Death trick

6

At Timmy's I checked my service while he made mashed potatoes to go with the roast chicken. He used a real masher, and I admired his domestic skills.

At my place I boiled the potatoes, put them in a Price Chopper freezer bag, and beat them with a hammer wrapped in a towel.

There were two messages, one from a former client who owed me three hundred dollars. He said,

"The check is in the mail." The other message was from Brigit: "Books will be found on front lawn after noon Sunday."

I asked, "What's the weather forecast?"

"Showers or drizzle later tonight," Timmy said. "It's supposed to clear late tomorrow and get cold again."

"Crap."

Brigit's new husband and his four daughters were moving into our old place in Latham, and they needed the room where I had my books stored. The Rabbit wasn't going to do the job, and Timmy drove a little Chevy Vega.

I said, "Brigit means business about the books. We'll either have to make six trips or rent a U-haul."

"We?"

"Would you help me move the books, please?"

"Yes."

"She says noon tomorrow, then she chucks them out. She's a sweetheart."

"Right, you've been so busy for the past month." He dropped a brick of frozen peas into a saucepan.

I said, "The heart has its reasons."

"For not picking up a load of books?"

"Don't confuse the issue. Brigit hasn't been nice."

"It's a diabolical retribution-books."

"One does what one can."

"It's the final break. That's why you've been putting it off. This is really the end and you won't face it." He took the chicken out of the oven and set it on the trivet on the table.

"Not true. The final break was three years ago. In a courtroom with portraits of two Livingstons, a Clinton, and a Fish." I began hacking away at the chicken with a bread knife. Timmy winced.

"Why don't you let me do that? You carve the mashed potatoes." I went looking for a serving spoon. "The final final break," Timmy said, "will come when Brigit smiles warmly and shakes your hand and says, 'Heck, Don, at least we had seven wonderful years. I understand and sympathize and there'll be no hard feelings on my part.' That's the final break you're waiting for, except it's not going to happen."

"I can't find a spoon."

"Middle drawer."

"How come I keep getting mixed up with people who devote their lives to explaining me to me?

Brigit did that. It's a powerful force to constantly contend with."

"Nature abhors a vacuum."

"Like the poet said, fuck you. Anyway, I make my way in the world. I understand enough of what's going on. I do all right."

"That you do."

"You don't make it easier."

"Of course I do."

I said, "You're right. You do. Let's eat."***

Over dinner I told Timmy about my two visits with Billy Blount's friends and what I'd found out about Blount. "It turns out he's not so morbidly attached to the duke and duchess as I thought he was. That's just how they see it-or want others to see it. In fact, he seems reasonably stable and in control of his life. And sufficiently resourceful that he knew just where to go when trouble happened. He went somewhere you can fly to for two hundred forty bucks."

That could be just about anywhere these days. You can get to London for under a hundred and fifty."

"Not from La Guardia. That'd be JFK. I've got to find somebody who can check passenger manifests. Deslonde says Blount once had friends on the West Coast. He could be out there."

"Maybe he flew under another name. It's easy."

"Could be. He was thinking."

The cops could check. Are you going to tell them?"

"Later. In due course. Are there more rolls?"

"In the oven."

The people who know Blount best speak well of him. Everybody says he's likable and fun to be around, though a bit verbose and dogmatic. But he's got no real hangups that get to people, and certainly no violent streak. He does have some private grief he keeps inside-an irrational, or possibly entirely rational, fear of being shut in or locked up. Something that happened to him once. Huey and Mark and Frank Zimka all mentioned it. I'll have to check that out with the Blounts. It would explain his panic to get away, even if he hadn't committed the murder."

"Or even if he had."

"Yeah. There's that."

"He didn't tell Zimka anything about how it happened?"

"Not much. Either that, or Zimka is holding something back-or even making the whole story up. This is possible; Zimka's brain couldn't have survived its owner's life unscathed. Zimka may lie as naturally as he blinks. Anyway, for what it's worth, Blount was there, Zimka said, but he didn't actually see the stabbing or the person who did it."

"He was in the bathroom. Had to piss."

"How long does that take?"

"Or brush his teeth."

"When you used to trick, did you carry a toothbrush?"

"That was too long ago. I don't remember. How about you?" He looked up at me from his plate and then down again.

"And another thing is, I can't figure out Blount's connection with Zimka. His other friends, so far, are nice wholesome folks. Like Deslonde, for instance."

"Right," Timmy said. "Like Mark."

"I liked Huey and Mark and saw what Blount saw in them. Zimka, on the other hand, is badly screwed up-not entirely lacking in the decenter instincts, but he's a slave to some unholy habits, and when he's down off his pills, his outlook on human life is decidedly gloomy. Why did Blount hang around a guy like that? There's a side to Billy Blount I don't understand yet."

