Body Language

by Michael Craft

  Logan sat back in his chair with a broad smile. “She’s a great gal—and a damn good writer, too. She’s added a lot to the Register over the years. You’ll enjoy working with her.” His expression turned quizzical. “Why the visit?”

  I explained to Logan—and also to Parker, who had not yet heard details of my discussion with Glee—that she had told me about Suzanne’s mysterious high school “ailment,” her disappearance from town for a week, and her recent research in the Register’s morgue. “In a nutshell, Glee has a theory that the research was related to the ‘ailment’ and that the murder is related to both. Glee wasn’t specific on this point, but I got the impression that Suzanne may have dealt with an unwanted pregnancy.”

  Parker listened to this story with wide-eyed interest, but Logan merely nodded, deep in thought. He told me, “I recall the incident—some thirty years ago. I also recall that Glee was eager to work up an exposé. I spiked it before it was written.”

  “Glee mentioned that,” I admitted.

  “Mark,” he told me, “you’re calling the shots on this now. In three weeks, you’ll be sitting at my desk down the street, and the issues you’ve raised relate to your own family. My policy has always been to treat the Quatrains with kid gloves, but you’re welcome to take any approach that suits your own journalistic philosophy. Just be aware”—he raised a cautionary finger—“that a Quatrain scandal, for the sake of mere headlines, will serve neither the town nor the paper well.”

  “But”—I, too, raised a finger, countering his—“if a scandal is the result of bared secrets that help solve a high-profile murder, the scandal is an unavoidable consequence of serving the public’s best interest.”

  “That’s a tough call,” Logan conceded. With a chuckle, he added, “I am looking forward to retirement.”

  Parker had been itching to enter this discussion, and now he did so. “Mark,” he said, practically leaning out of his chair, “Suzanne mentioned that research to me. She asked me to help her, remember? Mr. Logan, I don’t know what kind of systems you have in place at the Register, but chances are, I could retrace whatever it was she was digging for—research almost always leaves a trail. Mark, what do you think? This could be valuable in helping to clear you with the DA.”

  He had a point. “Let me think about it,” I told him. Turning to Logan, I asked, “Do you mind if Parker and I pay another visit to the Register’s offices tomorrow? There’s still staff I haven’t met, and Parker could check out the morgue.”

  “Mark,” Logan assured me, “you needn’t ask permission to visit the Register. Drop in anytime, announced or otherwise, and we’ll all try to be on our toes.”

  “That’s gracious of you, Barret. But I just don’t want to give the impression that I’m… usurping anything.”

  He laughed. “Hell, Mark, you’re buying it—lock, stock, and barrel.” He was right, of course, and Parker and I shared his laughter.

  The hostess sent a waitress over to take our order, and Logan recommended that night’s special, a meat loaf that he claimed was extraordinary. Meat loaf? I hadn’t had it since I was a kid, and I had never much missed it, but suddenly it seemed appealing—comforting—and I joined Logan in ordering it. Parker ordered steak, a strip, rare. We all decided on the ubiquitous Caesar salad, only Parker opting for anchovies. And we needed another drink, Logan switching to Bordeaux.

  Try as we might to focus our conversation on carefree matters, we could not avoid the topic of Suzanne’s murder. “Aside from the possible economic implications for the community,” lamented Logan, “there’s the tremendous personal toll on Suzanne’s son.”

  “And her brother,” I added. “Poor Joey. I don’t think the loss has hit him yet.”

  “How well do you know him?” Logan asked me.

  “I’ve spent a bit of time with him this weekend,” I explained, “but I knew him better as a child. He was ten then; I was nine. Even as a kid, I could tell there was something not-quite-right about him.”

  “It’s a pity,” said Logan. “Joey’s ability to learn never progressed much beyond the level you witnessed as a child. Suzanne told me that test results described him as having a twelve-year-old brain in a middle-aged body. He’s a good-natured soul, but emotionally, of course, he’s highly immature. At least he’s learned to take care of himself, and a few years ago, he finally got a driver’s license, with restrictions. Thank God—because he’s on his own now.”

  Parker said, “He’s secure at Quatro Press, isn’t he?”

