Third man out dsm-4

by Richard Stevenson

  Room 11 was small and dim with thick curtains drawn shut. A water bed in a lacquered pine frame that matched the paneling on one wall took up much of the room. The print on the filthy bedspread showed pastoral vistas and Georgian mansions. The TV set on the dresser was hooked up to the discount store-brand VCR beside it. Two walls of the room were covered with mirrors, as was the ceiling above the bed. The towels beside the small sink outside the bathroom were worn but clean. Above the sink an ancient contraption of an air conditioner was jammed into what had been a window. When I switched it to "on," nothing happened.

  I'd brought the Times along and sat by a low-watt lamp in the airless room plugging away at the crossword puzzle-one of those with puns so dumb you wanted to call up Sulzberger and ask for your fifty cents back- until just after ten, when a knock came at the door.

  I opened it and a thirtyish groover in baggy black shirt and pants and jackboots grinned at me a little too brilliantly out of a pale smooth face. "Are you the blackmailer?"

  "Yup."

  "How much do you want? If it's too much, I may have to have you killed."

  He was still grinning, contented with his existence and mine, and apparently not prepared to take me as much of a threat. He seemed to be a man who had found inner peace, though whether its provenance was spiritual or chemical I didn't know.

  "I don't want your money," I said. "I just want to find out who killed John Rutka, and I thought you might be able to help me out, Jay."

  "I don't think so."

  I sat in my chair again and Gladu flopped onto the water bed and arranged the pillows behind his back.

  "John Rutka paid you more than six thousand dollars last year," I said. "What for?"

  "No, he didn't."

  "It's in his financial records-the amounts of the disbursements and the dates."

  "That might be in John Rutka's financial records, but it's not in mine. There are no canceled checks. You won't find my signature anywhere in John Rutka's records. Or in anyone else's. Except New York Telephone's, of course. I'm a phone-company subscriber and proud of it. The power company too."

  "I see your point. On the other hand," I said, "there's an exceptionally large number of references to the Fountain of Eden in the files Rutka kept on gay Albanians he was planning to out. In all of the files, the Fountain of Eden comes up eighty or ninety times. Apparently someone here was feeding Rutka information on the assorted couplings and quadruplings that the participants, your paying customers, assumed to be private. If the police or the tax authorities had possession of those files-which they do not, yet-they might imagine a connection existed between the cash disbursements and the carefully indexed sexual reports.

  They'd think poorly of you, as would your customers once word got around. Your business inevitably would suffer."

  He shrugged and peered at me brightly. "This place is not my only source of income. I've got an art gallery in Woodstock and a pet shop in the Millpond Mall. But don't get me wrong. I get your point. What is it you'd like to know?"

  "I'd like to know who came to the Fountain of Eden with Ronnie Linkletter every Wednesday night for a year. I'd like you to instruct whoever it is on your staff here who keeps track of these things to talk to me and to answer truthfully every question I ask. And I want to leave here with copies of your license-plate records for the past year. Arrange those few things and we'll call it even."

  "What do you mean, 'even? What's in it for me?"

  "After whoever killed John Rutka is caught, Rutka's records will be destroyed. I'll do it myself. All those embarrassing connections to you and your business will be gone."

  A dry laugh. "Do I look embarrassed?"

  "Not yet."

  "Well, maybe instead of doing all those things you're demanding I do, I should do what I first thought when Sandy gave me your threatening note. I should just arrange to have you killed." He grinned.

  "Is that something you do to people routinely, or would I be receiving exceptional treatment?"

  "I can't answer that. It would be giving something away."

  Hoping I was guessing right about Gladu, I said, "I'm not impressed with your chemically induced bravado, Jay, and I'm getting bored with your line of utter bullshit. I want answers and I want them now. Who do I talk to around here to get them?"

  He blinked twice, tapped his fingers on the bed frame, and said, "You can talk to me. I have the answers to your questions, and I'll give you the answers in return for one thousand dollars."

