Strawberry Tattoo

by Lauren Henderson

  “Piss off,” I said intellectually. “Oh, look, I’ve got some blonde jokes for you. Kim gave me a book of them. Why did the blonde stare for two hours at a can of frozen orange juice?” I paused for effect. “Because the label said ‘concentrate.’”

  Hugo sniggered.

  “Why shouldn’t blondes have coffee breaks?” I continued, getting into my stride. “It takes too long to retrain them. Why do blondes have ‘TGIF’ written on their shoes? Toes Go In First.”

  “Enough! I look forward to telling those to Slut Boy tomorrow,” Hugo said gleefully. “He probably won’t get them, but everyone else will. Look, darling, I should be going. I’m due at the gym soon. Try not to kill anyone today.”

  “God,” I complained, “you are so demanding.”

  I came out of the subway feeling as if I’d just been for a swim. It was a warm day, and down below street level heat rose off the freshly mopped floors, swimming with bleach that smelt strongly of chlorine. The hot air blew down the tunnels like air vents outside a swimming baths, making my clothes stick to me as if I’d put them on before drying off completely. It was odd that the New York subway, less deep than the London underground, should be so much hotter. And it was October. I could see why people complained about summers in the city: in August it must be like a steam bath down here. Pores Opened In Five Minutes Or Your Money Back.

  Laurence’s apartment was just a block up from the subway stop. He buzzed me in.

  “I’m not used to having to walk up stairs,” I announced with hauteur as I arrived at his front door. “In my building we have lifts.”

  “Deal with it, sweetie,” Laurence retorted, standing back to let me in.

  The front door opened into the middle of the tiny kitchen, halving the floor space as it did so, which would have been a nuisance if anyone arrived while you were cooking. But Laurence must be at one with the Bilders on the subject of takeaway food; the burners on the small gas stove were covered with a piece of dusty chipboard on which he had piled art magazines. I peered into the main room. It looked light, and the ceilings were high. That was about all I could make out through the stacks of books which teetered at waist height, like a Carl Andre installation which had started breeding amongst itself.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” said Laurence with an air of pride. “It’s pretty good for this neighbourhood. Hold on, I’ll just get my jacket.”

  While he picked his way through the book towers, I went to the bathroom. Its condition would have disgraced a run-down NHS hospital: chipped and peeling, with the kind of stains that go beyond mere dirt. The water in the sink ran brown and smelt of chlorine. The swimming-pool motif again. After a while the water ran yellow instead. I assumed this was an improvement. Scattered everywhere on the floor were flat black pieces of plastic, the size of squashed matchboxes. Laurence explained that they were roach motels.

  “They check in, but they never check out. Until you empty them, of course. A guy comes around once a month to spray the place. Bangs on the door at eight in the morning shouting: ‘Exterminator! Open up!’ The first time it happened I nearly had a heart attack.”

  New Yorkers tell you this kind of thing proudly; they like to feel that they’re living in near-Third World conditions, struggling against the violence and filth of the big city. Both Don and Leo had complained to me about the Giuliani/Braxton clean-up.

  “Used to be you couldn’t walk in the East Village at night without being real careful,” Don had said regretfully. “They’d mug you or shoot you as soon as look at you. People knew you lived in Manhattan, you’d get all the respect you could handle. Now no one gives a shee-yit. It’s for pussies and tourists.”

  “Do you think anyone’s missing Don?” I found myself asking Laurence as we clattered down the steps to the subway. We were going down to the Village, where we had a brunch appointment.

  “That’s a weird question. But no, I don’t. I mean, I certainly don’t.”

  Practically opposite the restaurant was one of those basketball courts so beloved of the movies, concrete-paved and surrounded by a steel mesh almost as high as the buildings around it. A group of young men in layers of cut-off clothing and high-laced trainers were jumping around inside, bouncing balls and shouting manfully at each other. They seemed quite unself-conscious about playing inside what was to all intents and purposes a giant goldfish bowl. It was like Laurence having no embarrassment about shouting “Taxi!” at the top of his voice, or the couples who quarrelled loudly in the street about their most intimate details. Even the would-be cool kids hanging out on street corners, pretending to be in a Larry Clark film, their anomie so advanced they were practically comatose, always had an eye out for the effect they were having. This town was naturally theatrical.

