Stars and bars

Chapter One

At La Guardia airport it was raining heavily. It seemed only right that the weather should have changed. The clouds were low and had that shade of uncompromising greyness that seems to promise their continued presence for a good while yet. But it was surprisingly warm and humid.

Henderson, Shanda and Bryant stood in line waiting for a taxi. He had given Shanda the keys to his apartment and a covering note for the doorman. He didn’t want her around when Bryant was returned to her mother.

He felt some trepidation about this last course of action. He was well aware that in these circumstances relief could turn to anger with illogical speed. The mother hugs the scampering tot who has chased a ball into the road and just missed being squashed by the juggernaut. Then she delivers a stinging slap for ignoring kerbside drill. Melissa would be overwhelmed with joy to see Bryant back, but Henderson expected he would receive the blow. He grimaced slightly. He was glad to be back in New York; glad to be free of the Gage family and Luxora Beach; but he was conscious that some of his failures dwelt here too: Mulholland, Melhuish, Melissa…and Irene. He felt a sudden whimpering need for Irene. Perhaps she would take him back, now that he had no job…And that fact brought the future to mind and all its tedious humiliations: packing up, saying goodbye, returning to London, saying hello again.

Shanda’s taxi arrived and she ducked in promptly, trying not to get wet. Henderson gave her his suitcase and the driver his address.

“I’ll be along in an hour or so,” he said to Shanda. “Or thereabouts,” he added. He had a sudden mad impulse to try and see Irene. He stepped back beneath the eave. The rain was falling with steady purpose. Large puddles formed in the generous declivities of the road surface. Cars had their lights on, so intense was the murk. He felt clammy and uncomfortable — the pathetic fallacy working in his favour as usual. Bryant, who had slept through the entire flight from Atlanta, seemed to be coming round somewhat.

“Where are we?” she said, looking about her with half-closed eyes. “Is Duane here?”

Henderson pushed her into their taxi without replying. She immediately fell asleep again, her head on his shoulder.

“Long trip?” said the taxi driver. His identification card gave his name as Ezekiel Adekunle.

“Atlanta,” Henderson said.

“Ow! Whatin you go dere for? Ah-ah.” The taxi driver sucked in air through his teeth.

Good question, Henderson thought. “Been raining long?” he asked.

“You are Englishman?”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“I am from Nigeria.”

“Oh. I see. Been raining long?”

“Two days. We done get flash-flood warning.”

With a wet sloshing of tyres the taxi climbed a gentle hill on the freeway. At its crest they were afforded a view of the north end of Manhattan. The clouds hung low over the city. The upper stories of even the more modest skyscrapers were engulfed by grey. His heart lifted at the view, but only by an inch or so. They crossed the Tri-borough Bridge and began the long drive south to Mel-issa’s apartment block. The low clouds, the relentless rain, the teeming umbrellas on the sidewalk made the crowded streets appear more fraught than ever. If your view up is denied in Manhattan, Henderson thought, the place holds about as much appeal as the Edgware Road.

They arrived at Melissa’s door. Henderson propelled Bryant beneath the dripping awning.

“Welcome back, Miss Wax,” said the doorman.

Bryant frowned, her brain trying to grasp this new information.

“Don’t tell her mother we’re here,” Henderson said. “I want it to be a surprise.”

They ascended in the lift, stepped out and pressed the buzzer on the thick door. He heard the harsh yelping of Candice and Gervase. Henderson felt like leaving Bryant on the threshold like a foundling, and tip-toeing away.

The door opened.

“Baby! Darling!” Hugs, tears, lavished kisses. Henderson followed mother and daughter into the sitting room.

“Is Duane here?”

“No, baby, he certainly is not.” Aside, in a cold, distanced voice to Henderson. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s very tired. Early start. It was a difficult journey. A cold coming we had of it.”

“What are you talking about? Here, Albertine, take Bryant to her room.” Bryant was led away by the maid. Melissa turned to face him.

“Now my fine fellow, what are we going to do about you?”

Henderson listened, head down, as his character was put through the shredder. With the damp toe of his shoe he moved the pile of the carpet this way and that. He interjected the odd rejoinder to the effect that it had been — when all was said and done — Bryant’s decision to come to Luxora and, indeed, come to think of it, Melissa’s enthusiasm about the notion had been conspicuous. But these caveats went unheard in the acid rain of scorn that descended on him.

A natural release, he told himself; all that repressed fear and apprehension has to let itself go somehow. But by now anger had given way to irony. Melissa was wondering how Henderson had spent his ‘precious’ time while her little baby was getting corrupted by some redneck pervert. She had a certain amount to learn yet about her little baby, Henderson thought.

“I suppose you got your precious paintings and you’ll go back to your precious office some kind of a hero. But what about Bryant? What kind of awful trauma?”

“You might be interested to know, Melissa,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again, “that the paintings have been destroyed and I’ve lost my job.”

That silenced her for a while.

“What kind of man are you? You…you jerk-off. What sort of an excuse for a — You’re pathetic. That’s what you are, pah-thetic!”

“Goodbye, Melissa,” Henderson said firmly, stepping abruptly to the door. He didn’t need this. Gervase and Candice bounded from the sofa — where they’d idly been surveying the row- and came yapping and nipping round his ankles.

“Gervase! Candice!” Melissa screamed.

Henderson hornpiped out of her life.

He slammed the apartment door and leant against it, a little breathless, like a heroine who has locked the inept lecher out in the passageway. He pressed the button for the lift, pursed his lips and shook his head sadly. Delete paintings, job and ex-wife. That only left Irene.

Going down in the lift he reflected with false calm that a lot of his sanity now rested on Irene’s strong shoulders. He wondered if the present moment was the one in which to assail her. He looked at his watch. Nearly lunchtime. She would be at work with her bearded brother. She always ate in the same delicatessen…perhaps that would be the place. Just saunter in: “Hi, Irene, I’m back. Wow, what a time I’ve had. Busy tonight?” It sounded good, but he had grave doubts. Still, he was a desperate man now.

“Let me call you a cab, Mr Dores,” the obliging shiny-oilskinned doorman said, opening the glass panels of the doorway and blowing the whistle he wore round his neck on a lanyard.

