“Douse your jets, bitch, I’m hurryin’!” Julia shot back, but there was no anger in her voice.
Clarisse met the two women on the landing.
“Where you goin’?” demanded Julia.
“Party that bad, huh?” said Susie.
“The party’s great,” returned Clarisse, “but Valentine needs another hundred pounds of ice, and I said I’d get it for him. Here,” she said, unlocking the door to the office, “you two go through here. That way you won’t have to wait in line outside.”
“Whoa, thanks! ” said Susie, and preceded Julia into the office. After Clarisse had shut the door behind them, and checked to make sure it locked, she descended to the street. She held her coat closed and excused herself through the line of waiting men. She commandeered a taxi that had just deposited four lethally drunk men in front of the bar.
Through the partition window, she gave the driver her destination and then sat back and relaxed for the short drive. Now and then, she glanced out the window at knots of revelers on the sidewalk and occasionally in the street itself. Every restaurant and bar they drove past was crowded and noisy. Even though windows had been shut against the cold, the sound of partying could be heard from almost every apartment building.
When the taxi came to a stop before a townhouse on upper Marlborough Street, Clarisse asked the driver to wait, but he refused. She paid him, leaving a pointedly small tip, and climbed out of the taxi. She rushed across the sidewalk and up the steps of the building.
After searching for the correct key from Joe’s ring to unlock the door, Clarisse went inside. She was hit with the noise of loud music and a maze of voices crashing down from the upper floors.
Clarisse had never been to Paul Ashe’s apartment before, but she remembered the address from some paperwork that she had helped Valentine with only the day before. She knew from off-handed remarks from Ashes that he lived in a basement flat, and she hoped that she wouldn’t have to choose between doors. She hurried across the small entrance area, picked up the hem of her dress, and descended a narrow flight of uncarpeted stairs to the single apartment door at the basement level. Nailed to the door was a triangular metal road sign reading Dangerous Equipment Ahead.
Now she only had to hope that Ashes had given Apologetic Joe a key to his place and that Joe kept the key on the ring that Clarisse held in her nervous hand. The tension in her face eased for a moment as the third key she tried turned the bolt in the lock. She opened the door and stepped over the threshold, easing the door shut behind her. She stood in the dark a moment, just listening.
She heard nothing but the hum of the refrigerator and the traffic outside on Marlborough Street.
She slid the palm of her hand up along the wall by the side of the door and found the switch. The ceiling light in the living room came on blindingly, and at the same time the stereo receiver began blasting out the Stompers’ new hit single at full volume.
Clarisse slapped at the wall switch and the room was again plunged into darkness and silence.
She bumped her way across the room and turned on a floor lamp she had seen in the instant of light and noise. Clarisse hadn’t known what to expect to find in Ashes’ apartment—three rooms with a dungeon motif, perhaps. It looked, however, as if most of the furniture had come from a family beach house. The larger pieces were of natural-color wicker with chintz-covered cushions. A pale-blue-and-tan Oriental carpet covered the floor. Two of the living room walls were floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and all the shelves were full to overflowing. On the coffee table, Joe’s Walkman rested on the open pages of the current Rolling Stone. A doorway to Clarisse’s right opened into a narrow walk-in kitchen, and another doorway in the back led to a bedroom that looked to be substantially larger than the living room.
Clarisse crossed to Ashes’ desk and seated herself in a Hitchcock chair. She immediately began searching through all the drawers, carefully attempting to return anything she removed to its original position. Sweeney Drysdale’s missing column was not to be found. She stood and moved about the room, looking in every corner, on every shelf, and under and around every piece of furniture that might make a good hiding place. She decided to assume that Ashes had not hidden the column in any of his books, because that would have been too obvious—and because it would have been impossible to look through them all, anyway.
She went into the kitchen and pulled on the chain light. On a shelf above the old-fashioned gas stove, between a can marked Coffee and a can marked Tea, she saw a neatly folded sheet of white typing paper. Clarisse smiled, took down the sheet, and carefully unfolded it.
She found three typewritten recipes for Italian casseroles.
