“She’s more attractive, you mean. There are other qualities, you know.”
“Right. Mona Samson’s richer.”
“I wasn’t thinking of money.”
“Personality? Mona’s refined her personality to the point of extinction.”
“She seems so elegant in all the articles about her.”
“Mona Samson is a piece of sand irritated into a pearl. She’s hard and glossy and dead.” Joe D. glanced over at Natalie Danielli, a vision of life itself.
From where they were sitting there was little chance of Williams spotting them. Their waiter seemed to have lost them too, having disappeared after taking their orders. Joe D. decided to make sure that Williams saw him. He figured having something to hold over Williams’s head might come in handy. He left Alison with her wine and walked over to Williams’s table.
“Didn’t we meet the other day?” he asked.
Williams waited a beat before unlocking his eyes from his companion. His face dropped when he saw who was standing over them. “Oh, it’s you.”
“That’s right, Joe DiGregorio.” He offered his hand to Natalie Danielli. “And you are…”
“This is Natalie Danielli,” Williams drawled.
Joe D. shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you. Kendall and I have a mutual friend, don’t we?”
“It’s one thing to follow me to my store,” he hissed. “But following me to a restaurant…”
Joe D. decided to let Williams think what he wanted. “How’s the food?”
Williams just glared, but his date began to wax poetic about the veal tonato in a heavily accented voice that enhanced her credibility in the Italian food department.
“Thanks for the recommendation. And nice meeting you.” Joe D. looked pointedly at Williams and returned to Alison. Miraculously, their dinners had appeared and, equally miraculously, he’d ordered veal tonato. One bite told him that Natalie Danielli’s taste in Italian food was probably a sight better than her taste in men.
Williams and his date left soon afterwards, somewhat hurriedly, Joe D. thought. A number of heads, male and female, turned to follow Natalie Danielli’s exit. Joe D. was surprised that Williams would risk Mona’s wrath by dining in public with someone like Natalie, who was apparently well-known and would attract attention even if she weren’t. He’d detected a trace of genuine feeling for Williams in Mona. Now it appeared her feelings weren’t reciprocated.
He and Alison shared a tiramisu, another Italian food his mother had probably never heard of, and later walked it off with a detour through Carl Shurz park. The rain had cleared, leaving the night air heavy and damp. He put his arm around her shoulders, she put her arm around his waist. “I’ve never enjoyed walking like this until I met you,” Alison said. “It always felt awkward.”
“I guess we fit perfectly.”
“Then opposites must attract.”
He didn’t respond to this but he thought about it. Were they really opposites? Did the fact that she was Jewish and he Catholic make them opposites? She’d gone to college, he hadn’t. She had a “career,” he was happy just to be able to pay the bills. Still, under all the differences he felt a strong similarity. It had something to do with an instinctive wariness of the world, and also to do with a never-ending feeling of dissatisfaction, as if true contentment lay just over an always receding horizon. Not the strongest of foundations on which to build a relationship, but at times like this, feeling close and safe together, it seemed sufficient.
The light on Joe D.’s answering machine was flashing when they got home. “Leave it for tomorrow morning,” Alison told him. She went straight into the bedroom and started to undress. Joe D. fetched a glass of water from the kitchen and couldn’t pass the blinking machine without pressing the “play” button. “Traitor!” Alison called as the machine rewound. “Workaholic!”
He shouldn’t have bothered. His messages amounted to a series of beeps followed by dial tones, indicating several hangups. He reset the machine and joined Alison in the bedroom. She was already under the covers and looked inviting as hell. He was unbuttoning his shirt when the phone rang. “Let the machine take it,” Alison ordered, and this time he obeyed.
He was naked by the time the caller left a message. “It’s Kendall Williams. I called a few times earlier. I have some information you might find interesting. I’m willing to share it with you…”
Joe D. ran to the living room and picked up the phone. The answering machine screeched in his ear before he had a chance to disengage it. “Don’t hang up!” he shouted into the phone. “It’s me, Joe D.”
