The Lure (21 page)

The woman left a minute later, and the proprietor disappeared into the back room. As planned, the envelope was gone, taken by him into the rear of the store where Noel knew a Whisper operative would immediately photocopy it in preparation for putting it on microfilm later on. The whole process seldom took more than five minutes, but Loomis had insisted it be done extracautiously.

Noel glanced over the paperbacks, then selected some magazines and thumbed through them.

“Try this one,” the other customer said. He was holding out a body magazine. He must have been in his mid-thirties, with a ruddy, pleasant face, small blond mustache, long, curling reddish hair, dressed in an expensively cut French or Italian suit with one of those drop-dead forty-dollar silk ties seen only in shops on Madison Avenue.

“Thanks, I’ve already seen it.”

“You live around here?”

A Whisper operative—despite the expensive clothing—also waiting to have something photocopied? Or, one of X’s men who’d somehow discovered what was going on here? He hadn’t turned around when Noel had come in, nor when the manila envelope had been taken. But Noel decided to keep him occupied anyway, at least until the papers had been slipped back under his jacket.

“A few blocks away, why?”

“Haven’t I seen you before?”

“Probably. I come in here often.”

“No. I meant somewhere else. Downtown. In the Village.”

“I tend bar. The Grip.”

The man’s eyes narrowed as though he were picturing Noel behind the bar. “And you read
Psychology Today,
Human Nature,
and
Scientific American.
”

“I’m not illiterate. I went to school.”

“Fallen on hard times?”

“Sort of. It doesn’t bother me.”

“What did you study?”

“Psychology.” Noel held out the magazines. “The usual. I thought I’d become a clinical psychologist.”

“I have a friend at the Upstate Medical Center.” He named someone Noel had never heard of. “Maybe he could help you. You have your degree, don’t you?”

“Everyone has a degree,” Noel said, playing out the role he had just adopted.

“My friend could set you up with—something. And if that didn’t work maybe you could try something else. I know a lot of important people.”

“No kidding?” Noel said, all innocence, trying not to behave as though it were the oldest line in the history of mankind.

“Why don’t you come around the corner? We’ll have a smoke, a drink, talk this out.”

“I can’t right now. Someone’s expecting me in half an hour.”

He heard the storeowner return, the barely audible rustle of his jacket being lifted, the envelope placed under it again.

“Maybe another time,” the man said, handing Noel a business card.

Bill Clay Flanders III, it read. An address nearby: no apartment number. He must own a town house. So he wasn’t a fake.

Noel had a sudden floating feeling. Here was an attractive, well-heeled, totally inoffensive person offering to help him out after only a few minutes. Of course in return Noel would be expected to put out: but lots of guys did that for nothing. Noel knew without having to ask that Flanders would keep him if he wanted.

It was common enough among most of the gays Noel had met. Rick had suggested it was the reason Noel was going up to Redfern’s town house, not knowing that he was following orders, trying to see as much as he could of Dorrance, if only to placate an increasingly edgy and annoying Loomis.

But this business of being kept was an accepted part of gay life. Almost Socratic, the older, more established man helping his younger, less established lover. Noel had heard in the Grip of guys who’d been sent through medical school by older men, set up with trust funds by lovers needing tax rebates, made titular salaried heads of corporations, kept in style, often with nothing more than companionship required, then lavishly settled when the inevitable breakup occurred. Not wives. Not mistresses. And while often adopted, not quite sons either. Opportunities like this had never been open to Noel before; now they seemed to happen once a week.

Noel pocketed the business card.

“I will.” Noel flashed what he hoped was a significant look, though he was certain he never would call Flanders or see him again. For the briefest moment he had the terrible certainty that Flanders—and not Dorrance at all—was the man Loomis was looking for. Sheer paranoia, he told himself.

Flanders had put the magazines back on the rack and was at the door.

“I’ll take these,” Noel said to the proprietor, who never looked up at Noel as he made change for the magazines.

“See you later,” Flanders said cheerfully.

Noel half turned to acknowledge the good-bye. But Flanders had already stepped out.

By the time Noel reached the sidewalk, Flanders was already on the next corner. Noel thought to catch up with him, if only to convince himself that Flanders really had nothing to do with Whisper or Mr. X. He had broken into a trot when there was a shout behind him.

He spun around, saw the store owner waving what Noel immediately recognized as his jacket. Noel saw that Flanders had also stopped at the sound of the shout, perhaps waiting for Noel to catch up with him. Noel went back for the jacket.

He had just reached for it, and was thanking the storeowner, when he heard what sounded like a car careening out of control in front of them. Both men looked around, saw the big sedan suddenly appear from around the corner of Twenty-ninth Street, swerving wildly.

Before they could call out, they saw Flanders—in the middle of the street—also turn to the source of the loud noise. The sedan seemed to aim away from him. Its brakes screeched. Flanders threw up his hands to protect himself, then was spun around like a top as the fender brushed against him, and the car sped past and raced up the avenue. Flanders seemed to totter for a long second before he fell straight forward as though a giant hand had slapped him down.

Noel’s heart and breath stopped.

“He’s hit!” the storekeeper yelled, and pulled Noel along with him toward the corner.

Flanders was facedown in the gutter, his hands spread out on either side of him, not as if he had been breaking his fall, but as though he’d been knocked unconscious.

The storeowner bent down to him, muttering. Noel remained on the curb, petrified, staring at the blood as it poured out of Flanders’s ears and nose in spurts, and from his forehead, which must have taken the second impact and concussed. In seconds a thin yellowish liquid began seeping out of Flanders’s head, encircling the fast-growing puddle of deep crimson blood.

A crowd gathered quickly, and Noel was soon pushed back among them. Sirens were screaming toward them. Then someone was nudging Noel away from the corner.

