They sat on stools around the counter watching the run-up to a baseball game while I sipped my martini and made a green salad. They were both wearing baseball caps and lettered T-shirts. Ridley’s read, GLOBAL WARMING IS COOL. Alphus’s read, SAY NO TO THE MALTHUSIASTS.
As “guys” they are both starting to permutate into something I don’t particularly admire. I want to state for the record that I had no objection when Alphus became a “guy,” wanted to be called “Al,” and started listening to country-and-western music. I did tell him to keep it down. A lot of it consists, as far as I can tell, of grown men and women feeling sorry for themselves. I did not object in the least when he began drinking Budweiser from a can instead of sipping rare malts from a glass. And if he wants to watch the Red Sox and other teams with quaint names go through their rituals late into the night, that is his affair.
But he has started listening to someone named Rush something or other. I have listened in a few times. I must say that when Alphus starts taking this man seriously, then I confess I am vulnerable to the usual stereotypes about simian intelligence.
I also confess that I find listening to those radio communicators so diligently sharing their ignorance with their listeners exhilarating in its own way. I quite understand the appeal to indignation. It’s as though there exists a great reservoir of it out there for the tapping. From which I do not exclude myself. I just like to think that my indignation is better informed, that it is more justified, higher, more worthy of being indulged.
Take for instance those public radio reporters who use exaggerated Spanish pronunciation when referring to the names of people and, especially, places south of the border. They do it, of course, at least in part, to show that they speak the language or at least know how to pronounce it. Or, as card-carrying members of the moral class, they are signaling their commitment to “diversity,” a word that itself is an exercise in virtue-mongering.
When I hear them gargling some name of Iberian origins, I ask, have they not heard of Anglice? Meaning that we say par riss instead of par ree, comme les français. The same way the French say Nouvelle Orleans instead of New Orleans or Les États Unis instead of the United States of America. We say Moscow instead of Moskva, which, in Russian, to be used correctly, would have to be inflected according to case, that is, the way it is used in a sentence. Of course not. But Kooba is starting to creep in along with Meheeko. Which raises another point. Should not those Latin American place-names derived from indigenous populations be pronounced in the original tongue rather than in Spanish, another imperial language? Talk about inconsistencies.
Mais, comme on dit, chacun à son goût.
I had become so distracted by this inner rant that I nearly burned the patties of ground beef. And nearly forgot that I would be on the news.
I picked up the remote and changed to Channel Five. For this I received two annoyed frowns and the sign, “What’s up?”
“Watch,” I said. Moments later, Ken and Baretta were back on with Jack and Lisette, as my interviewer was named. I have to confess I was satisfied that I looked good, poised and authoritative. I sounded urbane. Alphus and Ridley, not to mention a few friends who called later, were suitably impressed. But I heard nothing from Diantha.
While dining on my only slightly charred burger and drinking one of Alphus’s canned beers, I went over his latest literary effort. Again, I was moved and amused.
I will always be profoundly indebted to MM as I call Millicent Mulally. If there are saints, then she is one of them. I knew the moment I saw her at the bottom of the tree that I could trust her. Her sweet, pretty face and the way she moved her hands to the others told me that these people were different. I knew they didn’t want to kill me, to imprison me, to study me.
So, slowly, still fearful, looking all around me, I came down the trunk of the big maple. Millicent took my hand and together, surrounded by the rest of the group, we walked out of the park and into the sanctuary of Sign House.
I don’t want to sound all goody gooey about this, but people who cannot speak or hear or both strike me as “advantaged” rather than “disadvantaged.” There is the peace that comes with quietness. The constant yapping of people, especially these days with everyone walking around with a device stuck to the ear, is blissfully absent.
At the same time, there is no absence of communication. Aside from and part of signing, there are smiles, frowns, jokes, arguments and much that is left unsaid for the better. It reminded me of my childhood in the wild when a glance, a gesture, and intuition meant so much more.
My signing at first was rudimentary — the kind you see in old movies when the white man meets the Natives. Under the tutelage of Millicent and Ridley and a few others, I soon wouldn’t shut up. Because what an ecstatic liberation it was to use my arms, hands, and fingers as a voice! Most human beings don’t realize what a blessing it is to be able to take your thoughts, turn them into words, and speak them. And, it lets you watch other people and see what they are thinking and saying.
I learned not only how to say things, but also what not to say. Millicent taught me that words can be pernicious as well as beneficent. They can be used to stir envy, anger, distrust, hatred, and falsity. Of course, they can also be used to teach, to encourage, to tell things, even to love. As someone observed, human beings use words to groom each other, to make each other feel good.
My favorite place at Sign House was the library, a room lined with books and fitted out with comfortable armchairs and a couch. That’s were I spent most of my time. In the library I found what amounted to another kind of language. Signing and understanding it are one thing. But being able to read — that is the portal to the universe.
