The Four Johns

Chapter 7

When the floor nurse chased them out, Mervyn was pale and Susie was thoughtful.

They waited for the elevator in strained silence. Finally Mervyn laughed nervously. “The poor woman must be hallucinated.”

“She seemed quite rational till she saw you,” Susie observed.

Mervyn gave her a sour look. “She’s off her rocker, that’s what she is.”

“It seems to me,” Susie said, “that’s a pretty feeble defense.”

“My God!” he cried. “You can’t really believe...?”

“Does it matter what I believe, Mr. Gray?”

The elevator door opened; they rode down in an unfriendly silence. On the sidewalk Susie smiled distantly and said, “Thanks for the lift. I have an errand to do. I’ll leave you here.”

With a hurt nod, Mervyn turned on his heel. He climbed into his car and sat glowering at the world. He hated the whole planet, notably those of its denizens who were female and fat and neurotic and had paranoid delusions. Why in heaven’s name had old Mrs. Kelly accused him of having shoved her down the steps? She must be out of her ever-loving mind.

Still, Mervyn was uneasy. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed to him that there was a connection between his unknown tormentor and what had just happened in Room 406. But what, how, why? He started the car and edged out into traffic.

For a few minutes he drove aimlessly, letting his blood cool. Finally he looked at his watch. Two-thirty. Thesis? Study? Research? He laughed unhappily. Fat chance!

YOU’LL SUFFER, the note had said.

Stimulated to fury anew, Mervyn made recklessly for the Bayshore Freeway. He shot across the Bay Bridge and swung down the First Street off-ramp into the heart of San Francisco.

In a pay-phone directory at a service station, he looked up John Viviano’s address: 30 San Angelo Place. Viviano’s house proved to be a relic of pre-1906 San Francisco, clinging to the north side of Telegraph Hill, with a travel-poster view of the Embarcadero and the bay. The pinch-front frame structure was painted a dazzling white; there was a great deal of rococo fretwork and scrimshaw, and two bay windows on each floor. On the pane of the front door, ancient chipped white enamel letters proclaimed:

Mervyn stepped into a foyer that startled him. There was black carpeting on the floor and the walls were covered with black velvet. To the left stood a spraddle-legged table painted the greenish white-blue of verdigris, supporting an antique lamp with a celadon base and a green Tiffany-glass shade.

If the décor startled him, what hung on the opposite wall almost toppled him. It was a huge photograph in an ugly gun-metal frame of a standing young woman in a décolleté Empire-like gown. She had one knee resting on a Louis XIV chair and both hands lightly touching the chair’s top. And she was staring right at Mervyn with a Mona Lisa smile, and she was Mary Hazelwood.

The confrontation was so unexpected that Mervyn’s heart stopped for a moment. And into his mind flashed the nightmarish image of that twisted cold figure in pale blue making an obscene splash in dark water... Mervyn winced and turned hastily from the photograph.

The buzzer on the inner door was answered by a dark, skinny young man in a gray smock. He was almost totally bald, short and bandy-legged, with tobacco-fouled fingers. A pair of extraordinarily large black eyes looked Mervyn up and down.

“Yes?” the young man said.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Viviano.”

“I’m Viviano. Frank Viviano.”

“Oh, I wanted John Viviano.”

“He’s not here right now.”

There was the faintest overtone in the man’s voice — mockery, contempt, condescension? “Will he be gone long?” Mervyn asked.

Frank Viviano shrugged. “Maybe a half hour.”

“I’ll wait if I may.” Mervyn jerked his head toward the photograph. “That’s Mary Hazelwood, isn’t it?”

“Search me. I don’t keep track of them.”

Frank Viviano stepped back and Mervyn preceded him into a large studio that was in striking and perhaps purposeful contrast to the arty foyer. The walls were unpainted plasterboard. The room was a clutter of lights, reflectors, props, cameras and photographic accessories.

“Find a seat,” said Frank Viviano indifferently. He went to a workbench, where he seemed to be repairing a large view camera.

Mervyn strolled about the studio. He looked in at the cameras — Linhof, Leica, Nikon, Mamiyaflex and two Rolleiflexes. But after a while he wandered over to the workbench. Casting about for a conversational opening, he said, “Is this a quiet day for you?”

