A Cat Tells Two Tales (18 page)

12

When one walked into Halliday’s, one first saw a cigarette machine on the left. To the right was a small horseshoe bar with a mirror and a TV set behind it. The walls had innocuous beer emblems pasted or fastened on. An eclectic new jukebox was against the left wall. Walk through the partition, and there’s a pay phone and the “dining area”—tables, two booths, pinball machines, video games. But in fact, no food is served. And only three bottled beers. During the day it’s a local bar—Ukrainians, lost souls, and passersby. Between seven and eight in the evening the younger set starts coming in—black leather, musicians, young shirt-and-ties on a night out, students, architects, urban planners, poets, and an assortment of bizarre persons at the many fringes of the art world.

The bartenders are old Eastern European men—all short. No waiters or waitresses. You buy your drink at the bar and take it to the tables if you wish, or just stand around and drink. Two bouncers are visible: one, an enormous, silent, lazy Slav; and a thin one who doubles as a cleanup man and busboy. The front of the establishment is fairly well lit; the “dining area” is very dark.

It was seven thirty on a Tuesday evening when Basillio and I walked in. We bought two mixed drinks at the bar—Bloody Marys—and went to one of the tables in the rear.

The place was beginning to fill. Basillio had constructed our cover theatrically: a married couple from New Jersey, dressed absurdly, seeking an authentic East Village milieu, desiring to see the denizens, to soak in what the East Village still promised—a heady whiff of undiluted bohemianism. Basillio wore a banker suit topped with an outlandish tie. I wore a lot of jewelry on a very flimsy, very sexy, and very gauche silk blouse and silk pants. I wore high heels, raising my normal tallness to Amazonian levels. It was all a bit much, but Basillio relished his new directorial and costume assignments.

“Jesus,” Basillio whispered to me, “it looks like a set for
Lost Weekend
, designed by a guy who can only use crayons. I may have read the scene wrong.”

An hour went by. The tables and booths filled. The crowd at the bar was three deep. The noise went from a soft hum to a soft roar. We could hear snatches of conversation—about paintings, about plays, about sports, about the subways, about books, about who was in the bar and why.

“I don’t want to be aggressive, Swede, but what the hell are we looking for?”

“Regulars,” I said. “I want to identify regulars who might have known Bruce Chessler.”

He nodded and grinned. “Remember that bar on the West Side we used to go to after class?”

“Very well,” I replied. “That was in one of your earlier reincarnations, Tony, as a theatrical barfly.”

We reminisced about the old times, about the cat he used to bring to class in a shopping bag, about our teachers, about old acquaintances whom we both had lost contact with. This undercover work was becoming enjoyable.

By the time ten o’clock rolled around we had identified three possibles: a young couple dressed all in black who sat in the adjoining booth and who had their hands clasped tightly across the table and were speaking low and passionately to each other; a slim, small black woman with a close-cropped haircut who sat doodling with a pencil in the near-darkness at one of the tables; and a very old man who had a breathing problem and carried a canvas bag with a New York Mets logo.

We left the bar at eleven thirty and came back the next two nights.

On the third night I thanked Basillio and dispensed with his services because I knew that the black woman was the one I had to contact—she was there every night in the same spot with the same doodling pencil and with the same bottle of virtually untouched Rolling Rock beer in front of her.

Her name was Elizabeth and she smiled when I asked if I could join her. She gave her name freely, as if she were waiting and happy for some company.

A poet, she said she was. And what was I? An actress, I said. She nodded compassionately, as if I had tuberculosis or some other chronic disorder.

“I notice,” I said, “that you never drink your beer.”

“I don’t drink alcohol.”

I didn’t know what to say except to ask her why she didn’t, then, sit in a coffee shop rather than a bar, but I decided against saying anything.

“And I only eat one meal a day,” she added, “because I consider myself a disciple of Patanjali, and the appetite is just another vehicle that must be discarded.”

