The Last Bender, Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

 

            Doctor and Mrs. St. Claude lived in northeast, where the streets are narrow and lined with tall trees and townhouses. Occasionally you come across a half block taken up by a monstrously ugly high rise. Between the drapes you see flashes of peach, mauve, and cappuccino, framed with black and white checks or broken mirrors.

            It took a while to get there, it was bumper to bumper all the way up Arbuckle Ave., but it was either that or the Cyrus Finch, and that was clogged with construction. I put on talk radio and listened to the neon fat man chew through humans like junk food. This vehement jerk spit cliches out into the tin pots of wireless fame. A gas station attendant seized control of the mike and ranted out his lumpenprole opinions for about an hour before someone pulled the plug and started to play classic hits. I was ready to roll the window down and suck exhaust fumes when traffic thinned out and shit started to chug.

            I tore a strip of road up all the way to Seventieth, where they lived, over between Knight and Twelfth. On the phone she said they owned the whole place. But she didn’t mention parking. Forget about it. There wasn’t a spot for ten blocks. Fuck Monozone. They could at least reimburse for a garage. But Laraby was the cheapest man alive.

            On the corner was a greengrocer. Beneath the navy blue awning sat pyramids of yellow tomatoes, bunches of purple basil, heads of red lettuce, piles of mottled beans, black radishes, orange peppers and white eggplants. The owner fussed with a spritzer and fell all over himself with gratitude and general rectum sucking every time some rich, leathery thing in overpriced athletic clothes stuck her nose in for a sniff. And going by the prices, they must have been grown on a private plot of land with round-the-clock nursing care.

              It was a pea green townhouse, with black trim and shutters. I went through the low, wrought iron gate and up the brick steps. Boxes planted with geraniums and velvety purple petunias brightened the first floor windows. I rang the bell. A minute later I rang again and heard feet thumping around. A muffled voice shouted something and then came the three successive clicks of the locks.

            She looked at me a moment and then smiled, releasing the chain and opening the door. She beckoned with her hand and said in a slightly ragged formal voice, “Come in Mr. Bartell. I was just about to have a drink. Care to join me?”   She walked me through to the back room overlooking a courtyard.

            “What you’re having will be fine,” I said.

            The courtyard was large, going back about forty feet and surrounded by a high brick wall with broken glass embedded along the top. Behind the wall rose a locust tree as tall as the next building. Flowers and shrubs edged all three visible sides. One hedge stood out with a flush of white and crimson flowers. There were a few redwood chairs and a chaise lounge next to an iron table. On the table was a glass and a newspaper. I could just make out the headline.

            “I’m having scotch. Would you like water or just ice?”

            The clock on the wall said 12:15. “You got any iced tea?”

            “Mr. Bartell, do I look like a waitress to you?”

            I gave Mrs. St. Claude the once over. She wasn’t bad looking for a morning souse; her eyes were a little watery, but her blond hair fell shiny and straight.  She wore a pleated tennis skirt, and sweaty tank top, sneakers and ankle socks. The left strap of the tank top was off her shoulder, which was hard from pumping iron and a little lined with age. I laughed. “No, not like a waitress.”

            “Then don’t confuse me with exotic drink orders.”

            “Try this then. Make it with water, hold the scotch.”

            “I don’t suppose your going to tire me out by making me guess where I should hold the scotch.”

            I let that one go and pointed out the window. “Nice bush,” I said.

            “Thank you. I grew it myself. Why don’t you take a seat Mr. Bartell, while I get your soft drink.”  

            The room was informal. Cream colored walls with white trim. Pressed tin ceiling. A shallow fireplace with a birch log on the grate. No poker, no tongs, no screen; no kindling, no newspaper. Just the white log. The clock on the mantle actually had a face with hands; it ticked and tocked and dinged and donged every fifteen minutes. I sat on a green leather easy chair which faced another just like it and a worn, overstuffed couch. In the middle was a  glass coffee table strewn with magazines.

            I flipped through the magazines backwards, reading the ads. One was for Eager, Energetic Lab Workers to Join Prestigious Research Team. Urizen Corp. It gave a Guernsey address. Then there were some personals for Eager, Energetic Professional Blah Blah to Fuck In The Back Of The Car At State Fairs, giving only Anywhere, Inania as the return address. I kept looking for hot tips on how to make a woman come but every article began with an abstract and soon degenerated into footnotes and tables. That didn’t seem to be the way to go about it.

