Jade in Aries (6 page)

“When you see Manzoni,” he went on, “do keep that in mind. If he looks to you as though he would prefer lucre to lunacy, see if you can find out how much it would take to turn him into a rational being.”

I shook my head. “Even if he were the type to take it,” I said, “which I doubt from what I’ve heard about him, I’m not the type to offer it. You’ll have to do that yourself, if you want it done. And if you’re going to do it, I’ll have to bow out and have no more connection with the case.”

Cornell said, anxiously, “No no, don’t do that! I didn’t say anything about a bribe, this is the first Stew’s even mentioned it.”

“I simply thought it would be quick and neat, if possible,” Remington said, and shrugged his heavy shoulders expressively, to show he didn’t much care one way or the other.

“If you decide to approach Manzoni that way,” I said, “be sure to let me know first, so I can be well clear before you try it.”

Remington smiled like a cupid. “When a man says something like that,” he said, “I ask no more questions. Bribery is too dangerous to consider; consider it unconsidered.”

“Good,” I said, and saw that Cornell looked less anxious.

Remington said to me, “So what you’re going to do is detect, is that it?”

“With any luck.”

“Forgive me, but have you a license?”

“No.”

“Now
you’re
being frightening.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “I can’t apply for a license, for reasons of my own.”

“I respect everyone’s private reasons, and ask only for the same treatment in return. But what if the dread Manzoni turns his attention toward you? Can’t he make life difficult?”

“If I’m not careful.”

“So you intend to be careful.” His smile this time was almost a smirk. “Most of my clients intended to be careful,” he said. “But all of a sudden, there they were in Times Square with their trousers around their ankles. Very well, you’ll be careful. In the meantime, is there anything I can do to be of assistance?”

“I think so,” I said.

“You have only to ask.”

“Good. The first thing I want to know is where you were at nine o’clock Monday evening.”

His look of surprise may have been the first genuine unamplified expression I’d yet seen from him, and it was shortlived, followed almost at once by a roar of laughter. Cornell was looking embarrassed, but neither of us paid him any attention. I sat there and watched Remington, and he rolled about, helpless with mirth, and watched me, and finally he allowed the tempest to subside; wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, he said, “So I’m on your little list, am I? That
will
complicate our teamwork, won’t it? I was at the bath.”

“All evening?”

“Oh, for hours and hours. I got there about seven, and I don’t believe I left until well after three in the morning.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t follow you. You took a bath from—”

“No no, not
in
the bath,
at
the bath. The Borough Hall Baths, it’s a public bath, maintained by the City of New York or the Borough of Brooklyn or some other excellent body. Swimming pool, steam rooms, massage, bathing, and lots of little cubicles with cots in which to”—he
did
smirk this time—“rest awhile. I love to go there.” He turned and smirked at Cornell. “Ronnie used to go there, long long ago, didn’t you, Ronnie?”

“Before Jamie.” It was a whisper, but full of misery. Cornell had suddenly been given a vision of his future. Even without Detective Manzoni, it would be bleak.

I said, “Did anybody see you there, anybody who knew you?”

“Well, they
got
to know me, I do assure you of that. But honestly, you know, it’s not exactly the sort of crowd that would like to get on a witness stand and say, ‘Oh, yes, I was there and so was he.’ It gets a little scary to talk about one’s fun under oath like that.”

“I’m not talking about oaths and courts,” I said. “I’m talking about me.”

“
I
know that. But would my witnesses? Tobin, I would love to clear myself off your list, but I can’t think of a single person I could send you to who would admit to being at the bath himself, much less identify me as one of the other revelers there.”

“All right. Let that go for a minute.”

“Yes, let’s.”

“You said before that Cornell told you he was investigating Dearborn’s murder. When did he tell you?”

“
After
the attempt on him, I’m happy to say. Right in this very room here. However, honesty compels me to admit I already knew it.” Turning, grinning, to Cornell, he said, “You didn’t exactly maintain tight security, Ronnie, you know. I imagine half a dozen people knew what you were up to. Jerry’s the one who told me, and you know what a big-mouth Jerry is. What he knows, the whole world knows.”

I said, “Who’s Jerry?”

Remington looked back at me with a big happy beaming smile on his face. “My current darling,” he said. “Just the sweetest little pudgy angel you’ve ever seen. All curves, no harsh angles.”

