Widow’s Walk

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

I had a picture of Marvin Conroy that Rita had gotten me from the Pequod Bank. Race Witherspoon and I took the picture down to Nellie’s and showed it to the third-floor bartender, whose name was Rick. The place was nearly empty. Two or three guys sat around at separate tables, and a party of four were drinking tequila sunrises at a round table near the stairs.

Rick was a tall thin guy with his thinning hair cut very short. He wore round eyeglasses with gold frames. There was a blue-and-red sea serpent tattooed on his left forearm. He looked at the picture of Conroy for a while, then looked at Race.

“He’s cool,” race said.

I smiled in a cool way. Rick studied me for a minute.

“Yeah, he was in here.”

“You remember him?”

“Yeah, sure. He was a straight guy, and he was asking me about Nathan Smith. And he had attitude.”

“How could you tell he was straight?” I said.

Rick looked at me and snorted.

“Oh,” I said. “That’s how. What did you tell him?”

“I told him I didn’t know Nathan Smith.”

“He press you?”

“Yes.”

“He say what he wanted?”

“No. I thought he might be some detective Smith’s wife hired.”

“Why?”

“Some of the men who come in here, they’re married and their wives are starting to wonder about them.”

“He ask about Nathan’s sex life?”

Rick shook his head. “Just wanted to know if he came in here often.”

“If he came here often,” Race said, “you wouldn’t have to ask about his sex life. It’s why people come here often.”

“Looking for young men,” I said.

“The younger the better.”

“So if you knew Smith came here often, you’d surmise he was gay.”

Rick looked at me. “And you’d probably know the Pope was Catholic,” he said.

“He talk with anybody else?” I said.

“He tried.”

“And?”

“Nobody here is going to talk with a guy like that.”

“He hang around?” I said.

“Yeah. I got off work early one night,” Rick said, “and I saw him outside.”

“What was he doing?”

“Just sitting in his car outside the club. Another car went by in the other direction and the headlights shined on him.”

“Was Nathan Smith here the night this guy was outside?” I said.

“I don’t know… yes he was. Because I thought, ”I wonder if he’s waiting for Nathan.“”

“Which he was,” Race said.

I nodded. “And whom he probably saw,” I said.

“So he knew he was queer,” Race said.

“Conroy must have had some reason to think Smith was queer,” I said. “Otherwise why would he come here?”

“And why here?” Race said. “Why not visit all the many gay places, the come-what-may places?”

“Maybe he did.”

“We can ask,” Race said.

“You know them all?”

“Known them all already,” Race said, “known them all.”

“Strayhorn,” I said, “and Eliot in the same conversation.”

“I’m not just another pretty face,” Race said.

We spent the next eight hours moving from gay bar to gay bar. No one else had encountered Marvin Conroy that they could remember. Near midnight we sat at the bar of a place in the South End called Ramrod and drank beer.

“So Conroy had an idea what he’d find out before he went to Nellie’s,” I said.

“Apparently,” Race said. “He doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere else.”

“Have we missed any?”

“None that a guy like Conroy would have known about,” Race said.

“So who told him?” I said.

“Am I a detective,” Race said.

“I’m beginning to wonder the same thing about me,” I said.