Three macintoshed men on the sidewalk turned round.

“Hey, Henderson,” one of them called. “No problem. We got the car round the corner.”

Chapter Two

Peter Gint, Henderson thought, had singularly bad taste in shoes. The model he was looking at, some two inches from his eyes, was a heavy, brogued, two-toned orange and brown number. That was the left shoe; the right rested on the back of his neck.

He was lying on the floor in the back of a car, heading, as far as he could determine, south through Manhattan. In the front were Freeborn and Sereno. Gint sat in the back guarding him.

When he had emerged from Melissa’s apartment block the three men had surrounded him like friends and had jovially led him away. Gint had showed him a gun, a black, clenched, snub-nosed looking thing and Henderson had decided swiftly to do everything they asked.

Once inside the car Gint had produced the gun again and asked him to lie face down on the floor. No-one had said anything, with the exception of Freeborn who from time to time leant over the front seat and said, “Bastard. We got you, you dipstick bastard.”

Henderson stared at Gint’s shoe. Some safety device in his body was preventing him from being sick all over it. He felt frightened, all right — but for some reason it wasn’t overwhelming. Every time he tried to protest Gint would increase the pressure on the back of his neck and say ‘shut up’. Lying face down as he was, Henderson could see nothing of the city. He heard only the noise of the rain on the roof, the metronomic ticking of the windscreen wipers and the splash of the tyres on the wet streets. How had they caught up with him so quickly, he wondered? But then on reflection he realized it wouldn’t have taken brilliant sleuthing to have divined where he was heading — there were plenty of airports and plenty of planes to New York — and Bryant’s presence would indicate a visit to Melissa at some early juncture. Bryant’s address?…From her abandoned luggage, no doubt, or Duane.

He pillowed his head on his arms and waited for the journey to end. What would they do to him, he wondered? What did they want of him? The continued absurdity of his predicament had ceased to give offence. It seemed now, after everything that had gone before, an entirely apt and normal state of affairs.

Eventually, the car stopped. Henderson clambered out under the watchful eye of his captors. Glancing up and down the street he saw wet mean tenements, boarded shops, ribbed and battered garage fronts. He caught a glimpse of the twin thick legs of the World Trade Centre descending from the low haze of the clouds. Above a door in front of him a fractured plastic sign read ‘OK REFRIGERATION’. The rain drenched his hair. The sidewalk gutters were overflowing, flotsam sped by driven by strong currents. The raindrops rebounded six inches when they hit the stone and asphalt. Gint pushed him into the doorway where Sereno fiddled with a clutch of fist-sized padlocks.

“What is this place?” Henderson asked. “Your gallery?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Freeborn said.

Sereno opened the doors and Henderson was pushed through into a dark concrete lobby. A large industrial elevator faced him. The grille doors were slid open and they all got in. They went up two floors. When they emerged Henderson saw they were in a large white room, brilliantly lit and filled with the noise of light industry. In one corner sparks of molten metal flashed prettily around a man welding pipes together to form a knotted intestinal fist. Beside him another man filed down the edges of a sectioned girder, bright chrome, and mounted on a three foot high marble plinth. From the far end came the hectic buzz of a high-powered spray gun as a man rendered a tall canvas dull maroon.

Sereno stood in the middle of the room and clapped his hands for silence.

“OK, boys, take a break. See you tomorrow.”

The men stopped work. Henderson looked around him, astonishment momentarily displacing his fear. Large fresh abstract canvases were stacked in piles against a wall; a rubble of scrap metal filled a corner. Sereno talked to the men as they laid down their tools.

“I like it, Jose,” Gint said to the man with the spray gun. “You’re getting real good.”

“What is this?” Henderson said, looking at the painting. “What’s going on here?”

“We call it colour field painting,” Gint said equably. “Sorta kinda like a big field, you know? Coloured.”

Sereno came over. “Corporate art,” he said. “Know how many offices there are in this country? Know how many big empty lobbies they got? They need plants and they need art. Big good art, not too expensive.”

“Big good art.”

“That’s what you got here.”

A young Hispanic girl in a grubby jersey and a tight short skirt came out of a small office at the far end of the room.

“Hey, Caridad,” Sereno said. “Take the day off. We need to use your office.”

She had a piece of paper in her hand.

“Ben,” she said. “I gotta call. Two Rothko, one Kline—”

“Early or late?”

“Jus’ black an’ white, he say. Big one.”

“Good.”

“An’ one Sam Francis.”

“Who? Do we do Sam Francis? Is it in the catalogue?”

“I got it,” Gint said, emerging from the office with an art book. He held up the illustration.

“Can you do it, Jose?”

“Ow. Is difficult, this one.” Jose scratched his head.

“Try it tomorrow. See you tomorrow, guys.”

The men filed out. Caridad went back into the office for her raincoat. She came back and stood not far from Henderson, one arm sleeved, a small beaded bag between her teeth, as her other arm probed vainly for the empty sleeve. Henderson helped her on with her coat.

“These men are holding me against my will,” he whispered. “Tell the police.”

Caridad, coated, turned and belted him round the head with her beaded handbag, some rasping, spitting Spanish oath following swiftly.

Henderson rubbed his stinging hot ear.

Sereno looked pityingly at him as Caridad walked stiffly out.

“You’re a cool one, Dores, I’ll give you that. Always the ladies’ man, eh?”

Henderson cupped his burning ear, his eyes screwed up, riven with a sudden deep hopelessness. Breakers crashed on a distant beach. He watched Freeborn and Gint shift the furniture — desk, plastic armchair, coat-stand, telephone, small filing cabinet — from the office.

“OK, Dores, let’s take a meeting.”

Gently, Sereno propelled him towards the office. Inside Henderson saw that the one interior window was covered by an iron grille, diamond patterned. The room was completely empty apart from one wooden chair. A small opaque window in the wall overlooked a filthy alleyway. The floor was wooden, heavily scored and badged with old dark stains. Ink, Henderson hoped. He couldn’t hear I any traffic noise and for the first time began to feel genuine alarm. These men, he was sure, acknowledged no civilized restraints to behaviour.