            “That’s my husband’s publication. Find anything interesting?”

            “Not really. I was trying to make you come sooner by reading it. You know–”

            “Like smoking for a bus?” she asked, stirring her drink with her finger.

            “Something like that. I didn’t know Dr. St. Claude had a magazine.”

            “He doesn’t have a big magazine. But he is the editor. He says he likes to stay on top of the discourse in his field.”

            “I’d take her out for long rides then.”

            “That’s why you’re just a security man at his company. Now,” she said, settling into the couch, one leg tucked beneath her. “Suppose you tell me why you’re here.”

            “Well, as I said on the phone, your husband hasn’t come into work yet. And then you said you hadn’t seen him in days.”

            “In your mind, is that cause for alarm?”

            “Not necessarily.”   I tried to ignore her tone of voice. “He’s not the only one. Several people who worked with him also failed to show up. Ten in fact.”

            “Maybe he took them to the zoo.”

            “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose I could call the museums and zoos. He may even have rented a bus. Have you ever known your husband to sing ‘A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall?'”

            She chewed on that for a while and asked,”Do you mind if I smoke?”

            “No, not at all,” I said. “It’s your den.”

            “I know,” she said, standing up and going to the fire place. “But people are such pests about it these days.”   She opened a wooden box next to the clock, took one out and looked at me. “I would offer you one, but I guess your rules don’t allow you these. They’re from Havana you know.”

            “Well, you can put them where you put the scotch,” I said.

            “Then I better put the ice in first.”

            “You know what they say about ice cubes in hell.”

            “There’s always the Frigidaire.”

            “I didn’t know you were an heiress.”

            “Not yet, Mr. Bartell. Unless you’ve come to tell me that Bromion is dead.”

            “Would that surprise you?” I asked.

            She sat down, chewed off the end of the stogy and spit it out into the fireplace. Then she pulled a crystal lighter out of her skirt pocket and puffed gently at the flame. After a moment spent studying the fine, hand rolled cigar she looked me in the eye and asked, “What is it you’re after?”

            “I’m trying to do my job here Mrs. St. Claude.”  

            She made a concerned face, or tried to anyway. “You really are huffing away at it Mr. Bartell. And I’ll be sure to tell Bromion, whenever and wherever he turns up, how hard you worked. Now, will you put a good word in for me, with your boss?”

            “If you’re talking about my boss Johnson, frankly, I wouldn’t mind spanking your monkey, but not till this is old news. I really do have to get to the bottom of it.”

            She held her face straight for about one second and then coughed and laughed and slapped her thighs. “Just whose bottom do you think you’ll find?”

            “Are you done now?”

            “Oh, for Chrissake. I give up. And please, call me Evalyn.”   She kicked back on the couch, spread her legs out and pointed her toes. Then she puffed on the cigar, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling.

            “Well, Evalyn, when was the last time you saw your husband?”

            It looked difficult, but she managed to quell the threatening storm of sarcasm and think about my question. Finally she said, “I don’t know.”

            There had to be more. I was tired of talking. Snapping rubber with her was all right but I couldn’t kill a whole afternoon doing it. I stood up and walked over to the window. The panes were slightly warped; they bent the light at the edges just enough to distort the view, so that I myself slipped into the garden in the glass.

            “O.K., if you’re gonna go quiet on me, three, maybe four days. I just don’t remember,” she said.

            I turned around. “Why don’t you remember?”

            “One of those days I was drinking. Another away. Anyway, I don’t keep track. We lead busy lives.”   She spoke into her drink, afraid to make eye contact.

            “Away? When were you away?”

            “Thursday night and Friday. I got back late Friday. He wasn’t here then.”

            “What about when you left on Thursday?”

            She puffed on the cigar and tapped the ash into her hand. As she rubbed it around in circles she said, “That’s the part I don’t remember.”

            “While you were away?”

            “No. Leaving. I don’t remember leaving, I don’t remember getting there, and I don’t remember Thursday!  All right?”

            I gave her time to settle down. “Where did you go on Thursday, do you remember that?”

            “To the beach,” she mumbled darkly. “I woke up on the beach.”

            “Evalyn, I can hardly hear you. Please speak up.”

            “I said, I woke up on the beach.”

            “In the sand? You woke up on the sand?”

