Death trick

7

Out of the house, through the breezeway, into the garage where the rental van with the fickle transmission was parked, we hauled books-me, Timmy, Brigit, the new hubby, the four daughters. Hugh Bigelow was a big, friendly sheepdog of a man who had been a widower for a year and did something in an office for the State of New York. Timmy said he thought he'd seen Bigelow in the elevator of his building at the Mall. The daughters, aged three through eight, were chubby, round-eyed and earnest, and they worked with an unchildlike, methodical determination as they moved the residue of me out of their new home.

When we'd nearly finished, Brigit beckoned me into the kitchen and said, "Thank you for doing this." She'd had her hair cut short and looked like Delphine Seyrig in a blond wig.

"Ultimatums work with me," I said. "I can be successfully menaced."

"I wouldn't know about that," she snapped. "I never gave you an ultimatum."

Christ, she'd pulled me aside to pick a fight. Or had I done it?

I said, "I guess you're just too forebearing for your own good." I grinned and tried to sound lighthearted, jocular.

"It was because I'm kind. And naive."

"Could I have some of that coffee?"

She poured a cup. I sat at the Formica counter. She stood.

"Would you really have tossed the books out in the rain? It may freeze tonight. Booksickles."

She tried to keep from smiling. She succeeded. "How are you doing?" she said.

"Well. Quite well. I like my life."

"Good. I like mine. For a long time I didn't."

I slurped at the coffee, trying to keep it from burning my lips. "He seems like a nice guy," I said.

"Hugh."

"He is. You'd like him." She poured herself some coffee. "He's sweet, and funny."

"He's a bureaucrat, right?"

"Hugh's an inspector for the Public Service Commission." She eased onto the stool across from me. "Hugh really enjoys his work and he thinks its terribly important. Which it is, of course.

Hugh doesn't become excessively wrapped up in bis job, though. He's extremely easygoing."

"He seems to be. You must be devoted to him-he doesn't exactly come unencumbered."

"Oh, I love the girls. Well, most of the time." Now she smiled a bit. "It's a big adjustment to make. But I'm doing it."

"Will you keep teaching?"

"I think so. There's a baby-sitter the girls are used to. I'm not sure yet."

"Are you planning on having any of your own?"

Timmy staggered past the doorway balancing three boxes of books one atop the other. Brigit glanced at him as he went by and said to me, "I don't know yet. Are you?"

She knew it was a dumb thing to say, and she flushed as she said it. But she'd pulled the old trigger. She had not liked being a victim of my self-deception, and during the last years of our marriage, the malicious humor that was part of what had drawn us together in the first place had hardened into cruelty on both our parts. I hadn't liked being a victim of my self-deception either, and I often took it out on Brigit, who dished it right back. And-now here we were, in character to the awful end.

I sipped my coffee and said, "There's an equality, a symmetry about Timmy's and my sexual relationship. It has balance. In seven years you never fucked me once."

She tightened like a fist. "Yes. And you must have fucked me twelve or fifteen times." She smiled, tight-lipped, the flesh around her lower jaw quivering.

Sex. It isn't everything in a relationship. But it's plenty.

Hugh Bigelow came into the kitchen panting. "Whew. Jesus. Whew. Done." He tried to mop his forehead with the sleeve of his Orion windbreaker, but it just smeared the droplets around.

"Thanks for all your help, Hugh," I said. "That was twenty-two years' worth of books. Dinesen to Didion to Don Clark."

"Whew-oh-anytime, anytime."

Brigit and I glanced at each other quickly, then looked back at Hugh's big, nodding, wet face.

Timmy came in, and Hugh asked us to stay for peanut-butter-and-Fluff sandwiches. We thanked him but said we'd made other plans.

In the garage I said, "Good-bye, Brigit," and she said, "Good-bye, Don," like two stockbrokers who had just ended a business lunch. My impulse was to shake hands, but I knew mine were trembling.

Through a steady rain we drove out to the Gateway Diner on Central and had bacon and eggs.

We didn't say much. I knew what Timmy was thinking but was too sensitive, and canny, to say out loud.

