Cobalt (23 page)

Clarisse shook her head.

Angel stood up, and motioned for Margaret to take her place. Margaret, with some apprehension, did so. “Do I want to hear this? Is my dress in bad taste?”

“Margaret,” said Clarisse evenly, “Ann is dead.”

A weak smile pulled at Margaret's mouth and her eyes narrowed with confusion. All the chatter from the men at the makeup table suddenly stopped, but no one turned to stare. They leaned forward into the long mirror, and the painting went steadily on.

“When?” said Margaret, confused, not knowing what to ask first.

“The night you left,” said Clarisse, and told about the drowning.

“But Ann was a great swimmer!”

“At first,” said Angel, “the police thought it was an accident, but after the autopsy, they changed it to suicide.”

A man in a blue-sequined jockstrap reached around Clarisse and handed Margaret a glass of water.

“Good swimmers don't commit suicide by drowning,” protested Margaret. “Good swimmers swim automatically, there's no way for them to drown. The only people who commit suicide by drowning are people who don't know how to swim.”

“It was the drugs,” said Clarisse, and explained further.

Margaret had nothing to say.

“Why did you leave town so quickly?” asked Clarisse.

“I had planned to leave that afternoon,” said Margaret, obviously thinking of something else. “But Ann kept pleading with me to stay longer, so I didn't get off until one. She was depressed—very depressed. So I called up her boss—you know who I mean?—and asked him to come over and take care of her for a little while. They had had a fight that afternoon, or the day before—I can't remember—but he was the only person I could think of to call.”

“Terry O'Sullivan came to the house that night?” said Clarisse, surprised.

“I don't know,” said Margaret, still distantly. “He said he was coming right over, but he wasn't there by the time I left. I
had
to go, I was getting a ride with a friend. We drove all night.”

She sat for a few moments despondently, then looked up suddenly at Angel. “Oh, you have to get ready to go on,” she said weakly. “And I'm in your way.”

“No, you're not,” replied Angel. “Sit there as long as you like.”

“No,” she said, “I want to go back to the table.” She stood, only a little unsteadily.

“Will you be all right?” asked Clarisse. “Do you want me to call a taxi?”

“I'm staying about two houses down. No, I don't want to be alone now,” Margaret said. “I think I want to see the show. I'll be all right. I'll save my uncontrolled weeping for later.”

“H
OW'D IT GO?” Valentine asked in a whisper. “She seems to have taken it pretty well. Are you sure she didn't know about it already?”

“Hush!” cried Clarisse. “Of course she didn't know about it already. I know a broken heart when I see one.”

Valentine and Clarisse sat with their heads together, talking in low voices. Margaret sat on the other side of Clarisse, silently smoking and staring sightlessly at the stage. Axel Braun had come in some minutes before and was chatting with Noah.

“I think she's in shock,” said Clarisse, “but she insisted on staying.”

“Ask her if she wants to come back with us tonight,” suggested Valentine. “She probably shouldn't be alone.”

“She also probably shouldn't spend the night at the place where she last saw Ann alive.”

“Hmmmm,” said Valentine, nodding. “Did she say anything else?”

“That her last name is Richardson, same as Ann's.”

“Angel was right then,” said Valentine. “I thought she was mixed up.” Clarisse also told him what Margaret had said about Terry O'Sullivan's possible visit to the house on the fatal night. “So what do you think?” said Valentine. “Terry showed up after Margaret was gone, got Ann stoned, which wouldn't have been hard in her frame of mind, and then—”

Clarisse made a downward movement with her hand. “Plunked her under and left. In which case, mixing the dust and the MDA would have been deliberate.”

“Well,” said a loud voice just behind them, “here I am!”

Everyone looked up. There stood Scott DeVoto, smiling blandly. He flung a pink invitation onto the table. “Thanks for the invite,” he said to Axel sarcastically.

Valentine flipped the invitation over. The address on the envelope was in Clarisse's handwriting. Clarisse smiled innocently and plucked a piece of imaginary lint from her padded shoulder.

Axel didn't get up. “I didn't send you an invitation,” he said.

