Molly’s violet eyes turned on him. Hector said, “I’ve heard about this group. It scares me a little, honey, you being exposed to that.”
“They’re friends of Philippe’s,” Molly said. She searched Hector’s face. He supposed to see how he would react…either to the simple fact of her assertion, or to Molly mentioning her boyfriend after Hector had made love to her more times and in more ways than he could claim to remember. Had Molly thought she could make Hector jealous? In a funny way, Hector had to admit to himself that he wasn’t sure that she couldn’t.
“So you’re not of them then,” Hector said. “Just among them?”
Molly stirred her food with her fork. “What about ‘them,’ exactly, scares you so much, Hector?”
Hector was aware of Brinke, sipping her wine and watching the dance with her quick dark eyes.
“I’ve had some crossings with this Nada bunch in the past few days,” he said. “Partly how I hurt my leg.” He raised his hand. “And how I got this.”
For the first time, Molly seemed to see the bruises on Hector’s knuckles.
She pointed. “What happened to your hand?”
“I punched Crowley where his mystical third eye is supposed to reside.”
Molly’s chestnut-colored eyebrows knitted. “Crowley? How’d you cross paths with him?”
“I was looking for a student of his. Or, a former student. I was looking in conjunction with the police. I told you the other day, just before we met Fargue, that I’m finding myself confronted with the police, often, lately.”
“Why were you looking for this ‘student’?”
“It may be tied up with all this business of the murders of all these magazine editors these past few days.”
Molly put down her wineglass. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“No.”
Brinke said, “Mol, honey, a name has come up several times in connection with these murders. The name, or alias, is of this man tied to Crowley. Hector and Hem went to a hotel earlier this morning where this man was supposed to be staying according to Crowley.”
Molly said, “And what did you find there, Hector?”
“Three corpses. Two murdered prostitutes whom this man had commissioned, and the murdered hotel manager. He slit the throats of the women and shot the man. But this poet, a fella named Victor Leek, had vanished.”
Molly sat back in her chair. She sipped her wine and then crossed her hands across her belly. “Then you can rest easy. I’ve never heard of Victor Leek. Who is Leek?”
“He is the éminence grise of this movement he’s dubbed Nada,” Brinke said. “A movement pretty clearly tied to these murders.”
“Oh, please,” Molly, said. “It’s a ‘movement’ I suppose, yes, but hardly some kind of murder cult or whatever you’re both insinuating. It’s like Dada…Cubism…this new thing they’re calling Surrealism. It’s a label to describe a collective of artists and writers with shared sensibilities.”
Hector reached across the table and took Molly’s hand. He stroked the back of her hand with this thumb. “Can embracing the void really be called ‘a movement’? It seems to me more akin to self-annihilation. A kind of suicide pact.”
“Believing in nothing doesn’t literally mean to believe in nothing, Hector,” Molly said. “Nothing isn’t nothing. In Nada, nothing is treated as something.”
Hector raised his eyebrows. “Then why not just go ahead and believe in something?”
“Because we believe in nothing,” Molly said.
Hector’s head was swimming. He sipped more wine. He said, “If you believe that life, all of this, is nothing, then what are you living for?”
Molly smiled, “For nothing, don’t you see?”
Hector raised his hands, looking to Brinke for help.
Sighing, Molly looked between them, then said, “Hector, do you believe in God?”
“Not for some time.”
“Yet you act like a moral man, so far as I can tell, “ Molly said. “You’re looking for this alleged killer-poet…working with the police. You’re courteous, conscientious. You’re a loyal friend. You give money to little deaf singers. Why do you do all this if you don’t expect to be punished or rewarded when you die?”
“Because even if I choose to believe there is no God, I think it’s critical to act as if I believe there is,” Hector said. “It’s what gives life order…separates us from the animals.”
“So in the face of nothing, you knowingly choose to live as if you believe, even though you don’t believe.” Molly tipped her head on side. “So how are we different?”
