“Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble,” I suggested, “for such a modest occasion.”
“Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble about many things, and so far he’s been very disappointed at the way things have panned out.”
“And will I get to meet this gentleman?”
“I’m sure he’s looking forward to it.”
“That’s nice. Is he a friend of Big Jack Debereaux’s?”
“They’re acquainted.”
“But Big Jack’s not hanging around for the fun?”
“It seems he has business in Albany.”
“I thought maybe his tux was at the cleaners.”
“More a matter of discretion, I believe.”
“I hope he’s at least catering the affair.”
“I believe his people supplied the champagne.”
“What about Yari?” I asked. “Where does he fit in?”
“Nowhere.”
“He seems to be supplying the venue.”
“He had no choice. Yari is like a kid who thinks the lifeguard’s flag doesn’t apply to him. He gets in over his head and then waits for somebody to rescue him.”
It occurred to me once again that Yari might well have been the person who had spotted Sandy in the first place. He had a talent for that kind of thing, though Langham was another candidate. But who would Yari have been spotting for? His mother’s boyfriend? That didn’t feel right, though Debereaux fit in somewhere, and it occurred to me that as an aspirant for the governorship Debereaux would always be on the lookout for people who could help line his coffers with the long green and who might be susceptible to the idea of exchanging cash for favors. And what about Garofolo’s role? Somebody had to run the show.
“Yari will be okay as long as he stays out of the way,” said Joey. “You could have been okay too, if you’d followed my advice.”
“I did. Until your thugs snatched us and drove us to the Connecticut wilderness. I figured all bets were off.”
Another shrug.
“Tell me,” I asked, “why did you let Sandy stay at my place? I don’t know what’s going down around here, but whatever it is, that can’t have been in anybody’s playbook.”
“Sandy knows which side her bread is buttered on,” he said. “She’s not stupid—though I guess I may have to reconsider that statement. I was pretty sure she’d come round in the end—that she wasn’t going to blow everything by letting someone like you screw things up. I guess I was mistaken.”
“You didn’t seem so sure when we talked at the Alibi.”
“God is in the details.”
“And I’m a detail . . .”
“One of many. A small one that got out of hand. It was all about keeping Sandy on the straight and narrow. That was something she hadn’t been accustomed to, and that’s why we had to make things unpleasant for her—to remind her about what her life would be like if she didn’t play ball.”
“That’s why you sicked those maniacs on her?”
“I didn’t count on Drexler breaking into her apartment. He developed an obsession. And I didn’t count on Sandy taking things so hard—not given the life she’s led till now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I thought she’d be safe at the woman’s studio till I was ready to snatch her back.”
“At Jilly’s?”
“Yeah. I was a bit more concerned about you, but then I checked you out and found you were a bit of a romantic. I figured she’d be okay with you till I needed her, as long as you understood she was about as safe to handle as Strontium-90. Then my boys who were watching your place told me she’d taken off on her own. We had a plan that was about to be activated, so I couldn’t put things off any longer. I gave orders to snatch her immediately—wherever she went. You managed to get in the way. Otherwise you could be home in bed.”
“So what now?” I asked.
“We’ll be getting this show on the road soon,” he said.
“And who’s the lucky guy?”
“I guess it’s time to let you in on one secret. I’ll be your best man.”
He felt in a vest pocket and brought out a Tiffany box containing a gold ring.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It fits.”
That was one scenario I hadn’t envisioned. Until then the worst I had presumed was that Sandy was going to be forced to go through with some kind of union—real or sham—with some rich creep she was running away from. If she and I were about to be compelled to submit to some preposterous fake ceremony, then the implications were dire. Nobody had a happy ending in mind for us—that much was for sure. I might find myself with Sandy till death us did part, but there was no way of knowing if the time lapse would be measured in hours or minutes. Why this farce, anyway? The mind behind this was even sicker than I had imagined. And how did I feel about Sandy now? Another sick mind? I had suspected she wasn’t being entirely straight with me, yet I’d managed to spend most of the past few days in a blissful state of denial that had culminated in a single bout of memorable sex that seemed likely to cost me my life.
Clearly, though, I was not alone in my sense that Sandy was something out of the ordinary. This might be a farce, but it was big-time farce and, as with all good farces, the author was taking it very seriously.
About then I heard Garofolo talking in hushed tones to someone who had just entered from the street. Turning to look, I caught a glimpse of a man in oversized dark glasses being escorted from the vestibule by Shirley Squilacci. The new arrival was wearing a cassock, a clerical collar, and a cappello romano—one of those black priest’s hats like an upside-down mixing bowl with a wide brim. Could some man of the cloth have been coerced into participating in this deadly fiasco? Blackmailed maybe by the mob, who had gained knowledge of some particularly juicy mortal sin—a peccadillo with an altar boy, or a moment of indiscretion with an attractive parishioner who had volunteered to bring a shine to the chalice? Or was this maybe an actor? Or just a mobster in holy drag? It didn’t make much difference, really. Sandy had said that her patron liked to pretend, and I was beginning to get a sense of just how much pretending was going on. My problem was that I found it difficult to get into the Halloween mood.
