Ice Blues

ELEVEN

Back at the motel I phoned an LA investigator who'd done some work for me, as I had for him, in times gone by. I asked him to use his phone-company contacts to get a list of calls made from Joan Lenihan's number to Albany, New York, over the previous weekend when Jack had been there. It was 2:25 when I called and he said he'd have the list by five o'clock.

I phoned my service in Albany, which had two messages. One was from an unnamed caller with a muffled voice who asked the operator to inform Mr.

Strachey that "you are dead." The other was from my contact at the Department of Motor Vehicles notifying me that the license plate number I'd asked him to track down belonged to a Mrs. Bella Kunkle of North Greenbush, New York, and that she had reported her station wagon stolen from a supermarket parking lot Thursday evening. The theft appeared to have been professionally done.

I consulted a West Hollywood street map in the motel office, then trekked the eight blocks down Sunset to Funston Lane, where I turned right along a narrow residential street lined with small wooden beige bungalows set close together. The tiny houses looked as if they should have had a Lionel train whooshing this way and that way among them. Here and there a lawn sprinkler exhaled a misty spray over a six-foot square of green-bearded earth, though most of the water, having nearly completed its circuitous journey from the Rockies to the Pacific, ran into the gutter and down a grate.

Number 937 Funston Lane had a walkway leading up to a three-by-four-foot side porch with some bougainvillea clinging to a sagging trellis. I rapped on the door, which had a square of window in it with the view inward blocked by a curtain the color of the house. The curtain was shoved aside and a male face peered out at me. The door opened.

"Hi. I already have a set of encyclopedias, you'd have to talk to the owner about aluminum siding, and I already have Jesus in my heart. But thanks anyway."

I said, "How much are you paying for your long-distance calls?"

"I don't make any. Everybody I know lives in West Hollywood. "

"But perhaps one of them will move to Fresno and you'll want to stay in touch. Micky's Phone Company will enable you to do that for just pennies a day."

"Anybody who moved to Fresno voluntarily would not be a person who'd want to hear from me. I wish you all the luck in the world with your phone company, Micky, but right now I'm kind of busy."

He tried to shut the door, but I stuck my foot in it. "I'm Don Strachey, a private investigator from Albany, New York, and I'd like to talk with you about Al Piatek."

Slightly built and a little stoop-shouldered, he wore jeans and a lavender Tshirt with printing across the front that said BORN TO RAISE ORCHIDS. He had a sweetly comic oblong face and droll blue eyes that were just right for the sly chirpiness of his manner, but now his face fell. He blinked a couple of times and recited, "The sky was black with chickens coming home to roost."

"What's that from, Macbeth?"

"Camille, I think. I guess you'd better come in. I'm Kyle Toot."

I entered the miniature house, or houselet.

"Sit wherever you can find a place. No, let's go out to the kitchen."

"Is it nearby?"

We passed through the living roomette, where stacks of paper with printing on them were arranged on the floor, coffee table, couch seat and arms.

"Did Jack Lenihan send you out here, or is he in trouble himself?"

"Both."

"Could I get you anything?"

"Information."

"I'd better have a drink."

I wedged myself into a seat between the Formica table and the south and east walls. Toot: brought out a jug labeled "Grackle Valley Pure Spring Water-no additives, no fad-datives." He poured from the cAntainer into a glass, then replaced the jug in the refrigerator, which had a canister motor atop it, circa 1934. Los AfigeleS, land of antiquities.

"Do you keep gin in there?"

"No, I keep water in there. It's obvious you're from Albany" He squeezed into the seat across from me.

"Why do you say that?"

"It's a town where the consumption of gin from a jug in midafternoon is probably a commonplace."

"It's endemic but not epidemic. And now you're going to tell me that in Los Angeles the ingestion of mind-altering substances is practically unknown,"

"It's known, but not by me. People who want to work can't stay stoned all the time. Unless they're already under contract. I'm not."

"You're an actor?"

"Sometimes. I also cut and staple raffle tickets for a printer. That's the mess in the living room. I get a penny a book, and it's a rich and rewarding life."

"I've heard that acting is chancy."

"Last month it was Uncle Vaniaa at the Harriet and Raymond P. Rathgeber Pavilion, and this month it's raffle tickets, I auditioned for the fool to Charlton Heston's Lear, which is opening in May, but Chuck thought I was too tall. Fools in Elizabethan times were iiever more than four feet tall, he told me, and he wants to keep it authentic. I'm up for the part of Ticky, a new character they're introducing on Love Boat next season, but it'll all depend on how my eye-rolling test came out. You have to be able to roll your eyes up into your skull, down the inside of the back of your head, up your jawbone, and into the sockets again. That's how the writers wrote the character, and the producers have too much integrity to alter the conception. I had sinus problems the day I auditioned, so I don't know how well I did."

