On the Other Hand, Death

15

Bowman was seated in the driver's seat of his car, which was backed around to the rear of the barn. The young plainclothesman sat at his side. I walked up to the open window and barked, "Gotcha!"

He gave me his city hall gargoyle look. "What the fuck you talkin' about, Strachey? Geddada here!" "Where's McWhirter? He still holding up?" "Still asleep, far as I know. Mrs. Fisher and her lady friend are upstairs with the air conditioner running. My men won't get into place until after midnight, so as to not disturb the ladies. I've got a man inside the house who'll be there all night to reassure the gals-they still don't know about this army I've got deployed-and to keep McWhirter under control. My only concern is, who's going to keep you under control, Strachey? I do not want you gumming up this operation. You understand that?

You screw this up, and you are kaput in the state of New York. Capeesh?"

"Check, Ned. Capeesh, kaput. Where's the ransom money?"

"Already out there in the mailbox. A man's in the woods across the road keeping an eye on it."

"I hope he's one of your best."

He chortled. The underling alongside him chortled too. I walked on into the house.

The kitchen light was on. A uniformed cop sat at the kitchen table gravely considering the Times Union sports section. He looked up. "Who are you?"

"Inspector Maigret," I said, and walked on down the hall.

I opened the door to the guest room where McWhirter was staying and went in. I snapped on a table lamp and shut the door. McWhirter did not awaken. He lay atop the flowered sheets, stretched out on his back in a pair of jockey briefs with a frayed waistband. The shorts barely contained a healthy erection. I averted my eyes somewhat.

I rummaged through a canvas traveling bag that lay open on the floor. It contained a pair of Army surplus fatigues, jeans, T-shirts, a reeking sweatshirt, socks, toilet articles. Underneath these was a recent copy of Gay Community News and assorted letters and postcards. I read McWhirter's mail, all of it communications from various contacts around the country, gay organizations or individuals he planned on visiting, or had visited, during the gay national strike campaign. I found no mention in any of this of an untoward or criminal plot.

I opened a beat-up old L. L. Bean backpack that contained more clothing, of a smaller size.

Greco's.

McWhirter stirred. His right arm flopped twice against the sheet. His erection throbbed. I got one too. I looked away and pretended to myself that I was Buffalo Bob Smith. After a moment, McWhirter's breathing, evened out again, as did mine. Above me I could hear the snapping and fretting of TV voices and the distant whirr of an air conditioner.

Under the crumpled clothing in Greco's pack I found a bound volume, Moonbites: Poems by Peter Greco. I read two, and they were Greco: simple-hearted, avid, appealing. Yet the craft and originality just weren't there. It was, as Richard Wilbur had cruelly put it, "the young passing 69 notes to one another." Greco was less young than he used to be, and maybe there was other recent more accomplished work. I hoped so. I wished that Greco were a fine poet, the kind that gives you the shakes, turns you upside down in your chair. I feared that he wasn't. I wondered if he knew it. I guessed he would. I wanted to find himactually kidnapped, and not involved in some idiotic scam with McWhirter-and spend some time with him again.

I thought of Timmy. I figured he'd probably end up in some dumb orgy somewhere that night, and the next day enter the priesthood, a dry-cleaning order, no doubt. And I would find Greco, set him free, and run off with him. To Morocco, maybe, where I could do consulting work with Interpol while Peter reclined on a veranda by the sea and wrote-mediocre poetry. That's what I'd do.

I laid my head against the side of the bed where McWhirter slept and realized how utterly bone-weary I was. I yawned, then made myself think startlingly wakeful thoughts. It wasn't hard.

I replaced the poetry book in the backpack and came up with another volume, a hardbound book whose final pages were blank, but which otherwise had been filled in with handwritten dated short paragraphs. It was Greco's journal. A private matter ordinarily, but under the special circumstances I began to read the recent entries.

July 30 — Staying at Mike Calabria's in Providence. Air heavy, hot, suffocating. Mike big, noisy, generous, funny. Fenton heartsick at reception in Rhode Island. Newspaper refers to him as

"Frisco Minority Activist." What that? Eleven men sign on; $12 raised.