"Money. You said the guy had ready cash. Blount used him."

"For what? Blount had no expensive habits. None that I know of." I looked at my empty plate.

"Coffee?"

"Yeah, I guess. And the knife attack on Huey what's-his-name last night. It probably doesn't have anything to do with Blount or the Kleckner killing, but still-have you ever heard of a white burglar operating in Arbor Hill?"

"That might be a first."

"Mm. It might."

"So. What's next?"

"There's a guy by the name of Chris I have to check out. And there's a woman Blount evidently was close to. Huey saw them together once."

"Ahh, a mystery woman. In an evening gown and black cape? Maybe it was Megan Marshak."

"In a VW bug. That's all I know about her. This one might slip through my ordinarily ubiquitous dragnet."

"Oh, I doubt that. You know, you're going to an awful lot of trouble to find Billy Blount, when the fact is, everybody who knows him well is convinced he's not a killer. If Blount didn't do it, shouldn't you be giving some thought to who did?"

"I'm doing that."

"Ideas?"

"None worth mentioning. Not yet."

Timmy got up and started clearing the table. "What are we doing tonight? Working or playing?"

"Let's make the regular stops and see what turns up."

When we left the Terminal at nine forty-five, a light rain was falling. I went back in and called U-Haul on the pay phone and reserved a van for eleven-thirty the next morning. Then I called Brigit and told her to expect us around eleven fifty-nine.

We made our way up Central, paying the usual Saturday-night calls, and drove out to Trucky's just after midnight.

It was another good crowd. A sign by the door said five percent of the take that night was being donated to the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Gay Alliance, and a good number of the local gay pols and organizers were on hand, self-consciously clutching their draughts and trying to blend in with the looser, more blase types who were always readier to roll with whatever life shoved at them.

When we went in, Bonnie Pointer's "Heaven Must Have Sent You" was on, and whenever she growled "Sex-x-xyyy," the younger, less inhibited dancers yelped and shouted. I wondered what Norman Podhoretz would have made of it.

Truckman himself was at the door, tipsy and unkempt in green work pants and an old gray sweat shirt. He pulled me aside and asked me if I'd found Blount. I said not yet, that it might take awhile.

"Well, you keep at it," Truckman said, looking grim and nervous, "because the goddamn cops aren't going to do a thing."

"You mean because the victim was gay?"

"You've been around, Don. You know."

"Times have changed a little-"

"What?" He leaned closer in order to hear. The DJ segued from Bonnie Pointer into Nightlife Unlimited's "Disco Choo-choo."

"I said times are changing- partly because of guys like you, Mike. And anyway, as far as anyone knows, this is the first gay murder in Albany. Its novelty must have piqued a certain amount of curiosity among our jaded constabulary."

"Have you been in touch with the cops?" He leaned even closer to hear my answer to this, and I could smell the bourbon on his breath.

"Monday-I'll be seeing Sergeant Bowman on Monday. Do you know him? He's the one in charge."

"No." He shook his head. "Not that one."

"The thing is," I said, "even when I find Blount-I'm not so sure he's the one who did it."

Timmy came from the bar, handed me a draught, and stood listening.

Truckman glared at me, swayed boozily, and said, "Oh, he did it, the little asshole! And you just better catch up with the little sonovabitch before he does it again. The cops aren't gonna do it.

You can't trust the fucking cops."

I nodded. "Yeah. I suppose you're right."

Truckman looked at me a moment longer. Behind the cold gray of his eyes there was anger, and hurt and, I thought, a kind of pleading. Then, abruptly, he turned and went back to the door to resume his lookout for minors, riffraff, and straight couples from Delmar in search of wickedness.

We started for the dance floor.

Timmy said, "I think you're right. Mike knows more about this than he's telling."

"He acts that way. Though guilty appearances are often deceiving. I do know he's been less than forthcoming on the subject of his relationship with Steve Kleckner."

"Should I say it?"

"Yes."

"I hate to."

"Say it."

"Where was Mike that night?"

"Here."

"Till when?"

"Four, at least."

"And what time did the-thing happen?"

The killing. It was a killing. It happened around five-thirty."

"You could look into that."

"I could."

We passed some people we knew from the Gay Alliance and stopped to talk-shout. Taka Boom's "Night Dancin'" came on. The guys from the alliance told us some friends of theirs had arrived at Trucky's from the Rat's Nest and reported that it had just been raided again by the Bergenfield police. This time it was violations of the building code. Jim Nordstrum, the owner, had lost his temper and started screaming about the US Constitution. It hadn't helped. They'd gotten him for disturbing the peace. The alliance was considering joining Nordstrum in a court case-though with a certain reluctance owing to the bad press the alliance would get by affiliating itself with an establishment of the Rat's Nest's rather too special ambiance.

