Canary (12 page)

Clarisse threaded her way back to the stage. She had one foot already on the dais and was about to step up on it when someone in the crowd jostled her and she fell backward. But not to the floor—hands caught her.

“Thank you,” she was about to say, but didn't. For the hands that had caught her did not let go, nor did they help then to raise her to the stage. The hands—and there were a number of them—were exploratory.

She looked about sharply.

It was a woman who had caught her around the waist. B.J.—the initials flashed in Clarisse's mind. The two men were there, too. Ruder and Cruder, on either side, and they had her arms.

“Nice,” B.J. said, massaging Clarisse's back, “like a strong, young boy.”

“Good muscle tone,” Cruder said as he rubbed two fingers smoothly along the inside of her elbow.

“Yeah,” Ruder agreed as he prodded underneath her arm.

“Would you like to see my teeth?” demanded Clarisse, pulling away from all three at once. “They're good, too.”

Ruder looked at her, and one of the amber stage lights flashed in the lenses of his silvered dark glasses. “This better be a good show,” he said in a surprisingly resonant voice.

“Yeah,” Cruder added, “this better be a barrel of fucking laughs.”

Clarisse turned from them sharply and climbed up on stage. She turned around with a broad smile. “I know you're all—”

Regular Ethel slammed a finger onto the tape play button of the tape deck. Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” filled the barroom.

“Not yet!” Clarisse screamed.

Kate Smith shut up.

“Oh, God,” cried Regular Ethel, “you are confusing me totally!”

Clarisse closed her eyes for a moment and smiled a temporizing smile. It didn't help that B.J. and her two boyfriends in black leather were standing right at the foot of the stage, staring up at her and whispering. Clarisse looked over their heads.

“Let's give a hand to Regular Ethel, who's trying very hard!”

There was applause, and during that applause Clarisse recovered herself.

“Now, for the first act of this second half of the show, I would like everyone to give a great big hand to—”

The curtain at the back of the stage opened dramatically, and in the darkness there was a glimmering suggestion of a figure.

“Now Ethel,” hissed Clarisse.

Kate Smith came back on in the third bar of “God Bless America.”

“—Mr. Twirlin' Whirlin'!”

Clarisse leaped down from the stage, for she knew what was coming. Mr. Twirlin' Whirlin'—a short, fat Hispanic man about forty—surged out between the red curtains on roller skates. He was twirling a baton dramatically above his head, changing hands and spinning his entire body about as he glided along the rim of the stage. Mr. Twirlin' Whirlin' wore a headband with two small American flags attached to the end of springs, a silver sleeveless shirt encrusted with white-and-blue blinking lights, and skintight red-and-white satin shorts. His roller skates were red and white; his athletic socks, blue. He flung his baton into the air with one hand and caught it with the other and then performed the same feat while bent far forward and reaching up between his legs behind himself.

When Kate Smith was done, so was Mr. Twirlin' Whirlin', but the audience demanded an encore. Mr. Whirlin' was evidently prepared for this, for after a few seconds of blank tape, Kate Smith went into the “Ballad of the Green Berets.” Regular Ethel hit the light switch, and the stage was in darkness—except for the nubs of Mr. Whirlin's batons, which glowed a phosphorescent yellow.

The people in Slate who had remained for the second act were glad that they did, for even though there were only four performances, each was, in its way, very special. After Mr. Whirlin' came a large woman dressed in a muumuu that had been silk-screened with silhouette images of Lassie. Her name was Rona Barrette, and she wore a half-dozen barrettes on her lank brown hair. She was accompanied by a collie named Clover, and Clover wore barrettes, too. Clover was a well-behaved dog and sat when he was told to sit. Rona Barrette announced, “Clover is the smartest dog in the world. Clover can talk.” Rona Barrette knelt down on the stage next to Clover, placed her pudgy hands around Clover's muzzle, and squeezed. “Talk,” Rona Barrette said to the collie. Then, to the intense astonishment of the crowd, Clover said, “Hamburger.”

“More! More!” screamed the audience, but Rona Barrette said, “Not unless I win this contest. If Clover and me win this contest, then I'll come back out, and Clover will talk some more. But only if we win. Got that, you people?”

“More! More!” the crowd shouted, but Rona Barrette and Clover returned to the ladies' room to wait out the end of the show.

The third act was a bartender from Rhode Island who did the shimmy while dressed as Our Lady of Fatima.

“And now,” said Clarisse weakly when both she and the audience had recovered from the bartender's display, “we have the final act of the evening. It's the one I know you've all been waiting for. This is a young woman we all know from
Boston Magazine
and the ‘Channel Five Evening Report'—a young woman who has been arrested more times than any other street performer in Boston. You've seen her jeered at on the Common, you've seen her jostled out of the way in front of Filene's, you've heard her being drowned out by the subways at Park Street Under, you've watched her dry her rain-soaked clothing on the fence outside this very establishment. This evening, she tells me, is the first time that she has worked indoors in two years, so I want you all to give a warm welcome to—”

The audience was already clapping, because they knew who it was.

“—Miss Ruby Charisma! In her brand-new act, never seen before, of the Moth and the Candle Flame!”

Felix and George, the Slate runners, came out of the ladies' room, bearing with them what looked to be a large cocoon. It was in reality a sheet with the hems basted together. The cocoon was left alone on stage in the spotlight. It began to writhe obscenely, as if in a Disney nature film. It split open at the top, and after some struggle, a young woman emerged. She had a round, vacuous face and kinky black hair. Kicking the torn cocoon aside, she looked around as if she were seeing the world for the first time.