Frank Viviano nodded. “More or less. It comes in spurts. We don’t shoot much around here, just special stuff.”

“I thought John designed clothes.”

“He’ll do anything for a buck.” Frank Viviano spread glue along a joint, tightened a clamp. “Designing is his downtown job. This is uptown, where life is real. Are you from some agency? Or independent?”

Mervyn was puzzled. “I don’t get you.”

“Aren’t you a model?”

“Hell, no.”

Frank grunted. Mervyn tried another tack. “John said he’d meet me last Friday night and he never showed up. What was he doing?”

Viviano shook his bald head. “Might as well try to chase down a seagull as John.”

“You’re his brother?”

“Yeah. Couple of North Beach paisans.” He raised the lens board and tested the shutter. “I’ve about had it. I’m joining the Peace Corps. Get away, see something new for a change.”

“I’m about ready myself,” Mervyn said.

The brother looked up. “What do you do? You got any skills?”

“I read and write,” Mervyn answered. “I’m pretty good at tennis. In high school I played the violin.”

“I don’t think you’ll make it.”

“Make what?”

“The Peace Corps.”

“It’s true I’m not the pioneer type.”

“Somebody’s got to take it on,” said Viviano in a hard voice. “Time’s over when we can let the other slobs live like dogs. Do you know what it’s like in Ethiopia?” He studied Mervyn intently, the great eyes as blackly pitiless as the camera lens he held in his hand.

“All I know about Ethiopia is that Haile Selassie is the Lion of Judah, and that it used to be called Abyssinia.”

“I mean with the people. Hell, their lot hasn’t improved in six thousand years. Ethiopians are human, aren’t they? Just like you and me.”

Mervyn asked gravely, “You going to teach them photography?”

Frank Viviano gave him a suspicious look. “Why not? Pictures have a universal appeal. They’ll go nuts over photos of Aunt Minnie making hyena soup, Rover chasing a baboon, Junior trying out his first spear.”

Mervyn glanced at his watch. “That picture of Mary Hazelwood in the foyer — was it taken here?”

“Where else? With a long lens on the Mamiyaflex. She’s a natural beauty. Nice kid. You a friend of hers?”

“I know her.”

John Viviano’s brother barked his dark laugh. “She’s got John on the run, but good. When he starts goddamning a dame, I know he’s hooked. He’s susceptible — that’s how he got into this business. It attracts a lot of queers, but John’s all man. He takes a job where he can handle women, because that’s what he likes to do best.”

“You’re his partner?”

“Partner, manager, errand boy, floor mat. I also do most of the work. John is the woman handler. How he loves to handle women.” Viviano raised his head. “That’s him now.”

John Viviano came in jauntily. He stopped abruptly at sight of Mervyn. He set a camera bag down, came over to the bench and stared at the camera his brother was fixing. “That monstrous old Deardorff.”

“We need a big view,” grunted the older man. “Takes good pictures.”

“I’m glad you like it. I think it’s a dinosaur.”

“If a dinosaur can make me a good big negative, I’ll use a dinosaur.”

At this point John Viviano turned his attention to Mervyn. “What brings you here, Gray?” His voice was not unfriendly.

“I want your help,” said Mervyn.

Viviano glanced at him sharply, then at his watch. “Come upstairs. I’m in a hurry, but there’s time for a drink.”

He took Mervyn up a narrow staircase into a sunny parlor with white walls, a red carpet, a green Empire sofa and an ornate gilt mirror. “Scotch? Bourbon?”

“Bourbon.”

Viviano went into a pantry, returned with a pair of glasses. “Been here long?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“You talk much to my brother Frank?”

“Some.”

“What did Frank have to say?”

Who’s pumping whom? Mervyn thought. “Nothing of any consequence,” he said carelessly. “About the Peace Corps, mostly.”

John Viviano began to stride back and forth. “They’d never take him. He’s a crackpot. Full of screwy ideas. Well, Gray, what’s on your mind?”

“Mary Hazelwood.”

“Dear Mary. You saw the photograph?”

“Yes. Well... to be candid, John, I’m in love with her.”

“Who isn’t? So?” Viviano snapped his fingers impatiently.

“She’s gone off somewhere, and I’m worried. She hasn’t communicated even with Susie. I thought you might have some idea where she is.”

