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This page updated: 01-Aug-2007 10:40 PM

 

The Mankiller of Poojegai and other stories

Stories ranging from 19th century Italy to modern Africa.

Crippen & Landru, August 2007

Read an online story or excerpts from recent books, buy a signed book, check out the Trailer Trash tour and the photo album, visit with Darlene and find out more about the International Lunch Whore.

Walter Satterthwait - Masquerade excerpt

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About Masquerade

Chapter Four

"Ernest," I said.

"Call me Ernie," he said. He grinned as though he'd never been more pleased to meet anyone in his life, and he began to squeeze my hand to a pulp.

I smiled and I tightened my grip.

"A real pleasure," he said.

Beneath the thick mustache, he was still grinning. It was a grin that showed a lot of healthy white teeth, a grin that crinkled up the corners of his sparkling brown eyes and dug deep dimples into his broad tanned cheeks. He was young, in his early twenties, and he was big, as tall as I was, but wider, with heavy square shoulders pushing at the corners of a battered brown wool sport coat. He wore a brown work shirt and brown cotton pants and brown brogues. The clothes were drab, maybe, but you were so busy being impressed by the person inside them that you didn't really notice. His voice boomed a bit more than it needed to, maybe, but it boomed with sincerity.

Rose Forsythe had said he was incredibly charming and fabulously handsome. He was all that, and then some.

He released my hand but he kept grinning. "Henri tells me you're a Pinkerton, hey?" He shook his big head in admiration. "Jesus," he said. "That must be fascinating work."

Henri Ledoq stood off to the side, watching us with a small smile on his lips.

"Sometimes," I said.

He said, "You look very fit, hey? Ever do any boxing?" He lowered his left shoulder and raised his hands and he turned them into big brown fists, then moved them in small quick circles in front of his grinning face. The bottom of his coat slapped against a salt shaker and sent it twirling to the floor. It bounced, without breaking, against the tiles.

"Damn," he said, and he swooped to pick it up and he smacked his forehead against the table. Silverware rattled. He grabbed at the table to stop it from falling, but he grabbed too hard, jerked it, and Henri's water pitcher toppled over. It shattered against a butter dish and water exploded across the tablecloth.

"Damn," said Hemingway, and reached forward.

Ledoq cut him off. "Please, Ernest," he said "Do not trouble yourself. We will move to another table."

"Okay, swell," said Hemingway, who didn't seem very troubled. Lightly, he rubbed his forehead, then looked down at his fingers. No blood. As Ledoq signaled for a waiter, Hemingway turned to me and grinned and put up his fists again. "Hey? Ever go a few rounds?"

"A few," I told him. "A long time ago."

"Yeah? Swell! Let's spar sometime, hey?" He did a quick shuffle with his feet and slammed the back of his right leg into one of the chairs. It was the chair that held Ledoq's hat and gloves and the police folder. The folder sailed off the seat and it flapped itself open and sheets of paper flew out and spun and fluttered in different directions to the floor.

Hemingway bent forward, but Ledoq put his small hand on the man's large arm and said, "Ernest. Please. Over there." He pointed to an empty table. "I will deal with this."

"Sure." He grinned at me. "C'mon."

We moved toward the other table. "I work out," Hemingway said, "in a gym not far from here. Bags, jump-ropes. Come by sometime, we'll fool around. Hey?"

"Sure," I said.

There were four seats at the table. I sat down in one and Hemingway sat down to my right. He put his big hands on the tablecloth and he knocked over the salt shaker. "Damn," he said, and he righted it. He grinned at me again. "Henri said you wanted to talk to me. What about?" All of his attention was focused directly on me, and he had a large amount of attention. Journalists usually do, or pretend they do.

I said, "The Agency's been hired to investigate the death of Richard Forsythe. I need to find out as much as I can about him."

"Hey, happy to help. Anything I can do. I mean it. But what's to investigate? Guy committed suicide."

Ledoq joined us. He glanced around the circular table, taking in the seating arrangement, then sat to Hemingway's immediate right. He placed the folder, the gloves, and the hat on the last remaining chair, out of the journalist's reach. "Bon," he said.

"His mother," I told Hemingway, "thinks differently."

