Slate (5 page)

Clarisse waved down to Julia who gunned the engine again in response. Susie went to the desk and flicked on the telephone answering machine, then flung open a closet door and pulled out a short oxblood leather jacket and a glittery red motorcycle helmet. “You all stay and finish your beers. Nice meetin' you, Daniel, Linc. 'Bye, Clarisse!” And she was out the door.

Valentine, Linc, and Clarisse peered out the window again as Susie appeared noisily on the sidewalk below. She strapped on her helmet, swung onto the back of the cycle, and threw her long slender arms about Julia's waist. With an explosion of exhaust, the motorcycle wheeled around and roared out of sight.

“Aren't they sweet together?” asked Clarisse.

Valentine sighed heavily and put his can aside. “Let's get out of here. I just want to go home and take an overdose of Valium and forget this entire goddamn neighborhood.”

“I'd like to see the downstairs again, if you don't mind,” said Linc.

They returned to the barroom and Linc looked about the place again, this time even more closely than before. When he was finished, he leaned against the bar, folded his arms and hooked one heel of his boot over the tarnished brass footrest. He addressed Valentine and Clarisse in a businesslike tone. “It wouldn't take more than five fulltime workmen to get this place in shape by the end of the year. That is, if you subcontract the plumbing, plastering, and wiring. It hasn't been abused, just neglected. If you get somebody in here who knows what he's doing, you'll have a real gem on your hands by New Year's. I don't mean just this bar, but the apartments upstairs, too.”

“You know five honest hard-working men?” Clarisse asked.

“If I count myself, I do.”

“Count yourself,” said Valentine. “When can the five honest hard-working men begin work?”

“By the end of the week.”

“Is this a ploy?” asked Clarisse with a half-smile.

“What kind of ploy?” Linc asked, surprised.

“Either you're desperate for a job, or you're desperate to hang around my friend Valentine here.”

Linc laughed shyly. “I do want the job,” he confessed. “Very much. But,” he added, glancing at Valentine, “hanging around here might not be so bad either.”

“Fair enough,” said Clarisse.

“As far as I'm concerned,” said Valentine, “you've got the job.” He looked once more about the grimy, shadowy room. “You know,” he said seriously, “maybe I should have stayed in the hospital. I was happy there with my IVs and my tranquilizers and people waiting on me, and—”

“And no job,” Clarisse cut in, “and no future, and no security. There's a chance you can have that now.” She waved a hand around, vaguely pointing into the dim corners of the barroom. “
This
is your future.”

V
ALENTINE AND CLARISSE MOVED into their new apartments on a Saturday afternoon three weeks after Linc had first been shown the place. While waiting for the permits to be processed and construction materials for the bar to arrive, Linc and his crew of four put Valentine and Clarisse's apartments into habitable condition. Valentine's kitchen was refitted with new, smaller stainless steel appliances. The depredations of the occupancy of the former occupants were erased from Clarisse's apartment. All miscellaneous pieces of furniture, everything that had not been hurled from the windows on the night of the eviction, were taken out and junked. The rooms were rewired and new lighting installed in every room. The walls were patched and painted and the floors sanded to a high polish. Following Clarisse's careful instructions, her small second bedroom had been converted into a study with shelves and soundproofing.

Clarisse felt a little guilty that her apartment was so much larger than Valentine's—she had the entire fourth floor to herself. But Valentine said, “I'll be spending all my time in the bar. I don't need more room than this. Besides, I love the idea of living across the hall from a respectable prostitute and her girlfriend. Adds spice.”

By the end of the three weeks, necessary city clearances had been obtained for the bar renovations and the selective demolition was begun. As Valentine was returning to the rental truck downstairs for yet another box of Clarisse's clothes, Linc opened the front doors of the bar and beckoned him inside. He appeared to be excited about something, but Valentine couldn't hear what he was saying over the noise of the power saws in the back of the barroom. Valentine followed Linc inside and over to the wall opposite the bar.

Linc reached up and violently ripped off a section of the paneling. “Look what's behind it,” Linc exclaimed. Valentine put the carton on the floor and pressed his hand flat against the exposed wall surface. Despite the layers of grime and dust it felt cool and smooth, but he couldn't immediately identify the material.

“Slate,” said Linc. “Pure slate. It's just beautiful.” He took the kerchief from his back pocket and proudly wiped the exposed slate clean. “Beautiful…”

A smile appeared on Valentine's face and grew broad as he drew his hand over the cold, gray surface. “Slate,” he said, pleased. “Wouldn't be such a bad name for the place, would it?”

About a week later, a little after four o'clock on a Friday afternoon, Valentine sat in the office above the bar. After finishing the apartments upstairs, the workmen had tackled this small space. Valentine decided he would need it long before the bar itself was completed. The walls had been replastered and painted charcoal gray and the floor was covered with off-white carpeting. A glass-shaded floor lamp sat between two easy chairs Valentine had had in his old apartment. On the walls, he had hung three large frames containing playing cards from his own substantial collection. The room was already comfortably cramped, the way the office of a bar always is. A green-shaded desk lamp illuminated papers and checkbooks scattered across the green blotter on the desk. Valentine's chair was swiveled around to face the new one-way mirror that had been installed Thursday. He looked out over the work in progress and saw Slate as it would be if he succeeded in remaining within Noah's budget and Linc's estimates.

Although the workmen had gone home early this first day of the weekend, a lone figure stood below at the bar. It was Paul Ashe. He was leaning with his elbows on the bar, poring over one of the bar giveaway magazines that were already being delivered—in quantity—to Slate. A portable radio sat at one end of the bar, and he tapped his foot in time to music Valentine could not hear. He and his paper were lighted by a single bulb in a wire cage that dangled on a long cord from an exposed fixture in the ceiling.