“Now listen,” he began. “I’ve been very patient, but I warn you—”

Freeborn pointed at him and he stopped talking at once. He moved nervously to the window. Nothing out there, Freeborn had a swift whispered consultation with the other two, then he took a few paces towards him.

“OK. Get the clothes off.”

“Now just one minute—”

“We can tear ‘em off, man, if you want.”

Henderson shut his eyes. Slowly he undressed. He laid shirt, jacket, trousers and tie across the wooden chair. He stood in his underpants, socks and shoes.

“Everything off.”

“Look, come on, chaps. Please.”

Gint took out his gun and pointed it at him.

“We want nekkid, Dores,” Freeborn said.

Henderson took off his shoes and socks. The floorboards were surprisingly cold; he worried vaguely about getting splinters in his soft pink soles, the risk of verrucas…The chill rose swiftly up through his body and reached the top of his skull in seconds. Goose pimples covered his body. He stripped off his underpants, threw them on the chair and held his trembling hands modestly in front of him.

“It’s not that cold, is it?” Sereno laughed.

Henderson looked away.

Gint gathered up his clothes and took them out of the office, then came back, snapping a pair of pliers in his hands.

“What’s that for?” Freeborn asked.

“You get a piece of skin in these, it’s like tearing paper.”

Henderson heard the blood leaving his head. He staggered a bit.

“Come on, Peter. Ben said I could go first,” Freeborn complained.

“Aw, here, Ben, you always let me go first.”

“Hold on there,” Freeborn said. “I mean, whose house was he in? Mine.”

“Yeah, but he’s in our office now.”

“But you wouldn’t have got him if it hadn’t been for me.”

“Yeah, but I had to—”

“Boys, boys,” Sereno said. “Relax. You got five minutes, Freeborn. Come on, Peter, give him the gun.”

Sulkily Gint handed over his gun, then he and Sereno left. Henderson heard the noise of the lift.

Freeborn wandered over. He pressed the revolver barrel against Henderson’s forehead.

“I ain’t gonna kill you yet, fuck, but I am gonna shoot your fuckin’ foot off of your leg in ten seconds if you don’t tell me what you’ve done with the paintings.” He pointed the gun at Henderson’s white twitching right foot. He looked down at his toes. The nails could do with a cut. He thought warmly of his foot’s hundreds of tiny fragile bones, its callouses, its one dear persistent corn. Finally he could speak.

“You don’t…You mean, you don’t know that—”

“If I knew I wouldn’t be here, mofo.”

“—that Duane burnt them all.”

Freeborn grabbed Henderson’s throat and tried to push the blunt barrel of the gun up his left nostril.

“Lying. Lying, you bastard!”

His big face and his glistening cusped and trefoiled beard was very close.

“It’s true,” Henderson croaked. “Last night. I saw him. I caught him at it. He said your father ordered him. Before he died. Last words.”

Freeborn stepped back, ran his fingers through his springy black hair. He looked over his shoulder, then aimed the gun at Henderson’s groin.

“It’s true,” Henderson wept softly. “How could I have stolen the paintings? Think about it. Duane burnt them. Ask anyone to check at the bottom of the back garden.”

Freeborn was prodding and tugging at his plump cheeks, as if trying to force his features to change from increasingly troubled credulity.

“Say you’re lying, Dores.”

“It’s the truth. I swear.”

“Oh Jesus, no. That dumb…that iron-brain, that fuckin’ air-head moron…” The gun dropped. Freeborn began visibly to tremble. “Oh Jesus.” He sank down on his haunches. Henderson told him the story again, in great and convincing detail, Freeborn’s terror relaxing him somewhat.

“I gotta check it out.” He stood up again. “You could be lying, Dores. Shittin’ me.” Doubt registered in his voice and eyes. “I gotta be careful. Very careful.”

He approached Henderson again. “I don’t know if you’re telling the truth, but, whatever you do don’t tell Sereno or Gint, man, or we’re dead. Both dead. D, E, D, you know?”

“I don’t see why I—”

“They’ll kill me, boy. They’ll kill you too, sure as shit.”

Freeborn paced around the room. “I’m gonna check this out. If you’re right, if you’re right, then I’ve got to fix up some way…” He paused. “I need some time.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Time,” he repeated. “Look, I know, we’ll say you hid them in Luxora someplace. Yeah. Let’s say, uh, you rented a garage off of…of, um, Ed Beak, yeah. And—”

“Just a second. Why the hell should I go along with you, for God’s sake?”

“‘Cause those mean mothers’ll blow us both away for sure, numbnuts!” he shouted in shrill panic. “I’m tryin’ to save your ass as well as my own!” He paced around some more.

Henderson kept quiet, though he sensed profound unease at being inveigled into this alliance.

“OK,” Freeborn said. “We go back to Luxora. That’ll take time. Good, good.” He stopped. He seemed suddenly on the verge of tears. He clenched his fist, and pounded it on his hip. “That pea-brain! That asshole! Why did he do that? I’m gonna kill him! I’m gonna roast his balls!” Henderson assumed Duane was the object of his venom. “Stay cool,” Freeborn advised himself. “Stay calm. Take it easy.”

“Listen, you’re not going to leave me here like this?” Henderson spread his arms.

“Got to, man. No other way. It’s got to look right. Can’t you see? If they suspect…” He focused blankly on the middle distance rubbing his beard. Henderson sensed his terror, like a gas; blood turned to soda in his veins.

“What have those two guys got on you?” Henderson asked.

“I owe them, man,” Freeborn said in a small voice. “Owe. You know? I owe them all kinds of shit. From way back, for a long time.” His face slumped. “It would’ve been all right. ‘Cept you came along.” He paused, then his voice became a harsh whisper. “They got me by the balls. One in each hand.” He held his hands out in illustration. He came over. “Play along with me, Henderson. We’ll get out of this. But don’t say nothing about that fuckwit Duane. That’s all.”

Henderson smelt his antiseptic breath.

“Yeah, and where’s Shanda?” Freeborn asked. “She’s with you, right?”

“At my apartment. Look, she asked. I didn’t—”

“Hey, that’s cool. No sweat. Done me a favour there, boy.” He raised his eyebrows. “Sorry. But I gotta do this.”