Viviano laughed, thrusting his head forward like a snake. “Why don’t you say what you mean? No, I’m not the ‘John.’ Some other John is the ‘John.’ Whoever he is, I envy him. I’m in love with Mary, too.”

Mervyn tried to look earnest. “I believe you, Viviano. But Mary doesn’t know too many Johns. Let’s face facts.”

“As many as you like. I am without sensitivity.”

“Our ‘John,’ now. Suppose he’s married. Or has some other reason for wanting to keep his affair with Mary secret.”

John Viviano stopped in his tracks. “So?”

“So, when I come around asking questions about Mary, he denies everything.”

The photographer said in an ugly voice, “So?”

“You won’t be offended if I ask where you were last Friday evening?”

“I will not be offended, no. But I will decline to answer.”

“I only want to eliminate the name John Viviano from my list,” Mervyn said humbly.

“Your solicitude frightens me. These other Johns — who are they?”

“John Boce, John Thompson, John Pilgrim.”

“You have eliminated them?”

“Not yet.”

Viviano showed his teeth in a wolfish grin. “You’re an imbecile, Gray. Whoever Mary went off with, he would not be here, would he? Hence why ask me about Friday night?”

“I’d still like to know.”

The grin practically slavered. “My friend, I cannot tell you. Delicacy forbids. We are two red-blooded Americans. If I suggest that Friday night I enjoyed the company of a beautiful woman — not Mary — you will understand?”

“Can you give me her name?”

“What do you take me for?” asked the photographer loftily.

Mervyn bade John Viviano farewell.

He drove slowly back across the bridge to Berkeley. At a San Pablo Avenue drive-in he ordered a cheeseburger, and gloomily chewed it and the events of the day. They added up to zero. Evasions from John Boce, polite obstinacy from John Thompson, mock-gallantry from John Viviano. Leaving John Pilgrim.

Recalling the empty wine bottles in Pilgrim’s cottage, Mervyn crossed the street to a liquor store and bought a bottle of cheap sherry. Then he drove back to 1909½-A Milton Street.

There was a battered Lambretta motorcycle parked outside, and he could hear guitar chords in a plaintive random progression. He was in luck. Mervyn knocked, and the door opened.

“John Pilgrim?” Mervyn said eagerly.

“I’m Pilgrim. Yes?” John Pilgrim was a big, lean, lithe young man with a formidable face, broken-nosed and jut-jawed and intent as an animal’s. His skin was sallow and there was a little gray in his short black bristly hair. He wore coffee-colored corduroys, much stained, a shirt that had once been maroon, and scuffed black moccasins. While Mervyn was ready to concede him a certain virile magnetism, he found it hard to understand Mary Hazelwood’s interest.

“I’m Mervyn Gray. Friend of Mary Hazelwood’s?”

“Are you the guy who telephoned the other night?” Pilgrim growled.

“Which other night?”

“Saturday. Around twelve.”

Mervyn remembered; John Boce had called Pilgrim from Oleg Malinski’s. “That was somebody else.”

“This sudden popularity,” Pilgrim said, still growling. “Why?”

Mervyn was suddenly tired and disgusted. But he managed to say patiently, “Mary took off for parts unknown Friday night with a fellow named John. There was some speculation it might have been you.”

The intent eyes looked Mervyn over, apparently decided he was harmless. “That’s one speculation you can kiss good-bye.”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Mervyn said. He glanced down at his paper sack. “Say, I’ve got a bottle of sherry here. Do you imbibe?”

Pilgrim said promptly, “Come on in.”

Mervyn followed him into the living room. On the studio couch sat a young woman, with Mother Earth hips and a narrow waist; she wore her hair in bangs. She glanced at Mervyn once, then bent over her guitar. The chords resumed sadly.

John Pilgrim fetched two glasses from the kitchen; he paid no attention to the woman guitarist. Mervyn snapped the cap off the sherry bottle and poured. Pilgrim sipped. “Your name is what again?”

“Mervyn Gray.”

He nodded reflectively. “Mary’s mentioned you. Said I ought to talk to you.”

“Oh? What about?”

“Poetry. I call myself a poet.” He grunted. “Nowadays the word means nothing. Not a damned thing.”

“It’s an obsolete art,” Mervyn agreed.

Pilgrim scowled into his glass. “I kind of feel that way myself. Yet there’s never been a greater need for it.”