Timmy, a sometime Catholic who was pretty consistently repelled by the darker side of gay life

— just being homosexual was decadent enough for his Irish sensibilities-nevertheless volunteered to help set up a legal defense fund if the alliance chose to go ahead. The pols said the organization was divided over the matter but would decide soon. Timmy said he'd stay in touch.

We made it back to the dance floor and danced for eight or ten songs, then decided to break after Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough." For the moment we'd had enough.

Back at the bar I said, "When I was twenty-five, one of the things I wanted most in life was to go to bed with Paul McCartney, who was around twenty-one. Now I'm forty, and one of the things I want most in life is to go to bed with Michael Jackson, who's around twenty-one. What does this mean?"

Timmy said, "There won't always be youth, but there will always be youths."

We drank our beer. The DJ was playing Peter Brown's "Crank It Up."

"Hi there, big guy, you come here often?" A deep voice from behind me. Apprehensive, I turned.

Phil Jerrold was laughing silently. Mark Deslonde was with him.

"Thanks," Deslonde said, doing his smile-and-tilted-head thing. "He was where you said he'd be last night."

I said, "Donald Strachey-Private Investigations-Discreet Introductions."

"Actually, we'd met," Phil said, smiling a little goofily.

Timmy said, "Maybe you'll run into each other again sometime. And each of you certainly hopes so."

They both grinned, Phil with his squint, Deslonde with his whiskers and angles. Timmy was right; they were looking very couple-y.

Timmy, in the two-and-a-half years I'd known him, had threatened at least once a month to compose a song that started: "I fell in love-in Washington Park/With a man who'd remarked on the weather," but he'd never gotten around to finishing it. I knew the moment was once again upon us.

Timmy said, "I'm going to write a song someday that starts…"

I sang along, and Phil, who'd heard it too, joined in.

"The trouble is," Timmy said then, "nothing apt rhymes with weather."

Phil said, "Feather."

I suggested, "Tether."

Deslonde said, "How about 'sweatshirt?"

We looked at him. We all laughed together, except for Deslonde, who looked embarrassed and said, "I majored in business."

Later, as we were about to leave, Deslonde asked me whether I'd made any progress in locating Billy Blount. Phil and Timmy went back to the dance floor for one last spasm, and Deslonde and I stepped out into the cool quiet under Trucky's portico.

I said, "No, but I've got a couple of ideas. Do you know about a woman in Billy's life? Someone he might be fairly close to?"

"He never mentioned any," Deslonde said. "If there is one, it'd probably be platonic. Billy told me he knew he was gay when he was sixteen, and that he's never had any sexual interest in women at all. He said a shrink his parents once sent him to kept talking about his 'confused sexual identity,' but Billy said it was the shrink who was confused, that the guy couldn't understand plain English."

"Our mental-health establishment at work," I said. "Mob rule under the guise of science."

"I went to a sane one once. He was okay. Pretty cool, in fact, and smart. Where did you hear about the woman?" "From Huey what's-his-name. He's seen them together." "What about Frank Zimka? Did he know anything? Creepy, isn't he?"

"Frank has his problems. But, yes, he was helpful." "He must have talked to Billy not long before it happened. He was out here that night."

"Here? Zimka was out here the night of the murder?" "I saw him in the parking lot around one when Phil and I were leaving-that was the night Phil and I met." The head thing again. I loved it. "Zimka was sitting in the car parked beside mine," Deslonde said, "with the window rolled up.

I figured he had the air conditioner on; it was a hot night. I said 'Hi, Frank,' and he just stared at me like he was spaced out. Which he probably was-I think he frequently uses his own product.

Although he did look quite a bit less wasted that night than he usually does. He didn't tell you he was out here?"

What Zimka had told me was, when Billy arrived at six A.M., Zimka was asleep and had had "a busy night." That was all.

I said, "He was vague about it." "Yeah, he would be." "Was he alone in the car?" "He was.

Maybe he was waiting for someone." "Describe what you remember about the car." "Seventy-nine Olds Toronado. Gold finish, new white side-walls. I'm not sure whether it was a standard or diesel V8. I didn't look under the hood." "You know cars."

"Sears Automotive Center wouldn't have it any other way."

Timmy and Phil came out. Phil and Mark Deslonde soon left, and I told Timmy I'd just be a minute. I approached Mike Truckman, then changed my mind-I'd try to catch him sober on Monday-and went to the bar. I asked each of the bartenders if he knew Frank Zimka, and when I described Zimka, each said he knew who Zimka was. I then asked whether anyone had seen Zimka with either Billy Blount or Steve Kleckner on the night of the murder, and each said no, he didn't think Zimka had even been in Trucky's that night.

At three-fifteen Timmy and I drove back to his place through a cool drizzle, made love with a furious intensity that was reminiscent of the night after the night we first met, and set the alarm for ten.