Freeborn punched Henderson in the nose, quite hard. Henderson heard a noise in his head like a walnut being crushed and everything went white and calm for a moment. When he opened his eyes it was as though he were swimming under water. He was on his knees. Blood surged steadily from his nose, splashing over his chest and belly.

“Sorry, Henderson. Had to do it. Wow, it looks bad.”

Henderson spat gouts of salty blood out of his mouth.

“Ben! Peter!” Freeborn called.

“Clodes,” Henderson said, a knuckle up each oozing nostril.

“Sorry.” Freeborn went out, returned with Henderson’s shoes. “Best I can do.”

Sereno and Gint came in.

“What you do?” Sereno said, wrinkling his nose at the blood-boltered sight.

“Says they’re in a garage in Luxora. I’ll check it out.”

“We’ll check it out,” Sereno said.

Gint still had the pliers in his hand. “Shit. I was going to tear his nipples off. Always works.”

Henderson, who was getting up, slumped back at this. His nipples throbbed spontaneously.

“Let him sweat it out,” Freeborn said. “Case he ain’t telling the truth.”

“I’ll be back,” Gint said, clicking his pliers.

They left. Henderson heard the bolt being slid to.

He sat on the chair while the last drops of blood plopped from his nose. Judging from the puddle on the floor and his encarnadined torso he must have lost a couple of pints. He stretched his legs out, let his head hang over the back of the chair. Gently, he touched his nose. It had sounded as if every bone and cartilage had been pulverized. He sat up and put on his shoes, his old black Oxfords, with shiny toe-caps. He looked around the room. There was nothing he could use to cover his nudity. It was completely empty. He crossed his legs. His hands were covered in blood and left palm prints all over his body. The blood on his chest and belly was beginning to dry, matting the hairs. He wondered what he looked like: some pallid aborigine involved in an unspeakable rite or ritual. Except the black shoes rather spoilt the image.

He thought about Freeborn, his new-found friend. The man had even called him ‘Henderson’. As he had suspected, Gage’s paintings had been mortgaged to provide his son with funds and favours. And Sereno and Gint were the brokers finally coming to collect, pick up the markers. Duane’s obedient act of destruction was likely to have further fatal side-effects. He wondered what Freeborn would do. Stall them? Go back to Luxora, ‘check out’ the garage, find it empty and return to New York to extract the truth from an anipplate Henderson…? The more he thought, the more perilous his position seemed, the more temporary his release. The time bought by his complicity allowed Freeborn the chance to extricate himself in some way or other — and he wouldn’t be overconcerned about Henderson’s fate.

He prowled round the room. Its sole window was a small casement, with four lights, about three feet by two. There was no catch. It appeared to be nailed shut. From it he could look down into a sodden litter-strewn alleyway that ran between his building and the blank brick rear of the one opposite. Craning his neck he could see grey matt clouds above but nothing else. The rain came down remorselessly. He still had his watch on, he realized. It was four o’clock, and prematurely dark. He felt hungry, thirsty and his bladder was achingly distended. He had to escape, that was all there was to it.

♦

Five hours later one of his problems had been steamily resolved in a dark corner, and he had narrowed down his escape options to one: the casement window. The door, the walls, the interior window had not yielded to the battering he had visited on them. He had grazed his knuckles vainly plucking at the wire grille over the window and had bruised his shoulder and hip hurling himself at the door. In films these things gave way with laughable ease, but he felt he had been charging at a concrete wall. This necessary reduction in escape routes was further disheartening: not only did safety lie beyond the door but so did his clothes. If he were somehow going to effect an exit via the casement window he was going to have to do it buck naked…Maybe he should just wait it out — tell Sereno and Gint the truth. But he had a suspicion that might not save his life, let alone his nipples. No, he concluded, it had to be escape, naked or not.

By now it was completely dark in his cell. His captors had left no lights on and he was reliant on the window for such faint illumination it provided. Peering out he could see nothing but darkness.

He picked up the chair and used its legs to smash through the glass panes in the window. The shards tinkled faintly in the alley below. A gust of cool air blew in, bringing with it the din of rainfall and overflowing gutters. He looked out. Nothing had changed, no-one had heard. The night was cool but not unbearably so.

For two or three minutes he bellowed “HELP!” out of the window but there was no response. He smashed the chair against the wall and with a fragment of wood knocked out the remaining slivers of glass from the window surround. That achieved, it was an easy matter to batter away the cruciform muntin. As he did this the rain dampened the dried blood on his chest and it began to run again.

He thrust his head and shoulders out of the window. He was about twenty feet up from the ground, he calculated. Some way to his left was a fire escape. To his right was a thick drainpipe, just within reach.

Diligently, he searched the frame edges for any stray glass fragments that might prove an unpleasant snag during his exit. Then he took off his shoes and tied the laces together, slinging them round his neck, before easing himself backwards out of the window, face towards the sky.

With great caution and some ricked muscles he managed to buttock-shuffle, haul and claw himself into a shaky position whereby he was standing outside on the window ledge, his upper body pressed flat against the uneven wall, his fingers jammed in the courses between the bricks. Slowly he edged in the direction of the drainpipe, an old, strong-looking cast iron thing, as thick as a thigh. He reached out and grasped it with his left hand, and, searching blindly with his left foot found a collar or moulding that gave him a toe-hold. There he stood: one foot on the window ledge the other on the drainpipe; one hand circling the pipe, the other wedged in a corner of the window embrasure. The rain pattered heavily on his bare shoulders, a breeze gusted between his spread legs cooling his dangling genitals.

He gripped and swung, hugging the drainpipe passionately to him and gasping a little at the shock of the cold cast iron on his chest and the inside of his clinging thighs. Tentatively, limpet-like, he began to inch his way down, helped by the numerous bifurcations, knobs and bead-ings on the pipe. Then his probing foot touched the ground and he sank with a sob of relief.

He put on his shoes and cautiously explored the alley. He felt wholly odd and alien in his nakedness, a soft vulnerable creature entirely unsuited for this world of hard objects. The alley, he found, was no more than five feet wide and no kind of thoroughfare, judging from the amount of rubbish and litter it contained. He discovered an up-ended wooden crate which provided some sort of shelter and slipped inside, out of the rain. He sat down cautiously, feeling for nails, the coarse wood prickling his buttocks. It was all very well being free, but freedom was drastically confined if you were naked. He looked at his watch. Eleven o’clock. He could wait a’while before he went in search of help.

