The Lure (22 page)

“Sometimes he shows how much he cares in odd ways,” Dorrance said. “If you’re done with your drink, I’ll drive you downtown to the bar.”

Not another word passed between them until Noel got out of the plush, dead-silent, powder-gray Bentley sedan in front of the Grip on West Street.

The following night Noel wasn’t working at the bar. Until three o’clock the following afternoon, when he began an eight-hour shift at the Grip, he was free.

This sudden freedom, after three hectic months, made him extremely restless. He ought to work on his thesis, or go out and investigate more gay life for it. He still hadn’t been to the Baths or any back-room clubs, and his experience of bars was limited to a few in the Village. But that wasn’t what he wanted tonight.

Paul’s words that last day of school kept coming back to him. He suddenly found that he did care, he cared very much. But at least he didn’t have to worry what students would write about him on bathroom walls for the next three months; for the next eight months, unless Boyle changed his mind.

Boyle might be right. Look at Mirella Trent: one class this term, and that one a seminar for advanced students, most of whom were doing fieldwork, lectures at various other universities. Mirella Trent was on easy street.

He showered and then moped for the next hour, telling himself he was being foolish to waste a good night off, the first in months that he wouldn’t be at the Grip, at Eric’s, or working on his thesis.

“What’s wrong with me tonight, anyway?” he asked his image in the mirror. “I’m disturbed. Emotionally charged up. Over nothing. Nothing.”

The minute he said it to himself, he knew it wasn’t true. What he was, was horny. Just plain horny. If nothing else, the weeks of working in a gay bar had conferred that much physical honesty on him. Once Noel accepted it, he felt immediately better.

He resolved to go have a light dinner uptown at a well-known singles bar on the East Side. The place served mediocre food but was known to attract young professionals of both sexes, who, like himself tonight, admitted they were looking for lovemaking with no entanglements.

All I want is a one night affair.

Hit and run son-of-a-gun.

Don’t want to love you

Don’t want to make you my wife;

Don’t want to see you

every day for the rest of my life.

The words of Butler’s song came back to him with renewed force as he shaved, they were so applicable to his situation. He sang the song, making up new words, skipping or slurring over those he couldn’t recall, as he dressed.

He felt a little odd in pressed slacks, sports jacket, and an open-necked shirt as he hailed a cab up Madison Avenue. It seemed too dressy, too formal, compared to the jeans and T-shirts and body shirts he’d been wearing lately, with their easy, formfitting grip.

The place was packed when he arrived, and Noel had to wait at the bar for a half hour before a sneering waiter deigned to show him to a minuscule table in a corner. By then he’d already begun his second vodka martini and taken a look around.

There were women all right, but in twos and threes or coupled with men. Several noticed he was looking at them: work at the Grip had taught him what constituted a heavy cruise—it worked on either sex. But the petite blonde with her movie-star face and trim body seemed more interested in her spinach and bacon salad and her dowdy female companion than in Noel. Ditto for the sultry, long-limbed brunette facing him, whose every gesture said, “You can look but you can’t touch.”

Twice during his meal, Noel took the longest possible route to the men’s room, where he stood reading pseudointellectual graffiti until he figured it was time to come out again. Each time he saw another woman who might be picked up, if something about her were more inviting, more alluring. Each time he returned to his corner table alone.

Then it was eleven o’clock. Surely some of these women knew the place’s reputation; one of them must be on the make, too! But the one time a fairly attractive curly-haired, reddish-blonde sauntered past him and then back again, all he could do was mutter a halfhearted hello and look out the window.

It was then that Noel realized he was comparing them to another woman. One’s eyes were too light. One’s hips too stout. One too made up. The blonde was inane looking. The brunette too self-conscious. But who was he using as an ideal? Monica? Maybe Mirella? No.

Noel was asking for another coffee when a group passed in front of the restaurant and lingered a few feet away from where he sat. When a woman with dark, lustrous hair became suddenly visible, Noel almost stood up. But then she turned toward the window, and of course it wasn’t—who? Alana! How could it be? She was in Bermuda. Dorrance had said so just yesterday.

The group moved off, and left Noel with a depressing thought: he’d been comparing all these women to one of the world’s highest-paid fashion models, a woman who smelled of roses and lilacs, who lived with another man. And who didn’t care for him. Noel called for his check. By the time he reached his apartment, the depression really hit. But he still felt restless, frustrated.

He could cab across town, pick up one of the numerous prostitutes who walked the Minnesota Strip off Forty-second Street—so called because so many of them were from the Midwest. Or he could try to settle down to work. Or take an ice-cold shower and forget about it.

He opted for the shower. He had just turned on the water full force and was stepping in, when the phone rang.

“Hi,” a man’s voice said, “what are you up to?”

Noel couldn’t place the caller.

“I was about to take a shower.”

“Yeah? Wish I were there.”

Now he did place the voice. “Randy?”

“Took you long enough to figure it out.”

“We’ve never spoken over the phone before.”

“I thought maybe you forgot who I was.”

“No, I didn’t forget.” How could I forget? Noel wanted to say.

“I was at the Grip a few minutes ago. Buddy told me it was your night off. I figured you’d be out on the town.”

Buddy, huh? Noel had been trying to avoid him ever since that night he and Miguel had followed them to Little Larry’s place. So far, Vega had stayed out of Noel’s way, doing nothing in the least bit suspicious. How did Buddy know about him and Randy?

“I’m just here at home,” Noel said. “You know Buddy?”

“We all sort of work together, right?” Randy said. “We know each other. I wouldn’t say we were real friendly, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Just curious,” Noel said. “He say anything about me?”

