. Don would want me to look especially nice in a conservative kind of way. I chose a blue leather miniskirt and a turquoise silk blouse—the former wasn’t too short or the latter too tight. I wanted to tie back my hair with a bright ribbon, but decided that that might seem too coquettish. In what I wore that day I looked quiet and, like, sweet, just what Don would have wanted.
I asked Virgil, just to be sure, if I was all right, and he said yes. He is one of the few men who haven’t tried to flatter me by saying I resemble Julie Christie. That day of the funeral, Virgil looked beautiful. He owns only three suits, all of them conservative, but on him they always look good, always seem pressed, even when he’s worn them many times. Somehow he never wrinkles his clothes, a skill I wish I had. Two minutes in a summer outfit and I’m wilted. But in his crisp white shirt and dark slim-line suit, Virgil always looks air-conditioned and fresh. I guess when you’ve never had many clothes, you learn how to live in what you have. That morning I remember especially how he looked: somber, because of where we were going, but his dark, high-cheeked face dignified above the white collar and his body sort of electric-looking in the gray suit.
Martin picked us up in his old Renault, and then we stopped at a coffee shop for Henry, who came out into the sunlight in a red-and-yellow dashiki. With his size and in that magnificent robe and all, Henry looked like a Watusi king. Our mood was groovy as we drove out of the city. Brilliant sunshine has nothing to do with funerals, and Don would have said, For God’s sake enjoy the drive. Don didn’t believe in wasting beauty and time any more than he believed in wasting money.
Virgil had told me not to mention the break-in, but we hadn’t got through the tunnel before I was describing it. It’s hard to shut up a Gemini like me. Neither Martin nor Henry believed the break-in had anything to do with the murder; they figured it was probably summer vandalism. Funny, but when alone with Virgil I had faith in our theory, and when other people were with us I felt that we were playing a silly game.
The traffic wasn’t bad at that hour, so we made good time, coming at last to the shore drive where you can smell the salt air. The car radio was wailing, all those groovy sounds through the sunlight. Henry sat in the front seat, silent but absolutely breathtaking in his dashiki. Maybe he was brooding over the murder. Don had helped him a lot with course work, lent him books, encouraged him, and all that sort of thing. In the back seat with me, Virgil smoked and moved his pipe slightly to the rhythms of the music. Over the back of the driver’s seat, Martin and. I exchanged nasty remarks, which is not unusual for us. The current topic, I guess the perpetual topic, was his way with girls. I always contend that he finds fault with every girl he meets because he’s afraid of women. But we are lively together, and I groove to Martin.
When we got to town, Virgil went to a florist and bought two dozen roses, which were to come from the four of us. Virgil loves flowers. Sometimes he will come home holding a single flower sort of shyly and without a word thrust it into my hand. That’s the sort of tenderness I mean about Virgil.
From the florist’s we went directly to the cemetery, got out of the car, and awaited the arrival of the hearse. Mrs. Halliday’s party appeared, consisting of herself; her tall, handsome escort; and the minister, who had probably acquired his magnificent tan on the private beaches of wealthy parishioners. Fortunately, other people were in the cemetery, arriving for another burial, so at least Don wasn’t put into the ground without a decent number of attendants around him. I am middle-class about such things, but so was he, and I was glad that people were passing along the graveled walk when we assembled around the grave. Don, you had a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, and sea breezes blowing across you. You would have been pleased.
When it was over, Mrs. Halliday approached us, having initially only nodded our way. She was a towering woman, of a height between Virgil’s and Henry’s, with a bony face and craggy jaw like Don’s and reddish-brown hair, a little streaked with the gray of fifty years or so. She wore a simple black frock which must have contained an expensive label. Dieting had kept her trim, but she looked worn out, and her hands shook. The man with her, about her age, was handsome, as I said, but when he opened his mouth he lisped.
Mrs. Halliday dismissed the minister with a quick handshake and turned back to us, first giving me a cool appraisal, her eyes then speeding past Henry and Virgil, returning once to Henry, and then stopping at Martin. She spoke to him, our white male, inviting us to her cottage for tea. Virgil accepted for us. We all started off together in an awkward silence which her handsome lisping escort broke now and then with a comment about the beautiful weather.