He sat in his box and watched the rivulets of water on the alley floor turn into gushing rills as the rain lanced down. As he sat there he felt at once incredulous and full of self-pity. Here he was, Ph. D., author, ‘Impressionist man’, reduced to the status of latter-day troglodyte, sheltering in abandoned boxes, nude, smeared with his own blood, in the middle of New York City…He looked at his bare knees, his bald shins and damp black shoes. He held out his hands, as if offering his nails for inspection, and watched the raindrops bounce off them. It was true; it was real.

He got up and ventured palely out into the alleyway again to search for some sort of garb. There were plenty of scraps of paper, tins and plastic containers, polystyrene packing and cardboard boxes but nearly everything was soaked and useless from the rain. Eventually he found a cardboard box beneath a pile of damp wood shavings. On the side it said in large black letters:

2000 MARY MOUNTS STA-TITE MAXI-PAD SANITARY NAPKINS

Complete protection and comfort Super Thin! Super Absorbent!

He nodded. Yes, this was what he was coming to expect. But in his present state he couldn’t afford to be choosy. A little further down the alley he found great tangles of discarded plastic belting of the sort used to secure parcels. He tore his Maxi-Pad box into a long thin rectangle and wrapped it around his middle. He then wound yards of plastic belting around the box, knotting it as tightly and as best he could. He ended up with a very short cardboard mini-skirt that preserved his modesty — just — but had an annoying tendency to slip down when he walked. With more plastic belting he constructed crude braces that held the box in approximate place, even though they chafed somewhat on his shoulders.

It was amazing the difference it made to his confidence to be clothed at last, even if only in a Mary Mount Maxi-Pad box. He felt profound understanding of Adam and Eve’s urge to make themselves aprons of fig leaves after the Fall. Postlapsarian man lived on in him too.

Hesitantly, he advanced to the mouth of the alley. It was nearly midnight. He peered round the corner of the wall. The street was badly lit, deserted and under two inches of water. A car went by throwing up wings of spray from its front wheels. Automatically, he ducked back into the darkness of the alleyway. Why hadn’t he stepped out and flagged it down, he asked himself? Remember where you are, was his reply. No-one is going to come to the aid of a half-naked, bloodstained, card-board-box-wearing man after midnight in this city…He saw that the torrential rain was going to be as much his ally as his enemy — driving everyone off the streets, forcing everyone and everything into dry corners, leaving the empty rain-lashed avenues to him.

He worked out a plan. It was too risky, he thought, to head for his own apartment. He had a feeling that Freeborn and the others would be paying it a visit at some juncture. Freeborn might go looking for Shanda; or Gint might be there, with his pliers. He needed friends. He would head north up Manhattan to his only friend: Irene. Go to Irene.

Chapter Three

At half past two in the morning, Henderson set out. Sereno had said his ‘gallery’ was on the lower east side, ‘in back of Canal’. Henderson paused at the alley’s entrance. This must be Canal Street. The rain still fell, everything was quiet. He slipped out of the alley and loped in a half crouch along the street, hugging the walls.

At Canal and Forsyth he paused and took shelter in a doorway. He was out of breath, not from exertion but from excitement. Across Forsyth was a thin tree-lined park. He scampered over to it. ‘Sara D. Roosevelt Park’, a sign read. He climbed over the railings and hid behind a tree. A couple beneath an umbrella hurried past, heads down. He followed the park north, sprinting across the streets that bisected it — Grand and Delancy — until he reached East Houston Street.

Hiding behind a bush he looked at the Second Avenue subway station. Wraiths of steam drifted from manhole covers. Two cars went by and a yellow cab. Should he seek help in the subway? It looked like a gate to hell. He climbed over the park railings and walked over to the entrance. He had no money, he realized, and no identification. He stood on the sidewalk, indecisive, his chest heaving. A man came out of the subway, glanced angrily at him and went on his way, muttering and shaking his head. Of course, Henderson suddenly realized with tender elation, they think I’m mad. Just another fucking weirdo. It was a moment of true liberation. A revelation. He felt all the restraints of his culture and upbringing fall from him like a cloak slid from shoulders. He felt, in the Eugene Teagarden sense, spontaneously, unusually pure. He saw a yellow cab drive by, its ‘for hire’ light on. Emboldened, indifferent, careless, he stepped out into the street and hailed it. The taxi driver looked disgustedly at him, swore and drove on. Henderson shrugged, smiled, turned and jogged up Second Avenue. He still kept close to the walls and paused in dark doorways from time to time, but he was beginning to reassess and revalue his presence in the city…Even given the lateness of the hour New York was astonishingly quiet. He had the rain to thank for that; judging from the amount of water flowing through the streets New Yorkers would probably wake up tomorrow to find their city declared a disaster zone. Only an occasional car or empty bus interrupted the solitude. Henderson ran steadily on, his Maxi-Pad box surprisingly unimpeding and comfortable. He ran past St Mark’s Church, and paused in a doorway at Fourteenth Street. Over to his left was Union Square, but he didn’t have the nerve to go anywhere near it, even in tonight’s exceptionally inclement weather. The serious people in Union Square wouldn’t be deterred by a little rain. He would go north a few blocks and then cut over to Park Avenue South which, he knew, had a central island running the length of it, planted with bushes and shrubs and up which he could make his way, undisturbed by the rare pedestrian and with plenty of cover should the police come by.

He had thought about telephoning the police, asking them for help, but had eventually dismissed the idea. There was a good chance — given his state of dress — that they might not believe him, and he was doubtful if he could cope with the exposure of a precinct police station and all the attendant embarrassments of proving his identity. Better to forge ahead on his own, lonely and free, he calculated, and in any event he was making reasonable progress.

