Strawberry Tattoo

by Lauren Henderson

  “God, it’s like living in an episode of Homicide,” I commented.

  “No, no,” he said quickly. “The city’s much safer now since all the Giuliani reforms. Really. You’ll be perfectly OK, Ms. Jones.”

  That would be a first.

  Today the first block of 72nd Street was as dead as a recent Martin Amis novel. It was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and everything kosher—the Italian restaurant, the bookstore, the Glatt Mexican takeaway—was shuttered up tighter than a bad face-lift. I crossed the great teeming intersection where Broadway and Amsterdam merged, throwing up islands in their wake. The flood of traffic surged past like fast-moving boats, people jumping back from the sidewalks as if frightened to get their feet splashed when the liner buses swept perilously close cutting a corner. The motorbike couriers were the jet skis, dashing between the buses with the insistent buzz of giant bumblebees. Huge Mack trucks ploughed straight down the centre of the road, the great furrows of their passage buffeting cyclists off balance as they struggled to hold their own against the cross-currents of wind. How the bladers managed I had no idea. With their black helmets and the pads buckled to knees and elbows, they looked like urban warriors, heads down, legs moving fast and rhythmically, weaving along the streams of cars, pushing themselves off ones that came too close with the metal protectors strapped round their palms.

  Crossing New York’s busiest avenues felt as if an invisible Moses were holding back the roaring torrents for a tiny space of time; if we didn’t make it across fast the Red Sea would surge in, drowning stragglers and Egyptians. It added the thrill of danger to a cross-town walk which Giuliani’s city reforms had apparently removed from most other areas of possibility. Between Amsterdam and Columbus was Hispanic territory, and I was besieged by horny would-be studs.

  “Yo, baby,” they called. “Nice lady …” And “Whoah!” when something particularly nice went by. Or they hissed between clenched teeth in a long slow Ssssssss of approval, like the evil snake Prince John in the Disney Robin Hood. “Nasty,” another one said to me with appreciation. He was sitting on a fold-up stool in the middle of the sidewalk and handing out leaflets.

  Ahead of me I could see the green glow of Central Park. The last block was almost all residential, with perfectly spaced, well-maintained trees lining the sidewalk, casting elegant shadows onto the long awnings that reached nearly to the kerbs. I crossed the last intersection and found myself at the open mouth of a tangle of little paths, like tributaries running together into a river. They dipped and turned away, thickly hedged, their surfaces glimmering in the sunlight. The grass shone, each blade glittering with light like tiny green slivers of mirror, and the chaos of cars on Central Park West, just behind me, faded into a background hum which hardly disturbed the clear fresh air.

  I loved London’s parks, but this was something special. Even Regent’s Park, with its boating lake and swans and bandstand, its wide open stretches of football and rugby fields with tantalising glimpses of the poor zoo animals, is flat. Only Hampstead Heath provides hills and wildness and mystery, not to mention the raucous man-to-man sexual encounters of Golders Hill Park, and that’s scarcely in central London. Highwaymen hung out there only a century and a half ago. Whereas this, bang in the middle of New York, was a forest.

  Strawberry Fields turned out to be practically in front of me, a little section of grassy knolls and an inlaid “Imagine” mosaic, so much less spectacular than I had envisaged that I walked round it a couple of times before realising that I was in the correct spot. I was put right by the arrival of a tour group of Japanese who immediately gathered round the mosaic and started taking pictures. There was no police tape closing off any particular area, and no one there on duty.

  “You hear about that chick who got killed here?” a kid behind me said. He plopped himself down on a bench and gestured to his companion to join him. “Right where you’re sitting, man. Got her from behind and—chhkk.”

  He drew a line across his throat. “Came up behind her with a wire. Nothing she could do. No matter how you struggle, once that wire gets you—chhkk—it’s all over. Only takes a few seconds. That’s what the Gestapo used.”

  “The who?” said Kid B.

