Sins of the Flesh

by Colleen McCullough

  Hank laid another painting down. He had tried to give it a personality, yet it curiously lacked one; the mystery was deeper than Hank’s brushes could go. The drama of the coloring made the portrait spectacularly handsome, though it was unfired clay.

  Liam and Tony stepped up to have their turns inspecting the board; neither said a word, just exchanged glances. This weird kid was a genius.

  “I’ll have Photography duplicate them,” Abe said, “but I can tell you where the originals will wind up.”

  “In the files at Caterby Street,” said Hank, unconcerned.

  “Far from it. They’re going to be a joint Christmas present from ME and Detectives to the Commissioner. His office walls need some decent art, and he’ll be tickled that it’s cop art.”

  “Abe too can brownnose,” said Liam with a grin.

  Busy placing blank sheets of tracing paper between each of the paintings, Hank went quite pink from pleasure. Wow! His art on the Commissioner’s office walls!

  They met Delia on the way to Photography.

  “Down in the mouth, Deels?” Abe asked.

  “Utterly. The studio portraits mean nothing, I’m sure.”

  “Cheer up, there’s an answer somewhere.”

  Rha and Rufus prepared to receive Abe Goldberg, which chiefly consisted in making sure the hard rolls were freshly baked and the lobster salad perfectly seasoned; he was coming to lunch.

  Feeling like an old hand, this time Abe demanded the grand tour of Busquash Manor, and was conducted everywhere.

  “Having these premises turned out to be a godsend,” said Rha as he led Abe around the top floor. “In its heyday it took thirty-three indoor servants to run the place—upstairs, downstairs, in milady’s chamber, da de da de da. Six pairs of hands in the kitchen alone! This floor was a warren of pokey little rooms I’d sooner call oversized closets, though the sinful sexes were segregated—the butler was always a drunk, but the housekeeper was a prison warden who ruled with a rod of iron. When we inherited it had been closed up, but it was in good repair, and we found it a wonderful repository for our costumes—in fact, having this floor enabled us to go into the costume-hire business.”

  He opened a door that said VALHALLA to reveal racks of what Abe supposed were Viking outfits, complete to winged or horned helmets. “They get an airing every time an opera house puts on Wagner’s Ring cycle,” said Rufus. CRUSADES revealed knightly armor, including for several horses, and CAVALIER held the satins and laces of Stuart England. “Women’s costumes are stored separately from men’s,” said Rha. “Opera houses in particular love us.”

  “Maintaining all this must be an horrific exercise,” Abe said, staggered. “Cleaning, repairs, logistics—!”

  “We own an apartment building in Millstone to accommodate our staff—one reason why we have a proper parking lot. Management don’t live there, but there are always young people looking for work on the fringes of show biz, and they do learn things while they’re here. Rha and I hold lots of classes.”

  “I never thought of you as a big employer, Rha.”

  “Few people do, but why should they, really?”

  They sat in what Abe privately called the Mae West Room to eat lunch, drinking sparkling mineral water as well as coffee; then it was down to business.

  “I need a blank section of wall or a screen about six feet wide,” Abe said, patting his solid briefcase, “in something close to daylight. I’ll stick them up with plasticene, guaranteed not to stain. Show me where, then leave me to it until I’m finished. I don’t want you to get a snatched glimpse ahead of time, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Rufus gravely.

  Having shown Abe a skylit hallway that ended in a blank wall ideal for his purposes, Rha and Rufus went off to clear away the lunch remains.

  “Okay, I’m ready!” Abe called.

  The pity of it was that the corridor was too narrow to see their faces full on as they gazed at the paintings; Abe had to content himself with antennae tuned to breathing, tiny movements, vibrations in the air. Not that it turned out to matter.

  “Jesus!” Rha exclaimed.

  “Jesus!” Rufus echoed.

  “Who of these people do you know?” Abe asked.

  “All of them!” Rha cried, and swayed. “I’m going to have to sit down, Abe. The bigger you are, the harder you fall. Please!”

  Rufus moved against Rha’s side and took a part of his weight, careless of Abe, shoved aside. “Bring the pictures,” he said.

  Half supported, Rha groped along the wall past several doors before Rufus opened one and led him into a sitting room that also functioned as a library; Rufus maneuvered him into a lounger chair, got his feet up and his knees bent, while Abe found a bar cart and poured cognac into a snifter.

