The Dream of the Broken Horses (5 page)

I'm delighted when they offer me a room on the second floor. It takes me but fifteen minutes to move. After stowing my clothing, I post several of my drawings of the lovers on the wall facing the window.

Tonight, with the room lamps turned off, I study them as cars come and go, casting headlight beams into the room. These beams hit the eyes on my drawings filled in with graphite pencil. The graphite reflects the light, the eyes glow, and then, as the cars pass and the headlight beams cross the space, the eyes move,
they come alive!

T
he Fulraine kidnapping:
 
I'm sitting in the local archives room of the Calista Public Library across from Danzig Park, going through old file folders containing yellowed clippings culled from
The Calista Times-Dispatch.

An odd aspect, one I'd forgotten, was that the Fulraine infant was not kidnapped in the traditional sense. There was never a demand for ransom. Rather Belle Fulraine disappeared at the age of three, along with a recently hired au pair, never to be seen again.

This au pair, one Becky
Hallworth
from Dorset in England, turned up dead a week later, her nude torso (missing head and hands) washed onto the eastern shore of Delamere Lake. For several days her torso remained unidentified, causing the police to dub her the "Lady of the Lake." When, finally, an ID was made, based on freckles and birthmarks viewed in a pornographic film in which Becky, unbeknownst to her agency and employers, had recently performed, the implications of the kidnapping grew grave.

Could little Belle have been rented or sold by Becky to purveyors of child smut and Becky killed because, due to the prominence of the Fulraine family, her collaborators in the crime were frightened by the unexpected heat? If so, where was little Belle now? Had she too been killed? Would films or photographs turn up on the underground pedophile market in which the innocent child would be shown abused?

I read all the clippings, then carefully study the accompanying photographs.

The Fulraines were quite a pair. In one picture of the couple, Barbara, though in grief, exudes extraordinary glamour. Her haunting, almond-shaped eyes and well-modeled mouth, pale skin, and luxurious wavy, dark hair make her appear more like a movie star than an aggrieved local socialite. Standing beside her, Andrew Fulraine exhibits matinee idol looks. Steady eyes, squared-off jaw, hair meticulously combed back, his physiognomy speaks of willfulness and power, a refusal to be broken no matter the depth of his pain.

Little Belle is appropriately cute and vulnerable, while the older Fulraine sons, my schoolmates, six-year-old Robin and seven-year-old Mark, combine the manly demeanor of their father and the soft, exotic beauty of their mom.

In another photo of Barbara alone, she's handsomely dressed in a light cashmere crewneck sweater with single strand of pearls about her graceful neck—so different from her garb in a photograph in my possession that shows her in quite a different frame of mind.

Finally, there's Becky
Hallworth
in whose lightly freckled countenance I detect the seeds of the Fulraines' misfortune. There's definitely something "off" about the girl, a glint of craziness in the eyes, of slutty fiendishness in the mouth, of come-hither-and-be-damned in the grin. I ask myself how closely the Fulraines interviewed her and whether they were so dazzled by her schooled British accent and peaches-and-cream complexion that they neglected the most elementary of precautions—checking the girl's references.

Strangely Waldo Channing's column on the subject is the most poignant in the folder. I say "strangely" because Waldo's columns tended to be pretty superficial stuff. Yet every so often, particularly when people he cared about were involved, he managed to rise to the occasion:

It's been a year since my dear friends, Andy and Barb, lost their child. When I write that word "lost" I feel a great throb in my chest, for of course little Belle Fulraine wasn't lost at all. She was taken. And therein lies the tragedy.

"Tragedy" is a term I don't use lightly. Those of you who regularly drop in on This Department know I generally concern myself with the lighter side of life. Who's who, who's been seen with whom, who's been doing what. I write about theater, film, and cabaret, love gained and lost, weddings and divorces, tales of our Fair City, its bars and clubs, fun and froth, and, occasionally, its underbelly too. But rarely tragedy. Tragedy, you see, is really not my beat. But today is different. Today is an anniversary no one wants to celebrate, an anniversary that brings tears to my eyes.

A greatly adored girl child just three years old is taken by the caregiver in whom her parents placed a sacred trust. No note is left behind, no ransom demand is made. The little girl seems literally to disappear off the face of the earth. Later the body of the cruel betrayer is found, horribly mutilated as if to conceal her identity. Numerous theories are spun, but in the end not the police, the FBI, nor private detectives hired by the Fulraine family can come up with an explanation.

A child disappears, a year passes, and there is no explanation. Think about that. Think, most particularly, about what that would mean to you, were you the parent of the stolen child.

It would surely mean indescribable grief. Despair, terror, also anger, blind fury, and yet more grief.

Someone once wrote: "That which does not kill me can only make me stronger." I think the person who wrote that was a fool. For to be a victim in a situation like this is to face what is perhaps even worse than death.

Andy and Barb live separately now. Their friends, though hopeful, do not believe their marriage can be saved. I have recently spoken to them both. There is only one thing, they assure me, in their hearts: a prayerful wish that their stolen daughter will one day be returned home safe. Experts in these matters do not hold out much hope, but hope is all the Fulraines have. So they cling to it. And we must too. For at this point, a year later, hope is all there is.

I didn't set out today to write a sappy column about how brave my friends have been. But they are brave, braver than I can conceive. One purpose of this column is to let them know that we stand with them and always shall.

Another purpose is to appeal to anyone, anywhere, with any knowledge that may illuminate this matter, to come forward now and tell the authorities what you know....

Yeah, Waldo could really lay it on when he had a mind to. Reading his piece, I sense he genuinely cared about the handsome young Fulraines, truly did grieve with them, was appalled by the crime committed against them . . . not only because it was so terribly cruel, but also because it contradicted his world view.