I said, "I suppose this would be a good time for me to move over to your place, now that we've got that van. Except the goddamn thing is full of books."

Timmy, ever the rational man, winning another war over his Irish soul, looked at me and said nothing.

We put half the books in my apartment-the stacked boxes took up an entire wall-and carried the other half down to the storage alcove in the basement of Timmy's building.

We showered together at his place, and one thing led to another.

At six we showered again, separately, and while Timmy made coffee, I dialed the number for Chris.

"Hello?" A woman's voice. Young, pleasant, a bit tentative.

"May I speak with Chris, please?"

"Oh-Chris isn't in just now. May I take a message?"

Discretion was indicated. "Yes, would you please have him call Donald Strachey at this number?" I gave my service number. "When do you expect him?"

A pause. "Who is this?" A real edge to the voice now.

"Uh-Donald Strachey. Chris may not recognize the name, but if you'll just tell him that I-"

The receiver was slammed down.

"What did I say?"

Timmy set a mug of coffee beside me. "What happened?"

"A woman-she hung up. It was something I said."

"It was something you are. Somebody's wife hung up on me once, too."

I decided to do what I'd planned on doing on Monday and should have done the day before. I said, "I'll be back in twenty minutes. I'm going over to the office. How about putting this brownish wet stuff you gave me back in the pot?"

"Will you want food?"

"Nothing much. Eggs or whatever."

"We had eggs for lunch."

"Then whatever."

I drove over to Central through a slicing cold wind under low, black, flying clouds. In the office I got out my directory of Albany phone numbers listed numerically. There it was. The Chris number was listed beside the name of Christine Porterfield. Of course.

I copied down the address on Lancaster Street and called Timmy.

"Chris is a woman. The woman I spoke with got pissed off when I referred to Chris as 'he.'

They're lesbians. It was as if a strange woman called you up and said, 'Is Don there, when will she be in?' I want to go over there now and apologize-and probably learn something about Billy Blount. How about you going along? It should help if she knows I'm gay."

"Should I suck your cock while we're there?"

"A knowing glance or two should do it. I'll pick you up."

"I've got two frozen meat pies in the oven." "Take them out and set them under a warm radiator.

You'll hardly notice the difference it makes."

We pulled in behind a dark green VW Beetle in front of Chris Porterfield's Lancaster Street address. I wrote down the bug's license number.

The old Greek Renaissance town house looked warm and serene with its crusty yellow brick and brown shutters. The young maples growing from neat squares of earth at the edge of the sidewalk still held most of their dead leaves, some of which exploded into the gusts of wind as we walked up the steps. The brass lamps on either side of the front door had flickering flame-shaped light bulbs. Early American Niagara Mohawk Electric.

I pressed the button and could hear the bing-bong inside.

"Maybe the woman you spoke to was Christine's mother," Timmy said. "Or her grandmother."

"Too young."

"Or her daughter."

"No. It all fits. Chris is the woman-friend Huey Brownlee saw Billy Blount with, and the woman of delicate sensibilities who answered the phone is Chris's lover. You'll see."

"You once told me that it's only in novels that things all fit. Real life tends toward implausibility."

"Not always. Which is exactly my point."

"That's quite a logical progression. You should run for the State Assembly."

Two brown eyes appeared in the little window in the door. The door opened the three inches its lock chain would allow.

The middle third of a face said, "Yes?"

"I'm Donald Strachey, I'm a private detective, and I want to apologize for my call a while ago. I only had Chris's first name, and since I knew only that someone named Chris was a friend of Billy Blount's, I assumed it was a man. That was unintelligent and presumptuous of me. Are you a friend of Chris's?"

She stared out at me as if I were selling aluminum siding. She said, "I don't know what you're talking about. Did you say you're a detective?" Her voice was flutey and pretty and apprehensive, and her face was dark and smooth, with maybe some Mayan in it.

I'm private." I hiked out my card and held it up to the crack. "This is my associate, Timothy Callahan." Timmy edged into range and showed his Irish teeth. "I've been hired by someone to help Billy Blount. But I've got to find him first. Could we talk?"

