Slate (21 page)

“We have a little more than that,” said Valentine. “We know that somebody tried to kill you with a Betamax, and we know that Julia and Susie's Betamax is missing. Julia told you it was being repaired, but we know that it's not at any repair shop in the Boston area.”

“That kind of negative proof is inadmissible,” said Clarisse

“You know the problem with all this?” said Valentine.

“What?”

“Nobody has a sufficient motive. Nothing to risk killing for. Julia and Susie—blackmail that happened five years ago? Come on. And Julia already had her revenge on Sweeney—she broke his arm, remember? Ashes wants a two-bit column in a two-bit throwaway rag? That's hardly the top of the publishing heap. And Mr. Fred, still upset about some lovers' tiff that happened five or six years ago when he was a lush? And Linc—no motive at all.” Valentine paused for a beat, and then said, “You know what I think the missing piece of the puzzle is?”

“What?”

“That last column Sweeney wrote. The one Ashes said got lost. The one Joe saw on Ashes' desk.”

Clarisse looked at him but said nothing.

V
ALENTINE AND CLARISSE had made no progress in their investigation into the murder of Sweeney Drysdale II. The following four days were taken up with the last-minute details for the opening of Slate. On Saturday evening at nine o'clock, all the months of hard work began to pay off. The doors opened and the celebration began. A line of men, three and four abreast, snaked along Warren Avenue and around the corner by the abandoned playground. The night was cold, though not as frigid as it had been on Christmas. There was no wind, however, and no one complained.

Inside, Valentine and Ashes were kept continually busy behind the bar. Valentine wore a tuxedo shirt with a black bow tie and black leather pants. Ashes wore the same outfit except for the addition of a black leather vest. The newly hired runners, Felix and Larry, were in constant motion bringing supplies from the cellar and making sure bottles of beer and drink glasses did not clutter the wall shelves and dark corners. Clarisse came down about nine-thirty and edged onto a stool between Valentine and Ashes' stations. Valentine mixed a scotch and water for her. She wore a full length gown of dove-gray watered silk; a small cluster of white camellias rested in the gathered V of the bodice. They had been sent, along with a congratulatory telegram, from Noah Lovelace. He had decided, after all, not to attend the opening of the bar. Clarisse's hair was swept gracefully back from her face and in each earlobe was a tiny silver star. She swiveled about on her stool with her drink in hand and looked about. The barroom was pleasantly crowded and the air was sparked with laughter and conversation beneath the loud music.

The patterned tin ceiling was completely obscured by a mass of black and white balloons and packets of silver confetti. The thin silver netting holding the decorations was to be released precisely on the twelfth stroke of midnight. Multicolored streamers dangled to a point just above the patrons' heads and were kept in constant gentle motion by slowly revolving ceiling fans. Two pale amber beams played constantly across the crowd and the slate walls were blushed with patches of red and pink light. Clarisse turned back to the bar and was about to try to get Valentine's attention when she noticed Linc at the end stool at the front of the bar. He sat hunched forward, staring at Valentine as he guzzled a beer. From his expression, Clarisse wondered if he were practicing some speech that he hoped would bring him back into Valentine's graces—and bed—by midnight.

Finally, she captured Valentine's attention, and he came over in high spirits.

“You're stunning,” he said. “And this evening is well on its way to becoming the best in my life.”

“The whole world looks beautiful to you this evening,” she added, “at least as much of it as you can see within this barroom.”

“Did you see Mr. Fred and Miss America?” He nodded toward the back, and Clarisse had to sit up slightly for a clear view. Mr. Fred and his sister stood among a small knot of leather-clad, bearded men—the Long Island Spuds, Clarisse supposed. Fred wore a tuxedo completely covered with deep scarlet spangles, the intense color relieved only by black piping along the wide lapels and the pockets. America's hair was fixed into a loose chignon encircling the back of her head. She wore a white forties-style dress with padded shoulders, dark hose, and ankle-strap heels. In one hand she held a white clutch bag and with the other she turned the wrist of the tallest of the Spuds, critically examining his nails. Mr. Fred was chatting amiably with three more of them and taking tiny sips from a can of Tab.