“You’d better get out of here,” the man said, as if in command, and in such an odd tone of voice that Noel stared at him. It was as if he knew something Noel did not.

Had Flanders just been assassinated before his very eyes?

“Go,” the man said. Noel dumbly moved away.

Dorrance was in the big first-floor office of the Redfern town house. He greeted Noel more warmly than before, but with Dorrance that was like gradations in the temperature of a refrigerator.

“You’re very conscientious,” Dorrance said, taking the manila envelope and inspecting its contents.

“I didn’t have anything else to do, and Rick was real swamped.” It was two hours after the street-corner hit-and-run death, and though calm again, Noel couldn’t get Flanders’s image out of his mind.

Dorrance went through the papers thoroughly, but quickly, as though he had a photographic memory.

Noel used this time to study him again. Something about Dorrance repelled him, even if he weren’t the mastermind of so much evil and mayhem. He was cold, efficient, extracautious, always polite and tactful, precise, well-spoken: nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that suggested more than a career diplomat or a successful bureaucrat. What was frightening was how unextraordinary he was, how dull, with his expected good grooming, his à la mode haircut and clothing. Unimaginative. That was it. Nothing unique about him; at least nothing apparent. He reminded Noel of a washed-out version of Wilbur Boyle, his department chairman. He and Boyle would get along very well, Noel thought, have a long, insincere conversation: they were of a type.

“It all seems to be in order,” Dorrance said, getting up from his seat. He closed the envelope and locked it in a desk drawer. “Now, would you care for a drink?”

That was a first. “Sure,” Noel said. Perhaps Loomis was right, the more Noel hung around the more he’d be noticed.

Dorrance ordered over the intercom, and they took the elevator up to the large living room on the main floor where Okku, the manservant, was just setting the drinks onto the coffee table.

“Help yourself to some music,” Dorrance said. “I don’t know what’s what back there. Eric and Alana usually select it.”

The stereo system Redfern had installed in the house was magnificent. It consisted of a preamplifier, radio tuner, two phonograph decks, two reel-to-reel tape decks, and a cassette deck attached to dozens of speakers for each floor, all hooked up to a central series of powerful amplifiers somewhere on the basement level, thousands of watts strong. All the equipment was touch-operated: shiny black surfaces and subtle, scarcely marked keys were all that you saw. All the electronics were Redfern manufacture—the latest, the most expensive, Noel guessed.

He chose an hour-long cassette copy of a tape just delivered to the Grip. He adjusted the volume and returned to where Dorrance was seated in a leather rocking chair, looking out at the back garden.

“Eric and Alana seem to be out today?” Noel asked, trying to make conversation.

“They’re in Bermuda for a few days.”

Noel sat down. “So that’s why it seemed so quiet.”

“They and their friends can get awfully noisy at times,” Dorrance said, almost wistfully, Noel thought. “Tell me something about yourself, Noel.”

Noel almost gagged on his vodka and tonic. Here it was.

“There’s not much to tell.”

“You’re not a stupid young man. Educated. To what? College level?” Noel nodded yes. Dorrance went on. “Yet you’re working in a bar, why?”

“You’re the second person to ask me that today. You might call it disillusionment with the groves of academe, I suppose.”

“Understandable,” Dorrance said. But he didn’t sound convinced. “Go on.”

“Well, when I came out a few years ago, on the Coast,” Noel lied, the words flowing out of him they were so well rehearsed, so often said recently, “I decided I was tired of the hypocrisy. I wanted to live my own way, and that didn’t fit in too well. The last holdout was my lover, in Berkeley. When I walked out on him it broke the last tie to my old life. That’s why I came to New York.”

Dorrance was rapt. Bought it hook, line, and sinker, Noel thought.

“And you like being at the bar?”

“It’s all right.”

“You like one-to-one contact with the public?”

What was he getting at? “It isn’t ideal, of course,” Noel said, “but until I figure out what is, it’ll do.”

“The reason I ask is…well, perhaps you can tell me why I’m asking all these questions?”

Noel wasn’t certain whether he’d been led into a trap unaware, into some revelation he hadn’t meant to make. For what seemed an eternity, he sat, holding his glass, looking at Dorrance, feeling like a block of ice that had been left to melt on the expensive carpets. What did Dorrance know? What the hell was he up to? Slow down, Noel told himself. Calm down. Answer him.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean. Unless it’s that you’re expanding and all.”

“Exactly. We are expanding. Rick’s club. Maybe another one on the Coast. You seem to me to be the kind of person we need. Conscientious, smart, popular, responsible.”

“To do what?”

“Nothing right now, except what you’re already doing. You’re comfortable at the Grip. Others are comfortable with you there. We’ll see how you work out and what best fits your particular talents. Then, when we’re ready, you’ll be ready, too. For the time being, stay at the bar. Rick will be away a lot. It’ll need a steady hand.”

“Right,” Noel said.

“Good,” Dorrance said.

That was it. No offer. And certainly nothing personal. Dorrance was like a corporation officer informing the junior executive he was being watched, put in line for promotion. Definitely all business. Nothing sexual. Not a hint of a come-on. Was Dorrance shy? Asexual? Or was he up to his ears in debt to Eric—the real money? Loomis would be disappointed. He’d expected so much from Noel. So far all he had was—what? A few photocopied papers? And this offer.

There was a call for Dorrance, and he took it on the library extension. Noel refilled his drink and nursed it, trying to find a way to present this new information to Loomis in a manner that would not totally devastate him.

“That was Eric and Alana,” Dorrance said, several minutes later. “They both said hello.”

“Both? I’m surprised to hear that,” Noel said. “I didn’t think Eric cared for me too much.”