“Who is Patanjali?” I asked.

She smiled sadly at me, as if my ignorance was not really my fault, but a function of my age and height and bad taste in clothes. She was wearing a beautifully simple sheath with sunflowers.

“Patanjali was the founder of yogic philosophy.”

“Ah,” I replied, trying to sound properly apologetic.

“‘It was Patanjali who first understood that the source of the great cosmic tragedy was when consciousness became entwined with matter.”

Elizabeth spoke very precisely, with a very odd accent—the origins of which I couldn’t place. It was probably an affectation, because she was an obvious kook—but it was very charming and her voice was low and resonant and one wanted to hear her speak more.

However, it was time to get down to business.

“Were you here when that young man was shot to death a few days ago?”

“Of course,” she said. “Of course I was here. Right here.”

We were silent for a while.

“Did you know him?”

“We had talked.”

“I want to find out more about him,” I said.

“Why?”

I didn’t lie to her. I told her the truth to the best of my knowledge. I told her that he had been a student of mine at the New School. He had fallen in love with me. I simply wanted to know
why
he had died.

“Why?” she asked with a lilting inflection. “He died because the karmic forces are totally disjointed. Can’t you see it all around you?”

I ignored her philosophy.

“The police,” I said, “told me he got into an argument with an older man and the older man shot him to death.”

“That is what happened,” she affirmed.

“And you were there?”

“Here,” she corrected, “right here. And he was shot here, right where I’m pointing.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what happened?”

“They came. The police and the ambulances. But he was dead. He didn’t even slump over. There was a hole in his forehead. He was dead.”

She reached over and patted my hand as if I were a child.

“Did he have any friends? Did he always come in here alone?”

“He came in with a woman sometimes.”

“Who?”

“Her name is Risa.”

“Is she here now?”

“No. I haven’t seen her for some time. She wasn’t here when he was shot.”

“Do you know her last name?”

“Macros have no last names.”

I didn’t understand what she meant.

“What is ‘macro’?”

“She’s macrobiotic. She eats at that restaurant all the time, near Second Avenue. Sarah’s—the macrobiotic restaurant.”

Then she started to tell me how foolish it was to persist in my inquiry; that even if the young man loved me, love itself was absurd. It had no content. It was egoless and ownerless. It was an echo, for it resulted only from cause and condition. It was like a fire that consumed itself.

“Can you tell me what she looks like?” I asked, interrupting her philosophical flight, which was accompanied by a frenetic doodling of her pencil.

“Risa is short and heavy and her hair is red,” Elizabeth said—then made a motion with her hand to show me it was cut in neopunk style, half of the head straight up.

I sat back. Now finally I had a name and a body and a lead. I had someone who knew him well. I wanted to rush out of the bar to the macrobiotic restaurant, but I knew it was too late . . . the restaurant was closed by then. Tomorrow would be time. And I didn’t want to leave Elizabeth. She had endeared herself to me. There was something so fey about her, so ephemeral . . . like a cat circling a dish of strange-smelling food. And she might know even more.

“Did you ever see him with a strange-looking fat man? A man who wore coveralls and a shirt and tie and a cabdriver’s hat?”

She looked up intensely, as if trying to re-create in her mind my description of Arkavy Reynolds.

“Black or white?” she suddenly asked.

“White,” I replied.

“No.” Then she laughed. “If he was black, he might well be one of my uncles.” She giggled nervously and fell silent. We sat together, oddly at ease with each other.

“Oh, look there,” she said suddenly, pointing toward the bar.

I followed her point, found nothing, turned back to her for information, but she was already thinking of something else.

Yes, like a cat approaching strange food. I stayed there another two hours or so, listening to her intermittent lectures on food and the cosmos and karma, in fits and starts, with large doses of silence in between.

Then I thanked her profusely and went home. Risa was the next stop.

13

When I saw her through the window—I was standing on the street peering in—the first thought that came to me was the incongruity of Bruce Chessler having this young woman as a lover and falling in love with me.

