Hem himself recently made Dietrich’s acquaintance on his ocean-crossing back from Africa. He’d gone down alone for dinner and overheard Marlene balking at joining a party of twelve — afraid of being the unlucky thirteenth. Hem had gallantly offered to be the fourteenth party at the table.
After recounting that story, Hem became bitter and crestfallen when Hector confessed that he’d also known Dietrich since crossing paths with her in 1932. They’d met when Hector had undertaken some reluctant, but lucrative last-minute script work for her picture, Blonde Venus. Hector, at least, resisted boasting to “Papa” that he’d bedded Dietrich several times during his several days’ stay on the set.
“You look very handsome tonight, Mr. Lassiter,” Rachel said, holding out a hand. He took her hand and they danced together in his living room to Dietrich’s song. That tune ended and a second by Marlene followed, “Falling In Love Again” — one of her signature songs. They danced through that one, too.
Smiling, Rachel said, “You keep surprising me.”
“And surprising myself,” Hector said. He hugged her to him again, smelling her hair and perfume...savoring the sensation of her breasts pressed firmly against his chest. Then he let her go and checked his pocket watch. “We should be going — there’s still just time to be fashionably late.”
Rachel said, “Damn, I forgot to check at the hotel...to see if there was an answer to my — our — wire to Beverly.”
Hector disappeared into his bedroom. He called back, “It’s on our way. We’ll stop and check there in person.”
When he emerged from the hallway he was wearing a pale sports jacket.
Rachel frowned. “A little warm for that, don’t you think?”
Hector smiled. “Sure. But necessary on a Saturday night in Key West.”
He took her arm and guided her toward the door. Then, remembering, he snapped his fingers and walked back to the kitchen. He opened a cabinet door and pulled out a bottle of Rioja Alta. “Hem’s favorite wine,” Hector said. He handed Rachel the wine bottle to hold while he locked up, then took the bottle in one hand, holding it by its neck, and wrapped his other hand around Rachel’s.
It was already dark and the mosquitoes were scarce — a striking change from recent evenings inland...and another ominous sign the storm was drawing closer. The past few weeks, the bugs had become so thick that the rummies and homeless fisherman had taken to sleeping on the docks and piers and jetties, bunking out over the water where the little winged vampires wouldn’t venture.
Hector and Rachel made their way to Duval Street and she said, “Curious, I don’t remember there being street lights last night.”
Hector smiled. “For good reason. They can only pay to turn them on Saturday nights...mostly to help with arresting the vets. The Keys are broke, Rache. Deep in the red. But that didn’t stop the Key West town council from buying two new traffic lights the island can’t afford, even though there’s hardly any car traffic on an island small enough to walk side-to-side and end-to-end. But the goddamn politicians see that highway construction pushing on and I reckon they envision eventual traffic jams.” He shook his head. “Fools to a man. Course that’s true of all politicians.”
Rachel was quiet on their walk to the Colonial Hotel and Hector respected the silence...watching darkened corners and recessed doorways for menacing vets or marauding Cuban revolutionaries.
They ducked into the hotel again. Hector gaze was again drawn to the horrible collage hanging behind the front desk — but now he saw it in the context of the surreal cadaver he’d viewed a few hours before.
In Max Ernst’s black and white collage, a figure, vaguely female, lay in a large, rectangular metal washtub. “Her” face was formed from the combined images of a genderless wooden dummy, a real woman’s eye and left nostril, and pieces of tin, riveted and curved to form the left portion of the figure’s skull, mandible and chin. The throat appeared to have been cut and spread open, and rounded, gray-scale shapes that suggested organs were punctuated with a piece of tubing that descended into a mottled mass that extended from the collarbones down to a truncated waist. That was the other disturbing aspect of the collage — the figure was bisected, as if it had been cut in half just above the pelvis. The left arm was missing. The right arm began as the flesh of the woman who’d been photographed, but just below the shoulder, it became the tacked-on arm of a wooden mannequin. Anatomy as a Bride, Max had dubbed his work.
To Hector’s mind, it looked like one of Victor Frankenstein’s rough drafts.