  “Certainly,” said Logan. “He’s held a job there—personnel, I think—his entire adult life, and that will continue to take care of him. But he’s aware that he ought to be sitting behind his father’s desk by now, and he’s incapable of understanding why his learning disability has hobbled his natural desire for fulfillment.”

  “It’s pathetic,” I agreed. “But Joey is obviously unable to run a business.”

  “Can you imagine?” asked Logan with a restrained laugh. “When Joey heard that I was finally ready to sell the Register, he wanted to buy it himself. He offered me twice what you’re paying, Mark. But I wasn’t tempted.”

  Unprepared for this bit of news, I told him, “Then I must have gotten a real bargain—thank you, Barret.”

  With a not-so-fast gesture of his hands, Logan explained, “I refused Joey’s offer because, first, he hasn’t a clue as to how to run a newspaper. And second, he hasn’t a dime—at least not beyond the generous trusts that were established to care for him. In short, Joey has no grip on reality, and as he’s grown older, he’s grown increasingly confused and frustrated about his role in the world.”

  Parker shook his head. “One thing’s certain. He’ll never fill his sister’s shoes—talk about an emasculating notion.”

  “And in their father’s eyes, Suzanne never filled her older brother Mark’s shoes, in spite of the circumstances.”

  Parker and I exchanged a confused glance. I asked Logan, “What circumstances? His death in Vietnam?”

  “That’s part of it,” said Logan, “certainly.” But his manner was now highly reticent, and I understood that he had ventured into sensitive territory that he assumed, incorrectly, was familiar to me. I could tell that he would have been more comfortable dropping the topic of Mark Quatrain, but the door had been opened, and I waited for more. At last he elaborated, “There were circumstances surrounding your elder cousin’s death that you apparently never knew. I’m sorry, Mark, to have been so insensitive to broach this. You’ve been through a lot already this weekend.”

  “Please, Barret, fill me in. I need to know what happened.”

  He fingered the empty glass in front of him, searching for the fortification of alcohol. “Very well,” he told me. “Your cousin Mark was drafted fresh out of college—he’d majored in English, taking his degree with highest honors. Predictably, he ended up in Vietnam. As you know, he died there. What you’ve never heard is that, before he was killed, he got into trouble there. Serious trouble.”

  Logan paused. “Mark Quatrain raped, then killed, an Asian girl in Vietnam. He was awaiting a military trial there when he died, along with most of his platoon, in an ambush—a hideous massacre that left Mark and many of his compatriots butchered beyond recognition. There were very few survivors of the attack, and Mark was identified among the casualties on the basis of his dog tag and personal effects.” Logan swallowed. “I apologize for relating this at table, but his body had been mutilated, with most of his head missing.” Again he paused. “Mark’s mother, your aunt Peggy, was, of course, highly distraught by this news. As you know, she suffered from what we then simply called a ‘weak heart.’ News of her son’s death, and the details surrounding it, literally killed the woman. Peggy died the same week. The Register reported the deaths of both mother and son, of course, but I never saw reason to reveal in print the crimes that Mark committed in Asia—the family had been through enough.”

  At some point during Logan’s recounting of this, I
had stopped breathing. Uncounted moments of suspended silence followed; then the waitress reappeared with our second round of drinks, saying, “You have a phone call, Mr. Logan—one of your editors.” I gulped for air as he excused himself. As I watched him cross the room to take his call, my mind spun to grasp all that he had told me.

  Though I was thinking about a beautiful young man who had lived as a fantasy in my subconscious for over thirty years, I said to Parker, “Wouldn’t you think that a man like Barret Logan would carry a cell phone, or even a pager? Maybe there’s a lesson here, Parker. Maybe the ultimate luxury, the height of sophistication, is to be dis-connected. If people really need to reach you, they can somehow figure out…”

  “Mark,” Parker stopped me, “you don’t have to bury your emotions about this, not from me. You told me how you felt about your cousin. I understand. It must be devastating.”

  “It’s not devastating,” I lied, “just unexpected. I’ll deal with it, Parker. But I do appreciate your concern.”

  Then he patted my hand and repeated something I’d already heard from him more than once: “This is all I’ve ever wanted.”

  I had a dream that night, an eerie exercise in déjà vu.