  “Here, Rha, drink a little. It’ll brace you.”

  “Yes, Rha, drink it—now!” Rufus snapped. Over his shoulder he said to Abe, “He’s like all huge people, there are pieces that don’t work too well.”

  “A doctor?”

  Rufus cast his friend a piercing look, then shook his head. “No, the brandy will do the trick.”

  “I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have been so up-front if I’d suspected the pictures would come as such a shock. Honest, guys, it wasn’t a cop trick, I wouldn’t do that to people I’d broken bread with,” Abe said, feeling wretched—but also triumphant.

  “We know that,” Rufus said, trying to smile. “Jesus, Abe, what a shock! Those delightful young men—they’re victims?”

  “Is Rha up to this? Should I come back later?”

  “Fuck that!” said Rha, color stealing into his face. He let the foot of the lounger down and sat up straighter. “I’m fine, Abe, and I’d much rather we got this over now.” He groped for Rufus’s hand and clutched it. “Sit down, both of you. I’m fine, just give me a couple of minutes to get my breath back.”

  Sinking into a chair, Abe decided the time would go faster if both Rha and Rufus had a moment to compose themselves that was not focused on the Does. His bright eyes fixed on Rufus. “You don’t seem too keen on your new Broadway musical production, am I right?” he asked.

  “About as keen as an epicure on a piece of dry toast, and dry toast it is,” Rufus said, getting Abe’s drift. “The times are changing, Abe. Put on Annie Get Your Gun in 1969, and I wonder how big a hit it would be? Hair started a new trend, and the off-Broadway shows are becoming racier by the month. Sex and nudity are what people are beginning to want, though the authors of our production have a great track record and it won’t lay an egg, that’s for sure. If you asked Dr. Jess Wainfleet, she’d probably tell you that our brains are evolving to process information at an ever-increasing rate, so the old ‘stop for a number’ kind of show is dying. People want the action to continue through the number more and more. West Side Story had more than Romeo and Juliet going for it—Jerome Robbins made dance really exciting, and Bob Fosse has galvanized Broadway. King Cophetua feels old and tired to us, Abe, that simple. It’s a 1950s kinda show.”

  “Enough, enough!” Rha said, and transferred his six-plus feet to an ordinary armchair.

  “I’ll send you and your wife best-seat tickets for opening night,” said Rufus.

  “Being 1950s show goers, we’ll love it. Ready, Rha?”

  “A bit weepy, but yes, I’m fine.” Rha held out his hands and took the four pictures from Abe. He held up Jeb Doe. “This is Nick Moore. Age, about nineteen. He was with us for about six months, left last March to go to L.A. and try his luck with the movies.” He waited for Abe to finish writing in his notebook, then held up James Doe. “This is Gene Bierbaum. Aged twenty-one. He was with us for—oh, three or four months last year, quit in September of 1968 after he successfully auditioned for a lead part in a play in Calgary, his home town. Quite a lot of our youngsters come from Canada.” He held up John Doe Four. “This guy was a Canadian. His name was Morgan Lake. Age, as I remember, was just twenty. He was from Toronto, stayed with us for nine months, then went back nort
h of the border. He would have quit about the end of 1967. Nic Greco will have all their details—Social Security numbers, W-2 form copies. We’ll call him and make sure he knows to cooperate.”

  Abe scribbled busily, then stopped and looked enquiring.

  Rha held up John Doe Three. “This isn’t a spitting image, but would you say, Rafe Caron, Rufus?”

  “Yes, I’d say that’s Rafe,” Rufus said quietly.

  “Then he was with us early in 1967, left around February. He was about twenty. So ambitious he was frightening, I remember that about him. A dancer, and a good one, but cursed with skinny legs—he was forever trying to bulge up his calves. I think he went to the West Coast.”

  “None of these faces or names were in our Missing Persons.”

  “Frankly, it would have surprised me if they were,” Rha said, looking quite himself again. “At that age, and looking like that, kids of both sexes have wanderlust. The early twenties are the years of looking for the big break, which of course can’t come when they’re so young—you have to work at your act and image, casting directors have to see your face enough times, agents take you on—the traps and pitfalls are legion. Always add five years minimum to the age at which success is said to have occurred. Rock stars are younger, but that particular specimen doesn’t hang around stage doors and casting couches. And while it’s usually the girl wannabees wind up the subject of journalistic tragedies, there are just as many boy wannabees come to grief. And I guess that these poor boys didn’t even make beautiful corpses.”

