I said, "I caught that."
"Well, let me tell you, young man. When I came out in seventy-nine, Edith nearly had a fit. I marched in the gay-pride parade in New York that year-that's where I met Fenton and Peter and Edith almost drove the both of us right into the booby hatch with her fussing and carrying on. Finally she did ride along with me on the bus down to the city. But then, wouldn't you know, when the parade started up Fifth Avenue, Edith just stomped over and walked up the sidewalk alongside the parade! Her legs were better then, but she still had a devil of a time keeping up.
Mad as a wet hen she was, fretting the whole time that one of the girls in our bridge club might see me on TV.
"Not that it would have mattered to me. In fact, later that summer was when I finally came out with the girls. Now there's a story I'll tell you someday, and you won't know whether to laugh or cry. There were eight of us in the bridge club back then, and now we're just five. That's a good number for poker"-she laughed-"but not worth a tinker's damn for bridge."
"It sounds pretty awkward."
"I guess that's one reason I'd like to hang on to this old house. It's like a true friend that doesn't judge us."
"You'll keep it. You'll get through this."
"Will we?" Her brown eyes were dull with exhaustion and defeat. "Sometimes I'm not so sure.
After a while you just begin to run out of steam." She heaved a deep sigh and began to fan her face with the Burpee catalog. "Well, Don, I guess there's no shortage of steam today, is there?"
I agreed that there was not. McWhirter came back from the phone, announced that he had dealt persuasively with the Albany Police Department, and said he was going to paint the rest of the barn while he awaited their arrival and their apologies for being tardy.
I said, "I'll look forward to that too."
Greco followed McWhirter outside, and I asked Dot for quick sketches of her neighbors on Moon Road, which she provided. One of them, Bill Wilson, who at the height of an argument over the Millpond situation had called Dot "a stubborn old bag" and kicked the fender of her Fiesta, sounded like a man especially worth getting to know. Though I planned on calling on all the rest of them too.
Dot adamantly refused my suggestion that she and Edith spend the next few days in a motel.
Who would water the peonies? Nor would she consent to phoning any of her or Edith's children or grandchildren, all of them spread about the Sunbelt, where she and Edith visited each February. Dot said her friend Lew Morton was coming over to spend the evening, and Peter Greco had promised to return to the house by midnight with or without McWhirter, who had set a goal of recruiting at least a hundred gay national strikers that night as he moved through the Central Avenue bars and discos. The man was from Mars, but I figured Albany could stand it for a day or two. In its history as a state capital, the town had seen stranger sights.
As I bumped back up Moon Road, I passed an unmarked blue Dodge with a familiar face at the wheel heading toward Dot's. Detective Lieutenant Ned Bowman was busy avoiding potholes, but he glanced my way as he careened past. He must have recognized me, as his eyebrows did the little dip-glide-swoop dance of horror my presence always triggered, and which over the years I'd come to look forward to in a small way.
I pulled up in front of the Deem house. The old Fury was still in the driveway, and now a cream-colored Toyota sedan was parked beside it, fresh heat undulating off its muffler. Above the house, the sun was a great white blot against the western sky. I checked my watch. It was just six-ten.
"Good evening. I'm Donald Strachey and I'm working for Millpond Plaza Associates. Are you Mrs. Deem?"
"Oh. Yes, I'm Sandra Deem. You're from Millpond? Oh, gee. Why don't you come in, Mr.
Strachey? Jerry's in the shower but he'll be out in a minute." Her voice was muted, insubstantial, as if it came from a high place where the air was too thin.
"Thank you. It's hot out here."
"Oh, isn't it awful? Gosh, nobody called us from Millpond today. Is there anything new? We haven't heard from Mr. Trefusis at all for a couple weeks."
As I stepped into the living room, Mrs. Deem looked tentatively hopeful. She was thirty-sevenish, with pale skin, a plain round freckled face, and black rings of sweat around dull hazel eyes. She wore tan bermuda shorts, a sleeveless white cotton blouse, and rubber thongs on small feet. She smelled heavily of Ban.
I said, "As a matter of fact, there have been some developments. But none that will be helpful for you and your husband, I'm afraid. A problem's come up. Somebody is harassing and threatening Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. Stout."
