Who He? - (18)

She scrambled to her feet and backed away, hastily pulling the dress bodice up into place. He squinted at her. She was shocked and terrified, and gooseflesh showed on her arms. Suddenly he realized what she was and the mistake he'd made.
    "Oh. My. God." Lennox whispered. "You're justa baby. A tease. Virgin tease, yes? Noodnick, not nympho. Throw your body 'round. Don' know whatyr doing. Use dirty words. Don' know what they mean. A baby makin'like a woman. Yes?"
    "You're disgusting!" she spat.
    "No. Decoyed. Mowss-trapped. Shoulda known. You smell like babies."
    "Let me out of here!" she hissed. She edged past him. He burst out laughing and flipped his hands up under her skirt. She screamed again and ran, slamming the door behind her. Lennox sat on the floor and laughed. Then he wept. He climbed to the edge of the blanket chest and sat with his arm around the dress form.
    "Love on'y you, Gabby. On'y wantbe with you. On'y you, sweetheart."
    The door of the sewing room burst open. A nude woman in a green stole berated him blurrily. Something about a bitch girl pulling a crying jag on some anonymous named Stacy and sneaking out to alley cat with him. The woman in the stole considered herself robbed. She blamed Lennox. He arose with dignity.
    "Bringum backal ive," he said. He tottered to the foyer, picked up a bottle of scotch and wondered about his coat. He went back up the Early American hall to the Colonial bedroom and peered into the mound of clothes on the four-poster. He pulled coats, hats and trousers off the top. A left hand was revealed, thrusting up stiffly out of the coke-black mass. Lennox let out a hoarse cry and backed away. He turned and ran blindly out of the apartment, trying to erase the memory of maggots.
    Yorkville was blazing with holiday lights. Festoons of red, white and green bulbs arched over the streets. Lennox blinked and blundered into a Hofbrau on Third Avenue which was aswarm with gemütlich-type celebration. A sign of burnt leather hung over the bar between moose antlers. It read: Wein-Weib-Gesang! Underneath it hung its translation: Whiskey. Women. Swing.
    "No. No. No." Lennox said indignantly. "Should be wine-women'n song. Yes?" He gazed up and down the bar trying to count the customers. "Want t'buy set-ups f'the house."
    "Drinks?" the bartender inquired in a genuine low Dutch dialect.
    "Set-ups." Lennox displayed his bottle. He lurched playfully up and down the bar, pouring drinks for his friends into their beer, their rye, their cognacs, their wine glasses. He was quelled with difficulty. Accord was restored when he planked fifty dollars down on the bar and requested demon rum for his playmates.
    "What happened to your hand?" someone inquired.
    Lennox lifted both hands. The left was encrusted with blood. "My pitching hand!" he wailed. "My bread'n'butter hand. Don't anybody rec'nize me? Lefty Jordan, the Big Train?"
    Nobody recognized him. He left the Hofbrau in a state of high dudgeon and staggered down Third Avenue until he reached the Irish bars in the sixties. He entered The Poplin crying: "Hoch Der Kaiser!" The clients of The Poplin were equally exuberant and traded drinks with Lennox generously.
    "Lissen," he kept repeating. "Lissen. Lissen. Lissen."
    Nobody listened and he was content. Somebody asked him his name.
    "Lefty," he said. "Jus' call me Lefty. Om inna shoe business. Make shoes f'left foot only."
    He vacated The Poplin and continued down Third Avenue until he reached the fag bars in the fifties. He entered The Fantasy and elbowed his way through the buzzing and the hissing and the sibilation to the bar where he fell into easy conversation with the languid boys around him. He informed them that he was Leftwich, a wealthy shoe manufacturer from Brockton, Mass. They were not impressed. They went on gossiping and name-dropping and Lennox fancied he heard something familiar.
    "Anybody here jus' mention 'Who He?'" he asked.
    "Oh that thing," a voice drawled. "The original Rigor Mortis, from the picture of the same name."
    "You're so right so right so right," Lennox agreed. "I watch it up in Brockton. Come'ome fr'm hard day inna factry. See nothin' but puke. That show's vomit. That show's.... Alla fault of a lousy stinkin' louse who writes it. Lousy phoney. Name of Lennox. Anybody here know'm?"
    Somebody said they knew him intimately and he was a big queen.
    "No-no-no," Lennox said. "He'sa whore. Thinksee writes clever with his fancy filth from's stinkin' sewer mind. People like me don't think hesso clever. Plain people like Lefty Leftwich witha feet onna ground. Want heart and soul and meaning. Y'unnastan? Heart. And. Soul. And. Meaning ... not garbage outa fancy barrel. Faker sells hisself out f'ra buck and sells us out too, Y'unnastan?"