"Nice lady," he said. "Got a lot of class. I always liked her." He grinned. "But she's wrong, hey? He took the easy way out."

"Out of what?" I said.

"Want to know what I think?" he said, suddenly serious, and he leaned forward and clasped the big hands together. Ledoq glanced down and eyed the hands warily.

"Sure," I said.

But the waiter with the mustache arrived then, carrying another menu. He handed the Sacred Text to the journalist. Hemingway opened it and knocked over the salt shaker. As he reached for the shaker, Ledoq's hand darted forward, snapped it up and swiftly shifted it to the far side of the table. He set it down firmly, released it, and sat back, folding his arms over his chest. The waiter and his mustache looked on, impassive.

Hemingway studied the menu. "Hey! They've got andouillettes. Swell! " He turned to the waiter and spoke for a while in rapid French. The waiter listened, nodded, took back the menu, and then marched away.

"They do a true andouillette here," Hemingway said. "Very good. Very fine. They use --"

"What was it you were saying, Ernest," interrupted Ledoq, "about Richard Forsythe?"

"Yeah, right." Again he leaned forward and clasped his hands together. He took a quick look around the room. When he spoke, his voice was lowered. It wasn't low, but it was lowered. "He was a fairy."

Ledoq laughed. "Ernest, he made no secret of the fact that he sometimes slept with men."

"Exactly," said Hemingway, and he sat back, opening his hands to show us his broad palms.

"But he slept," said Ledoq, "more often with women."

Hemingway put his arms along the arms of the chair. "More women around. The War. Simple mathematics, hey?"

Ledoq said, "Ernest, I admit that I find bisexualism to be in questionable taste, but-"

"I don't get it." Hemingway sat back and shook his big head. "Bisexualism. How's it work, hey? Tuesday you wake up and you decide that today you're gonna grab Rosie O'Grady? Wednesday you wake up and you decide you're gonna grab Barnacle Bill? How's that work?"

Ledoq smiled. "I do not know. But I can tell you what Richard Forsythe said about it."

"What's that?"

"'Skin is skin, flesh is flesh.'"

"Yeah, yeah. Very pretty. But it's window-dressing. And that's what the women were, too. Window-dressing, hey? Deep down, he was a fairy, plain and simple." He leaned forward again, put his arms on the table again. "Here's what I think happened. He was with What's-her-name, the German girl --"

"Sabine von Stuben," said Ledoq.

"Right," he said. "Good looking girl," he told me. "Crazy about him, too, followed him around like a bitch in heat." He shook his head. "Terrible waste. Anyway. They're together that afternoon, the two of them, up there in that hotel room, hey? And Forsythe couldn't get it up. Old Mr. Love-Twig was as dead as a dodo. And what probably happened, she made fun of him, von Stuben -- you've gotta watch those German girls. Tough as nails, all of them. Anyway. He went well and truly nuts. And he pulled out that sissy little Browning and he blew her brains out. And then he saw what he'd done, and he turned the gun around and used it on himself." He sat back. "It's obvious, hey?"

Ledoq smiled. "There are, of course, several difficulties with that theory."

"What?" said Hemingway. "What difficulties?"

The waiter and his mustache reappeared then. Food for Ledoq and me, a bottle of wine in a silver bucket.

Ledoq and Hemingway waited, hushed, while the waiter uncorked the bottle. He offered the cork to Ledoq, who sniffed it thoroughly and thoughtfully and then nodded his approval. The waiter poured a half an inch of wine into Ledoq's glass. Ledoq tasted the wine, nodded at the waiter again.

The waiter poured wine into my glass, then into Hemingway's, then again into Ledoq's. He put the bottle back into its bucket, tucked a knapkin carefully around its shoulders, and marched stiffly off.

Ledoq lifted his wine glass. Hemingway and I held up our glasses. "Salut," said Henri. He moved his wine glass toward Hemingway's, thought better of it, and said, "Salut," again and put it to his mouth and drank. Hemingway and I said "Salut" and did the same.

Hemingway smacked his lips together lightly, cocked his head and narrowe d his eyes, and he said, "A Montrachet. The 1920?"

"The 1919," said Ledoq.

"A very good wine. A very fine wine. What difficulties?"

