Third man out dsm-4

by Richard Stevenson

  "It would certainly help," Bailey said, "if I could get hold of those files John kept. Edward Sandifer says they were sent to Utica for safekeeping but he claims he doesn't know the name of the person out there who has them."

  "I'm sure he'd give you the name if he had it, Chief. Eddie wants John's killer caught more than anybody."

  "Well, he did give me a list of people who threatened John, and I'm piecing together what I can with copies of Cityscape and Queerscreed and through interviews. Plus, I'm picking up the odd unsolicited tip here and there. I've had two anonymous phone calls, for instance, telling me I'd better check out this Bruno Slinger and find out where he was last night at the time of the abduction and murder. I drove down to the capitol this afternoon and Mr. Slinger wasn't too happy to see me. He had the gall to tell me that he had an alibi for yesterday evening but it was none of my business what it was and I'd just have to take his word for it that he had nothing to do with the murder."

  "That sounds like Bruno. He works for a very powerful man, and he sees himself as a kind of prince."

  "Since I have no other evidence beyond the anonymous calls and the unsubstantiated allegation that Mr. Slinger threatened John several months ago," Bailey said, "there's nothing more I can do with him at this point. We discreetly located and checked the mud flap on his car, and the mud flap section found at the Rutka house was not Mr. Slinger's. But if I can come up with anything else on him at all, I'll see what I can do to get him in and depose him. You wouldn't have any information on Mr. Slinger that you're holding back, would you, Mr. Strachey?"

  "Chief, I wish I did. I mean, not that I'd hold it back. I just wish I knew anything that could help out, and that I could pass along."

  A silence. This guy had my number-had had it for probably twenty-four hours.

  I said, "Anyway, I'll keep in touch."

  "I'm counting on that," he said, and it began to dawn on me that that was exactly what he was doing, counting on me.

  I phoned the house and Timmy was out-probably, I figured, at Albany Med. I punched in the code and listened to the single message that had been left on my machine. A male voice I did not recognize, and that I was reasonably certain I had never heard, said, "If you want to find out who killed John Rutka, ask Bruno Slinger who he was with last night." Click. That was all.

  At first I was irritated. I was weary of all the secrecy and duplicity and dreary bitchery and I was also fed up with people like Nathan Zenck who seemed to deserve all the secrecy and duplicity and dreary bitchery. And my first impulse was to dismiss the call, as well as the anonymous calls Bub Bailey had received, as useless backstabbing-one or more of Bruno Slinger's hundreds of enemies setting him up to be harassed and humiliated in public.

  Then it occurred to me, why was I receiving an anonymous call? Word could not have spread far that I was working on the case and it seemed likely that only truly knowledgeable people would know that I was the man to call with a hot tip.

  Plus, something about the caller's words made me wonder. He hadn't said, "Slinger did it-I saw him," or "Slinger's the killer he'll confess under torture." The caller had said, "If you want to find out who killed John Rutka, ask Bruno Slinger who he was with last night." As if Slinger hadn't done it, but somehow he could provide the key to who had done it by telling me who he'd been with while the murder was taking place. Slinger wasn't the key, but his alibi was.

  Or maybe this was just more duplicity. I'd have to find out.

  Slinger was unlisted in the Albany phone book, though I knew where he lived on Chestnut Street, around the corner from our place on Crow. I phoned a friend of Timmy's in the legislature who I knew would have Slinger's home number, and he gave it to me on the condition that I not mention where I'd gotten it. I dialed.

  "Yes?"

  "Don Strachey, Bruno. I'm a private investigator and I'm doing some work for someone on the John Rutka case. I have Rutka's files. You're in there. We should talk."

  A pause. Then: "You're scum."

  "For the time being, I am. But these things work themselves out ethically in the end, I'm told. Could I drop by?"

  "No, you could not. I'm on my way out. What do you want from me?"

  "Just to talk and to ask a couple of questions, and maybe to reassure you regarding the ultimate disposition of Rutka's files."

  "Are you going to demand money?"

  "Would you pay it if I did?"