  The brunch rendezvous itself was a small place with the most luridly carved and painted chairs I had ever seen in my life, and without question the best Mexican food. The chilli sauces were rich and subtle as a good Thai curry, the tastes delicate and strong. I had eggs poached in tomatillo sauce on fried courgette sticks and a side order of cornbread; we each got orange juice and coffee, and the whole thing cost a mere ten bucks each, or would have done if I hadn’t ordered a margarita. It was nearly one o’clock, after all.

  Halfway through my eggs, Suzanne came in. This was, Laurence had explained, the brunch ritual: you staked out a big table and your friends dropped in whenever they made it out of bed.

  “Hey,” she said listlessly, plopping down next to me. She waved away the menu the waitress proffered her. “Huevos rancheros and fries, please,” she said. “Orange juice and camomile tea. So.” She looked at me. “Let’s cut to the chase. We’re all in deep shit now, right?”

  “Are we?” I said through a melting mouthful of egg, taken aback. Suzanne was behaving as if we were tycoons discussing an international takeover at a power breakfast. This was not what I had signed up for. I looked to Laurence to deal with it.

  Suzanne shrugged. Off-duty she wore a big sloppy chenille sweater over jeans, her hair pulled back, mascara and a little powder her only make-up. She looked more approachable but just as competent.

  “All of us that didn’t get along with Don,” she said. “Which is all of us. The cops say whoever did him killed Kate too.”

  Just then Java came in, followed by Kevin. They waved at us and stopped by the bar to order something from the waitress.

  “God, Mr. J. Crew poster model. He looks like a bond trader on dressing-down Friday. Why’d she bring him?” Laurence said sotto voce to Suzanne, who shrugged again.

  “Old home week. Anyway, we’re in this together. And you know what, Laurence? I don’t give a shit any more about anything but who killed Kate. I mean that.”

  Laurence put down his fork and looked at her hard.

  “Well, I’m just grateful I didn’t do it,” he said finally. He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “Having you on my trail’d scare the living daylights out of me.”

  “Hey, guys,” Java said as she and Kevin sat down. The waitress arrived with a tray and further menus. Suzanne started picking at her eggs with less appetite than her prompt order had indicated.

  “Energy juice?” the waitress said.

  “That’s me.” Java took the glass of orange and green-flecked sludge enthusiastically.

  “That looks like one of Barbara’s paintings,” I observed before I had time to wonder whether discretion was the better part of valour. But everyone grinned—even Kevin.

  “They had me over to theirs last night,” I added, striking while the iron was hot. “Barbara and Jon, I mean.”

  “She’s got him really well trained,” Laurence said nastily. “Did he jump through hoops after coffee?”

  “Hey,” Suzanne said, “don’t knock it. Barnes and Noble’s full of self-help books on how to get your man into shape. If she put her technique down on paper she could make a fortune.”

  “Barbara’s much too smart for that,” Laurence countered. “Half of her skill come
s in pretending that she’s just this helpless little fluffball. She wouldn’t want to compromise that.”

  “Iron hand in a velvet glove,” I said.

  “At first it’s really flattering,” Kevin volunteered unexpectedly. “You know. ‘Kevin, what do you think of this?’ ‘Kevin, you’ve got such a good eye, you’re so clever about this kind of thing.’ But in the end you realise she’s just getting you to make the decisions she wants made.”

  “She’s different when there aren’t any guys around,” Java added. “Or if you’re not important enough for her. Do this, do that, get me Carol, I’m in a hurry. Then Carol comes down and Barbara starts cooing at her like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. It really bugs me.”

  “Shit,” Laurence said, “we should do this more often. Gather for brunch and let off steam collectively. Very healthy for staff morale.”

  “That’s not why we’re all here,” Suzanne reminded him curtly.

  “I know that!” Laurence said, anger rising to the surface. “Don’t think I’m any less aware of it than you! Just because I’m not playing the grieving widow—”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Suzanne snapped back.