“As I was saying…” Williams sounded hushed and conspiratorial. Joe D. guessed Signorina Danielli wasn’t far away. “I have some information you might find interesting. I’m willing to share it with you on one condition.”
Joe D. guessed what that condition was, and knew right away he’d meet it. “Shoot.”
“First the condition. You’ll never breathe of word about tonight to anyone.”
“I’m like you; I like to keep a good restaurant a secret.”
“Very funny. You know what I mean. I don’t want Mona Samson to find out that I was having dinner with another woman.”
Another woman struck Joe D. as an odd way to describe Natalie Danielli. Compared to Mona Samson she was another species. “Mum’s the word.”
“We’re just friends, anyway. But Mona can be jealous…”
“If you’re just friends…”
“Do I have your word?”
“You do, assuming what you have for me is worth it.”
“Oh, it is. You mentioned yesterday that you were looking for George Samson’s secret lover?”
Joe D. felt his heart accelerate. “That’s right.”
“Well, I think I can help you find out who it is.”
Williams, though still whispering, sounded odiously like a grade school snitch. “And?”
“Mind you, I didn’t say I know who it is. Just that I can help you find out.”
Williams paused to let Joe D. beg. “And?”
“Well, let’s just leave it at cherchez l’homme.”
“Who?”
“Cherchez l’homme. A man. Samson was queer.”
Joe D. let this sink in. “Gay?”
“Call it what you will. He liked men. Mona claims they haven’t had sex since the first year of their marriage. Even then it was just the obligatory old college try, according to her.”
Joe D.’s mind was frantically trying to recast the entire case in light of this news. “Who was his lover?” he managed.
“I haven’t a clue. I just know that looking for girlfriends is a waste of time.”
Joe D. was thinking that he knew where to start the search for Samson’s lover.
Williams apparently found Joe D.’s silence unnerving. “So, we have a deal, right?”
“Deal?”
“Not a word to Mona about tonight. As agreed.”
“Oh, yeah, right. No problem.”
Twenty-Six
There was a knock at the door. Joe D. checked the clock by the bed and saw that it was just past 5:00 A.M. Feeling surprisingly alert, he got out of bed and answered the door. Only when it was too late, when the door was swinging open, did he realize that he hadn’t put any clothes on. Joe DiGregorio? said one of the two men at the door. Both were wearing trench coats and both, strangely enough, reminded him of his father, who had died several years ago. You’re under arrest. He knew right away what they meant. But he played dumb anyway. For the murder of George Samson said the other cop. And some other killings we’d like to talk to you about. Joe D. had been dreading the knock at the door, but, facing the two men now, he felt only relief at finally confronting the inevitable. It was only when Alison entered the living room, wearing a bathrobe, that he began to feel panic. Joe D., who are these men? Why are you naked? He turned and tried to explain. But he couldn’t get beyond the first few words, which, every time he started, led him to a conclusio
n he didn’t want to reach.
He awoke to one of those limbo states in which dream and reality compete for the mind’s commitment. Reality won, but only after a good struggle. Even ten minutes later, in the shower, Joe D. felt an uncomfortable mantle of guilt oppressing him.
“Why so quiet this morning?” Alison asked as he drank his coffee. One of the mixed blessings of living with someone, or at any rate, of living with Alison, was having his moods and emotions scrutinized in painstaking detail.
“I had the strangest dream,” he told her.
“Really?” She sounded eager, as she always was, to hear his dream. Alison had been in therapy for most of her adult life and saved her dreams the way some people collect souvenirs. Many a morning he’d find her scribbling madly on a small pad of paper, trying to nail down a dream before its inevitable evaporation. She also enjoyed “working on,” as she put it, Joe D.’s occasional reveries.
“In the dream, I’m the one who killed George Samson.”
She emitted a judicial “ummm.”
