“I guess I did,” I replied. “Sorry.”
“No you’re not,” he said. “That’s twice you’ve forgotten me. Maybe you’d like to forget me altogether.”
How could the same sentiment—almost to the word—create such opposite reactions in me? With Rafik it had intensified my desire to conjoin. With Marshall Zander it caused revulsion.
He said, “Is that how you thank me for flying you to London? You’re almost as ungrateful as Max was.”
“I didn’t see the need,” I began weakly.
Marshall pushed me into the elevator.
“Let’s go for a ride,” he said.
The elevator descended noiselessly, but my panic escalated. Here, finally, was Max Harkey’s killer. My blood pulsed so hard that my eyes throbbed with the pressure. My mouth went dry and I began to see white patches of light dance before me. Breathe, I told myself. Focus on the breath. Take the air in and then let it out. Disregard the reek of his body. One thought at a time.
“Your lover spoke to me today,” he said. “He refused my offer. I must say he wasn’t very chivalrous about it, except regarding you. I think he’s ready to die for you. It must be nice to be loved by someone that much.”
“Where is Rafik?” I said. “What have you done?”
I made a move toward him, but suddenly he brandished a stiletto. I saw his hand squeezing the hilt of the dagger nervously. The slender blade flashed brightly. It was the perfect instrument for slicing into the femoral arteries.
“Where’s your courage now?” he said.
The elevator stopped and the door slid open. He used the knife to point the way out.
“After you,” he said with mock courtesy.
We left the Appleton and walked toward his car. There would be no wind in our hair for this ride. The hard top was securely attached now.
“Get in,” he said.
I did. But I was already imagining myself leaping from the car and fleeing from him. I could surely outrun him. I would sprint all the way to Station D, taking the alleys and footpaths so that he couldn’t pursue me in the car. I would scream bloody murder all the way. He would never catch me, and I’d be safe.
But before he closed the car door, Marshall pulled a heavy chain from around the back of the seat and secured it with a big padlock across my belly. Some chastity belt, I thought.
He got in behind the wheel and pulled away.
He said, “Even if Rafik didn’t accept my original offer, I’m sure you both want to see his work performed on opening night, don’t you?”
I didn’t answer him.
“I know you do,” he said. “And it would be a shame to have the performance canceled, especially after all the time and effort Rafik has spent on it. Did he ever tell you what it’s about? I know it was supposed to be a big secret, but I doubt that lovers like you can keep secrets from each other.”
I stayed mute.
“It’s really touching,” he said. “Rafik’s new ballet was inspired by you. It’s all about the most perfect male couple in Boston. It’s even got a fancy title—Uomo giocoso. ‘Playful Man.’ Isn’t that sweet? Well, tonight we’ll see how far your playful love for each other goes in real life.”
He said nothing more for the remainder of our short ride, but he did keep the sleek dagger visible at all times. I wondered what it was going to feel like to be slashed with the razorlike edge of that knife.
Marshall pulled the car into the underground garage of the Copley Palace and parked it in his reserved space. He got out, then came and opened my door and unchained me from the seat. His private elevator was right near his parking space, yet he felt the need to brandish that slender glistening blade at me for those few steps. Once inside the wood-paneled chamber he must have felt safer, because as we began our long ascent he softened his voice and his manner.
“All I’m asking from you is some companionship tonight. Do you think you can manage that for your lover’s sake?”
I realized at that moment, with myself in mortal danger, that somewhere else in the city of Boston Rafik was making art with Toni di Natale and a whole company of dancers. And somewhere else Nicole was having dinner with Lieutenant Branco. Who knew where I was? The unsettling answer was, Nobody.
Once we were inside his suite Marshall Zander double-locked the doors. The lights were extremely low and he dimmed them even more. What might have been a romantic gesture only increased my dread, especially with him wielding that knife.
“Would you like a drink?” he said.
I didn’t answer.
He said, “I want to celebrate tonight.” He pulled me roughly toward the wet bar and went behind it to make himself a drink, always keeping that naked blade close by. The wall of plate glass behind him opened out onto the balcony, which was still under reconstruction. Beyond the railing the broad cityscape of Boston’s lights sparkled invitingly under a clear night sky. I wondered how many other people in that glittering terrain were facing the same kind of danger I was.
Marshall half-filled a tumbler with scotch and drained it in a few noisy gulps. He refilled it, then took another glass, filled it with ice, and poured some gin into it.
“See?” he said, pushing the glass of gin toward me. “I even remember what you like to drink. Does Rafik do that for you?”
I finally spoke. “Rafik mixes me a proper martini.”
“Is that what you want me to do for you?”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“But tonight is an important night. I want you to be happy and comfortable with me. Tonight is when everything turns out the way it’s supposed to.”
He left the two bottles of liquor on top of the bar and came around to my side. He offered me a bar stool.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said.
I sat down warily and he pulled another stool close to me.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I just want company.” He sat down and pressed one of his heavy legs against mine. Fortunately both his hands were occupied—one hovering over the stiletto and the other holding his drink.
