by Marc Behm
‘Hi, Maxie.’
‘You have a mustache!’
38
‘What a year this has been! I lost a hundred grand in March. I just couldn’t win a single hand. It was like playing poker with calling cards. Then all of a sudden I started cleaning up like crazy. Everything turned to gold. Blackjack, basketball games, horse races, roulette. Then I smashed up my car on the Santa Monica Freeway. A stoned truckdriver cut in front of me doing ninety. I was in the hospital for three weeks. My blood pressure ran amuck. So now I’m back on Catapres-TTS patches. Once a week. Then my husband died. My ex-husband. Now you show up … wow!’
They’d spent the rest of the night in the kitchen, drinking coffee and eating scrambled eggs. Now they were lying beside her pool in the boiling morning sun. He was smoking a cigar and yawning. She wore a see-through bathing suit and was sipping orange juice. She looked like an advertisement for a vacation in Tahiti.
‘What have you been doing? Milch told me he saw you in Tampa. You were mixed up with a couple of dykes.’
‘Yes. Nellie and Alice. A fun couple.’
‘Milch has gone completely off the rails. I ran into him in Century City and he was wearing his dress and wig in broad daylight. At night he’s a horrifying enough sight in drag, but in the sunlight he is positively repugnant. Have you been lucky at least?’
‘I’ve had my ups and downs.’
He was becoming uncomfortably erect. Her body purred to him. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted her to take him in her oily arms and absorb him. But he was too shy to tell her. But she noticed his longing and reached over and touched him gently.
‘Is this one of your ups? Goodness gracious! Have you been taking pills or something?’
‘Nope. I’m just glad to see you.’
‘Really? But weren’t you always glad to see me?’
‘Sure. But … you know … like a sister.’
‘Oh brother!’ Her fingers walked up and down his thighs. ‘I don’t know like if I can deal with this. It’s too like overwhelming.’
‘I’m so tired, Maxie,’ he put his face against her shoulder. The heat of her skin burned his cheek. ‘And lonely. When I close my eyes I see sharks in the ocean and swamps filled with alligators. And when I try to sleep, ghouls come looking for me.’
‘So what can I do for you, pal?’ she whispered.
‘Hide me.’
They went into the bedroom. Her nakedness flowed around him like a waterfall of warm balm, soothing his bruises, cleansing his pain, sanctifying him. He fell asleep inside her, hidden and secure, the world locked out, all his frightful dragons far away.
In the afternoon she eased out from under him and left the apartment. He woke at four.
The first thing he saw was the wallpaper. It was a montage of newspaper headlines. He opened the blinds and spent an hour reading them, digesting the history of mankind in nibbles ‘“The di is cast!” says J. Caesar’, ‘Edward II Dethroned for Homosexuality,’ ‘Lincoln elected by Landslide,’ ‘Pope Pius VII Excommunicates Napoleon,’ ‘Lenin Dies,’ ‘President Johnson Signs Civil Rights Act,’ ‘Allies invade France.’
He found 218 BC. ‘Hannibal crosses the Alps!’ (He wondered if she had been there too, riding on an elephant at the battle of Cannae. But he was feeling so revived that this thought didn’t even depress him.)
He took a shower and examined his mustache. It looked ridiculous. He’d have to shave it off one of these days. His hair was getting long again too. Time for a clip. What had he done with that shirt he’d bought yesterday at the Desert Inn? It was still in the Zephyr.
He realized that this concern for his appearance meant that he was starting to think sanely again. Good. Maybe he was in for another spell of peace and tranquility. He needed it. Christ, how he needed it. And Maxie too … he needed her.
He read some more headlines ‘Mongols sack Baghdad,’ ‘Mary Queen of Scots Beheaded,’ ‘Cromwell Defeats Royalists at Naseby,’ ‘Paris Mobs Storm Bastille.’
He went out to the pool to take a swim. But he couldn’t quite make it. He kept imagining that the water was thick with snakes.
Maxie phoned at six, inviting him to the Gold Mine for dinner.
She was in one of the cocktail lounges, drinking bourbon, still misty-eyed with tenderness.
‘I just cannot get over it,’ she said. ‘We actually screwed. I feel all tingly and gooey!’
