A Shock to the System - Stevenson Richard - Страница 18

"Especially if they got elected to something," Monroe said.

"Is either of them running for office?" I asked.

Monroe said no, he didn't think so, and I wondered if either Roland Stover or Dean Moody had found cruder outlets for their hatred of homosexuality.

I said, "To your knowledge, did any member of the therapy

group ever record one of the sessions, either openly or secretly?"

They stared at me. Monroe said, "No—why? Did somebody tape us? That would certainly be untoward."

"It's just something I'm trying to track down. Does the name Steven St. James ring a bell with either of you?"

Tidlow said, "I never heard of him. Who's he? Any relation to Susan Saint James of Kate and Allie? That was one of my favorite shows. I have all the tapes."

"I don't know yet who he is," I said, "or what his connection is to any of this. When I asked him about his involvement, he just said I didn't want to know."

"It looks like you do, though," Monroe said. "I hope when you find out, you aren't too shocked."

I said no, I hoped I wasn't.

10

Back in the office, I dialed the numbers I had for the other members of the therapy group but got only one answer. A woman at Grey Oliveira's number in Saratoga said I could reach him at work in Albany in the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal. Oliveira took my call, and when I told him I was investigating Paul Haig's death he agreed to meet me at five at a bar on Broadway. He said he too had been surprised by Haig's suicide, and he'd wondered if there hadn't been more to it.

I tried Crockwell and got his machine. It was just past two in the afternoon, so I didn't know if he had been led off to jail or if he was busy attaching electrodes to the limbs or genitalia of his current patients.

Again, I started to dial Phyllis Haig's number but couldn't quite make myself hit the final digit.

I did reach Al Finnerty, who said he'd heard from the hospital that Larry Bierly was improving steadily. Bierly was barely conscious but still too drugged up to be interviewed. The doctors had told Finnerty maybe Bierly could talk and make sense in a day or so. Then, presumably, he might be able to identify his attacker, or, if he got a look but it wasn't anybody he knew, he could at least provide a description. Finnerty asked me how I was coming with my own inquiries. I said I still hadn't learned much of coherent substance, which was an awkward but true fact.

Grey Oliveira was short and muscular in the conservative dark suit and gaudy multicolored tie that somebody had decreed must be worn by men under fifty working in offices that year. He had a well-sculpted Mediterranean face, oldtime-matinee-idol wavy black hair, and big liquid gray eyes it was hard not to gaze into in a more than businesslike way. Despite a certain awkward salty ache I was feeling, I was sure I hadn't given anything away when—about sixty seconds after I walked up to him—Oliveira said, "You're gay, aren't you?"

"I am. What tipped you off? Was it the spitcurl or the Barbie lunch box?"

"Just something about the way you were looking at me. Or not looking at me. Or looking at me and looking as if you'd be a lot more comfortable if you were looking at somebody else. It's my eyes, I know. Gay men and straight women find my eyes hypnotic. This goes way back—to infancy, as a matter of fact. My parents were the first ones to be smitten. I was named after my eyes, as a matter of fact. And these eyes have done extremely well for me over the years."

"I'll bet."

"Only up to a point, though. People don't tend to come back for seconds. The problem is, I've got bedroom eyes but a dick the size of a thimble."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

He laughed once and shook his head. "Hey, can't you tell when somebody's pulling your leg? Sheesh." He winked at me and raised his glass of beer.

I said, "Are you bisexual? Or are the straight women whose gaze is sucked into your limpid pools not so lucky as all those gay men?"

"One of them is," he said, gazing at me. "I'm married. In fact— hey, why am I telling you this? You wanted to talk about Paul Haig's suicide. That's why we're meeting like this. And here I am instead regaling you with the raunchy details of my sex life."

"I haven't heard any raunchy details," I said, "and I guess I

don't need to. But the general outline of your sex life does interest me. I'm trying to get a clearer picture of Crockwell and his therapy groups, especially the one you were in."

"Oh, you don't want to talk about my dick, then?"

"No." All around us other men were drinking draft beer and palavering about the young baseball season, and the market, and the legislative session, and how Clinton was in trouble and how he deserved it because he was a wuss and a liar and a phony: the boomers devouring one of their own.

Oliveira said, "Don't get me wrong. I'm all talk. I'm a happily married man. For me, as the song goes, there's no fiddle-dee-dee. In fact, you might say, I'm twice faithful, doubly married. Do you know what I'm talking about, Strachey?"

"I haven't got a clue."

"I've got both a wife and a boyfriend," he said, and sipped his beer. My bottle of Molson arrived and I imbibed from it. "Up in Saratoga, we are tres civilized. None of your bourgeois narrow-mindedness in our hip precincts. I love my wife and I like my fuck buddy, and I need what they both have to offer—her comfort and security and good home, and his stiff one. It's a full life."

"I guess it could be."

He grinned. "I might sound a little flippant about my cozy arrangement, but don't misunderstand me. I really am lucky. Annette is the love of my life and I couldn't live without her. My boyfriend is in a similar situation and it all works. Both of us get to keep the marriages we value, and so do our wives, who are cool with the deal. They know exactly where we are and who we're with when we're not home—a claim most wives are unable to make about their husbands. And it's all AIDS-proof too, a closed circle no virus can penetrate—unless it turns out AIDS can be picked up through overexposure to the sheets at Stan and Ellie's Mountain View Motel on Route 9- Then I'm in trouble."

"It does sound safe, if underly romantic."

"I lost interest in romance a long time ago. I never had much luck with it."

"Uh-huh."

"Not with men, anyway."

I said, "Is that why you ended up in Vernon Crockwell's therapy group?"

He grimaced into his beer, then looked up at me disgustedly. He said, "I did that for Annette. I never expected it to work and I don't think she honestly expected it to either. But this was before I met Stu, and I was getting pretty antsy going without dick—the whole AIDS thing had scared me off of men completely—and Annette heard about Crockwell and thought if I went to him I could get my craving for men exorcised and find peace. Get a gay-sex lobotomy or something."

"Sounds grim."

"You'll never know how grim it was."

"And you met Stu while you were still in the group?"

"I met him last summer, at a Little League game. How's that for family values?"

"Commendable. You've got kids?"

"Bobby, ten, and Ellen, eight. Both nice kids too."

"And you and Stu were in the Little League bleachers and your eyes met and bells rang and violins played?"

He said, "I told you, that's not how it works with me. I've never been in love with a man. Basically, I just like sucking cock."