Ledoq picked up his knife and fork. "They were both wearing their clothes. If they had in fact made love, the contretemps you mention would have occured some time previously." He cut a bit of his fish, put it in into his mouth.

Hemingway shrugged his heavy shoulders. "So she said something afterward. Those German girls are tough."

I tried the sausage. It was very good. Very fine, too.

"And," said Ledoq, "according to his wife, this was the first time that Richard Forsythe had ever carried the pistol with him." He smiled. "Are you suggesting that he suspected, beforehand, that the von Stuben girl would question his virility? And that he intended to prove it, unequivocally, by shooting her? And then himself, of course."

Hemingway shrugged. "So he was carrying the gun. Maybe he carried it m ore often that Rose thought he did. Or said he did."

"And there were two hours," said Ledoq, "between the time of her death and the time of his."

"Probably took him that long to work up the guts to do it."

Ledoq smiled. "But you said that the act itself was an act of cowardice. "

Hemingway narrowed his eyes and announced, "Sometimes, to be a coward, you've gotta have guts."

Ledoq nodded. "And what does that mean, precisely?"

"No idea," said Hemingway, and he laughed, a big booming laugh. He threw himself back in the chair, still laughing, and his elbow hit the wine stand and the thing clanged like a bell and began to topple. Darting side ways, Ledoq grabbed for it and snatched the bucket. Frowning impatiently, he set the bucket back in the stand, then moved the stand away from Hemingway.

"How did you know," I asked the journalist, "that the gun was a Browning?" I took another bite of sausage.

He shrugged. "Everybody knew. He used to keep it in a drawer in his library. Used to pull it out all the time, show it off to people. Sometimes he'd take potshots at a big stuffed bear he kept across the room." He frowned. "He was a pretty good shot, got to admit. Never missed that damn bear." He grinned. "But it was a big bear, hey?"

I nodded. "Rose Forsythe said that you and Richard had an argument there. In the library."

He scowled. "Bastard was cheating me. He published a book, a collection, some of my short stories. He paid me an advance -- not much, couple of hundred bucks, but at the time, all I was thinking about was getting the work in print. Later, I started to stew about it, hey? He hadn't paid me another dime. So I went over there, to talk to him. He said there wasn't any more money. Told me there weren't any copies left. Had the nerve to say it was my fault -- that I'd given them all away. That's a crock, and he knew it. We got into an argument."

He shrugged. "But that was all it was, an argument, hey? No big deal."

"Rose Forsythe said you tried to hit him."

He laughed again. "She said that? Nah! He swung at me. He missed, and then I swung at him. Damn carpet tripped me and I fell down. And that was it, hey?"

I'd seen his relationship with inanimate objects and I could believe his story. But I could also believe Rose Forsythe's.

Suddenly his handsome brow furrowed and he said, "Hey. Wait a minute. All these questions. You don't think I had anything to do with that? Forsythe and the German girl?"

"No," I said. "It's just what I do. Ask questions. But now that you mention it, where were you that day?"

"The day he killed himself? At the races. With about ten other people I know."

I nodded.

He squinted at me for a moment, as though trying to decide whether I were okay. Finally he decided I was. Once again he shook his head in admiration. "Must be fascinating work."

Just then, the waiter and his mustache returned, this time carrying Hemingway's lunch. The man set the food in front of the journalist, picked up the bottle of wine, topped off all our glasses, eased the wine back into the bucket, and then marched away.

Hemingway picked up his napkin, unfolded it. He tucked a corner of it into his collar and spread the rest of it out over his shirtfront. "But here's the best part of the story." He picked up his knife and fork and cut himself a chunk of sausage. He put his hands on the table, both of them fisted, his right holding the knife, his left holding the fork with the piece of sausage skewered on its tines. "He sent me back the contract we'd signed. Afterward, hey? After the argument? He'd written 'null and void' on it, and signed it. Few weeks later, I sold one of the same damn stories, and a couple of new ones, and some poems, to another publisher here in Paris, Bob McAlmon." He grinned. "And because Forsythe cancelled out the contract, he never got a penny from the deal. So, hey, sometimes the good guys do win." He grinned again, and then stuck the piece of sausage into his mouth.

