Axel nodded. “We had a fight—at the party, in fact—and he ran off. He took the car. I don’t know where he went. We had reservations here tonight and I was hoping he’d show up. He didn’t. I—”
Axel looked up at Clarisse and hesitated.
“You’re not interrupting,” said Clarisse. “Val and I have already exchanged confidences for the evening. In fact, I’m going to leave you two alone.” When she stood, Axel started to rise, but she placed a hand on his shoulder. “No, please. Chivalry makes me break out in hives.”
He stood anyway, and apologized. “I’m driving you away.”
“No, no. I’m getting up at five in the morning, and still have to read the instructions that go with my alarm clock.” She winked at Valentine and left the room, then stopped just outside the door on pretext of smoothing her skirt, and with satisfaction noted that Axel had already begun to spill to Valentine. “I have no idea where he’s gone,” she heard him say, “and I don’t know what to do. I’ve—”
The rest was covered by Angel’s yodel just outside the window.
As she stood outside the gate in darkened Kiley Court, Clarisse could hear laughter and splashing behind the high hedges. Evidently there was someone in the pool. She unlatched the gate and went inside. All three wings of the house were dark, and a few candles in amber glass provided the only illumination. The waning moon was hidden behind clouds. She got all the way to the edge of the pool before she saw Ann and Margaret swimming in the nude.
The two women swam over. Their bodies were sleek and well-toned. They rested their folded arms on the tiles, and their legs gently paddled the water behind them. They looked like waterlogged cherubs.
“Hello again,” said Ann with a smile. “Did you and Daniel have a nice dinner?”
“It was very pleasant,” replied Clarisse with a smile. She was glad to see that most of Ann’s earlier drunkenness had passed, or more likely been absorbed by dinner. And whatever disagreement between the women had caused Ann’s tears in the Throne and Scepter had evidently been smoothed over as well. “And you two?”
“We ate at a place called the Forward Pass,” said Margaret. “Did you know they have waiters dressed like cheerleaders?”
“I’ve heard.”
“And,” said Ann with emphasis, “they’ve got a great wine list.”
Clarisse glanced toward the darkened wing of the house at her right. “Are Noah and Victor home?” she asked.
“Haven’t seen ’em,” said Margaret, wringing water from strands of her thick hennaed hair.
“Don’t you want to swim?” asked Ann. “I love this pool, I love swimming in it at night. I love having it all to ourselves. I wish we could stay here the whole summer.”
“No thank you,” said Clarisse. “After the dessert I had tonight, I’d just sink. But I think I will sit out here for a few minutes, enjoy the night air, and try to think up a good excuse for not going to work tomorrow.” She drew a chair up close to the edge of the pool, seated herself, and indolently lighted a cigarette with one of the candles. Ann and Margaret swam away and then back again when she motioned that she wanted to continue the conversation.
“I had a good time at the party,” said Clarisse, looking down at the two women in the water.
“When my film comes back, I’ll be sure to give you some prints of you and your friend.” Ann paused and added, “You really are a beautiful woman.” She reached for an opened bottle of wine that was beneath the table at Clarisse’s side.
“Thank you,” said Clarisse, smiling. She watched with interest as Ann poured out a full glass, spilling a little on the tiles.
“Are you living with Daniel or just staying with him?” Ann continued after Margaret pushed gently away to glide through the water.
“Valentine is…gay,” Clarisse said, hesitantly. The candlelight provided not much illumination, but enough to show Clarisse what was in Ann’s eyes. “But we, ah—”
“She’s straight,” shouted Margaret from the other end of the pool.
“That’s what I meant to say,” said Clarisse.
Ann sighed. “Who can be sure anymore? I mean, after Eleanor Roosevelt…” She shrugged. “Must be difficult for you in this town.”
“Life is a trial,” Clarisse admitted, then changed the subject: “Did you take a lot of pictures of costumes last night?”
Ann nodded. “Everybody was very nice about it.”
“Did you get one of Cain?”
“Cain? Which one was he?” She swallowed off the glass of wine.