    No one was paying any attention. Lennox went on raging to the bored backs. "I know'm. Me. Plain old Lefty Leftwich from Brockton, Mass. Know allabout'm from way back. He could write from's guts ifee wasn't so busy pimpin' f'pennies." Lennox began to shake his fists in fury. "Lousy sewer Lennox! Fancy filthy fraud! Sells hisself downa river soee can live fancy'n'elegant like a duke or a marquiss. Betrayal. Why don't somebody honest tell'at corpse where to get off? Why don't someone kill'm an' make room frhonest writers?"
    He elbowed his way from the bar, left The Fantasy and continued down Third Avenue. Below 42nd Street he made up his mind and turned east. He came to a dim stationery and candy store with K N O T T spread across the window in an arc of brass letters. He entered and staggered against the marble soda fountain, peering blearily at the faded woman who was just closing up.
    "Wanna write a letter," he said. "Spehshul d'liv'ry letter. Wanna best paper'n'envelope inna house. Pen too. Teach'm a lesson."
    The faded woman looked at Lennox, recognized him, and without a word produced a sheet of blue paper, a blue envelope and a cheap fountain pen which she filled. She took a three cent stamp and a special delivery stamp out of a cash box and affixed them to the envelope. Lennox picked up the pen, paper and envelope, placed five dollars on the counter and staggered out.
    He entered the Baroque through the side door, stared around wildly and located an empty chair at the table behind the telephone booth. He swam to the chair through the smoke and the noise and sat down. With his breast pocket handkerchief he mopped the table dry. He looked up. Seated across the table from him was a blonde who appeared to be a Swede farm girl. She was looking at him.
    "Hiya Goldilocks," he said.
    "Hiya," she said. "Long time no see."
    "Jus' got in from Brockton."
    "Where?"
    "Brockton, Mass."
    "Since when?"
    "Since always," he said. "Live'air all my life. Inna shoe business. Permit me innaduce myself. Lefty Leftwich."
    "What the hell!" she exclaimed. "You got three names?"
    "Lefty. Leftwich." Lennox counted on his fingers. "Is on'y two."
    "Skip it, Lefty." She laughed and covered her teeth with her hand.
    "Scuse me, Goldilocks. Gotta 'portant letter to write."
    She watched with increasing interest as he placed the paper and envelope on the table, unscrewed the pen, took it in his left hand and began to write in a sick, hysterical scrawl: Dear Who He.... This is your last warning. I'm going to kill you, you fancy filth, you penny pimp, you garbage from a fancy barrel....
    CHAPTER XIII
    Gabby had gone to bed early Saturday night. The work of catching twelve white pigeons and cleaning up their droppings had exasperated and exhausted her. By five o'clock Sunday morning she was half awake and positive that she heard thumpings at her door. She got up, put on a pyjama top and padded out to the studio room. The pigeons rustled and cooed in their cage. The thumpings continued. She put the chain on the door, opened it an inch and peeped out into the corridor. A large man was squirming restlessly on her door mat trying to get comfortable. It was Lennox.
    She bit her lip, debated with herself, and finally unchained the door and pulled him in. He was semi-conscious, incoherent, rank with alcohol, sweat and vomit. Gabby locked the door and tried to get Lennox on his feet. He got to his hands and knees and no further.
    "Make a bes'damn oxfords inna worl'," he muttered.
    "On your feet," she said.
    "Name's Lefty Leftwich an' Icn lick any man inna--" He expired.
    She pushed and prodded him down the foyer, through the living room and into the bath. He crawled on hands and knees, whimpering dolorously. In the bathroom, she tugged and tussled until she got his clothes off. She threw the clothes into a corner and worried the hulk until it climbed into the tub. Gabby turned the shower on hot. Lennox lay under the deluge, crooning. She took off her pyjama top, got a wash rag and soap and cleansed him thoroughly. Then she turned off the water, placed a giant bath towel on the floor and got him out of the tub and sprawling on the towel. She dried his back, kicked him over and dried his front. Then Gabby harried him to her bed where he lay, prone and catercorner, snoring raucously.
    She took Jake's clothes to the kitchen and placed them in a carton for the cleaners, first emptying out the pockets. On the table she placed his pocket watch, chain, keys, gimmick book, silver pencil, three dollars in change, one hundred and five dollars in bills, and last of all, a blue envelope stamped special delivery and addressed to "Who He?" in a familiar hysterical handwriting. She stared at that envelope for five ghastly minutes.
