The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man

by Alfred Alcorn

  Alphus signed, “All they can do is not let us in.”

  “We need you,” said Ridley and smiled. “We want your company.” He had his berry in hand and was tapping something into it.

  I remonstrated with them, repeating myself. It was no use. I could tell from the way Alphus buckled on a collar and leash and led Ridley tap-tapping after him that they had been practicing, the villainous pair!

  Not long after that a taxi pulled up and sounded its horn. It was one, apparently, that they had used before, judging from the way the cabbie greeted Ridley and nodded to Alphus. I stood on the sidewalk, drink still in hand, still entreating them.

  “Come on,” they signed. “What have you got to lose?”

  What indeed? Out of concern for their welfare, out of weakness, I capitulated. I went inside, put on a jacket, and squeezed in next to them in the back of the cab.

  It being a Wednesday and relatively early, I assumed there wouldn’t be many people at The Edge. It is an upscale faux casual sort of place owned and run by Simon and David, two gay men of a certain age. It’s right on the harbor. In fact, it’s the same building where the Green Sherpa used to be. It’s been changed radically, with a dark, atmospheric bar where the gift shop had been. In summer the dining area extends to a large deck built on piers over the water.

  My heart went out to the official greeter, whose face froze in a pained smile as we came through the door, a leashed Alphus leading a tapping Ridley, with me in a cringe bringing up the rear.

  “Can I help you?” said the unfortunate man from behind the reception desk. He might have been either David or Simon, judging from his aspect. He clearly struggled with his up-to-date conscience. How far does the desirability of diversity go? And if Seeing Eye dogs, why not Seeing Eye apes? But what about the other customers?

  “Yes,” I said. “We called. A table for three. The name’s Ridley.”

  “Of course,” said Simon David, recovering some of his aplomb. “We have a text message. I’ll see what’s available.”

  We stood around in front of the desk drawing stares. The hall from the main door had thick carpeting, sconces for light on dark, paneled walls, and doors opening into restrooms on one side and the bar on the other. I was wrong about Wednesday. The place was buzzing with people. We waited. Time began to drag. Other parties came in and stood behind us. Two couples, well oiled to judge from their demeanor, came out of the bar and began to make remarks. “Do you always make fun of the handicapped?” I asked the chief offender, a young, crew-cut man with a head like a red pumpkin.

  “I’m sorry,” he confessed, and burst out laughing. One of the women had the self-possession to pull him away. I glanced around nervously with all the acute discomfiture of one in a false position.

  Simon David finally returned. “We don’t have any private rooms available,” he said in a voice meant to sound accommodating but final. I’m sure he didn’t have any to begin with, but that didn’t matter.

  “That’s perfectly all right,” I said, meaning we would leave.

  Ridley poked me with his stick and shook his head.

  “I’ll be right with you folks,” Simon David said to the people in line behind us.

  Well, we finally got seated. As unobtrusively as was possible under the circumstances, Simon — as he turned out to be — led us to a table more or less in the shadows next to the railing above the shimmering water. In a sotto voce aside to me, he said, “It … he is … housebroken?”

  “He’ll be fine,” I assured him, and resisted an impulse to slip him a twenty.

  “We will need three settings,” I said to the waiter, a gangly college youth with acne and an expression of earnest bemusement who had begun to remove two of the four place settings. I kept my voice as normal as I could. One couple had already gotten up and left. Simon watched nervously from the doorway. I was relieved when the moon slid behind a cloud, obscuring us momentarily.

  “Are you expecting a third party?”

  “We are a party of three,” I said, indicating Alphus, who had taken a seat with his back to the other customers. In for a penny and all that.

  “I see. Or rather, I guess, I don’t see.”

  “Mr. Alphus, our Seeing Eye … assistant, is also joining us.”

  “Will he need a setting?”

  “He will be joining us for dinner.”

  “I see. I’m afraid it’s against health department regulations … to serve animals in the restaurant.”

  “He is completely table-trained.”

