Beware the Solitary Drinker (14 page)

“They told me.”

“Maybe they didn't tell the truth.” This tone of hers, suggesting I was an idiot child, was getting on my nerves.

“Nigel was with his father. He wouldn't lie about that.”

“That should be easy enough to check,” said Janet smugly. I was sure we were having an argument, but I didn't know about what. She took a notebook out of her shoulder bag and stood up. “What's his last name and where does he live?”

“You're going to call Nigel's father, now?”

“Now,” she said.

I nursed my enchilada and slugged down a Dos Equis while I waited. She came back quickly.

“This amazing thing happened. I got the number from information, then dialed the number in Connecticut, and Nigel's father's office answered the phone in New York.”

“How about that?”

“He's very busy. But he'll see us.” She began gathering up her things.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Shit.” I had just drunk my third Dos Equis and needed a nap before work. Besides, I didn't want to talk to Nigel's father. Since I was a kid, I never got along with anyone's parents. On top of this, it was invading Nigel's privacy. It violated whatever friendship or acquaintanceship we had. Already, I'd dug into Reuben's life. Whatever happened to Do Unto Others? I certainly wouldn't want anyone digging into my life.

***

Edwin Barthelme occupied an office-living suite in the Olympia Towers, neighbor across one street to Rockefeller Center and across another to St. Patrick's Cathedral. After a concierge announced us—this concierge assisted by two subalterns, who, were they dressed differently, might easily be mistaken for goons—we took an elevator to the twenty-ninth floor.

When the elevator door slid open, we stepped out into Mr. Barthelme's plushly carpeted, elegantly appointed tax write-off. Himself, giving the impression of tallness, grayness, suaveness, and indifference, looked up from the far end of the suite, where he stood gazing over the city from his floor to ceiling window. He'd left the door between his office and the anteroom open and now walked across the room—about a quarter mile—stretching out his hand toward me when he got within hailing distance. All of this, given the expensive cut of his gray suit, the contrasting grays of the sky and buildings beyond the window, the gray blue of the carpet, and the wide, gray expanse of the room, was an event in itself. I watched raptly; it was better than any number of movie entrances I'd seen. Janet caught her breath. I expected I'd have to peel her off the double pile carpet.

In those few seconds, Barthelme took us both in. His eyes, though shining brightly enough in greeting, gave us to know, distinctly and beyond a shadow of doubt, that our relative wealth, social standing, and, more importantly, the amount of claim we might have on his time and interest had been measured. The results had been announced too, for those discerning enough to recognize them. We would not be taking up much of Mr. Barthelme's time.

“Edwin Barthelme.” The man grasped my hand firmly, his steady gray eyes meeting my undoubtedly bloodshot ones. In spite of myself, I looked away, and my self-esteem immediately dropped nine stories. Janet, though, I was happy to see, held up our end of the contract, going after him handshake to handshake, steady gaze to steady gaze.

He was one of those people not comfortable with being tall who tried too hard to get down close to the people smaller than him. It had left him with a permanent stoop to his shoulders. He also had that drastic thinness of the rich that suggests overbreeding, but his face was etched with lines of the toughness that comes from the hard hustle and that you don't see in those born to wealth, while the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes suggested he might have a sense of humor about the whole chase for a buck.

When we'd seated ourselves on chairs and couches grouped around a clear glass coffee table, Mr. Barthelme looked expectantly at me and, when I looked somewhat sheepishly back at him, at Janet. It was clear he was in charge. He would define the conversation, set the mood, establish the permissible. How the hell were we going to ask him where his son was that night, the question bringing with it the implication that we suspected Nigel of murder?

Janet knew how. “It is very unpleasant to have to ask you these questions,” she said. “And of course, you're under no obligation to answer.” Her voice wavered a little here, and her eyes began to mist over. “I could never even bring myself to do this, except I have to do everything I can, no matter how unpleasant, to find out what happened to my sister.” And there on the brink of accomplishment, she lost her composure. Her voice cracked; she stopped in mid sentence. Her faltering might have been forgivable if it hadn't put me on the spot. Sure enough, Barthleme turned to me, as if now that this woman was out of the way, we men could get to the point.

