Vermilion

by Aldyne, Nathan

  “Sure, I mean if Julie Nixon Eisenhower trusts you, why shouldn’t I?”

  Raymond turned to Clarisse’s reflection and smiled blandly. “Why don’t I cut Ms. Slater’s hair first, Clarisse? That way she can be out of here quickly—and I’ll have all the time in the world to do a job on you.”

  Clarisse shrugged uneasily.

  Raymond took Boots briefly into the back room and shampooed her hair. When he led her back—she had evidently forgotten the way—Clarisse looked up from a pile of leases that she was reading through and smiled warmly at Boots.

  Boots seated herself and lit another cigarette. Raymond combed her damp hair through.

  “So how are things on Commonwealth, Boots?”

  “Just great, ah—”

  “Clarisse,” smiled Clarisse. “My name is Clarisse. How’s Frank?”

  “Frank’s really great. He sort of got pissed off when you made us put in soundproofing, but then the guys came over to do it, and he sort of got into watching them. You know, we’d get stoned and sit on the floor and watch these hot guys putting in soundproofing. It was great, you know?”

  “Well,” smiled Clarisse, “I’m glad all that worked out. That’s a good building, but you’ve been having a lot of excitement in that neighborhood lately, haven’t you?”

  “You mean Frank and me?”

  “No,” said Clarisse, “on the Block.”

  Raymond paused, and glanced at Clarisse.

  “Oh yeah,” laughed Boots. “Frank calls the Block our backyard, except that it’s really out in front, and it’s down the street some.”

  “Why does he call it that?”

  “’Cause he says there’s nothing better than being able to work in your own backyard.”

  “You mean Frank works the Block?”

  Boots didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze wandered toward Raymond. Clarisse fished a moment for her meaning, but then reassured her. “Don’t bother about Raymond. He’s an ex-priest, and he’s used to hearing confessions. He’s never repeated a word of gossip in his life. Have you, Raymond?” She didn’t wait for his reply before repeating the question to Boots. “You mean Frank works the Block?”

  “Only when things are real slow. Sometimes our ad just gets completely ignored, and then the next week, half the North Shore calls in, and they all want to come by on the same night.”

  Raymond’s clippers moved sluggishly through Boots’s hair.

  “How’s business?” asked Clarisse. “Did you have a Christmas rush?”

  “No, about the same as always.” She brightened abruptly. “You have a boyfriend, don’t you, Clarisse?”

  “Not really.”

  “What about that man with the blond beard? He’s real cute.”

  “Oh, you mean Valentine.”

  “That’s a strange name. Is that a nickname? You know, Boots is a nickname too. It’s not my real name.”

  “Valentine is his last name. You think he’s cute?”

  Boots nodded. She leaned a little closer to Clarisse. “Frank thinks he’s cute too.” She winked laboriously.

  Clarisse took a long drag on her cigarette and flipped her hair to one side. “Does he?”

  Boots pulled back. “Sure. Frank says he’s hot.” She turned suddenly to Raymond. “Can I take my jacket off, it’s so hot in here?”

  He lifted the smock and Boots wrestled out of her jacket. Beneath she wore a sleeveless rayon blouse. Plainly visible on her right shoulder was a series of four bruises in the yellow-green stage of healing. Clarisse stopped Raymond from lowering the smock, and ran her finger lightly over Boots’s shoulder.

  “What happened?”

  Boots glanced at her shoulder and drew back. She covered the marks with one hand and pulled the smock over it. Raymond gave a two-beat pause and resumed clipping.

  “What happened, Boots?”

  Boots nervously lit another cigarette.

  Clarisse touched Boots’s arm gently. “Did Frank do that?”

  Boots looked away a moment. “Yes,” she answered blankly.

  “Has he ever hit you before?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did he do that to your shoulder?”

  “New Year’s,” she replied immediately, then corrected herself. “No, Christmas. It didn’t hurt, I just bruise easy.”

  “Do you have any other bruises now?”

