Vermilion (6 page)

“What everybody else comes to Nexus for—get plastered, dance their ass off, you know—have a good time.” Mack shrugged.

Searcy put his glass down. “Come on, Mack, I'm not from Rhode Island. This is a hustler bar and everybody knows it. I told you, or you said it—I came in here about Billy Golacinsky. I'm not interested in little boys, no matter how old they are, and I'm not interested in old men who
are
interested in little boys. Let 'em keep each other company. But I
am
interested in Billy Golacinsky, because he's dead. Now, you can talk to me over this bourbon or you can talk to me across the top of my desk at nine o'clock tomorrow morning.”

“Wait a minute, Lieutenant, you just didn't let me get started. Once I get started, you can't shut me up, but I got to ease into it, that's all.”

“Sorry,” said Searcy grudgingly. “But I've been out all day looking for somebody who saw him, and you're the first one. You had seen him before last night, I take it. You're the first one who's called him Billy.”

“Billy came in here four times a week, at least. He was still new in town, said he came from California, but he didn't even know that San Francisco was north of L.A. Anyway, that's the kind he was, the kind who would lie about something like that because he thought that being from California, he could charge a higher price. Not very smart.”

“What about last night?”

“He got here about this time. His hair was wet from the snow and he looked awful, so he sat down, on the same stool you're on, and dried off and warmed up. I was watching him, I felt a little sorry for him. I feel a little sorry for all of 'em. He was in a bad way. He couldn't decide whether he was cold or drunk or horny or poor or all of 'em put together. But he was definitely in here to get picked up.”

“Did you see him talking to anyone?”

“Sort of.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, there was this older guy who started sending beers over to the kid. Got him pretty drunk before he went over to him. Cheap trick, but it works like gold.”

“Who was this guy? The one buying the drinks?”

“Never saw him before.”

“Well then, what did he look like?”

Mack turned halfway on the stool, and discreetly pointed across the room at the line of tables. “See that man? He looked like him.”

“Which one?” demanded Searcy. “Which one are you pointing at?”

“I'm pointing at all of 'em,” said Mack. “They're all after the same thing. They all have the same expression. And they all look alike.”

“Yeah, but you said he was buying beers from you for Golacinsky. He must have come up to the bar a few times.”

“He was short,” said Mack, “and he had white hair, or gray hair maybe. I'm not sure. It wasn't dyed. Clean shaven.”

Searcy sighed. “What was he wearing?”

“A dark overcoat. He never checked it.”

“What color?”

“Black. Brown. Dark green. How can you tell under these lights? A double-knit leisure suit. It looked like it had come off the rack about an hour before, that big place on the South Shore that advertises on Channel 56. He looked South Shore, deep South Shore. Sharon maybe, or Randolph.”

Searcy glared at Mack suspiciously. “You talked to him, didn't you?”

Mack shook his head. “It's just a feeling.”

“Did they leave together?”

“I'm not sure. But I would say yes, if I had to. Daisy Mae behind me here had a little action going in the middle of the dance floor, and I had to play bouncer for a while. After I had treated the claw marks, Billy was gone, and so was the leisure suit from Sharon.”

“Well, let me ask you this,” said Searcy with growing impatience, “you think it's possible that this ‘leisure suit from Sharon' might have…”

“Killed Billy? You mean, did he look like violence?”

Searcy nodded.

“No,” said Mack flatly, “not the type. And let me tell you something, Lieutenant: I know the type.”

“Yeah?”

“I did time.”

Searcy took a deep breath and lit a cigarette. “What else about the kid?”

“Not much. He didn't talk a lot. Hustlers don't, in general. Sometimes Billy made money, sometimes he didn't. You could tell when he had money, because he'd always pay with the biggest bill that he had in his pocket. He'd turn a trick and come in here with a couple of twenties. If he came in here and paid with a dollar, I'd know he didn't have much left.”

“What'd he have last night?”

“I didn't charge him. Holiday spirit, and all. Billy was a runaway. If he had been smarter, he would have been lonely and unhappy. But he had his little dreams too, just like the rest of us.”

“You knew him pretty well.”