“And I was naked when they arrested me.”
He really wasn’t in the mood to analyze the dream, but he knew there was no going back. “Guilt,” she pronounced after a brief silence. “You feel responsible for something or someone.”
“But Samson’s dead, and the only thing I know for sure about this case is that I didn’t kill him.”
“In what way do you feel ‘exposed’ by this case?”
“Exposed?”
“Vulnerable. Naked.”
He hated this kind of discussion. “It’s my first big case,” he said dutifully. “So naturally I want it to turn out right.”
“And you’re afraid it won’t,” Alison said with satisfaction. “So the dream is really about feeling responsible not so much for Samson’s death, but for solving the mystery of his death. And the naked part has to do with feeling vulnerable on your first big challenge.”
Accurate, he thought, but hardly earth-shattering. “Thanks for the analysis. I’m on my way.” He kissed Alison and left her at the dining table. It was the first time he’d ever left the apartment on a weekday before Alison, and it felt as if he were breaking a fundamental law of nature.
It was early, just past 7:00, so Joe D. had no trouble getting a cab. He gave the driver Stuart Arnot’s address, and then sat back and tried to forget what he was about to do. Traffic was mercifully light. Joe D. hadn’t been out this early since moving to the city. Manhattan felt completely different at this hour, far more peaceful, even, than at 3:00 in the morning, when empty sidewalks still couldn’t disguise the activity simmering behind apartment walls. Now, at 7:15, the city felt hushed, expectant, as if everyone were waking up after a tough night and speaking in soft voices.
Arnot was wearing a silk paisley bathrobe when he answered the door. Since Joe D. had been announced by the doorman, Arnot didn’t look so much surprised as annoyed. “Couldn’t this have waited until I got to my office?”
“I had this strange idea that you might be skipping town. I was worried you’d call in sick today, and maybe the rest of your life.”
“That’s absurd.”
“What I need to talk about is your relationship with George Samson.”
“Surely we’ve been over this before.”
“He was your lover, wasn’t he?”
Arnot’s face froze, but he managed to move away from the front door and let Joe D. enter.
Arnot’s apartment was small, but had been decorated in defiance of this fact. The walls were painted a dark, glossy green. An oversized sofa dominated one wall. Facing it was a cluster of mismatched chairs upholstered in a rainbow of fabrics. An oriental rug covered most of the floor. Piles of big art books sprouted on top of the coffee table, under the coffee table, in corners. Extravagantly colorful fresh flowers were stuffed in vases all over the room. It was the kind of place that made Joe D. feel like a kid, afraid he’d knock over or spill something.
Joe D. cleared a clump of throw pillows from one section of the couch and sat down. Arnot selected a chair opposite him. “How did you find out?”
“You can’t keep this kind of thing secret forever.”
“But we did. We did.”
“How long were you and Samson lovers?”
Arnot hesitated. “I’m not used to talking about this. Forgive me.” Another pause, then, “Almost five years. We met through the Art Alliance.”
“How often did you see each other?”
“Two or three times a week. But George insisted on returning home each night. He was a fanatic about appearances.”
“Did you know he contacted me about arranging his disappearance?”
“I wasn’t sure it was you, but I knew he had this harebrained idea.”
“You didn’t support him?”
“Absolutely not. I was urging him to come out of the closet. If he could only have been honest about his sexuality, none of that subterfuge would have been necessary. He wouldn’t even consider coming out. Said he had his company to think of. I said that he owned more than half the stock; he didn’t exactly have to worry about being fired. But George just couldn’t do it. He’d started from scratch, you know. From poverty, or near poverty. He had a break with his parents and they never really forgave him. I think he never stopped trying to prove himself in their eyes, even after they died. For George, success was determined by how other people saw him, not by what he himself felt. If other people saw him as rich and powerful, then he was rich and powerful. But if they saw him as weak or vulnerable, then he was weak and vulnerable.”