“I know,” said Scott, taking a chair next to his lover. He looked coldly at Valentine and said, “I'm not breaking up a heavy date, am I?”

“I'm escorting Clarisse,” said Valentine impassively.

“Don't start,” said Axel.

“Order me a gin and tonic,” said Scott. He looked at Clarisse, and said, after a moment, “You were great in Back Street when you did the CPR on that guy.”

“Thank you.”

“Too bad it didn't work. He would have owed you a zillion favors for that one. It was a heart attack, wasn't it?”

Clarisse nodded.

“I don't think I could do CPR on anybody unless he was cute,” said Scott. “What if he had had hepatitis or something—or he could have had trench mouth. If he had a bad heart, he shouldn't have been doing so much coke.”

Scott's drink arrived, and Noah ordered another round for everyone else.

“Coke?” asked Valentine.

Scott nodded. “That night in Back Street the dead guy was doing coke.”

“How do you know?” asked Axel.

Scott shrugged. “I was in the ladies' room drying my hair, and in one of the stalls there were these two guys snorting their brains off—at least one of them was.”

“How did you know it was Terry O'Sullivan if he was in one of the stalls?” asked Clarisse.

“Because he was using a dollar bill to snort it—cheapskate!—and he dropped it and it rolled out from under the stall and he had to come out to get it. I couldn't see the guy he was with, except for the top of his head. Maybe this Terry guy was trying to kill himself. Bad heart, and a few good lines of coke and…” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

“He wasn't the type,” said Valentine.

“I don't know,” said Scott. “He was kind of a troublemaker. Real Captain Wimp. He was always turning up.”

“Like where?” asked Clarisse.

“Here and there,” said Scott casually. “Like at your house the night that woman drowned in your pool.”

Valentine was astonished. Clarisse glanced anxiously at Margaret, who was looking in another direction.

“Just pretend I'm not here,” said Margaret, calmly tapping the ash from her cigarette.

Clarisse addressed Scott. “So that was you lurking in the courtyard that night.”

Scott took a long swallow of his drink and glanced meaningfully at Axel. “I wasn't
lurking
,” he said. “I was spying.”

“On Terry O'Sullivan?” asked Noah, puzzled.

“No,” said Scott, sniffing. “On Axel, of course.”

“But Axel wasn't staying at the house then,” persisted Noah.

Scott looked at Noah as if to say,
Who are you?
Then he answered, as if the entire table had asked the question. “Axel and I had a fight that night, out in front of the Throne and Scepter. Nothing serious—just the usual.” He turned to Axel with a smile. “You thought you left me at the A-House, but you didn't. I followed you to Back Street.” He smiled. “I saw you meet him”—he jabbed a finger toward Valentine—“and I wondered if you'd actually go home with him, so I went over to Kiley Court and waited.”

“How did you know where I live?” demanded Valentine.

Scott smiled even more sweetly. “I had followed Axel there once before.”

Axel looked at Scott darkly.

“So it was very foggy and I hid on the other side of some bushes by the restaurant across from your house. There's even a bench there, so I sat down and smoked a joint and waited.”

“Why the hell did you do all that?” demanded Axel.

“I felt like it.”

“And you saw Terry O'Sullivan?” asked Valentine.

“I saw the whole world and his dog,” said Scott. “First I saw you,” pointing to Noah, “and you were with somebody, but I didn't see who it was.”

“That was the White Prince,” said Noah.

“Then I saw you,” nodding toward Clarisse, “and I heard you talking to somebody in the courtyard—women's voices. Then another woman came out with a suitcase. Then Axel and
that one
came back.” He looked sourly at Valentine.

“I take it you had a notebook and stopwatch,” said Clarisse.

“No,” said Scott. “Actually, I'm not sure if I got the sequence right or not. I was stoned. And the only thing I really cared about was whether Axel was going to show up or not.”

“But where was Terry O'Sullivan in all this traffic?” asked Valentine.

“What does it matter?” replied Scott rudely.

“It matters,” said Clarisse emphatically.

“He got there after you did, I guess,” said Scott to Clarisse. “I remembered him—I had seen him before. I thought he was coming to do a threesome with Axel and your
escort
.”