“I'll tell you what we're doing, Mr. Barthelme,” I said, stiffening my upper lip. “We're trying to find out everything we can about Angelina and everyone who knew her. Your son Nigel knew her.”

“I understand,” said Barthelme, “that a young woman with whom my son was acquainted was killed. I gather that her sister is distraught and understandably so. I don't know why you brought her here. I don't know what your role might be. Or mine. Or my son's.”

“Me neither,” I said, letting the “you brought her here” crack go.

Realizing I wasn't getting us anywhere, Janet regrouped. “We're asking about every single person that Angelina knew, not just Nigel. Can you understand how important it is for me to know what really happened to my sister?” Janet's face was appealing, showing that vulnerability in it again that on her was so fleeting.

“I understand sorrow far better than you could ever imagine… as does my son,” said Mr. Barthelme. “I understand your concern for your sister, but it's difficult for me not to resent your maligning my son.” His face didn't show anger exactly; it was more indignation. The rich have cornered the indignation market.

“Nigel said he was with you. We just want to make sure he was,” I said.

“If he told you, that should be sufficient. It would be for me.”

We stared at each other. One stare too many from Mr. Barthelme. I'd had enough of his superciliousness. “I'm sure it would be.…Would you mind telling us why you hadn't seen your son in ten years?”

A momentary start, an involuntary movement of his eyes. The overmatched challenger landed a surprising left hook and jarred the champ. Barthelme recovered quickly. But some of the arrogance was gone. Like the champ, he was more careful now, keeping his guard up, protecting himself while his head cleared. “It would be impertinent,” he said, but his voice held echoes of sadness. No longer imperious, he became a man. It was like a moment on the stage when real emotion breaks through, and you're held spellbound, audience and actors alike.

“I do understand sadness,” he said to Janet. “I wish there were some way to undo what happened to your sister, and I should understand that asking these questions gives you some satisfaction. And if you understood my life…but we all know there's not nearly enough understanding to go around.”

She looked at him gratefully. Now that we'd brought him down from his high horse, I was a little unsteady myself.

“My son came to see me that night a little over a week ago for the first time since he left home ten years before. It was the end of much bitterness and a long misunderstanding, a happy event for both of us, one of the few….”

“The night my sister was murdered?” Janet's voice was very quiet.

“I'm sorry.” He cast his eyes down, his face that of a sad, aging man.

“Uh, about that ten years, Mr. Barthelme?” I asked, interrupting the solemn silence.

He swung around to face me, and his eyes suddenly flamed with rage like I had landed a punch below the belt after the bell.

“I wondered why you hadn't seen Nigel in ten years,” I said.

“That's our business, sir. It doesn't concern you.”

***

The three of us waited for the elevator in strained silence. Janet paid our thanks. Edwin Barthelme stood beside her by the elevator door. I was struck by the equality we had achieved. No longer propped up by mystique, he seemed as bewildered and overcome by life as the rest of us.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, Janet moved to the far corner and glared at me. “You're awful,” she said. “How could you be so awful?”

“Awful?” I had no idea what had happened.

“How can you be so unfeeling?”

“Unfeeling?”

“You just trampled right over that man's feelings. You belong in that skid-row bar with your bums for friends. You don't know how to act among decent people.”

“Being rich makes you decent?”

“You just can't get over that, can you? You can't forgive anyone for being successful or well-to-do.”

“I thought we wanted to find out something.”

“We did. You didn't have to act like a thug.”

“Thug? Mr. Suave back there is tougher than all the thugs on Broadway. He'd chew them up and spit them out, then go out to dinner at the Four Seasons. You're the one with a problem.” My voice rose in opposition to the descent of the elevator. “You're the one who thinks that asshole is better than the folks I know on Broadway because he's rich. He's rich off the backs of his workers and the old ladies he dumps into the street.” I was puffing when the elevator touched ground. The doors opened and Janet stomped out, through the lobby and off down Fifth Avenue. I gave her the finger from the doorway.