“The one with the X on his forehead, wearing a chiton.”
“Is that like a tiara?” asked Margaret.
“No,” said Ann quickly, “I didn’t get his picture, and I’m glad too.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Didn’t you hear? Somebody killed him.”
Clarisse made no reply.
Margaret swam up. “Yesterday morning,” she said. “The tide was licking his heels.”
“I know,” Clarisse said at last. “I was the one who found him.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. Were you looking for him?” asked Margaret.
“It was terrible. Why should I be looking for him?”
“Well,” said Margaret, “you know, we were all on the ferry together yesterday, and Ann and I saw you walking down the pier with him.”
“That’s right,” said Clarisse. “He was trying to hustle a place to crash.”
Ann threw one dark leg over the edge of the pool and hoisted herself out of the water, sitting sideways on the edge. Water splashed onto Clarisse’s white shoes, and Margaret reached out of the pool to wipe them off with a towel. “Do you want a joint?” Ann asked. She took one from the pocket of her folded shirt and Clarisse leaned forward with the candle. Margaret, still in the pool, held on to Ann’s feet under the water. She shook her head when Ann motioned toward her with the joint.
“It’s not treated,” Ann assured her, but Margaret still waved it away.
“Did you talk to him?” asked Clarisse.
Both women nodded. “But not on the boat,” said Margaret. “Here.”
“Here!” cried Clarisse.
“We got here about one-thirty yesterday afternoon. And after we had unpacked”—here Ann interrupted with a prolonged giggle that Clarisse had no difficulty interpreting—“we put on our suits and came out here. Shortly after that he came through the gate with his bag and said he was looking for his lover.”
“His lover?” Clarisse repeated with astonishment.
“Well,” said Ann, “I told him that we had just arrived, and didn’t know who else was staying here, but that there wasn’t anybody at home right then. So then he sat down and waited.”
“But who could his lover be?” demanded Clarisse. “I know it’s not Valentine. Maybe it was the man who was staying here last week.”
“No,” said Ann definitely to this last. “Terry O’Sullivan is my boss. I’d know if he had a lover—and he doesn’t.”
“He came to see Mr. Lovelace,” said Margaret.
“Noah!”
“Jeff King sat right there where you’re sitting now,” said Margaret, “and just waited for about ten minutes. Then Mr. Lovelace came back. He was very surprised to see Jeff here, but he took him inside. They were in the house for about five minutes and then Jeff came back out.”
“He was mad, too,” added Ann with a gasp, after she had sustained a lengthy inhalation of smoke.
Clarisse sat puzzled and consternated for several moments. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“It’s simple,” said Margaret. “Jeff King had probably tricked with Mr. Lovelace a couple of times, and then blew that up into ‘my lover.’ Then he shows up on the doorstep expecting a place to stay, and Mr. Lovelace says he’s all full up. So Jeff King goes away mad. That’s bound to be what happened.”
“Maybe,” said Clarisse doubtfully. “Did you tell this to the police?”
Ann laughed. “Why
? He wasn’t killed here, after all.” Then she added indignantly, “I’m not going to spend the last week of my vacation filling out police reports. Margaret and I have better things to do.”
Now Margaret giggled.
Clarisse said nothing, but just sat staring across the dark courtyard toward her uncle’s unlighted windows.
Chapter Twelve
CLARISSE WAS READING Monday’s edition of the local newspaper at breakfast when Valentine staggered in from his bedroom. He was wearing a pair of frayed gym shorts at least fifteen years old, and she was already dressed for work. While she poured him coffee and brought out doughnuts, he stared at the front page of the paper. The banner headline told of a rare species of whale found beached in Herring Cove; a minor drug bust was noted in the lower left-hand corner; a large center-page photograph showed a child sitting atop a pier fishing with a sunset shimmering behind her.
“The notice is on page six,” said Clarisse. “Jeffrey Martin King, age twenty-eight, resident of Boston, leaving a mother and two sisters to grieve.”
“And that’s all?” asked Valentine, sipping his coffee.