Her eyes narrowed and she thought this over. She brushed her hand across her own cheek the way Peter Greco had touched mine earlier. "Why don't you sit down, Mr. Strachey," she said after a moment, and directed me to a long high-backed couch covered with pictures of "colonial" scenes. A picture of a blond haloed Jesus hung above it.
"What is this person actually doing to harass Mrs. Fisher?" she said. "Whoever's doing it. Gosh, that's an awful thing."
I stepped over the blocks and dolls and stuffed animals on the gold-colored shag rug and seated myself behind a coffee table. "Nasty slogans were painted on the carriage house last night. A letter and a phone call came today threatening death if Dot and Edith didn't leave. You're right.
It's upsetting for both of them."
A toddler toddled into the room from the kitchen. "Hi-ee," she said, checking me out with big inquisitive blue eyes.
"Hi," I said. "What's your name?"
Mrs. Deem breathed, "Heather, you go out and play now. We'll have supper in a couple minutes.
Go on."
"By-eee." Heather spun around several times, pretending to be dizzy, then went out and played.
"That must be real scary," Mrs. Deem said, and perched on the edge of an easy chair that matched the early American couch. "Gosh, I just don't approve of that at all. Scaring a couple of old people like that." She was speaking to me but she also seemed distracted by a thought, as if she might have knowledge of the subject she wished she didn't have, or an opinion on it that was forming itself in a troubling way.
"No one knows, of course, whether the threats are serious," I said. "But that's part of the problem in a thing like this. The not knowing. I've been hired by Millpond to track down whoever's responsible."
"Oh, I see." She looked even more worried. Then she remembered something and stood up.
"Why don't you come out to the kitchen, Mr. Strachey, if that's okay? Do you mind? I'm getting supper and we can talk in the kitchen. Jerry will be out any minute. I want him to hear about this too."
I followed her and took a seat by the Formica table. A little color Sony was on the counter. Dick Block and the anchor news team were chattily rattling off brief accounts of the day's convenience-store holdups and double suicides.
Sandra Deem dumped half a bottle of something Kelly green over a bowl of chopped-up iceberg lettuce and said, "Do you think somebody around here is doing these things to Mrs. Fisher? Is that why you're here? I mean, why are you asking us about it?"
"We have to assume that's a possibility, Mrs. Deem. The three parties with something to gain by Mrs. Fisher's being scared off are your family, the Wilsons, and of course Millpond, my employer. So I have to ask you if there's anyone in your household-or maybe some sympathetic friend of yours or your husband's-who you think might be mad enough to break the law in this way."
Her face tightened, and she stood there blinking at me with the half-empty bottle of green glop poised above the salad bowl. "No," she said after a moment. "No, I really don't think so. Not something as mean as that. No, I can't think of anybody who would do such an un-Christian thing." Her voice gained an approximation of fervor as she spoke, but there was apprehension in 19 her eyes.
The man who padded barefoot into the kitchen, looking startled when he saw me there, was around my age, forty-three, paunchy in a fresh white Fruit of the Loom T-shirt and pale green slacks, and smelling of chemica
l substances meant to be cosmetic. He had thinning sandy hair, alert wide eyes the color of his pants, and the expression on his pleasant boyish face was one of mild perplexity.
"Hi, I'm Don Strachey from Millpond Plaza Associates," I said, getting up, and sounding to myself like a character on Dynasty.
"Glad to meet you. I'm Jerry Deem."
We shook hands. His eyes never left mine. He was looking for something in them, but I didn't know what. What the hell I was doing at his kitchen table, I guessed.
"I'm sorry to bother you at this time of day, but I'd like to talk with you for a few minutes about some trouble that's come up over at Dot Fisher's place."
"Oh?" He looked puzzled but not overly concerned. "Well, why don't we go out and sit on the-"
"Shhh, listen!" Mrs. Deem interrupted. "It's on the news. Oh, gosh."
We all looked at the little Sony, and Deem turned up the sound.
First we saw the graffiti on the carriage house while Dick Block's voice intoned something about
"the latest alleged incident of harassment to the gay community." The "gay community," we soon saw, was Dot, seated on the stone terrace behind her house. She was being questioned by a young woman wearing the obligatory TV newswoman's scarf around her neck, even in the heat, like a drag queen trying to cover up his Adam's apple.
