“And Miss Whitebread? What does she do now that cotton-picking season is over?”
Clarisse took a deep breath, and said quickly, “Susie dates a lot.”
Linc’s eyebrows rose questioningly, and Valentine kicked idly at a box of food. Powdery meal from an open package shot up in a little dun-colored plume. “I refuse to live across the hall from a hooker,” Valentine said in a low voice. “They’re noisy and bad for security. They answer the buzzer for anybody.”
“Susie is not a hooker,” said Clarisse in a hot whisper, rattling the keys. “She’s a call girl—an out-call girl. And besides, she’s recording secretary for PUMA.”
“What’s that?”
“The Prostitutes Union of Massachusetts,” Linc cut in.
“And if that’s not respectability, I don’t know what is,” said Clarisse. “She’s certainly the only call girl I ever met who had a résumé. She and Julia are very respectable, very responsible, and very much in love. They’re so quiet you’ll think you’re living across the hall from two librarians with narcolepsy. Besides, Noah already told them they could stay.”
Clarisse took out a second ring of keys from her jacket pocket. Valentine and Linc wandered over to the window of Mr. Fred’s and intently examined the photographs of beehives and bubble cuts.
After a few moments they went back to Clarisse, who was still struggling with keys.
“What’s this Mr. Fred like?” Valentine asked.
“He saved my life last night,” said Clarisse offhandedly.
“Really?” Linc asked, impressed. “How?”
“Well, when the two teenaged girls threw the television set off the fire escape at me, he yelled ‘Jump’.”
Both Valentine and Linc looked at the smashed set in the gutter.
“They threw that off the fire escape at you?” Valentine asked, glancing up.
“See what I mean?” said Clarisse, at last pressing the correct key into the lock. “Mr. Fred saved my life.”
She grasped the two large handles and yanked the heavy doors outward. The hinges squealed metallically. Sunlight glinted briefly off two round windows in the inner red-leather padded doors as Clarisse and Valentine pushed them open, bracing for the first glimpse of their new life.
Chapter Three
THE LINOLEUM ON the floor of the barroom had been patched in so many places that the original pattern was entirely lost. From the cracked red vinyl on the battered barstools to the dingy forty-eight-star American flags that were stapled to the wall above the mirrored bar, the building stank of grease, cigarettes, and old alcohol.
The room itself was two stories high. A scarred mahogany bar ran along the right side; three booths and four tables had been installed haphazardly along the left wall. Battered wainscoting lined the walls to a height of about six feet. Above it, cheap composition board paneling reached to the ceiling.
Valentine leaned against a shelf that had been bolted between two iron pillars, and looked around dismally.
Clarisse, with an eager gesture, pointed upward. “See, fan-and-globe lights. You know how much you love fan-and-globe lights. And just look at that ceiling!”
“You mean the fact that it’s about two feet lower at the front than at the back? Or the fact that it’s been completely discolored with thirty years of smoke and grease?”
“It’s a wonderful ceiling,” Clarisse insisted. “Tin. And the pattern is squares with borders of shamrocks. Perfect for St. Patrick’s Day.”
Valentine pushed himself away from the shelf and went behind the bar. The mirrors there badly needed resilvering, and the shelving for liquor bottles was glazed with years of dust and grime. In back of the bar, a swinging door with a diamond of glass led into what Clarisse said was the kitchen. An ice machine sat in a fair-sized puddle of filthy water against the wall in the back of the barroom. Toward the left of that, now open and exposing a rectangle of black, was a trapdoor with an iron ring handle. Below, Clarisse told them, was a storage cellar for liquors, wines, and other supplies.
To the right of the front door was an ugly, floor-to-ceiling boxy construction with a narrow doorway. A mirror facing the bar was set into the upper portion of the structure. Clarisse eagerly explained that the top section was a small office—all that remained of the original second floor of the building. The mirror was a one-way glass. A short spiral staircase connected the office to the floor level and, Clarisse continued, the interior of the lower area would make an ideal coat check.