  "Don't be ridiculous."

  "So, now that neither of us feels so threatened by the other, what's a good time for me to drop by? I live in your neighborhood and I stay up late. Around eleven?"

  "I know exactly who you are and I know exactly where you live. Do you mean eleven o'clock tonight?"

  "If a passerby spotted a known homosexual like me knocking at your door, I'd just tip my hat and say I was a neighbor dropping by to borrow a cup of sulphuric acid."

  "Don't get funny with me. It's not a good idea. All right, eleven o'clock." He hung up.

  On my way out of the Parmalee Plaza, the desk clerk shrank back when I glowered at him menacingly.

  "I feel like J. Edgar Hoover," I told Timmy in the corridor outside room F-5912. "I lie to people, I bully and threaten and manipulate people, I invade their privacy- and all for some higher cause." I had just given him a rundown on the day's events.

  "Hoover never did anything for a higher cause. He was an evil psychopath, nothing more."

  "Oh, thank you. Now I feel better."

  "No, I know why you're doing it. To solve the murder and then destroy the files. But you don't have to use Hoover's methods-or John Rutka's."

  "But these are the kind of people it turns out I'm dealing with, evil Hoovers and screwed-up Rutkas. The Hoovers are so repulsive I'm almost enjoying hoisting them on their own petards."

  He said, "I think you might even be starting to look a little like Hoover. You should get some rest-and food. Have you not eaten again?"

  "I'll agree not to look like Hoover if you agree not to look like Clyde."

  "I promise not to for the next ten years or so. After that-hey."

  "No, I haven't eaten," I said. "I'm going over to Bruno Slinger's after I leave here, so I could use some coffee and a Mars bar or whatever people dine on around here after the cafeteria closes. Where can I pick something up?"

  "Why don't you go in and see Mike and Stu and I'll scrounge up what I can?"

  "Thanks. I'll provide you with some unsatisfying, undernourishing repast someday."

  "I'm sure you will."

  Timmy went down the corridor after a phalanx of priests who'd just come out of Bishop McFee's room and I went into room F-5912 past the skeletal comatose man nobody paid any attention to. Stu Meserole lay amidst the machinery, which looked like some droll array of bleeping and gurgling nonsensical equipment from one of the Ealing comedies of the early fifties.

  Stu had discovered the Ealing gems in a video store during his last year of consciousness and they had filled him with delight.

  Timmy and I were with him when Stu watched The Lavender Hill Mob and The Ladykillers and The Man in the White Suit for the second or third time. Now I half expected a demented-looking Alec Guinness to rise up from behind Stu's machinery wielding a smoking beaker that would turn out to contain a cure.

  But he didn't. Rhoda Meserole said, "Hello, Donald. It was good of you to come."

  "How is he?"

  "Oh, the same. All we can do is pray."

  Al Meserole was inexplicably missing, freeing up the most comfortable chair for Rhoda. Mike was in his customary seat, and stood up when I came in. He signaled for me to step outside the room, which I did after briefly grasping Stu's limp hand.

  "Al's gone," Mike whispered. "He went back to work."

  "But Rhoda's still here all the time?"

  "Yes, but she's letting down her guard. The woman is human, after all. She goes to the john, she goes to the cafeteria. Sometimes she's gone for half an hour at a time. I could do it. All I need is the drug. You'r
e going to get something for me, aren't you?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "What did the doctor say today?"

  "The same as yesterday. I asked him again just to be certain. The part of Stu's brain that made him human doesn't exist anymore. Stu is dead. It's a travesty what's going on in that room. When can you get me something? I'll pay you whatever it costs."

  "I'll have to call someone in New York. You might have to go down and pick it up."

  "I can't."

  "Why?"

  "Rhoda would be suspicious. When I got back, she'd never leave Stu out of her sight."

  "I'm kind of tied up around here. And Timmy-he'll have to be told, but he won't want to be involved. He'll accept it, but he won't be able to bring himself to participate. I can get it Fed-Exed up, I guess."

  "When can you get it?"