Rachel said to the night clerk — this time a younger man with close-cropped yellow hair and a high-pitched voice,” I was staying here the past day or two, in room 510. I’m checking to see if a friend of mine perhaps sent a wire?”
“Your name?”
“Rachel Harper.”
The clerk checked mail slots, patted around his side of the counter and lifted sheets of paper, then shook his head. “No, nothing.”
Hector gestured at Max Ernst’s collage. “Where in God’s name did that damned thing come from?”
“A gift to the hotel,” the clerk said. “Something a guest gave the manager. I guess the guest is a collector of surrealist art. This is just a print. But the guest stays here often and convinced the manager he needed to smarten up the lobby.”
Smarten up? Jesus. Hector said, “This guest’s name?”
The clerk said, “Haven’t a clue. Just the owner’s friend.”
“So go fetch your boss, boy.”
“He’s not here.”
“Where’s he live?”
“In town. But he’s in Bimini, on a fishing holiday. With the storm coming, I don’t expect he’ll be trying to get back for several days.”
Hector rapped his knuckles on the marble desktop. “No, I don’t reckon he will.”
Outside again, Rachel said, “Guess we’re thinking the same thing again...seeing that piece of ‘art’ in light of that murdered woman’s body.”
Hector wrapped his arms around her bronzing shoulders and said, “Yeah. But now let’s try to forget that for a few hours. Let’s try and have a good time.” He smiled. “Sure hope you’ve got a world-class liver, Rachel. You’ll be running with the bulls tonight.”
“...if murder can be experienced aesthetically, the murderer can in turn be regarded as a kind of artist — a performance artist or anti-artist whose specialty is not creation but destruction.”— Joel Black
MANIFESTO
5
As they approached the big stucco house at Whitehead Street, Hector heard Rachel catch her breath. She said, “My God, it’s beautiful.”
“The wall is a new touch,” Hector said. “Used to be a wire fence.” He explained that the high, rough-hewn wall had been recently completed by one of Hemingway’s cronies. “First wall the fella ever built,” Hector said, slapping the cool brick. The wall was taller than Rachel’s head.
“Impressive work,” she said, “if a bit crooked.”
“Hem was angry because the New Dealers put out a tour book — nearly 50 alleged ‘highlights’ to be viewed here on Key West. Hem’s house is number 18 in the tour guide.” Hector gestured over his shoulder at the lighthouse. “That sucker’s number 19.”
Rachel considered that. “Is your house on the list, Hector?”
He hesitated, then said, “Nah. I’m off the bastards’ radar. They don’t care about crime writers. Crime writers don’t go on safari. Crime writers don’t write thick, nonfiction books about bullfighting. Slick magazines don’t pay crime writers exorbitant sums to write about their trivial day-to-day activities or expensive hobbies that Mr. Depression-Era Middle America can’t afford to indulge. Crime writers don’t court publicity and schmooze with columnists like Leonard Lyons.”
Hector immediately hated himself for that bitter diatribe. It stank of jealousy and well-nursed resentment.
Rachel said, “So what do we do? Is there a hidden bell we ring so some dwarf can mount the ramparts?”
<
br /> “No, we goddamn holler,” Hector said, smiling. Then he bellowed, “Hemingstein! Open the goddamn gate.”
As they waited, a butterscotch-colored cat slipped between the bars of the iron gate and curled around Hector’s leg, purring. The place was lousy with cats — mutant pussies with extra toes. Hemingway’s attachment to felines threw Hector, who regarded cats as a lonely woman’s pet...maybe the companions of fey men. Hector liked dogs...big dogs.
Something screeched from behind the wall — an inhuman sounding scream — and Rachel grabbed Hector’s arm. “What in God’s name was that?”
Hector said, grinning, “Just the peacocks.”
A slender woman emerged from the house. She unfastened the gate and kissed Hector on both cheeks. “Bonsoir, Pauline,” he said. “This is my new friend, Rachel Harper. Rache, this is Pauline Hemingway.”
Pauline, a few years older than Ernest and more handsome than pretty, gave Rachel a once-over and shook her hand. “A pleasure.” Hector handed Pauline the bottle of red wine and closed and locked the gate. He said, “How are things?”