Suppressing the intense desire to crumple it up in frustration, she refolded the page and put it back on the shelf.
She went through the utensil drawer, plundered the cabinets above and beneath the sink, peered along the shelves of the refrigerator, and rolled out the vegetable crispers. She pulled off the light and returned to the living room. She went into the bedroom and snapped on a dark blue ginger-jar lamp on the nightstand. She seated herself on the edge of the unmade bed and looked around. The brick-walled bedroom was dark and cluttered; there was track lighting, and Christmas tree lights were webbed against the wall facing the bed. More books were stacked against the wall. The open doors of the louvered closet revealed a long rack of clothes on hangers and on the floor of the closet a tangle of discarded jeans, flannel shirts, and black engineer boots. On a shelf on top were half a dozen large clear-plastic boxes filled with ropes, buckles, black leather straps, underwear, and things she couldn’t quite imagine a use for. In the corner, its base weighted with stacks of glossy magazines, was a four-foot Christmas tree, complete with twinkling white lights, silver balls, tinsel, and, on the top, a silver angel playing a tiny silver violin.
The bedroom was so cluttered, Clarisse didn’t know where to begin to look for the column. She glanced at the bedside table. Beside an amber glass ashtray littered with several varieties of cigarette butts was an open pack of Kools.
Clarisse wanted one desperately.
She opened the drawer of the bedside table. Inside were just the sorts of things that Valentine kept in his bedside table. She picked about in there for a moment and then looked longingly at the cigarettes again.
She pushed the Kools a little farther away. The pack fell to the floor between the table and the bed. Moving the table in order to reach it, she suddenly saw her face reflected in a silver glass ball that had evidently fallen from the tree and rolled across the floor. She smiled down at her reflected image in the distorting surface of the silver ball. She saw the light bulb in the ginger-jar lamp—and she saw something else as well.
She slid her hand up under the nightstand and found a business-sized envelope taped to the bottom of the drawer. With growing excitement, she carefully peeled the envelope free. She held it in her hand a moment before employing a long thumbnail to slit open the sealed flap. She pulled two typewritten sheets of paper out and smoothed them open across her thigh.
In the upper left hand corner of the first page was typed:
Sweeney Drysdale II
Column
BAR, Issue 82, Vol. III
She read the items quickly, discounting them one by one. Her foot tapped in anxiety. At the last lines on the second page, her foot stopped in the midst of a downward beat.
She reread the item, folded the sheets of paper closed again, then slipped them back into the envelope and put it into her left coat pocket. She picked up the cigarette package that had fallen, put the bedside table back in its place, and snapped out the lamp. Unceremoniously, she let herself out of the apartment, then rushed up the steps and flew across the entryway to the front door.
She had no difficulty in securing another taxi.
Chapter Eighteen
CLARISSE SHOVED THROUGH the doors of Slate at only twenty minutes before midnight. One of the panels slammed into Joe’s knee where he sat in the
entranceway.
“Sorry, Clarisse,” said Joe. “I guess I was too close.”
“It’s all right,” said Clarisse hurriedly, gazing across the enormous crowd. In the last half hour, Joe had admitted everyone in line. Fire inspectors went into hibernation on New Year’s Eve, and Slate, like every bar in town, was crowded far past its legal capacity. Joe touched Clarisse’s sleeve. “I thought you were up in the office,” he said.
“I got called away suddenly,” she said. “I had to go to a sick friend’s apartment.”
“I hope they’re better,” said Joe earnestly. “Have you got my keys? I feel naked sitting here without them.”
Clarisse reached impatiently into her coat pocket and dropped the key ring into Joe’s waiting palm.
“Thanks,” said Joe. “And Happy New Year.”
“It had better be,” said Clarisse darkly.
Clarisse pushed through to the bar, offering few apologies on the way. Holding plastic champagne glasses, Mr. Fred, Miss America, and Julia were crowded at Ashes’ end of the bar. Mr. Fred’s glass was filled with what Clarisse hoped was a soft drink. Julia was dressed in black tie and tails with her leather motorcycle hat raked back on her head.