  I’m a boy of nine, visiting the house on Prairie Street for the first time. It’s the second day of my visit, and I’ve met everyone in the household except my oldest cousin, Mark Quatrain, who’s returning that morning from college. Everyone’s excited because it’s the first time he’s been away, and they all miss him.

  Then somebody opens the door, and I see my cousin Mark for the first time. He’s very handsome, with wavy hair, and I can tell that Suzanne is jealous of all the attention he’s getting. He’s wearing tan pants, like soldiers wear, and they look really good on him. Everyone else is hugging him; I want to, but think I shouldn’t. Trying to think of something clever, I tell him, “We’ve got the same name.” He smiles and says, “How about that?” Then he musses my hair with his hand, and I really like the way his fingers feel on my head.

  Later that afternoon, I’m in Joey’s room, and I’m getting bored with him, so I stroll out into the hall. Hearing music from Mark’s room, I look inside, and there’s my older cousin with his shirt off—he still has those nice tan pants on—unpacking a suitcase and sorting through his records. Seeing me, he says, “It’s their new album. You like the Beatles?”

  So far, the dream is just a replay of everything that really happened. But then, things start to get different. When he asks me about the Beatles, I answer, “I like Mozart better.” And he tells me, “I’ll play some, if I can find it.”

  He kneels on the floor, reaching for an album that has slipped behind the stereo. His backside is toward me, and I feel a little embarrassed, but I can’t take my eyes off him—those pants look so nice. And the creases of the cloth on the back of his legs make sort of an arrow, pointing right at his butt. I feel lost for a moment, like I don’t know where I am. Then I walk over to him and just, well… touch him.

  “Hey,” says Mark, getting up fast, “what are you doing?”

  I don’t know what to say because I really don’t know what I’m doing. Finally I tell him, “I just wanted to touch you.”

  He laughs—not at me—he’s being nice. “Then touch me.”

  And I do. I feel his belt buckle, and I put my arms around his waist and squeeze him against me. He starts looking at the ceiling with his mouth open, and he puts his hands in my hair again, and he pulls, and it sort of hurts but feels good anyway. He says, “I want to touch you, too, Mark.”

  I was hoping he’d say that. So I take one of his hands and put it between my legs, and he sort of cups it, and I feel warm and hard there. He looks into my eyes and tells me how green they are, and I laugh because people are always making a big deal out of it. And I tell him, “Show me your cock. Fuck my mouth.”

  I can’t believe I said that, but then I realize that I’m not a little kid anymore. I’m no longer nine, but about his age, eighteen. We’re the same height, same build, same name, same khaki pants. There’s sort of a twin-thing going on, and it heats up fast. We’re down on the floor, we’re into each other’s clothes, and we’re doing things to and for each other that feel like love. “Mark, oh, Mark,” we both whisper from the jumble of our bodies.

  “Hey,” says Joey, popping into the room. But I can’t see him, and I don’t care—I’m busy with Mark. “Hey!” he repeats. “Wanna see the upstairs?”

  Mark grabs my hair again, mussing and pulling, and I know I’m on the verge of orgasm. “Are you ready to come?” I ask him. He answers with a groan that sounds like pain. I reach to grab his hair, wanting to feel those beautiful, wavy locks twisted around my fingers, but my hands can’t find his head. My hands feel warm, my fingers are wet, and I know something is wrong. “Mark,” I ask, “are you ready?” But he doesn’t answer, and his whole body goes limp, and then I can see what’s wrong: His body has been mutilated, most of his head is missing, and there’s blood on my hands. “Mark!” I scream.

  “Hey!” Joey screams louder. “Wanna see the upstairs?”

  And I awoke.

  It was Tuesday morning, still early, still dark, not quite dawn. I reached blindly to switch on my bedside lamp. Squinting against the assault of light, I examined my hands and determined that they were not bloody, that no one had been mutilated, that Joey was not standing in the doorway—that yes, it was only a dream. I breathed a heavy sigh, dried my brow with a swipe of my arm, and lay there thinking, booting my brain to full consciousness.