Mrs. Hemingway shrugged her shoulders. “You know how he is after turning a manuscript over to Max — Papa’s at loose ends. Dangerous to himself and to others. Especially those closest to him. He and Dos are apparently on the outs again.”
Hector nodded. Hem had recently completed a nonfiction account of his African safari. He’d written a prefatory note explaining the book could be read as a work of fiction if one chose, and it was indeed written in novelistic fashion. Hector had read the book in typescript. It was marred by bitter passages in which Hem had determined to settle scores with critics and enemies — chief among them, Gertrude Stein.
In Hem’s manuscript, the lines between author, character and public figure were blurred with almost Dadaesque zeal.
Hector had privately told Pauline he fully expected a bloodbath when the critics got their shot at Hem’s book. Pauline had confided similar fears.
Death in the Afternoon, Hem’s bullfighting book, had taken a similar drubbing, as had his most recent collection of short stories, Winner Take Nothing.
Hem’s editor, Maxwell Perkins, was pushing for another novel, but so far as Hector could see, there wasn’t another on the horizon.
Hector held the heavy screen door, then followed the women into the big, two-story house — perhaps the only truly hurricane-proof structure on the island. It was constructed from material quarried from the coral bed upon which it rested. It was also one of the rare houses on the Key with a basement. Wrought iron pillars supported a second floor porch and canopy that ran around all four sides of the house. All the lights were on and the ceiling fans were spinning at top speed, but they were doing little other than pushing around the muggy night air. The ceilings were high — fifteen feet, to Hector’s estimate.
The Hemingways’ youngest son, Gregory — the spitting image of his mother — was wearing one of Pauline’s hats and a boa and holding a rolling pin as if it was a microphone. He was singing some cabaret number called Mister Cellophane.
Pauline frowned and snatched her hat from Gregory’s head. She said, “Time for bed, Gigi.”
The boy ignored her, clutching the rolling pin up close to his mouth, belting out his off-key song.
Pauline said, “Bless it, children are made to be seen and not heard. Upstairs right now, and to bed.”
Gregory continued vamping. Pauline looked at Hector in exasperation. The lanky crime writer knelt down in front of Gregory and tousled the boy’s black hair, messing up his crookedly cut bangs. Hector pulled out a silver dollar and held it up. “Avoid an argument, what do you say, Gig? The coin for cooperation? It’ll buy a fair amount of ice cream...a pulp magazine or two.”
The boy snatched the coin from Hector’s hand and bolted up the steps. As Gregory’s footfalls faded up the stairs, this creaking, plodding thump came down the other way.
Hem had shaved and showered. He wore a white shirt and white pants cinched with a black belt. As was his custom, he’d foregone shoes and opted for house slippers. Beaming and stepping off the last step and onto the landing, Hem said, “There’s my girl!” He gave Rachel a bear hug and she gave him Mayfair kisses back.
Pauline smiled taughtly. Hem’s wife had only recently let her hair go black again. She had dyed it blond through most of ’34, driven to do so — or so was island conventional wisdom — by her concerns regarding the striking Jane Mason...Hem’s Cuba-dwelling, younger and very blond presumed mistress.
The second Mrs. Hemingway’s hair had darkened back to its natural shade of charcoal black, but now her hair was shot through with strands of silver.
Hem slapped Hector’s offered hand away, then saw the bottle of wine Pauline was holding. He took it from her and said, “Let’s start with this son of a bitch...lay the firm foundation for the harder stuff. Come on Lasso, help me rustle up a corkscrew.”
Hector followed Hemingway through the house to the kitchen. “Where’d you find that one, Hec?”
“Rachel more or less found me, at Sloppy Joes,” Hector said. “She was in some trouble...being followed by a man.”
“A vet?”
“Probably,” Hector lied. “She came down here with a friend. The friend supposedly met a man, then went off with him. Last Rachel heard, they were headed down to Cuba. But earlier this afternoon, she received an apparent telegram from this friend. The wire was sent from Upper Matecumbe. And Rachel’s first name was misspelled.”