Cornell, now embarrassed about me, said, “Stew, please!”

“You’re right,” Remington said, briskly but without remorse. “Jerry,” he announced, as though it were the title of a speech he was about to make. “Jerry Weissman. Army brat. Nineteen years of age, currently sharing my bed and board. Also a blabbermouth. Jerry Weissman.”

I said to Cornell, “I don’t remember that name from the list.”

“He isn’t on it,” Cornell said.

“Why not?”

“He was with me the night Jamie was killed.”

“With you?”

I thought I’d asked the question in a neutral way, but Cornell blushed and said, “Not like that. I wasn’t—I never—”

“Ronnie and
Jamie
were lovers,” Remington said, the sarcasm in his voice unsuccessfully hiding envy. “True to one another, with great exclusivity. A terrible waste, in my opinion.”

I said to Cornell, “Where were you two?”

“In Atlanta,” he said. “I come from there originally.” My surprise must have shown, because he smiled faintly and said, “I know I don’t sound like it. I worked very hard at that. And going to northern universities helped.”

“But you were back in Atlanta the night Dearborn was killed? With—I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten the last name. Jerry …”

“Weissman,” Remington said, rolling the name mock-lovingly off his tongue. “Just think of him as being beautifully white. Alabaster.”

Cornell said, “Jerry’s a designer, a men’s fashion designer. He’s just starting out, and we had him do some designs for us. There’s a little place in Atlanta that makes up some of our things for us—”

“Cheap labor,” Remington commented. “Non-union.”

“That’s exactly right,” Cornell said, with something defensive in his tone. There were undercurrents between Cornell and Remington on this point, but I couldn’t tell what they were. Cornell went on, “We flew down Saturday morning, Jerry and I, talked to the people there in the afternoon, and stayed over Saturday night. We flew back Sunday. That’s when I found …” Instead of finishing the sentence, Cornell shook his head and moved his hands vaguely in the air.

“All right,” I said. “Do you have anything written down from your investigations? Lists of names, alibis, anything like that?”

“It’s all in my desk at the shop,” he said. “At least, it was. I don’t know, maybe he did something with it all after he hit me.”

“Nobody’s checked?”

“I didn’t ask anybody to. Jerry might know, he’s been keeping the shop running this week. We can’t afford to stay closed any longer.”

“Then he’s the one I should see for the keys.” To Remington, I said, “At your place?”

“Sadly, no,” he said, and Cornell explained, “Jerry’s staying at my apartment. There has to be someone there for the cats, and so the place doesn’t get robbed.”

“Does he know about me? Can I go to see him directly?”

“I told him about you,” Cornell said. “He doesn’t know yet that you’re going to help, but he knows who you are.”

“Then I’ll go see him,” I said, and got to my feet. “I’ll probably come back and talk to you again tomorrow.”

Remington didn’t stand. He said, “I’m in the book, Tobin, if you need me for anything except alibis. The Brooklyn book. And you?”

“Queens,” I said. “Under my wife’s name. Katherine Tobin.”

Cornell said, “I appreciate this, Mr. Tobin.”

I was about to point out that I hadn’t yet done anything for him to appreciate, but of course I had. His spirits were improved, at least temporarily. I said, “I’ll see you later.”

From the door, I looked back and saw them both watching me, Cornell’s eyes full of hope and pleading, Remington’s expression sardonic. Remington had one glittering hand resting on the bed, near Cornell’s elbow. Cornell’s leg jutted up at an angle in its cast.

I knew that Remington would not talk against me behind my back, and yet I felt that he would. I closed the door, nodded to the bored cop in the chair in the hall, and left.

T
HERE ARE A FEW
picturesque corners of New York City, contrasting with the city’s general drabness, and of these one of the prettiest is Brooklyn Heights. A little section of narrow streets, trees and brownstones, it has a quiet and dignified appearance, and from parts of it can be seen a beautiful view of the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan, across the waters of the mouth of the East River. The actual waterfront is given over to piers and warehouses, as usual in New York, but on the heights above the waterfront there is a highway, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which for this part of its length is roofed over, the roof forming the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, a narrow parklike walk with trees and benches and a wide-ranging view of New York Harbor, from Brooklyn Bridge on the right to Governor’s Island and Buttermilk Channel on the left. The Promenade has become a habitual locale for cruising homosexuals out to meet new friends, and every once in a while is the scene of a late-night mugging. But neither apes nor perverts detract much from the charm and beauty of the area.