We were almost out of the cemetery when I sensed that Virgil wasn’t with us. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw him walking behind us, maybe a half block off, with a short, balding young man who limped. I recognized him as one of the people who had paused on the gravel walk during our ceremony. David—that was Mrs. Halliday’s friend—noted that the wind direction was exceptionally fine for sailing in this area, to which I responded with one of my politest Omaha smiles, and when I glanced back again, the short limping man was gone and Virgil had almost caught up with us. I was opening my mouth to ask him who that was when I saw him frown and shake his head slightly, so for once I controlled my Gemini instincts and kept quiet.
*
“Perfectly awful,” Mrs. Halliday said with a dramatic gesture, a sudden clutching at her throat. “All these dope fiends—New York is the most vicious city in the world. That’s precisely why I moved out here permanently two years ago. I have not regretted it.”
We were sitting on her patio looking toward the ocean. A maid had brought out tea, but only Virgil, habituated to the taste of it by his half year in England, really seemed to relish it. Mrs. Halliday took one sip, called the maid, and demanded sherry. “I need something to calm my nerves,” she explained. “Anybody else for sherry?”
Martin spoke up, and David sort of fingered his ascot, which I think meant yes, the way people use their tiny gestures at an auction. Henry had left us. He stood at the edge of the patio, his robe blowing thrillingly in the stiff ocean breeze. I wondered at the rage he must be feeling. He was more blatantly militant than Virgil was, and this cottage and its guests probably represented so much of what he hated about white people. In his isolation he looked powerful, and for the first time perhaps I understood what it was in him that Virgil admired: depth of feeling.
As for Virgil, he chatted away as if he had sat drinking tea on that patio for a dozen summers. David seemed impressed by him, and that had the effect of bringing him to Mrs. Halliday’s attention. I guess until then they had never seen a black face that had peered down at yellowed manuscripts in the Rare Book Room of the British Museum. Dear Virgil, I saw him pull out a pipe and fill it, and I recognized it as the Woodstock that he had once given to Don. He hadn’t smoked it since taking it from Don’s rack the night of the murder—or at least, I hadn’t seen him, and knowing Virgil, I don’t think he would have smoked it until the funeral. I watched him light it slowly, carefully, with a kind of ceremonial stiffness, and I knew he was thinking of his old friend. That is Virgil, sometimes sentimental, and I love him for it.
The sherry came, and Mrs. Halliday sighed. Soon the
decanter was half empty, and she and Martin were smiling at each other over the rims of their glasses. Another man arrived, very fancy in white ducks and an ascot very much like David’s; at his elbow trotted a little white-haired man smoking a cheroot. Not far behind them came another man in white ducks and two women, both in wide-brimmed sun hats and beach robes. A cry of greeting went up from David. So it had all the signs of a party developing.
Well, I wasn’t going to be outdone while they called for whiskey and gin. I opened my handbag and took out my pot pouch and cigarette paper. You could hear the silence cut through their small talk like a cutlass, as I rather deftly, if I do say so, rolled myself a joint. When I lit up I saw Virgil’s eyes laughing at me, because though he won’t often admit it, my flighty moods, so different from his own steadiness, amuse him. They do sometimes. Mrs. Halliday did not look pleased, but her guests, I thought, watched with a certain air of admiration.
Before I had finished the roach down to my fingernails, two more couples had arrived. They were beautiful people, all right, all talking at once, and dressed for yachting. I laughed at the look on their faces when they spied our solitary African at the far end of the patio.
Conversation became general, as the saying goes, and I shocked three new arrivals, suntanned women about thirty, with a graphic and grim story of my life as a waitress at Eros. Not one word was true, but what the hell. I watched one of the women seek out Henry and lean toward him like a big luscious fruit just waiting to be picked. I don’t know what he said from that distance, but I saw his lips move slightly and only for a couple of seconds, and the woman walked away, bless him. More people arrived, and was the party ever developing. The patio was crowded, a sea of colorful dresses and scarves. Mrs. Halliday hadn’t moved from the sherry decanter, nor had Martin.