"Well, I'll watch for you in case you make it. It's my favorite show except for reruns of Love That Bob."

He laughed and said, "How's crazy Jack Lenihan doing? Has the law caught up with him yet? Now there's an actor."

"He's dead."

Toot went white. "No."

"Yeah."

"What happened to him? Jack was fine in October. He's dead?"

"Jack died on Tuesday. He was murdered." Toot had been nursing his glass of spring water, but now he set it down and stared at me. I said, "How did you know Jack? Are you from Albany?"

"No, I'm from Encino. Who killed him? Why?"

"Those are two things I'm trying to find out. So are the police. An Albany cop by the name of Bowman will probably come by here. It's known that Jack had a connection of some kind with Al Piatek. Everybody wants to know what it was. Did you live with Al here?"

"For a year and a half."

"Lovers?"

He shook his head and shuddered. "No. Thank God, no. We'd tricked once a long time ago, but that was years ago, when he first came out here from Albany. No, Al and I were not lovers. I want to make that clear. As it is, a lot of people won't get within ten feet of me. I seem to run into two types these days, guys who think nothing's changed, that we're still back in '77 and Donna Summer's in her heaven and all's right with the world, and guys who think the plague's waiting for them on the rim of every drinking glass. But you don't get AIDS from sharing the rent. There's just no known instance of it."

I said, "I didn't know."

"Know what?"

"How Al Piatek died."

"Oh well, it lasted eight months, and it was inhuman, grotesque."

"He was here with you?"

"Of course. This was his home."

"You two must have been close."

He shrugged. "No. To tell you the truth, I didn't even like Al very much. His interests were in rock music-he was a recording engineer at Zimmer Studios-and was into the musicians and their dope. I like baroque music and I'm indifferent to most pop stuff, except to dance to. In fact, Al wasn't even here very much until he got sick. Mostly, Al went his way and I went mine."

"But you took care of him through the illness?"

"About half the time he was in the hospital. When he was here, I did what I could. People from the AIDS support group came by, and I helped out. I was able to do it because-well, because I knew it wasn't going to last. That Al wasn't going to last. That's cynical, I know, but it was better I did that than cutting out, don't you think?" I nodded. "I did what I could. Al went back to the church toward the end. I took him to Mass the few times he could get out of bed and walk, and I know it helped. I even pretended to regain my own faith. He seemed to want me to. It was phony as all get-out, but I'm a good actor. I sometimes feel guilty about that-that I demeaned Al by pretending. But the alternatives seemed even worse. I think I did the right thing."

"It's complicated, but I think you did too."

"It's a horrible way to die. You're gay, right?"

"How did you know?"

"Oh, puh-leez, Mary!"

Twenty years earlier my indignation would have known no bounds, but I'd been carried gasping for air along with the times, so I smiled sweetly. I wasn't wearing an earring or hot hankie, however, so I wondered what the devil he meant. I supposed he had some uncanny sixth sense. Or maybe it was the fact that I hadn't flinched when, as he was speaking, he leaned across the table and placed his hand on mine.

I said, "Your palm is sweating."

He withdrew the hand. "I wanted to see if you were who you said you were."

"Are all private investigators from Albany supposed to be gay? So far as I know, I'm it."

"Al told me Jack Lenihan used to deal dope. And the people he was involved with in that were straight. I thought you might be one of them."

"Why?"

"The money. They'd want their money back. They probably killed Jack trying to get it."

"What money is that?"

"The two and a half million Jack Lenihan gave to Al in October and then asked Al to leave to Jack in his will. Jack was laundering his own money.

The story they cooked up was, Janis Joplin had given it to Al when she was stoned one time, and then Al-who was afraid to spend the money and kept it in the trunk of his car-left it to Jack. You didn't know that? I thought that's why you were here."

"I knew Al had left Jack the money. But I didn't know Jack had given it to Al first. That's what I came out here to find out. Where Al had gotten the two and a half million. Jack told Al it was doper's money?"