  I sighed. "Jay, how would you like Cityscape to do a story on the Fountain of Eden as the Albany area's most popular quickie heaven, where the elite meet to fornicate, except the management spies on the customers and sells the information to political dementos like John Rutka and also tries to sell it to private investigators working on murder cases? The story would be a natural for Cityscape, and I'd be happy to supply the paper with the evidence that would pretty much put you out of business."

  "I'd hate that," he said with a little slit of a smile and the same bright eyes. "If that happened, somebody might arrange to kill me."

  "Could be."

  "I have to admit, Strachey, that you've got me backed into a corner. So I've decided that I will answer your questions." His eyes got even brighter. "And then later I'll arrange to have you killed. Months from now, or even years, when you're least suspecting it.

  You'll be walking down Lark Street. Or you'll be home doing some blow, or you'll have your tongue wrapped around your boyfriend's willy, or you'll be lying in bed looking through Mirabella. And all of a sudden- ka-powie! — you're a piece of Center Square roadkill!"

  I said, "You're full of shit, Gladu."

  "You think I am, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "You're right." He guffawed.

  "I know."

  "What were the questions you wanted answered? I forgot."

  "First, tell me how it worked-your data-gathering methods. Who were the actual spies?"

  "Sandy in the daytime picks up quite a bit. She's got the tube on all the time and remembers faces, so when some local mega-celeb shows up she'll spot him right away and make a note of it. She gets five bucks a pop for a regular spotting, ten for media heavies like Ronnie Linkletter. I've got two queens who alternate nights- Royce and Lemuel, who live over in the house-and they know everybody and don't miss a trick. They're devastated that Rutka is dead, because now there's nobody to sell their dirt to."

  "They knew the dirt was going to Rutka?" "Sure, I told them. Not that they cared. A dollar is a dollar. Being a bitch is being a bitch whether it's politically correct or not. For them, it's just a hoot."

  I said, "I've been through Rutka's files, Jay. And I have a pretty good fix on who was spotted here, and when, and who they were with, and what kind of lubricants were left behind, and used condoms in the linen and on the floor, and roaches in the ashtrays, and all the rest of the detritus of hundreds of happy romps at the Fountain of Eden. What I'd like is any additional information you can give me on one man in particular: Ronnie Linkletter." Gladu sniffed a couple of times to clear his nostrils and his mind.

  "I knew you were going to ask about Ronnie." "Why?"

  "Because I thought maybe he had something to do with Rutka getting offed." "You thought Ronnie did it?" "No-not that he was actually the one." "Then what? What made you think of Ronnie at all?" Gladu sat forward now and struggled to stay in focus.

  "Well, for one thing, Ronnie was one of the people John was really after-somebody he just had to uncloset. There were these three people John used to talk about as the dudes he wanted to get the most. One was Bruno Slinger, on account of how he helped kill the queer-bashing law or whatever that was. When John finally got Slinger he was high for a month. Of the three big assholes on his list, Bruno was the first one outed. Then Ronnie was the one he wanted, partly because he was so popular in Albany, and famous, but there was another reason, too."

  "What was that?"

  "It had something to do wi
th Ronnie's boyfriend, somebody he met here every Wednesday night from seven till ten, when he had to get back to Channel Eight and get the weather report ready for the eleven o'clock news. When John found out who the boyfriend was, then he really wanted to get Ronnie."

  "Who was the boyfriend?"

  "I don't know. I thought I knew, but I guess I don't actually know."

  "Explain that, please."

  He was sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed now, rocking gently, and measuring his words. "Well," he said, "the boyfriend always arrived after dark in a raincoat with the collar turned up and wearing a baseball cap with the brim pulled down."

  "What team?"

  "Nobody ever got close enough to see anything like that. Although Lemuel and Royce tried their best to get a look. But they were never quick enough. The dude would drive in after Ronnie was already here and the room was paid for, and he'd slip inside the room with the curtains shut. They were always in unit fifteen, down at the end. Ronnie would reserve it and Lemuel or Royce would hold it even if we got busy, because Ronnie and his honey were always punctual."

  "How did Rutka find out who Ronnie's boyfriend was if Lemuel and Royce didn't even know?"