“I knew Max for over twenty years,” he said. “And for all that time I never thought of hurting him, not for real. See, I believed if I waited long enough Max would come home to me. I waited for him and I deserved him.”
He clinked his glass heavily against mine.
“I want to drink to you and Rafik, to the kind of love that works out right. Aren’t you going to drink to that?”
Faced with the possibility of never seeing my lover again, I thought of Rafik and took a big mouthful of gin. It seemed to help the situation.
Marshall asked, “Do you want to hear how Max and I met?”
I nodded, even though it was probably the last thing in the world I wanted to hear at that moment. But I was facing a big nervous beast, a dangerous creature that had been caged and frustrated so long that the slightest snap of a twig might launch it into a killing rampage. Maybe if I appeared to cooperate I could lull him into calmness. I didn’t know what else to do. No one knew where I was. All I had to play with at that moment was time. Perhaps I could stall the inevitable long enough for a deus ex machina to pick my name out of the cosmic bingo basket and rescue me.
Marshall began his tale. “I was vacationing in Biarritz one summer. My mother wanted to get me off her back. Do your parents have money?”
I suppressed a laugh.
Marshall continued. “Well, mine were shits, but they were filthy rich. I mean filthy. You can’t imagine how much money we had. I still don’t know what I’m worth. I’ve got a full-time staff of accountants and lawyers just to keep track of it all, and they don’t even know. But you know what? That money compensates for an awful lot.”
He gulped at his scotch, then went on.
“My folks hated me. They hated everybody. The only thing they loved was their money. And the joke was, they acted as if the money was some kind of award for their superior taste and intellect, when the fact was it all started wit
h my grandfather’s deli in the Bronx. The Zander empire was born in Zandlinski’s Deli. That’s a good one, huh? Then by some fluke of luck my grandfather kept expanding the business until he landed up with a chain of supermarkets clear across the country.”
Marshall Zander raised his glass. “Here’s to Grandpa!” he said, then noisily drained the contents. He poured himself another drink and went on. “By the time the old geezer died, he had already been buying hotels. And here we are in the final result.” He spread his arms to encompass the panoramic view of Boston by night. “All mine.” He leaned toward me, one hand still grasping that stiletto. “Just give me the word and it’s yours too.”
I said, “You were telling me how you met Max.”
“Max,” he said. “Max! Where’s Max?” he shouted. Then he said quietly, “When I quit medical school Mother was so ashamed she sent me to Biarritz. That’s where I met Max. I liked him right from the start, and he liked me too. I don’t think it was just my money, but I didn’t hide it either. That’s the kind of place it is. You throw your money around. So Max and I got friendly and did things together for a while, go out and stuff like that. God, he looked unbelievable on the beach. And finally one day I had to tell him how I really felt about him.”
Marshall sucked down some more scotch, as though he needed Dutch courage to confront Max Harkey again.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Oh, it was awful. Max gave me that look. You know that look? You go out with someone for a while, and then you go to touch them and they give you that look.”
Marshall cocked his head and eyed me like an animal that has just sensed a change in its environment.
“You did that to me too,” he said.
“Can we stay with Max?” I said nervously.
“Sure,” he said. “Max now, you later.” He laughed as though he’d made a joke, then he passed his fat tongue over his lips. “All that time Max was flirting with me, and then suddenly it was ‘Oh, no! Not that!’ So I was okay about it. I just went after some of the other guys there. It was easy. You give them money and they love you forever.”
Marshall gazed into his glass of scotch. Though it wasn’t yet empty, he poured more in. He didn’t return his free hand to the dagger, but it was still lying on top of the bar, close to him.
“Shit!” he said suddenly.
“What?”
“You know what he did to me once? One time at dinner Max started preaching to me about my sex life and how dangerous it was. I had a renter with me that night and I was kind of insulted, not to mention what the renter must have thought. But then, Max started flirting with the guy. Imagine that? I had a paid companion, and Max was going after him—Max, who was supposed to be straight. So I got mad and threw my drink at Max and left the table.” Marshall shook his head and chuckled as though amused by his own anecdote. Then he continued, “I went back there two hours later to have a peaceful meal by myself, and damn it if Max wasn’t still there with that same hustler. They were laughing and having a grand time together. So I went up to Max and demanded an explanation. Max grinned from ear to ear and told me that the young man was a dancer, and they were discussing modern choreography. And you know, that’s when I really knew I was in love with him. So the next day I gave Max a blank check and told him to start his own ballet company.”
“Did you two ever have sex?”
“Never. Max liked women, plain and simple. We stayed friends, but it was hard for me because I always hoped Max would change his mind. I think that was what linked me to him, the promise of his body. And all I had to do to keep him close was write a check. That was one thing I was good at. And that was exactly what he got from me, the promise of my money. We needed each other for different things, and that was what kept us connected.”
Now, in spite of Marshall Zander’s precarious mental state and my dubious future, I was curious to know what had changed between them, so I asked him what happened.
He said, “You like this story, eh? You like hearing about Max and me?”
Had my unchecked curiosity about other people’s business finally careened onto its final course?
Marshall grinned with satisfaction and continued.