She was indeed stout and very young and very punk and her hair was very red.

From the window I could not identify what was on her plate—it looked like kelp and brown rice and sprouts. She was eating slowly, reflectively, chewing thoroughly.

I like people on macrobiotic diets even though I haven’t the foggiest idea what they’re doing—spiritually or nutritionally. After all, if you’re not what you eat, what are you? Of course, I didn’t believe the whole thing for a minute. A producer once asked me if I was macrobiotic. When I said no, he replied that I had that extreme slimness which often is symptomatic of either anorexia or a macrobiotic diet. I told him it came from poverty. He didn’t think that was funny. But what would he make of Risa—a chunky macrobiotic? It would knock his theory to hell.

Anyway, Sarah’s was packed. I waited outside. It was a full forty-five minutes before the young woman finished chewing all her food properly. Then she came out.

I waited until she had turned west on Eighth Street and started walking resolutely before I caught up to her.

“Excuse me. Did you know Bruce Chessler?” I thought the direct approach would be the best.

She stopped suddenly, as if she had been hit with a blunt object. She turned and stared at me.

“No, I didn’t know him. I slept with him but I didn’t know him. Who the hell are you?”

“Alice Nestleton. His teacher from the New School.”

“Oh,” she said sardonically, “his great unrequited love.”

“Can I talk to you a minute?”

“About what? What is there to talk about now? He’s dead. He was murdered.”

“Yes, I know that.”

She started to walk again, faster. I caught up with her and kept pace, not saying anything. She was mumbling to herself.

Finally, as we walked past Cooper Union, she stopped and whirled toward me, and this time she was crying.

She said: “What do you really want? What can I tell you? He’s dead. For no reason.”

I took her arm and guided her close to the building line. She didn’t resist. She fumbled for a cigarette from her purse. She lit it and inhaled mightily.

“Tell me about him, please. It was all so strange. He showed up one evening, told me he loved me, and left a white cat—”

Risa held up one hand suddenly, interrupting. “A white cat?” she asked, incredulous.

“And the next day it was stolen,” I said.

She laughed like a lunatic and threw her cigarette away.

“Don’t feel bad,” she said, “he left me
two
white cats and both of them vanished from my apartment during a robbery.”

“Two white cats?”

“Two white cats.”

“Tell me about him, Risa,” I said, and my voice was kindly because I suddenly felt an enormous white-cat camaraderie with her.

“What can I say? He was a lunatic . . . a lovable junkie lunatic speed-freak alcoholic who wanted to be a great actor. But he hated theater people . . . he had only contempt for them . . . for all of them . . . and especially for his grandmother and her friends.”

“Did he ever mention a man to you named Arkavy Reynolds?”

“You mean that crazy one with the hat . . . the one who was shot to death? I met him once. Bruce used to sell him speed. And sometimes they got into arguments about plays and scenes and directors. And once they got into a rough argument about his grandmother.”

So that was the connection. Speed. Bruce sold Arkavy drugs. It was logical. I figured that was the case. But Detective Felix had thought the connection unimportant. And this thing with the grandmother was bizarre.

“Who was his grandmother, Risa? And what did she have to do with all this? With the theater?”

“His grandmother was Maria Swoboda.”

The astonishment on my face was quite noticeable.

“Then you know of her,” Risa said. “Yes, Maria Swoboda, the old Russian lady from the Moscow Art Theatre . . . the one who knew Stanislavski. Bruce hated her. And her friends—Bukai, Chederov, Mallinova—I think those are their names. Sometimes when he got high he used to rant for hours about them. That they were fakes, hustlers, idiots . . . on and on he went.”

“Where did he get the white cats?”

“I never knew. He never told me. But then again, he never told me a lot of things. I knew he took speed and sold the stuff. I knew he had devils in his head.”