  Boots was silent and her eyes became moist. Raymond grabbed a handful of tissues from the counter and handed them to Boots. She dabbed at her eyes, and balled the damp tissue in her hand. She did not pull back when Clarisse laid a comforting hand atop hers.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, Boots. I just hate to see any man treat a woman like that.”

  Boots nodded and unsnapped another button underneath her smock. She withdrew her hand and popped a yellow pill into her mouth. She swallowed it quickly.

  “You have a headache?” asked Raymond.

  “No,” said Boots, “it was just a Quaalude.”

  They sat in silence for a while and soon Boots relaxed and sighed contentedly. “’Ludes are just great. They make everything all right. You want one, Clarisse?”

  “Has that already begun to take effect?”

  “No,” said Boots, “but just knowing it’ll hit makes me feel a lot better. And it works faster if you’re already high. I got high before I came here you know. I don’t like to leave the apartment unless I’m high, ’cause I might get in trouble or something.”

  “Listen, Boots, tell me something. When Frank works the Block, is he out there, well—looking for clients for both of you?”

  Boots nodded. “Sure. You’d be surprised how many people really get into it—people right off the street. ’Course we get most of our people from the ad, or we get referrals sometimes too. We get people who have their names in the newspaper, and not for committing crimes either.”

  “You mean, like politicians?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of a politician?” said Clarisse. “You mean like, say, a policeman?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. We have this policeman, I can’t tell you his name, we don’t tell people’s names. Most of ’em give false names anyway…” Boots’s speech began to slow. She suddenly lost herself in contemplation of her reflection in the mirror. “What was I saying?”

  “You were telling me about Lieutenant Searcy,” said Clarissa boldly.

  “Oh, yeah, but I wasn’t supposed to tell you his name. You know him?”

  “He’s a good friend of mine these days. He said he knew you, and he had been over to your place a couple of times—”

  “He didn’t bust you for something, did he?”

  “No,” said Clarisse, “why do you say that?”

  “’Cause that’s how we met. Sometimes Bill works vice. Frank was down on the Block one night and Searcy came up to him and Frank made a proposition, you know, ‘come back to my place and I’ll show you my toys and we’ll have a good time.’ Frank can always tell when they’re into toys.”

  Raymond’s eyes widened. He folded his arms and slipped his scissors into his breast pocket.

  “So Bill said he was the vice and he was going to take Frank in. And then Frank had to do some fast talking. Bill had had a few drinks, and Frank told him that the only reason he was out on the Block was so he could get enough money to pay off the doctor who let me have my last abortion. Bill said he didn’t believe him, and then Frank said, ‘Well come back to the apartment and I’ll introduce you to Boots, and we can all sit down and have a drink, and Boots’ll tell you about her abortion.’ So they came back, and I played along about the abortion thing—I’m real good about playing along—and I made Bill a drink and then went in the bedroom and changed into my hot pants and came out with ’em unzipped and made Frank zip ’em up, and Frank said his fingernails were too short and made me go over to Bill and have him do it, and Frank went in the bathroom for about ten years and when he came out, Bill and I had already gone into the bedroom. I shu
t the door and took all my clothes off and told Bill that Frank was just on the Block trying to drum up business because he was a Vietnam vet and couldn’t get a job, and that it was all right ’cause Frank lived with me and I’m a woman and what would Frank want with little boys when he’s got me at home? You know what I mean?”

  Clarisse nodded. “Then Bill isn’t a client of yours. I mean he doesn’t pay you? There are still some things he keeps secret from me.”

  Boots coughed during this question, and after clearing her throat, said “What?”

  “I know he’s been back. Does he pay you?”

  “Well, sort of. How’d you know he came back?”

  Clarisse didn’t answer, and Boots went on. “It’s sort of complicated. I mean he’s a cop, so you just don’t charge him the going rate. And he’s got lots of problems, and every time he comes over he’s got these mind games that he wants to play.”

  “Mind games?”

