A Shock to the System - Stevenson Richard (читать книги онлайн без регистрации TXT) 📗

I said, "It wasn't Crockwell who made a tape. It must have been a member of the group. Somebody sent the tape to the cops anonymously with a note suggesting Crockwell murdered Paul. The implication was, Paul had somehow gone after Crockwell for trying to poison Paul's relationship with his mother and Crockwell killed him. That sounds farfetched to me—Crockwell has no history of violence—just as it sounded unlikely when you told me you thought Crockwell killed Paul just because Crockwell was a hater obsessed with homosexuality. I've met the guy, and he is that. But he seems to get his rocks off taking gay men's money and torturing them with his treatments. He doesn't need to be homicidal. Of course, the cops like the looks of him because he's got a sort of motive for shooting you and maybe killing Paul, and he's got no alibi for either. I know, Larry, that you didn't shoot yourself twice, but I'm wondering if it was you who made

the tape and sent it to the cops to set Crockwell up as a suspect in Paul's death. Was it?"

He'd been watching me and listening with effort—he was undoubtedly on heavy-duty painkillers—and after a moment he said simply, "No. I didn't even know a tape existed."

"Who might have recorded it?"

He shook his head. "Who knows. Everybody in that group was weird or fucked up in some way. And I always had a feeling they all had their secrets. I know some of them did. I'd see Gary Moe and Nelson Bowkar together at the mall sometimes, and once I saw LeVon Monroe and Walter Tidlow eating together late at night at the Denny's on Wolf Road. It came out later that Gary and Nelson were lovers, and it wouldn't surprise me if LeVon and Walter were getting it on too. Paul told me he even saw one of the group cruising a tearoom one time. Maybe somebody taped all the sessions and went home and played them back and jerked off. It's not your well-adjusted healthy homosexual who's drawn into a lunatic asylum like Crockwell's."

"Who did Paul catch in a tearoom?"

"He never said. This happened sometime last winter, I think. But it's hazy because Paul never brought it up again. He went in to take a piss somewhere, he said, and there was some wild scene going on. This guy was in the thick of it. He was telling me this on the phone—saying guess who he saw violating both the canons of good taste and his therapy contract with Crockwell— when his call waiting went off and it was Phyllis, so that was that. Phyllis always took precedence with Paul. The next time I saw him, I asked him about the tearoom scene, but he didn't seem to want to talk about it. I got the idea that maybe his presence in this place wasn't entirely innocent either."

"You claim to value being honest and straightforward, Larry. And yet there is another area where you have not been entirely honest and straightforward with me."

"Oh, is that so?" He looked wary.

"You forgot or chose not to explain to me the connection

between you and Paul and Crockwell and Steven St. James. You can correct that oversight starting as soon as I count to one. One."

Bierly was hooked up to some kind of electric monitor, and as he lay there looking over at me, a couple of his numbers started going up.

For a second time, I said, "One."

Then he shook his head and said, "That has nothing to do with anything."

"I don't believe it."

"So don't."

"Who is St. James?"

"An acquaintance."

"More than that, I think. He was here first thing yesterday morning. He drove up from Schuylers Landing as soon as he heard on the news that you had been shot. Who is he, Larry?"

Bierly shifted irritably and gave me a get-off-my-back look. "Damn it, he's just a friend. Why are you making such a big fucking deal out of Steven? You're going on and on about unimportant crap like that and you're not doing your job at all, which is to nail that psychotic madman Crockwell. You said you believe me now that Paul didn't kill himself. So does this mean that you are working for me and not that ridiculous old bag Phyllis Haig?"

I said, "I'm pretty much convinced that Paul was murdered, and privately the cops are convinced too—though getting the DA to act may take some doing, inasmuch as the coroner has ruled that Paul died by his own hand, and when an old boy of official Albany is apprised of the incompetence of another old boy of official Albany, he tends not to shout it from the tallest tree. But be assured I'm working on all that. As for working for you— maybe. I do want to avoid taking your money if there's a good chance I can take the money from somebody else who has more than you do and deserves it less."

"Jesus, Strachey, you wouldn't last in business more than a week."

That hurt, though at least T. Callahan was not present for this affirmation of his own harsh view on the subject. I said, "So did

Crockwell shoot you? The cops said you were not able to identify who shot you."

Looking grave, he said, "I don't know exactly. I mean, it must have been Crockwell. Who else could it be? It all happened so fast—it's just blurry. The guy was wearing a ski mask, I think. He just rose up from the other side of the car, and the next thing I remember is, I was in the hospital. Did the cops question Crockwell? Are they going to arrest him? I didn't get a good look, but, God, it must have been him."

"They're talking to him. It's possible he'll be charged. There is some circumstantial evidence—a gun like the one used to shoot you has been found in Crockwell's office dumpster."

Bierly's eyes got big, and he said, "Christ!"

"Even if Crockwell's fingerprints aren't on the gun, Finnerty and his gang will probably pop Crockwell in their microwave and see if his ions start rearranging themselves. They're efficient down there on Arch Street."

Now Bierly looked truly frightened. "Is Crockwell being watched? I know the hospital has a guard outside my door, but Crockwell is ruthless. And if it was him, he could probably talk his way in here and come after me again."

"The cops may or may not have him under surveillance, but I was questioned and frisked before the guard let me in here, and I'd say not to worry. So, what is it that I don't want to know?"

"What?"

"Yesterday, Steven St. James got all spooked when I asked him questions about his connection to you and Paul and Vernon Crockwell. And before he went off in a tizzy, he said to me— when I asked him how you all were mixed up together—'You don't want to know.' Those were his words. 'You don't want to know.' My question to you, Larry, is, Why don't I?"

He stared at me hard, and he blushed. He had a forty-eight-hour growth of heavy black beard, and his color from the trauma and drugs and shock and exhaustion was a kind of baby-shit yellow, and yet through all that it was plain that Bierly was blushing—as he had three days earlier in the pizza parlor when I'd

brought up Phyllis Haig's accusation that he had threatened Crockwell with violence and Crockwell had it on tape.

Bierly said, "Look, it really doesn't have anything to do with anything, but Steven is somebody I was mixed up with for a while during the winter, after Paul and I split up. The relationship never went anywhere serious."

"What's Crockwell got to do with it?"

He stared at me. "Nothing."

"Not according to Steven."

"Oh, really? What did he say?"

"That I don't want to know what you and Paul and Steven were involved in together. But I do want to know. In fact, Larry, if I'm going to consider working for you at all, I'll have to insist on knowing. I'm sure you can understand why I need to avoid groping around in the dark."