“He was not,” said Valentine forcefully.

Scott looked away. “Anyway, he arrived right after the woman with a suitcase came out.”

“That was me,” said Margaret, turning toward Scott. Clarisse hadn't been certain that she was listening to any of this.

“Maybe,” said Scott. “Women all look alike to me.”

“How long did Terry stay?” asked Valentine.

Scott ignored the question.

“How long did he stay?” repeated Clarisse.

“A while,” said Scott. “I don't know.”

“He had to have left before we got back,” said Valentine. “I sure didn't see him.”

“No,” said Scott, “he was still there when you and Axel came in.”

“You're sure of that?”

“Yes,” said Scott, “I'm sure, because I saw him go in, then I saw you go in, then I waited for a while. He eventually came out, and then I got tired of waiting around so I left.”

“Do you know where he went?” asked Clarisse.

“Sure. The Boatslip—Room 231.”

Everyone looked at Scott in surprise.

“You followed Terry too?” asked Clarisse.

Scott smiled. “He seduced me.”

Valentine gave a short laugh. “Terry O'Sullivan couldn't have seduced the Whore of Babylon.”

“He didn't have very nice things to say about
you
,” he said to Valentine.

“I need a 'lude,” said Axel to the company in general. “Anybody got a 'lude?”

Clarisse put her hand on Valentine's arm. “Did he say anything about Ann?” she asked Scott.

“Ann who?”

“The woman he probably killed,” said Noah.

“Why would he have killed Ann?” asked Axel.

The houselights had dimmed. The medley of show tunes had finished, and now the music came up loud and stirring.

“Well,” said Margaret loudly over her shoulder, “it might have had something to do with why Terry O'Sullivan killed Jeff King.”

Valentine's mouth dropped open, and Clarisse's importunate question was lost beneath the applause that greeted Angel Smith's head, thrust between the curtains.

A
N INTENSE WHITE spot was focused on Angel's face, which was all of her that was visible before the curtain. She smiled bravely, and in a melancholy unaccompanied treble sang:

The ballroom was filled with fashion's throng,
It shone with a thousand lights,
And there was a woman who passed along,
The fairest of all the sights.

She whistled an exquisite trill.

A girl to her lover then softly sighed,
There's riches at her command,
But she married for wealth, not for love,
Though she lives in a mansion grand.

The band struck up again, the curtain parted, the spotlight widened and turned a brilliant gold, and Angel appeared in all the splendor of her costume: a black tuxedo, and instead of a white shirt, a vast expanse of canary feathers. With an even braver smile she began the familiar chorus:

She's only a bird in a gilded cage,
A beautiful sight to see,
You may think she's happy and free from care.
She's not, though she seems to be.
'Tis sad when you think of her wasted life,
For youth cannot mate with age,
And her beauty was sold
For an old man's gold,
She's a bird in a gilded cage.

A second verse had the same sad introduction, she repeated the chorus twice, and violently rattled the gilded bars of her imaginary cage. There was riotous applause, calls of “Encore!” and, unaccompanied, she yodeled the chorus full volume. When she breathlessly finished, she wiped away her glycerin tears, shoved the microphone just under her lips, and said, “Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. Here am I, Angel Smith the Swiss Miss, bringing you tonight the best in Provincetown entertainment, a show that I hope you will find as instructive as it is ornamental. Tonight you and I are going to take a little trip across time. We're going to examine the part that fallen women have played in the comedy we call history. We're going to look at happy women and sad women. We're going to see honors and wealth, deprivation and degradation!” Here Angel's speech was interrupted by cheers. She smiled, then raised her hands for silence. “We're going to see scaffolds and thrones! I'm going to show you bullwhips and crucifixes! There's gonna be diamond tiaras and branding irons!” There was more cheering. Angel danced across the stage. She turned and spread wide her arms. “We're gonna look at deification, excommunication, anathema, coronation, inebriation, and enforced jury duty! I'm gonna show you power, love, lust, gluttony, rage, and jealousy! There's gonna be potato chips and dip, and a good time will be had by all!”