Kraven Images (21 page)

‘That is most certain.’ His Lordship frowned at Prisoner-at-the-Bar and turned again to the witness. ‘What prompted you so to burst in, as you say, upon them?’

‘Why, even in that was heaven ordinant. He had affronted me of late, had called me villain, plucked my beard and blown it in my face…’

‘Is’t possible?’

‘I had his phonic number in my purse. Here’s the transcription, read it at more leisure. I am not pigeon-livered.’

‘Most commendable. Next witness.’

The next witness swayed in the box. ‘The prisoner is a thief, a charlatan.’

‘The name of the witness?’

‘Alec Feibelman, traveler in ladies’ personals, retired.’

His Lordship noted with compassion the venerable age and attendant frailty of the witness. ‘Bailiff, provide a
sella
, or in the base vulgar a chair, a seat, a stool, for his honorificabilitudinity.’

‘Thank you, m’lud. Know then that this vile rogue snatched from me my discovery of the Jewish Charlemagne and passed it current for his own.’

‘O, the wretch! For shame!’

‘Mine was not the good fortune of the fair and yet unspotted Nimuë.’ La Corombona settled herself in the witness box amid gasps from the thronged courtroom. Her cheeks and lips were carmined, her full breasts pushed against the laces of her bodice. ‘He took me in the blossom of my virginal innocence, an orphan whose only treasure was her untried virtue, rammed through the portcullis of an unmanned fort, and plucked the rose. What route through life was left me but the poxy way to Hell?’

Last came and last did go C.U.T. Quimby. ‘M’lud, it grieves me to report that the prisoner is not at all who he purports to be. In brief, he is an impostor!’

A sensation in the court.

‘Prisoner-at-the-Bar,’ said His Lordship, placing over his wig a black square of silk, ‘have you anything to say before I pass sentence?’

‘M’lud, I have been most notoriously abused.’

His Lordship sniffed.

‘M’lud, I am a human being.’

‘So say they all. Be so good as to wait outside.’

Kraven was woken again during the night by another crowing of the cock.

KRAVEN ROSE EARLY
the next morning, despite his restless night, and he was frustrated in his desire for a tranquil start to the day by Percy Fishbane, who padded into the kitchen even as he was sitting down to a cup of tea. Fishbane was clad in a woolly tartan dressing-gown that touched the floor and beneath which the tips of tiny tartan slippers peeped out.

‘Morning,’ said Fishbane cheerily. ‘Ah, tea. Good-o.’

Kraven groaned.

‘No, don’t get up. Yours Truly will get his own cup.’ He disappeared into the scullery for a moment, returned with a mug marked with a florid letter P, and hopped on to a chair at the table. ‘Auntie likes to have a bit of an extra kip on the occasional morning, so me and you are going to have t’look after ourselves. How about some toast and jam, then?’

‘Thanks, I’d like that.’

‘Bread’s in the box, butter’s in the fridge, jam’s in the cupboard.’ Fishbane jerked his head in the several directions.

Mumbling to himself, Kraven set about preparing their breakfast.

‘I heard you getting up, not that you made much noise, but Yours Truly’s a light sleeper. Here’s an opportunity, Perce, says I, for me and him to have a little chinwag.’

‘I’m going to have to leave in a few moments. I’ve one or two things to take care of.’

‘No doubt, no doubt,’ said Fishbane imperturbably. ‘However, you’ve still to have your tea and toast. Time in plenty for what Yours Truly has to say.’ He took a mouthful of tea and swilled it around noisly before swallowing. ‘What I’m going to tell you now your auntie knows nothing about, and until or unless I give the word I rely on you as a comrade in affairs of the heart to keep it that way.’ He searched Kraven’s face with his glittering eyes; Kraven nodded. ‘As you have already guessed, this is a matter of no small delicacy.’ He paused significantly; Kraven nodded again. ‘Hence, I have to spend a moment putting you in the historical picture.’ He spooned jam on to a corner of his toast and bit it off, chewed slowly, staring the while at the ceiling as if hoping there to find fit words. At last, he embarked upon his narrative.

To Fishbane’s account of his early years in America, his loneliness, his enthusiasm for the Brooklyn Dodgers, his futile attempts to awaken political consciousness in the masses – ‘it was like trying to incite the meek to inherit the earth’ – his hackwork for left-wing journals, his growing conviction that he was being watched by the FBI – to all of this Kraven paid scant attention. His mind was occupied with Poore-Moody and Stella. But some of Fishbane’s narrative penetrated his private thoughts.

‘Her name,’ said Fishbane with tremulous reverence, ‘was Miriam Pechvogel.’ His glittering eyes scanned the past. ‘She had other names, of a professional sort, but Miriam Pechvogel was what she was born.’