She hesitated. We didn't look the way detectives were supposed to look. I had on jeans, a flannel shirt, and a down vest. Timmy, who wore a Brooks Brothers suit to his job at the State Senate Minority Leader's office during the week, looked as if he'd just stepped off a B-29 after a run to Bremerhaven.

"I-well, I don't know. Chris isn't here. She's out."

"You look familiar," I said. "Have I seen you in Myrna's? I drop in there sometimes with friends from the alliance."

I could sense Timmy looking at me and raising his eyebrows questioningly, as if to say, "Now?"

The woman smiled tentatively. "Yes, I've been to Myrna's. But-you don't look much like a detective."

"My Robert Hall suit's at the cleaners. And I've never been big on the Raymond Chandler sort of private-eye high drag."

She thought about this. She looked as if she were trying to remember if her instructions covered this unusual set of circumstances. I guessed they hadn't and we'd thrown her off balance.

Finally she said, "All right. I can talk to you, but just for a minute. That's all. Chris isn't here."

She fiddled with the chain, and the door opened.

We sat in a cheerful room lined with white wooden shelves holding clumps of old, handsomely bound books alternating with bright, graceful figurines and pottery from Central America. The wine-colored velvet chairs were deep and soft, and the stereo receiver was tuned to public radio, which had on Purcell's "Dido." The woman, thirtyish, and definitely from south of the border, wore olive slacks and a cowl-collared orange turtleneck with a red stone hanging from a silver chain. Her expression was one of vulnerable distraction-the look of a woman who had recently received a crank phone call and now the crank had arrived at her door. She told us her name was Margarita Mayes and that she was Chris Porterfield's "roommate."

"Do you know Billy, too?" I asked.

"I've met him," she said, then quickly added, "but I haven't seen him recently. Not since-oh, August, I think. I have no idea where you could find him."

I looked for evidence of a male presence in the house but saw none. Frank Zimka had told me Billy Blount had flown to another city, but I now knew Zimka had been less than forthcoming about one matter and could as easily have been untruthful about others.

I said, "Are Chris and Billy good friends? I've gotten the impression they're close."

She looked at me quizzically. "They're very close, yes. But how did you know about Chris? Their relationship is-special. They've never mixed with each other's friends, and they've sort of saved each other up as a kind of, oh-refuge." She tensed, regretting she'd used the word.

"A friend of Billy's saw them together once in Chris's VW," I said, "though the friend didn't know at the time it was Chris, And Chris's first name and number were written on Billy's phone book. That's what led me here."

"I know," she said, looking worried. "That's where the police got it."

"They've been here?"

"Last week. Chris wasn't here. I said she was on a business trip. We own Here 'n' There 'n'

Everywhere Travel. I told them she was in Mexico setting up Christmas tours."

"They could check on that with Mexican immigration." She winced. "I'll try to find out if they have. Chris is with Billy, isn't she?"

She said nothing.

I said, "Are they in Albany?"

She sat motionless, barely breathing. The apprehension in her dark eyes made Timmy uncomfortable. He picked up a copy of Travel and Leisure from an end table, peered at the cover, then set it down again. Finally she said, "I think you'd better speak with Chris."

"I'd like to."

"But what's your interest in this? Your connection. You said you wanted to help Billy. Why?

Chris will want to know."

"His parents hired me to locate him. But my interest goes beyond that. Billy has been charged with murder, and I think he's probably innocent. Also, Billy is someone whose difficulties in life are ones for which I hold a special sympathy."

She looked at me, then at Timmy, then back at me. "I hope you don't mind my asking, but-are you gay?"

I glanced at Timmy and caught him looking at me sappily. I said, "Yes, Timmy and I are lovers."

He started to move toward me, and I thought, Oh Christ, but he swung around and just shifted position in his chair.

Margarita Mayes caught this and smiled. Timmy said, "He's very straitlaced."

"Good," she said. "So am I. I think I'd better have Chris get in touch with you. She'll call you.

Why don't you give me your number again."

I handed her my business card. "Please have her call as soon as she can. There's a certain urgency in all this, as you can imagine. Have Chris and Billy been friends for a long time?"