  "I'll call New York tonight and let you know tomorrow."

  "Don't put it off, okay?"

  "I won't."

  He squeezed my hand and went back into the room.

  When Timmy came back, he said, "Don't tell me. I do understand, but don't tell me."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," I said, and we left it at that. end user

  18

  Where's the file?" Slinger said, gaping at my empty-handedness. "You didn't bring it with you?"

  " It'?"

  "You said you had the file Rutka kept on me. Do you mean to say you didn't bring it?"

  I was seated on a settee across from Slinger in the living room of his Chestnut Street townhouse with the air conditioner on high and a gas fire blazing symmetrically in the fireplace. The portrait hanging above the mantel was of the Republican leader of the state senate, and on a sideboard there were signed photos in silver frames of, among others, Roy Cohn, Barbara Walters, and Adnan Khashoggi.

  Slinger leaned toward me, looking edgy and vaguely predatory, and it was hard to resist the urge to back away. He was a big man and it was plain that under his dressing gown he had the massive chest and shoulders of someone who worked out an hour or two a day. He had a granite face with angry gray eyes, and wore a pompadoured hairpiece worthy of a CNN anchor.

  Slinger suddenly pulled something from the pocket of his gown and flipped it onto the mahogany coffee table between us.

  "What have we here, Bruno?"

  "Count it."

  "That won't be necessary."

  "It's five thousand dollars. Take it. I'll trust you to walk home and bring back the file."

  "The file is staying where it is, but that's beside the point."

  He looked at me and made no move to take back the wad of cash wrapped with a rubber band. "I suppose you want me to suck your dick," he said. "Is that what this is all about? You want me to come over there and get down on my knees and suck your cock and lick your balls."

  "Why did you work so hard to kill the hate-crimes bill?" I said.

  He fell back now and snorted once. "I don't believe this. You call me up and threaten me with Rutka's goddamn files and then when I try to play your game the way you want it played, you back off. What's with you anyway, Strachey? What do you want?"

  I said, "It's true, I did introduce the subject of the files in hopes of getting your cooperation, Bruno. But I don't want your money, and God knows I don't want you slobbering on any part of me. I just want you to answer two questions and then we can talk about the files. The first question is-I repeat-why did you work so hard to kill the hate-crimes bill?"

  He shifted his gown and crossed his legs huffily. "It's a waste of time."

  "The bill?"

  "People who beat up queers are people who are going to beat up queers. They don't give a good goddamn what the law says."

  "Convict a few of them and put their pictures on the front of the Post being led off in chains," I said, "and word will get around. Some of them who'd otherwise do it will think twice.

  It'd make a difference, just like the federal civil-rights laws helped end lynching in the South."

  "Honey, you live in a dream world," he said, sniffing. "Anyway, if a couple of stupid queens go swishing around down by the docks at three in the morning, maybe they're asking for trouble."

  "What if they're swishing around at Seventh and Bleecker at eleven-thirty? Or Third and St. Mark's Place at ten to ten? Are you suggesting that there should be times and places when queer-bashing is restricted and times and places when it's not? How about alternate-side-of-the-street queer-bashing, and violators will have their bricks and lead pipes towed away? You're a dealmaker, Bruno. How's that for a compromise?"

  He sighed deeply. "You know goddamn well why I worked against the legislation, Strachey. The man I work for hates fags. The senator believes homosexuality is an abomination and homosexuals are abominable and they deserve whatever they get."

  "Whatever'they'get?"

  "All right. We."

  "Do you share the senator's views, Bruno?"

  He reddened and for a long moment said nothing. Then: "I do what everybody does who can get away with it. I get on top and I stay there through any means at my disposal. If you're not doing that, my self-righteous friend, it is because you are weak."

  I thought, Oh, hell, he's one of those. Arguing with one was like climbing a greased pole, except less intellectually rewarding.

  I said, "Does the senator actually believe that you're not gay, that Rutka's column was a smear campaign by the Democratic minority in the senate?"

  He chuckled. "Yes."