Valentine looked at everything in sullen silence. Linc, however, regarded all the things that depressed Valentine merely as potential for a clever and thorough renovation.
Clarisse wandered over to the wall of booths. She tugged at a loose piece of the thin, cheap paneling. “This stuff has definitely got to go.”
“Why don’t we just pump the whole damn place full of ammonia for about two months and then come look at it again?” Valentine said with a labored sigh, poking his head into the potentially ideal coat check.
“You’re just crabby because you gave up smoking. If you had a cigarette right now, this place wouldn’t seem so bad. I realize it isn’t exactly what you were expecting…”
“Actually,” he said, stepping back, “it’s a bit more than I expected.’
“Well,” said Linc brightly, coming from behind the bar, “I’d like to see the rest of the place.”
Clarisse led them through the coat check and up the rickety spiral staircase. At the top, she scraped open a low door and turned on a dim overhead light in the office.
The room was no more than twelve feet by ten. A wooden chair lay on its side on the dusty floor and a small table with two legs was clumsily nailed to one of the walls. A pinup calendar from 1967 was thumbtacked above it. Linc glanced out the one-way mirror, but it was so grimy he could scarcely make out the murky glow of the fan-and-globe lights.
Valentine looked about, frowned, and shook his head. “This is getting more discouraging by the minute, Lovelace.”
“Too late for cold feet,” she replied briskly. “Now come on. I’ll show you your new apartment.”
A second door in the office gave entrance to the private part of the building. From a tiny dark landing, a narrow staircase descended to a street door. More stairs rose to the two apartments on the third floor and the larger apartment on the fourth.
Leading the two men up to the narrow third-floor hallway, Clarisse unlocked a door painted Chinese red with forest-green insert panels. From behind a door across the hall came the muted noise of a cheering crowd.
“Sounds like business is booming for the resident call girl,” Valentine said.
“That’s just the television,” said Clarisse. “Susie and Julia have the last three years of Wide World of Sports on tape. ‘Demolition Derby’ is their favorite, though.”
She reached inside the door and snapped on a garish light. Inside, the walls of the empty living room were painted a pink so hot it seemed to vibrate in its intensity. The woodwork and the window sashes were painted two shades of blue.
“Your new abode,” Clarisse said cheerfully.
Linc drew a sharp breath and let it out slowly.
“Oh, God,” Valentine groaned. He walked across the room and pulled open a set of slatted folding doors, revealing a tiny kitchen with lemon-yellow walls and all the appliances that same color. Valentine slammed shut the folding doors and turned to Clarisse, whose eyes were averted. “What color is the bedroom?” he demanded.
Linc peeked into a room directly across from the kitchen. “Crimson,” he said in a low voice.
“There’s still a bed in there,” Clarisse said. “But I don’t know if I’d call it the kind of bed you’d want to lie down on. The sheets got up and shook my hand.”
Valentine grimaced. He made no move toward the bedroom. “I’ve seen enough for today. While the bar is filled with ammonia, we can shoot this place full of turpentine. Christ, Lovelace, look at this apartment—Whore’s Haven. It’ll take wee
ks just to strip the baseboards and the floors, and it’ll take three coats of paint to bury these colors.”
“At least,” Linc agreed.
“Whoa, child!” exclaimed a loud voice behind them. “You could get third-degree burns just walkin’ through this place.”
Valentine, Clarisse, and Linc turned. Clarisse smiled automatically at the woman leaning against the doorframe. She was slender and pretty, with a fair complexion, large eyes, and sharp features. Her dyed black hair was permed into soft ringlets. The one-piece blouse-and-shorts outfit was soft blue and too tight, clearly outlining the sleek curves of her slim, athletic body. Her long legs were encased in black hose, and her feet were strapped into high cork-heel wedgies. She dangled an opened can of Busch beer from the long fingers of her right hand.
“Susie,” said Clarisse, “this is Daniel Valentine and Linc Hamilton. Daniel will be your new neighbor. He’ll be running the bar downstairs.”
Susie offered her hand from the door. She didn’t seem inclined to come farther inside. Valentine stepped forward and shook it.