“That’s it. Mr. and Mrs. We’re-on-Holiday-and-Don’t-Want-to-Think-about-Anything-Nasty wouldn’t want to hear about the thumb marks on his throat, and wouldn’t want to know exactly where on the beach the body was found,” said Clarisse sourly.
“I told you so,” said Valentine, and pushed the newspaper aside, without bothering to turn to page six.
“I can’t believe they’d ignore a murder. I’ve been through that paper three times, thinking I’d overlooked the article, but it’s not there. I have a good mind—”
“Don’t get started,” warned Valentine. “There’s nothing you can do.”
They were silent for several moments. Clarisse sat across from Valentine and methodically tore the paper, page by page, into small scraps.
“So,” she said at last, “you persuaded someone home last night.”
Valentine nodded. “You heard us?”
“Not the part where you turned down the sheets, but everything else.”
“It was Axel. We went to Back Street. I bought him a drink and he spilled his guts. Then I brought him back here and comforted him for about two and a half hours. Then we ran out of poppers.”
Clarisse nodded toward the bedrooms. “He still asleep back there?”
“Left with the dawn. He started to get worried that Scott would come back and not find him home. Listen, why didn’t you want Axel to know that was you in Oriental drag?”
“I didn’t want to embarrass him. I saw him have that fight on the deck, remember? You didn’t tell him, did you?”
“I didn’t need to. He knew it was you.”
“Why didn’t he say anything?” asked Clarisse.
“He didn’t want to embarrass you by catching you in an outright lie.”
“Oh, well,” she sighed. “Go back to the spilled guts.”
Valentine took a sip of his coffee, thought for a moment, and then began to speak, in a sincere and deep-throated voice: “Dear Ann Landers:
“I am a thirty-seven-year-old swimming coach, moderately successful. I have seventeen trophies, a gold American Express card, a picture of me shaking hands with Lyndon Johnson, and a lover who is fifteen years younger than I am. I’ll call him Scott DeVoto. Scott is jealous, insecure, and out of work. He doesn’t understand me, he doesn’t understand that just because I hop into bed with every man who winks at me that I still love him more than anything else in the world. I met him in the bliss of a coach-student fantasy. The fantasy faded, but Scott hung around. Which is fine, except that he’s always afraid that I’ll dump him for somebody who’s got a better time on the hundred-meter freestyle.
“Three months ago I met a young man I’ll call Jeff King. I saw him twice—it wasn’t any big deal, except that Jeff King gave me the clap, herpes, and crabs. Then Scott (my lover) accused Jeff (my trick) of stealing some clothes out of his closet. Ann, we nearly went to divorce court after that one. We had this huge fight in the VD clinic and it was terrible. It wasn’t the first fight and it wasn’t the last one, either. And the thing of it is, I still love him! Scott, that is, I still love him like I loved him on the day we first stared at each other in the showers. Am I afraid of growing old alone? Will I ever stop screwing around? Do I really enjoy public battles?” Valentine took a breath, adding at the last, “Signed, Anxious Axel.”
“Love is a many-splintered thing,” remarked Clarisse. “Do you think Jeff actually stole those clothes?”
“Axel says they were lost in the laundry,” replied Valentine. “But who knows? I wouldn’t put it past Scott to have thrown them out himself just so he could accuse Jeff.”
“Axel supports that twerp, doesn’t he?”
“Scott ‘takes lessons,’” said Valentine with distaste. “Car repair, home cosmetology, computer programming, weaponless self-defense, sensuous massage, tai ch’i. He’s not sure yet what he wants to do.”
“When I think of the number of men in this town who are lover-subsidized…!”
Valentine nodded, and rose to pour more coffee. When he sat down again, Clarisse said, “Well, I had a little poolside chat with Ann and Margaret last night. They tried to induce me into a threesome.”
“Were you polite in refusing?”
Clarisse sighed. “The approach and the denial were carried out with the utmost discretion and good taste.”
“Tell me what they had to say.”
Clarisse recounted the pair’s assessment of Jeff King, concluding with Jeff King’s astounding assertion that Noah Lovelace was his lover. “But that, of course, is not possible,” she concluded.
