Pinball (34 page)

Osten picked up his possessions. “I’m sorry, Donna,” he said. He paused. “Maybe one day you’ll understand how I feel.”

One of the Born Frees snickered. Another, imitating Osten’s croaky voice, said, “Maybe one day, man, well kick the shit out of your tight ass.”

A wave of rage and humiliation swept over Osten, and turning to Domostroy, he said, “Tell your Foreign Legion to go fuck themselves.” Then, still angry, he turned to Donna. “As for you, Donna—you deserve a better lover than a cheap nightclub act!”

“Why don’t you just leave,” Donna replied, her back to him.

He wheeled and started for the door, but one of the Born Frees blocked his path and switched open a long knife.

“Let him go,” said Domostroy, barely controlling his fury. “Let him take his spying toys and go bug someone else.”

When Osten was gone, Domostroy shook the hands
of the three young men. “Thanks for keeping an eye on the place,” he said. “You did a great job.”

“Our pleasure,” said the tallest of them as he settled his cap on his head. They went laughing and chattering from the ballroom, and at the doorway the tall one turned and gave Donna a long look.

Outside in the fresh air, Osten became aware of his pain. It radiated through his skull and went all the way down to his left shoulder, affecting the movement of his arm. When he got to the car he found that someone had stolen his jacket and his wallet, which contained, in addition to more than a thousand dollars, his university ID and his California driver’s license.

He threw the microphone and recorder on the back seat, got in, and headed back to Manhattan. He drove slowly, fearing that his rotten luck and his splitting headache might cause him to have an accident along the way.

In sifting out his thoughts, Osten discovered that what upset him most was not the loss of Donna, but his failure to accomplish what he had set out to do. He had no doubt that Donna had meant what she said and would not see him again, even though he doubted she was Domostroy’s mistress. Frustrated at finding that he had no control over her, he also felt a sense of relief so suddenly that he was free of her, for the anxiety their relationship caused him by now had eroded the love he once felt for Donna. And though he was halted for the moment in his attempts to find out what—if anything—Domostroy had to do with the photographs of the White House nude, at least he was free to pursue Andrea, the possible subject of those photographs and the potential writer of the letters, about whom he had so far only been able to fantasize. Even if she turned out not to be the White House woman, she was still eminently worth going after.

At his sublet apartment, he chased two aspirin with a bottle of beer and put a compress of ice cubes wrapped in a towel on his head. He then tacked the enlarged photographs
of the nude he hoped was Andrea up on the walls and studied them for an hour or so. Drowsy and numb by then, he promised himself he would call her first thing in the morning. Then he fell asleep.

When he awoke, the lump on his head was bigger, but the pain had diminished. Before calling Andrea, he was seized by doubt as to whether he should tell her what had happened to him the night before, and he decided finally that since there was a good chance she would learn about it from Donna, he had better tell her himself.

Andrea seemed surprised to hear from him. Trying not to betray how much he wanted to be with her, he asked lightly if she would see him for dinner that night. With seeming innocence, Andrea asked if he was planning to bring Donna. He answered that he meant dinner for just the two of them because Donna and he had split—and not under the most agreeable circumstances. As he described his encounter with Donna and Domostroy, painting himself as an innocent jerk lost among villains, Andrea’s giggles of appreciation spurred him to embellish the story and he began to laugh along with her.

Before hanging up, they made a date for that night.

“‘Consort not with a female musician lest thou be taken in by her snares.’ That’s Ecclesiasticus, the Book of Wisdom.” Andrea was speaking to Domostroy on the phone. “I had dinner with Jimmy Osten last night,” she went on. “How come you had your hired hoods beat Jimmy up in front of ‘Brown Sugar’ Downes? Was it because you’re fucking her now and wanted to show off?”

“‘Women, indeed, are the music of life.’ That’s Richard Wagner!” he retorted. “What’s more, I resent your racist remarks about Donna.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” she replied. “Now let me tell you who’s the racist here. Why do you think you like Donna Downes? Because of her wonderful talent and her Juilliard schooling? Bull! You went after your tawny temptress, Mr. Hypocrite Whitecock, not because her music
made your white cock hard, not because the Harlem odalisque was your spiritual soul sister, but because she was a black go-go girl and for you, and for every other white male sexist, black skin means slavery and black cunt means whoredom. You tell yourself that you want Donna because of her music and talent and other shit like that, but in fact you want to fuck the cunt of a chocolate chippie slave. Like any other white master going after a black ghetto hussy, you’re turned on only by her talent for entertaining you! Deep down you know it! And your Black Carmen knows it too!”