Tuning in and out, Kraven gathered that Miriam Pechvogel, ‘an
artiste
’, ‘a real swell dame’, was the first true love of Fishbane’s lonely life. Fishbane could not believe his good luck. What a woman of such opulent beauty could see in him he was unable to fathom. ‘She used t’call me her bantam cock.’ When he had met her, a little over a year before he was forced to flee the States, she already had two children
out
of wedlock by different men. ‘None of your booshwa petty morality about her. Philosophically, we were both advocates of free love.’

A shift in tone indicated that Fishbane’s tale was approaching its climax. Kraven paid closer attention. Such was the lovers’ passionate abandon that Miss Pechvogel in due course became
enceinte
. Percy Fishbane was to be a father. Meanwhile the FBI were snooping around, talking to the neighbours, even questioning Miss Pechvogel’s children in the schoolyard. ‘All I was was a harmless reporter, forty-five dollars a week, exposing the fascist government’s union-busting tactics. You’d a thought I was an expert in nuclear physics!’ A tip from a friend told of imminent arrests at the newspaper offices. Fishbane had put his passport in his jacket pocket and shipped out immediately, arriving in England with little more than the clothes on his back.

‘Here’s the point: I’ve a kid over there who must be in his twenties by now, who I’ve never met, and who I know nothing about. When I left New York, Miriam was in Chicago. She was in her fourth month, one of her last appearances before the public. In her line of work you can’t go on performing right up to the last minute, now can you?’ Fearful of wire taps and conscious of the need to move swiftly, he had been unable to get in touch with her. Later, the thought that he might jeopardize her career, that she might be blacklisted – ‘they were opening people’s fucking letters; they were coming down hard on people in show business’ – prevented him from writing to her. By the time the Senator from Wisconsin was no longer a threat and the hysteria in the country had died down, Fishbane had lost his sense of urgency. He had already picked up his life again in England.

‘Me and Miriam, that’s water under the bridge,’ he said. ‘Besides, I’m happily situated now, and I hope Miriam is too. I love your auntie, and I’ve come to appreciate the benefits of
intellectual
companionship and the refinements that come of a booshwa upbringing. Not that I’ve turned me back on old truths. But I now know that good manners sometimes reveal a good heart.’ He looked shrewdly at Kraven.

Kraven was not unmoved by Fishbane’s story, but he had problems of his own. He looked pointedly at his watch.

‘A little patience, that’s all Yours Truly asks,’ said Fishbane aggrievedly, ‘hear me out. Why don’t you have some more tea.’ He poured some into Kraven’s cup. ‘I’ve put a bit by over the years, took a leaf from the capitalists’ book. And why not? I’ve been a slave all me life. Whatever goes into my pocket don’t go into the pockets of those fuckers. The poor sodding peons’ll be trampled on regardless. So I’ve made the odd investment or two. Did quite well on Mexican silver, thanks to a tip from your auntie.

‘Well, who’m I going t’leave it to? Here’s where you come in. Undertake a few discreet inquiries for me in the Hew Hess of Hay. I can tell you where to start. Try and find Percy Fishbane’s son. Who knows what he’s up to? Given the sort of upbringing he’s likely to ’ve had, chances are he’s in bleeding prison. Miriam’s circles, as you can well imagine, were not the most elevated, all things considered. But don’t delay too long. Time and tide, you know.’

‘I’ll do what I can, of course. But my plans are rather unsettled at the moment. I don’t know when I’m returning to the States.’

Fishbane made a dismissive gesture. ‘It’s no emergency. You can stay here as long as you like, three days, four, five. No need to go off to an hotel, even, on my account. As Yours Truly is pleased to tell you, this is Liberty Hall. But once you
do
get back there…’ He looked up suddenly. ‘Morning, Ciss. Have a nice kip, did you?’

Aunt Cicely in a fashionable silk robe stood at the kitchen door. ‘There you are, you two. Who would like onions and eggs?’

‘Suit me a treat,’ said Fishbane. ‘Me and your nephew ’ve had a very nice chat, Ciss, very nice indeed. We’re better acquainted now, which was all that Percy Fishbane wanted.’

‘None for me, thanks. I’ve some things to do in town,’ Kraven told his aunt. ‘I’ll be back in mid-afternoon to get my bags.’

‘Off you go then,’ said Fishbane. ‘Don’t forget what I told you.’

‘What was that, Percy?’

‘Men-talk,’ said Fishbane blithely.

