"To where? Where did this informal information-sharing session take place? In public, I hope."
"Public enough," Slinger said, still looking on top of the game. "We met in a suite that I keep reserved for the senator's use at the Parmalee Plaza Hotel. It's convenient to the airport. Executives and officials from the city can fly in and meet the senator and be back at LaGuardia in an hour."
"So the people who can vouch for your whereabouts last night are Ronnie and Scooter and-who else?"
"Several hotel employees saw us arrive and depart the desk clerk and the night manager, who both know me, among others. There's no doubt I was out there, Strachey. It's easily verifiable."
"Did you tell the Handbag police chief that's where you were?"
"I most certainly did not."
"Why not?"
"Because he had no legal basis for his harassing me in my place of work. It was a goddamn outrage, is what it was."
"You were outraged, but he has a right to question you and he will likely exercise that right."
"If that mealy-mouthed constable wants to talk to me, he can show me a warrant and I'll notify my attorney and we'll see. He won't obtain a warrant, of course, because no judge will issue one without evidence. That I was once angry at John Rutka and said I was so mad I could kill him is not evidence. People say things like that all the time and it's meaningless in court."
Slinger seemed not to know about the anonymous phone calls Bub Bailey had received pointing at Slinger and the one left on my machine telling me that if I wanted to know who killed John Rutka I should find out who Slinger had been with the night before.
If Slinger was telling the truth about spending the evening at the Parmalee Plaza, it seemed likely that someone who worked at the hotel was the mystery caller, though not Zenck or the desk clerk; I would have recognized their voices. The caller, of course, could also have been anyone visiting or staying at the place who had seen Slinger come and go. It could also have been someone else present in the suite whom Slinger had not mentioned.
I said, "Chief Bailey can't make you talk because he hasn't got anything on you. But I do-the files. So, tell me this, Bruno. Who else was in the suite with you and Ronnie and Scooter?"
"No one."
"Did you have sex?"
He grinned hideously.
"The three of you?"
"Scooter watched. He's not gay, he says, but he likes to watch. He loves seeing the weatherman being fucked, he says. At the last place he worked, in Sacramento, he liked to watch the weatherman being fucked."
"I guess this is the result of Reagan-era broadcast deregulation."
"I happen to like fucking slender, angelic-looking young men like Ronnie Linkletter, and Ronnie happens to enjoy being serviced by powerful older men of superior intellect."
"Uh-huh."
"Ronnie's a beauty, isn't he? I consider myself extremely fortunate. I'd been hearing for years that he was a fag but that he was faithful to someone who had won Ronnie's heart with the majesty of his position. Lucky for me, they apparently had some sort of falling-out this summer, and I was able to move in and fill the breach, as it were."
I said, "You don't know who this powerful person was?"
"Ronnie refuses to discuss him, which I appreciate. It means he'll tend to be discreet in what he tells others about me. My motto has always been, If you're going to be indiscreet, be discreet about it. That's why I plan my assignations these days at the Parmalee Plaza. It's gay-run, as you're probably aware, and in return for an occasional remuneration, the night manager will see that his people will keep their mouths shut about who's doing whom out there."
"Right."
"Ronnie used to go to that vomitorium Jay Gladu runs out on Central Avenue, and he tried to get me into it, but I wouldn't set foot in the place. I do safe sex only, for the most part, and it's unsafe just walking in the door of the Fountain of Eden. Have you ever been out there?"
"Not yet," I said. "Why do you use motels? Couldn't you bring your sex partners here?"
"Do you see those photographs?" Slinger said, growing somber and motioning at the lineup on the sideboard.
"They're quite a bunch."
"One picture is missing. It was stolen by a man I brought here once, and it is irreplaceable. The photograph was given to me when I was very young, and it had on it a warm greeting to me from a very great man. Would you like to know who it was?"
"Yes, who?"
"Henry Pu Yi, the last emperor of China."
"Oh."
"Briefly, we were lovers."
