Slate

by Nathan Aldyne

  Clarisse settled into the chair, and America asked her to cross one leg over the other. When Clarisse had done so, America gently removed the red slipper from that foot. She set the slipper aside and studied Clarisse’s foot a moment, turning it this way and that in the pale winter morning light.

  “You have beautiful feet,” said America, as a connoisseur. “Beautiful feet are inherited, you know. Just like noses. And earlobes. Are these your mother’s feet or your father’s?”

  “The toes are my father’s,” said Clarisse. “The arch is my mother’s.”

  Miss America chose a file and began work, starting with the largest toe of that foot. “Most people’s feet won’t stand up to inspection,” said Miss America severely. “You come across this gorgeous woman—beautiful hair, beautiful nose, been everywhere, done everything, fifteen offers of marriage a month—and then you look at her feet, and you wonder what all the excitement’s about. It’s no wonder so many people wear shoes.” America glanced up. “Why do you need a pedicure to go on an interview? What kind of interview is it, anyway?”

  “It’s for law school. A kind of special assignment,” Clarisse replied mysteriously. “And I wanted to wear a pair of open-toed shoes I bought last week.”

  “It’s fifteen degrees below zero outside,” said Miss America, pointing with a file at the thick frost on the windowpanes.

  “I know,” sighed Clarisse. “I had no idea when I started this career that I would become not only a lawyer but a slave to fashion.”

  “Fashion can be a trap,” agreed Miss America. “I see its victims every day. Some women don’t think about anything else except their eyes, their hair, their nails, their feet, what clothes they wear, who they know, what other people say about them, where they get invited to, who their boyfriends are, and how much money they make. It’s really terrible.”

  “I know,” said Clarisse, sipping her coffee. “You’re lucky to have an interest in national parks. That’s very educational. That’s worth spending time on.”

  “I dream about them,” said America confidingly. “I really do. I mean, last night I dreamed about Old Faithful. Every year for my birthday Fred gives me a trip to a national park. This spring, I’m going back to Yellowstone.”

  “I’ve never been there,” said Clarisse. “Do you have pictures from your last trip?”

  “I don’t take pictures. I just buy postcards.”

  “Really? I’d think you’d want something more personal.”

  “No,” said America, buffing. “Fred gave me a camera, but I kept putting my finger over the lens. Besides, I don’t like things hanging around my neck.” She indicated the tray. “I get enough of that in the shop. Also, I like the colors on postcards better. They’re more like real life.”

  “You should look into getting a video setup. Then you could make live-action tapes of Old Faithful—and the bears, and all that.”

  “I’ve thought of that,” said America, “but video equipment is very expensive.”

  “Susie and Julia love theirs.”

  “I don’t think they have a camera, just a player and a recorder,” said America.

  Clarisse drained half her cup of coffee. “Valentine and I have been thinking of getting a video recorder. That way he can tape ‘All My Children’ and ‘Ryan’s Hope’ for me when I’m at school or studying.”

  “Do you watch ‘All My Children’?” asked America. “Fred and I do, too. Whenever we don’t have customers at one o’clock. Fred wants to rename the shop Opal’s Glamorama in honor of Opal Gardner, but who’d take a name like that seriously? I told him he’d better stick with Mr. Fred’s T ’n’ T.”

  “I wonder which is better,” mused Clarisse, “VHS or Betamax.”

  “One of them is better,” said America vaguely. “I don’t know which, though. You should ask Susie and Julia.”

  “What kind do they have?”

  “Betamax.”

  “Are you sure?” Clarisse asked, a bit too eagerly.

  “It’s all Susie talked about when they first bought it,” said America with mock weariness. “Every time she’d come in the shop she’d go on and on about their new Betamax and what she’d recorded on it and how much more sex she and Julia were having now that they had it. I never figured out that part. I think they ought to read a book once in a while. Last Christmas, I gave them a big picture book on Carlsbad Caverns, but I don’t think they even looked at the pictures.” America shook her head and concluded, “I don’t know…”

  Clarisse did not reply, but at a touch from America’s hand, she switched feet. Then for a few moments she stared out the window at the slash of late-morning gray sky above the police station.