"Admirable," said Ledoq.

Chewing, Hemingway nodded. He swallowed and said, "Yeah." He looked over at my plate, which was empty now. "How'd you like your andouillettes?"

"Very much."

He nodded. "It's something, hey, what the French can do with pig guts."

Ledoq leaned quickly forward. "When are you going to Spain, Ernest?"

"End of the month."

"What was that," I asked Hemingway, "about pig guts?"

Ledoq pursed his lips.

Hemingway was chewing. He swallowed. "The andouillettes." He tapped the blade of his knife against the sausage. "Some of them are made from veal, hey? But the best ones, the true andouillettes, they're made from the intestines and belly of a pig. They're very fine, hey?" He took another bite.

"Yeah," I said. I looked over at Henri Ledoq. No organ meats, I had told him. A kind of pork sausage, he had said. "Very fine," I agreed.

Ledoq's lips were still pursed. Mostly, I think, to stop himself from smiling.

"Been to Spain?" Hemingway asked me.

I turned to him. "What?"

"Spain. Been there?"

"No."

"Me neither. We're going down to take a look at the bullfights. I've got a theory about bullfights."

"What is that?" said Ledoq.

He put down his knife and fork. His face went very serious. "Now that the War's over, the bullring is the only place where a man can confront Death truly and well. And the matador, he confronts it every day. With skill and grace, hey? With bravery. He courts the possibilty of his own death, as a gesture of human pride and dignity and style. Panache, hey? He confronts Death every day, and he defeats it."

Ledoq smiled. "Only for a time, mon ami."

"Defeats it, I said -- not escapes it. Nobody escapes it. Not in this world." He turned to me and grinned. "Little Dickie Forsythe sure didn't." He picked up the fork and he finished off the last bite of sausage.

I said, "You knew that Forsythe used drugs?"

He swallowed. "Everybody knew."

"You know where he got them?"

"They're all over the place. Marijuana. Cocaine. Heroin." He grinned again. "Me, I prefer this." He reached over, plucked the bottle of wine from the bucket. It was nearly empty. He poured what was left into Henri's glass, then asked him, "Another one?"

"Not for me, no," said Ledoq. "Thank you."

Hemingway turned to me. "You?"

"No thanks. Where did Forsythe get his?"

He reached over and plunked the bottle back into the bucket. The stand wobbled and Ledoq reached out to steady it. He sighed wearily.

Hemingway said, "From someone at the Hole In The Wall, probably. It's a dive, over in the Ninth Arondissement. Filled with scum, hey? Dope dealers, deserters. Dickie went there all the time." He grinned. "Probably felt right at home."

I asked Ledoq, "You know the place?"

He nodded. "It is as Ernest says."

"Do you know anybody who might be there?" I asked him. "Anybody who who might've known Forsythe?"

"I know of one," he said. "An American, but originally Irish. John Reilly. He is involved, I am told, in the drug business."

"In a lot of things," Hemingway said. "Supply sergeant during the war, hey? Got into smuggling, the black market, just about everything. Tough as nails. Story is, he made more money than the Chiefs of Staff."

"Yes," said Ledoq. "He returned here, to Paris, immediately after the war. He is something of a luminary now, among the criminal element."

I turned back to Hemingway. "Do you know a woman named Aster Loving?"

"Sure. Nigger jazz singer, hey? Sings on a barge on the Seine. I heard her once. She's good."

"Did you know that she was involved with Forsythe?"

"Yeah?" For a second he looked interested. Then he frowned, shook his head, waved his hand at me. "Ah, that's window dressing. Like I say, the guy was a fairy."

He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a watch, glanced down at it. "Damn. I've gotta go. An appointment with a friend." He slipped the watch back, slipped his hand inside his coat, frowned, reached around for his back pocket. "Damn," he said. He looked at me, thunderstruck. "I left my wallet at home."

"Forget it," I said. "The Agency will take care of the bill."

"I was sure I had it with me. I remember, just before I left --"

"No problem," I said.

He grinned. "Damn white of you. Next time I pay."

"Fine."

He stood up and his chair tumbled backward and clattered against the tiles.

"Leave it, Ernest," said Ledoq.