  “I see. Still …”

  I closed my eyes as though that might dispel what I found to be a waking bad dream. I glanced in the direction of the distant, hovering Simon. “Could you ask Simon to step over here.”

  As the other patrons watched more or less surreptitiously, the waiter went over and conferred with the co-owner. The co-owner was joined by the other co-owner, judging from appearances. I would guess they were having a tiff. David finally stalked off and Simon went after him.

  The waiter returned alone, his demeanor struggling to achieve an air of decisiveness.

  “I’m afraid it’s a no-go, sir. We aren’t even allowed to have cats in the kitchen. Your Seeing Eye … companion is welcome, but we won’t be able to serve it … him … food.”

  “We watched the other night when a sight-impaired person fed his Seeing Eye dog inside a McDonald’s,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Yeah, McDonald’s …” Then his demeanor changed markedly. I followed where he had glanced before shifting his attentions back to me. Ridley, pretending to fumble, had produced a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet.

  “McDonald’s. Yes …”

  The money changed hands with admirable covert deftness, and Alphus was presently inspecting a fine cloth napkin and the cutlery that came with it.

  The other customers did gawk. And I felt a keen embarrassment, in part because of the ruse and also because of the way we were taking advantage of people’s better natures. Another couple at an adjoining table did get up abruptly and make their way toward the reception area. But all the others were soon back to their food and talk.

  Our table, close to the railing along the water, was also up against a partition of varnished lattice that separated the deck into two sections. I was able to glance through and see that the couple who had left were being reseated a good distance away.

  One well-meaning matron came over to bestow smiles and ask if she might pet Alphus. I said he allowed, but didn’t appreciate it. Of course, she said, she understood. A distant relative had a Seeing Eye dog who could practically talk.

  Alphus gave her his version of a smile.

  The pretense we all agreed upon — the waiter, whose name was Marlen, the other patrons, and ourselves most of all — was that there was nothing extraordinary about an ape, a well-dressed, well-behaved ape, but an ape nonetheless, sitting like an upright Christian at table in an upscale restaurant. I could sense the amused amazement around us when Alphus took the menu from me and perused it with what, for a chimp, was a thoughtful expression. “Cute,” I heard someone remark. “Well trained,” said someone else.

  Marlen came back for a recital of the specials. “We have a pan-seared tilapia in a hand-washed mint sauce on a bed of braided, whole wheat capellini cooked in wood-heated water. The chef recommends our second special of the evening. It’s pulled loin of pork cooked au feu nu with a sweet potato rémoulade and wine-soused sautéed chard. But I’m afraid we’re all out of the third special. I’ll give you a few minutes. Would you like to see a wine list?”

  “Please,” I said.

  Needless to say, I was on tenterhooks the whole time. Several times I had to tell Ridley not to sign. “Remember, you’re blind.” Frankly, I was afraid that someone I knew would see me in this ridiculous situation. Or that someone would come in and make a scene.

  The covert glances from the other customers continued, especially when Simon showed up with the wine list and I read off the choices to
the other two. I suggested an Argentinean Malbec, which I had heard mentioned favorably at a meeting of the Club’s wine committee. Alphus took the embossed folder and, after studying it, pointed instead to a recent Nuits-St-Georges premier cru.

  “Very pricey,” I said.

  Ridley nodded okay. Then, on a scrap of paper he scrawled, “My treat. Go for it.”

  “Three glasses?” asked Simon, an eyebrow going up. But he shrugged when I said yes.

  There were more stares as Alphus took a look at the menu and pointed out to me that he wanted the filet mignon au poivre rare with extra salad. For an appetizer, he picked a double order of pâté de ferme with honey-pickled gherkins.

  I read the choices off to Ridley, who nodded twice at the lemon-poached scrod served in a froth of bisque de homard and, for a starter, une tranche de foie gras from un-force-fed geese. I ordered the pork.

  Marlen brought the wine. He poured about an inch into my glass. I handed it to Alphus, who held it up to what light was available, nosed it, and then sipped. I could feel the incredulous amazement all around us. He nodded and the wine was poured. We raised our glasses. Salut.