Clarisse slipped between Miss America and Julia. Ashes stood facing her, filling a dozen or so of the glasses with champagne. Several dozen more were neatly lined up nearby. Clarisse held her hand over the next glass he was to fill.
“You don’t want any?” he asked.
“I want Valentine,” said Clarisse. “Tell him to come down here.”
“Clarisse, we’re very busy,” Ashes complained. Clarisse grabbed the bottle from his hand. “Now,” she said.
Miss America, Mr. Fred, and Julia glanced uncomfortably at one another. Ashes headed down to the other end of the bar. Clarisse began filling glasses herself while she waited.
Down at the other end, Ashes tapped Valentine on the shoulder and then conferred with him briefly. Linc, still sitting where he had been all evening, peered past Valentine at Clarisse. His glance was worried.
“Is anything wrong?” asked Miss America, gently touching Clarisse’s arm.
“I’m fine,” said Clarisse grimly, continuing to pour.
In an attempt to lighten the tone, Mr. Fred exclaimed, “Don’t you love my jacket, Clarisse? America made it especially for tonight. The fittings were hell. She stuck so many pins in me I felt like a voodoo doll.”
“It’s gorgeous, Mr. Fred,” said Clarisse perfunctorily. She looked at Julia as she put down the empty bottle. “Where’s Susie?”
“Over in the corner,” Julia said sourly, “talking to a couple of her regulars.”
“Regulars? In here?”
“Vice cops from across the street.”
At that moment, Susie Whitebread came up behind Julia. She wore matching black tie, and her hair had been permed into a short afro. “You’re my only vice,” she said, snaking her arm around Julia’s waist. At that moment Ashes and Valentine appeared. As Clarisse was about to speak to them, Susie exclaimed, “And wasn’t no cop I was talking to neither! I was talking to Ashes’ friend who fixed our Betamax.” She smiled at the bartender. “He did a fan-fuck-ing-tas-tic job on that piece of machinery, honey. I thought I was never gonna get to look at Miss Nav-ra-ti-lov-a again!“
Valentine’s eyes widened when he heard this, and he glanced at Clarisse. She looked back without apparent surprise.
“Repair shops rip you off,” said Ashes. “Glad he was able to help you, Susie.”
Linc had threaded his way through the crowd and now stood just behind Clarisse, sipping his beer and trying to pretend that he had come there only by chance.
Valentine stood uneasily behind the bar, looking back to his deserted station. All the champagne glasses were gone, and about three dozen men down there were clamoring for more. “What’s this all about, Clarisse?” he asked impatiently.
Clarisse whipped the open envelope from her pocket and withdrew the two folded sheets of paper. She shook them open and held them up for Valentine to see. She dropped them face up on the bar.
“Now we go upstairs,” she said, looking at Valentine and Ashes.
Julia, Susie, Mr. Fred, Miss America, Linc, and a drunk that nobody had ever seen before craned around to try to get a look at the papers.
“How in the hell did you get hold of that?” demanded Ashes incredulously. He made a grab for them, but Clarisse smoothly slid them out of the reach of his grasp.
“What is it?” cried Mr. Fred excitedly. “America, can you see what it is?”
“No,” said Miss America, who had been standing right next to the pages. She backed away from the bar. Julia sidled in closer and glanced at the papers on the bar. She craned her neck to get a better look. She turned back to Susie and said, “Somebody better turn off them fans up there, or we are all gonna get splattered.”
“You bet,” Clarisse snapped without taking her eyes from Ashes.
Linc began to edge away into the crowd again, but Clarisse, who caught this movement, reached around and clutched his biceps. “Stay,” she said with brittle sweetness. “Hang around for a while.”
Valentine signaled to Felix and told him to get Larry and come behind the bar to continue filling champagne glasses. “We’ll be back in a few minutes,” he assured the nervous runner.
“Can America and I come, too?” Mr. Fred asked Clarisse as he looked about for his sister. He couldn’t see her in the crush.
Clarisse gathered up the papers. “No,” she said, somewhat coldly. She turned to him and stared for a moment into his cherubic face. “You know, Mr. Fred, I think you may be in a little trouble. And I’m not sure if America is going to be able to get you out of it this time.”