Aug. 2 — New Haven hot, Yalies cool. No students, but two cafeteria workers sign pledge. Stayed with Tom Bittner, here for a year researching colonial anti-gay laws. Great seeing Tom. Cicely still with him; I slept on porch.

Aug. 5 — The Big Apple. Gay men everywhere — and nowhere. Temperature inversion over city produces vomit-green cloud. Could barely breathe. Fenton went unannounced to office of New York Times editor, but…

McWhirter groaned, raised his head, blinked at me. I let the journal fall back into the knapsack.

I said, "Just the man I want to talk to."

"What? What the fuck are you doing in here? Where's-? Oh, God."

"That wasn't Peter's finger in the package. You would have seen that. You said nothing. Why?"

He did a double take, then bridled. "What the fuck is going on? What time is it?" He grabbed at a wristwatch on the bedside table, glared at it, then wrapped it around the circle of white flesh on his wrist. "Christ, it's not even eleven yet."

"You ignored my question."

He lay back against the headboard and examined me sullenly. Suddenly he snapped, "Of course I knew it wasn't Peter's finger! Of course I would know that!"

"You didn't mention it to anybody. That strikes me as odd. It gets me to thinking."

He blinked, looked alarmed. "Jesus! Do the cops know?"

"Know what, Fenton?"

"The finger-that it wasn't-"

"Where did you get it? I've been wondering. Men's fingers are hard to come by. Not as rare as… hens' teeth. But rare."

"Where did I get it?"

"Or whoever."

He sat up with a jerk and Hung his legs over the edge of the bed. His feet stank. I backed away and eased onto a desk chair.

McWhirter's face had reddened. He sputtered, "I know what you think."

"What do I think?"

"That I set this up."

"Why would I think that?"

"Because I-You must have found out that I play the game by rules I didn't make. Rules that I don't like but that somebody else made, and for now they are the rules."

"Your nose is a little cockeyed. I hadn't noticed it before, but now I do. How come?"

In his confusion, he couldn't help grinning daffily. "You heard that story? Great. Well, so what?

It's true. Other people had been bloodied by the cops that night, the fucking savages. But those cops had taped over their badge numbers. The one who hit me hadn't. And I had his number.

Simple justice."

"Simpleminded justice. You became one of them."

"Ho, Jesus!" He shook his head, looked at me as if I were a bivalve. "The same old liberal bullshit. You should be a judge, Strachey, or write newspaper editorials."

I said, "You're digging your own grave."

"What?"

"This so-called kidnapping is right in character for you. You stage the abduction, stir up lots of attention and sympathy for the strike campaign-and collect a hundred grand to finance the rest of the drive. I'll bet Dot Fisher doesn't know about it though, does she? Dot's unconventional, but still a bit old-fashioned in certain inconvenient respects, right?"

He stared at me open-mouthed. "You think that? You think I'd do that to Dot?"

"So, where did the finger come from? Explain."

"Look… I…" He was sweating, fidgeting, balling up little wads of chest hair between his fingers. "Look, it is true that I knew it wasn't Peter's finger in that box. Of course I knew. But the reason I kept my mouth shut about it was not the reason you think. I just thought-I figured that the kidnappers-cops probably-were using the finger to scare us. To scare Dot especially, and impress on all of us just how vicious they could be.

"And since we were already having a hard enough time getting that Bowman asshole to believe us, to take Peter's disappearance seriously, it seemed better if I just… kept my mouth shut. And also-Well, shit, I was afraid somebody like you would have heard about-about my reputation.

And that you'd think Peter and I set the whole thing up. Just like you do now. God, that's the truth!"

"Uh-huh. That's what I thought too, Fenton. At first. When I saw that the finger wasn't Peter's, and knew that you must have known it wasn't, I guessed that you were keeping mum in order to feed Bowman's sense of urgency. But I didn't know so much about you then. Now I do. And I have become skeptical. Highly so."