“Are you studying drama, or soap opera?” he asked.

“I’ve also been studying you, remember?”

“Then you should know that I met Donna Downes through little Jimmy Osten—her other ‘white master,’ as you so crudely put it. Or was Jimmy really in love with her?”

“I doubt if he was ever in love with her,” said Andrea. “He tells me he’s had his eye on me for three months—even before Donna ever introduced us.”

“You didn’t, by any chance, buy him his surveillance toys and send him to spy on us, did you?”

“I didn’t have to. He’s probably sick of her screwing around behind his back when he’s away at school.” She paused. “By the way, as a lover, Jimmy has one advantage over you,” she broke off casually, as if to tease him.

“He’s young,” he ventured.

“Age doesn’t matter,” she said. “But his vulnerability does. By not hiding it, he brings out the nurturing instinct—the most fertile ground for sexual giving and receiving in a woman.”

“Emotional maternity wards are just not my beat,” said Domostroy harshly.

“Just as well,” said Andrea. “That’s where Jimmy has beaten you.”

“I’m not in a contest with Jimmy Osten, or for that matter, with anyone else,” he said, trying to change the subject. “The mother in you may enjoy taking up with the boy in him, but I’m convinced it’s bad for our plan. What
if Goddard should turn up and find little Jimmy milking your maternal breast?”

“Stop calling him
little
! Unless you want me to ask Donna how you compare with Dick Longo.”

“You do that, and I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” she challenged him.

“I’ll call Jimmy and tell him about you and me.”

“He won’t believe you,” she said.

“Will he believe the photographs I took of you?” he asked. “I have copies of all of them.”

“So what? They’re faceless!”

“Some aren’t. You were just too preoccupied playing with yourself to know what pictures I took!”

“If you do that, Patrick, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Now he was challenging her. Abruptly, realizing they were getting nowhere, he became conciliatory. “Let’s stop this nonsense, Andrea. I swear I haven’t slept with Donna. And I had nothing to do with the gang beating up Jimmy Osten on his childish mission impossible. I hope he knows that.”

“He was very curious about you,” said Andrea blithely. “In any case,” she said, calmer now, “you’re right when you say that he can’t stay in my apartment. Goddard wouldn’t appreciate it, if he ever shows up. And of course, Jimmy’s accustomed to all that space in California.”

“California? Why California?” Domostroy asked.

“He’s studying literature and creative writing at the University of California at Davis. Postgraduate work toward his Ph. D. Boy or no boy, Jimmy’s an intellectual type, you know. So if your precious Donna has left him out and alone, I just might hang around—even hang onto—him for a while.”

“You go ahead and do that,” he said, trying to sound offhanded. “In fact, be good to the boy. After all, what’s good for the Ostens is good for Etude, and what’s good for Etude is good for me. I’m still in their greedy hands, remember.” He laughed. “Just be on the lookout. And let me know if anything unusual happens.”

“Like what?” asked Andrea.

“Like Goddard showing up He’s certainly a bigger
fish to catch than Jimmy.’” He chuckled. “I spent a lot of time luring Goddard with my brilliant letters and your dirty pictures. I wouldn’t want to think that all my efforts were wasted because he turned up and found you in bed with”—he groaned in mock grief—“little Jimmy Osten!”

“Keep in mind,” said Andrea, “that I paid you for your efforts. So I can waste them if I want to.’” Not amused, she hung up.

“Have you ever met Andrea Gwynplaine?” Donna asked Domostroy after one of their practice sessions at the Old Glory.

For a moment Domostroy was tempted to admit the truth. Why should he lie to Donna, the one woman he could so easily love. Why should he let his secret and insidious arrangement with Andrea threaten his open and trustworthy involvement with Donna? To what degree was he bound by his pact with Andrea?

“Andrea Gwynplaine?” he repeated. “The name doesn’t ring a bell. Who is she?”