"Were you mentioned in the movie?"
"No."
"Well, then-I guess that made the photo even more important. Your only memento."
"That's why I never bring people I don't trust into my home."
I said, "Do you only have sex with people you don't trust?"
I'd have felt pretty demeaned if somebody had asked me that question, but Slinger just shrugged and said, "It's the best way of knowing what to expect from people," and then he dropped the subject.
"I'm not going to give you your file," I said.
"I'm not surprised."
"But after John Rutka's killer is caught, I'm going to destroy them all."
"Oh? How will I be certain that you've done it? I have no reason to trust you, Strachey."
"You'll never know for sure. I'm sorry about that." "No, you're not. You're not sorry at all." "Okay, you're right. In your case, Bruno, I'm not sorry at all."
He sneered contentedly.
I left Slinger's house and went out into the clammy night air. The headache I'd had earlier in the day was gone, but now my stomach was churning. It was partly because I'd had only a Mars bar for dinner, but not entirely.
I made my call to New York on behalf of Mike Sciola from the phone in the cubbyhole under the stairs. In the age of AIDS, the murder of friends and lovers dying horribly is an act of mercy so common as to border on respectability-in a saner world United Way would be putting out brochures on the subject-and I had no trouble making the arrangements Mike had asked for. end user
19
I watched the 8:25 A.M. local-news insert in "Have a Nice Day, USA" on the monitor in the Channel Eight foyer. Troy Pillsbury, the morning anchor, reported on a flaming six-car pileup on the Northway; on Albany judge and Federal Appeals Court nominee
"Pincher" Goerlach's approval in Washington by the Senate Judiciary Committee despite protests from liberal groups over his outbursts from the Albany bench directed at "adherents of deviant lifestyles"; and on the previous evening's bon voyage ceremonies at the Albany airport, where Scooter Raymond was seeing off a schoolgirl and her parents, who were carrying the bird with the broken wing to Minnesota.
After the commercial, Ronnie Linkletter came on and he and Pillsbury acted hugely amused with each other for no reason discernible to viewers. Ronnie predicted continued balmy weather, to which Troy replied, "That's the way we like it." They both chuckled at this mot.
Linkletter had insisted to me on the phone an hour earlier-when I of course threatened him with blackmail if he refused to see me-that I not come to the station. I said I preferred to meet him there-I wanted to check his mud flaps and we could have breakfast somewhere else. When I arrived, I didn't know which of the eight cars in the Channel Eight lot was Linkletter's, but none had damaged, missing, or newly replaced mud flaps, so that was that.
At 8:35 Linkletter came out grinning, still delighted, I guessed, with the Shavian wit of his exchanges with Troy Pillsbury. His smile fell away, though, once we were away from the Channel Eight building and inside my car.
"You're a real asshole," he said. "It isn't bad enough that John Rutka practically ruined me. Now you're going to come after me, too, with his fucking file on me." He looked as if he might burst into tears.
"Look, I just used the files to get your attention. Just answer some questions for me, Ronnie, and I promise you that when John Rutka's killer is caught, the files will be trashe
d. I'll do it myself."
His sweet boy's face with the button nose and round soft eyes got a stricken look and he struggled for control. "What do you mean, get my attention? What are you trying to get me to tell you? You are blackmailing me!"
"I truly do not want to hurt you, Ronnie, because I know you've been hurt already and you don't need this. Just answer a couple of questions to help me out and that's probably all I'll need from you."
"Probably!"
We had pulled out onto Central Avenue and were headed east in the fuming stop-and-go morning traffic. "What happens next," I said, "all depends on the veracity and the particular nature of your answers. So take care."
"Oh, Jesus."
"The first question is, of course, did you kill John Rutka?"
First he jerked up, as if I'd jabbed him with a pitchfork, and then he began to shake all over. I said, "Does that mean your answer is yes, or no?"
"No! No! Jesus, of course not!"
"You threatened him after he outed you."