  “You know,” Kid A said impatiently. “The Nazis. Like, in the films.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Kid B’s assent did not quite convince me. I had the feeling that he was just agreeing for the sake of an easy life. I turned to glance at them and then wished I hadn’t. Their heads looked as if they had been shaved with a grass-cutter, there were little billy-goat tufts of beards on their chins, and they were wearing the regulation huge, bottom-concealing trousers. On their top halves were baggy long-sleeved T-shirts, and over these were pulled much tighter ones, short-sleeved and shiny with logos. They looked ridiculous. At least neither of them had any beauty to ruin.

  “So how come you know all this? About the chick that got done?” he asked, curiosity winning out over squeamishness.

  “Saw it on the news,” Kid A said with relish. “They found her in the morning, sitting where you are, like she was just sleeping or something. Nasty, huh? Tell you what, she was a babe. I saw her photo. Hot stuff.”

  “So maybe it was a boyfriend,” suggested Kid B. “Guy was jealous, right?”

  “Nah,” said Kid A, worldly-wise. “She wasn’t, like, interfered with.”

  “Oh.” Kid B was convinced by this sharp-witted piece of deductive reasoning. “So who did it, then?”

  “Hey, man, you asking me? I don’t know! Maybe there’s, like, a maniac at large in Central Park.” He lowered his voice on the last few words, trying to induce the requisite spooky atmosphere.

  “There are hundreds of fucking maniacs at large in Central Park, man,” retorted Kid B, unimpressed. “You’re a fucking maniac at large right now.”

  “Well, hey! Maybe it was me! You better watch out—one dark night I’ll come sneaking up behind you—”

  “Hey, man, if you think I’m dumb enough to let you come up behind me, you fucking pervert cocksucker—”

  Kid A flung a friendly punch at Kid B, who responded in kind. They scuffled around for a while under the disapproving gaze of the Japanese tour group, practically falling off the bench in an ecstasy of what in 1910 would have been called ragging—though I had the feeling that to claim victory in that particular sport you had to shove your opponent’s head into the wastepaper basket.

  The sun poured down on our heads, the sky a clear duck-egg blue. I stared at the bench, trying to imagine Kate sitting there at midnight. There was a thick hedge behind it. No one could have come through that without ripping themselves to pieces and making such a racket in the process that their chances of taking her unawares would have been as high as William Hague’s of getting off with Eva Herzigova.

  Had it been someone she knew, someone who had come here with her, who, as they talked, had strolled behind the bench and whipped the wire round her neck? It wasn’t easy to imagine. Wouldn’t she have turned to look at them as they walked behind her? Instead, testing out Kid B’s theory, I pictured a boyfriend offering to rub her shoulders. Standing behind her, he would be in the perfect position to take her off guard; you didn’t look round at someone who was giving you a massage, you closed your eyes and made appreciative noises. This was the best theory so far. But Central Park at midnight was not to me the ideal place for a back rub, not in October with the nights increasingly chilly.

  I looked at the hedge again, wondering if someone could have been waiting there, crouched down so they were hidden in the shadows, still and patient till Kate arrived to keep the appointment. And then, as she sat down, standing up behind her in one swift movement and swinging the wire round her neck before she even had a chance to turn round and see who it was, before she could scream out….

  The kids had stopped shoving each other and were staring at me rather nervously.

  “Hey, are you OK?” Kid B said.

  I snapped back to the present. “W
hat?” I said blankly.

  “Oh, nothing.” He fumbled his feet. Kid A gave him another little shove, muttering: “Dumbass!” at him. He cleared his throat.

  “It was just, you know, the way you were staring. Like, I dunno. You were looking like you saw a ghost.”

  “Maybe she saw the ghost of that girl, man!” Kid A said in hushed tones. “She’s right here! Whoah! I felt, like, a cold touch on my neck—”

  “Hey, fuck you!” said Kid B, losing it completely and giving Kid A such a shove that he fell right off the bench. Kid B was on top of him at once, pounding his head against the grass.