"How did you know it wasn't Peter's finger?"

"Dunno. Guess I'm just one of those people who once he's seen a finger never forgets it."

"Do the cops know this? What you think?"

"Not yet."

"Don't tell them. Please. It's not true! You'll just put Peter in more danger!"

I said, "Fenton, you're a self-avowed ruthlessly devious liar and con man. All for the larger cause. Wicked means to a just end. Pulling a stunt like this would be right in character for you. It fits the pattern."

"That is not true. You're talking like Bowman now. Use friends like that? Brothers and sisters?

Never!"

"It's not your friends you're using. It's me. Strachey, the Millpond flack. I'm the one who came up with the hundred grand."

"Yes, but-I wouldn't have known it would work out that way, would I? When the ransom note came-and the finger-it was sent to Dot. Obviously by someone who knew that she would be able to get hold of a lot of money from Millpond if she absolutely had to. Somebody so rotten he didn't care at all if Dot lost her home. Do you think I would do that?"

"Nnn. I don't know."

"Or Peter? You've seen what kind of person Peter is. Would he do a thing like that to Dot? Or to anybody?"

"No. I expect not. Unless… unless he didn't know. You could have gotten rid of Peter for a few days on some pretext while you pulled off this elaborate heist to raise money to finance the rest of your bankrupt campaign. Sent him off to do advance work in the next town or something.

And arrange for some other cohorts, up from the city or wherever, to stage the abduction at the Green Room last night."

He peered at me with disgust. "Oh, yes. I have this troupe of actors-McWhirter's Old Vic constantly at my disposal. Sheeeit. And when Peter finds out how I've all of a sudden gotten hold of a hundred thousand dollars? Then what?"

"Nnn. Yeah. Peter would probably give it back."

He continued to stare at me with the nauseated condescension that was his most natural attitude.

What did Greco see in this creep? Was demented single-mindedness Greco's idea of toughness, substantiality, strength of character? My estimation of Greco had begun to fall. I thought of Timmy. Where was he? Why weren't we together?

On the other hand, what McWhirter had just told me made sense. He was ruthless, but I'd heard no evidence that he had ever betrayed his friends. He was devious and cunning, but Greco, whatever his weaknesses, was not. On the one hand this, on the other hand that.

I said, "All right, Fenton. I'm more or less convinced. Pretty much. For now."

"And you won't mention any of this crap you were thinking to Bowman?"

"Not now. No."

He collapsed against the headboard. "Thank you. Now, just get Peter away from… those people. That's all I care about. And then you can say anything about me that you want. Just get Peter back."

"Right. That's what we're all trying to do."

"Is the money in the mailbox?"

"Yes."

"I'll pay it back. Wherever it came from, I'll pay it back."

Watching him carefully, I said, "Dot and Edith don't know this, but when the pickup is made tonight, the kidnappers' car will be followed. Very, very discreetly. No arrest will be made until Peter is free. But we're all reasonably certain that whoever has done this will be in the lockup by dawn."

He flinched and sat up again, breathing heavily. "You told me you weren't going to do anything like that. You and the cops. You agreed it was too dangerous."

"We lied. We all concluded from experience that Peter's chances are better this way."

He stared at me with hard, bitter eyes. "Lying for the higher cause, huh? Wicked means to a just end."

"Something like that. Yes. To save a life. Nothing terribly abstract or arguable about that."

"But it's still just your opinion."

"An informed opinion."

He started to speak, then just laughed once, harshly. At both of us, I thought charitably.

I said, "The phone here has been tapped by the police. If you call anyone, you'll be overheard.

Did you know that?"

"No. But why should I care?" He turned away from me onto his side, and lay still except for his breathing, which came and went in deep sighs.

I left him there in the sticky heat and shut the door as I walked out. I passed the cop in the kitchen and went outside again. I sat on the veranda under the stars and tried very hard to rethink the whole bloody mess. I was sure I had been conned by a master. But I couldn't decide who he was. end user