* * *

What might await him back at Mosholu Kraven preferred not to think. At the very least he would be required to reimburse the college for his air ticket. This cost might be offset, however, if the IRS could be persuaded that the trip was a legitimate professional necessity. Hence, he was off to the British Library to acquire one or two date-stamped book-request slips. He turned into the grand forecourt of the Museum. A banner athwart the grim façade announced a current exhibition of Michelangelo drawings. He would pop into the Reading Room, acquire his evidence, and then spend a pleasant hour at the exhibition.

An unexpected figure was descending the steps before the main entrance and emerging into the bright sunshine. It was Candy Peaches. Say what you will about burlesque, it had taught her to perform so humdrum an activity with uncommonly sensuous grace. But there was nothing suggestive of burlesque about her appearance today. She wore a smart, almost severe navy-blue business suit, softened by a floppy lace bow at the neck of a white blouse. Her gorgeous hair was neatly arranged. She offered him a dazzling smile.

‘Jesus, Marty, you look awful. What the hell’ve you been up to, or shouldn’t I ask?’

London, for all its teeming millions, was a village. ‘Sorry I missed you yesterday. I waited as long as I could.’

‘Yeah, well, Sugar told me. How come you’re limping?’

Kraven’s feet, hastily bandaged that morning, were painfully blistered from his wanderings. ‘Stubbed my toe getting out of bed.’

He gestured at the Museum behind her. ‘Seeing the sights?’

‘Y’might say that.’ She blew him a bubble of gum, withdrew it, chewed, and grinned. ‘Hey, buy a girl a cup of coffee?’

‘A cup of coffee it is.’ The Reading Room and Michelangelo could wait. She took his arm and together they wandered in search of a coffee shop.

Seated across from her at a small, wobbly table, their coffee before them, Kraven was enjoying this moment of intimacy with a beautiful young woman. From the depths of his tiredness he summoned his charm. ‘I wonder whether you’ve made plans for this evening?’

She held up her hands in mock horror and flashed him her bewitching smile. ‘Hey, am I safe out with you like this?’

Kraven, feeling encouraged and thinking he recognized the script, pressed on. ‘So far you are, but I make no promises.’

‘Marty, there’s a couple of things I gotta make clear right off.’ She counted them on her slender fingers. ‘First, I’m not stupid; second, I’m not an easy lay.’

Kraven, thrown completely off his stride, said, ‘Oh.’

She laughed at his consternation. ‘Hey, c’mon now, we can still be friends.’ She grinned impishly. ‘Some of my best friends are guys.’

Kraven attempted a smile.

‘Most guys, I tell them that, they think right away they’re the exceptions. “Just lay back and relax, honey, you’re gonna love this.”’ She made a few swift passes with the flat of her hand held stiffly before her. ‘I’m pretty good at karate. No,
there
’s nothing wrong with my libido. It’s just I like to think my body belongs to me, like I maybe have some say in its proper operation and use.’

‘Most commendable,’ said Kraven faintly. ‘Still, that hardly seems consistent with your choice of profession. I mean, an ecdysiast is scarcely protecting her privacy. And the performance itself invites the kind of male response you’re condemning.’

‘Oh that,’ she said. ‘Well, there’s privacy and privacy, but maybe you’ve got a point. It’s worth considering anyway.’ She took a piece of paper from her pocketbook and jotted down a note to herself. ‘I’ll take it up with my shrink. But stripping’s not my profession. I sort of slipped into that through family connections.’ She winked. ‘Even Momma can still shimmy. She’s got a little place out in Sausalito, Mimi-a-Go-Go. Every now and then she does one of her numbers for the old-timers. For me, though, burlesque’s only moonlighting. The pay’s good, you’d be surprised. I stripped my way through Ohio State, and now I’m stripping my way through graduate school.’

O brave new world that has such creatures in it! He was unable to mask his surprise.

‘First impressions, Marty?’ She laughed with delight.

‘But what are you studying? Where are you doing your work?’

‘Psychology, at Yale. Right now I’m working on my master’s thesis: “Displaced Eroticism in the Fiction of Early Nineteenth-Century Women Writers.” When I’m through with her, Jane Austen will never look the same.’

She glanced at her watch. ‘Which reminds me, I’ve still a couple of hours ahead of me in the Reading Room. Let’s get down to cases, okay? I’ve been straight with you, and I want you to be straight with me.’ She placed her hand over his. ‘I doubt your name’s Martin Chuzzlewit, I know my Dickens. I also know Spinoza’s Burly-Que, and I’m willing to bet
you
’re not a customer. So I’m asking you right out, what d’you want with Dolly and Sugar? They’re my sisters. They’re not exactly mental powerhouses, and I don’t want them hurt.’