  “Anything but,” Abe said. “I take it that their parents may not even know they’re missing?”

  “Few of the kids who come through here even admit to having parents,” Rufus said. “A career based on the face and figure is usually not parentally sanctioned. Moms and dads want their kids in steady jobs with promising futures. As a result, most leave under a cloud of disapproval, if not a bitter quarrel.”

  “Yes, I can see that. There’s no one else you suspect might be missing?”

  “No one springs to mind, Abe.”

  “How many of these youngsters pass through Busquash Manor in any given year?”

  “In 1968, the total was forty-two. One stayed a week, the longest stayed ten months,” Rha said. He began to get to his feet. “I’ll call Nic Greco for you.”

  “In a minute. I have a fifth painting, of a hypothetical person no one thinks exists at all,” Abe said, diving into his case for Doe the Desired. “Our police artist studied the changes made to the bodies of the young men, and produced a picture of the man he thinks the killer was seeing in his mind.” Abe removed a big flat envelope and handed it to Rufus, closer to him.

  This room too was well lit, including from a skylight, but as the envelope left Abe’s hand there was a sudden wild flurry of rain drumming against glass; Rufus, Abe and Rha jumped at its unexpectedness, then Rufus laughed, as if ashamed of his jitters.

  When the painting came out of its envelope it was Rufus’s turn to look faint; he gave it to Rha and sank against Rha’s shoulder, his face buried in the side of Rha’s neck. Left arm around Rufus, Rha used his right to hold the portrait out.

  “First name, Un, and last name Known,” he said in a steady voice. “This is Mr. Un Known, Rufus’s father.”

  Abe was holding out another brandy. “I’m truly sorry, Rha. I never realized my briefcase was so full of shocks. How do you know this is Mr. Un Known?”

  “Go back to the foyer, take the corridor to the left of the grand staircase, walk along it to the end, and open the door with the inset panel of Sanderson roses. You’ll be in Fenella Carantonio’s room. Our copy of that is on the wall. Bring it back,” said Rha, preoccupied with Rufus. “He’ll be okay by the time you return.”

  Abe went out; Rha stroked the head of beautiful hair with a rhythmic tenderness that didn’t vary until Rufus moved, sat up on the arm of Rha’s chair and drew a breath.

  “Oh, Rha, what are we going to do?” he asked, whispering it.

  “Play it very cool, Rufus my love. Very cool!”

  “Was it wise, to come out with it like that? I’m petrified, and you must be beside yourself.”

  “We have no choice but honesty, my dearest friend of all friends. Take your cues from me, we’ll get through it. Un Known never existed, and his twin brother, No One, never existed either. We stick to the truth as we know it. It’s my turn to be lucid, yours to be confused. Remember, always the truth! We can’t afford to become entangled in lies.”

  “Give me a sip of that brandy.”

  When Abe returned he found Rufus still huddled against Rha, and sipping at cognac.

  “Who is this, really?” he asked. “Someone must have posed for it, there’s nothing dreamy about it. This is a real man.”

  The room he had been directed to locate was a lush boudoir of pinks, white, reds and gilt, its fabrics Sanderson roses, its furniture Louis Quinze, its carpet Aubusson; an intensely feminine retreat calculated to emasculate a man inside five minutes. Except for the portrait of Un Known, which hung in the midst of an area of whiteness, its dark and brooding presence at odds with all else, including the room’s very spirit. It had been executed by one of those European painters who still understood and carried on the techniques of the Renaissance masters. That was not to cast Hank Jones into disrepute; they were the products of two very different schools. The older work, in oils and with museum-quality brush strokes, caught Un Known in ways Hank had not.

  The man’s hair was thick, black, lay straight back from his brow in natural waves, and finished on his collar. His ears were small, neat, and clipped against his head, and the bones of his skull belonged to Adonis. Richly tanned skin lent him a certain hardness he needed, so delicate were the curves of his mouth and the fineness of his nose; his cheekbones rivaled Julius Caesar’s. Thin, arched brows sat beneath a broad, high forehead, and there was a slight dent in his chin, probably, when more relaxed, a crease in his right cheek also. The radical difference between Un Known and Doe the Desired lay in the eyes, which Hank had done a vivid blue, whereas Un Known’s were dark enough to appear black. In the Fenella portrait, their effect was to transform Lucifer into Mephistopheles: sinister, stuffed with secrets, innately evil. Beauty at its most masculine and deadly.