It was in the middle of the best part of Brooklyn Heights that Ronald Cornell lived, not two blocks from the Promenade. I had trouble finding a parking space, which is standard for that section, and had to walk back three blocks. There had been more snow in the last week, and only a narrow meandering path had been cleared along most of the sidewalks.

Cornell’s house was a brownstone, fairly wide, four stories tall, with its high front stoop intact. And carefully cleared of snow, as was the full width of sidewalk across the building front. I went up the steps, stamping snow off my shoes, and pushed open the tall narrow glass-paneled door into the tiny foyer.

The building was divided into two apartments, one taking the floor at this level and the floor below, the other on the top two floors. Since I understood that Cornell owned this building, I was surprised to see the card “Dearborn-Cornell” next to the upper bell button. I pushed, and a moment later there was a buzzing, and I went through the front doorway into a hall dominated by red flocked wallpaper and rich Persian carpeting. The carpeting continued up the staircase, which filled most of the hall space; just out of sight at the head of the stairs a door opened, causing light-spill to accentuate even more the dramatic wallpaper.

The bordello effect would have been Dearborn’s idea; it wasn’t Cornell’s style.

A blond head appeared up there: “Here we are! Come on up!”

I went on up, and as I approached I got a better look at the blond head. Was this Jerry Weissman? From what Cornell—and Remington—had said, I’d expected something other than this.

He was tall and willowy, with the seamless smiling face of the innocently depraved. The blond hair was not quite the right blond to be real, and considering the season, his deep tan looked equally artificial. He made me think of surfers and teen-age beach movies. He was the younger brother—and practically the younger sister—of the simulated human beings Cornell had been watching on television. He was dressed in white slacks and a pale blue pullover shirt, and was barefoot.

Could this be Jerry Weissman? I asked the name, half-expecting him to say no, and then had all my preconceptions twisted out of my reach when he
did
say no. “I’m Cary Lane,” he said, smiling at me, showing me teeth that didn’t look in any way real. “And if you aren’t Mitch Tobin, I don’t know
why
I let you in.”

“I am Mitch Tobin.”

“I just knew it! You have a look of quiet strength.” And I had the uncomfortable feeling he was about to stroke my cheek. But he didn’t; instead, he stepped back and made a welcoming gesture, saying, “Come on in, Mitch, Jerry’s inside. Oh! Watch the cat!”

An all-white cat had abruptly snaked through his white-clad legs, grimly intent on reaching the stairs. I bent with a quick scooping motion, was lucky enough to grab the cat in time, and walked into the apartment holding the animal in my arms. It had gone limp at once, and when Cary Lane shut the door I let the cat drop again, and it walked off as though it had never wanted to leave at all.

“Very nicely done,” Lane said admiringly. He made a willowy little hand motion, as though drying nail polish, to gesture me to go to the right. “Jerry’s in there,” he said.

I was remembering that Cary Lane was one of the names on Cornell’s list. “Thank you,” I said, and turned right.

New York City apartments frequently are laid out very awkwardly, the result of being adaptations from the original intent of the building. This building, for instance, would have been at the time of its construction around the turn of the century a private home, with kitchen and servant’s quarters on the ground floor, living and dining rooms on the second, and bedrooms and baths on the third and fourth. The alteration to a pair of independent apartments had left some anomalies, among them the entrance to the upper apartment.

The entrance was to a blank wall, the top of the stairs having emerged midway along a corridor running from front to back. To the left along that corridor was what looked like an unusually large kitchen for New York, and to the right—the direction Lane had steered me—was the living room.

The Dearborn aura continued dominant. The corridor had been lined on both sides with posters, both old ones of movies and circuses and new ones of art shows and rock groups, and now the living room was full of inflatable plastic furniture, lucite tables, strange light fixtures and oddly placed fur throws. There were two windows facing the street, curtainless; the white shades were pulled all the way down, and large stylized eyes had been drawn on them, one each. The one on the left was open, the one on the right was shut.