    It was half-past seven. Gabby made coffee, drank it, put on a dressing gown and wandered fearfully around the living room for two hours. At last she went back to the bedroom. Lennox hadn't moved. She picked up the phone and dialed the number of Jake's apartment. She let the phone ring until Cooper answered in an inhuman voice.
    "Sam," she whispered. "This is Gabby. I've got to see you right away. Can I come up, please?"
    "Now?" Cooper croaked.
    "It's very important, Sam. Please. Can I come up?"
    "What time is it?"
    "Nine-thirty."
    "Oh God!" There was a pause. "Got to be at rehearsal by eleven anyway. Come up."
    Gabby dressed, left a note for Lennox, and went downstairs. On this New Year's Sunday morning The Rock was dead. She found a taxi, still littered with confetti, and was driven north to Knickerbocker Square. Cooper was dressed in slacks and jacket, waiting for her. He offered coffee which she refused and they sat down in the wing chairs in the living room eyeing each other. Gabby was frightened. Cooper looked drawn and twitchy.
    "Well?" he asked.
    "Do you know where Jordan keeps the photostats of those letters?"
    "Why?"
    "I want to compare them."
    "With what?"
    Gabby took the blue envelope out of her purse and showed it to Cooper.
    "Another one!" he exclaimed. "Where did you find it?"
    "In his pocket. It hasn't been mailed yet."
    "But how did he...? Oh. He must have run up against that Knott again. Last night."
    "Yes?"
    "He gave it to Jake personally."
    "Stamped? Marked special delivery?"
    "Maybe he wanted him to mail it for him. Irony." Cooper stood up and crossed to the piano where he fidgeted with manuscript paper.
    "I don't think there's any Knott, Sam. Neither do you."
    "What makes you think that?"
    "The way you're behaving now."
    Cooper turned around. The corner of his mouth was ticking. "Hell!" he burst out. "What's the sense of pussy-footing? He's writing those letters, Gabby. I know that."
    "How long have you known?"
    "Since last week when he showed me the photostats." Cooper loped into his bedroom and came out a moment later with three paper slips from a telephone pad. He handed them to Gabby. They were covered with the same hysterical scrawl, matching the writing on the latest letter.
    "He has an unconscious habit," Cooper explained. "He scribbles with his left hand when he's extra nervous. While he's talking on the phone. When he's reading. It's almost like automatic writing. He doesn't do it all the time ... just occasionally, but you can't miss it. The minute I saw those photostats, I knew."
    "Does he know?" Gabby asked.
    "No. That's what makes it hell."
    "We can't let him find out, Sam."
    "Maybe he ought to know."
    "Maybe later, but not now. It would be disastrous for him. We've got to protect him."
    Cooper jammed the phone slips into his jacket pocket and fretted around the room. "I tried to warn you. At that crazy cocktail party Thursday. If I hadn't been so paralyzed myself I might have--Christ! What a mess!"
    "What are we going to do?"
    "I don't know. He had to call in the police, yet."
    "Will they find out?"
    "I don't know."
    "What would they do if they did?"
    "Send him down to City Hospital for observation. Maybe worse. I--Jesus! What a mess!"
    "You mean an asylum?"
    "Yes."
    "Then we'll have to keep it from the police too. We'd better destroy this letter."
    "It's against the law. That letter's evidence."
    "Then we'll be accessories?"
    "Yes."
    "Burn it," Gabby said.
    She spoke with such decision that Cooper took the envelope, placed it in the practical fireplace and touched a match to the corner. The flame ran along the edge and then curled slowly across the face. The letter crackled and gaped.
    "Put it out!" Gabby cried so abruptly that Cooper started. She ran past him and beat the flame out with her hands and purse. Then she picked up the charred envelope and opened it. It was empty.
    "What happened to the letter?" Gabby asked.
    Cooper made a feeble gesture. "I can't keep up with this. I--Maybe he didn't write the letter. Just the envelope. Maybe he--Was it last night? He was probably plastered. For God's sake, who can figure anything Jake does sober, let alone drunk? I tell you, I'm lost in this. I'm nowhere."
    "Isn't there anything we can do?"
    "Get him off The Rock. Send him somewhere. Get him out of here."
    "Is that the only answer?"
    "It's the only one I can come up with."
    "Did you try?"
    "Try? What?"
    "To make him go away last week? You tried to make me go away."
    "No, I couldn't. I--"
    "Why couldn't you?"