Then I walked across the street to Rockefeller Center to look at the murals of the workers. Mad at myself for getting mad, I moped through the building where Diego Rivera had attempted to memorialize Lenin. Rockefeller's dad made him take it down. I remembered the poem by E.B. White that ended, “But after all, it's my wall.…‘We'll see if it is,' said Rivera.”

***

The next morning the phone, clanging like a fire alarm, woke me at ten-thirty, approximately four hours after I'd passed out on my bed. The night before, Ntango and the Eritreans held a reunion at the end of the bar, and Ntango kept tightening me up with blow. Consequently, I drank too much and stayed up too late, and couldn't fully remember coming home.

Janet came directly to the point. “I want to see the movie you picked up that night in Rocky's cellar,” she said.

At first, I didn't say anything because I was afraid of what my voice would sound like.

“Are you there?”

“I'm here,” I croaked.

“What's the matter?”

“I'm sick.”

“Did you get drunk?”

“I don't remember.…Why do you want to see the movie? Angelina isn't in it.”

“How do you know what's in it?”

***

I told her I'd meet her at three in front of Oscar's and went back to sleep. When I woke up again I still felt shaky and sick. Nonetheless, I called Carl to ask him to set up the projector in the cellar, this being Rocky's weekend in Staten Island, but Carl hung up on me.

I called Eric the Red, told him I had some porno flicks and asked him to pick up Rocky's movie projector and meet me at Oscar's.

After poached eggs and bacon at Tom's, I walked down the street a few blocks and found Eric and Janet standing in front of the darkened Oscar's. I wasn't sure what Janet was after. But I was pretty sure the Boss had already gotten rid of the films with Angelina in them, so I wasn't that worried.

“Why isn't Oscar open in the daytime,” Janet asked as I unlocked the door.

“He used to be but no one came in. Our customers only come out at night.”

“For good reason,” said Eric.

Eric set up the projector; the joint was dark enough to run the film on the wall. The first figure that appeared when the film came into focus was Carl van Sagan, wearing only a leering grin on his face, otherwise bare-ass naked but with his engorged penis at full salute, walking toward the camera and a dark-haired woman in a supine position, whose hair and back were all that were visible. The camera switched angles quickly to show the woman's face. She was young and waifishly pretty, and looked familiar. Her expression was enthusiastically lewd, suggesting she couldn't wait for Carl and his penis to arrive, but the sadness and fear in her eyes belied the enthusiasm.

“Isn't that Carl?” Janet sputtered in a shocked tone of voice somewhere between a whisper and a gasp.

“Jesus,” said Eric, in a whispered gasp of his own. “You can't. Where the fuck did you get this? Turn it off, man.” He reached for the projector.

I said, “No!”

“You don't understand, man,” Eric moaned.

“My God!” This time, Janet really shouted. There in front of us, his brilliant white teeth shining through his black beard, his body hairier than most bears', his weapon, as they say, at battle ready, was Eric the Red. Janet covered her face with her hands, sinking down in her seat. I shut off the projector.

“I told you, man. This is crazy,” said Eric. “You nuts?” He went behind the bar and poured himself a half a glass of vodka, which he threw down in one slug. “Why you do this? I'm embarrassed.”

“I didn't know you and Carl were movie stars.”

“You should mind your own business.” He poured another shot. “Just once…” Eric said. “Someone didn't show up.…The Boss and Rocky gave us about a pound of blow. We all got naked to have a party. Rocky took pictures.”

“Can we watch the rest of the movie,” Janet asked.

Eric blushed. I could see the red through the black of his beard.

“Who was the girl?” I asked Eric.

“I don't know. She worked for them. She'd been in here a couple of times—not that night. Oscar told me she gave Rocky blow jobs for nose candy.”