Chapter 10


The dean had given me Typhanie Hall's address, which was in Cambridge, and Luis Deleon's, which was, improbably, in Marblehead. Cambridge was closer, and I had a suspicion that Marblehead was going to be a waste of time, so here I was with an appointment to see Typhanie on a bright sunny morning. Crocuses were up, and the Harvard students were out in all their infinite variety. I waited in my car on Brattle Street while two Episcopalian women wearing big hats and Nike running shoes paused in the middle of the road to discuss human rights. I wanted to run them over. Cambridge was the jay-walking capital of the world, and I felt the only way to get control of the situation would be to kill a few. I was, however, wary of the Cambridge Police, so I blew my horn instead. The ladies looked up and glared at me. One, wearing purple stockings and sandals, gave me the finger.

I didn't like where the Lisa St. Claire thing was going, but I wasn't in charge of where it went. So when the ladies got out of the way, I parked near Longfellow Park under a sign that said Resident Parking Only, and found Typhanie Hall's address, down. a side street, near Mt. Auburn.

Typhanie had an apartment with a side entrance on the first floor of a large yellow Victorian house. When she let me in she was wearing aquamarine spandex tights and an oversized navy blue tee shirt. Her bright yellow hair was pulled back and held in place with one of those frilly elastic dinguses designed for the purpose. A long pony tail spilled down her back. She had on a lot of eye shadow, and her nails were long and brilliant red. Like, wow!

"Do you have any word on Lisa?" she said when I was in and seated on a big hassock in her blond wood living room.

"Not really," I said. "You?"

"No. I'm worried to death about her. Ordinarily we talk nearly every day."

"You have no idea where she might go?"

"Maybe her dad," Typhanie said. "She always talked about visiting her dad."

"You know where her dad might be?"

"No."

"You know his name?"

"No."

"Is his last name St. Claire?"

"I don't know. She always said she wanted to find him, but she would never talk about him. Would you like some coffee? Or tea?"

"No thanks."

A big yellow cat came around the corner and sniffed at my foot and then rubbed himself along my leg.

"That's Chekov," she said. "He's usually not that friendly with strangers. You must be special. You don't mind if I have some coffee, do you?"

I shook my head.

"I'm just not anything at all without several cups in the morning to get my motor revved."

Her motor seemed sufficiently revved to me, but I had just met her and didn't know what kind of rev she was capable of. I waited while she went to the kitchen and came back with her coffee in a large white mug. The mug had a picture of Einstein on the side.

"You've known Lisa for a long time?" I said.

The yellow cat lay on his back on the floor by my foot and looked at me with his oval yellow eyes nearly shut. I rubbed his ribs with the toe of my shoe a little and he purred.

"Oh yes, we met last fall, at the Cambridge Center Adult Ed center. We both love taking classes. Both of us love a good time, and we hit it right off. Would you like some Perrier or some spring water?"

"No thank you. Did she date a lot?"

"Oh yes. We both did. I'm not one of those grim feminists. I love men."

"You're not?" I said.

Typhanie smiled brilliantly.

"She go with anyone in particular?"

"Well, she was dating Luis. But Lisa wasn't ready to settle down, in those days. She was looking for a good time."

"Until she met Belson," I said.

"Yes, then it was time."

"Why?"

"Why?"

I realized I couldn't move too swiftly with Typhanie.

"Yeah, why was it time?" I said.

"Who knows? There's a time for everything, you know? Before then it wasn't time. Then it was."

"Of course," I said.

"I really believe that," Typhanie said. "Don't you? That timing is pretty much everything in life? And Frank came along at the right time for Lisa, and pow!"

The cat on the floor had turned onto its side and stretched itself as long as it could get. It reached up with one paw and batted at my pants leg.

"What made it the right time?" I said.

"Who can say? The relationship with Luis wasn't going the way she wanted, and then here came this older man, you know? A safe harbor in a storm."

"Luis Deleon?" I said.

"Yes." Typhanie gave me what she must have thought was a wicked smile. "Her Latin lover."

"She was going with him when she met Belson?"

"Yes."

"Tell me about him."

"Well, he's beautiful. He's Hispanic, from Proctor. She met him in a night class at Merrimack State. Lisa was taking some courses there, nights, you know. She didn't want to always be a disc jockey."