It was true. She was transformed. Her face glowed like a lamp and her body was vibrating with lusty signals.
‘Let’s finish up here fast and go back to the sack.’
‘Finish up what?’
‘A friend of my husband flew in from New York last night. He wants to have dinner with me and reminisce.’
‘How did your husband die, Maxie?’
‘He fell into the Mohawk River and drowned.’
He wasn’t certain he’d heard her. A waiter came over to the table to take their order and she introduced them. ‘Bob, this is Joe, an old pal of mine. Treat him VIP.’
‘You got it, Max.’
Joe tried to unwrap a cigar and almost broke it in two.
‘Drowned?’ His shoulders were aching, he crouched, unable to sit up straight. ‘In the Mohawk …’
‘Yeah, they found him floating past Schenectady or someplace. The sheriff there says maybe somebody gave him a shove. They’re looking for the guy he was fooling around with. The big poker games are upstairs. Suite 707. Very private. I’ll get you in.’
‘What was his name?’
‘The waiter? Bob. Oh, you mean the guy they’re looking for. I don’t know.’
‘No, I mean your husband.’
‘Frank Hearn. Why? Oh hey!’ She pointed. ‘That must be him.’
Standing on the other side of the lounge talking to Bob was a man in a dapper tux.
It was Leopold.
39
He made it to the men’s room without throwing up and once there, enclosed in a booth, his stomach stopped quaking.
He began to laugh.
A joke. Maxie and Frank. What mad choreographer had invented that nutty tarantella? No! It had to be a joke.
He came out of the John and looked into the bar. Maxie was smiling, ordering more drinks. Leopold was posing simpering, playing with his lapels. Wow! There they were, ‘reminiscing.’ Chatting about poor Frank and Lionel Grayson. Wow. He’d fled all the way to Niskayuna and spent four years there holed-up in ‘The Nook’ like a hermit – for nothing. He might just as well have come directly to Vegas and stood in a spotlight on the stage of Caesar’s Palace singing ‘I Did It My Way.’
He left the Gold Mine, slinking away like a thief. He went to the Desert Inn, escaping into the crowds. So much for his spell of tranquility! He was famished. He ate a ham sandwich and a banana split. Three welldressed hookers tried to pick him up. No thanks, girls, not interested. I’m saving myself for the widow of the gentleman I’d brained with a poker then dunked in the river. Wow! What a magnificent shambles his life was. He’d like to have a look at the blueprint that designed him. What a diagram that must be. The draftsman had probably been stoned. It was ten o’clock. He put some quarters into the slots. Frank. Jesus! That bullying creep married to Maxie. It was after midnight in North Carolina. Ada was asleep beside her understanding husband. ‘The Thane of Fife had a wife, where is she now?’
‘Can I help you, sir?’
Oh, no! Another security guard. Ape-faced, bulging in his uniform, ears as big as wings.
‘Are these machines really honest, friend? Tell me truly.’
‘Yes sir. Guaranteed?’
‘I never win.’
‘Just keep trying.’
‘I always do that.’
‘That’s the spirit.’
He escaped and went to the Riviera. Then to the Sands. He still felt like throwing up. Old one-eyed Hannibal must have gone through this nightmare, trapped in Southern Italy, lurching from Bruttum to Lucania, then back again, surrounded, hunted, enwebbed.
He’d have to read that book again. Sentences kept popping into his head. ‘Four statues dripped blood in Feronia.’ ‘In Targuinii a pig was born with a human face.’ ‘Seventy Numidians were seized and their hands chopped off.’ ‘Mice ate the gold in Jupiter’s Temple.’ And those groovy Roman names. Publius Sempronius Tuditanus, Titus Quinctius Crispinus, Quintus Fabius Centumalus.
He did throw up finally, in an alley somewhere behind the MGM.
Maxie was still awake when he came back to the apartment. She was in the bedroom, taking off her bra, changing her patch. That’s exactly what she’d been doing when he first saw her, in Atlanta, millenniums ago. It gave him a this-is-where-I-came-in feeling.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I felt too putrid to have dinner.’
‘You didn’t miss anything. The guy’s as gay as can be. Real boring.’