“America looks great,” Clarisse remarked, “but where in the civilized world did Mr. Fred get that outfit?”

“America made it for him.”

Clarisse turned and nodded once in the opposite direction, toward Linc. “Is he trying for a New Year's reconciliation?”

“He's building up to it, but every time he looks like he's about to have meaningful conversation I slide another beer across to him.”

“Come midnight, he'll be crying in those beers.”

Valentine shrugged. “The room is full of shoulders more than willing to bear Linc's tears.”

A number of men were leaning over the bar trying to capture Valentine's attention. He winked at Clarisse and went back to work. Clarisse took a long swallow of her scotch and turned toward the bar's main entrance. Apologetic Joe was sitting on a stool to the right of the door, checking the IDs of those who appeared under age. Putting down her glass and easing off the stool, Clarisse made her way over to him.

“How's it going, Joe?” she asked.

He handed back a photo identification card to a young man and then glanced at the counter in his other hand. He depressed a button and the line of numbers increased by one. “We're already over capacity. That's great.”

“Joe, I left my keys up in my apartment and I need to go up to the office. Can I borrow yours?”

Joe checked another ID, clicked his counter again, and then reached around and unhooked his key ring from a back belt loop.

Clarisse took the entire ring and then stepped quickly away. She edged through the coatcheck room and went up the circular staircase. The office door was already unlocked and Clarisse hurried inside. She didn't turn on the light but grabbed her fur coat from the coat rack where she'd left it earlier that day. She went out onto the landing and closed the office door behind her. She was startled by Julia and Susie's voices coming down the stairs from the landing above.

“Will you move it, woman?” Susie demanded. “It's already eleven o'clock and we have got less'n an hour to get feelin' good. Now come on, come on, move it!”

“Douse your jets, bitch, I'm hurryin'!” Julia shot back, but there was no anger in her voice.

Clarisse met the two women on the landing.

“Where you goin'?” demanded Julia.

“Party that bad, huh?” said Susie.

“The party's great,” returned Clarisse, “but Valentine needs another hundred pounds of ice, and I said I'd get it for him. Here,” she said, unlocking the door to the office, “you two go through here. That way you won't have to wait in line outside.”

“Whoa, thanks! ” said Susie, and preceded Julia into the office. After Clarisse had shut the door behind them, and checked to make sure it locked, she descended to the street. She held her coat closed and excused herself through the line of waiting men. She commandeered a taxi that had just deposited four lethally drunk men in front of the bar.

Through the partition window, she gave the driver her destination and then sat back and relaxed for the short drive. Now and then, she glanced out the window at knots of revelers on the sidewalk and occasionally in the street itself. Every restaurant and bar they drove past was crowded and noisy. Even though windows had been shut against the cold, the sound of partying could be heard from almost every apartment building.

When the taxi came to a stop before a townhouse on upper Marlborough Street, Clarisse asked the driver to wait, but he refused. She paid him, leaving a pointedly small tip, and climbed out of the taxi. She rushed across the sidewalk and up the steps of the building.

After searching for the correct key from Joe's ring to unlock the door, Clarisse went inside. She was hit with the noise of loud music and a maze of voices crashing down from the upper floors.

Clarisse had never been to Paul Ashe's apartment before, but she remembered the address from some paperwork that she had helped Valentine with only the day before. She knew from off-handed remarks from Ashes that he lived in a basement flat, and she hoped that she wouldn't have to choose between doors. She hurried across the small entrance area, picked up the hem of her dress, and descended a narrow flight of uncarpeted stairs to the single apartment door at the basement level. Nailed to the door was a triangular metal road sign reading Dangerous Equipment Ahead.

Now she only had to hope that Ashes had given Apologetic Joe a key to his place and that Joe kept the key on the ring that Clarisse held in her nervous hand. The tension in her face eased for a moment as the third key she tried turned the bolt in the lock. She opened the door and stepped over the threshold, easing the door shut behind her. She stood in the dark a moment, just listening.