    "I don't know. Quit hounding me, Gabby. I've got troubles of my own."
    Gabby's face darkened. "He's your friend, Sam."
    "I can't do anything for Jake."
    "That's a shocking thing to say."
    "Do you think I enjoy saying it? For God's sake, don't you be angry with me too. I tell you, I've got my own problems to handle."
    Gabby watched Cooper while he prowled around the room as if pursued by demons. Finally she made up her mind to be frank. "I think I know what they are, Sam."
    "Do you?" He laughed without humor. "That's more than I can say for myself."
    "I wouldn't tell you if it wasn't necessary for Jordan's sake," Gabby said gravely. She came around a corner. "You don't want to be Jordan's friend. You want to be his wife."
    Cooper turned white.
    "You've been acting like a woman," Gabby blurted. "Jealous, possessive, hysterical. That's why you made such a fuss when he tried to protect you at the party. It was like a man protecting a woman. You enjoyed it so much you felt guilty."
    "You're kidding, of course."
    "No," Gabby said honestly. "I'm trying to help you so you'll help Jordan. It isn't wrong to be a homosexual, Sam. You mustn't feel ashamed. You have to face it. You haven't been able to face it and that's why you made so much trouble for Jordan."
    "Are you calling me a fag?"
    Gabby nodded. "You knew about the letters a week ago, and you did nothing. You let it come to a crisis when you could have stopped it. And I think I know why. You've been living on his strength and you feel guilty deep down inside because you know it's the way a woman lives on a man's strength."
    "This has gone just about far enough, Gabby! I think--"
    "You couldn't admit that to yourself," Gabby went on firmly. "But you had to do something to wipe out the guilt. So you let Jordan destroy his own strength. That's the way you're going to prove to yourself that you're not dependent on him ... that you don't love him like a woman ... that you're as much of a man as he is."
    "This is insane!" Cooper shouted.
    "You keep house for him. You wait on him. You watch over him like a ... like a jealous woman. Because deep down inside you want to go to bed with him. That's why you resent me. Isn't it the truth?"
    "No."
    "And that's what makes you dangerous," Gabby said. "If you could see the truth, you wouldn't be helping Jordan destroy himself."
    "I told you!" Cooper cried, shaking so hard he could barely speak. "I told you! I had problems of my own. I--"
    "They're just your excuse for standing by and watching him fall." Gabby leaned forward intensely. "I can't let you do that, Sam. It isn't fair to yourself and it isn't fair to Jordan. You'll be horribly ashamed of yourself. We've got to come to an understanding and work together."
    "Understanding!"
    "Yes. He wants you for a friend. I promised him I'd keep you friends.... And I'm going to keep that promise," Gabby added grimly. "But not until you understand that you're going to be his friend, not his wife."
    There was an agonizing pause. The phone rang. Cooper looked around in bewilderment, then jumped up and took the call.
    "What? No. He's not in. I don't know where you can get in touch with him...."
    "He's at my place," Gabby said.
    "Wait a minute. I do know where he is. He--"
    "Who's calling?" Gabby asked.
    "Who is this? What? Driscoll? Aimee Driscoll?"
    "I'll take it," Gabby said with determination. She seized the phone. "This is Gabby Valentine, Aimee. What do you want?"
    "I want to talk to your boyfriend, sister."
    "What about?"
    "A man named Knott."
    "You're wasting your time. That was a lie you told us Thursday night ... a cruel malicious lie."
    "Sure." Aimee laughed and Gabby could picture the hand covering the teeth. "Only now it happens I know what plays. I know who this Knott really is."
    "That's another lie."
    "Not this time, doll. I seen him write the letter. In front of my eyes. And what's more, I got the letter. So if Mr. Three-names wants to get it squared off, tell him he better come down and see me this morning. And tell him I ain't settlin' for no lousy TV set neither!"
    Gabby hung up and looked at Sam. "She's got the letter."
    Cooper shook his head. He was dazed.
    "We've got to get it from her, Sam."
    "Yes, I--" He looked at his watch. "I have to go to the theater."
    "Sam!" She took his arm and shook him. "We've got to get that letter."
    He stood perplexed, the corner of his mouth twitching, then without another word, he walked out of the apartment. Gabby ran after him. From the door she saw him cross the square and disappear around the corner.
    Gabby went up to Jake's room, found an overnight bag and packed it with Jake's clothes. She came downstairs with the bag, took an overcoat from the closet and let herself out of the apartment. At Third Avenue she got a cab.