‘I’m going to take a bath and shave off my mustache.’
‘Good idea. It looks like a disguise.’
‘I hope you’re not going to wear your Mickey Mouse nightgown.’
‘I’m not going to wear anything, pal. Hurry up.’
They made love slumberingly, revolving together as nimbly as dancers. He closed his eyes. Then it was morning, the sun shining on the headlines on the walls. They came together again, leisurely.
‘Number 3!’ she crooned. ‘And that’s only the beginning, folks!’
‘All that time lost,’ she sighed. ‘All those nights we slept alone on Eleventh Street. Your room’s still there, by the way, with your books and everything.’
‘The Brothers K! I never finished it.’
They were in the kitchen, having breakfast. It was already 85 degrees and they were both nude.
‘Leopold told me … that’s his name. Leopold. He’s an antique dealer. He and Frank were living together. And this other guy, Grayson … that’s the one they’re looking for. Lionel Grayson. I’m going to put some more sugar on my cornflakes. The hell with calories.’
‘What did he tell you, Maxie?’
‘Grayson was renting this place. A house Leopold owns. He was writing a book. And he just skidaddled and left all his stuff behind. Like you did in LA. Hundreds of books. Do you want some more coffee? And sweaters and pants and shoes. That’s why the sheriff got suspicious.’
‘Lionel Grayson, yeah. That name sounds familiar. I think I read one of his novels. He writes horror stories.’
‘He was a raging fag.’
‘What?’
‘He raped Leopold every time he came to collect the rent. Then when he met Frank he went wild. “Your husband’s muscles,” Leopold said, “were Michelangeloic.” His very words. Michelangeloic. Can you imagine those three rural homos loose in the woods, playing leapfrog with each other. It must have been odious. How Frank ever got that far down the drain I’ll never know. He was straight when I married him.’
‘If you ask me …’ Joe was seething with rage. Leopold! The lying vicious little nerd! ‘If you ask me, I’d say Leopold probably killed them both in a fit of mean-queen jealousy. Grayson is in the river too.’
Maxie was taken aback by this. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘Does this Leopold fellow strike you as being a wholesome, trustworthy, law-abiding citizen?’
‘After two drinks he tried to put the make on Bob the waiter. And come to think of it … hey! Oh, brother!
Do you know what he said? “When I found the two of them in bed together” – he was talking about Grayson and Frank – “I was so angry I could have strangled them.”’
In bed together! How do you like that! The miserable prick! ‘Well, there you are.’
‘You can judge for yourself. He has a suitcase filled with stuff that belonged to Frank. He’s bringing it around this morning.’
‘Here? He’s coming here?’
40
It was nine-twenty. Leopold arrived at half-past. Joe didn’t even have time to dress and leave. When the doorbell rang he ran into the bedroom. Maxie paid no attention to these eccentricities, she just shrugged.
He could hear them, prattling in the living room.
‘Oh, what a cozy place! Is that a Boston rocker? And what do I see over there! That sideboard! Permit me to have a closer look if I may. Yes, by George. Honest to goodness eighteenth century. Worth a fortune. You’re lucky I’m on vacation or I’d haggle you into selling it. I can only stay two minutes. I have a tennis appointment at ten-fifteen. This heat is dire. And, naturally, the air-conditioner in my car isn’t working.’
Joe sat down on the floor. Was this really happening? Was that really Leopold’s voice whining and wailing out there? Or was it all just feverish recall and self-torment? By what right had this insignificant dork come prancing out of the past to torture him!
Now they were looking through the late Frank’s belongings.
‘This was his favorite jacket. A birthday present from yours truly. I don’t know why he kept all these hankies. He never used them. That roughneck blowing his nose in a handkerchief! Never! This is a souvenir. I bought it for him in a crazy little store in Atlantic City. See? You pull the string and the arms and legs move. He loved it. I’m sure these socks have never been laundered. Postcards. Magazines. His Dodgers’ cap. The dear boy adored baseball. It’s all just junk, but I thought you might … I miss him so. He was sweet chap. Oh, please don’t cry!’
Joe listened, repelled. They were talking about sweet Frank as if he were St. Francis of Assisi and his departure from this world would be a great loss to mankind. The sadistic fink deserved a slower death. Boiled in oil maybe, or drawn and quartered.
