Dreams of a Hero (3 page)

“Thanks for the offer, but we’ve not finished these yet.” Roger took a draught. “Let us buy you one, though. What’s your preference?” He stood up, hand already in his pocket to fish out some change and so counter any argument about paying.

“Black, please. I’ll add the sugar. That’s kind of you.” Strauss watched Roger walk towards the counter. “Is your…friend…always so generous? It feels all wrong you picking up the tab. You’re our visitors.”

“Oh, we both feel we have to pay our way.” Miles had been quietly taking in the surroundings and assessing the clientele. He felt he could risk saying something a bit more conclusive. “Support the local economy with the pink pound. Or the pink pound converted to the pink dollar.”

Strauss smiled knowingly. “I think I’d already figured that out. Thanks.” He took his coffee from Roger and began to ladle in the sugar.

“Mind me being nosy? About what you said earlier on?” Roger turned on his devastating smile again. “This doesn’t strike me as the sort of place where you’d get much trouble. It seems such a pleasant little backwater.”

“It is. It was. Up until recently.” Strauss blew on his coffee.

“So what’s happened to change things?” Miles cast a quick glance out of the window, expecting to see some Lee Marvin type in a black shirt with cowboy hat, boots and gun. Shootout at the tea rooms? It didn’t seem possible, not on such a lovely summer’s day.

Strauss took a long swig of coffee, clearly weighing his words. “This is going to sound stupid.”

“Try us.” Miles tapped his partner’s arm. “Roger here always says that truth’s stranger than fiction.”

Roger nodded, encouragingly. “If I wrote about some of the things I’ve known happen, I’d have my editor saying that the storyline’s too far-fetched.”

“I bet this would make your editor have kittens.” Strauss sighed. “Things changed around here when a particular family, the Phillipsons, moved down from Maine. That’s to the north of here.”

Miles resisted the temptation to point out that most Europeans were a lot more au fait with geography than the average American. He didn’t want to risk a rift in international relations just when things were becoming interesting. “Not a bunch of model citizens?”

“I think you’ve got the gist. Troublemakers.” Strauss swilled his coffee around in his cup. “The father and son like to come in here and shoot their mouths off. They never actually get as far as doing anything we could call the cops about, though. Not on the premises. They’re not stupid.”

“Not during the day.” A deep voice interrupted the lawyer’s account. An older man, maybe in his forties, the size of a frigate but gnarled as the oak it was made from, towered over them. “After dark. Don’t walk home down the back streets.”

Roger indicated the empty chair at their table. “Would you care to join us?”

The man shook his head. “Just picking up a coffee.” He jerked his thumb towards the door. “Got a load to deliver the other side of Boston. Couldn’t help hearing. Wanted to warn you.” He nodded and moved over to the counter. “Wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”

“Is that true?” If they’d been in the Midwest, where the social milieu had barely reached the twentieth century, let alone the twenty-first, Miles could have readily believed it, but surely not here? Not in Massachusetts, a place he’d hoped would prove to be more civilised.

Strauss tipped his head in the direction of the truck driver. “Lou doesn’t lie. If I had witnesses like him to put in the box, I’d never lose a case.” He leaned forward, resting his chin on steepled hands. “Take his advice. Not that I hope you’ll run into these guys, but take it anyway. Or make sure you pass for straight, although hanging around this place gives the game away. Even Lou doesn’t tell his ma he comes here for his coffee and bagels. Isn’t that right, Lou?”

“Only because she’d yell at me for not making my own.” Lou grinned over his shoulder. “You guys from England? The son spent some time there. Surprised you didn’t run across him.”

Miles bit his tongue. How he’d have loved to point out that, contrary to expectations, England was a big place and, with sixty million inhabitants, not everyone was on first name terms with everyone else. Roger had already said something similar to a checkout girl, who was convinced that—as he worked in London—he’d be sure to know her cousin who lived there. They’d almost ended up in a fight, and while they’d have taken on the checkout girl, Lou was another prospect.

Roger had evidently learned his lesson. “No, I’m afraid we didn’t.” He winked at Strauss, who must have got the point. “Perhaps he kept his head down and his nose clean.”

“Yep. That sounds like him.” Lou turned back to the counter.

“Right, let me get this straight. You’re saying this pair come in here and give you a bit of verbal, because you’re gay.” Miles felt he was stating the bleeding obvious, but sometimes you had to make absolutely sure you weren’t leaping to conclusions. “And Lou says that extends to fisticuffs in dark alleys.”