Waldo Channing, you see, saw the world in terms of social events—beautifully assembled parties, exquisitely hosted dinners, lavish weddings, luxurious homes, chic resorts. He savored urbane gatherings, suave displays of wit, most of all that odd symbiosis between people of wealth and people of achievement, society and celebrity, money and fame, summed up in his favorite phrase (purloined, perhaps unknowingly, from Stendhal): "The Happy Few."

It's a phrase that turns up again and again in his columns through the years in numerous and varying contexts:

"'The Happy Few' were out in full-dress force last night, at the opening of Symphony. . ."

"After the party, the Charles
Dunphys
, Brownie
Dillers
, Babe
Keniston
, her
veddy
good friend, Timmy Knowlton-Smith, and others of 'The Happy Few' assembled in the back room at Rob's for nightcaps, laughter and
lotsa
giggles . . ."

"The fun masquerade party over at Andy and Barb Fulraine's was well attended by members in good standing of our 'Happy Few.' Dot Bartlett took first prize for 'best headdress' with her amusing . . ."

Ad nauseam.

But still I must concede this to Waldo—when he really cared (a rare event), he was capable of setting aside such drivel and writing from the heart.

T
he other photo of Barbara: I am studying it again as I sit in my rental car parked across from the Doubleton Building at the corner of Harp and Spencer Avenues—the very building where I believe it was taken more than twenty-six years ago in a back-room photographer's studio on the seventh floor.

Despite the numerous times I've looked at it, this photo always amazes me. Time, I think, to confess that it is this picture that has brought me back to Calista, that it is the driving force behind my quest

Please imagine: a black and white posed studio photograph of a beautiful woman, glamorously lit as if by Horst or some other skilled Hollywood photographer of the 1940s.

Imagine her dressed in lustrous black leather riding boots, dark fitted jodhpurs, and, except for a pair of long, laced pigskin gloves, otherwise totally bare above the waist.

Imagine her leaning forward in this amazing state of dishabille, one raised foot resting on a bench, engaging the camera with beguiling eyes.

Imagine precisely rouged lips (the lipstick showing black in the photo), loose, dark hair cascading in waves across pale shoulders, perfectly proportioned breasts surmounted by taut upraised nipples, while long, multistory black pearl earrings dangle seductively from her finely modeled ears.

And if all this is insufficient to hold your attention, imagine The Lady holding a long, narrow riding crop, bowing it slightly as if to test for stiffness and strength, while she gazes at you-the-viewer—the voyeur!—with an expression combining amusement, desire, hauteur, and, perhaps too, the barest modicum of scorn.

The picture is compelling not only on account of the beauty of its subject and the fetishistic manner in which she's been attired and posed, but also because of the exquisite photographic technique with which the image has been rendered. The lighting has been designed to highlight each engaging detail—sparkling eyes, glossy lips, delicate areolas, the very texture of the lady's skin. And the illumination of the background wall has been contrived so that vectors of light and shadow converge to make delicious contrast with her luminous naked upper body as well as the dark riding attire she wears below.

I'm certain this picture was taken with a large-view camera under studio conditions, perhaps with the photographer hiding his head beneath a cloth. A signature stamp graces the bottom of the print, raised in fine silver script: Studio
Fessé
. A pseudonym, of course, one he used on this particular brand of work. His actual name, I happen to know, was Max Rakoubian, still listed on the register in the Doubleton Building lobby.

A
black attendant with jaundiced eyes takes me up to seven in a very old, silent cage elevator. After I step out, the elevator descends like a waterlogged raft sinking slowly in a lake.

I make my way down a hushed corridor lined with pebbled glass doors bearing the names of firms: FESTIVE FOLLIES; HYDE INSURANCE; MARITZ INVESTIGATIONS . . . PHOTOS BY MAX.

I knock on MAX. No response so I turn the knob and walk in. There's an odd aroma in the reception area, not the photochemical smell I expect. I hear hissing on the other side of an inner door. I move toward it, call out:

"Anyone here?"

"Yeah," a male voice responds.

"Okay if I come in?"

"Suit yourself."

I push the door open, and the smell hits me at once, a foundry smell, hot metal and gas.

A sweaty, muscular man in his thirties, stripped to the waist, face covered with a visor, is applying a welding torch to a sculpture in which a number of skeletal figures, men, women, and children, are entwined with one another in an agonized group embrace.

"Sorry, can't shake hands," he tells me. "Hope you don't mind pigeons. They fly in on hot days. One comes at you, my advice is duck. 'Less you like pigeon shit on your face."

The windows are wide open, the sound of the city—street noise, car horns, distant sirens—makes a din against the hissing of the torch. Two pigeons flap about near the ceiling, while another stands attentive on the windowsill as if deciding whether to depart or stick around.

"I'm looking for Max Rakoubian."

The sculptor grins. "Max's been in the ground eight years. I'm Chip, his son . . . one of them anyway. I took over his lease, never bothered to change the name on the door."

"Or downstairs."

He grins again. "Kind of a tip of the hat to the old man, you might say. Me being the only one of his bastards ever gave a shit."

He finishes his weld, closes the valve of his gas tank, puts down his torch, and pulls up his visor.

"Bet I know why you've come," he says, wiping his face with a rag. A good-looking guy despite a couple days beard growth, he reminds me of one of those underwear models, the brawny kind with surly mouth and soulful eyes.

"Wanna know whether I got some of Pop's old 'art studies' sitting around. Willing to pay top dollar for them, too."

"Not exactly."