  Clarisse took a sip from her mug, put it down again, and stared at the top of America’s head.

  “America,” she said, “you remember that party you gave for Valentine and me?”

  “Of course,” said America, “that was the night Sweeney got killed.”

  “Right. Why do you think he crashed that party?”

  “Sweeney? Sweeney didn’t crash that party. He was invited. Fred invited him.”

  “Really? Mr. Fred and Sweeney were friends?”

  Miss America looked up curiously. “Sweeney and Fred used to be lovers,” she said. The expression on Clarisse’s face must have been one of shock, for America laughed. “I thought you knew. Everybody knew that.”

  “Valentine and I didn’t.”

  “Sure. Sweeney was working as a bartender down at the Hungry Eye in those days and Fred was in a cut-rate salon over on Kneeland Street in Chinatown. This was when Mr. Fred was out on his own, you know, and didn’t have me to help him. I would never have let him work cut-rate. It was my idea he should have the T ’n’ T, and I helped him raise the money and everything. Anyway, Fred used to go over to the Hungry Eye for a few drinks after work, and that’s how they met.”

  “Well, that was nice,” said Clarisse politely.

  “Except it wasn’t nice at all,” said America, and her touch on Clarisse’s foot tightened, “because Fred used to go over there for breakfast and lunch—and even coffee breaks. Fred was this terrible lush—I mean really terrible—and finally Sweeney stopped serving him and made him go to AA and all that. It’s the best thing anybody ever did for Fred. I guess it kind of made an impression on him when a bartender told him to go to AA, and, of course, Fred had this huge crush on Sweeney. A lot of people seem to get crushes on bartenders at one time or another.”

  “Yes,” said Clarisse curtly.

  “Anyway,” Miss America went on, “they lived together for a few months, and then they broke up. That was sort of nasty, but then they got to be friends again, and Sweeney was always putting something nice in the column about us. I mean, a lot of people didn’t like him, but Mr. Fred and I sure did. Or at least we liked him most of the time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Sweeney was one of those people who’d pat you on the back with one hand while he was cutting your throat with the other.”

  “Are you talking about something specific that happened?”

  “No,” said Miss America. “I just mean that I liked Sweeney, but I didn’t trust him. Mr. Fred did, though. He was very upset when Sweeney got killed. He said Sweeney was the first person he had ever gone to bed with that died. He said it was a terrible feeling.”

  “I can imagine,” said Clarisse sympathetically. “I’m a little surprised, though, that Mr. Fred would invite Sweeney to a party when he knew that Julia and Susie were going to be there.”

  “I know,” agreed Miss America. “I told him he probably shouldn’t, but Fred likes fireworks. Fred’s favorite holiday is the Fourth of July. Now, what color is your dress?”

  “My dress?”

  “I have to know what color to paint your nails,” said Miss America patiently. “What color dress are you wearing to the interview?”

  “Canary,” said Clarisse.

  “Is this Captain Video? I’m c
alling to find out if the VCR Julia Logan dropped off for repairs last week is ready yet.” Valentine moved the receiver from one ear to the other. “Sure, I’ll hold.”

  He lodged the receiver in the crook of his shoulder as he leaned back in his chair. He pulled his feet up onto the corner of his desk and crossed them at the ankles. As he waited for the repair service to come back on the line, he tapped the nub of his pen against the open Yellow Pages. Bold blue lines had been drawn through the names, addresses, and numbers of forty-four video supply and repair shops listed in the greater Boston area.

  He stretched his neck and heard the bones crack. He knew there were persons who made a living on the telephone, but after an hour and twenty minutes of it, he wondered how they did it. His ears hurt from having the receiver jammed against them for so long.

  With a click, Captain Video came back on the line.

  “I see,” said Valentine after a moment. “Maybe she left it off under the name Susie Whitebread,” said Valentine cautiously.

  The line went on hold again. Some of them hung up when he asked them to check under “Whitebread.”