  “Dairy-free zucchini and sweetcorn casserole?” the waitress said with mercifully good timing.

  “Me,” Java said, raising her hand.

  “So I guess the fried eggs with home fries and fried zucchini must be yours,” the waitress said, slipping the second plate in front of Kevin.

  “So,” Laurence said. “Fried food: Kevin Says Yes.”

  “Yeah, you should go easy with that,” Java said. “Every so often is OK, but not on a regular basis.”

  Certainly Java looked like an advertisement for perfect nutrition. The whites of her eyes shone like pearls. She looked less unreal than she did with make-up on, and even more beautiful.

  Kevin stared at her worshipfully. “You think maybe I should get a salad too?”

  Java shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”

  “You know she used to model in Japan?” he informed us. “She was really big over there.”

  “They like girls who look mixed,” Java explained. “You know, like my eyes are rounder, and my skin’s a bit paler than if I was completely Oriental.”

  “Did you model over here?” I asked.

  Java shook her head. “Too short and not white enough,” she said, matter-of-fact. “But I didn’t care that much. I always wanted to work in a gallery.”

  “How did you get the job?”

  “Oh, I met Stanley at a party,” Java said. “He told me there might be a job at the gallery, so I just kept calling up till they gave it to me. I didn’t have any experience or anything so I read up all I could on the artists BLT handles, you know. And I went around all the other SoHo and Chelsea galleries so I could talk about what everyone else was doing.”

  “Carol was really impressed,” Suzanne said.

  Java shrugged again. “If I do something,” she said easily, “I like to do it right.”

  “You’ll be a partner in ten years’ time,” Laurence said.

  “Hey, I wish!” But she gave him a lovely smile.

  I had the sudden sharp awareness that I was being watched. Turning my head, I saw Kim and Lex standing rather hesitantly just inside the door. I waved at them, drawing everyone else’s attention to their presence. They looked very morning-after. In fact, they reminded me of the boy in Snoopy pyjamas I had seen in the Ludlow. Their clothes were loose, their hair hadn’t seen a brush since yesterday, and their trainers were laced up just enough to keep them on their feet.

  “We can fit a couple more chairs in, can’t we?” I said.

  Kim and Lex came over slowly, shooting me dagger-like glances which I ignored as blandly as I could. I hadn’t told them that there would be anyone else here when we had arranged to meet, and they resented it. But I had wanted to see what would happen if I threw them together with the gallery staff and got everyone talking about the murders. Something might pop up. You never knew.

  “Hi,” Lex said to the general assembly, sounding as if he were arriving at a wake. Kim mumbled something and pulled up a chair.

  “I didn’t realise there were going to be so many people here,” she said crossly in my ear.

  “It just snowballed, you know?” I said, aiming for innocent and regretting it halfway through. Kim would never be taken in by innocence from me. I should have tried hung-over instead.

  “I know you!” Suzanne was saying to Lex. “Where have I seen you before? Must have been pretty recent.”

  Lex looked panic-stricken. And for some reason I had the feeling she was playing with him. It was nothing I could put my finger on, just an instinct. But then I saw her lips purse for a moment while she watched his reaction, as if she were savouring it, and my suspicions grew. Did she know that Lex had been staying at Kate’s?

  “This is Lex,” I explained, since the young man in question was too busy doing a startled fawn impression to speak for himself “Lex Thompson. And Kim—”

  “Oh, right! I’m Suzanne, I work at Bergmann LaTouche. Great to meet you. I must have seen your photo in the leaflet we’ve been sending out,” she continued. “You looked so familiar.”

  But even while she let him off the hook, she was observing him as carefully as if he had been a lab rat. Lex sagged with relief, completely unaware of any undercurrents.

  “So how long have you been over here?” Laurence asked. “We thought you weren’t due in till next Wednesday. I’m Laurence, by the way. And this is Kevin and Java. We all work at the gallery. Apart from Sam. She just finds the bodies for us.”

  “Each to their own,” I said.

  “You heard about that?” Java asked Lex. “It’s so terrible. And scary.”

  “Java,” Suzanne said warningly.

  “Well, it is,” Java retorted unanswerably. “I mean, he’s going to have to find out about it sooner or later.”