Mack shook his head, a little sadly. “No. I hear a lot, and I see these people every day. And there's not much to see. As I say, they don't talk much, but when they do it's right to the point. Sometime before Thanksgiving Billy was in here one night, and he sat down and ordered a Miller's—that's what he drank, always. He was sitting there, smoothing out a whole wad of dollar bills. He told me he was saving his money now for a face job.”

“A nineteen-year-old hustler was saving up to have a face-lift?”

Mack laughed. “No, a face job. He had mottled skin, you can see it here in the picture.” Mack pointed to the photograph. “He was going to get a peel or something so his face would look like a baby's ass, all smooth and all. Said it would increase his business.”

Searcy shook his head and laughed. “What did you say when he told you that?”

“Oh, I told him great, that he should do it if he wanted it.”

Searcy was silent for a moment. He checked his watch. “Right now,” he said, “my own little dream has come true. I'm officially off duty, by my watch. Another bourbon, but straight up. I'll pay you with the biggest bill I've got.”

Mack laughed, slipped off the stool, and went around behind the bar. In passing, he tickled Daisy Mae's ribs. She laughed shrilly, and swiveled to face Searcy.

Her attempt at a shy smile was so bizarre that Searcy was hard put not to laugh aloud.

“Hi,” she said, in a not very good southern accent, “nice night, hunh? I saw you come in. You came in all by yourself, but what I want to know is, are you planning to go out the same way?”

Searcy smiled. “Payday's tomorrow. Tonight I'm broke.”

Daisy Mae closed her disbelieving eyes. She opened them and sighed. “Well then, don't let me waste your time.” She shook her thick ponytails, and straightened up. She looked back at him. “Listen, honey, if you're looking for a piece of free chicken, you came to the wrong place. The boys in here have dollar signs tattooed all over their precious little bodies.”

“I'm not interested in that either.”

“Listen, on account of its being cold and you being so good-looking, I think I could manage a full ten-dollar discount.”

Mack stood between them, on the other side of the bar.

“Thanks,” said Searcy, “not tonight.”

Daisy Mae gulped her drink. “Honestly, Mack, you think it would do any good if I laid myself at his feet? Some nights you can't even give it away.”

“I know,” said Mack sympathetically. From beneath the bar Mack produced a voluminous waist-length rabbit coat. Daisy stood and pulled it on. She closed the bottom button and took a deep breath, which lifted her breasts high. She raised her hand and wiggled it at Mack. “I'm off to find somebody who needs a bit of five-finger exercise to get his blood going again. Listen, honey,” she said, turning to Searcy, “you change your mind, you'll find me at the end of Carver, frozen to the bricks.”

She headed for the exit. Her walk was between a trot and a bounce. She hit the ramp and disappeared.

“I think she was interested in you,” said Mack.

Searcy laughed, a little uneasily.

“I'm glad you didn't give her any grief, being a cop and all, I mean.”

“I'm not the vice,” said Searcy.

“Listen, I got to get back, Lieutenant. I'm missing my tips. Anything else you want to know?”

“I want you to think hard about this older man, what he looked like, exactly what he looked like. You
could
be wrong about the South Shore. I'll call you tomorrow, day after, and if you've got anything, I'll have you in to make up a composite.”

Mack was silent for a moment. “There was something else.”

“What?”

“Billy sometimes took his tricks to the baths. Maybe that's where they went after they left here. Maybe Billy made the man take him to the baths.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he got the best deal that way. The john would pay for the room. They'd have sex, and the john would pay Billy and go home. Billy had a place to stay for the night and all the free sex he wanted. He made out both ways. It's a smart idea—probably not his. Maybe you ought to check the baths.”

“Any particular one?”

Mack rubbed his chin. “Only two in town. But Billy went to the Royal Baths, I think.” He looked at Searcy. “I'm not really sure.”

Searcy stood to go. He was surprised when Mack stuck his hand across the bar to be shaken.

Searcy shook his hand and said, “Listen, you're not one of them, are you?” He cocked his head toward the dance floor. “You're not a fag.”

Mack paused before answering. “No,” he replied quietly.

“Then why do you work in this place, why do you hang out with these people?”