She heard nothing but the hum of the refrigerator and the traffic outside on Marlborough Street.

She slid the palm of her hand up along the wall by the side of the door and found the switch. The ceiling light in the living room came on blindingly, and at the same time the stereo receiver began blasting out the Stompers' new hit single at full volume.

Clarisse slapped at the wall switch and the room was again plunged into darkness and silence.

She bumped her way across the room and turned on a floor lamp she had seen in the instant of light and noise. Clarisse hadn't known what to expect to find in Ashes' apartment—three rooms with a dungeon motif, perhaps. It looked, however, as if most of the furniture had come from a family beach house. The larger pieces were of natural-color wicker with chintz-covered cushions. A pale-blue-and-tan Oriental carpet covered the floor. Two of the living room walls were floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and all the shelves were full to overflowing. On the coffee table, Joe's Walkman rested on the open pages of the current
Rolling Stone
. A doorway to Clarisse's right opened into a narrow walk-in kitchen, and another doorway in the back led to a bedroom that looked to be substantially larger than the living room.

Clarisse crossed to Ashes' desk and seated herself in a Hitchcock chair. She immediately began searching through all the drawers, carefully attempting to return anything she removed to its original position. Sweeney Drysdale's missing column was not to be found. She stood and moved about the room, looking in every corner, on every shelf, and under and around every piece of furniture that might make a good hiding place. She decided to assume that Ashes had not hidden the column in any of his books, because that would have been too obvious—and because it would have been impossible to look through them all, anyway.

She went into the kitchen and pulled on the chain light. On a shelf above the old-fashioned gas stove, between a can marked Coffee and a can marked Tea, she saw a neatly folded sheet of white typing paper. Clarisse smiled, took down the sheet, and carefully unfolded it.

She found three typewritten recipes for Italian casseroles.

Suppressing the intense desire to crumple it up in frustration, she refolded the page and put it back on the shelf.

She went through the utensil drawer, plundered the cabinets above and beneath the sink, peered along the shelves of the refrigerator, and rolled out the vegetable crispers. She pulled off the light and returned to the living room. She went into the bedroom and snapped on a dark blue ginger-jar lamp on the nightstand. She seated herself on the edge of the unmade bed and looked around. The brick-walled bedroom was dark and cluttered; there was track lighting, and Christmas tree lights were webbed against the wall facing the bed. More books were stacked against the wall. The open doors of the louvered closet revealed a long rack of clothes on hangers and on the floor of the closet a tangle of discarded jeans, flannel shirts, and black engineer boots. On a shelf on top were half a dozen large clear-plastic boxes filled with ropes, buckles, black leather straps, underwear, and things she couldn't quite imagine a use for. In the corner, its base weighted with stacks of glossy magazines, was a four-foot Christmas tree, complete with twinkling white lights, silver balls, tinsel, and, on the top, a silver angel playing a tiny silver violin.

The bedroom was so cluttered, Clarisse didn't know where to begin to look for the column. She glanced at the bedside table. Beside an amber glass ashtray littered with several varieties of cigarette butts was an open pack of Kools.

Clarisse wanted one desperately.

She opened the drawer of the bedside table. Inside were just the sorts of things that Valentine kept in his bedside table. She picked about in there for a moment and then looked longingly at the cigarettes again.

She pushed the Kools a little farther away. The pack fell to the floor between the table and the bed. Moving the table in order to reach it, she suddenly saw her face reflected in a silver glass ball that had evidently fallen from the tree and rolled across the floor. She smiled down at her reflected image in the distorting surface of the silver ball. She saw the light bulb in the ginger-jar lamp—and she saw something else as well.

She slid her hand up under the nightstand and found a business-sized envelope taped to the bottom of the drawer. With growing excitement, she carefully peeled the envelope free. She held it in her hand a moment before employing a long thumbnail to slit open the sealed flap. She pulled two typewritten sheets of paper out and smoothed them open across her thigh.