He moved off again, skirting Stuyvesant Square, cutting down Nineteenth Street to Park Avenue South. Gradually, confidently, he became less furtive. He realized now that he was effectively invisible in this city. With its madmen, its joggers and its twenty-four hour existence — finally, at last — he fitted in perfectly: perfectly consonant with its unique logic. Why, he was simply another mad jogger, happily patrolling the streets in the taxi-torn, rain-tormented small hours. There were, he was convinced, far stranger things going on around him. And, if he moved fast, his Maxi-Pad box, now dark brown from the rain, must look like some bizarre new athletic rig-out, setting new trends in absorbent disposable running wear…

He reached Park Avenue, ran to the central island and crouched down, getting his breath back. A patrol car motored past and he drew himself behind a small bush. He let it go. Above him the stacked lights in the tall buildings quickly grew fuzzy before being enveloped by dark clouds. A few cars hissed by on either side of him but the pavements were deserted. He set off up the central reservation. He wondered what anyone — casually watching the rain fall from their apartment window — would think if they saw him, a pale ghostly figure slipping from shrub to shrub, darting across street, incongruous in his heavy black walking shoes…This was surely, he thought as he ran, the apotheosis of his shame and embarrassment. No basically shy person could experience any ordeal so hellishly demanding and harrowing, so testing as this. After his naked run through Manhattan he could hardly complain about other travails: nothing could be as uncompromisingly harsh as what he was currently undergoing.

And yes, he felt surprisingly good. Untroubled, oddly calm. He ran on — not strongly, but steadily — stumbling occasionally, his feet catching in the ivy that grew along the flower beds of the Park Avenue Central reservation, the heavy raindrops striking his face and chest.

He made good progress up Park Avenue until his way was blocked by Grand Central Station and the Pan-Am building. At Forty-second Street he paused by a traffic light, halted by a sudden and typical flow of cars. A wet man stood waiting for the ‘walk’ sign. Henderson jogged on the spot beside him, intoxicated with his new freedom.

The man looked round, swaying slightly.

“Y’all right, man?”

“Me?” Henderson panted. “Couldn’t be better.”

“Keepin’ fit, yeah?”

“That’s it.”

“Some sorta — what — athlete, yeah? Athletics, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Mary Mount Maxi-Pads,” he read slowly.

“My sponsors.”

“Hey, congratulations.”

The light changed, Henderson jogged on. He had been accepted, the moment had come and gone, but he had joined America at last. He cut up Vanderbilt Avenue on to Forty-fifth and then up Madison. He ran slowly, easily, not exhausting himself, pausing for breath when he got a stitch, enjoying the unfettered luxury of his temporary status as madman, American and jogger. He cut across at Fifty-ninth and loped casually by the Plaza, Central Park’s dark green mass on his right. Irene was now only a few blocks away. He looked at his watch: half past four.

Outside Irene’s block he paused. He stood in a doorway and checked himself over. The Maxi-Pad box was showing signs of wear and tear; bits were disintegrating from the wet and his flanks showed through gaps where the friction of his running had caused the damp cardboard to wear through. His shoulders were red and a little sore from the rubbing of the plastic braces. Making his fingers stiff claws he tried, incongruously, to put a parting in his hair.

He crept up to the apartment door. The lobby was lit, but no-one sat at the lectern. He pressed the buzzer on the aluminium pole and waited. Nothing happened. He was beginning to feel nervous and ordinary again, now that his heroic epic run was over. It was beginning to disappear, wear off. He was being normal once more, ringing doorbells, visiting, asking favours. He pressed the buzzer.

A door opened in the rear wall of the lobby and a small man came out, shrugging on a jacket. Henderson, suddenly wary — like an Amazonian native suspicious of his first encounter with strangers — shrunk back against the wall out of sight.

“Yeah?” came a metallic voice from the pedestal.

“I want to see Ms Stien,” Henderson whispered loudly in its direction.

“What?”

“Come to the door.”

The man advanced cautiously. With dismay Henderson saw that it was Bra.

“Who is it?” Bra asked, peering into the shadows.

“Bra,” Henderson whispered from his hiding place, “it’s me, Mr Dores.”

“Who are you? Where are you?”

“Here. To the side. Your right.” Henderson waved.

“Come out of there, ya fuckin’ freak!”

Henderson stood up and stepped into view. Bra backed off in patent shock.

“Hello, Bra, It’s me, Mr Dores. I need to see Ms Stien. I’m in terrible trouble.”

“What?…Get outa here! What are you?”

“Look, Bra. It’s…it’s a matter of life and death.”

“Get your ass outa here, ya fuckin’ geek! I warn you, I gotta gun in here!”

“Bra, it’s me. Mr Dores. You know me. I was here the other day.”

“I count to ten. I call the cops.”

He saw Bra lift the phone. With bitter, disgusted tears in his eyes he ran off into the dark. That little bastard knew it was me, he swore. He had done that deliberately. He ran full tilt down the road towards Central Park. A significant portion of his box came away revealing a section of pallid haunch. The rain still fell with healthy force; it showed no sign of relenting. At this rate he’d be naked again in half an hour — swaddled only in a plastic belting. But now he didn’t feel so wonderful — so transformed at the prospect. He had no money, he couldn’t even phone anyone…What he needed were clothes. It had never struck him as the key prerequisite for survival in the West. If you’re half naked you are a non-person, a subversive, a deviant. You can do nothing unless you are properly dressed. Shoes, trousers, a shirt-the sine qua non of social action.

He needed clothes…Perhaps he could mug somebody? Dare he return to his apartment? But what if Freeborn and Sereno were there? What if they had discovered his escape by now? And then, suddenly, he remembered where he kept a second suit of clothes. The Queensboro Gym. His fencing gear. He looked at his watch. Five o’clock. Only a matter of hours until it opened. He looked up at the sky. Keep raining, he implored. He set off. Straight down Fifty-ninth Street, all the way.

♦

Henderson found a place to hide in a basement well opposite the gym. To his alarm it was beginning to get light with inconsiderate speed. Soon the first keen commuters would be arriving. Like witches and hobgoblins people like him should be off the streets by the time the first cock crowed, he thought. He felt, lurking close behind him, rank breath stirring the hairs on his nape, a vast implacable exhaustion waiting to pounce. He confirmed the time: half five. The gym opened at seven. He was suddenly gripped by a fierce hunger and realized he hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours.