Ashes, as Paul was generally known, was painfully slender. His black hair and chin-strap beard were heavily flecked with gray. He wore, as nearly always, a black T-shirt and faded blue jeans. One thin bicep was bound with a three-inch-wide band of black leather with three rows of chrome-plated studs. A silver amyl nitrite inhaler dangled from a leather thong tied about his neck. On a left belt loop of his jeans was a heavy key ring from which two subsidiary rings jangled, each with more than a dozen keys of various sizes and colors. Peeking out of his left back pocket were pointed corners of red, yellow, blue, khaki, and black bandannas.

Ashes had given notice two weeks before at another gay bar in Back Bay to come to work for Valentine. Clarisse had briefly looked askance at Ashes' wasted appearance and his avowed fondness for drugs and the outer, experimental reaches of gay sexuality, but Valentine merely said, “He's got a good head for business and he's helped to set up at least two bars I know about.”

Valentine straightened the papers on his desk, put away the checkbooks, and went down to the bar.

“Anything interesting?” he asked when he saw that Ashes was reading the personals in
Jason's Thing
. Ashes contributed a biweekly column on the goings and doings of motorcycle clubs of southern New England. Instead of payment, he received as many free advertisements in the personals as he wanted.

Ashes pointed to one of the small-type entries on the open page of the paper.

“ ‘
Paramilitary Dutch lesbian desires transsexual penpals of all ages
. Box 130',” Valentine read aloud.

“Not that one,” said Ashes. “The one right next to it.” Relieved, Valentine then read aloud: “‘
Wanted: GM, age/race/looks unimportant, for WS, FFA, humiliation, scat, regurgitation, spit, footwork, verbal abuse, catheters, bondage, bestiality, shaving, initiation and hazing fantasies, hot wax, oil, prolonged immobility, genitorture, simulated operations, and cuddling. Please respect my limits. Box 117
.'”

“Well, Ashes,” said a voice from the front of the bar, “still the romantic, I see.”

“Who is that?” asked Valentine, peering into the dimness beyond the pool of light.

As the man stepped forward, his silhouette took on substance and color. Ashes' mouth creased tight in displeasure.

Sweeney Drysdale II wore a tweed sports jacket with suede patches at the elbows, a rust-red V-neck sweater, and a solid dark brown velvet bow tie on a wide-striped shirt. His height was just a bit over five feet, his frame was slight and frail, and he bought all his clothes in Jordan-Marsh's boys' department. His hair was blond, thinning, and combed straight over from a left-hand part. On the whole, he looked like one of the “Our Gang” kids gone corporate. He brushed imaginary lint from his gray wool slacks, pushed his large-framed red glasses against the bridge of his nose, and smiled in deliberate hypocrisy.

“Ashes, I just had to stop by after I read your mention of this place yesterday.” Sweeney Drysdale swiveled his head around as if he were looking about, but his eyes remained on Ashes. “Of course you made it sound like
Paradise Regained
, but I must tell you that it looks like the Ninth Circle of Hell illustration by Doré.” He leveled his smile at Valentine. “Hello, Daniel.”

“Sweeney,” said Valentine tonelessly.

“It's gorgeous,” said Sweeney without looking around and with a startling intensification of his hypocritical smile. “Who's your decorator? Or perhaps I should ask, have you really found exactly the right person to project your intended image of masculinity coupled with social awareness and a keen appreciation of the good life?”

“I'm pretty much designing it myself,” said Valentine, ignoring Sweeney's sarcasm. “With a little help from Ashes here.”

Sweeney blinked, paused for a beat, and said, “I'm sure it will be fabulous in the extreme.” He took a deep breath, smiled as he held it, and as he exhaled, asked politely, “Aren't you going to show me around your new domain, Mr. Valentine? You and I can leave Ashes here to puzzle out the obscurer abbreviations in the personals. Who knows, Ashes? Maybe you'll find something you haven't tried, though I must admit that seems unlikely…”

“Well,” said Valentine, hedging and again ignoring Sweeney's barbs, “the place is still pretty torn up. I'm not sure it would be such a good idea to show you around right now…”

“That's right,” said Ashes, not looking up from his paper. “It would be a real pity if you tripped on a board and a ten-inch nail got driven right through your brain. Or if you accidentally turned on the power saw in the cellar and got your fingers cut off, one by one, and then your arms, and then your feet…”

“Exaggeration purely for effect is
so
cheap,” Sweeney said, straightening his shirt cuffs. “You
ought
to show me around, Daniel,” he went on. “As you well know, my column makes bars.” He flicked a speck of lint from his lapel. “And it breaks bars. I'd be careful whose bad side I got on. It's not even Halloween, and this place won't open till New Year's. That's a long time. You could get so much bad mouth in that amount of time that it wouldn't even be worthwhile to open your doors. Hate to see anything like that happen, though.”

Ashes was about to say something further, but Valentine placed a hand on Ashes' arm. “So,” Sweeney said unexpectedly, “ just heard you were having some troubles with your major investor in the place.”

“My major investor?” Valentine asked patiently.

“La Belle Lovelace, of course. She's putting up most of the money, isn't she? That's what I hear.”

“No, that's wrong.”

“Without her you would never have been able to open a place yourself. That's what everybody says.”

“Do they?”

“Yes,” Sweeney said with a tight smug smile, “they do.”

“You know,” remarked Valentine wearily, “this is none of your fucking business. So why don't you do us a favor and go away?”

“What?” exclaimed Sweeney in genuine surprise.

“Open the front door,” said Valentine. “Step outside. Close the front door behind you.”

“And keep walking,” Ashes added with a vague smile as he turned the page of his paper. “Go north. That's a good direction. Change your name. Cut off your nose to spite your face.”