  The appetizers arrived not long after and we ate leisurely, sipping wine, breaking off pieces of bread, and carrying on a complicated three-way conversation in which Alphus would sign and I would pretend to interpret it vocally for Ridley, who would covertly sign back.

  Our waiter deftly cleared away the plates in preparation for the main course and refilled our glasses before I had a chance to stop him. I did not want to add inebriation to the situation. Ridley indicated he wanted to go to the men’s room. Alphus understood and rose to play his part, dutifully leading the convincingly tap-tapping Ridley toward the reception desk and the men’s room.

  I should have gotten up and accompanied them. But I felt that the apparent assistance being rendered to Ridley by Alphus served to justify the presence of the latter among us, especially to the diners who had stayed in our area. The performance made Alphus’s claim seem entirely plausible: If a Seeing Eye dog, then why not a Seeing Eye chimpanzee? And if the chimp had table manners, then …

  I dawdled there, thinking that we were going to pull this off. I knew there would be more requests in the future. I would simply put my foot down and say no. I buttered and ate some of the excellent bread. I sipped wine. I thought several thoughts. Restaurant time has an odd dynamic: You sit and wait until, of a sudden, it occurs to you that it’s been longer than you think. I wondered where my companions had gone. And what they were doing. I began to grow worried.

  Finally, I got up and, as casually as I could manage, went in search of them. They were not in the men’s room, where I availed myself of the facilities, rinsing my hands and looking into the face in the mirror. Fool, I said to it.

  From the reception area, I checked to see if they were at our table. I glanced into the bar. It was dark so that at first I didn’t see them. They were there, at the far end of the polished counter with two quite good-looking women. The champagne glasses in evidence indicated that Ripley had been speaking again with his wallet.

  “Are these your friends?” one of the women asked me as I approached. She and her companion were expensively and provocatively dressed, one in a short skirt with buckled boots to just below her knees, the other in black, skintight toreador pants.

  “Indeed,” I replied. “And dinner is waiting.” I signed as much to Alphus and Ridley, who gave no indication of moving.

  “They’re so cute,” said the woman in tight trousers, who, with broad blond features, could have been Ridley’s older sister. “Hi, my name’s Roxanne.” She took my hand and shook it.

  “Norman,” I mumbled.

  “And that’s Kareena. We’ve never been picked up before by a blind deaf mute.”

  “Have you been picked up?” I asked, too distracted to keep the bartender from pouring me a glass of bubbly.

  She giggled. “I think so. We’re going to a party … Wanna come?”

  “How was this communication effected?” I asked, collusive now in taking the glass of champagne and drinking from it.

  “He texted me.”

  “Did he, indeed? By the way, his name’s Ridley and he’s not deaf.”

  “His friend’s not so bad, either,” said Kareena in the short dress. She had on a thin jersey that showed considerable cleavage beneath a heavy gold cross. “Not that, you know, it’s my thing. I like his jacket.” She gave me a once-over as though I might be her thing.

  Ridley signed to me on the side. “Hookers,” he spelled out. Then something about fishermen.

  For a moment I thought he meant they worked on the trawlers that dock at the wharves not far from The Edge.

  Ridley frowned at my obtuseness and made the hand sign for the letter X, tapping his upper cheek and then lower cheek, meaning “sex,” which I got. Still, he made a circle with the thumb and index finger of one hand and gestured vigorously into it with the finger of his other hand.

  Roxanne caught it and laughed. “Right on.”

  It should not have surprised me that Seaboard has ladies of the night plying their ancient profession. But it did.

  Of course it was stupid of me not to have settled up the bill right then and left. And go to a party, go anywhere, anyplace, to hell, if necessary. Because it would have been a way of getting out of a situation that was to be the stuff of bad dreams for years to come. But I am a stick in the mud. I am of the old school. I am a fool. Simply because the restaurant had prepared a meal for us, I felt obliged not only to pay for it, but also to eat it. So I stood my ground and, to the evident disappointment of Alphus and Ridley, insisted that they say good-bye to their new friends and return to their waiting dinners.