            “Yeah, that’s right. Bright sun, blue sky and a little puddle of vomit covered in flies. Would any more details about my lovely life aid you in your investigation of my husband’s disappearance?”

            “On Wednesday, was your husband home?”

            “Wednesday….” She said it three more times and seemed to nod off, shaking her head. She fluffed her hair with her hand and looked at me. A defiant, wounded smile played over her teeth. “I’d like to freshen this up….”

            “Of course. Then just a few more questions.”

            I heard her knock bottles and dump ice in a bucket, pinging a few in her glass and returning.

            “Can I interest you in a high ball?”

            “I don’t drink.”

            “Here, catch!”   she said, and tossed me her lighter. “Bromion gave me that for my birthday last year. What’s it say?” she asked.

            I looked at it. It was cut crystal. It turned the light into iridescent needles. Inside was a tiny, octopus-like creature. On the bottom it said Horizon Corp. “Horizon Corp. What’s that in there?”

            “Giant Hydra. Bromion called it ‘pure nerve’. It kinda made me shiver. I mean, it was alive when I got the lighter.”   She held out her hand for it.

            “Now, about Wednesday.”

            She slowly lowered her hand and asked,  “Wasn’t he at work on Wednesday?”

            “Don’t you know?”

            “How would I know?”

            “I’m asking you. You tell me. He’s your husband.”

            “My husband works all the time. That’s what he does. I almost never see him except for social occasions, weddings, funerals.”

            “Why were you at the beach?”

            “I have, we have a house. It’s mine. It’s my family’s. It’s near Pine Point Harbour. Check it out some time if you’re ever free.”

            “Out on the Island?”

            “Yeah.”   She shook her head. “I grew up there. Grassmear.”

            We weren’t really getting anywhere so I decided to ask her about him.

            “Why would Dr. St. Claude come to work for Monozone?”

            “Money? We used to live in Ithaca. He and Padraic incorporated their lab but Cornell wouldn’t support their work.”

            “What kind of work?”

            “Ah, you’re the detective, Mr. Bartell. You tell me.”

            “Well, what’s he working on now?”

            “Ask your boss.”

            “I can’t get a straight answer.”

            She looked bored now. She took a huge gulp off her drink. I gave her the lighter. She relit the cigar and stood by me at the window. I backed off a bit and for a second I was sure she looked hurt. She said, “You don’t really think he tells me what he’s working on? I’m just his wife Mr. Bartell. I give good parties. Look. I take it you know all about Clara.”

            “His uh–”

            “Well, you can call her his mistress if you like. I like to think of her as a slut, but I suppose she’s just young.”

            “Uh huh. His habits, they’re expensive? Does he support her? Is she married? I guess what I’m getting at is, did he take the Monozone job to support a lifestyle–”

            “Well, he does like to live high on the hog. Dinners, parties, old wine, those annoying intense vacations on mountain tops and Pacific trenches, swimming with sharks, that kind of thing. He’s big Mr. Bartell. Big in every way. Bigger than I can manage.”

            “I’m gonna come clean. This could get me boiled in shit so keep it between you and me.”  

            “Your little secret is my little secret.”

            “We think he’s been kidnaped by a rival concern. Did you notice anything unusual lately, people or cars following you, phone calls to the house? Was he nervous, preoccupied? Has your money situation changed?”

            “I want to say he’s been agitated but that’s his normal state. And actually, on the whole he’s been quite relaxed. I believe he quit drinking. And he meditates.”   She started laughing. She sang, “He used to always masturbate and now he loves to meditate.”   Then she laughed some more. “I’d say, at the age of fifty five, the man has undergone some sort of renaissance. I’d say his flame is burning brightest.”

            “You don’t seem very upset about Clara or his disappearance.”

            She laughed so hard it made her eyes pop out. “I’d be a nut case if I got upset every time he disappeared. As for Clara, well, let’s just say he has tastes she, and I use the pronoun loosely, can cater to better than I can.”   She paused. “I’m a sophisticated woman. I don’t mind a little adventure in the bedroom. But there are some things I just won’t do. He made demands Mr. Bartell; do you know what felching is?”

            I wasn’t about to admit that I didn’t have any idea what felching was, so I said, “Sure.”

            “Then I don’t have to explain Clara Turback. If I think of anything unusual you’ll be the first to know. And if you do find my dear departed hubby, let him know the mortgage is due and his case of Chateau Yquem is in at McSorley’s.”