A Season in Purgatory (30 page)

“I am thinking of the strings that had to be pulled to bring that one off. I am thinking of all the markers that must have been called in,” said Harrison.

Gerald was dissatisfied with Harrison’s answer. “You’re a very curious person, Harrison,” he said.

Jerry returned to the table and sat down.

“I’m off,” said Harrison.

“No, no, no, you cannot dismiss it like that,” said Gerald. “You have to give it some thought.”

“No, I don’t, Mr. Bradley.”

“My father is offering you a golden opportunity,” said Jerry.

Harrison turned to Jerry and pointed his finger at him. “I am here to talk to your father, at his request. I am not here to talk to you. I don’t care what you have to say about anything. I am not interested in your opinions, or observations, or comments. If you are going to sit here, sit in silence, or I am going to get up and walk out.”

“Well, haven’t we changed with our success,” said Jerry. “After all my father has done for you.”

“Do you want your father’s money back, Jerry? I’ll be happy to write you out a check,” said Harrison. “But let’s first make sure we understand each other. That was no act of charity on your father’s part, as he would be the first one to tell you. It had nothing to do with the greater good. That was a deal, a business deal, a proposition. He paid for my education. I gave him my vow of silence. Your father, as was always the case with him in business, got the better end of the deal.”

“This is outrageous,” said Jerry.

“Calm down, Jerry. Let me do the talking,” said Gerald. He turned to Harrison. “Why? Just explain to me why. This is a role you have played before, and splendidly. It was the essay you wrote for Constant that was responsible for getting him back into Milford after that ludicrous episode with the dirty pictures.”

“I think the library you gave to the school may have had a little more to do with it than my essay, Mr. Bradley,” said Harrison. He moved himself to the end of the booth, preparing to leave. “Let me explain it to you this way. It is not what I do. It is like asking a landscape painter to paint your portrait. There are specialists in that field. What you are asking me to do is not my specialty.”

“What is your speciality?”

“Crime. That is what interests me. That is what I do well.”

“You mean,
The Case of the Missing Mummy? The Case of the Stolen Urn?
” There was a slight degree of mockery in the tone of Gerald’s voice.

“No, that is not what I mean, Mr. Bradley.”

“Tell me then. Explain it to me. I am interested in you. I want to know.”

“I am fascinated by police work. I like to cover trials. I am specifically interested in people who get away with
things. People who go free. Crime without consequence is a privilege of the very rich.”

There was a long silence at the table. Gerald flicked the long ash of his cigar into an ashtray and then stubbed out the cigar.

“Would you do me one favor before you say no?” asked Gerald, detaining him.

“I have said no,” replied Harrison.

“I would like you to meet with Constant. Just once, to discuss it. You used to be such friends.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Mr. Bradley.”

“He would like so much to see you again, Harrison. He talks of you often.”

Harrison ran down the stairs of the restaurant, wanting to be gone. Standing at the bottom of the stairs leaning against the wall was a tall man in his mid-thirties, possibly foreign, elegantly dressed in English-looking clothes and smoking a cigarette is a black holder.

“Hello, I’ve been waiting for you,” said the man. His top coat was draped over his shoulders. He spoke in an affected mid-Atlantic voice.

“For me?” asked Harrison.

“You don’t recognize me, do you? It’s Fruity. Fruity Suarez.”

“Good heavens,” said Harrison. “How in the world did you know I was here?”

“I was sitting upstairs at the bar and got into a chat with a rather good-looking, in a cheap sort of way, Mafia figure. Mr. Fuselli, Johnny Fuselli, he said his name was. He said he was waiting for Gerald Bradley to finish lunch, and somehow or other your name came up, and he said it was you who was having lunch with Gerald Bradley. Imagine. Well, I thought, perhaps I should say hello after all these
years. I hope you and your wife—Claire, isn’t that her name?—are not still angry over that two-o’clock-in-the-morning telephone call about poor Maud Firth? Maud’s all right, by the way. Got a handsome settlement. That’s one thing I’ll say in Gerald Bradley’s favor. He does pay off for his precious Constant’s, uh—how shall I put it?—problem.”

“This is a surprise. I’m in a bit of a hurry, Fruity,” said Harrison.