  Valentine swiveled the chair slightly so that he could look through the one-way mirror into the bar. The day before, in a junk shop around the corner on Tremont Street, he’d found an old telephone booth with an accordion door and insets of blue-tinted glass in the sides. He had picked it up for a couple of hundred dollars and sent Linc’s assistants over to fetch it. They were putting it in place now, between the doors of the two rest rooms. At the end of the bar, Ashes sat drinking from a can of caffeine-free Coke while going over a stack of notes, trying to put together his Ashes Flashes column for the week.

  “Not under Whitebread either?” said Valentine. “Sorry to have bothered you. I’m sure this was the shop she told me to call. Thanks anyway.”

  Valentine hung up and struck a blue line across the name and address and number of the shop. He tossed the pen aside and dragged his feet off the desk. He stood up to stretch and groaned. He looked through the window and watched as Linc and a helper carefully cut a rectangle of space from the back of the overturned booth.

  Clarisse knocked and entered from the hallway.

  “Any luck? ” she asked, as she removed her fur hat and dropped it into a chair. She shook her hair loose and then removed her coat as well. Her expression was weary, but her face was brightly flushed with cold.

  “Four more shops to call,” said Valentine, checking the directory. “Video Villa, Video Visuals, Videosphere Productions, and Wholesome Film Center Incorporated.” He tugged at his earlobes and grimaced. “I struck out forty-five times. How about you?”

  “Nothing. I went to all the repair shops in the South End, and none of them had ever heard of Susie or Julia. Actually, some of them had heard of Susie, but they were sure that she hadn’t brought in a VCR to be repaired. My feet are frozen.”

  “But well-groomed.”

  Clarisse threw herself into the desk chair, looked in the directory, and punched out the number of Video Villa.

  Valentine went downstairs briefly to watch the telephone booth being upended into place. He complimented Linc on his work, read over Ashes’ column, and then returned to the office.

  “That’s that,” said Clarisse. “No shop did business with them. And what do we have for our trouble? Frostbitten toes for me. Cauliflower ears for you.”

  “We have a little more than that,” said Valentine. “We know that somebody tried to kill you with a Betamax, and we know that Julia and Susie’s Betamax is missing. Julia told you it was being repaired, but we know that it’s not at any repair shop in the Boston area.”

  “That kind of negative proof is inadmissible,” said Clarisse

  “You know the problem with all this?” said Valentine.

  “What?”

  “Nobody has a sufficient motive. Nothing to risk killing for. Julia and Susie—blackmail that happened five years ago? Come on. And Julia already had her revenge on Sweeney—she broke his arm, remember? Ashes wants a two-bit column in a two-bit throwaway rag? That’s hardly the top of the publishing heap. And Mr. Fred, still upset about some lovers’ tiff that happened five or six years ago when he was a lush? And Linc—no motive at all.” Valentine paused for a beat, and then said, “You know what I think the missing piece of the puzzle is?”

  “What?”

  “That last column Sweeney wrote. The one Ashes said got lost. The one Joe saw on Ashes’ desk.”

  Clarisse looked at him but said nothing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  VALENTINE AND CLARISSE had made no progress in their investigation into the murder of Sweeney Drysdale II. The following four days were taken up with the last-minute details for the opening of Slate. On Saturday evening at nine o’clock, all the months of hard work began to pay off. The doors opened and the celebration began. A line of men, three and four abreast, snaked along Warren Avenue and around the corner by the abandoned playground. The night was cold, though not as frigid as it had been on Christmas. There was no wind, however, and no one complained.