“The proper word, by the way, is prostitute,” she said with a smile. “Not whore, not even hooker.”
“I’m sorry,” said Valentine sincerely. “I honestly am.”
“It’s okay.” Susie shrugged. “But I am an officer—of PUMA, you know? And I wouldn’t be doing my sworn duty if I didn’t stand up for the semantics clause in our constitution.” She glanced over the apartment once more and shook her head. “Lordy, these walls could give sight to the blind.” She took a long sip of her beer.
“At least you’ve got a view,” said Linc, gazing out the window.
Susie looked about again, and again shook her head. “You all come next door and I’ll give everybody a beer and cold compresses for your eyes.”
Susie and Julia’s apartment was the same layout as Valentine’s, except that its windows looked out onto Warren Avenue and the police station. The furnishings were a mixture of decent pieces from the forties and early fifties. Angled into one corner was an enormous color television set linked to stereo speakers and a video recorder. Set into another corner was a small desk with a black push-button telephone, an answering machine, and a thick address book opened next to it.
When Susie went into the kitchen, Valentine went immediately to the desk and glanced at the address book. He turned to Clarisse and hissed, “It’s all in code.” Clarisse shot a look of disapproval, but he ignored her and riffled the pages. Linc picked up a copy of Dirt Biker and leafed through it.
Disappointed to find the whole address book unintelligible, Valentine wandered over to one of the windows and peered down on to Warren Avenue. A bus stopped at the corner, and several persons emerged. His attention was drawn to a young woman dressed in a pale green uniform and a wide-brimmed blue hat. There was something indefinably forlorn about her. She carried several large books against her breasts. The floppy brim of her hat prevented Valentine from seeing her face as she walked across the street and passed directly beneath the window.
“There she is,” warbled Susie, “Miss America…”
Susie was at Valentine’s side with a tray bearing four cans of beer. Valentine and Linc thanked Susie and each took one. Clarisse joined them at the window, and Susie handed her a can, taking the last for herself. She set the tray on top of the television. The young woman with the hat and books entered the beauty salon next door.
“That was Miss America Perelli,” Susie informed them. “She’s Mr. Fred’s sister—the manicurist. Real sweet. Takes care of Mr. Fred like she was Mr. Fred’s mama. Actually, Mr. Fred’s about fifteen years older than Miss America. Miss America’s into geography.”
“Geography?” echoed Linc.
“You know,” said Susie. “Like ‘What’s the smallest state?’ And ‘Where is Yellowstone National Park?’ Like that.”
“Oh,” said Clarisse vaguely. “How interesting.”
Susie raised her beer suddenly in a toast to Clarisse. “Hey listen, this is for getting those goddamn gypsies out last night.” They drank. Susie motioned the three of them to sit. “Hon, I can tell you I was a little scared when I saw you coming up the stairs with that torch—”
“Torch?” gasped Valentine.
“—but,” Susie continued, “Julia said, ‘That woman knows her stuff, fo’ sure.’”
“Thank you,” said Clarisse modestly, sipping her beer.
“What torch?” demanded Valentine.
“Oh, this acetylene thing strapped to her back,” said Susie. “Looked real professional.”
Clarisse shrugged deprecatingly. “Just a little psychological backup. I would never have used it. I didn’t have any goggles.”
Linc stared at Clarisse.
“She needed it,” said Susie in Clarisse’s defense. “Why, when they got that credenza out on the fire escape…”
“Credenza?” echoed Valentine weakly, putting down his beer. “They got a credenza out on the fire escape?”
“It was just for show,” Clarisse reassured him. “It’s almost impossible to aim a credenza with any accuracy. It’s still out there,” she added. “When the workmen come, we’ll try to get it back in. It’s not a bad piece of furniture. I thought I’d keep some of my books in it.”
Valentine shook his head.
Susie took a swig of beer. “And when that old grandmother”—she narrowed her eyes toward Valentine and Linc—“meanest damn bitch ever walked the face of this earth”—she swept her glance back to Clarisse—“when that old bitch pushed the refrigerator down the stairs at you, I thought it was all over. I said to Julia, ‘Let’s go out there and wipe that poor woman up off the stairs.’”