“
Fisticuffs
.” Strauss beamed. “You guys. Do you really say that?”

“You should wait till Miles gets started. Like a BBC costume drama.” Roger sat back in his chair. “You’ve got me interested. Tell us the rest and I promise Miles won’t make inane or archaic remarks.”

“Aw, let him. It’s a treat.” Strauss’s words were light and he continued to smile, but the look in his eye had become deadly serious. “Some people in here say old man Phillipson has a contact in the police department in his pocket. Or maybe it was just a coincidence about the two guys who got beaten up. Both gay. Both walking home from here at dead of night. Both of them put Phillipson at the scene, and both of them had to be mistaken, or so the cops say. Bastards had cast-iron alibis and nobody’s managed to come up with any other suspects, Phillipson lookalike or not.”

“Roger writes murder mysteries and he’d think the cast-iron alibis were the fishiest part of all. Nobody ever has those, not in real life.” Miles ran his fingers through his hair.

“Oh, they do, I’m sure. But it’s rare they can trot them out and have them verified. I can’t always remember what I did yesterday. Let alone two weeks ago. Now,” Roger cut to the heart of the matter, “was it just Phillipson at the scene?”

“No. The old man wouldn’t get his own knuckles bruised. Probably afraid of catching something, if what he says when he’s in here is true.” Strauss knocked back the rest of his coffee. “He lets the son do the bruising, along with one of his pals. Gets his kicks from looking at it, I guess. Watches the queer baiting during the daylight.” Strauss fiddled with his cup. “And the queer beating after dark.”

“If that was in one of Roger’s books, there’d be some sharp-eyed detective wondering why the son hadn’t been put at the scene as well. No offence meant and all that, but you get my drift?” Miles tried his most charming smile. He didn’t doubt what he’d been told; he just liked a solid line of logic to follow.

Obviously employing his usual ability to read his partner’s mind, Roger added, “Miles reads all my manuscripts, and if there’s the slightest loose end not tightly weaved into the storyline he never lets me forget it.”

“Sounds like Agatha Christie.” Strauss showed no sign that he’d taken any offence. “The son wears a mask. Hey. Don’t laugh, gospel truth.”

“I’m sorry.” Roger looked suitably contrite. “It isn’t anything to laugh about, it just seemed so…bizarre.”

“There’s nothing bizarre about being beaten up.” Miles shivered. A series of jumbled thoughts sped through his brain—Agamemnon’s mask, his own vivid dreams of violence and death—none of them making sense, just unsettling him. “Of course they would disguise themselves.”

“Alex Phillipson—that’s the son—has a tattoo on the back of his left hand. He kept that covered, although it probably wouldn’t have been too visible at dead of night.”

“But that just raises another question. Two.” Miles ran his fingers through his hair again, perplexed. “How did they know it was this Alex bloke, if he’d taken such trouble to hide his identity?”

“The presence of the old man would have been enough.” Strauss nodded, as if trying to persuade a judge about the validity of a piece of evidence. “But there’s more. Alex sweats like a pig and he tries to cover it up with cheap cologne. You couldn’t mistake that smell, even in the pitch dark. Not sure any jury would believe it, though.”

“So my second query becomes even odder. The victims must have recognised the father.” Miles looked at Roger, for confirmation that he wasn’t being a complete idiot and missing something obvious.

“Exactly. So why didn’t he disguise himself as well?” Roger shrugged.

“Don’t you think we’ve asked ourselves that? In lieu of asking him, which none of us would do.” Strauss looked out at the street, evidently gathering his thoughts as well as his words. “I don’t believe it was just carelessness—he’s too damned careful, usually. I think he wanted to be seen, because he knew the victims couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”

“Because he has friends in the police who make sure he gets away with it? It’s possible, I suppose.” Roger drew his fingers along the tabletop. “Even in the twenty-first century.”

Strauss kept his eyes on the street. “I’m not sure parts of my country have really entered the twentieth.”

Miles shivered at the echo of his own thoughts. “So he assumes he’s safe and stands by, gloating.”

“Something like that. But that’s just my point of view.” Strauss turned to face them again, a smile on his lips if not in his eyes. “Not admissible in a court of law.”