  Inside, Valentine and Ashes were kept continually busy behind the bar. Valentine wore a tuxedo shirt with a black bow tie and black leather pants. Ashes wore the same outfit except for the addition of a black leather vest. The newly hired runners, Felix and Larry, were in constant motion bringing supplies from the cellar and making sure bottles of beer and drink glasses did not clutter the wall shelves and dark corners. Clarisse came down about nine-thirty and edged onto a stool between Valentine and Ashes’ stations. Valentine mixed a scotch and water for her. She wore a full length gown of dove-gray watered silk; a small cluster of white camellias rested in the gathered V of the bodice. They had been sent, along with a congratulatory telegram, from Noah Lovelace. He had decided, after all, not to attend the opening of the bar. Clarisse’s hair was swept gracefully back from her face and in each earlobe was a tiny silver star. She swiveled about on her stool with her drink in hand and looked about. The barroom was pleasantly crowded and the air was sparked with laughter and conversation beneath the loud music.

  The patterned tin ceiling was completely obscured by a mass of black and white balloons and packets of silver confetti. The thin silver netting holding the decorations was to be released precisely on the twelfth stroke of midnight. Multicolored streamers dangled to a point just above the patrons’ heads and were kept in constant gentle motion by slowly revolving ceiling fans. Two pale amber beams played constantly across the crowd and the slate walls were blushed with patches of red and pink light. Clarisse turned back to the bar and was about to try to get Valentine’s attention when she noticed Linc at the end stool at the front of the bar. He sat hunched forward, staring at Valentine as he guzzled a beer. From his expression, Clarisse wondered if he were practicing some speech that he hoped would bring him back into Valentine’s graces—and bed—by midnight.

  Finally, she captured Valentine’s attention, and he came over in high spirits.

  “You’re stunning,” he said. “And this evening is well on its way to becoming the best in my life.”

  “The whole world looks beautiful to you this evening,” she added, “at least as much of it as you can see within this barroom.”

  “Did you see Mr. Fred and Miss America?” He nodded toward the back, and Clarisse had to sit up slightly for a clear view. Mr. Fred and his sister stood among a small knot of leather-clad, bearded men—the Long Island Spuds, Clarisse supposed. Fred wore a tuxedo completely covered with deep scarlet spangles, the intense color relieved only by black piping along the wide lapels and the pockets. America’s hair was fixed into a loose chignon encircling the back of her head. She wore a white forties-style dress with padded shoulders, dark hose, and ankle-strap heels. In one hand she held a white clutch bag and with the other she turned the wrist of the tallest of the Spuds, critically examining his nails. Mr. Fred was chatting amiably with three more of them and taking tiny sips from a can of Tab.

  “America
looks great,” Clarisse remarked, “but where in the civilized world did Mr. Fred get that outfit?”

  “America made it for him.”

  Clarisse turned and nodded once in the opposite direction, toward Linc. “Is he trying for a New Year’s reconciliation?”

  “He’s building up to it, but every time he looks like he’s about to have meaningful conversation I slide another beer across to him.”

  “Come midnight, he’ll be crying in those beers.”

  Valentine shrugged. “The room is full of shoulders more than willing to bear Linc’s tears.”

  A number of men were leaning over the bar trying to capture Valentine’s attention. He winked at Clarisse and went back to work. Clarisse took a long swallow of her scotch and turned toward the bar’s main entrance. Apologetic Joe was sitting on a stool to the right of the door, checking the IDs of those who appeared under age. Putting down her glass and easing off the stool, Clarisse made her way over to him.

  “How’s it going, Joe?” she asked.

  He handed back a photo identification card to a young man and then glanced at the counter in his other hand. He depressed a button and the line of numbers increased by one. “We’re already over capacity. That’s great.”

  “Joe, I left my keys up in my apartment and I need to go up to the office. Can I borrow yours?”

  Joe checked another ID, clicked his counter again, and then reached around and unhooked his key ring from a back belt loop.

  Clarisse took the entire ring and then stepped quickly away. She edged through the coatcheck room and went up the circular staircase. The office door was already unlocked and Clarisse hurried inside. She didn’t turn on the light but grabbed her fur coat from the coat rack where she’d left it earlier that day. She went out onto the landing and closed the office door behind her. She was startled by Julia and Susie’s voices coming down the stairs from the landing above.

  “Will you move it, woman?” Susie demanded. “It’s already eleven o’clock and we have got less’n an hour to get feelin’ good. Now come on, come on, move it!”