One of the first things I did was to go slowly through an old American Heritage Dictionary from beginning to end. Twice. What a magic invention are words. There is at least one for every imaginable thing under the sun. And if one doesn’t exist, you make it up!
I have not and perhaps won’t learn to write. I do not have the hand, eye, and mind coordination necessary. Ridley gave me his old computer and taught me how to use it. It seemed as new as the one with which he replaced it. Ridley has been very generous, giving me clothes, books, CDs, and good whiskey, even if he does get loopy sometimes.
I knew there were occupants of the house that were not comfortable around me. The stiff smile of toleration is one of mankind’s worst and most necessary achievements. I had to resist the urge to revert — to go apeshit, as Ridley puts it — and bite off their balls and faces.
So I learned to be modest and keep my privates covered. I learned you couldn’t fart anytime you wanted to, which never made much sense to me. I learned to knock on doors, or work the ringer light, because people liked their privacy, which I still find odd. We all know what people do in the bathroom or in the bedroom when they take off their clothes. The privacy thing took me a long time to learn. Perhaps because people will do things in front of animals that they wouldn’t do in front of other people.
Some of them didn’t take my presence very seriously at all. I had been ensconced there six months when a young man named Tim came to live in the house. He was a big handsome fellow with curly yellow hair and a normal laugh. He could even say a few words, but he couldn’t hear too well.
Well, right off, he noticed Megan, who was Fred’s girl. And she noticed him. For a while they kept their attraction secret, except from me. I would be in the library deep in a book when they would come in, sit on the couch, and go to all the fuss and bother people do. There was a lot of licking and mouthing, worse than bonobos if you ask me. I noticed, peering just over the rim of my book, that Tim had a sizable member that Megan, with considerable vigor, treated like a lollipop. I pretended not to notice. Just another ape reading Gibbon.
They were discovered of course. Fred burst in on them one night when he was supposed to be giving a signing class to some high school students. He didn’t find them in flagrante, but mussed up and reddened enough to be suspe
cted with plausibility.
Afterward Fred cornered me in the television room and bought me a beer at the house bar, which is just a refrigerator full of stuff that the residents pay for on the honor system.
“Okay,” he signed, “tell me what Meg and Tim were doing on the couch just before I came in.”
I took a slow sip of my beer, a bottle of Bass Ale. “I didn’t notice,” I lied, showing him the thick tome I had been reading.
He made a face. He’s one of the skeptics where I’m concerned. That is, he doesn’t believe I can read a comic book, much less Herodotus. Which in this case was to his disadvantage as I could play dumb with conviction. When he made the sign for kissing and then something more suggestive, I pretended not to know what he was asking.
“Were they sitting close?” he asked with some exasperation.
“What do you mean by close?” I asked back, taking a long swallow of the Bass.
“Touching,” he signed.
I again pretended to be mystified. “The couch is small,” I said, “and Tim is big.” Megan was kind of big, too, at least her backside, but I thought it best not to mention that.
He gave up finally, muttering with his hands something like “f*cking lying ape,” before stomping off.
Not long afterward, Tim and Megan left the house together and went to live in San Francisco. Fred has never forgiven me, as though it was my fault that his woman ran off with another man. Frankly, I don’t see why they couldn’t have shared her. There was certainly enough to go around.
What I’m trying to say is that in reality I was little more than a pet to some of the people there. Not to Millicent or Ridley and one or two others who knew what I was. The rest were kind, but in a different way. As a pet, I became the recipient of their affectionate feelings, and that can become irksome very quickly. They not only petted me, which I didn’t appreciate in the least, but I could tell they were making themselves feel good by thinking they were making me feel good.
But I am not complaining. The people at Sign House were generous, open, kind, and supportive. Without them I would not have survived. But they were also advanced primates. That is to say, they were complicated, contradictory, and often difficult. But what else is new.
19
I am not good at adultery. Not because of any acquired or innate moral qualms (and God forbid one would invoke something as passé as morals in these matters). Nor do I mean the more palpable aspects of the undertaking, the enactment, in which I believe I acquitted myself quite respectably. Wherein lies the rub.
Perhaps because I find the pleasure so intense, a pleasure not unalloyed with a thrill of violation, I suffer from a surfeit of what might be called sexual gratitude. Hence the impulse to send flowers in the aftermath, if only because a thank-you note would be as inappropriate as a tip. Hence the nagging sense of obligation conflated with a persistent hankering to repeat the experience.
Or I may simply be susceptible to anyone who will indulge me, especially the way Merissa Bonne did. To paraphrase the great Yeats, in pleasure begins responsibility. Commitment may be an overused word these days, but commitment or something very like it is what I have begun to feel for the dear scatterbrained creature.
To begin where it began. Merissa readily agreed to come to the office when I called and told her there had been a development in the case that I’d like her to know about. She offered to take me to lunch. “Or come here, I’ll make something nice for both of us.”
I demurred on the latter offer and suggested that we go to lunch after meeting in my office.
She sighed facetiously. “Oh, Norman, I’ll never get to seduce you, will I?”