"And they were, ah, lovers?"

"Oh baby, you better believe it. They were a continuing explosion. Everything was passionate like you dream about, you know, like in the movies. Flowers and candy and champagne and midnight suppers and, well, I shouldn't be telling tales out of school, but, honey, they were hot."

"Sex?"

"Everywhere, all the time, according to Lisa."

"How nice," I said. "So what happened? How come she ended up with Frank Belson?"

"I don't know. It was awful sudden. I know that Luis was pushing her to marry him."

"And she didn't want to?" Typhanie shook her head. "Why not?" I said.

"I don't know, really. I mean, he was younger than she was, and he was, you know, Hispanic, and I don't know what kind of job he had. But boy, he was compelling. Looks. Charm."

She shrugged.

"On the other hand, boy toy is one thing," Typhanie said. "Husband's a whole different ball game."

"You married?" I said.

"Not right now," Typhanie said. "You?"

"No."

"Ever been married?"

"No."

"You gay?"

"No."

"With someone?"

"Yeah."

"I shoulda stayed with my second husband. Now every time I meet somebody interesting they're either taken or gay. You fool around?"

"No. But if I did I'd call you first. The name Vaughn mean anything to you?"

"Stevie Ray Vaughn," she said hopefully.

"Un huh," I said. "You know where Luis Deleon is now?"

She shrugged. "Proctor, I imagine."

"You know what he does?"

"Like for a living?"

"Un huh."

"No, I never did know. I always kind of wondered."

"Why?"

"He seemed to have money, but he never said anything about his job."

"What'd he talk about when you were with him?"

"Lisa, theater, movies. He loved movies. Had a video camera. Always had a video camera."

"You wouldn't have a picture, would you?"

"Of Luis? No, I don't think so. I'm not one for keeping stuff, pictures and all that. I just keep right on moving, you know?"

"How is Luis's English? He speak with an accent?"

"He speaks very well, only a slight hint of an accent, really."

The yellow cat rolled over and onto his feet and padded away from me to a plaid upholstered rocker across the room and jumped up in it and curled up and went to sleep.

"Thanks," I said.

I took a card out of my pocket and gave it to her.

"If you hear anything or think of anything, please call me."

"You don't think anything bad has happened, do you?"

"I don't know what has happened," I said.

"What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to go find Luis Deleon," I said.

Typhanie's eyes widened.

"Because of what I told you?"

"Because of what a couple people have told me," I said.

"Don't tell him I said anything."

"Okay."

"Luis is, ah, kind of scary," Typhanie said.

"Scary how?" I said.

"He's so passionate, so… quick. I wouldn't want to make him mad."

"Me either," I said. "But you never know."

He had not touched her yet. She didn't know if he would. He had her. He could force her. Why would he not? What he felt for her wasn't love. She knew that. But maybe there was love in it. Maybe it kept him from forcing her. Yet, of course, he was forcing her. Forcing her to be here. Forcing her to wear his stupid outfits and live in this cartoon set of a room. Still he had not forced her sexually. And he had not physically hurt her. The air-conditioning hummed, the monitors played. The sound track was on and she heard herself again and again giggling at the beach, struggling in the back of the truck. There was no way for her to tell time. No light, no dark except as he turned the lights on and off, no television except the mocking images of her own bondage, no radio, no clocks. She saw only him, and now and then the young-faced serving woman who never spoke. The food offered her no clues; what she ate was not specific to any meal, and she wondered if it were deliberate on his part, a kind of brainwashing. It underscored how captive she was. She could not choose to eat. She had to wait to be fed. Or was it simply a part of how she knew he was enveloped in make-believe, creating still another artificial environment, pretending to be a bandit prince, pretending to be her lover. She felt the shame of her situation, how she had so freely taken up with this man, so carelessly put aside what she had learned so painfully in California, knowing as she felt the shame that it was not a matter of shame, that she had been drawn to him by needs she hadn't yet mastered, as she had drunk with him, before she mastered that once more as well. And she would master this. He would not pull her back down. She had been too far down. She had struggled too painfully up. She had lapsed again and escaped again and she would escape this. She wouldn't go back. She would be Lisa St. Claire. She was Lisa St. Claire, and because she was, she was also Mrs. Frank Belson. Frank would find her.

Загрузка...