Mack dropped Searcy's hand, and picked up a towel. “I tell you, Lieutenant: twenty-five years ago, it was straight men that got me in trouble, and ten years ago, it was straight men that got me put in jail. It was a
fag
that got me out of jail, and it was a
fag
that made sure I got a decent job. I got
nothing
against 'em. I'm not a fag, but I know what they know”—he gestured just as Searcy had, with a cocked head—“that straight men are just trouble.”

Searcy turned to go, but Mack arrested him in a friendlier voice: “Listen, Lieutenant, Daisy Mae's turning blue. Tonight, I don't think she'd charge a thing.”

Wednesday, 3 January

A
S DANIEL VALENTINE roused himself from sleep, a fine mist of snow was falling from a sky of low-hung, steel-gray clouds.

With a practiced, sure motion he swept the alarm clock from the bedside table onto the floor, seconds before the alarm was to sound. It landed on the alarm button and the clock never rang.

Valentine opened his eye not buried in the pillow, and noted the snow with some satisfaction. He raised one arm and brought it firmly down onto the pillow behind him.

No one was there.

Valentine opened his eyes and turned over. He had the feeling that someone ought to have been lying on the other half of the bed, although he had no idea who.

He stared across the shadowed room to the bath. The door was ajar, and he could see that it was empty.

Valentine shrugged and pushed back the covers. He swung his legs over onto the chill floor, and quickly raised them again. He coughed to see how cold the air in his lungs was, and finding it very cold, he rubbed his arms violently for warmth.

He stared at the other half of the bed, looking for proof of someone's having slept there. He saw none; perhaps it had been only a dream.

Taking a deep breath he padded across the cold hardwood floor to the bathroom. A long shower warmed him but didn't do much toward waking him up. He pulled on a red flannel shirt, worn jeans, and heavy white wool athletic socks.

Crossing the hallway toward the living room, he flicked the thermostat up to 70. Beyond the living room was the small kitchen, much too narrow for the red deal table he had placed in it. While water heated for instant coffee, he stood at the window and stared out at Fayette Street three floors below. His single thought was that the irregular spitting of snow was not going to block the streets; he would, in all good conscience, have to go to the health club in the afternoon.

After he had stared awhile into the empty street, he stared at the three Boston ferns that hung in the kitchen window. Their fronds were tipped with yellow; they needed to be thinned and cut back. He couldn't remember when he'd watered them last. The ferns were a gift from Clarisse, who had had a short affair with a wholesale florist. Valentine decided that it would actually be more cruel to water them than not, thereby drawing out their inevitable death by dehydration and neglect.

Valentine pressed a finger into the soil of one of the pots. To his surprise it was moist; Clarisse had evidently been watering them behind his back.

To counteract her care of the plants, he opened the window a couple of inches, from the top, so that the cold air would blow in on the ferns. He had never been able to explain to his friends that he resented the demands put upon him by green plants—there was something continually reproachful in their complete helplessness.

He much preferred the notion of the Christmas tree. You bring in a fine plant that, without any attention being paid it, remains perfectly beautiful for three weeks. Then it is thrown out, or burnt in the fireplace, and never thought of again. Valentine complacently looked at his own Christmas tree, which he had decorated with three very fine packs of late-nineteenth-century Austrian playing cards. He had ingeniously constructed a web of invisible nylon thread to hold the cards in place about the tree, for it would have been unthinkable to drill holes in the cards, which had been an important and expensive addition to his collection.

Clarisse had groaned when she saw the tree, for there were times that she considered his collecting an obsession. He had his finest cards set in large frames and placed on all the walls of the rooms in his flat, and had playing cards embedded beneath the glass of the coffee table. Kitchen drawers, drawers in the bedside table and living room end tables, were filled with uncatalogued packs, there were albums and boxes of cards stacked high in the corners of the bedroom. Clarisse once suggested that he take down some of the cards and put up pictures of naked men, since so many playing cards made her think of Las Vegas; so Valentine replaced a pack that he had grown tired of with one that pictured a naked man on each card. When she saw this, Clarisse had sighed and given up. “It would be different if you liked to play poker, or bridge, or—”