  It was the first night I’d spent alone in my new bed—Neil had been with me those first seven or eight nights since move-in. The dream was an ugly kickoff to the reality of our “arrangement,” a planned separation that I myself had devised and sold to Neil against his every instinct. Once again I was faced with an omen that my future in Dumont was ill-fated. And once again I had to remind myself that I held no faith whatever in such irrational flights of mysticism. My future was in my own hands, not at the mercy of some supernatural portent. My future might yet be wrenched by chance, but it would not be doomed by destiny.

  Secure in this knowledge, I dismissed the dream for what it was—the product of my churning subconscious combined with my shock at hearing Barret Logan’s ghastly revelations of the previous evening, as well as the general state of horniness that had been hounding me for several days. There would be three more nights without Neil, I counted. Masturbation might be fun—it would at least relieve the pressure—but my bout of self-analysis since waking had focused my mental energies in a less earthy sector of my brain, and I found that I’d simply lost interest in an overdue hand job.

  Swinging my feet to the floor and sitting on the edge of the bed, I reviewed the day that lay ahead. My only appointment was later that morning, when Parker and I would visit the Register. Otherwise I was free to concentrate on desk work regarding my move and the takeover of the paper. In the back of my mind, of course, I would continually wrestle with the questions surrounding Suzanne’s murder—the who and the why. And, of course, there was still a thicket of legal issues to resolve concerning my inheritance and Thad. Perhaps I should try to spend some time with the boy that day.

  Gray daylight now tinged the bedroom curtains, and I switched off the lamp. It was still too early to rouse the household with the racket of showering, so I decided to throw on some clothes, go down to my den, and see if the morning paper had arrived.

  Padding downstairs in my stocking feet, crossing the entrance hall, I quietly unlatched the front door and cracked it open. A gush of cold air hit me, making me instantly more awake than coffee could. Coffee, I thought—that’s what I needed. But first the paper. I grabbed the Register and pulled it inside.

  Taking it to the den, I spread it on the desk and switched on the reading lamp. The front page was, of course, covered with news of the murder investigation, CORONER STUMPED read the main headline. The story explained that the coroner had not yet filed a final report and
that the murder weapon was still unknown. Investigators had therefore requested postponement of Suzanne’s funeral, which was now tentatively scheduled for next week, Monday, January third, location to be announced. Father Nicholas Winter, pastor of Saint Cecille parish, was preparing to file a court petition to have the body remanded to the church for burial, in an effort to block what he called “the sacrilegious plans of Miriam Westerman to inter this faithful daughter of Christ in unhallowed ground.” I stifled a laugh, taking delight, even at that early hour, in any form of ecclesiastical squabbling.

  My reading was then interrupted by voices somewhere in the house. Curious, I went to the hall and listened. The voices—there were two of them—came from the kitchen. The tone made it clear that they were arguing, and though they tried to keep it quiet, tension was building. So I sneaked farther down the hall, closer to the kitchen, in order to hear better. From where I stood, I could smell coffee brewing. I could also discern that the voices belonged to Thad and Hazel.

  “I was there that day, at your mother’s house,” Hazel told Thad. “We hadn’t had a nice visit in weeks, and I offered to fix lunch. I was in the kitchen when you two started yelling, and I heard every word of it.”

  “It didn’t mean anything. She yelled at me a lot.”

  “A mother’s supposed to yell at her kids when they act like you do.”

  “I wasn’t acting up. I wanted to get a job.”

  “A job.” Harrumph. “Your job’s at school…”

  “You sound like her now.”

  Hazel plowed on, “Your job’s to get some decent grades. Your job’s to grow up and stop acting like…”

  “I am grown up,” he insisted. “That was the whole point, in case you missed it. Are you deaf as well as blind?”

  At that moment, I sincerely hoped that the next sound I’d hear would be the smack of her hand on his face.

  “Owww!” he whined. (I smiled.) “I’m sorry, Hazel. But what I mean is, is that I just wanted to move out of the house and get an apartment—you know, with friends. And she was like, ‘You’re too young.’ And I’m like, ‘But my friends are older. They can handle it.’ And she’s like, ‘You can’t be unsupervised,’ or whatever. And I’m like, ‘They’ll look after me.’ So, of course, she’s like, ‘What about money?’ So I’m, ‘That’s why I need to get a job—just part-time—it won’t hurt school.’ But she wouldn’t let me, so I asked for more allowance, and she laughed at me. And… And…”