    "Nine hundred East Thirty-third, please," she told the driver.
    The cab dropped her before a brownstone apartment house. She rang Aimee Driscoll's bell and the door-release buzzed promptly. Gabby entered the house and climbed two flights with the bag and overcoat. To Aimee, who was standing at the door of her apartment wearing the green and scarlet petuniaed dressing gown, she said: "Good morning, Aimee. I dropped in on my way home."
    "Spent the night out, huh?" Aimee answered, looking at the bag. "Naughty-naughty. Come in."
    She closed the door behind Gabby who put the bag and coat in a corner and waited.
    "Too high class to take a load off in my dump, huh?"
    "I was waiting to be asked," Gabby said quietly.
    "So I'm asking. Park your high-priced ass."
    Gabby sat down on the sofa and looked around. She saw the television set with the framed photograph on top, and her eyes widened at the resemblance of the picture to Lennox. Then she noticed that Aimee was watching her closely.
    "Pretty crappy, huh?" Aimee asked. "Not what your kind is used to."
    "The trouble with you is you're old-fashioned," Gabby said directly.
    "That chair's brand new modernistic. And what about the TV set? Nothing old-fashioned about that."
    "I don't mean your furniture. I mean your attitude toward people ... talking about my kind and your kind. It's Victorian." Gabby smiled. "We're both of us people. Don't let's quarrel."
    "No? I thought you come up here looking for a fight."
    "I don't believe in fighting. What is there to fight about?"
    "Your boy friend's letter." Aimee lit a cigarette. "I won't kid you, doll. I seen him write it last night. He was so dirty drunk he forget to put it in the envelope when he sealed it. I got it right here."
    "May I see it, please?"
    "Wouldn't you like to?" Aimee smiled without parting her lips. "Old three-names is in a bad jam, ain't he? I ought to take that letter to the cops. It's against the law writing dirty letters like that and sending 'em through the mail."
    "You misunderstand, Aimee. It was a joke."
    "Yeah? Ha. Ha. A gag got you up here so fast, did it? Try something else, doll."
    "I came up because I'm afraid other people will misunderstand ... like you."
    "Don't hand me that. I seen the fuss you and him made Thursday. I figured it out. That guy's off his rocker. He ought to be put away. He ain't fit to hang out with sane people. He's dangerous." Aimee crushed out the cigarette violently. "No wonder he beat hell outa me last week. I'm lucky I didn't get killed."
    "Then are you going to the police?"
    "So help me, I ought to. But I'm willing to be a right guy if he'll keep away from me ... and make it worth while. He can afford it, being a big-shot writer."
    "How much?" Gabby asked.
    Aimee gave her a poker face. "Ten grand."
    Gabby mustered herself and began her first lie. She burst out laughing.
    "What's so funny?" Aimee demanded.
    "Your price. You'll have to be a little more realistic."
    "He ain't got ten grand to keep outa trouble?"
    "Of course not." Gabby blushed, being unused to the sensation of flagrant lying. She inched her way further into falsehood. "How much do you think he gets for writing that show?"
    "At least three-four hundred bucks a week."
    "Half that."
    "You're crazy."
    "Half that," Gabby repeated. "One hundred and fifty dollars a week."
    "I don't believe it.
    "It's the truth."
    "He had a couple hundred bucks on him last Saturday."
    "It took him two months to save two hundred dollars." Gabby was discovering it was no problem at all to lie. She pointed to the television set. "It took him two months to save up enough to buy that present for you, Aimee. The money was supposed to be for me. I think you owe me a favor."
    "All right. Here's your favor. Five grand."
    Gabby shrugged. "He can't do it."
    "One grand. He's got to have a thousand bucks stashed somewhere. Everybody's got a thousand bucks."
    "I don't. Do you?"
    "I will if three-names don't want his letter to go to the cops."
    "All right," Gabby said. She held out her hand. "Now may I have the letter, please?"
    "Are you kidding, sister?"
    "I can't pay you until tomorrow. Won't you trust me?"
    "No."
    "But you want me to trust you."
    "You'll have to."
    "All right. I will." Gabby arose. "I'll bring the money tomorrow afternoon."
    "Not you. Him."
    "He may not be able to come. I'll bring the money. That won't make any difference, will it?"
    "Either he brings it himself or it's no deal." Aimee insisted. She looked at Gabby malevolently.
    "Why?"
    "Never mind why. He brings it himself. He hands it to me like a gentleman, and he asks me extra polite like a gentleman to do him a favor and give him back the letter. Extra polite or it's no deal."