“What?” said Mr. Fred, his smile disappearing suddenly. “What are you talking about, Clarisse?”
“Don’t leave, Mr. Fred,” she said. “We’re going to want to speak to you in a little while.”
Clarisse pushed Linc toward the coatcheck room.
Valentine and Ashes came from behind the bar and followed them up to the office.
Clarisse sat stiffly in one of the armchairs. Linc had seated himself nervously and uncertainly on the edge of the other. Valentine perched on the edge of the desk while Ashes, with folded arms, leaned back against the one-way mirror, glaring at Clarisse.
She handed Valentine the two sheets of paper, and he began reading. Ashes turned and stared down into the massive crowd in the bar below. The clock read twelve minutes of twelve.
“The good part is at the bottom of the second page,” said Clarisse.
Valentine flipped over the page and read aloud: “ ‘Men, do you need your ’stache put in shape? Ladies, would you like a shellacked dip that reaches into the next room? Well, run, drive, or fly to your neighborhood drug box—called an automatic bank teller in some circles—and then keep on going to a dynamite little spot where you will not only be dealt with fairly, but can get a splendid tease, a terrific tint, a perfect perm, and a dynamic dye—to say nothing of gladness by the gram, ecstasy by the ounce, and complete contentment by the capsule. Where, you ask, is this truly special haven of tonsorial splendor and chemical happiness? It’s been a well-kept secret for years, but if you can fill in the blanks below, you can get your hair curled and your brain fried at the same time. Got a pencil? Try it, guys and girls. It’s Mr. F***’s T**** n T***, down on W*rr*n Ave***, across from D*str**t D, and right next door to the soon-to-be S*ate.”‘
Valentine looked up and around. “Mr. Fred deals? Mr. Fred?”
“It’s not as bad as Sweeney made out,” Ashes replied calmly. “Nothing heavy—mostly just ups and downs. He does it more as a convenience for his girls than anything else.” He looked at Valentine and Clarisse. “Sweeney always knew about it.”
“Then why did he suddenly decide to print it?” Valentine asked.
“Miss America said—Ashes began.
“America knows about this column?” Clarisse exclaimed.
“Sure. I showed it to her the day after I found it in Sweeney’s desk,” said Ashes. “It seems that one of Fred’s clients had been making house calls on a mayoral candidate—while his wife was in the house. Sweeney found out about it and thought it was hot enough to peddle to the press, which it probably was. He wanted Fred to pump the hooker for all the sordid info he could get on the candidate. Fred refused, and Sweeney got angry and yelled a lot, but Fred wouldn’t back down.”
“So Sweeney threatened to put that item in the column if Fred wouldn’t change his mind,” said Valentine.
“Sweeney told him he was going to shut down the Tease ‘n’ Tint,” said Ashes flatly.
“So that’s what he meant,” murmured Linc, then snapped his mouth shut.
They all looked at him, and after a moment’s consideration, Linc relented. “When I was telling Sweeney all about Rent-a-Wrench, he said he knew of this great space that was going to be opening up soon, and it was very close by. He said it would be perfect for me, and he could pull strings and make sure I got it. Obviously, he was talking about Mr. Fred’s place.”
“What strings could he have pulled?” Valentine asked. “Linc, you know Clarisse and I control that building.”
Clarisse sat forward in her chair. “Why did you lie about not being able to find the column?” she asked Ashes.
Ashes hesitated. He glanced again down to the bar, and then said lightly, “Oh, you never know when evidence like that might come in handy.”
“For blackmail?” asked Valentine.
Ashes impassively raised his brows but made no denial.
“Why did you show the column to America?” Clarisse wanted to know. “Why do you care what happens to Fred?”
“I’m his supplier,” said Ashes bluntly.
“Did Sweeney know that?” asked Valentine quickly.
Ashes nodded toward the column. “Obviously, he didn’t. He’d have had blood in his mouth if he had known.”
They were all silent a moment; then Linc blurted out, “What am I doing here? I didn’t have anything to do with all this drug stuff. I—
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