“That’s all semantics…metaphysical three-card monte,” Hector said.
“No, it’s a matter of perspective,” Molly said, pulling her hand from under Hector’s.
“There is a difference, Mol,” Brinke said. “Hector’s knowing self-deception is informed by a desire to create order. It’s toward the collective good. But Nada is driving adherents to despair and some to suicide — a poet named Mueller Hawkins, for instance. He hanged himself, the word ‘Nada’ pinned to his chest. And it’s driving people to murder.”
Molly said, “You have proof of that?”
“My leg,” Hector said, “I hurt it chasing another poet — a man named Paco Sánchez. He threw acid in the face of Joan Pyle when she answered the door of her apartment. I chased him. He tried to kill me with this.” Hector raised his cane and twisted the handle. Both women flinched as the spring-loaded steel blade slid from the end of the sword cane. “I chased him into traffic. He saw he couldn’t get away. He recited a bastardized form of a Catholic prayer, inserting the word ‘nada’ in a few strategic places. Then he threw himself in front of a car. The police have confirmed both of these poets were part of this Nada movement. They’re actively investigating the movement now.”
Molly looked at her hands. “I didn’t know.”
Hector said, “Who do you know in this Nada business beyond those ones Hem saw you with? You have to tell me. In circumstances like these, secrets can kill.”
“Nobody, really,” Molly said. “I should talk to Philippe, see what he knows.”
“I don’t think that’s the best notion,” Hector said. “At least not yet.”
“What, you think Philippe knows about these killings…these suicides?”
“Maybe, yeah,” Hector said. “You said you didn’t know the name Victor Leek. Who do you — who does Philippe — think heads this movement?”
“I never really thought about it having a leader per se,” Molly said. “Maybe Philippe is the same as me — blissfully ignorant of any structure.”
“I want to talk to Philippe anyway,” Hector said. “Soon as I’m on both feet.”
Molly nodded slowly. “Think that’s the best thing? Particularly after you and I and what we’ve shared? After today and all that has happened between us?”
Hector waved a hand. “One is apart from the other.”
“I don’t see how that can truly be,” Molly said. “We’ve been one person.”
Hector thought about questioning Molly regarding Lloyd Blake. Then he decided he’d already pressed her too hard for the present time.
***
There was a good deal of awkwardness after dinner.
Molly and Brinke cleaned up the table a bit. As they did that, Hector hopped back over to the bed to prop up his leg. He’d so far forgone any more pain medication and meant to continue to do that if he could manage it. As he had truly confessed to Brinke, Hector couldn’t abide the self-annihilation — or at least the self-compromise — exacted from him by drugs.
So instead Hector concentrated on the wine…making himself numb, but nowhere near drunk.
Hector wasn’t sure what to expect next. He thought about making a joke about breaking out a deck of cards since he was housebound. His lack of mobility put him in mind of something Estelle Quartermain had said about a certain subgenre of mystery novels: “Nobody really solves mysteries from the confi
nes of an armchair.”
More’s the pity, Hector thought, surveying his bandaged leg as he lay in his rumpled bed.
He realized then, with perhaps unconscious expectation, that he had positioned himself in the middle of his bed. He scooted back to the left side of the bed — Brinke’s side, in Hector’s mind — and shoved off, hopping on one foot to the window.
Molly said, “You’re going to break your neck.”
“I’m fine,” Hector said. He sat on the windowsill and looked out the dormers. Across the street, a trio of men stood in the shelter of the church’s entryway. They were all dressed in black and standing far enough away from the gaslights to keep themselves bathed in shadow. Hector might not even have seen them but for the glowing ends of their cigarettes. The angles of the cigarettes all shifted at once and Hector sensed they were looking up…perhaps watching him as he sat backlit in the window. He realized then what a fine target he might be presenting if there was something sinister about the three men and their presence on the street below his window. If they had a rifle or two hidden under their coats?