He looked at the grey empty streets, still hosed by curtains of rain. A puddle the size of a football pitch swamped the intersection of York and Fifty-eighth. A car had been abandoned in the middle, the water lapping at the radiator. Around its perimeter stepped a neat, waterproofed, track-suited figure, carrying small dumbbells in each hand. See, Henderson told himself, there are madder people than me out on the streets…

“Teagarden! Eugene, over here! Over here!”

Teagarden trotted over and looked down at him.

“Well, Mr Dores. What a surprise.”

Henderson clambered out of his basement well. His Mary Mount Maxi-Pad box was now the consistency of porridge. With every step part of it fell away.

Teagarden looked at him.

“Yeah…” he nodded. “Pretty good.”

Henderson shrugged. “Well…”

“Told you you shouldn’t ought to have gone down there. What happened?”

“Long story, Eugene.”

“I’m sure.”

“Going to the gym?”

“Yes.”

“Saved my life, Eugene.”

They strolled across the street to the gym. Teagarden unlocked the door and switched on the lights. Henderson sat down opposite his locker with a squelch. He suddenly felt like crying. He also felt like telling Teagarden that he loved him, so abject was his gratefulness, but he refrained.

“Whew,” he said. “Quite a night, one way and another.” Now that it was over all the emotions he had pent up overwhelmed him, like a football crowd invading the pitch. For a few moments his brain succumbed to the mindless violence.

“Like some coffee?” Teagarden said.

“Please.”

The gym was quiet and cool; it seemed like a sanctuary, a holy place. Teagarden went off to boil a kettle. Heh-derson stood up. With both hands he ripped away chunks of his Maxi-Pad box. A shower. A meal. A change of clothes…

“Well hello there, Mr Dores.”

He looked up. Freeborn, Sereno and Gint stood at the end of his file of lockers. Gint was pointing his gun at him. “Quite a dance you’ve led us, Mr Dores,” Sereno said. “Luxora and back in twelve hours. Quite a dance.”

“Shoot the fucker,” Freeborn implored. “Off him, Peter.”

“First he has to tell us where the paintings are.”

“How did you…? I mean…”

Sereno waved his address book. “Not many New York addresses, Mr Dores. Peter spent the night in your apartment. We’ve just been there. Missed you by minutes at Ms Stien’s.”

“Blow him away, Peter! Waste the bastard!”

Sereno glanced suspiciously at Freeborn.

“Where are the paintings, Mr Dores?”

“They’re burnt, destroyed. Duane burned them on Loomis Gage’s instructions. Ask Freeborn.”

“Give me the fuckin’ gun!” Freeborn leapt for Gint’s hand but was elbowed easily away. Then Gint went very still.

“Don’t move,” Teagarden said. “Or else this thing’s gonna be stickin’ out your mouth.”

Teagarden held a sabre to the back of Gint’s neck, the point on his hairline. Gint stood like a man who has just had an ice-cube dropped down his shirt, back arched, chest out.

“Drop the piece and kick it over to Mr Dores.”

Gint did this. Henderson picked the gun up. It was somehow much heavier than he imagined. He pointed it vaguely at Freeborn.

Teagarden walked round Gint keeping the point of his sabre at his neck.

“OK, shitbrains, beat it.”

Freeborn turned and ran. Sereno watched him go.

“So the paintings are burnt,” Sereno said. “Making sense, at last.” He and Gint backed off.

“Duane burned them. Look at the bottom of the garden behind the Gage mansion.”

“Shame,” Sereno said. “I never really wanted the house. But beggars can’t be choosers.”

He and Gint turned and left.

“Very impressive, Eugene,” Henderson said weakly. “Thanks a lot. Here, you can keep the gun.”

Chapter Four

When Henderson next appeared on the streets of Manhattan he was slightly better dressed. He wore his whites — poloneck, knickerbockers, socks and gymshoes. Teagarden had lent him a green windcheater and ten dollars for a taxi. In gratitude, Henderson had signed up for a two-week crash course in epée.

He hailed a taxi and it drove him to his apartment. On the way he wondered what Sereno and Gint would do to Freeborn when they caught him.

At his apartment he picked up his mail. The doorman handed him a parcel.

“Special delivery,” he said. “Just arrived from the airport. Your friend was here earlier, but he said he couldn’t wait.”

Henderson ascended in the elevator. The whole ghastly adventure was now, he hoped, over. He pressed the buzzer on his door. Sereno and Gint had his clothes, wallet, address book, keys. Minor inconveniences.

Bryant opened the door.

“Hi,” she said. “God. What are you wearing?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I can’t take it any more at home, Henderson. Mom, those fucking dogs—”

“Bryant—”

“Sorry.” She paused. “Henderson, can I stay here? I don’t want to go back. Please?”

“Yes, by all means, of course.” He went in. She seemed to have forgotten Duane.

Shanda sat on the sofa.

“My God, what are you wearing?” She got up and waddled over. “Hi.” She pecked him on the cheek. “That Peter Gint was here all night. Boy, is he off the wall…Then Freeborn and Ben came by real early. Freeborn messed the place up a bit. I was cleaning up when Bryant arrived. You know what?”

“What?”

“Freeborn took his denim jacket back. Can you believe that?”

Henderson sat down heavily in his ransacked sitting room, dumping the parcel on the coffee table. He shuffled his mail: catalogue, bill, bill, catalogue, letter. He ripped it open.

Dear Henderson,

Enclosed is a bill for cleaning. $13.50 for removing oil stains from my jacket sleeve. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked. The suit cost $175.00. We can settle up when you get back. Too bad about the Gage pix. But it’s an ill wind…Remember the man in Boston with the Winslow Homers? Ian Toothe went up there last week. It seems he also had two Pissarros and a Renoir and Ian persuaded him to sell them all. Good old Ian — saved our bacon, as you guys say.

Yours, Pruitt.

§

“You want some breakfast?” Bryant asked.

“Some, uh…Coffee, please.”

Bryant went into the kitchen. Shanda came and sat on the arm of his chair, her belly at eye-level, her musky farinaceous smell filling his nostrils.

“Freeborn’s throwed me out. He says you can keep me.”

“Oh really? Very big of him.”

“Could we get married, Henderson? I’d kinda like for the baby to have a daddy.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

He got up, went into the bathroom and ran a bath. He locked the door, stripped off and soaked for twenty minutes or so. He thought distractedly of the last few days. He got out, shaved and went through to his bedroom. He fell asleep almost instantly. When he woke it was midday. He changed into clean clothes.