She choked back some tears, then continued in a strange, sad, husky voice, “Do you know how sad the city is? There are thousands of Bruce Chesslers wandering around. They don’t even recognize each other. I’m a songwriter. I once wrote a piece called ‘Soft Dreams in Hell.’ But no one would buy it because it was about them. Do you understand? All these sad people wandering from street to street and they can’t even recognize their own truth.”

She seemed to be drifting. I brought her back to reality.

“You know, Maria Swoboda used to be a teacher of mine—years ago. In fact, I found a picture of her in Bruce’s belongings, but it never dawned on me they were related.”

She straightened her back as if determined not to make any more personal revelations. “Yep, a real old-fashioned grandma. That is, until she died.”

“You mean he still ranted against her after she was dead?”

“Well, when I met him she was already dead. He talked about her as if she were alive.”

She started to walk again, turning north on Fourth Avenue. She said: “I have to go . . . I have to go to the post office.”

I stayed with her. We were a strange couple walking. No doubt the passersby constructed their own scenario—mother and child. Mother unhappy with punk antics of daughter. Mother and daughter going to a physician. How many scenarios were there? None of them remotely correct.

“There’s the post office,” she said, and I could tell by the way she stood that she was determined I should be gone.

“Can I talk to you again sometime?” I asked.

“About Bruce?”

“Yes. And other things.”

“Other things,” she repeated bitterly, and then wrote her phone number down on my wrist with a Magic Marker—right on the flesh. I was so shocked I didn’t even protest. It was a subtle form of revenge perhaps . . . for Bruce falling in love with an older woman. I snatched the Magic Marker from her hand and wrote my number on her wrist.

She ran into the post office. I started to walk home, trying somehow to cover the script on my flesh but not wanting it to be blurred until I could transcribe it.

As I walked I found myself enjoying the gathering heat. The young man had turned out to be much more perplexing dead than alive.

And the idea that now I knew of three white cats taken—three white cats placed by Bruce Chessler in inappropriate “foster” homes from which they were abducted—all that made me kind of inebriated with the absurdity of it. I realized, to my chagrin, that I had forgotten to ask the young girl whether her two white cats had the same black spots on face and rump as Clara—poor Clara.

As for Grandma Maria Swoboda—that was very difficult to believe. That they were related. Or was it more difficult to believe that he would hate his grandma? How could anyone hate Madame Maria Swoboda? Alive or dead? And why was it difficult to believe? Did I expect a twenty-five-year-old man living on the Lower East Side, who had been born in this country and never spoken anything other than English, to behave like a Russian theatrical personage? Did I bear any cultural resemblance to my dairy-farmer grandmother? I realized in fact that I did have such a resemblance. I walked like her. I looked like her. I was still a farm girl at heart—well-read but unable to be sophisticated; cynical but unable to act in that mode; passionate but forced by circumstance into a kind of suspended celibacy.

It was odd how Bruce Chessler’s strange relationship with his grandmother had started me thinking about mine. I rarely thought about her, for some reason, in hot weather. And when I did think about her, there was always one image that came to mind: whenever my grandmother had entered the dairy barn to check on the cows, she would, somehow, without saying a word, set all the barn cats into motion. As she walked down the sheds the cats would leap about—overhead, below, from side to side—as if my grandmother had choreographed them into a complex dance through some psychic power. And the moment my grandmother left the barn, they would cease.

I reached Twenty-third Street. The bank on the corner said it was ninety-one degrees at two twenty-one in the afternoon.

I was getting weary. Only a few blocks more. It had been a long few days—bars, health-food restaurants, macrobiotics, Yoga, black woman poet, punk girl songwriter—yes, it had been exhausting.

And what I had found out about Bruce Chessler really didn’t give me any good clue to the philosophical problem: Why did he die? Nor did anything I had learned really contradict the police story that he was shot to death in a drug-related incident.

What I had found was a completely new and related crime—the kidnapping of three white cats who had been delivered to Risa and me by Bruce Chessler. What was going on?