Hector said, “Molly, you see anyone as you were coming or going? Anybody give you any trouble?”
“No. Why?”
Hector shrugged. “Just being paranoid, probably. I mean, people answering the door and having acid pitched in their faces…being stabbed and pushed off bridges…thrown in front of cars, or throwing themselves in front of cars. Murdered prostitutes. It accumulates on a man’s mind in a nasty way.”
Hector stood up and hopped back to the couch. He noticed Brinke drifting to his vacated window and looking around. He saw her head drop a bit to the angle of the church’s entrance. She said, “It’s starting to snow again.” Then she closed the curtain and moved to the next window to close that one. She said, “Anything else you’re going to need right now, Hector? Because this jumping around is too risky. And it’s got to be driving your downstairs neighbor to distraction.”
“No, I’m all done for the moment,” Hector said, settling back on his couch. He smiled and said, “Hem was likening me to Ahab this morning.”
After Brinke left it, Molly drifted to Hector’s window. She pulled back the drape and peeked through. Watching her, Brinke said to Hector, “So, who’s your Moby-Dick?”
From the window, not looking back to give Hector any sense of whether or not she meant it as a joke, Molly said, “I sense that might be me.”
Brinke looked at Hector and shook her head. She poured three glasses of wine, handing one to Hector. Brinke turned down the lights. She handed a glass to Molly, then said, “Dessert?” She held up the box of Alice’s remaining brownies. “Six left. Just enough for two each,” she said.
“You two can share mine,” Hector said.
***
Hector was still sitting on the couch, watching them sleep. He’d been sitting there for perhaps two hours, still dressed…still nursing his wine, just watching them.
He’d watched them for some time before they fell asleep, too.
Brinke had sat next to Molly on the window ledge as they sipped their wine and ate their drug-laced brownies. After a while, Molly had taken Brinke’s empty glass, then kissed her.
It went like that…the two of them eventually drifting to the bed to make love.
Occasionally one of them would look at Hector — Molly blushing; Brinke challenging him with her dark, bedroom eyes.
For his part, Hector had sat there, dressed, watching. He sat there with his bum leg, sword cane, and wineglass…like some decadent gimp libertine, or Aleister Crowley-manqué. C’est de bon goût.
Hector had tried to convince himself it was some kind of penitence to watch and not participate. Except that he very much enjoyed watching.
They were naked under the sheets now, tangled in one another’s arms. Molly was softly snoring. There was room for Hector on Brinke’s side of the bed. He checked his pocket watch: nearly midnight. He should take off his clothes and join them in his bed…for sleep. He was a little sorry they’d left no room for him in the middle.
A soft knock at the door. Frowning, Hector picked up his cane, decided, Fuck it, and put a little weight on his lame foot. It seemed fine…felt good, actually, to work it a bit. He limped to the door, carrying his cane in his hand. Mindful of the potential for an oil of vitriol pitching, he said, “Qui va là?”
“Lasso? Open up.”
Hector opened the door and Hem squinted in the low light. He looked Hector up and down. Hem said softly, “You’re having a late one. And you’re not supposed to be on that foot yet. Frankly, I expected to find you laid low by WCW’s goodies.”
“They’d do the trick, too well. I know from earlier. So I’m weaning myself. And I can’t sleep. Nuit blanche. Probably from all the ‘sleep’ earlier.”
Hem was looking at the bed. He turned his head on side. “Is that what it looks like?”
Hector couldn’t resist. “It was a few hours ago.”
Hem smiled crookedly. “Jesus. Having a wife who won’t lose the baby weight, and a kid who cries twenty hours a day… You know, Lasso, sometimes it’s a bloody fucking bitch being your friend. Jesus. Well, at least you’ve effected a rapprochement between the two women.”
“That’s one word for it. For the record, I didn’t instigate it.”
“But you didn’t say no. You lucky son of a bitch.”
Hector winced, leaning again on Hem’s shoulder. Now his foot hurt a little. “Yeah, well, you got the last part right. And I await the savage balancing of the scales. What brings you around, Hem?”