Back in the sitting room the air was blurry with cigarette smoke. Shanda scrambled some eggs and brewed some coffee. As he was eating, the telephone rang. Shanda answered.

“No,” she said. “My name is Shanda McNab.”

Pause.

“Yes, I am staying here. Who is this please?”

Pause.

“No, I’m Henderson’s fiancée. Oh.” She looked round. “She hung up.”

“Who was it?” Henderson said with sudden alarm.

“Bryant’s mommy. She says you’re a cheap bastard and she never wants to see you again.”

“Typical,” Bryant said. “Hey, are you guys getting married? Congratulations.”

Henderson opened another letter. It was from his car rental firm. The letter informed him that the car he had hired in New York had been written off during a car chase after a bank robbery in Biloxi, Mississippi. Could he throw any light on the matter? The cost of the car was $18,750.00.

He asked Bryant to make him some more coffee. Shanda sat opposite him smoking a cigarette. He wondered what he was going to do. He leafed through his mail. Circular, bill, bill, airmail.

Airmail. His own handwriting. Postmark Galashiels. Inside, scored sheets of Campbell Drew’s strong uncompromising hand.

Dear Mr Dores,

Thank you for your letter. As you know your father was in six column of Wingate’s first expedition across the Chindwin. On the list of March 1943 we had made camp just prior to attacking a Japanese base at Pinbon. Before we were to attack we were notified of an airdrop for new supplies.

It had been decided that, due to our being behind enemy lines, it was not safe for airdrops to be made by parachute. The procedure was for the supply plane to fly low over the jungle and the provisions and ammunition were simply thrown out of the hatch. Of course many stores went missing, but, for security reasons, it was far safer than parachutes.

Captain Dores ordered the company to spread out along the area marked for the drop. We had been on the march for weeks and were short of all supplies. This drop was crucial for us.

The plane, a Dakota, as I remember, came over fast and low, the crates tumbling out of the hatchway. We gathered up what we could and reported to company H.Q. We assembled there with our collection of supplies. Then it was noticed that Captain Dores was missing. I and three other men went in search of him.

I am very sorry to say, sir, that your father was killed by a tin of pineapple chunks. A crate of supplies had broken up in mid-air scattering the tins haphazardly. Your father was hit full on the head. I know he died instantly.

I am very sorry to bring you these unfortunate details. I had been with your father since Imphal. He was a very brave man.

Yours faithfully,

Campbell Drew

Henderson carefully folded up the letter. A tin of pineapple chunks. Embedded in his skull.

“Are you OK, Henderson?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Bad news?”

“No, no. Entirely expected.”

“What’s in your parcel?”

He breathed in deeply. Ach well, he thought, where’s the sense? He tore open the parcel. Demeter and Baubo, frameless, and a letter from Cora.

Dear Henderson,

Duane couldn’t bring himself to burn this one. I found it in his room and he told me every thing. I guess Sereno and Gint will be down for the house next week. I thought you should have this, as it’s your favourite. Think about it.

Cora

§

Bryant and Shanda looked over his shoulder. Henderson knew he couldn’t keep it. Cora might be able to buy off Sereno.

“I’ve seen that before,” Shanda said, frowning. “Somewhere.”

“I don’t like it much,” Bryant offered.

Henderson held Drew’s letter in one hand and Demeter and Baubo in the other. What was it old man Gage had said?…He knew now what he was going to do. He folded up his letter. Collision of soft grey brain with hard tin of pineapple chunks. A good way to go.

“Make yourself at home,” he said to Bryant and Shanda. “I’ll be back later.”

♦

Henderson Dores walks briskly down Park Avenue towards the forties. It looks quite different now the rain has stopped and the warm midday sun makes everything steam and exhale. He finds it hard to believe that a few hours ago he was creeping through the neat shrubs of the central reservation, clad only in a cardboard box. It might have happened to a different person…

He cuts over on Fifty-seventh and then down Fifth. Huge puddles still prove obstacles to traffic and there is much irate hooting of horns, and colourful oaths fill the air. He turns onto Forty-seventh at the Eastern Airlines building and walks along it until he sees the delicatessen where Irene goes for lunch. He walks with measured purposeful tread.

If everyone wants to be happy, and everyone is going to die, then there’s really no option, he tells himself, suddenly seeing everything with a new clarity. The whole can of worms took on some sort of focus; the immense hill of beans arranged itself in some sort of order. Teagarden and his zencing, his own shyness, Beckman’s blinks, Melissa and her dogs, Bryant’s breasts, Gage’s boxing, Shanda’s baby, Cora’s sadness, the general’s WAC, Demeter and Baubo, and, finally, his own father’s fatal encounter with a flying tin of pineapple chunks one hot day in the Burmese jungle in 1943.

He pushes open the door. Irene sits with a pleasant young man, not unlike Pruitt Halfacre. Henderson approaches.

“Irene,” he says, “I’m back. It’s all over.”

Irene swings round, an ambiguous expression on her face.

“DORES, YOU BASTARD!”

People scream, plates drop with a crash. Henderson crouches instinctively and the first shot smashes into the plasti-pine veneer above Irene’s booth.

Duane stands in the doorway, his fat face shiny with hot tears, shaking gun in both hands.

“YOU STOLE HER YOU BASTARD!”

Henderson, bent double, plunges through the bright plastic strips that hang from the lintel of the kitchen door. Various oriental chefs in damp singlets are surprised to see him scramble through the cookers and kitchen units towards the rear exit. From behind him come more screams and crashing furniture as Duane pursues.

Henderson explodes into the mean alleyway between Forty-seventh and Forty-sixth, barging heavily into a tramp picking through the trash cans.

“Sorry,” Henderson gasps, regaining his balance.

The tramp’s face is familiar. The shades, the trilby, the raincoat…

“The furrier at midnight—”

“I know,” Henderson yells. “I know all about that now!”

He turns and runs up the alleyway, running as though his life depended on it (and it does), his legs pounding, his hands clawing air, striving with all his might and all his effort to reach the distant, sunlit vision of the teeming streets ahead.

EOF