  "Well, if you don't answer my next question, Bruno, I'm going to march into the senator's office the first time you're not there to guard the door, and I'm going to dump John Rutka's entire dossier on you onto the senator's desk-notes, memos, diaries, audiotapes, videotapes-a veritable Library of Congress of your sexual misadventuring. A lurid mixed-media cavalcade featuring Bruno Slinger and a variety of chaps in their birthday suits, wienies agog. What would you think of that?"

  "I would consider it the act of a desperate scumbag. Are you saying there are actual tapes? I find that hard to believe."

  "Remember Kevin?" I made this up.

  "Oh, God."

  "You didn't know you were being taped?" I made this up too. There were no audio or videotapes of anyone in any of Rutka's files.

  "I can't remember who would have- Oh, God."

  I said, "Tell me who you were with last night."

  "That's the other question?"

  "That's it. Answer it and then we can talk about the disposition of your file."

  He looked more confident now. "The Handbag police chief came into my office today-just walked right in unannounced. If he had stayed a second longer, I would have had to ask the Capitol Police to remove him. The man apparently suspects me of John Rutka's murder. Can you imagine?"

  "Of course I can imagine. Practically everybody who knows you can. When Rutka outed you in Cityscape, you told people you were going to rip his balls off. You probably wouldn't even think of it as murder, just real-politik. That's what people think. Did you do it?"

  Without batting an eyelash, Slinger said, "John Rutka deserved what he got. He was a danger to society who deserved to be removed from it one way or another. I laughed when I heard he was dead. I was dee-lighted. But of course I had nothing to do with it. I'm not stupid. Too many people would want to pin it on me and I'm far too intelligent to make myself vulnerable by actually committing the noble but unfortunately unlawful deed. No, I did not kill John Rutka, and I can prove it."

  "How? What's your alibi for last night?" "I spent the evening with two of Albany's most distinguished citizens. Both of them will vouch for my presence at a small get-together in Colonie from approximately seven P.M. until just before midnight."

  "Do these two distinguished citizens have names?" "Ronnie Linkletter and Scooter Raymond." Only in the benighted age in which we live could a local TV weatherman and a pretty-boy dim-bulb anchor on the six o'clock news be described by anyone, even a man with a mind as warped as Bruno Sli
nger's, as "distinguished."

  Scooter Raymond was a recent arrival in Albany, brought in by Channel Eight to replace the ancient, tightly wound Clem Snodgrass after Snodgrass suffered an on-air stroke that left him repeating the words "Back to you, Flossie-Back to you, Flossie

  — Back to you, Flossie" twelve or fifteen times before the picture switched to co-anchor Flossie Proctor, a woman normally seen with her head thrown back in inexplicable perpetual ecstasy but who appeared vaguely human for the first time in twenty years the night Clem Snodgrass's neurons began to pop on-camera.

  In a line of endeavor where the men are permitted to bear a striking physical resemblance to Joseph Stalin in his tomb but the women are expected to show up every night looking like The Birth of Venus, Flossie Proctor was no kid. There were those who speculated that Flossie's days were numbered now that she shared the anchor desk with a man who had fewer chins than she. I knew nothing of Scooter Raymond other than what I'd learned from Channel Eight's promos welcoming him to the Hometown Folks news team: that Scooter was "an experienced newsgatherer"-like Harrison Salisbury, it was suggested, except twinklier and that Scooter had already begun to think of Albany as his hometown, as if this were an acquired trait. The station had announced additionally that "Scooter is his real name," which few doubted.

  I asked Slinger, "Who else was in attendance at this get-together besides you and Ronnie and Scooter?"

  "No one, actually," he said casually. "It was a combined work and let-down-your-hair session of the type I often initiate with new media people who come to town. I had the opportunity to brief Scooter on some of the ins and outs of the legislature and its personalities, and at the same time I was able to promote some of the senator's thoughts on directions the state should be taking."

  "And Ronnie was there to represent the meteorological point of view, or what?"

  "He drove," Slinger said, looking bemused. "Scooter needed a ride, and Ronnie drove."