“Bad news. Two items. Joan didn’t make it.”
Hector cursed, then said, “In some ways, based on things Simon told me about her injuries, that might actually be the kindest thing.”
“My feeling on that score, too,” Hem said. “Joan was wrecked by that acid. I saw. Wouldn’t have been much of a life if she had pulled through. At least she’s gotten it over with. The dying, I mean.”
“What’s the other bad news?”
“Jeremy Hunt.”
Hector said, “Your friend, the tubercular poet?”
“Not anymore. They found him in his office, stabbed in the chest.”
PART III
mardi
25
Hector reached out, his eyes still closed. He found that he was alone in his bed. Another note from Brinke lay on her pillow:
Our dear Hector:
We decided it was best to slip out very early, before we’d risk any embarrassing entanglements with Germaine.
We’re going to freshen up, then have breakfast together. Maybe visit Sylvia’s for a time, too.
We want to meet about four at your little café on the Rue des Bourdonnais. A place, we figure, where we can have some part of Paris — and you, of course — to ourselves.
Right, then. See you at four.
Your girls,
M & B
Below that was a hastily scrawled postscript:
Hector:
Think I’m going to be meeting some of them, soon. I swear I’ll be careful.
Love, Brinke
That last didn’t please Hector.
As a precaution if Molly returned, Hector tore up the letter and threw the fragments in the wastepaper basket by the nightstand on Brinke’s side of the bed. He stretched and felt himself there; he wasn’t so raw or sore anymore. He flexed his foot a bit as best he could with all the traction bandages bound round his ankle. No pain there either. He sat up and swung his legs to the floor. Hector put a little weight on his injured ankle and found there was hardly any discomfort.
He figured with the ankle support of his boots he could be reasonably mobile.
***
Hector finished dressing after his breakfast and bath. He rewrapped his ankle, forced his foot into his boot, and stood. He walked to the window without his cane, with just the slightest of limps. He pulled back the drape and looked for signs of anyone watching his building. Nothing suspicious. The
downside of that, he decided, was that any sentinels might have followed Brinke and Molly.
He checked the time: not yet eight. There was time for some writing…it was early, yet. Hector looked at his typewriter…saw a pile of manuscript there, but then realized it was not his own. He brushed a single black hair from atop the stack of papers, turned them over and read,
TRIANGLE
by
Bud Grant
Hector told himself that Brinke would likely sneak a look at his novel in progress — do it without a second thought — if she was afforded access to it. And Hector had been pretty liberal with his own manuscript, leaving it by his typewriter or the bed. Probably — or so he convinced himself — Brinke had already read what there was of Rhapsody in Black.
Hector gathered up Brinke’s manuscript. He muttered, “Quid pro quo,” and began to read.
***
Hector took his time, walking slowly down the Rue Guynemer, cane in hand, its shaft resting on his shoulder. Hector was determined not to baby his leg, but rather to force recuperation through use.
As he walked, his thoughts kept returning to Brinke’s manuscript. In a sense, he was intensely proud of her. The sometimes florid, always urbane, and frequently mocking third-person voice that Brinke employed in her Connor Templeton novels was nowhere to be found in the pages of her crime novel.
In its place, Brinke had adopted a blunt, first-person point-of-view. The story seemed to be inspired by the little magazine murders. Brinke’s narrator was a young American hard case named Horace Lester, a dark-haired, blue-eyed expatriate caught between two beautiful young American women in a treacherous three-way love affair.
Hector, of course, recognized himself immediately in Horace Lester. Anyone who knew Hector and eventually read Brinke’s book would recognize him, too, he figured. Triangle was shaping up to be a brazen roman à clef.
But in estimating Brinke’s probable composition speed, and measuring that against her initiation of their ménage à trois with Molly, well, that was where things got a little unsettling — deeply perplexing Hector.
One True Sentence: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 1) Page 16