"And what were your thoughts," the reporter was saying grimly, "when you came out this morning and saw the words painted on your pretty barn, Mrs. Fisher?"
"Well," Dot replied, a little uncertainly, "my thoughts were… what I guess you would call… unhappy."
The reporter paused, squinting uncomprehendingly, as if Dot had just recited in Urdu. She said,
"Unhappy?"
"Yes," Dot said. "Unhappy. Wouldn't you be?"
The newswoman, her mascara looking dangerously moist, was growing fidgety. She said, "You must have been… upset."
Dot nodded. "Yes. I was. Though these things don't bowl you over the way they once did. I've seen a good bit of nastiness on the way to where I am now. And you learn to take a lot of it. Though only up to a point," she added emphatically.
Instead of asking about the point at which Dot was not going to lie down and take "it" anymore, the reporter continued to probe into Dot's "feelings." Dot was unaccustomed, however, to the requirements of video journalism and refused to tremble or burst into tears or turn herself into a rising fireball. Finally, the woman asked Dot who she thought might be responsible for the threats, to which Dot replied, "I'd rather not say. I'll discuss that with the police. If they ever get out here."
Throughout all this, Sandra Deem stood with her arms folded and saying from time to time, "Oh, gosh! That's awful, just awful." Jerry Deem stared at the set transfixed, not speaking or moving at all.
McWhirter appeared next. He discoursed briefly-the report must have been heavily edited-on the deficiencies of the "hopelessly homophobic" Albany Police Department, and then launched into a pitch for next June's national coming-out day and the gay national strike. He mentioned the meeting at the center that night and the bar tour that would follow. The report closed with a shot 20 of McWhirter and Greco watering Dot's peonies-Edith was nowhere to be seen-and then a pan to the side of the carriage house while the reporter's voice said that the Albany police had told Channel 12 they planned a thorough investigation of the incident. The Millpond situation was noted briefly, and Crane Trefusis was quoted as being "sickened" by the incident.
"Isn't that awful, Jerry?" Sandra Deem said, watching her husband. "Who would do a thing like that to a couple of old ladies? Even with their lifestyle?"
Deem was still gazing fixedly at the TV set, which was now singing a song about how "If it's not your mother, it must be Howard Johnson's."
"I was hoping," I said, "that one of you here, Mr. Deem, might have some idea of who's been harassing Mrs. Fisher. Later today she and Mrs. Stout also received a letter and then a phone call threatening them with death if they didn't get out of the neighborhood. It's all turning into a fairly serious and frightening business for them."
Deem slowly raised his head and peered at me again. "Oh, no," he said when my words had registered. He shook his head. "No, I really can't imagine who around here would behave in such an un-Christian way. Do you suspect us? Is that why you're here?" He suddenly looked hurt, incredulous.
"I don't suspect anybody," I said. "It seemed like a logical idea, though, to talk to the people with something to gain from Mrs. Fisher's selling out. Of course, you're one of them. Are there other members of your household besides the three of you? Dot Fisher mentioned you had a son."
"You're really looking in the wrong place," Deem said, shaking his head, seeming more relaxed now, and faintly amused at the thought. "Heck, it's true we've been pretty disappointed with Mrs.
Fisher for making things a little bit tough for us. It's not that we really need the money, actually. I mean, we're above water. I'm a provider. It's just that selling to Millpond would be a real opportunity for us. Know what I mean? To get ahead. But this stuff on the news-wow! No, Sandra and I just weren't brought up that way."
Mrs. Deem was back at the stove now, dropping pink franks into a pot of boiling water. She giggled nervously and said, "Like Jerry says, we could use the money. Right, Jer? Steak would be nice for a change. Or even hamburger," she added, and giggled again.
I took it this was all for her husband's benefit, but he let it go by.
I said, "What sort of work do you do, Mr. Deem?"
"I'm an accountant," he said, watching me carefully again.
"Where?"
"Where do I work?"
"Yes. Where are you an accountant?"
"Murchison Building Supply. In Colonie. I just got home from the office a little bit ago."
We were still standing in the dining alcove. No one had invited me to sit down again since Deem had entered the room. The boiling hot dogs smelled like boiling hot dogs but they reminded me that I was hungry.