  “Well, Bill kept coming back, and at first it was just me and him, and Frank would go out and get cigarettes, and then Bill wanted to play with toys and that was fine, because you know, that’s kind of my specialty, and then he started wanting Frank to hang around and watch and Bill thought that he was humiliating Frank. So Frank sort of pretended that he was being humiliated, but actually Frank gets off on watching. Of course, I never told Bill that. But you know what all that means, don’t you?”

  “No,” said Clarisse and Raymond at once.

  “Well, sure,” said Boots, “if Bill gets a kick out of having Frank watch, then somewhere in the back of his mind he wants to do it with Frank himself. It just all adds up, and so a few weeks ago when Bill came over and started on his mind games I got fed up, and I made him do it with Frank—and I watched.”

  “You made him?”

  “Oh I’m real different when I’m working. I get into it, you know. Bill did it because it was part of the scene and he really got into it, but of course when it was over he got real mad and said he was going to run us both in. But we talked him out of it, saying he hadn’t really had sex with Frank, it was really just part of having sex with me. So he kept on coming back, and he did it with Frank again—but only if I made him. I like that, because I got tired of doing all the work and especially when we weren’t getting the full rate, and now Frank had to do part of it and I could sit back and watch. You know what I mean? You know, if you and Bill are getting it on these days, you ought to come over one night. We could all have a real good time. You got anything that’s real shiny you could wear?”

  Before Clarisse could answer, Boots had turned to check her reflection. “Is that it?” she said to Raymond. “I mean, won’t it look kind of funny so short on one side, and real long on the other?”

  Raymond pulled the scissors out of his breast pocket and continued the cutting.

  “Well,” said Clarisse, “things really are busy in your neighborhood, what with Searcy and that little hustler that got murdered this week.”

  “You mean what’s-his-name?”

  Clarisse looked at her for a long moment. “You knew him then? His name was Billy Golacinsky.”

  “No, I read it in the paper. Frank and I don’t know any hustlers. They can’t afford us.”

  Clarisse unhooked the French flag and stood, draping the smock over the chair. “Well,” she said, “got to run. I’ll call you next week for another appointment, Raymond.”

  “I’m almost done here, Clarisse.”

  “Listen,” said Boots, “when I see Bill, I’ll tell him he ought to bring you with him next time. Funny he’s never mentioned you before. You want to make a date? I don’t have my calendar with me, but I think next Friday night’s OK.”

  “Oh,” said Clarisse lightly, “just talk it over with Bill. I let him make all the decisions.” She unsnapped her envelope, extracted several bills, and slid them into the drawer of Raymond’s cabinet. “This will take care of everything.”

  “I’ll be right back,” he told Boots and laid aside his comb and scissors. He took up Clarisse’s coat and walked her to the front door.

  “If she starts talking about Puerto Rico,” said Clarisse, “just play along.”

  “What is this all about?” Raymond demanded in a hissing whisper.

  She touched his shoulder and looked him seriously in the eye. “One more thing, Raymond. You can’t say a word about this. It’s important now. Mario Scarpetti is dropping les flics down on Randy Harmon and Val and some other people too. They’re all getting the runaround from this cop I was talking to Boots about, and we’re going to stop it—so not a word.”

  He frowned. “Not a word, but it’s going to kill me. Why don’t we kidnap Scarpetti, and drag him in here? I’d like to do his hair!”

  “You’re one of the vigilantes now.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll explain later—all the details. Or better yet, I’ll send Valentine over and he can tell you all about it. Sweet dreams, Raymond, of Mario Scarpetti, dead in a ditch.”

  “The Marseillaise” chimed as she shoved the door open and walked into the windy street.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE SNOW HAD begun in earnest while Clarisse was in Chez Marcel; it swirled more heavily still by the time that she emerged from Bonwit Teller’s with two hundred dollars’ worth of perfume. As she hurried through the Public Garden, it had begun to accumulate on the lawns of brown dead grass. She spotted Veronica Lake gamboling about the Civil War memorial at the crest of Boston Common’s western knoll. Valentine sat slouched on a stone bench at the base of the monument, evidently in conversation with an old man who sat beside him. She waved from a distance and he rose, sliding down the snowy hill to meet her. Veronica Lake tumbled along behind him, slipping with an almost professional comicality down the slope.