"No, that was Al's theory. Where else would Jack have gotten it? Jack asked Al to take it and then leave it to him, and Al agreed. Originally it was closer to three and a quarter million, but the estate tax and Al's back income tax plus penalties were something terrific. Jack said he knew he'd lose a lot of it to the tax guys, but that was the price he was willing to pay, he said, to make the cash legitimate. Naturally Al asked Jack where he got the money, but Jack couldn't say. He just kept insisting that what he was doing was not at all immoral, and Al took his word for it. He knew Jack well enough to understand that Jack was sincere, that his word on that score was good. By then, Al had accepted the fact that he was going to die soon, so it gave him something useful to do for an old friend."

"They'd known each other in Albany?"

Toot smiled sadly. "You are in the dark, aren't you? Haven't you spoken with Joan Lenihan? She's here in LA. If you found me, you must have found her."

"Mrs. Lenihan was not overly forthcoming. She's upset about Jack and she's got problems of her own."

Toot looked at me and said, "Al and Jack were lovers in high school. Each was the other's first. The two families didn't know about it-they thought Al and Jack were assembling model airplanes up in the Piateks' attic. What they were really doing was sniffing the glue and fucking each other silly. Al once told me he would remember and fantasize about those hours up there on an old mattress until the day he died. Which I'm sure he did.

"Al said it was never quite as good after those first attic trysts with Jack Lenihan. But it didn't last. One day, while Al was up working on his airplanes' with Jack, the senior Piateks and Al's two younger sisters were killed in a car crash outside Albany. Al was brought to LA to live with his grandparents-who died a couple of years ago-and Al and Jack never saw each other again until Joan Lenihan reunited them last October. Some years ago, Jack had told his mother about his first love, so when she met Al out here she arranged a reunion. She thought it might be therapeutic for Al. You see, when Al first went into the hospital and got the news of a positive diagnosis, Joan Lenihan was his nurse."

"She's obviously a kind and sensitive woman."

"She is, and that's not all she is."

"I know."

"Her humanitarianism is not entirely disinterested. She's protecting the tribe. She's lesbian and her son was gay. She's as aware as anybody that under the best of circumstances it ain't easy being puce, and the present circumstances are far from the best. When the AIDS unit opened up at the hospital, Joan Lenihan was the first nurse to volunteer."

I said, "I think I will have a glass of that stuff. Have you got a beer?"

Toot brought me a Bud from the Frigidaire and said, "I keep it around for tricks."

"Tricks? No."

"Sure. Haven't you heard of safe sex? The AIDS council put out a pornographic pamphlet on minimum-risk sex. It's a real turn-on, and I've got one."

"A pamphlet, eh? Well, here I am in kinky LA"

"Wanna see it? It's in Spanish too, if your English is not too good."

"I'll pass. I loathe safe sex. Safe sex is to erotic communion what the Salisbury steak in a restaurant on the New Jersey Turnpike is to food. I do it because it's what there is, but I don't want to think about it any more that I have to." I slugged down some of the beer. Toot's house was cool and the cold beer warmed me up.

With a little smile he said, "I wasn't trying to seduce you. I'm sure you have your professional ethics."

"And my lover in a motel over on Sunset. Whether you were trying to seduce me or not, two or three years ago I would have loved a quick tumble in the sack with you and probably would have initiated it. But that's over.

That life has gone the way of cheap gas and free air for your tires. If the two alternatives to monogamy are death and Salisbury steak, I choose monogamy, even though as I speak the words aloud the sound of them makes me a little dizzy."

"Actually there's a third alternative," Toot said with a grin. "If you're rich, that is. I have an actor friend who made a lot of money several years ago and now he spends every third month in Patagonia."

"Patagonia? Patagonia in southern Argentina?"

"There is no AIDS in all of Patagonia, and he found some hotel down there where gay cowboys hang out. He says it's terrific, just like in the olden days-'78, back then. Last summer he spent eleven thousand dollars on airfare. He hasn't had sex with anybody in North America since 1981. He saves it all for the gauchos. Or in Patagonia is it penguins?"

"My God."

"Ernie has Patagonia, but I've at least got my pamphlet. I do what works. I guess you're more of a purist. Like Ernie, except without the cash to act on it."

"I certainly do envy your wealthy and highly imaginative friend," I said.

"And I guess I envy you the apparently satisfying erotic existence that your pamphlet has provided you. But I've never been able to do anything halfway. Like Jack Lenihan. Once Jack decided what he wanted to do, he went all the way with it." While Toot watched me bug-eyed, I described Jack's two-and-a-half-million-dollar political project in Albany. "Did he tell you about this?" I asked.

Toot's mouth hung open. "No. No, he didn't. Jesus!"

"Did he tell Al?"

"Not that I know of. No, Al would have told me. Where's the money now?"