As the organist continued his Beatles medley with “A Day in the Life,” Anthony led me to a tiny, windowless room off the nave that had a lovingly hand-lettered sign on the door which read FOR PRIVATE PRAYER. I took it to heart.
“Okay—cool your chops in here,” said Anthony.
I asked what was holding things up.
“Waiting for the Big Guy.”
“And who is this Big Guy?”
Anthony did not bother to reply, just shut the door and locked it behind him. The room was furnished with a hassock, a lectern, and nothing else. The lectern had presumably once been home to a Bible or a prayer book, but someone had replaced it with a copy of the first issue of Vamp, open at Yari Mendelssohn’s provocative photograph of Sandy. I closed it and sat on the hassock, which wasn’t very comfortable. I hadn’t been there long when I heard voices on the far side of the door—not just the mobsters but female voices too, young-sounding women with a range of accents from broadest Brooklyn to Valley Girl to Hispanic, talking nervously as if they didn’t quite know what they were doing there. Wedding guests? Not from my side of the family.
After a few minutes of this, Anthony reappeared, snapped cuffs on my wrists—at least not behind my back this time—and told me to follow him. As I emerged from the prayer room, a dozen or so pairs of eyes turned toward me. Without exception, they were heavily indebted to Estée Lauder and Maybelline. There were cat eyes, and Egyptian eyes, and Brigitte Bardot eyes, and wide eyes straight out of Japanese manga comics—eyelids boldly painted with glistening turquoise and magenta pigments, eyeliner black as Texas crude, eyelashes loaded with mas
cara and long enough to use as feather dusters. They belonged to young women—and a few on the cusp—who knew how to dress, and probably undress, to be noticed. Skirts were short and tight, and bosoms—some showing signs of augmentation—were proudly acknowledged by décolleté necklines. Whether blonde or brunette, hair was predominantly of the long, slinky variety favored in commercials for shampoos and conditioners. Some manes were topped with wide-brimmed hats in pastel colors. Lips were carefully painted and parted in voyeuristic bewilderment. I was greeted with pitying silence.
Among this bevy of enameled beauties, I spotted the stripper who went by the name of Betty Boobs—she of the talcum-scented buttocks—and guessed that the others might well be of the same persuasion, but I didn’t have time to give the matter much thought since Anthony hurried me into a quiet corridor near the vestry.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Yo, it’s time to confess,” said Anthony. “Time to get your fuckin’ sins off your ass—say a few Hail Marys maybe before you fuckin’ meet the Holy Mother in person.”
And sure enough, there was a confessional, though I’d never seen one there before. It looked a bit like the old wooden telephone booths they used to have in New York post offices, except that instead of a window there was a grille made up of ornate metal latticework. I could hear someone breathing inside.
“You can leave us,” said a voice from behind the grille, dismissing Anthony.
I pressed my face up against the grille and tried to peer through the dense latticework. It was dark inside, but I could swear that the man in there had on one of those white Pierrot masks that people wear on Halloween—the kind with a painted tear dripping from one eye.
“Show some respect,” he said. “You are here on solemn business.”
His voice was muffled and gravelly, its tone self-consciously stilted. My guess was that underneath the bullshit was the kind of New York accent with an Ivy League veneer you heard in upmarket steakhouses around the Financial District.
“You are here to celebrate the Sacrament of Penance,” he continued, “to obey canon law by engaging in the ritual that leads to repentance and reconciliation with the Lord.”
I told him to fuck off.
“That’s not an acceptable attitude, my son. Impure language is a sin of considerable consequence.”
I decided to play along with this game, in the hope that I could learn something.
“Impurity in all of its forms,” said the man behind the grille, “is sinful.”
“Then I’m a sinner.”
“We are all sinners, my son. It is the degree of sin that defines the sinner. Are you, perhaps, a pimp or a pederast?”
“You’ve got a wrong number, schmuck.”
Are you guilty of sorcery, practicing the black arts, or idolatry?”
“Not this week.”
“Did you not idolize a woman?”
“Not the word I would have chosen.”
“And did you not attempt to steal her affection by the practice of sorcery?”
“Not my speed.”
“Did you ply her with potions to loosen her will?”
“I might have bought her a couple of drinks.”
“And are you guilty of the sins of jealousy or greed?”
“Probably.”
“Since surely you were envious of the woman’s true mate and greedy for her favors?”
The man’s tone had gone from stilted to hammy, and from hammy to acrimonious.
“That depends,” I replied. “Who is this ‘true mate’?”
“My calling does not permit me to name names, but did you not steal this woman from another? And is not theft of a woman’s honor a mortal sin?’
“Honor in what sense of the word?”
“This woman had pledged herself to another.”
“Pledged herself? How so?”
“She had engaged in a contract with him.”
“I know nothing of this bullshit.”
“I fear that you are now committing the sins of aggravated arrogance and vanity—believing that your appetites override all else. Do you not believe in the validity of contracts?”
“What is this fucking contract?”
“The contract that this woman pledged herself to respect.”
I had a pretty good idea I knew what he was talking about, but I wasn’t about to advertise the fact.
“I’ve only ever entered into two contracts with a woman,” I said. “Both times the same woman. The first time was when I asked her to marry me. The second time was when we got a divorce.”
“Because the woman was unfaithful to you?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“And how did you feel when that happened? How did you feel when you found out for the first time?”
The guy knew how to hit a nerve. It had nothing to do with anything that was happening, but I remembered Janice standing on the stairs at Lampwick Street, looking down at me and telling me, “It doesn’t matter. It’s cool. Nothing has changed.”
And of course everything had.
“I don’t remember,” I said. “You get over that stuff.”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
I let it go. Was I beginning to understand where the guy was coming from? Was I crazy?
“Have you ever committed the capital sin of taking the life of another human being?” he asked.
“Not knowingly,” I said. “But I’ve seen men die.”
“And women?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
The picture in my head was of a girl of eighteen spread all over the sidewalk alongside the twisted remains of a truck that had been loaded with plastic explosives.
The man in the booth began to roar with laughter—unexpectedly high-pitched, manic laughter.
“Was she beautiful?” he wheezed.
With my cuffed hands, I took hold of the grille and shook the confessional, which only brought on more laughter. Meanwhile, I was grabbed by Anthony and one of the younger hoods and dragged away.
The laughter stopped abruptly and the man in the booth called after me, “We’ll have to think long and hard about what mortifications can purchase your forgiveness. There is perhaps only one form of penance sufficient to atone for sins of this magnitude.”
I opened my mouth to yell something back, but Anthony punched me in the kidneys, killing the words stone dead in my throat.
“As for your partner in fornication,” came the voice from the confessional, “even that ultimate punishment may not be enough.”
There was little doubt in my mind that this crazy “father confessor” was the angry patron behind Sandy’s gender transformation. That didn’t get me any nearer to discovering who he was, though. One thing I felt sure of—he might be pissed as hell at me and at Sandy, but he was in no hurry to take his revenge. He was a game player. He wanted to draw this out so he could find as many ways as possible to jerk off.
So the question was, what would the next game be? I didn’t have to wait long for the answer. Back in the nave of the former church, where the guests had been gathering, I saw that the strippers, some sipping champagne, were clustered around a large black-and-white television monitor. Anthony did nothing to stop me from joining them, so I took a place at the rear of the group and peered up at the screen. Something resembling a familiar tableau was being reenacted. What was conjured up was the scene from Vamp—a book-lined interior with Sandy sprawled in a leather chair. In the background, as in Yari’s photo, were two young women watching her. There were differences, however. The young women were dressed as bridesmaids, and seemed confused. Sandy’s eyes, instead of glaring defiantly at the camera, were glazed over as if she had been pumped full of sedatives or plied with martinis. The image—presumably transmitted over some kind of CCTV circuit—w
as blurry and kept breaking up. I could not tell for sure if the setting was Stewart Langham’s atelier.
As I watched the screen, horrified, an older woman in a maid’s costume carried in a wedding gown. I turned away from the monitor and found myself facing Shirley Squilacci.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “she’ll be sober when it’s time for the ceremony.”
“Is she drunk?”
“Stoned, more like it.”
“Is she here?”
No reply. I tried a different question.
“Was that Langham’s apartment?”
Again, no reply. I forced myself to turn back to the screen. The two bridesmaids and the older woman were trying to get Sandy into some frilly white underwear. It was like trying to dress a spastic rag doll. Some of the strippers watching found it funny.
“Just like your wedding night, babe,” giggled one. “And you didn’t even make it through the honeymoon.”
“I didn’t make it to the honeymoon!”
I turned away again and tried to concentrate on a thought that had popped into my head a little earlier. Undoubtedly whoever was behind all this had a nasty denouement in mind for me, but assuming he was planning to give me a one-way ticket to Nowhere—Sandy’s hometown, after all—he wasn’t going to do it here in front of a crowd of witnesses. For sure these bimbos knew how to keep their mouths shut, up to a point anyway, but with this many people you could never be quite sanguine about leaks. I wanted to pass this thought on to Darla, and it was then that I realized I hadn’t seen her in a while. That gave me a little crumb of hope. I turned back to Shirley Squilacci and asked if she knew where Darla was.
“Around somewhere. Why?”
“She said she was going to get me a drink.”
“Anyone can get you a drink. There’s champagne over there on that table.”
She was going to try and find me a Scotch.”
“I don’t know where the bitch is. I haven’t seen her. She’s taking care of business someplace.”
Unintentionally, I may have planted a thought in Shirley’s head. She politely excused herself—as if she was detaching herself from a paying customer at the Alibi—then walked over to Garofolo, who was nearby and nervously consulting his watch. She said something to him under her breath. They both glanced in my direction, then Garofolo strode quickly to the front of the building and into the vestibule where the entrance was, pulling a pistol from some hidden place as he went. That entrance was guarded by at least two hoods that I knew of, and I heard Garofolo scream at one of them.
The Girl From Nowhere Page 18