She was wearing a black leotard and cape, and when she tentatively raised her arms, she revealed wings with great spots of luminous violet and red. She began to flutter around the stage, like the moth she was costumed to be.

Felix came back onto the stage, bearing a lighted candle.

Ruby Charisma was fascinated by the candle. She danced around it, humming her own accompaniment through clenched teeth. She went ever closer to the flame until she had lit the small sponge that was hung around her neck on a string. It had evidently been soaked in cold fire and burned brightly on her breast. Then Ruby went into a slow death agony, humming Chopin's funeral march, her moth life and the lurid flame on her breast expiring at the same moment.

Rona Barrette and the promise of more speech from Clover were completely forgotten.

The Applause-O-Meter went right off the scale for Ruby Charisma.

“W
HAT HAPPENED?” ASKED
Clarisse, looking around with apparent surprise. It was only twenty minutes after Ruby Charisma had received her $350 prize for the talent show. The crowd that had viewed and cheered and laughed with all the acts was almost gone. The twenty or so patrons who remained in Slate were scattered listlessly against the walls or sat nursing beers at the bar. “Where did everybody go all of a sudden? Did Saturday night suddenly shut down?”

“Self-preservation took over,” Valentine said with a grimace. He stood behind the bar, transferring bottles of beer into a cooler. “As soon as the show was over, everybody decided that Slate wasn't the safest place in the world to be, so they went somewhere safer, and more exciting.”

“Safe?” Clarisse said with a scowl. “This bar isn't safe? There are five police cruisers parked practically at the front door. District D is less than a hundred feet away—”

“I'm talking about murders, Lovelace, not muggings. It's gotten around that the necktie killer hangs out here in Slate. Bander wasn't just being flip this afternoon when he said people were staying away from here. People are worried enough about picking up AIDS. You think they're also going to risk ending up like Jed and the All-American Boy and—”

“So we spent over a thousand dollars to set up this evening, and everybody leaves five minutes after the show's over. Boy, that's ingratitude,” Clarisse said loftily.

“Not everybody's gone,” said Valentine. “The cops are still here.”

Clarisse swiveled slowly around on the stool. “There are cops in here?” She glanced over the tiny crowd.

“Since Jed was killed, they've been stopping by here almost every night before closing time. This evening they've been in here since the show began.”

Clarisse turned back around and put down her glass. “Why haven't you told me this before now?” she asked soberly. “Why were you holding back?”

“Because I didn't want you worrying about it, and I didn't want you thinking every other man who came in here was a cop.”

“What does this say about the trust that exists between you and me?” Clarisse exclaimed. “Did you tell Sean? I'll bet you did. Did you tell Niobe?”

Two men sitting a few stools down at the bar glanced over at Valentine and Clarisse as if waiting to hear more of the argument.

Valentine made a sharp motion for her to lower her voice. “Don't get hysterical.” He tossed the empty box and leaned his elbows on the bar as he spoke in a low, confidential tone.

“Niobe doesn't know about it, and neither does Sean, but I suppose it really wouldn't be fair not to let you in on it. When the cops talked to me after Jed was killed, they told me they were putting this place under surveillance. They told me not to tell anybody else, and I said, ‘Does that include Clarisse, my best friend in the world?' and they said yes, it did. And that's why I didn't tell you.”

Clarisse smiled. “All right, I get the picture.” She looked past him to the mirror behind the bar. “Where are the cops? Point them out to me. I hate being watched without knowing who's doing the watching.”

“I promised I wouldn't.” Valentine hedged.

Clarisse's mouth dropped. “I cannot believe you're saying this to me. Me, who would walk over white-hot coals and eat raw anchovies if it would help you.”

Valentine relented but said seriously, “Promise you'll keep a very tight lid on this. It really is important, Lovelace.”

“I swear on the very earth that will cover me one day. Where are they?”

“Keep looking in the mirror. Now, you see the guy leaning against the cigarette machine? The one with the mustache, wearing the tank top?”

“That hunk?”

“And the guy against the mirror with the five o'clock shadow beard wearing the green T-shirt and denim cutoffs?”

“The blond bombshell?”

“Now, look over there. See B.J. and her two friends? Follow their heavy cruise to the one with no shirt and the leather vest.”

“The clone with the mustache?” Clarisse drew her eyes away from the glass and eyed Valentine suspiciously. “Did you handpick them?”

“Clarisse, the cops know better than to try to smoke out a killer with a troll or somebody who looks like an obvious misfit. And for God's sake, if they come in while you're on, don't offer them free drinks.”

Clarisse studied the three policemen in the mirror once more. “You don't suppose they put gay cops on this detail, do you? Those three look too right, too comfortable.”

“Not when you watch closely. They can't quite pull it off. They've got the hair okay, and they've got the clothes down, but they can't get the eyes right. They don't know how to cruise, and they're probably looking for a man walking around with ties trailing out of his back pocket.”

Clarisse heaved a sigh and slid her glass across to Valentine. “More scotch, please. I'm depressed. It's Saturday night. It's Gay Pride Weekend, and fifty percent of our clientele thinks the other fifty percent are murder suspects. Two months ago this was the hottest bar in town, and now look around. This place is about as popular as the lower deck lounge of the
Titanic
.”

“I called your uncle this week—” said Valentine.

“You called Noah? You didn't tell me that, either!”

“I told him business is falling off because of this.”

“What did he say?”

“He gave me a bit of advice.”

“Which was?”

“Find the murderer.”

Clarisse clicked her tongue. “Easy for him to say from the safe distance of Morocco.”

Valentine looked around the bar. Three men walked out together. No one came in to bring the population back up again. “I wish
I
were in Morocco,” he said with a sigh.