“But being gay doesn’t mean being weak and vulnerable.”
“I tried to explain that to him. But he felt that others would see it that way—as evidence that he was weak, that he was a failure.” Arnot seemed overcome with sadness. Joe D. waited a few moments before asking, “Who else knew about you and Samson?”
“No one. I swear.”
“Not even Mona Samson?”
“She knew about his sexual orientation. How could she fail to? It humiliated her. I think her worst fear was that George’s homosexuality would come out into the open. She dreaded the idea of looking in the public’s eye like some long-term beard.” Arnot smiled, apparently relishing the thought. “I think she even encouraged the idea that George had girlfriends. In their set, everyone has lovers. It’s only lovers of the same sex that embarrass.”
“Is Samson really dead?”
Arnot took a deep, steadying breath. “Yes, I’m afraid so.” He sounded convincing.
“But the five million dollars in the Cayman Island bank?”
“We’ve been through this. That money is earmarked for the Caribbean League.”
“I can’t find any record of them anywhere.”
“Then dig a little deeper, why don’t you,” Arnot replied icily.
“The night Samson was murdered, did he mention meeting with me the day before?”
“He whispered something about the fact that he was still looking for a way out. That’s what he called this crazy scheme of his. A way out.”
“But he didn’t indicate that he’d actually found a way out?”
Arnot shook his head.
“The cabdriver managed to write the letter G on his cab sheet before he was interrupted. Do you have any idea where George was going.”
“I assume he was going home.”
“Could he have been coming here?”
“G as in Gramercy, you mean?”
Joe D. nodded.
“If he were coming here we’d have shared a cab, wouldn’t we?”
“Not if Samson had been afraid of being seen with you.”
“Maybe things would have turned out differently if I had been there.” Arnot’s voice thickened here. “But George was on his way home that night. He always went home. Or he said he was.”
Arnot stood up and left the room. Joe D. heard him blow his nose and sniffle a few times. He didn’t know whether to be touched or suspicious.
Arnot returned and stood in front of Joe D., one hand resting on a chair. Once again Joe D. was surprised by the unexpected power of Arnot’s body. If his face had an immature fleshiness to it, his body, sheathed in the thin silk robe, looked strong and sinewy. “These have been the hardest weeks of my life,” he said, as if answering a question Joe D. had posed. “I haven’t been able to grieve publicly, you see. No one knew about our relationship, so it would hardly do for me to break down sobbing in front of employees or friends, would it? It’s almost as if George never existed at all. I remember at his funeral, how people swarmed around Mona, offering condolences. No one swarmed around me. Oh, one or two people came over and mentioned how tragic this was for the New York Art Alliance. But I couldn’t exactly start to sob in front of them, could I? One doesn’t sob at the loss of a benefactor, does one? Benefactor.” Arnot choked over the word. “He was that in more ways than one.”
There was something undeniably theatrical about this speech, but Joe D. didn’t know whether Arnot was habitually theatrical or was putting on a show for his benefit. He did know that he wanted out of the apartment ASAP. But first he had one question.
“Do you recognize this person?” He took the photo of Arthur Rudolph, Senior, out of an envelope he’d brought along.
Arnot studied it for a moment before shaking his head. “Should I?”
“I guess not,” Joe D. answered.
He walked back to the apartment, enjoying the morning air and the first tentative rays of what promised to be a warm sun. Arnot had depressed him, and as he walked he tried to figure out why. Was he responding to Arnot’s grief at losing his lover? Or was he sensing the hollowness of his emotions, the insincerity? Arnot was hard to read. Like his apartment, which had been carefully decorated to look as if it hadn’t been decorated so much as thrown together, Arnot seemed a bit too deliberately arranged, even when apparently distraught.
Twenty-Seven
There was a note pinned by a magnetized bagel to the refrigerator when Joe D. got back. “I love you. Call about the phone message. Very intriguing. Alison.”
Vanishing Act Page 16