Linkletter's slight body writhed in his seat belt. "Well, of course I did. I was fucking out of my mind. The man nearly ruined my life. All I ever wanted was to be in the media, and that asshole almost blew my career right out of the water. Sporkin Communications has let me know-indirectly of course-that when my contract is up next year it might be nice if I had something lined up in Montana or some other diddly-doo minor market. John Rutka was shit. I'm sorry somebody killed him, but he was shit and he deserved to die. I don't mean actually die, but you know what I mean."
I said, "I agree that Rutka did things to people that were all wrong and you were one of those people."
"Then why are you harassing me too?"
"So that I can find out who killed John Rutka and then get rid of the bloody files. Get it?"
"Oh, sure." He looked unimpressed.
"So. Where were you Wednesday night, Ronnie?"
"When Rutka was killed?"
"Yes. Between, say, seven and ten?"
"At a meeting. At the Parmalee Plaza Hotel."
"And Scooter Raymond watched, right?"
That got him with the pitchfork again and he jerked up and then he jerked down. Here I was, taking out my pent-up disgust with the monumental inanity of local television news on this unlucky twerp. I resolved to be more objective with Linkletter from that moment on.
"How do you know about that?" he moaned.
"That wasn't fair, I admit, but I'm trying to evaluate your trustworthiness."
"Maybe somebody should evaluate yours."
He had me there. I pulled off Central into the parking lot of Albany's premier Long Island-style, Athenian-glitz diner and parked at the deserted far end of the lot.
I said, "I talked to Bruno Slinger last night."
"Oh. I guess I'm his alibi and he's mine. And Scooter's too."
"Bruno thinks you're wonderful."
Now some of the tension went out of him and he let loose with a wan little grin. "I know. I think he's wonderful."
I said, "Even though a couple of prime suspects like you and Bruno corroborating each other's alibis wouldn't impress a jury, the fact that people at the hotel saw you coming and going-assuming they did-would probably be enough to establish your whereabouts somewhere other than at the scene of the abduction and murder. And, I guess, Scooter would testify as to your whereabouts."
He got trembly again. "Oh, Jesus, poor Scooter. I shouldn't have let him come. I never liked threesomes, but I knew Bruno wouldn't mind, so I let him talk me into it. If the station finds out about Scooter, they'll have him sweeping the newsroom floor for the rest of the term of his contract. But he wanted to come. He has this thing about watching weathermen being-you know.
Scooter's a little weird."
"Bruno mentioned that. What is it about Bruno you find so attractive, Ronnie?"
A puzzled look. "You don't think he's attractive?"
"That kind of thing is pretty subjective."
"Well, for me it's his charisma."
"That's not a word I'd have come up with for Bruno."
"You know," he said, gesturing vaguely, "his power and glamour. Somebody who's in his natural element when he's in the media eye. Bruno is brilliant and aggressive-and God is he butch. I get goosebumps just thinking about him."
"Have you ever been involved with that type of man before?"
His body tightened. "Sure. I've gotten lucky a couple of times."
I looked at him and said, "Who was the last powerful, butch man in your life?"
Sweat popped out on his forehead and he looked away. "I can't tell you that."
"You can't, or you won't?"
"I can't. And I won't, ever. That subject doesn't have anything to do with John Rutka, so drop it. What else do you want to know?"
"I'm getting the idea there was a connection between your last boyfriend and John Rutka. Maybe his name is in Rutka's file on you. I'll have to go back and check."
He shook his head. "No. He was too careful. There's no way John Rutka could have known about this man. It won't be in my file, I'm sure. You'd be wasting your time with this man. Take my word for it." Sweat was dribbling off his nose.
"In your file," I said, "there's a note that says you were at a certain motel with someone referred to as 'A' once a week for nearly a year up until mid-June. Was that your boyfriend?"
Tears slid down his face. "I can't take this."
"Was 'A' one of his initials?"
He shook his head and wept silently.