  "Through the license plate of the car he drove. We had that much. John and I both have DMV contacts and we found out who owned the car. It's some nobody in Pine Hills. I've got his name written down over in the office. I don't know how, but John figured out that Ronnie's mystery boyfriend was somebody who borrowed this other guy's car every Wednesday night, and it was somebody he wanted to drag out of the closet even more than Bruno and Ronnie. He got Bruno, and then he got Ronnie. But I don't think he ever outed the third one, the one he wanted the most. I'm not sure why, but I think John was scared of this one."

  "What makes you think so?"

  "From the way he talked. He always referred to this one as the All-American Mega-Hypocrite. He was some hot-shit something-or-other who was a deep closet case, and I got the impression he was one dangerous asshole."

  "Did he threaten John?"

  "No, I don't think he even knew John was onto him. John never said so, anyway. For a while John was always working on a way to get a picture of Ronnie and the Mega-Hypocrite in bed, or a tape or something. But I wouldn't go along with that. I didn't want anything traceable to me or my business. You don't stay in the motel business pulling shit like that."

  Mr. Situational Ethics. I said, "When did Ronnie and the mystery man break up? Or did they? It's Ronnie's story that they broke up."

  "All I know is," Gladu said, "they stopped coming here about two months ago, and it wasn't long after that that I heard Ronnie and Bruno, John's first- and second-favorite outees, were getting it on together at the Parmalee Plaza. Well, that's cozy, I remember thinking. I don't know what became of Mr. Mega-Hypocrite. Maybe he scared Ronnie off too. Though with Ronnie, it looks like the bigger and meaner they are, the siffer his dick."

  "It looks that way."

  "At the time, I thought maybe they didn't come back here because of what happened in unit fifteen later that night after they were here for the last time. But I don't see how they could have known about it. We kept it quiet. You didn't hear anything, did you? It's not in John's files, is it?" He looked apprehensive.

  "I don't know if it's in the files, because I don't know what you're referring to, Jay. Clue me in."

  A pause. Then: "The mirror fell off the ceiling in unit fifteen. I guess all those hours of fucking over the years loosened some screws and one whole six-by-four-foot section of mirror over the bed in that unit dropped off. If anybody had been in the bed at the time, they could have been killed."

  We both looked up at the mirror above Gladu and winced. Long metal flanges held the mirror sections in place. It looked as if the flanges were screwed into the old ceiling beams. We saw ourselves up there looking back at ourselves with nauseated looks.

  I said, "How does your insurance company feel about those mirrors?"

  He looked queasy. "They don't know about them, actually."

  "Ah."

  "The mirrors have all been tightened up. Hey, if you ever bring a trick out here, you won't have to worry."

  "I happen to be in a monogamous situation, but thanks for the reassurance."

  "Maybe you and your boyfriend would like to come out for a weekend getaway sometime. We have special weekend rates."

  "What are they, higher?"

  "Naturally."

  I said, "Who was working here the night the mirror fell?"

  "Royce. Poor Royce was wrecked for a week."

  "I'd like to speak to him. Is he here?"

  "Over in the house."

  "Is Royce his first name or his last?"

  "It's Royce McClosky."

  "Do you know who D.R. is?"

  "D.R.?"

  "The initials D.R."

  He thought about this. "Donna Reed?"

  "I don't think so. Who besides you was John Rutka paying to spy on people and feed dirt to him for his outing files?"

  "That's confidential, but since you're blackmailing me, I'll tell you. Nathan Zenck at the Parmalee Plaza was paid, I know."

  "Just Zenck?"

  "He's the only one I know of. I know Nathan. He's a silly queen but an excellent businessman. We're different but we have a lot of respect for each other."

  I told him I wanted to look at his license-plate records and we walked over to the office. I bent down briefly to check the mud flaps on Gladu's Mercedes. Both were intact. Inside the registration alcove, Gladu flipped up the hinged end of the counter and went behind it to rummage through some drawers. He produced a long box of index cards with dates, times, and license-plate numbers written on them.