  The Japanese looked on in appalled silence. Even the guide was mute. And then the most daring one took a photograph. The little click hung in the air for a moment. A few people raised their own cameras and exchanged glances, upon which a fury of snapping broke out, the shutters rattling away like a single crazed piece of machinery. Through it all their faces remained impassive, like hardened photo-journalists trained to report on the most terrible atrocities without flinching or showing emotion. Depraved American Youth Desecrates The Memory Of John Lennon’s Message Of Peace. Kid A by now had Kid B’s head trapped under the bench. Kid B flailed up with his legs and caught Kid A square on the bottom with his work boots. Kid A howled and tried to shove Kid B’s chin into his nose. It was all good bracing stuff.

  New York was certainly providing me with a series of surreal tableaux. Whether they were in any way edifying was another matter. I strolled away, hearing the caterwauls of rage and pain, accompanied by the barrage of clicks, fade gradually away. I could see how people went crazy in this town; the emotional temperature was turned up several degrees above the norm.

  As I emerged from the maze of Strawberry Fields onto a wide avenue, my eyes alighted on someone a short distance away. I only noticed him because he had stopped dead and looked as if he were trying to blend into the scenery. Which was difficult, as he wasn’t doing a Birnham Wood comes to Dunsinane imitation in head-to-foot Astroturf.

  I gaped at him in disbelief. I knew that man. Even if I had only met him once, you don’t easily forget someone you have wrestled with in a toilet. Or I don’t, anyway. I have very good manners.

  “Lex?” I said, or rather called over the fifteen feet still separating us. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  There was at least one positive aspect to our meeting like this. Any initial embarrassment completely vanished, or rather was hidden on Lex’s side under a considerably greater embarrassment. I couldn’t imagine that he was squirming like this simply because of the poignant memories of our last encounter. In fact I would have expected him to have been swaggering away and laying on the charm in an effort to show me what a crazy impulsive fool I had been to turn him down.

  So why he was looking as if he wished the ground would open up and swallow him was a mystery. Part of the solution might lie in the fact that—as far as I knew—he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the States yet. I had thought that all the other yBas were due to arrive at the end of next week, just before the opening. Hence my snappy start to the conversation.

  “Hi, Sam,” he said eventually, shifting from foot to foot in a nervy, Mum-I-need-the-bathroom kind of way. “Well, um, what are you doing here?”

  This was feeble, and I shot it down with the contempt it deserved.

  “What do you mean?” I retorted. “I’m staying just down the road.” I pointed behind me to the imposing structure of the Dakota building, looming through the trees. “Back there a few blocks. You’re the one that’s not supposed to be over here yet.”

  That dealt with him. He shuffled around a bit more. “Well, I got this really cheap standby deal,” he said at last. “So I thought I’d come over early.”

  I frowned at him. “Well, fair enough.” So why, I wondered, was he behaving as if I’d just caught him out in some major piece of mischief-making? “But does Carol know you’re here? She didn’t say anything about it to me.”

  He flinched. “Nah,” he muttered. “I thought I’d ring her in a couple of days. Whatever. I’m just chilling out right now.”

  The mystery was deepening.

  “Where are you staying?” I said casually.

  “Oh, with a friend. Roughing it. Then I’ve got three nights in the hotel at the end. Bit of luxury, right? Can’t wait.”

  “So are you staying round here?” I probed.

  “Nah. I’m down in the East Village. Nothing this posh.”

  His eyes were darting from side to side, as if looking for an excuse to escape. I was enjoying torturing him like this, I had to admit. He was so pretty, and I was making him suffer. What a lovely day this was turning out to be.

  “Where were you off to?” I said as innocently as I could. It was a fair enough question. There wasn’t a great deal on the Upper West Side to interest a tourist, not compared with all the museums on the other side of the park. A brief study of Nancy’s notes had determined me to explore Riverside Park and the local delicatessens, which apparently were a cornucopia of free tastings, but neither of these prospects could hold a candle to everything the Upper East Side offered to a practising artist: the Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney, the Frick, the Guggenheim…. Either Lex was headed in this direction to meet someone, or to check out the promised delights of Zabar’s Food Hall, or—Option C beckoned, as tempting as a wild card. It was probably crazy of me, but Lex was looking so furtive.