  “Lex knows,” I said, cutting in. “He’s actually been here for a few days now, staying with me and some other friends.”

  Lex’s relief at my covering up for him was pathetic. He managed a smile at me and relaxed back in his chair for the first time that morning.

  “Hey,” he said, recovering fast, “isn’t this a place where you can get stuff to eat? How does that work?”

  Kevin handed him a menu. Kim was already looking at hers.

  “You’ve been shagging, haven’t you?” I muttered to Kim.

  Kim stared at me. “How d’you know?”

  “My sex antennae are wobbling madly. Remember them?”

  She and Lex both looked so physically relaxed that I could have bounced tennis balls off their foreheads without them noticing. Besides, there was the unmistakable nuclear-fuelled, I-had-sex-last-night glow, like the Ready Brek kids’ halo.

  Kim sighed. “OK, we did it. All right?”

  “Are you ready to order?”

  We both started.

  “Uh, yes,” Kim said, picking something more or less at random from the menu. Lex, his eyes on my margarita, ordered one to go with his brunch.

  “And I’ll have what he’s having,” he said, pointing at Kevin’s plate. “With sausage.”

  “You mean chorizo?” said the waitress politely.

  “You what?”

  “OK, we’ll put some on for you,” she said, maintaining her cool.

  “You guys don’t have chorizo in London?” Laurence said disbelievingly.

  “Of course we do,” I explained. “We just don’t know how to pronounce it.”

  “We just drop our t’s instead,” Lex said, thoroughly relaxed by now.

  “Don’t you mean h’s?” Suzanne said.

  “Nah. T’s. Wha’ d’you mean? Tha’s ridiculous, inni’?” he illustrated.

  The Americans tried this out for a few minutes. The spectacle of them mouthing away at what the Sunday papers called Estuary English was diverting, but eventually it palled, and I resorted to spooning up the pale gr
een slush at the bottom of the margarita glass with a straw.

  “So are you a friend of Lex’s?” Laurence said to Kim.

  “Actually, I’m a really old friend of Sam’s. We knew each other at school in England.”

  “You’re Kim Tallboy!” Laurence exclaimed. “I knew I’d seen you before. You must have come into the gallery for Barbara’s show, right?”

  “Briefly.”

  “Jon’s daughter?” Java said. “Oh right, I remember when Sam said she knew you. Boy, Barbara didn’t like that one little bit.”

  Laurence and Suzanne turned as one to stare her down.

  “What?” Java said. “I mean, it’s the truth, isn’t it? We all know about it.”

  “Kim doesn’t,” Suzanne said.

  “I bet she knows she and Barbara don’t get on,” Java retorted.

  “God, who elected you as the George Washington of Bergmann La-Touche?” Laurence said sourly. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is to tell the truth these days? Watch your back!”

  “What, if I don’t I could wind up dead? Is that what you’re saying?” Java suggested.

  There was a terrible silence. Laurence, more shocked than anyone else, started scratching nervously at his scalp like a monkey with nits. Stale flakes of dandruff floated down onto his grey cardigan.

  “I’m really sorry, Java,” he said finally. “It just came out.”

  Java was the only one round the table who seemed unaffected.

  “Sure,” she said. “Don’t sweat it.”

  “I just don’t get it,” Kevin said, blood rising to his blond face so that his fair eyebrows and lashes vanished into the flush of red. “How could you even hint at a thing like that, man? With everything that’s happening?”

  “Hey, I said I was sorry,” Laurence snapped. He was very edgy today. Dr. Sam diagnosed lack of antidepressants.

  “It’s fine, Kev. Honestly,” Java said cheerfully. “It could have happened to anyone.”

  “Yeah, well, it didn’t.” Kevin was still pugnacious. And his facial hair was still invisible. He speared a chip and a courgette stick and shoved them into his mouth angrily. I was willing to bet that Kevin hadn’t yet managed to make the beast with two backs with Java. He was irritable and tetchy in a way that suggested sexual frustration. And though she seemed to like him well enough, I wasn’t sure that her feelings for him went any further than that. Unless giving him dietary hints was a sign of interest.