“Only that you were off tonight.”

A long pause, then Randy said, “Well, I just called to say hello and to see what you were up to.”

It was evident from his tone of voice he had something else on his mind. Noel waited.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” Nerone suddenly asked. “You know, about what happened? I know I got a little carried away. I’m not usually so aggressive like that.”

“That’s all right.”

“You’re not busy or anything, are you?”

“No.”

“I just scored some dynamite grass, and I’m right in your neighborhood. Why don’t you invite me up?”

“Really good grass?”

“The grass is fine. What I’d really like is a replay of that pool scene the other night, what do you say?”

Noel thought fast. Was he supposed to believe Randy just wanted to make love with him again, or was there something more? Maybe Vega had put Randy up to it. Making sure that this time Randy would blow Noel’s cover if he didn’t say yes. For whatever reasons Vega had. Buddy must know how close to Dorrance Nerone was, or maybe still was. Word would get back to Mr. X fast enough, unless Noel came up with a really good excuse, and it seemed a little late in this conversation for that. It was a test, another goddamn test! And whoever was responsible for the test—Vega, Mr. X, whoever—knew that Noel was going to fail it unless he played by the rules: and the rules said Randy Nerone got laid by Noel tonight whether Noel liked it or not.

“Are you still there?” Randy prompted him.

“Yeah, still here,” Noel said. “Sorry, thought I heard someone knocking on the door.” It was a lame excuse, but better than none.

“Should I come by?” Nerone asked. “Or what?”

The bitch of it, Noel thought, was that Randy seemed to be innocent of how he was being used by Vega, by Mr. X. Simple, guileless, oversexed Randy would feel a little hurt if Noel rejected him tonight. Whereas Noel would be putting his neck in a noose if he did.

“Sure, Randy,” he said, “come on by. I’d really like to see you.”

He could hear Nerone’s relief and pleasure in his sign-off. He gave his address, then shut off the shower, changed into a pair of worn jeans and a T-shirt, threaded a tape on his reel-to-reel, dimmed the lights, and waited for the downstairs buzzer to ring.

For a moment he thought to call Loomis and find out how he could get out of this. But after their last misunderstanding over Randy, he already knew what Loomis’s position would be. “Lots of guys do it, Lure.”

When the doorman buzzed up to announce his guest, Noel stood in front of his mirror. He was supposed to be the Lure, the Bait.
Look at me now. I’m the one who’s caught on the hook: anywhere I turn I’m caught on it.

He hoped Randy Nerone’s grass was strong tonight. He was going to need it.

“Is Randy Nerone working for Whisper?”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Loomis asked.

“Is he? Or isn’t he?” Noel insisted.

“You know, Lure, you’re getting to be neurotically suspicious.”

“And you’re getting to be psychotically demanding.”

There was a long pause. When Loomis spoke again, it was in a tone of voice that Noel had come to recognize: annoyed-and-determined-not-to-show-it.

“Why don’t we start from the beginning again?”

“Fine with me. Is Randy Nerone working for Whisper?”

“If I tell you he isn’t, will you believe me?”

“Probably not,” Noel admitted.

“Then why should I bother?”

It was Noel’s turn to be silent.
Because I’m sleeping with him,
he wanted to say, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Because Randy is the only one I’m sleeping with. He’s my only cover, my only credential that I’m just a normal, man-loving homosexual. I’m doing it despite myself, overcoming long-ingrained habits and ideas about sex and about my own sexuality. I’m as disturbed by it when it’s easy with Randy as when it’s difficult. It scares me as much as Mr. X and his henchmen do. It’s my only security. So it damn well had better be security. That’s why I have to know if Randy Nerone is working for Whisper.

“Are you still there, Lure?”

“I’m here.”

“Let’s not argue,” Loomis said. “You’re tense. I’m tense.”

“I’m not tense. I’m just not happy with all your demands.”

“What demands? That you go to a party that some people would kill to get to? What’s so difficult about that?”

“I
said
I was going to the party at Bar Sinister.” That was the name of the new Dorrance club Chafee was opening.

“Fine. What’s the problem? Stick close to Dorrance and be ready to report tomorrow night in full detail.”

“If I’m sticking so close to Dorrance, who’s going to be watching Redfern? I’m sure he’s the hatchet man or something like that.”

“He scare you?”

Noel didn’t like that question.

“Because if he does,” Loomis said, “don’t worry about him. He’s just a big-mouth, rich-kid fag. All talk.”

“I’m not so sure of that.”

“Because of that model he’s hanging around with?”

“I’m sure he’s putting it to her,” Noel said. “And…other things.”

“So he’s bisexual. It’s very chic to be bisexual this year. I read all about it in
Time
magazine. Good night, Lure. And, Lure?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t ask so many fucking questions you don’t want answered.”

The party Loomis talked about was to be held at Redfern’s town house before Bar Sinister officially opened its doors to its select membership.

In addition to Noel and the other members of Mr. X’s growing conglomerate—Matthews, Malchuck, Goldberg, et al.—another hundred or so guests had been invited, friends, co-workers, and hangers-on of Redfern, Alana, and their friends.

When Noel and Randy Nerone arrived it was after midnight and the party was in full swing. The two main floors of the town house, the outside terrace, and the pool floor were spread with men and women in bizarre and garish costumes working up toward the time when Bar Sinister—an after-hours club—would open its doors for late-night perversions and promised grotesqueries which would not end until long after dawn. Since Noel had entered this scene, he lived more and more at night, usually not getting home until after 4:00 a.m. He slept during the day, waking only at one or two in the afternoon. Just a few months before, half his day would have been over by then. Now, he lived in a night world.