The screen door banged open and Heather reappeared. "Hi-ee."
"Hi, honey," Sandra Deem said. "Getting hungry?"
"Yep. We're having hog-ogs for supper," she said to me proudly. Then, to her father: "Where's Joey?"
Deem didn't answer for a second or two. Then he said, "At work. Joey's at work, sweetheart.
He'll be home later."
"Joey's your son?" I said.
"Yes. That's right. Joey's working over at the Freezer Fresh for the summer. He turned sixteen in 21
June and just got his driver's license, and Joey's saving up for a new transmission for that eyesore out in the yard. Teenagers. Boy, what a handful they are."
I nodded knowingly. Raising adolescents was a topic of which I knew nothing, though a brief affair I'd once had with an eighteen-year-old suggested to me that "handful" was hardly the word for it.
Sandra Deem was grim-faced again as she set the table without looking at any of us. We were all pirouetting awkwardly as Mrs. Deem reached around us trying to get the plates and utensils into place.
Deem said, "Well, gee. I'm sorry we couldn't help you out, Mr. Strachey. It's our suppertime now, but if we think of anybody who might be mixed up in this thing down at Mrs. Fisher's we'll be sure to let you know."
"I'd appreciate it," I said and handed him my card. "Just give me a call."
"Will do. And you have Mr. Trefusis give us a call. I mean, if Mrs. Fisher changes her mind. I mean-with all this trouble she's having-maybe it would make sense for her to make the move.
You know, cut her losses while she can. I guess she's kind of stubborn though, isn't she?"
"What she is is gutsy," I said, and automatically looked over my shoulder for Edith.
"Are you going to talk to the Wilsons?" Mrs. Deem asked as her husband led me to the front door. "Maybe it's nervy of me to put my two cents in, but… well, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't put anything past them."
"Oh, yeah," Deem said, liking the sound of that. "Yeah, check out the Wilson
s. Gosh, they're about as trashy a family as you'll ever run across. It's hard to tell what kind of funny business they might pull. Don't mention we said it, but that's a good idea Sandy had there. You check out the Wilsons."
"I plan to stop by there now."
"Swell idea. Well, nice meeting you. Sorry we couldn't help out."
"Thanks anyway. See you again."
"Oh. Yeah. Well, that would be nice."
"Bye," Sandra Deem called from the kitchen.
"By-eee," another voice added.
In the car, I got out my notebook and wrote: "1. Joey Deem."
I guessed her age to be between twenty-five and seventy. Phosphorescent blond wig, the last beehive north of Little Rock, and beneath the mountain of shimmering hair, active black eyes in a wide mottled face that still held suggestions of the youthful pretty face under the mask that age had grown there. She was grandly voluptuous in a white halter above the waist, a vast lumpy pudding below. Her tight powder blue shorts had worked up into her crotch, and as I approached the porch, where she occupied a sagging plastic chaise, she laid her National Enquirer demurely across her lap.
"If you're lookin' for Bill," she said, giving me a what-the-hell's-this-one-want look, "he's down to the plant. Won't be back till later."
"I'm Don Strachey from Millpond Plaza Associates," I said. "Are you Mrs. Wilson?"
She perked up at the sound of Millpond and set her can of Pabst on the concrete floor as her eyes widened. "Yeah, I'm Kay Wilson. You work for Crane Trefusis?"
"Right now I do, yes."
She struggled upright with one hand, adjusted her wig with the other, and, offering a toothy grin, motioned for me to sit in the lawn chair next to her. Her opinion of me had risen.
"Now, that Crane, he's quite a guy, ain't he? Quite… a… guy. Bill and I had Crane over for a 22 drink on the Fourth of July, he tell you that, Bob? Crane's wife was feeling poorly and couldn't make it, but Crane, he came. Sat right where you're sitting. Drank Chivas Regal with a chunk of lemon. Say now, what's your pleasure, Bob?"
"It's Don. Don Strachey. A cold beer would be great."
"Hot enough for ya?" she said, winking, and commanding her inertia-prone lower body to raise her more willing upper body off the chaise, like an elephant trainer urging the mammoth beneath her into motion. She stepped carefully across the gap between the new porch and the old house and returned a moment later with two more Pabsts.
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