“Haven’t I mentioned her to you? She’s a drama student at Juilliard who also attends lecture courses in the music department,’” said Donna. “I think Jimmy was very impressed by her, and he’s been after her ever since he started coming to Juilliard with me to sit in on lectures.”

“When was that?” asked Domostroy casually.

“About a month ago.”

“A month ago? Are you sure he didn’t meet her earlier?” he blurted before he could stop himself.

“Of course, I am,” said Donna. “It was right after Jimmy asked me to find out whether Juilliard taught the music of Goddard Lieberson—whose name I knew because of his connection with CBS—and of another composer whose name escapes me …” She halted. “I know,” she said, “Boris Pregel, a contemporary of Lieberson’s Do you know their work?”

“Yes, I do. I even knew them.” Domostroy’s heart
pounded with excitement. “But go on with the story,” he said, afraid she might lose the train of her thought.

“Well, actually Jimmy wanted to know whether Lieberson and Pregel were taught in music courses anywhere in the city. I checked through all the course catalogs, but they weren’t—not this semester anyhow.”

“Is that so?” said Domostroy, encouraging Donna’s talkative mood. “I didn’t know Jimmy was so musical.”

“Oh, yes. He is, surprisingly. He also asked me to find out if any New York music school offered a course in Chopin’s life. I guess he did it for my sake.”

“And did you find him such a course?” asked Domostroy.

“Yes, I did. Piano Literature, given right at Juilliard. I took Jimmy to the next couple of lectures.”

Domostroy felt lost. First, according to Andrea, Jimmy Osten studied at the University of California at Davis. Karlheinz Stockhausen had once been a visiting professor at Davis and had exerted considerable influence there. One of his students later became the creative light of ELMUS, an ensemble which, with the help of digital electronic instruments, developed music of an unusually high energy level, particularly in terms of percussion. Some of Goddard’s melodies and arrangements, Domostroy remembered, bore striking similarities to ELMUS’s music. And now here was Osten, who had gone to school right where ELMUS originated, hanging around Andrea, the girl who was the bait for Goddard, asking questions about Pregel and Lieberson and Chopin letters! The only reason Osten would want to know about Lieberson and Pregel would be if he had seen the letters. By now Domostroy had no doubt that there was a direct link between Osten and Goddard. Otherwise how would Osten know exactly what was in the letters to Goddard? Did he know Goddard personally? Was there a connection between Goddard and Etude Classics? Was there some way Jimmy Osten—with the authorization of his father or someone at Nokturn—could get to read Goddard’s mail before it was delivered to Goddard? Then Domostroy thought, What if Goddard never received the letters? What if Jimmy Osten had
intercepted them and then gone out to look for the White House letter writer on his own?

And now another thought started to trouble him. Why would Osten, who had gone after Andrea only a month ago, now claim to her that he had noticed her three months ago? Was it so she wouldn’t connect the time of their meeting with the time Domostroy had mailed the first White House letter? And why would Andrea unquestioningly believe his claim and repeat it? Could there be a conspiracy between Andrea and Jimmy Osten? On the other hand, how could Osten possibly suspect—if he did—that Andrea was the White House woman? Could Osten be Goddard’s emissary? And if he was, who had been so clever as to send him to spy on Domostroy and say that he was spying on Donna instead? And unless Andrea had given everything away, Osten would have no way of connecting him, Domostroy, to the White House letters. Finally, as improbable as it seemed until now, could Osten be Goddard?

“What are you thinking about?” Donna asked, interrupting his thought process.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, hesitating. “It’s just that from my old days with Etude, I always think of Jimmy Osten as such an innocent kid.” He paused. “What’s wrong with his voice, by the way?” he asked, still uncertain.

“Some years ago he had a tumor removed from his throat” said Donna. “His father told me it was serious surgery. It left Jimmy’s larynx scarred and permanently altered his voice.”

“In any case,” Domostroy went on, “I didn’t think Jimmy was the type to spy on people.” He paused, then attempted once again to sound detached. “Has he ever spoken of Goddard?” he asked.

“Goddard Lieberson?”

“No, Goddard, the rock star.”

“Very seldom. And if he likes him, he hasn’t said so. Even though he and I met at the Goddard Beat, he knew how I felt about rock.”

It now occurred to Domostroy that Osten could have
written music and even lyrics for Goddard. After all, ghostwriting was not limited to literature.