‘Rest assured, Mrs. Hearn, that scoundrel Grayson will be caught eventually and punished … I beg your pardon? You mean …? Both of them? Well. I never thought of that. Yes, it’s a possibility, I suppose. May I use your bathroom?’
Joe rolled under the bed and watched Leopold’s shoes walk through the doorway and across the rug into the bathroom. He was wearing green moccasins and white socks. Maxie’s slippers came in a moment later and stopped beside the bureau. She was probably wondering where he was. She retreated. The moccasins came out of the bathroom and strolled over to the wall.
‘Oh, how cute! “British Army Burns Washington, DC,” “U.S. Jets Bomb North Vietnam.” How utterly!
“Aristotle Dies,” “Lee Defeated at Gettysburg,” “Theodore Roosevelt Elected President.” I’m admiring your wallpaper, Mrs. Hearn! It’s ducky!’ He went back out into the living room. ‘You know, there’s another possibility. I never told the sheriff, because it slipped my mind. On the afternoon Frank disappeared, it was about four o’clock, a woman came to my shop looking for him.’
What was he saying? Joe crawled out from under the bed and scrambled over to the door.
‘Very smartly dressed, insolent, New York Cityish. “Frank Hearn,” she said, “where is he?” Not even bothering to be polite, snapping at me as if I were a domestic. Well, that was the last straw. I was still fit to be tied over all that nasty hankpanky with Frank and Grayson, so out of sheer pique, I gave her a false address. I told her he lived on the other side of the river. That was terribly rude of me, I know, I know, but I was devastated.’
Joe sat down on the edge of the bed. Her! That blond apparition on the bank of the Mohawk had been real! She’d come for Frank!
‘I shall! I certainly shall! I’ll see the sheriff the moment I get back to Niskayuna. Heavens! I have to dash off. You can tell that person hiding under the bed he can come out now …’
‘You were right,’ Maxie said. ‘Did you hear him. As soon as I mentioned the possibility of Grayson being dead too, he began squirming and running to the John. Because it automatically makes him suspect number one. So straight away, hah! He had to invent somebody else showing up out of nowhere the day Frankie died, hah!’
‘Out of nowhere, you said it.’
‘An insolent woman from New York. Brother!’
‘Maybe it’s true though. Maybe there was a woman.’
‘H
ah! I’m going to phone that sheriff in what’s-it-called and tell him what I think.’
He checked out of the Shoshone that afternoon and moved into the apartment. In the evening she took him to Suite 707 at the Gold Mine and introduced him to several of the players.
They were a high-grade group, as exclusive as a board of directors. There was no nonsense here. Just poker. Levity was tolerated but frowned upon, as were drugs and drunkenness, loud voices and IOUs. Cheating was unheard of, a capital offense.
Joe had no idea who these people were and couldn’t care less. The glacial atmosphere suited him, their grave stodginess was congenial. He was accepted without question because Maxie vouched for him. If he goofed she would be responsible. But he wouldn’t goof. He didn’t want to kid around, he wanted to win pots.
They played all night and he lost only four hands. They watched him closely, looking for a bamboozle, but his playing was faultless. Maxie, as aware as he was of their suspicion, tried to turn it into a joke. After one big win she quipped, ‘He must be marking the cards or something.’
The others cringed. Making light of so taboo a subject was a definite no-no.
But by dawn they were finally convinced he was simply skillful and lucky, virtues they could cope with. They’d get their money back sooner or later. In the meantime he was invited to play again whenever he liked.
‘You’ve been accepted,’ Maxie said when they were downstairs. They had an expensive breakfast in the dining room then went home to bed.
That afternoon, Leopold found him.
41
He took the Zephyr to a garage on Paradise Road for a tune-up. He parked in the back of the lot and was walking toward the office when Leopold came out of a car rental agency on the next corner. He was wearing Bermuda shorts, a safari jacket and a tam-o’shanter. They were a half-block apart, face to face.
Joe pretended he didn’t see him, wandered casually into an alley. Then he ran as fast as he could toward the next street.
Leopold came trotting after him, shouting and waving his arms.