Clarisse glanced at Valentine, who sat open-mouthed. “The refrigerator didn’t hit me,” she said. “It got stuck on the landing. Broke through the wall. That’s going to have to be fixed, too. Actually, that’s why I can’t show you my apartment. That refrigerator is blocking the stairs and there’s no way to get around it right now.”
“While you were displacing the gypsies, how did you manage to avoid the boys in blue across the street?” Valentine asked.
“Oh, they came over all right. They said they were behind me one hundred percent, as long as I didn’t ask them for any help. All I wanted was to borrow one of those new electric nightsticks and a rubber hose.”
“Why wouldn’t they help you?” Linc asked.
Clarisse shrugged. “Legalities. They don’t like to get involved in tenant-landlord confrontations. Unless there’s blood—a lot of blood. Besides,” she said with a lively shake of her shoulders, “I could handle it, and the cops knew it, too.”
“Do they know this is going to be a gay bar?”
“They put up with the new Eagle and with Fritz. As long as there’s no trouble, they don’t care. Why should they? I invited them to come over for a drink on opening night.”
“What?” Valentine exclaimed. “Why didn’t you just ask them to send over the vice squad and pull their paddy wagons up to the door? Clarisse, how do you expect this place to be a success if all of District D comes over? It’ll look like we’re being raided.”
“You could announce that it’s uniform night,” Susie suggested. “Nobody’ll know the difference then.”
“What if somebody notices the guns? The nightsticks? The walkie-talkies broadcasting police news?”
“Don’t worry. I told them they were welcome as long as they were out of uniform and off-duty.”
Valentine was about to say more, but he was suddenly distracted by the sound of a motorcycle approaching with its throttle wide open. The noise roared up to the building and remained as the engine was repeatedly revved up.
“Jesus!” shouted Susie. She put down her beer and went to the window. Pushing aside a hanging plant, she opened the window, then leaned out and shouted, “Listen, Turkey, you stop that noise—”
Valentine and Linc had risen, too, and went to look out the room’s second window. The black cyclist wa
s thin and small, wearing denim jeans and jacket, dark aviator glasses, a leather cap, and leather gloves with studs. The driver revved the engine several more times and then looked up.
“Take a ride on my hog!” the cyclist barked at Susie.
“Don’ you talk trash at me, muthah!” Susie screamed back. Pulling back inside the window, she said proudly, “That’s Julia. That’s my honey. And those are my honey’s new wheels.”
Clarisse waved down to Julia who gunned the engine again in response. Susie went to the desk and flicked on the telephone answering machine, then flung open a closet door and pulled out a short oxblood leather jacket and a glittery red motorcycle helmet. “You all stay and finish your beers. Nice meetin’ you, Daniel, Linc. ’Bye, Clarisse!” And she was out the door.
Valentine, Linc, and Clarisse peered out the window again as Susie appeared noisily on the sidewalk below. She strapped on her helmet, swung onto the back of the cycle, and threw her long slender arms about Julia’s waist. With an explosion of exhaust, the motorcycle wheeled around and roared out of sight.
“Aren’t they sweet together?” asked Clarisse.
Valentine sighed heavily and put his can aside. “Let’s get out of here. I just want to go home and take an overdose of Valium and forget this entire goddamn neighborhood.”
“I’d like to see the downstairs again, if you don’t mind,” said Linc.
They returned to the barroom and Linc looked about the place again, this time even more closely than before. When he was finished, he leaned against the bar, folded his arms and hooked one heel of his boot over the tarnished brass footrest. He addressed Valentine and Clarisse in a businesslike tone. “It wouldn’t take more than five fulltime workmen to get this place in shape by the end of the year. That is, if you subcontract the plumbing, plastering, and wiring. It hasn’t been abused, just neglected. If you get somebody in here who knows what he’s doing, you’ll have a real gem on your hands by New Year’s. I don’t mean just this bar, but the apartments upstairs, too.”
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