“Not so much of a hurry that you can’t have a quick drink with an old friend after all these years. Not that we were actually friends. Acquaintances, I suppose, would be a better word,” said Fruity.

“All right, if it’s quick. Shall we go back up to the bar?” said Harrison.

“Oh, no, no, no. I decided I wasn’t comfortable up there. All those people who run the country and all those billionaires lunching in the same place at the same time made me feel quite uneasy. One terrorist bomb up there, and imagine the state of the city and the country. And, besides, I got Mr. Fuselli’s telephone number. You never know when someone like that, with his sort of connections, might come in handy. No, there’s a little place around the corner here at Fifty-third and Second called Miss Garbo’s. Do you know it? It has a sister bar of the same name in Los Angeles.”

“What sort of bar?” asked Harrison.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, in a mock scolding voice. “You’ll be perfectly safe. The afternoon crowd are just drinkers. Nothing untoward, I promise you. After midnight is when the untoward action starts.”

On the street Fruity walked very fast, oblivious to people who turned to stare at his exotic presence. The sleeves of his top coat waved around him. He never stopped talking, all the time holding the cigarette holder clenched between his
teeth. Inside, the bar was dark. The bartender greeted him warmly.

“Look who’s back in town. You again, Fruity,” he said.

“Hello, Clint,” replied Fruity. “I bring you regards from Zane in Los Angeles.” He turned to Harrison. “Do you prefer to stand at the bar or sit at a table?”

“Table, I suppose,” answered Harrison, looking around him.

“Don’t worry. Don’t worry. You’re not going to run into a soul you know. Did you ever hear of someone called Dwane Lonergan?”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” said Harrison.

“This is where he got started, in this bar. He became a legend, you know. A legend in certain circles, I mean. A great many rich men of my persuasion knew Dwane. He was always being flown coast to coast, sometimes on private planes by those rich Hollywood studio types. You know the group. Sometimes he was flown to Europe. The royal prince even had a go at Dwane, or so they say. He was famous. Oh, how he loved all the attention, and all the money. Like certain film stars, there are those who are meant to die young. Perhaps Esme Bland did him a favor without knowing it, shooting him like she did. People like Dwane Lonergan are not meant ever to reach forty.”

Harrison reached in his pocket and took out a pen and notebook and jotted down something.

“What in the world are you writing?” asked Fruity.

“Oh, sorry. I’m always making notes like that. I think if you don’t write down thoughts the moment they occur to you, you can never remember them in quite the same way later,” said Harrison.

“You sound like you’re addressing the Santa Barbara Writers Conference.”

Harrison laughed. “Sorry, Fruity. I’m all yours. Actually,
I don’t feel right calling you Fruity. Diego, isn’t that your real name?”

“Oh, you can call me Fruity. It’s how you knew me. Learning a new name for someone is always difficult. Besides, I’ve become rather fond of it, in fact.”

“What have you been up to all these years, Fruity?”

“Oh, failing in a very expensive way. My career, or careers, I guess I should say, have been inconspicuous. A little of this, a little of that. Interior designer. Restaurateur. A garden furniture shop. A little stint in Hollywood. A few other things that are slipping my mind, but you must have gotten the picture by now. Thank God for my trust fund. I make the sign of the cross every time I see an advertisement for Firth Sewing Machines. Mother was a Firth. Now you, Harrison, would have been the last person in that miserable class in that miserable school we both attended that I would have picked for glory.”

“Hardly glory, my friend.”

“Oh, yes. Your books get published. Your name is in
Newsweek
. You are spoken about. That, to me, is glory. I read you. I read about you. I even brag I once knew you. I’ve always been a bit of a star fucker, as you may remember.”

Harrison laughed. “Yes, I remember your story of those two lesbian movie stars. Who were they? I’ve forgotten.”

Fruity shook his head at Harrison’s inquiry and proceeded with his own thoughts. “I liked your book about the financier, Mr. Renthal. I like the prison part the best. Prison is where he belongs, you kept saying, without actually saying it. The sound of that cell door closing behind him, nuts and bolts settling into place. Oh, my dear. It sent a chill right through me. And Max Goesler, who raped that child. Oh, how you described him—those smarmy eyes, those wet palms. I could smell his stinking armpits from your description.” Fruity gestured dramatically with his cigarette holder.