  To be honest, I couldn’t resist saying it.

  “Are you going to Strawberry Fields?” I suggested.

  His reaction was all I could have hoped for.

  “What? How—” His eyes fixed on mine, huge now, liquid and dark as rich black coffee. I have mentioned before that Lex looked charming when he pouted, but it suited him even better to be in shock: his lips parted, he paled slightly, his cheekbones seemed to stand out even further. He was heart-tremblingly vulnerable. If he’d been a girl Mike Hammer would have thrown him against the nearest tree and kissed him with brutal force. I can’t say that the thought didn’t occur to me too, but I am not Mike Hammer. Sometimes I regret this.

  “Sam—” he stammered. “How did you know? I mean, I didn’t tell you I knew Kate!”

  A warm smug feeling infused my bloodstream. I loved to bluff. It was one of my favourite games. I was already betting myself that I could use my near-worthless cards to broker something much more considerable. Trying a gambit, I said:

  “What I don’t understand is why she didn’t mention to me that you were in New York.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t anything really,” Lex said more easily. Drawing a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, he automatically offered it to me. I shook my head. He lit one with unsteady fingers. “She was worried about Carol knowing we were mates,” he said. “Apparently Carol had this assistant a while back who left to be a partner in another gallery and took loads of people with her. So she’s got this real thing about her sidekicks getting too chummy with the artists.”

  I remembered that brief interchange between Kate and Laurence, about checking with Carol before taking me out for a drink. It had struck me as a little unnecessary at the time, but I had been too keen to get myself round a couple of cocktails to analyse what it meant. Now it rang true. Lex was doing fine so far.

  “But what’s that got to do with not telling anyone you were here?” I said, diving straight into the weak part of his story. “I don’t get it—oh, hang on. You’re staying in the East Village?” That was where Kate had lived. Laurence had mentioned it that same night. “I bet you were crashing at Kate’s, right? That’s why she didn’t want Carol to know.”

  Lex dropped his cigarette. Then he jumped back in case it caught his Caterpillars and burnt the laces.

  “No!” he said at once. “I mean—no, I haven’t been—I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  He caught his breath.

  “Sam?” he said pleadingly, accompanying it with his best winning smile. He even brought the eye
lashes into play. It was an impressive performance. For a moment I thought he was going to duck his head and look up at me through them in approved Princess Diana style. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? I mean, it’s got sod all to do with me. I really liked Kate, but, you know, it’s not like I knew her well or anything. I was just bedding down at hers. Now I’m in deep, deep shit if anyone finds out, and, I know this sounds crazy, but I’ve got this weird feeling that someone’s watching me. Like the cops or something. I must be getting paranoid….”

  Unpeeling all of this slowly and thoroughly was going to take a while. And, unfortunately, I didn’t have the time right now.

  “Look,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic, which is always an uphill struggle for me, “I’m on my way to Bergmann LaTouche for an action meeting about installing my stuff. They’re expecting me, so I haven’t got a lot of time now. What’re you doing later on?”

  He shrugged. “Oh, just hanging out on Avenue A, you know. The usual.”

  I had to admire the nonchalance with which he said this, as if he’d been here for a year instead of a week.

  “I’m crashing just round the corner,” he added airily.

  “Who with?”

  “Oh, a friend of Kate’s. Leo. Couch-surfing, they call it here. Only he doesn’t have much of a couch.”

  My eyebrows rose at this mention of Leo. He was certainly ubiquitous.

  “Well, I’ll come down to Avenue A and hang with you,” I said firmly, reserving other questions for later. “Where shall we meet?”

  “The Ludlow?” he suggested.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Down on the Lower East Side. On Ludlow Street, just off East Houston.”

  “I’ll find it. OK, shall we say there at seven?”