Strachey's Folly - Stevenson Richard - Страница 25

"Jeez," Timmy said, "it does sound as if they know more than they're letting on. Do you think they're protecting Jim, or even that they're in on it?"

It again. "I'm clueless. I was able to extract precisely noth­ing out of them. In fact, that's what made me suspicious, the care they took in chatting me up lengthily about themselves while re­vealing no fact at all about Jim."

"So I guess it's more urgent than ever that you track Suter down yourself."

"That's what I think."

The maitre d' now appeared briefly alongside our table and left behind two men. The shorter and more compact of the two, a tidy, clear-skinned, strawberry-blond, preppy-looking man with a cream-colored sweater tied around his neck, said, "Don Stra-chey? I'm Martin Dormer."

There were introductions all around, with Dormer, and with Peter Vicknicki, a tall, thin man with a bushy, dark beard and small black eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He had on faded jeans and a well-worn black sweatshirt with sweatshirt spelled out across the front.

I thought about the four former lovers of Jim Suter that I had laid eyes on—these two, Bud Hively, and Maynard—and saw no physical resemblance among any of them. I guessed that the men who turned Suter on were simply those men who were strongly attracted to him, and they had come in a broad spectrum of types.

As soon as we'd all been seated, with no preliminaries, Vicknicki asked, "Is there something really weird going on? The Post story on the quilt said a panel with Jim's name on it had been vandalized. And then somebody told me that a detective— I guess that's you—was asking around about Jim, who seems to have disappeared. At least, nobody we know has any idea where he is."

"And," Dormer added, "we heard that Maynard Sudbury, another one of Jim's exes, was shot in front of his house Satur­day night and he's in the hospital in bad shape. Although I don't suppose there's any connection between that and Jim's disap­pearance and his name turning up on the AIDS panel. Is there?"

"We don't know if there's any connection," I was able to say honestly.

"I just hope there's not some bizarre conspiracy unfolding here," Vicknicki said, and I glanced at Timmy, who looked alert. "Jim Suter probably has more ex-lovers in Washington than all the Kennedys combined—a very large number of people fall into this category—and Sudbury was the second one of them in­side of a year to be shot on the street on Capitol Hill. Maynard's expected to live, though, unlike poor Bryant Ulmer."

Timmy fidgeted with his water glass and said, "Who's Bryant Ulmer?"

"You haven't heard about Bryant?" Dormer asked. "Where are you guys from?"

"Albany, New York," Timmy said, and Dormer stared at him as if Timmy had announced that we were down for the week­end from Bleeding Gums, Ontario.

"Bryant was quite well known on the Hill," Dormer said, "and he was Jim's boyfriend for a month or so ... a couple of years ago, I'd say. Then last winter Bryant was murdered. It was horrible. Bryant was shot in front of his house, too, about eight blocks from Maynard's. The police said it was a mugging and they never got whoever did it. But now with Maynard Sudbury getting shot the same way, some of us are beginning to wonder."

"Tell me again," Vicknicki put in, "what your connection is with Jim. Did you say his mother hired you to find him? From what I heard from Jim about Lila, I'm surprised she'd hire a gay detective. She's extremely homophobic and never wanted to know anything about Jim's personal life. You two are a couple, aren't you? You seem like you are." The deep black eyes behind Vicknicki's specs had hardened as he waited for one of us to answer.

I said, "We're partners, yes, and we're actually friends of Maynard's. The business about Mrs. Suter hiring us was a line to get you here. Sorry about that." "Oh. I see."

"We were with Maynard Saturday when he discovered the quilt panel for Jim, and he was upset and concerned. He wanted to find out what had happened. Then he got shot, so we're in­vestigating on our own. I am, at any rate. I'm a licensed private investigator in the state of New York." I took out my wallet and held up my license with its photo ID, and Dormer examined it with interest.

Vicknicki still looked skeptical. "You could have been hon­est with us."

"I can see that now," I said.

The waiter appeared, a slight Asian man in shiny black pants and a white shirt with a speck of cilantro on his sleeve. "Are you ready to order?"

"We haven't looked at the menu," Timmy said. "Sorry." "Take your time," the waiter replied, and zipped away. I said, "Martin, how come Bryant Ulmer was so well known on the Hill? Maybe we ought to be aware of who he was. Tim­othy and I do read the New York Times every day and when channel-surfing we pause from time to time at C-Span. But you can help us out by reminding us of exactly what Ulmer's claim to fame was."

"He was Burton Olds's chief of staff," Dormer said, then sat looking at me as if no further explanation were needed. I did recognize the name as that of an influential Republican con­gressman from Illinois who was chairman of an important House committee, although I couldn't remember which one. His name had also come up as the current employer of Alan McChesney, Betty Krumfutz's former chief of staff who was a friend of Jim Suter's boyfriend Jorge Ramos.

I said, "Olds is head of what? The banking committee?"

"Commerce," Dormer said. "And since Olds is both lazy and preoccupied with skirt-chasing—as men of Burton's generation in the House like to term it—Bryant Ulmer pretty much ran not only the office but the congressional seat. Bryant's murder was a real blow to Olds."

"Who," Vicknicki added, "is one of more than a few elected representatives serving in this city who possess, instead of a brain, an effective staff."

"Luckily for Olds," Dormer said, "Ulmer had a deputy who was able to step into the job when Bryant died. Alan McChesney is every bit as tough and capable as Bryant was. If not quite so nice."

Vicknicki said, "And like Bryant, Alan knows where all the bodies are buried." We stared at him, and Vicknicki added, "Fig­uratively speaking, I mean. I mean, I think I mean."

Timmy said, "Alan McChesney—isn't he another one of Jim Suter's exes? I've heard that name somewhere recently."

"They were briefly an item," Dormer said, "back when Mc­Chesney worked for Betty Krumfutz. Do you know who she is?"

"Yes, we do," I said.

Vicknicki said, "If it's beginning to sound as if Jim Suter fucked half the gay men on the Hill, that's probably about right. Between a half and two-thirds, I'd say." Dormer nodded thought­fully, as if the figure sounded within ballpark range. "Which is not to say," Vicknicki went on, "that Jim ever slept with anybody more than, say, ten times."

"No." Dormer shook his head emphatically. "Ten tops. With me it was six."

"Me, too," Vicknicki said. "When Jim met you, it was, 'God, where have you been?' Then it was a week or so of rapture— with Jim's intense focus on you, and those eyes, and that hair— and then nothing. No thing. He'd never return your calls, and when you ran into him, he'd glance your way and say, 'Hi, nice to see you,' as if you were someone he'd once been introduced to at a reception at the National Bee Balm Association or what­ever."