  The old man on the bench stood and waved to Valentine. Valentine waved cheerily back.

  “Who was that?” asked Clarisse when Valentine stood beside her.

  “Silber,” he replied. “Breaking and entering. Three-to-five. Got out last week. I got him a job with Harry down at the South End Florist, because I knew Silber knew all about plants.”

  “And he wanted to thank you?” She glanced back at the old man on the crest of the hill; he was still waving.

  Valentine nodded. “He gave me this.” He held up a tattered pack of cards, and after making certain that Silber could not see him, tossed them into a wastepaper basket. “The thought was nice, but I wish he had brought me something more interesting. Nothing is more boring than a deck of blue Bicycles.” Valentine’s hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his new leather jacket and the hood of his red sweatshirt was pulled up over his head.

  “You were out here the whole time?” Clarisse said.

  “Raymond didn’t do much for you,” Valentine said, “I can’t tell any difference.”

  “Boots had us enthralled. Once we got her started, she didn’t stop.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Let’s walk, it’s too cold to stand here.”

  Valentine snapped the leash around the afghan’s collar, and they moved slowly through the Common. By the time they had reached the corner of Tremont and Boylston streets, Clarisse had related all that she had discovered from Boots.

  “I think that poor girl stays stoned all the time so that she won’t have to think about the situation she’s in.”

  “Well,” said Valentine, “she apparently puts up with it one way or another.”

  “I think Frank has something on her, and that’s why she stays.”

  “You think it has anything to do with Searcy?”

  “No,” said Clarisse carefully, “I don’t think so. She was a little nervous when we were talking about Frank, talking about the way he punches her out—apparently for no reason at all—but she was all right when she talked about Searcy. Then she was just gossiping.”

  “But we didn’t learn much really,” said Valentine.

  “I guess not. But at least Boots got a decent cut
out of it. And you owe me twelve-fifty—I gave Raymond twenty-five because it was his lunch hour.”

  “Weren’t there cheaper subterfuges?”

  Clarisse shrugged.

  “And tell me,” said Valentine, “what are you going to do when Boots tells Searcy that she ran into you at the beauty parlor and that you were asking all kinds of questions about his sex life? You all but told the woman that you had moved in with the man.”

  “She was stoned out of her mind. She won’t remember, and even if she does, Searcy doesn’t know where to find me.”

  “Yes, but Clarisse, he knows where to find me! He finds out you were nosing around, he’s going to come down on me, and I—”

  “You know what, Valentine?”

  “What?”

  “You have a very negative attitude toward adventure.”

  Valentine threw up his hands in exasperation.

  They were on the edge of the Combat Zone. Valentine looked up Boylston Street at the unlighted neon sign over Nexus. Even so early in the day there were two hustlers cowering in the doorway, staring hungrily at male passersby. No one looked back. To his left, in the opposite direction, the Combat Zone was fully lighted and busy with the remnants of the businessmen’s lunch hour.

  When the light changed, Valentine and Clarisse crossed and continued down Tremont toward Bay Village and the South End. “Well,” said Clarisse, “as long as we’re going in this direction, I might as well stop in at the office for an hour or two, see what’s happening.”

  As they were passing the Art Cinema, Clarisse stopped under the small marquee and brushed the snow out of Veronica Lake’s hair. She smiled up at Valentine. “By the way, how is Mark doing? Do you know?”

  “I called home. He and the truck driver are probably going to have their blood tested; it’s going to be wedding bells in the logging camp.”

  “Ah,” said Clarisse, and straightened up, “love in the wilderness…oh!”

  A male patron, departing from the cinema, had collided brusquely with Clarisse. The man glanced up at her to offer his apologies but abruptly averted his face, mumbled incoherently, and walked swiftly away from them. Startled and a bit offended by his rudeness, Clarisse righted herself. Valentine glanced back only in time to see the man’s overcoat flapping against the cold wind, and his gray head drawing down against the snow. His trousers were of a shade of green rarely seen anywhere except on a Mexican postcard.