We both laughed.
I can’t say I wasn’t tempted when she showed up just before noon. She might have been a streetwalker of the more expensive sort the way her short skirt rode up her shapely haunches and the way her high-heeled boots curved up her calves. Hardly a widow in mourning. She gave me a full-on kiss when I came around the desk to greet her.
“Norman,” she sighed, her memorable perfume wafting over me like some pheromone signaling availability. “It is so good to see you.”
“Likewise,” I returned, holding on to her hand just short of blatant gallantry.
She turned to Alphus. “Oh, so this is what you’ve given up Di for. Well, Norman, she is cute in her way.”
“It’s a he,” I said. “His name’s Alphus.
She made a little wave. “Hi, Alphus. I hope Norman’s treating you well.”
He inclined his head in her direction.
She fluttered a bit more, glancing around with a twirl. “Oh, I do love this office. It’s like a little museum all its own.”
I resisted a self-deprecating remark about being its main exhibit. I said, “I feel at home here.”
She sat and crossed her admirable gams. I twiddled a pencil and tried to look worldly.
“So what’s all this about a development?”
“Well, there has been that. But first, I would like you to indulge me in a little …” To be honest, I had a few qualms about subjecting her to a virtual lie detector test without her knowledge or consent.
“Anything, Norman. I’ve always had a soft spot for you, if you know what I mean.” She tossed her abundant chestnut hair and I did know what she meant.
“You’re too much, Merissa dear, too much. No, all I have are some basic yes-or-no questions. A kind of exercise.”
“I’m game.”
I gave Alphus a covert glance. He nodded. I surreptitiously clicked on the hidden video camera. I cleared my throat. I began. “Okay. Did you see Heinie on the night he was murdered?”
“Yeah. Before he left the house. We had a real knock-down. I already told the police.”
“You didn’t see him afterward?”
“Not alive.”
“But dead?”
“Well, yeah, I had to identify the body.”
I resisted an impulse to look at Alphus for his reaction. But it would all be on tape anyway.
“Did you see Heinie with a revolver on the night he was murdered?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“He was always waving the damn thing around.”
“Do you know where that gun is now?”
“No.”
“Did you murder Heinie?”
She laughed. “No. But there were times when I wanted to.”
“Do you know who murdered Heinie?”
“No. But I’d guess it was himself if the evidence wasn’t the other way.”
“Why?”
“Oh, Norman, the guy was a mess. You know what he couldn’t stand in the end? He couldn’t stand the way I felt sorry for him. I mean I tried to be sympathetic, but a woman’s got to have a life.”
“With Max?”
“Mostly.”
“You mean there were others?”
“The world’s full of trigger-happy men.”
I held up my hands and brought them together. “Okay. That’s all.”
“That wasn’t much. So what’s this big development all about?” She leaned forward and I was once again enveloped in her seductive, subtle musk, which had a touch of lavender.
“Well, it seems we have found the originals of the fakes that Heinie gave to the museum.”
“Really!” And she glanced away as the implications registered. “Where?”
“On the Albatross.”
“I should have known that’s where he’d put them. That thing became his little hidey-hole. Did you ever notice the pose he struck when he was at the wheel? You’d think he was Captain Cook sailing the South Seas.”
“He was a sad man, wasn’t he?”
“Among other things. So where are the originals now?”
“The police have them. Evidence.”
“So, who do they belong to?”
“Probably to you.”
“Because …?”
“Because he gave the o
ther ones to the museum.”
“And kept the originals for himself …”
I hesitated. “Yes … except …”
“Norman, don’t be so melodramatic …”
“The so-called originals are also fakes.”
Her eyes widened and she put a hand to her lips. “No!” Then she laughed. “Oh, that is priceless. Just like Heinie.”
“Merissa, don’t you realize? The originals are worth more than two million dollars.”
She shrugged. “Easy come, easy go. Do you have a powder room?”
“Just down the hall on the right.” She was already fishing out her cell phone to make a call as she went through the door.
I turned to Alphus and signed, “Anything interesting?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t read her.”
“What was it? Her perfume?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Everything she said was a lie.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I think she is one of those people who lie even when they’re telling the truth.”
When Merissa came back, Alphus left with Angela Simone for a conjugal visit with Dalia. She’s a young female with a large, hairless face, intelligent eyes, and small ears who had come into estrus.
I should have sensed I was headed for the same sort of thing when Merissa insisted on taking me to the Little Café at the Miranda Hotel. She appeared utterly unfazed by the loss of the coins. Indeed, she was in high spirits, volubly bubbling up like the bottle of champagne she ordered.
“So really, Norman, not to be mercenary, but are the coins really worth that much?”
“They are. But you might not get that on the open market. Besides …”
She cocked her head. “I’m listening.”
“The estate would have had some real adjustments to make. Heinie’s accountants probably took a whopping deduction when he gave the coins to the museum. The IRS would have come looking for its due and more.”
The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man Page 23