“Yes, there’s still the gap in the mind that poetry used to fill.”

Pilgrim replenished his glass. “Mary said you were a poet.”

“Hardly. I translate medieval troubadour songs.”

“You don’t look the type,” Pilgrim said critically. “I took you for an egg-slicer salesman.”

“You don’t exactly look like a librarian,” Mervyn said, stung. “More like a bouncer in a barroom.”

Pilgrim waved the glass. “That library job was just a fill-in for afternoons. I’ve got a night job. As soon as I get enough loot, I’m going to Japan. In Japan poetry is big. Even the Emperor writes haiku.”

“You know Japanese?”

“Not enough to read haiku. Not yet, anyway.”

The level in the bottle diminished. Suddenly the woman on the couch rose, carrying the guitar, and without a word went out. She shut the front door very softly. Pilgrim did not even look around.

Mervyn steered the conversation back into the channel of his more immediate interest. “A strange business, that thing about Mary. Not one of the Johns she knows will admit having seen her Friday night. You had a thing going with her, too, didn’t you?”

John Pilgrim’s battered lips curled in a sneer. “An ice-cream cone jumping up and down to be licked.”

If that’s a sample of your poetic talent, Mervyn thought, I’ll stick to the twelfth century. “Oh, then it was you she phoned Friday night?”

“Me? Friday night? Say.” Pilgrim drained the glass and set it down powerfully. “What are you, Mervyn, the fuzz? Why all the questions?”

“I told you. Mary arranged to meet somebody named John last Friday night. I’m trying to find out which John it was.”

“What did he do, rape her?”

“Don’t be common,” Mervyn said coldly.

“Common!” Pilgrim gave him an entomological look. “You a square or something? Since when is rape common? It’s the height of individual expression, like you thumb your nose at the fat-asses. But if you’re thinking it was Pilgrim, forget it. Old Johnny’s life is an open book.”

“The freshness of your metaphor o’erwhelms me,” Mervyn said. “I take your last remark to mean that you didn’t see Mary Friday night?”

“What did the other Johns tell you?”

“Not a bloody thing,” said Mervyn bitterly. “They all laughed when I sat down and made like a detective.”

“I was a detective once,” the poet said, refilling his glass only. “Bellhopping, and a shamus slipped me a finif to tip him off when this fatcat from Waukegan staggers in with his fluff and beds down for the night. Big deal. They didn’t even have the covers off. What are you playing dick-dick for, man?”

Mervyn braced himself against the rising tide. “I — want — to know — where Mary went and whom she’s with!!!!”

Pilgrim chuckled. “She ain’t with me. You can see that.”

“Why don’t you just tell me,” Mervyn shouted, “where the hell you were Friday night?”

“Go back to dick-dick school,” said John Pilgrim calmly. “You got a lot to learn, Mervyn.” And, eliminating the intermediate step, he picked up the sherry bottle and partook of its contents directly.

In berserk fury, Mervyn dashed from John Pilgrim’s pad. He drove to the Yerba Buena Garden Apartments like Ben Hur, blundered directly to his apartment, flung himself on the bed, breathing hard...

He awoke at midnight stiff as a corpse. His tongue felt like a newly skinned skunk pelt and his head filled the room. He limped to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, dosed himself with aspirin; then he undressed and crept under the covers.

At dawn’s early light he was still thrashing about in pursuit of Morpheus. Finally he gave up the chase, swung his shaky legs to the floor, kneaded his aching back and tried to face the challenge of another day. He showered, shaved, dressed, made coffee, scrambled eggs, burned the toast. While he was munching away, the mailman entered the court and began to move along the honor guard of mailboxes like a visiting VIP. Mervyn pushed his chair back and went out, feeling a great dread, for his mail.

There was only one letter in his box. It was a plain cheap white envelope; his name and address were in typescript; there was no return address. Mervyn hurried back to his apartment, locked the door, laid the envelope beside his plate, and stared at it.

But it was just a cheap envelope.

Well, Mervyn thought, there’s no sense stalling any longer.

He slit the envelope open with his fork, getting the slit rather eggy, and looked in. A single folded sheet of plain white paper. Like the last time.

So he took the enclosure out of the envelope and unfolded it and read what was written on it.

One word, in a ballpoint pen, printed: