Helen’s name had rung a bell with me the moment I heard it in Silverton’s reception room, weeks ago. Calabrese meant a variety of things in the strange world of sin in New York. Calabrese rang another bell with the police because they would think at once of Luigi Calabrese, the clever little man in the rackets, the peculiarly powerful character who was important enough to testify before a senatorial committee on vice in Washington not too long ago. But the bell Luigi Calabrese rang for me was a more ancient memory gong, dating back to the war, to Normandy, when Luigi and I shared a muddy ditch in the infantry. And every time I entered Silverton’s outer office, that bell rang for me. Because Helen was Luigi’s kid sister.
“How long have you been working for Silverton?” I asked.
“Two years this Christmas.”
“And before that?”
“I worked for brother Luigi before that.” She laughed a rich and uninhibited chuckle. She had certain native qualities that contradicted her surface veneer, the thin polish of show-business civilization. When she laughed, her pretty face lit with a good glow. She had deep black eyes, intense and emotional. “God, Steve, must you always play the detective?” she asked. “Must you always work? Luigi painted you as a man of great spirit—a laughing man.”
“I work when I work, Helen. Right now I’m on an important job. And Luigi knew me when I could afford to laugh a lot.” I handed her Silverton’s report. “What do you make of this prose masterpiece, Helen?”
“It makes sense.”
“Did you know her? Mari Barstow?”
“I’ve met her,” she said. “Do you want my honest opinion?”
“It could help.”
“Mari Barstow is a creep.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know the college she came from? You know the Letitia Blanchard college group? Blanchard caters to odd balls, Steve. Blanchard breeds them, feeds them, nourishes them in all the arts. They come out of that place reeking with crazy culture, a kind of Bohemian background you just don’t find anywhere else. Scratch a Blanchard alumnus and you find a budding goon, an artistic phony. I don’t know what Silverton is worried about, actually. For my money, Mari Barstow could be anywhere on a whim, a sudden itch for travel. It wouldn’t surprise me if she suddenly decided to leave the country for a while.”
“She hasn’t left the country, Helen. In my business that’s the first operation, the routine beginning of my checkup. She neither had a passport nor applied for one.”
“What a brain,” sighed Helen Calabrese. “Have you tried Las Vegas? Atlantic City? Brooklyn? Mari Barstow might have picked any of them for a short vacation.”
“Alone?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Did she have a steady?”
“You’re over my head now,” she laughed. “I never bothered to get her personal history.”
“No gossip?”
“A detective uses gossip?” She smiled artfully, heated now by the martinis, a girl of easy conversational habits when the liquor grabbed hold of her.
“Another drink, Helen?”
“I’ll never be able to work again today.”
“You can blame me for it,” I said. “Tell old Silverton I was grilling you.”
“I’ll tell old Silverton nothing,” she laughed. “Get me that drink, Steve.”
“We were talking about gossip. Office scuttlebutt?”
“Helen Calabrese scuttlebutt.”
“You’ve seen her around?”
“From the very beginning. Mari never exactly hid her pretty light under a bushel.”
“How about her? Is she easy?”
“A cute word,” said Helen. “She was easy for some.”
“Easy for who?”
“You name him—she’s probably had him.”
“Where do I start?”
“Drop me a name, Steve.”
“Silverton, for instance?”
“A good instance.” She sipped her drink, smiling into the glass. “Yes, indeed, Oliver has a strong letch for her.”
“Headstrong or bedstrong?”
“Oliver tried hard.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“A silly question,” she said. “I wasn’t under the bed when it happened, Steve, if that’s what you mean. But you can tell how hot the flame is burning from the way a man handles a gal like Mari. Oliver always looked as if he was about to take a bite of her, if you know what I mean. Can you picture him taking her for a walk under the Fire Island moon? And why was her dress sanded in odd places when they returned from their meandering? And why was Oliver’s face suddenly moonburned and looking alive? Let me put it this way—he made the old Yale try, that’s for sure. And from the look of him, if he didn’t get far with her that night, he would certainly stick with it back in town. Are you with me, detective?”
“Ahead,” I said. “Who else?”
“Arthur Haddon.”
“How sure?”
“Arthur flips when a female he likes passes by. Arthur is outgoing. He should be. He’s had four wives, hasn’t he? When Mari Barstow began to sing, Arthur began to twitch, drool, and take to drink. Out on Fire Island he didn’t have the courage for competing with Oliver Silverton. But you should have seen him when Mari came into the office. He was suddenly nineteen years old and on the merry-go-round. He went after her like a cat after liver.”
“And made it?”
“Arthur has charm, when he’s sober.”
“Are there more, Helen?”
“Jan Flato, of course.” Her voice dropped on the name and she was no longer gay. “Poor Jan, even he got the heaves when she walked on scene.”
“You liked him?”
“Jan was a nice person. A real person.”
“Was he for you?”
“What exactly does that crack mean?” Her eyes snapped and she potted a small alcoholic pout. She tried to stare me under the table.
“I’m only asking, Helen. Did you like him that way?”
“What way?”
“Deep.”
“I liked him. Leave it alone, Steve.”
“You aren’t answering my question,” I said. “Ever date him?”
“Just business fluff,” she shrugged. “Jan was around all the time and my job keeps me in the building a lot, close to the big shows. Jan and I kidded a lot. We ate dinner together. We drank late, once in a while. That’s about it.”
“Did you call him last night, Helen?”
“I did not. And how would you know if I did?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think you did.”
“And if I did?”
“If you did, why did you?”
“If I did, maybe I was checking on a date.” She put down her glass and said nothing more. She was fighting off a deep and shivering urge to break down, her face clouded with real trouble, her mouth tight. “I waited a long time for him to pick me up. We had a dinner date, Steve. He never came and I hated him for it. Until this morning—the news—”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Helen.”
“Get me another drink, Steve?”
“No more now. I don’t want to fracture you, believe me. Can you think of any other males Mari Barstow had on the hook?”
“Only one other that I know. A lad named Jeff Masterson.”
“I’ve heard that name before.”
“A writer. An avant-garde termite. Want to meet him?”
“I can’t wait.”
“You’ll have to wait until tonight. He’s giving a reading of his deathless prose at a hole called Gretchen’s down in the Village. You can take me there. Or would you rather go alone?”
“I’m with you,” I said.
Because I wanted to be.
CHAPTER
5
Gretchen’s place belonged to Gretchen MacGruder, a plump matron with a showgirl’s complexion, the make-up piled on with abandon, apple-red in the cheeks and crimson in the broad mouth. And over it all, a powdery quality that told you the truth about her age and the lunacy of her temperament. Gretchen was hanging onto youth and madness with a desperate grip, converting her basement apartment into an intellectual hangout where she could mingle with the manic set. She minced and bounced among her visitors, generous with the alcohol and fluttering like a fat technicolor bug around males of any age.
“Helen Calabrese!” she said in a high voice. “It is Helen?”
“Evening, Gretchen.”
“And your escort? I didn’t catch the name.”
“Martingale,” said Helen. “Ulysses S. Martingale.”
“Ah? Oh? Not the writer?”
“Painter,” I said.
“Of course, of course,” breathed Gretchen. “I know the name, man. Saw your show. Last year, wasn’t it? Abstract? Great, singing welts of color? Broad, airy masses?”
“Dada,” I said, because the word tasted good and Gretchen’s drinks were biting hard. “You like Dada?”
“Adore it, man. Dali. King of them all. Have you met him?”
“Not lately.”
A little man with a pitcher eased through the crush of bodies and replenished our glasses. It was a stinging brew, biting and sharp, vodka and God-knows-what.
The little man slid by, his mouth moving. “Today is tomorrow … a black pocket in the coat of time …”
A remarkably pretty girl caught hold of his arm and halted him and held out her glass to be filled. She stared hard at me, weighing me with her shining eyes, smiling a Bohemian smile, half challenge, half mockery.
“Crazy Brains in yet, man?” she asked the little drink merchant.
“Not yet … the doom is black.”
“Fletcher, you’re gone,” she commented. “You’re way out there. Is he out, or is he out, cat?”
“Fletcher is definitely in outer space,” I said.
She drank, unbuttoning her yellow blouse in a broad V, exposing the fresh curves of her torso.
“And what sort of dreams do you paint, man?” Gretchen was asking me.
“Nightmares,” I said.
“The finest,” added Helen.
“And on a broad screen. In startling Conacolor.”
“Conacolor?”
“A pointillist technique,” I said.
“That clarifies it,” said Gretchen.
“Dim … deep down … the dungheaps of the dark,” whispered Fletcher, easing against the tide of Nowists. “Drink is the end … out … and gone.”
“I must tell Hagemeyer about it,” said Gretchen, and was gone without looking at me again. She headed for the door. Two men had just entered, a pair of tail and delicate boys, one of them as bald as an egg. She began to shout greetings to them before she reached them; high, whinnying and unnoticed against the great tide of noise from the hi-fi in the comer and the frantic buzz of the intelligentsia.
It was a long and narrow room, a catch-all for a weird collection of bric-a-brac, furniture, rugs, and oddments of decoration. Gretchen must have devoted a lifetime to the gathering of these strange furnishings—ancient and cumbersome chairs out of long dead Italy, overstuffed couches from Grand Rapids, Oriental rugs, tasseled lamps, birdcages, and many books.
The place was crowded to the doors with a conglomerate group; far too many people to meet, far too many to appraise. The atmosphere reeked with smoke: a gray pall hungover the dimmed lights—a smoky cloud that somehow couldn’t erase the deeper stench of mustiness, decay, dust, and the inevitable aroma of cats. Gretchen was a cat fanatic.
She had assembled almost as many felines as people, a variety of cats that seemed to go well with their human company; alley cats and toms, Siamese and Persians, all of them well fed and sleek and silently out-staring the odd-ball ghouls around them. They sat in laps, lounged on bookshelves, curled in corners, and mewed only when prodded by any of the unthinking guests.
“Gretchen feeds all these beasts?” I asked.
“Gretchen worships them,” said Helen Calabrese. “Her door is always open to wandering cats. It’s a religion with her, the love of her life. So long as the cats are males.”
“I see what you mean.”
Gretchen was seated on the floor in the dim corner of the room, her boxlike figure in a yogi pose, a large black cat in her lap. Alongside her, the tall, bald sprite stroked the cat while engaging Gretchen in deep and serious conversation. A few of the others had gathered around, talking fast as they sipped their drinks and blew great clouds of smoke at each other, The very short man drifted into the group with his pitcher, replenishing the glasses. The girl with the yellow blouse strolled the floor with a slippery, sliding motion. She took off her blouse and draped it casually on her arm.
“Cool,” somebody said.
“Gone,” said somebody else.
The man with the pitcher poured my glass full again. Up close, he was mumbling a mad soliloquy, a personal dirge, a comment on the cosmos.
“The black box of boredom … the big, deep …”
There were many unattached females wandering through the knots of discourse, odd types with odd shapes and odd heads and very odd attitudes. They were pursued optically by the surrounding males, some bold and some shy, but all of them free with their eyes—as though tasting each female through a sly leer, an open stare, or a romantic wink. Snatches of admiring dialogue skimmed around me:
“Get a load of the yellow shirt, Sam …”
“What a pair of buds!”
“Is she for real?”
“For realarooney.”
“And that short one in the corner …”
“She’s taking off soon …”
“You know her, Joe?”
“A stripper, but not yet. Another drink …”
“There it goes …”
“Dig those apples, Sam!”
“I’m cutting over there, man …”
“Good luck, cat …”
The girl carrying the yellow shirt crossed my way, snaking through a mob of intellectuals who were yammering Nowist theories. All eyes followed her, stayed with her a moment and then abandoned her to the little man with the pitcher. She let him fill her glass again, saying nothing, staring at me with strange hypnotic eyes. Then she casually removed her brassiere.
From the other side of the room, another girl entered, naked to her belt and carrying an orange cat in her arms. The girl with the yellow shirt turned, her greeting a slow nod. The party was taking on a new tone. Was it the drinks the little man was serving? Beyond, all over the big room, other girls stood suddenly bare above the midriff, and the talk rose to a higher pitch, an impossible cacophony now, a mixture of hilarity and hysteria and the perpetual pounding of the background jazz.
The girl with the yellow shirt said: “Crazy Brains. Is he here yet, Alice?”
“I hear he is.”
“Alone, cat?”
“Crazy Brains alone? You mad?”
“Who is it tonight?”
“I didn’t see.”
“You trying him?”
“I’m off him. Got my cat.”
“Cool. Who?”
“The big one over there. Blue-eyes.”
“Not for me.”
“You trying for Crazy Brains?”
“I’m trying.”
“You never give up.”
“He’s for me.”
“See you later.”
“Not if I can help it, Alice.”
“Decadence was yesterday,” mumbled the little man with the pitcher. “Did I ever tell you my theory of form in space, cat?”
“Come with me, Fletcher. Crazy Br
ains is here.”
She led him away, pitcher and all. The hubbub had reached a new high, a steady drone, loud enough to kill the deep tones of the hi-fi, still blatting something progressive in jazz, African on the drums and sad on the sax. Alongside me, Helen Calabrese stood close, her hand locked on my arm, her eyes thick-lidded. She was watching a man on the far side of the room.
“Jeff Masterson,” somebody whispered.
“Old Crazy Brains …”
“Dig that beard, cat …”
“Cool …”
He was standing near the door, his bearded head bent in conversation with a woman. In the quick tableau, she slid off to one side, tugging him with her, as though to remove him permanently from the group of admiring females. She saw me then. She lowered her head and moved off toward the exit. She would have made it easily, but a sudden shift in the structure of the crowd revealed her to me and almost brought a laugh to my lips.
“Mrs. Timmerman,” I mumbled.
“Who?” asked Helen Calabrese.
“This dump attracts a mad variety of disciples. Or is it Masterson who brings them here?”
“Masterson has a way with girls.”
“Quiet, cat,” somebody said in a soprano whisper.
“He’s beginning to read,” said another.
“Endless, endless, the tightrope tread of time,” sang the voice of Masterson. “Endless, endless …”
He was a ponderous youth, thick in the shoulders and square in the face. His unbuttoned black and white checkered shirt seemed purposely open to reveal his shaggy chest. He wore a dirty green corduroy jacket, frayed at the sleeve-ends and patched in the elbows with light tan leather oblongs. He wore black pants, bagged at the knees and deliberately neglected to affect the Bohemian look. His shoes were a sick and cloudy buff, once slick and chic, now aged with ancient dirt and mottled with a variety of stains to murder their original suede splendor. He had a reddish mop of hair, uncombed and falling heroically over his classic brow. His beard was a shade redder, full grown around his jaws, unkempt, uncombed, and calculated to give him a Hemingway flavor—all man and literary as hell. He clutched a small sheaf of manuscript, read it slowly, tasting each word as though eating good food. He had a deep rich voice, strong enough to carry without shouting. The silence was gathering around him from behind us. He would have everybody in the room listening before too long.
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