“But I sense something in you, Harrison. Something you haven’t arrived at yet, but will, I hope, some underlying thing I feel in your writing.”

“What is that?” asked Harrison warily.

“
Rage
. Blind rage. I sense always there is something more to come out of you. These books of yours are fine and moral, high-minded, on the side of justice. But there is more. It is almost as if you are skirting the main subject of your life, the cause of this quiet rage, this inferno inside of you, and I don’t associate it with your parents’ frightful deaths. Does any of this make any sense to you, Harry?”

Harrison turned his face away from Fruity.

“Why are you so silent? Why are you looking away from me? Isn’t there something you can reply? I can’t be that far off base. I am, after all, sensitive. That’s what they said about me when they kicked me out of Milford. My God, Harry. You’re not crying, are you? You are. And no handkerchief. You should always carry a handkerchief. Two, even. One for show and one for blow, my father, the ambassador, used to say. Here. Use this. Charvet. Paris. You can keep it. Nice color, don’t you think? Go ahead, cry. No one’s looking. Get it out of your system. I think it’s marvelous to cry. The nice thing about a dump like Miss Garbo’s is, no one gives a shit. Imagine crying in the Four Seasons Grill Room with Dr. Kissinger looking on, although he did watch Nixon cry, didn’t he? Now, Gerald Bradley, that’s a different story. He would say things like, ‘Get a hold of yourself, Harrison.” Are you feeling better?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” He wiped his eyes with Fruity’s handkerchief and handed it back to him.

“Don’t be sorry. I’m afraid I hit a nerve. Did I?”

“Perhaps. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Tell me about your wife, Harry. I woke her up. She wasn’t a bit pleased with me that night.”

“She is taller than me. She is older than me. And she has left me.”

“Dear, dear, dear. Is the third part of that answer crushing for you?”

“I haven’t arrived yet at the feeling it is. It is a fairly recent situation. I miss my little boys.”

“There is a rumor going ’round about you,” said Fruity.

“What could that be?”

“That you are involved again.”

“Oh?”

“No need for names.”

“No. Where did you hear such a story?”

“My new best friend, Mr. Fuselli. Would you like some unsolicited advice? Stay away from them, all of them. They will destroy you. What is there about that family that you find so irresistible, Harry?”

“I must run,” said Harrison, looking at his watch. “I’m on a deadline.”

“Yes, of course you must.”

Harrison made for the door and walked out onto the street. Outside, he thought for a moment, turned, and reentered the bar. He walked over to Fruity.

“Did you forget something?” asked Fruity.

“Yes. I forgot to say thank you.”

“For making you cry?”

“I suppose.”

“Oh, my God, Harrison, why haven’t we tried
that
before?” gasped Kitt.

“I’m still out of breath,” said Harrison.

“Well, I should think so after what you just did.”

Harrison laughed. “It takes two to tango.”

“I love these afternoon trysts in your apartment, Harrison. I like getting here ahead of you, letting myself in,
changing the sheets, getting undressed, being ready, waiting, anticipating, longing to have you come back from wherever you are so that I can help you tear off your clothes, going mad if you’re ten minutes late. Love in the afternoon. It’s divine. It’s wonderful. It’s erotic.”

“They’re on to us, Kitt,” he said. “We’re being talked about.”

“Who?” asked Kitt.

“A man called Fruity Suarez heard it at the bar of the Four Seasons from Johnny Fuselli, while Johnny was waiting for your father to finish having lunch with me.”

“Does it worry you?”

“It worries me about Claire, yes. I don’t want to hurt Claire. Doesn’t it worry you?”

“About Cheever? Good God, no. Cheever doesn’t mean anything to me,” said Kitt. “About my brothers, no. About my parents, yes. What’s all right for the boys is not all right for the girls in my family. Ma still believes the Blessed Virgin cries when I whistle. Imagine if she knew what we just did. Who’s Fruity Suarez?”

“He was in our class at Milford. He once spread the rumor that I was transfixed with Constant.”

“Quite a gossip, old Fruity.” She sat up and put on Harrison’s dressing gown. She walked over to a mirror and began combing her hair with Harrison’s brush.

“I like to watch you brush your hair,” said Harrison. He could not remove his eyes from her face, her neck, her bare arms, her shoulders.