Ernest grunted and the cork made a “pop” as he wrenched it from the bottle. “Troubling. Sounds like something from one of your goddamn books.” Hem poured four glasses of wine — one a bit deeper than the other three, and drank from that one. “On that note, this murdered woman, the one found across the street, by the lighthouse...”
Hector told Hem about the state of the woman’s body and about his and Rachel’s shared notions about the surrealist painting that the corpse had evoked.
“Christ, but that’s a sick thought,” Hem said, sipping more wine. “At least it wasn’t your friend’s friend.” He smiled, his teeth grayed a bit by the dark red wine. “Sorry you had to see that, Lasso...particularly since it’s too strange to use, even in one of your crazy books. What good is an experience when we can’t write about it, am I right?”
That was pure Papa: The ex-journalist rarely posed a direct question — at least not since becoming successful. Instead, Ernest phrased all his questions as he had that last one — a statement or assertion demanding affirmation...all Hem’s “questions” lately ended in, “Am I right?” or “Tell me I’m not wrong.”
“For our purposes, some things are too real to be good,” Hector said. He picked up one of the glasses of wine for Rachel and headed back toward the sitting room. He asked over his shoulder, “Who else is coming?”
As he looked back over his shoulder, Hector saw Ernest pour some of the wine from Pauline’s glass into his own to top it off. Ernest said, “Pauline’s friends, like I said. People Pfife knew from Paris — you know, before she and me...”
When they reached the sitting room, Hector saw that a tiny bald man was sitting on the divan next to Pauline. The man wore a black suit and starched white shirt with French cuffs. His shoes were highly polished and an ebony cane rested against his right leg. One of Ernest’s trophy heads — a water buffalo — glowered down from the wall behind the dandy little man. Pauline said, “Hector, you must meet Bishop!”
Hector smiled and handed the second glass of wine to Rachel. He shifted his own glass to his left hand and took the little bald man’s offered hand. “Bish, this is the author Hector Lassiter, I’ve told you about,” Pauline said. “Hector, this is the very fine painter, Bishop Blair.”
“I’ve certainly heard of you,” Hector said. “Unfortunately, I’ve been on this tiny rock for so many years, I’m out of touch with the art world. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with your work.”
“Or I with yours,” the little man said smiling
. His entire head was shaven and the light glowed on his veined and spotted scalp — many liver spots there. Hector guessed the little painter must be in his late fifties or early sixties. Bishop said, “I have to confess that I only read nonfiction.”
The man’s handshake was damp and weak. Hector said, “You must be looking forward to Hem’s latest, then.”
“Of course,” Bishop said, releasing Hector’s much bigger hand. Hector resisted the urge to drag his now-damp palm down the side of his trousers. “What do you paint, Bishop? Cubist, Dada...what’s your cup of tea?”
“Surrealism,” Pauline offered.
Hector arched an eyebrow. He felt Rachel’s and Hem’s gazes. “Now I’m placing your name, Bishop,” Hector said. “Think I may have seen something or another of yours in the magazine Le Minotaure.”
That seemed to catch Bishop’s attention. “Ah! You’re a subscriber?”
Hector shook his head. “No. I was leafing through a copy earlier today...in the lobby of the Colonial Hotel. The hotel seems to have gone surrealist, of late. They have this enormous print of Ernst’s Anatomie als Braut hanging behind the front desk.”
“Indeed?” The little painter ran a hand back across his skull, damp with perspiration. It was still in the mid-80s, three hours after sunset. “I suppose I chose the wrong hotel, then,” he said. “We’re staying at the La Concha.”
Hector said, “‘We’re’?”
“Yes, my wife and me. And here she is.” The little man rose and extended both hands.
A little woman, no more than five-three, Hector guessed, emerged from the back hallway where the restroom was located. She looked to be 65, perhaps older. She was certainly older looking than her husband. She came and stood next to the little man. She was dressed in a long black dress and black pillbox hat. Her hair was dyed an unconvincing shade of black. Black gloves ran up both arms, stopping just three or four inches short of her bared and rounded shoulders.
Hector thought, Sweet Jesus, don’t let her be his model.
Toros & Torsos (The Hector Lassiter Series) Page 4