"Oh, yes. Ages."

"College?"

"No. I mean, they met around that time. But at another place."

"A mental institution?"

She blanched. Timmy stiffened and gave me an indignant look.

"You'd better talk to Chris," Margarita Mayes said. She stood up. "I don't know what she wants you to know and what she doesn't want you to know." She looked put out and resentful at having been left with a lot of useless, incomplete instructions. "I'll ask her to call you, and then you two can work it out. I don't even know if Chris would want me to be talking to you like this."

"If I could see her, it would be easier."

"She'll call you." She moved toward the open door. "Or I'll call you." She was panicking. I'd pushed too hard.

I said, "Impress on her the fact that if Billy is going to come through this, he'll need a skilled, full-time friend working on his behalf-to clear him, and to find out who the real killer is. The police are harried, overworked, underpaid, generally not too smart, and they can't be relied on to do that. I can be. But I'm going to need Billy's help, and first Chris's."

She nodded, played with the cowl on her pretty sweater.

"All right. Thank you. We'll be in touch soon." She walked quickly to the front door, and we followed.

"Sorry again about the rude phone call," I said. "It was just a dumb misunderstanding on my part."

"Oh, that's all right. I was mixed up, too. I'm half-afraid to pick up the phone these days. I've been getting crank calls since yesterday morning, so I've been uptight about the phone ringing."

"You have?"

"Someone calls and then just listens, doesn't say anything. I can hear the person breathing. But it'll stop soon, I'm sure. You'd better go now. Chris will be in touch."

I said, "Do you have a burglar alarm in this house?"

"Yes, as a matter fact we do. Chris set it off accidentally once, and it makes a horrible racket.

Why do you ask that?"

"Well, it's just that-that's an MO burglars sometimes use. They'll call to see if you're home, and if you're not home, they may try to bust in and clean you out before you get back. No one's tried to break in recently, though, right?"

"No. But of course I've been home every night."

"Right. And you're sure the alarm is working?"

"Yes, that little red light by the door there goes on when it's activated. I set it every night."

"Good idea."

"I like your Ken Edwards Tonala," Timmy said. "I can see why you wouldn't want those stolen.

There are some lovely things here."

"Yes," she said, "It's not the Ken Edwards stuff, though, it's Armando Galvan."

"Oh. Right. Did you bring them back from Mexico yourself?"

"Yes. We did. Good night now. Chris will be calling you soon, okay?"

The cold wind was rushing in the open door.

We drove down Lancaster, then swung right on Dove. "What was that 'mental institution' crap? I thought you'd lost her with that one."

"I guessed. Blount's difficult, painful secret. I knew he'd been locked up and hated it, but where? He'd told Huey Green-Brownlee-that it hadn't been jail or reform school. Which wouldn't have been the Blount family's style, anyway. A little nuttiness, though, would not have been out of character among the Blounts. And Margarita didn't deny it. She seemed to confirm it."

"Or maybe he'd been locked in a room a lot as a kid or something. That would have left scars."

"No. I've hit on something else. For what it's worth."

"Is all this necessary? All this probing around in Blount's psyche and his past? It seems like there should be an easier way. It's not pleasant."

"I don't know. I'm finding out what I can. Then I'll see where it points. A murder charge is not pleasant. Nor a murder."

We turned onto Madison. Timmy said, "Maybe it points to Mexico."

"Unlikely. He could get into the country easily enough with just a voter's card or some other proof of citizenship. But there'd be a record of his entry, and I think he'd have thought of that.

My guess is, he's in this country. Wherever."

"If Blount was in a mental institution, I wonder what particular variety of mental problem he had?"

"I was wondering that, too."

"Margarita was showing the strain of it all. I felt bad for her. And the crazy phone calls can't be making it easier."

"Yeah, everybody seems to be getting them these days. Somebody called Blount's apartment while I was there Friday evening and hung up after a few seconds, and Huey Brownlee got two of the same kind of calls several hours before somebody came through his window with a knife early Saturday morning."

"So-it's the full moon. Or something."

"Yeah. Or something."