  “We’ll be right there,” Ridley signed, a bit brusque in his movements.

  I went back to our table where, indeed, an anxious Marlen hovered with our main courses.

  How I wish we had paid the bill in the obscurity of the bar, left a hefty tip, and disappeared into the night with the two ladies thereof. Because what happened next had all the simultaneity of a freak accident. I had scarcely sat down and sipped some of the premier cru when I heard the distinctive, New England honk of Elgin Warwick. Aghast, incredulous, I peered through one of the small, diamond-shaped openings in the lattice and saw the tall, courtly figure of the same sitting down not far away with no less than three members of the museum’s Board of Governors. There was Carmilla Golden, a woman of fifty who is active in Seaboard affairs; Maryanne Rossini, the university representative and a tool of Malachy Morin; and the ancient but still somewhat alert Dexter Farquar.

  Not seconds later, I glanced toward the reception area where Alphus, unleashed, and with all the aplomb of a worldly roué, was leading the still-tapping Ridley and the two ladies of the bar into the dining area, Kareena carrying the half-filled champagne bottle by the neck. People frowned. Marlen stood looking on like an idiot, his mouth agape.

  “They’re joining us for dinner,” Alphus signed to me as he neared.

  “I don’t think so,” I said as firmly as I dared. I did not want any kind of scene. I wanted to pay whatever bill there was and leave. Quietly.

  “Will you need two more settings?” asked Marlen, mesmerized again by Ridley, who had his wallet out.

  “No,” I insisted. “We need a check. We have to leave. Immediately. It’s imperative.”

  “What’s imperative?” the blond Roxanne inquired, meaning, I think, the word.

  “The food here is yummy,” said Kareena, whose toreador pants made abundantly obvious her callipygian charms.

  “We’ll take it with us,” I said, desperate now. Other diners, napkins in hand, were staring at us.

  “You want doggie bags?” asked Marlen quite loudly.

  “Doggie bags will be fine,” I said.

  “Could I have the peppered steak to go?” Roxanne asked.

  “Make that two,” chimed in Kareena.

  “No, we are leaving. Right now.”
I had raised my voice.

  “What about your doggie bags, sir?”

  “Bring them to reception. Ridley, give the man enough money to cover this.” I wasn’t being cheap. I didn’t want to wait around while people fussed with my credit card. As I spoke, I was calculating that to get to the reception area, it was necessary to cross a ten-foot space where people on the other side of the lattice would have a clear view of us. If we could make it past there and out to the main entrance, we would be in the clear.

  But my augmented party were reluctant to go. Alphus sat down with that look on his face.

  “Alphus,” I said, bending down to him, “if we don’t leave right now and if there’s any kind of trouble, the museum will insist you return to the Pavilion and there will be nothing I can do about it.”

  “Why?” he signed.

  “I’ll explain later. Trust me.”

  Alphus glanced at Ridley. He signed, “Okay, let’s go.”

  Ridley placed several of his hundred-dollar bills on the table as I lined up the two girls to walk to the right of Alphus, shielding him from sight as best they could. My face averted and my body hunched, I herded my group to the reception desk without incident. People, I could tell, were as glad to see us go as I was to leave.

  We had just reached the desk, inches away from what I considered sanctuary, when I heard, with a sudden, heart-thudding thump, the shrill, reaching voice of Royale Toite. Coifed, expensively, pantsuited, with the eyes of a mad raptor, she came looming as though out of the wall, but was in fact leading a gaggle of her women’s-club friends from the cloakroom to one side of the desk. She looked straight at me with a face glowering with indignation.

  “What is this all about?” She turned her fury to an obviously distressed Simon, who was hurrying over. “How dare you subject us to this … outrage!” She approached within hissing distance. “Norman de Ratour, have you no shame? A beast just like that one killed and ate my dog, my little Miffy …”