“After more than twenty years of waiting for Max, of putting up with all his women—married ones, single ones, old and young—after all that time, Max met that dancer in London and he was never the same. He told me that something had clicked, and I laughed at him. But in fact I saw that something was changed in him. He acted as if he didn’t need me anymore. When he came back from London he told me he was going to marry her. He’d already changed his will to leave most of his estate to her. Mind you, that was everything he acquired because of my help. Maybe all those women he had over the years were painful for me, but at least they were temporary. But marriage and family weren’t temporary. He said he didn’t need me anymore.”
“I’m sure he still needed you in his own way.”
“No. He was through with me. He wasn’t even throwing crumbs anymore. That’s why I needed his diary. I had to know how he really felt. Did he really love that girl?”
“Yes,” I said, realizing too late that I was purposely provoking him.
“How do you know?”
“She told me.”
“What does she know? She’d say anything. I need that diary. That’s where the answer is, in Max’s own writing.”
“But you already have it,” I said.
“No, I don’t.”
I said, “You took it after you killed him.”
Marshall’s face froze. He picked up the stiletto and stared at it. Then he got up off his bar stool and stood facing me. Then with all his strength he screamed, “I never killed him!”
He started toward the center of the room, but he was unsteady from the liquor. He faltered for a second, then caught his balance.
“Max!” he yelled out. “Max, I’m sorry. Come back. I promise to be good. Please. Come back!”
In his moment of madness I saw a small hope for my own salvation. While he stood in a daze waiting for Max Harkey to answer him, I surreptitiously lifted the receiver off the nearby telephone. I hoped the concierge downstairs would notice that the phone was off the hook. If he was worth his salt he would listen in for a while, spy on us, like most people in the service industry. And perhaps he would also hear trouble and come up, and I would be rescued.
Marshall caught my slight movement in his peripheral vision. I tried to conceal it by standing up myself.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Just stretching my legs.” I moved cautiously away from the bar toward the sofa in the center of the room and said, “Can we sit here for a while?”
“You want to get more comfortable, eh?”
“Right,” I said.
He came and sat next to me on the leather sofa, the exact place where I’d enjoyed my brief romp with Rico. Marshall was toying with the knife now, making its shiny blade glint in the dimness. I realized that what scared me most was his clumsiness with that weapon. Max Harkey had been an easy target because he was unconscious. But I imagined Marshall tripping and hurtling his bulky body at mine in his clumsy gorilla way, flailing to keep his balance and lashing randomly with that finely honed blade. Distance was the key to my survival. That, and my quick reflexes.
I said, “Can you tell me what happened that night?”
He spoke to the knife blade as he recounted his version of the events the evening Max Harkey was killed.
“I did go back to his place. There was something important I had to tell Max, and it couldn’t wait. The production of The Phoenix could create serious legal problems, since the company didn’t yet have the performance rights for the work. We were having trouble finding who owned the copyright, if anybody ”
I said, “But Max had already decided to take The Phoenix off the program.”
“He never told me that,” said Marshall Zander.
“He said it to everyone at the p
arty. You knew about the cancellation, so why did you really go back that night?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said quickly. “It doesn’t matter why. The point is I did go back. I had to see Max just one more time alone. I had to talk him out of marrying that bitch. When I got there the door was open, so I went in. Rico was nowhere around, and Max was lying at the base of the Brancusi. He was wearing that silk robe I’d brought him from Hong Kong. It was open and everything was showing. And …” Marshall faltered. “I guess I got turned on. Max’s legs were still as smooth and muscular as when he was dancing. It’s remarkable—his body never seemed to age. I went to him. He was still breathing, and there was no blood. I shook him and spoke to him. All he said to me was, “Get out, you cunt!” Then when he saw it was me, he laughed. Then he went out again. That’s when I dragged him to the piano and hauled him up onto the bench.”
“Why?”
“Because he loved that piano more than anything else he owned. That’s where I wanted to have him. His bathrobe slipped open again. God, what a sight! And it was finally all mine.”
“Don’t go on,” I said. “Please.”
“But I did,” replied Marshall. “I did go on. After twenty years of waiting I finally got what I wanted from Max Harkey’s sacred body.”
“And then, like a spider, you killed him.”
“I told you I did not kill Max! I loved him too much. Killing him would be too common. What I did was sacrifice him. That’s how our love finally culminated—in a beautiful sacrifice.”
“And you knew exactly where to cut him.”
“Yes, in those beautiful thighs. The blood pulsed out at first, almost like he was coming again. I used his robe to block the spurting and make it run down his legs. After a few minutes it slowed down, and finally it stopped.”
Just like that, I thought. No pain, no panic. Just the draining away of life from a body.
Marshall said, “But now I want him back. I can’t go on without him. Who else can cause me such exquisite pain and frustration? Only my parents, and they’re both dead. Even the parasitic hustlers I hire can’t be as heartless and cruel as Max was with me. They do it only for the money, and they’re lousy actors. But Max and I were the real thing. Just like you and Rafik. We were destined for each other. It began long before I gave him his ballet company. Whatever I did for Max came out of my love for him. Our relationship was not based on money. It was based on passion and sacrifice.”
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