“Can you have them banned from coming in here? No.” Roger raised his hand. “Stupid question. Nobody to enforce the ban if the local police won’t play ball.”

“And I’m trying to persuade the clientele here to steer clear of enforcing their own version of the law. If old man Phillipson’s got the dice loaded so he keeps out of trouble, chances are he’s got them weighted to fall the other way.”

“Does anyone know this family well enough to know what really goes on in their minds?” Roger suddenly looked up from contemplating his coffee cup. “Seems to be my morning for saying ‘sorry.’ I was thinking out loud.”

“Not a bad question, though,” Miles replied. “That’s what you could do with, Mr. Strauss. A mole. Like in the spy books.”

“It’s Ian—we’re not in court.” Strauss eased off his jacket, the temperature already starting to build on what was going to be a steaming day. The ventilation system was fighting a losing battle, especially with the steady stream of people in and out of the door. “Maybe we could, but I’m not sure any of us would relish the task. Assuming we could penetrate the family defences.”

“You make it sound like Fort Knox.” The story was getting odder by the minute. “They’re not members of some strange sect, are they?”

“Only if you define being a male-chauvinist-dominated, homophobic, nineteen-fifties-style family unit as a strange sect. No, don’t answer that.” Strauss seemed to have slipped into default lawyer mode—maybe he never really came out of it, like Roger could never really stop being a writer, always on the lookout for a story. Would he be using this as the framework for his next murder mystery, sending his long suffering Inspector Hargreaves over here to work with the local force?

“Mrs. Phillipson suffers the same sort of treatment?” Roger looked worried.

“Not that I know of. No dark glasses in public or anything that might be hiding bruising. I think he’s put her on a pedestal to worship her. So long as she’s happy to be stuck up there, nothing’s going to happen. He likes everyone to know their place, or what he thinks is their place.”

“And you won’t keep in yours?” Roger said, his elegant fingers drumming the table as he sat, evidently working his thoughts.

“Got it in one. I don’t suppose the Phillipsons would give a damn if we just do whatever we do in the privacy of our own our walls and put on the ‘one of the boys’ image in public. He could pretend we didn’t exist, then.”

“I bet he loves all those Rock Hudson and Doris Day films.” Miles knew the type, all right. The ones in his parents’ generation who laughed like a drain at Larry Grayson or Kenneth Williams but who wouldn’t have wanted a real “queer” within a mile of them. “But you’ve had the nerve to go around being yourselves. Tut tut.”

Strauss threw up his hands. “Guilty as charged.”

“Do they hate queers or secretly fancy them?” Roger cut across the conversation and straight to the point, as always. Maybe it was all that practice with creating pivotal bits of a plot which helped him to get right to the hub of what was important.

“Now, that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.” Strauss leaned forward again.

There was no need to elaborate—anyone present could have named plenty of examples of people shouting loudest, and fighting hardest, against what they were trying to fight against in themselves. Or the thing to tempt them most, the desire for indulgence which they had to keep hidden.

“Old man Phillipson as closet gay? I don’t see it myself, but the son, he’s another kettle of fish. Who the hell knows?” Strauss turned round, calling over to the barista. “Harry, the guys here want to know if there’s a chance Alex Phillipson’s gay.”

“Don’t tell me they’ve got the hots for him?” Harry’s low, lilting voice had a pleasant timbre. You could imagine people wanting to pour out their hearts to him, under the influence of those confidential, comforting tones.

“He’d have to be the fittest bloke on the planet for us to, given the circumstances.” Miles laughed. “Is he?”

“Not my type.” Harry grinned. “Unless you like them big and a bit dumb.” He gave Roger the once-over. “Which I’m assuming you don’t.”

“Nothing sexier than a man with brains.” Miles was pleased to see Roger blush. “So he’s big and dumb, but is he in the closet?”

“Couldn’t tell you. I haven’t heard anything, and all the local rumours end up here sometime or other. Sorry.” Harry went back to cleaning the counter.

“Inconclusive first witness. What’s the lawyer’s verdict?” Miles asked.

“The lawyer wouldn’t be surprised at all.” Strauss stroked his chin, a gesture which gave an impression of reasoned thoughtfulness. Miles wondered whether he habitually used it in court. “There’s a whole pile of psychological stuff, a lot of it crap, about what people do when they’re under pressure to keep part of their lives under wraps, so I wouldn’t enter any of that in evidence. Not in front of such a discerning jury.”