“Why not?” said Valentine. “I’ll bet you can’t name Noah’s last three affairs.”
“Yes I can,” said Clarisse. “Truck-Stop Betty, Butcher-than-Thou, and Amtrak Bob.”
“Those aren’t real names,” argued Valentine. “How do you know that Jeff King didn’t have a nickname as well?”
“You mean like the Cobalt Clone?”
“Or something. Anyway, it doesn’t look like Jeff King was addicted to truth-telling—that man couldn’t be trusted the length of his zipper. But if you’re worried about it, why don’t you just ask Noah?”
Clarisse replied uneasily, “The only time Noah and I have had together was at the party on Saturday night, and that was for only about five minutes.”
Valentine eyed her. “Are you afraid you’ll find something out?”
Clarisse didn’t reply to this directly. “After the girls dropped their little bombshell, they went inside. I sat outside waiting for Noah to come home so I could ask him all about it. But the White Prince arrived first, and I said, ‘Is Noah with you?’ And the Prince said that Noah had gone to Boston early yesterday morning and wasn’t expected back before tomorrow.”
Valentine was puzzled. “Was it an unexpected trip?”
“I asked the Prince. ‘He never tells me anything, how do I know?’ he said.” She glanced at the clock. “Oh, God, I’m late. The hordes will be beating at the door.”
She rose and hurried upstairs to the bathroom. In a couple of minutes she came down again. “Listen, Val, I’ve had a thought,” she said. “If you see the White Prince this morning, tell him to drop by and see me in the shop.”
“You think he might have known Jeff King too?” Valentine said, and then looked thoughtful. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Everybody in town except me seems to have screwed him—or been screwed by him.”
“Don’t tell him what it’s about. Let me do a little fishing. Okay?”
The White Prince was tall, as thin as Jacqueline Onassis’ little finger, and had immaculate, deeply tanned skin and classically regular features. His cheekbones were high and his eyes were green and cold. The White Prince’s crowning glory was the shock of absolutely white hair that grew luxuriantly and with no sign of receding; the rest of his body was hairless. He couldn’t even grow a mustache.
&nbs
p; His history was vague and had something to do with Missouri and the wrong side of the tracks. Though his public manners were languid and refined to a degree more appropriate to a hedonistic Olympian god than an ex-schoolteacher living by his lover’s grace, it was rumored that his mother paid for his piano lessons after a successful appearance on Queen for a Day.
He appeared in the doorway of the Provincetown Crafts Boutique an hour after Clarisse had opened the shop. His sandals were carved of birchwood and laced with ostrich-leather thongs. His drawstring pants were of raw cotton. His pink shirt of the same material was ornamented with tiny scraps of mirror sewn about the collarless yoke. Despite the intense heat of the day, a lightweight white sweater was thrown over his shoulders, with the arms loosely knotted just beneath his throat. His large sunglasses were rose-tinted and red-framed.
The White Prince always posed as if a candid fashion photographer were lurking behind every bush. Clarisse conjectured that he must have had a costumier, makeup man, and hairstylist just off-stage. The shop was filled with tourists, who stopped their browsing to stare. The White Prince took no notice of them; to him, heterosexuals were invisible.
“Daniel told me to stop in. Here I am.” He advanced toward the counter, but stopped suddenly when the plastic whale in the barrel suddenly shot up a geyser of water. “Is that likely to happen again?” he asked.
Clarisse nodded. The White Prince gingerly lifted the whale from the water and dropped it onto the floor. There was a loud crack of plastic. “Oh, sorry,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” said Clarisse with a broad smile. “It could have happened to anyone.”
“Daniel said that you wanted to talk to me about Jeff King.” The White Prince’s voice was loud and quite conversational in tone; it was a voice that took no notice whatsoever of those standing all about them.
“Valentine gives everything away. He’s got no subtlety.”
“What did you want to know?” The White Prince had long ago given up wrinkling his brow, for fear the lines might then never go away.
“Did you know him?”
Cobalt Page 7