I said, "If John Rutka had known about this man and had been preparing to out him, what would the consequences have been?"
He pulled a perfect white handkerchief out of his back pocket and mopped the tears and sweat from his face.
"Awful," he said. "It would have been- Oh, God. Look, I can't talk about this anymore. I really can't."
"Just tell me this, Ronnie. What would this man's reaction have been if he had been outed?"
He sat there for a long moment shaking his head again, when suddenly he gave a furious shudder, yanked up the sleeve of his jacket, and thrust his left wrist in front of my face.
"Do you see that?" he rasped.
I stared at the scar.
"Ten years ago I had enough of a world full of people like you. If you keep pushing me, Strachey, I'll do it again. And I'll leave a note blaming you."
"No need for that," I said.
"I mean it!"
"I can see you do. I believe you."
"And this time nobody will find me."
"Hey, I'm cool."
"Are you going to stop leaning on me?"
"Yup."
"Is that a promise?"
"I promise."
"How can I believe you?" he said desperately, and flung himself back against his seat.
"I'll take you back to Channel Eight now, Ronnie, if that's where you want to go, and I won't bother you anymore. You'll see."
He sat there for another minute catching his breath, while I spoke to him reassuringly. Finally he interrupted me and said, "Oh, let's have some breakfast." And he got instantly out of the car.
Inside, Linkletter grinned as people throughout the crowded restaurant recognized him and said Hello, and Have a nice day, and I just washed my car so I guess it's gonna rain, huh? Ronnie thought that last one was a knee-slapper.
After breakfast, as I drove back to Channel Eight, we chatted about baseball and of course the weather. Linkletter said the next twenty-four hours would be nice, and I was about to say, "Hey, that's the way we like it," and then thought better of it and just said thanks.
So much for Ronnie Linkletter as a route to the Mega-Hypocrite. end user
20
The Fountain of Eden Motel on Route 5 was an old clapboard house with a neon sign on the roof and a long "L" of fifteen single-story shingled motel units appended to its backside. The office was in the back of the house, and you could pull around and ease up to it without being seen from the highway.
; A wooden door with a patched screen led into a registration alcove. The tiny room, which stank of the nicotine stains that gummed the walls, contained a wooden counter, a condom machine, and no chairs. I pressed a button on the counter and could hear a buzzer sound in the inner reaches of the house.
"She's out back!" The male voice was muffled but the words decipherable.
"Whereabouts?" I yelled back.
"Doin' the laundry. Past number six."
I found an open door to a small room squeezed in between units six and seven. A squat, middle-aged woman in shorts and a T-shirt was stuffing sheets into a washing machine, a filtered cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. She was blond and sad-eyed and had a long-lost pretty face somewhere. The cigarette was lighted and her breathing sounded like somebody walking around in a swamp.
"You want a room?"
"How much until noon?"
"Eighteen."
I gave her a twenty and got back two that came from the shorts pocket. The twenty went in there with her wad. She took a key out of her other pocket and said, "I just made up eleven."
"Should I register?"
"No need to."
"What if I stole something-walked off with your television? The rooms have TV, don't they?"
"Sure. VCRs too. But if anybody steals anything, we can get it back. Are you planning on stealing something? You better not."
"How come?"
"I know your license number." She recited it. "I looked at it while you were inside the office and I'll write it down when I get back to the desk. If we need to get ahold of you for anything, we can find you through the DMV. People who stay here usually'd rather not leave their names, but we can track you down if we want you. Jay handles it."
"I don't plan on stealing anything," I said, "but I'd like to speak with Jay when he comes in. Would you give him this?"
"Sure."
I handed her the sealed envelope containing the note I wrote to Gladu after I drove Ronnie Linkletter back to Channel Eight. I went out and pulled the car over to number 11. Only two other cars were in the lot, a new Acura and an old Ford Galaxie in front of units 3 and 4. I checked the mud flaps on both; all four were intact.
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