  “If you ever met him, you’d remember,” Abe said, still awed.

  “Sometimes I’m convinced I know him well, at others I’m sure I never met him,” Rha said. “Given Fenella’s age, and the fact that he’s listed as Rufus’s father, neither of us remembers.”

  “Fenella said that after she told him she was pregnant, he disclaimed responsibility and she never saw him again,” Rufus said.

  Abe studied Rufus’s face, his own frowning and intent. “I can’t see anything of Un Known’s face in yours, no matter how hard I try. You’re a good looking guy, but not in the same way. Do you take after Fenella?”

  “Not really. She was very fair—that’s her portrait at the top of the grand staircase.”

  “Then you don’t resemble either parent.”

  “I’m a changeling, Abe,” Rufus said with a grin. “I figure I must have been hers—she left me her entire estate. I loved her, but she was sickening a long time before her disease clamped down, so it was love at one remove, if you know what I mean. Rha and I were raised by nannies, nurses, governesses and tutors.”

  Abe’s heart twisted. “Not much home life, huh?”

  Rufus laughed. “We did have a home life, actually. We were born on the same day, and we always had each other. Because we’re gay, you probably think we were molested as children, but we weren’t. We think we were just—born queenly.”

  Not wanting to go there, Abe concentrated on Un Known. “So no one apart from Fenella ever knew this man?”

  “All I can tell you is that an aura of fear surrounded him—everybody was afraid of him because they’d picked it up from Fenella. And Ivor was definitely around—another nasty piece of work. Rufus and I used to hide when he appear
ed.”

  A shudder in someone as big as Rha was impressive; Abe stared at a shuddering Rha in amazement. “So the one father you did know frightened the pair of you as well?”

  “So much so that neither of us remembers Ivor either. If you showed us a photograph of Ivor, we wouldn’t recognize him.”

  “Oh, that’s sad!” Abe exclaimed, thinking of his own sons; life as a cop showed you almost every day how many bad parents the world contained, but he and Betty were determined their boys would prosper under the right mixture of freedom and discipline. So far it was working, but that was the key word—work. “How many of your people know about Un Known?”

  “Anyone who stays more than a month is bound to know,” Rha said. “We keep Fenella’s room as a kind of shrine, and the more responsible kids get a week or two caring for it. They all see the portrait as out of place, and ask. Of course Ivy knows, Jess too. Long-term backers like the Kornblums and the Tierneys.”

  “Nic Greco,” Rufus contributed; he still looked shocked.

  “Do you tell the story when asked?”

  “Warts and all,” Rha said. “The whole Carantonio story is interesting, and Un Known is definitely its Mystery Man.”

  Rufus spoke again. “All four of your victims knew. Each of them had flicked a duster around Fenella’s shrine.”

  “When and how did Fenella die?”

  “In 1950. Rha and I were twenty years old. I was the principal dancer with a successful company called Ballet Bohemia and Rha had just opened his boutique a block from Bloomingdale’s in New York City—Rha Tanais, no qualifications. It was for big women, he was in hock to the eyeballs, and he gambled his all on what he displayed in his shop windows. They were genius! The word got around faster than a brush fire. I was bored with ballet and wanted to work with Rha. The odd thing is that Rha’s success happened before Fenella died, a matter of three months.”

  “Were you expecting to inherit, Rufus?”

  The khaki eyes didn’t change. “At the time, no. Fenella approved of our homosexuality, but not of our leaving Holloman. Well, she was dying, poor baby, and in one part of our minds we knew it, but we buried it. Oh, there was no quarrel, but we knew we had to get out of Holloman to make something of ourselves, and the curse of dying by inches is that you never really think it’s going to happen at all. As for her money—she’d educated us at home and neither of us went to college—it wasn’t real. She never spoiled us with expensive gifts or toys, and she didn’t give us an allowance while we lived at Busquash Manor.” Rufus smiled. “She couldn’t have done better by us if she’d tried, which we don’t think she did. We hit New York City at seventeen, worked our assess off, and had some luck.”