  "Some people we actually register. The state says we have to," Gladu said, and brought out a much smaller box of registration cards filled in with probably mostly phony names and addresses. "We like to respect people's privacy," he said, "so not everyone is required to register, and all transactions are in cash."

  "What crap. You cheat the state and federal governments out of the taxes and you sell information on people's private lives for additional cash."

  He suddenly glared at me and slammed his left fist on the counter. His other hand came up from behind the counter with a. 38 caliber revolver, which he aimed at me. "Now I am going to see that you die, you scumbag blackmailer, and I'm going to do it myself right now!"

  "Gladu, just shut up and get me the files. And put that thing away before it goes off and the rest of your mirrors drop."

  He chuckled and put the gun back under the counter.

  "Where's Royce?" I said.

  Gladu pressed the buzzer on the counter.

  "She's out back!" came a voice from above.

  "Royce is off-duty now. He's probably watching Geraldo with Lemuel and wishes not to be disturbed. But I guess you're going to insist on disturbing him."

  "Yes, I am."

  "Royce, get down here!" Gladu yelled. "A blackmailer wants to talk to you."

  He placed the two file boxes on the counter along with a sheet of paper on which was written a license-plate number, a name, and an address.

  "Who's this? The owner of the car Ronnie Linkletter's mystery man came in?"

  "That's what John told me. But not the man himself, according to John."

  The name on the paper was Art Murphy, and the address was 37 Flint Street, Albany, a short street I'd passed a thousand times that ran off Washington Avenue in the old Pine Hills section of the city. Art Murphy did not sound like an arch-hypocrite, but maybe Art regularly lent or rented his car to a man who was. I wondered if Art had ever been blackmailed and if he ever thought he would be.

  "This man's name is Strachey," Gladu told Royce when he appeared. "He's a pond-scum degenerate blackmailer, and as your employer I am directing you to answer every question he asks you. Later I'm going to have him killed, but for now tell him whatever he wants to know." Gladu beamed.

  Royce, a skinny, bleary-eyed m
an in his fifties with a stubble of beard, and mouthwash on his breath, looked at me uncertainly and then back at Gladu. "Tell him what, Jay?"

  "Anything. Everything. I told you-he'll never live to use any of it against any of us."

  "Let's go outside," I told Royce.

  Royce didn't like the sound of that. He looked as if he had last been exposed to sunlight in the year of the Watergate break-in, but Gladu beamed contentedly and motioned for Royce to move out.

  I carried the Fountain of Eden registration and license — plate files with me, and we sat in my car with both doors open.

  "Where you going with those?" Royce asked.

  "I'll bring them back eventually," I said, "so not to worry. The only thing you need to concern yourself with, Royce, is doing what Jay said and telling me the absolute truth on all the topics I bring up. Okay?"

  "Sure."

  "Who got hit with the mirror?"

  He'd been looking bewildered up to now, and only vaguely apprehensive, but now his eyes narrowed and he looked at me with suspicion tinged with dread.

  "Who are you?" he said. "Are you a cop?"

  "No, I'm just a blackmailer. I have tons and tons of incriminating crap on Jay, so you better answer my questions or he'll be ruined and you will too. This is all off the books, and I know you're used to that, Royce, so let's get on with it and everything will be cool. Once again, who got hit with the mirror?"

  "How did you know about that? If you were one of the people who came out that night, you'd know who it was. If you're not one of them, how did you know it happened? Jay doesn't know, or even Sandy. Lemmie didn't tell you, did he?"

  I said, "Nobody had to tell me. Linkletter and his boyfriend were here every Wednesday night for almost a year, and then the mirror fell and they stopped coming. Jay swallowed your story that the mirror fell after Ronnie and his friend had left because Jay has a lot invested emotionally and financially in believing that that's the way it happened. But it's mighty unlikely that Ronnie's failure to come back to his habitual trysting place ever again is mere coincidence. How much did they pay you to keep your mouth shut?"

  "Two hundred dollars," he said, brushing away a sweat bead from the end of his nose with a trembling hand.