"I don't know. Joan Lenihan may have it, I'm not sure. Jack was about to ship the money to me in Albany for safekeeping, but Joan kept him from doing that. She was against the project for reasons that are not at all clear to me. My plan is to find the money, take it and carry out Jack's project for him. Will you help me?"

He swallowed hard. "Well-maybe. But Jack was killed, you said. Doesn't that probably mean the owners of the money are trying to reclaim it? Maybe they already have."

"I don't think so. I think it's here in Los Angeles. How well do you know Joan Lenihan? Somebody has to reach her, but it looks as if it's not going to be me."

"I've met her a few times, but that's all. She wouldn't trust me any more than she'd trust you."

"Who does she trust?"

"Gail Tesney, her lover."

"She's been shut out too. She doesn't like it, but she can't seem to do anything about it."

"Then forget it. If Gail can't get Joan to open up, nobody can."

"Then Gail will have to do it. She has no choice."

He peered at me, looking a little queasy. "You'd interfere in Gail and Joan's relationship just so you might influence an election in some fur-trading outpost in upstate New York?"

I thought about this, then said lamely, evasively, "It's what Jack Lenihan wanted. It's what he would have wanted me to do."

Eyeing me evenly, Toot said, "Maybe in that respect Jack Lenihan was a heartless creep. Did you ever consider that?"

I had to admit that I hadn't. I had been careful not to. Where was Timmy? He was my moral guardian, not this raffle-ticket-stapling Uncle Vanya. I said,

"Why don't you come over to the motel and meet Timmy? Maybe he can make this whole business clearer than I've been able to. Bring your raffle tickets along and a couple of extra staplers. This evening we can have a wild threesome-click-shoosh, click-shoosh. The motel we're staying in can probably even come up with a couple of extra stapling artists. Though I don't know that they'd necessarily be the safe-stapling type."

"What's the name of the place?"

"The Golden Grapefruit."

"Oh, that guy can get safe-staplers. He can get you anything you want."

"He can? Uh-oh."

Toot followed me into my room at the motel.

"Hi, sake-zy."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Ramon, and this is my friend Juan. Hey, your friend is very cute too, but I wan chu."

They were propped up on pillows on the bed watching Sale of the Century.

Ramon was in red briefs, Juan in tiger stripes. Their clothes were heaped on a chair. Toot tried to look bemused.

I said, "Who let you in here? This is my room."

Ramon winked. "We the sexular human boys. We gonna have a good time, sweetheart, you will see. Hey, you want me go out and pick up some booze? We gonna get thirsty, I'm thinking."

I said, "Out," and pointed to the open door.

Juan looked worried, but Ramon stood up, slithered out of his briefs, walked over and placed my hand on his unexceptional erection. "I gone fuck you till you blow up, man. I gone fuck you till you the happiest man in LA. I gone…"

I led him away. He resisted when we came to the door-sill, but I had a firm grip and he yielded soon enough. As we emerged into the parking lot Timmy pulled up in the rental car, got out, and said, "My little horse must think it queer to stop without a farmhouse near."

"I found him and his friend in the room. They're just on their way out. They claim to be secular humanists, but I know a couple of Alexandrian Copts when I see them. I told that guy."

Juan sidled out the door wearing pants now and carrying a distressed bundle of clothing and shoes. I released Ramon, who dressed rapidly, muttering and hurling imprecations at me in two languages. "I gonna talk to Teddy, man! I don' like getting fucked over, and somebody gonna pay for this, man!"

I introduced Timmy to Kyle Toot, then went in and rang the desk. "Is this Teddy?"

"Speaking."

"This is Donald Strachey in one-oh-six. I said secular humanist twins and you sent me a couple of Aztec Jehovah's Witnesses. Now if you can't even come up with a pair of certified Unitarians, just forget it. I'm warning you, I'll want to see their ACLU membership cards. Do you understand what I'm saying? My friend and I have very specific tastes."

"I'll have to make some more calls."

"If we have to go back to Lynchburg horny, it'll be your fault." I slammed down the receiver.

Timmy was shaking his head. "Don, really."

"You're making a big mistake," Toot said. "He'll have a set of hot Unitarians in here inside of an hour. This is LA."

I said, "No. It isn't possible."

"You'll see."

I rang Teddy back and said, "This is Strachey in one-oh-six again. Cancel the Unitarians. We just heard about a Trivial Pursuit tournament at a bar in Westwood, and it's first things first."

"Fuckin' eastern kooks!" Teddy said, and hung up on me.