Hemingway nodded. He turned to me and grinned once again and he held out his hand. "Great to meet you. Hope I see you again." Once again, he tried to squeeze my hand to a pulp.

"Me too," I said.

"Henri, good to see you."

They shook hands. Ledoq briefly narrowed his eyes and did something with his mouth that was either a brief smile or a brief wince.

And then, with a wave of his big brown hand, and another bright white grin, Hemingway turned and walked into the back of a Frenchman who was spooning up some soup.

As Hemingway apologized in French, Ledoq stood, bent forward, picked up the fallen chair, and righted it.

Hemingway turned, grinned again, waved again, and strutted off.

Ledoq sat back down and leaned toward me. "Forsythe was having an affair with Aster Loving?"

"Yeah. You know her?"

"Of her. I have heard her sing. She is very talented. Rose Thornton told you of this affair?"

"No. He kept it a secret from his wife."

"From everyone, it seems." Smiling, he looked off and he shook his head. "What a devil he was, that Forsythe. Sybil Norton. Aster Loving."

He frowned. "But how, then, do you know of his connection to Aster Loving, mon ami?"

"From Forsythe's cousin."

"The son of the financier?"

"Yeah. The family's in France right now, in Chartres, and the Agency's got someone with them. Forsythe told his cousin about the woman. The cousin told our operative. The report came in just before I left London."

He smiled. "My admiration for your Mr. Cooper increases. And whom has he placed with the family?"

"I don't know. But I'd like to talk to this Aster Loving."

"And who could blame you? She is most attractive."

"When does she start singing?"

"At midnight, I believe."

"Okay. We'll go see her."

He nodded. "I look forward to it." He sat back. "And what did you think of Monsieur Hemingway?"

"You want the long version," I said, "or the short one?"

"The short, I think."

"I thought he was a jerk."

He laughed.

"I noticed," I said, "that he never gave me the name of that gym of his."

"No, no, of course not. You are much too large a personage for him actually to spar with you. He prefers shorter partners. Did you notice, also, that he neglected to recall his rendezvous until after it became clear that there would be no more wine?"

"I noticed."

Ledoq said, "You do not believe that he was involved in the death of Richard Forsythe?"

"No. I don't think he ever killed anybody."

Ledoq nodded. "I believe that this is one of the great regrets of his life."

"He was in the war?"

"The ambulance corps. In Italy. He was wounded early on."

"I can see why."

Ledoq laughed again. "I think that the buffoonery, the clumsiness, is the result of his spending all his energy attempting to be something he is not. The brave and manly hero. I suspect that at one time he was a very sweet and sensitive boy. I suspect that, beneath the muscles and the bravado, he still is. I suspect, too, that he would despise me for thinking so."

He took a sip of wine and then leaned forward. "And you know," he said, "he is in fact a remarkable writer. I read one of the stories in that little book, the one published by Monsieur Forsythe. It concerned itself with a young man fishing, alone in the Great American Forest. No dialogue, no other characters. Just the young man, and the forest, and the river, and the fishes. Nothing of much import happens. The young man walks through the forest, he arranges a camp for himself. He loses some fish and he catches some others. He eats the fish -- very simply prepared, of course. He sleeps, he awakens. But all this is detailed in a language that is so powerful -- so apparently simple and precise, and yet so evocative -- that the story becomes quite profound. Somehow the reader knows, without the writer ever having said so, that the young man has recently returned from the War and its many horrors. I was most impressed."

"Why didn't you read the others?"

"Pardon?"

"You said you read one of the stories in the book. Why didn't you read any of the others?"

"Ah." He sat back and he shrugged. "The man is a jerk."

I laughed.

"And now, mon ami," he said. "Shall we have some coffee?"

"Sure," I said. "Nothing I like better than coffee, after a meal of pig guts."

"But was the andouillette not good?"

"It was good," I admitted.

"Well then....?"

I smiled. "Let's have the coffee."

I sat back then, myself, and for the first time I looked around the room At the high ceilings, the slowly-moving fans, at the the other tables, the other customers.

Ledoq signalled for a waiter, then looked back at me. "What plans have you for this afternoon?

"Well," I said, "first off, I'd like to find out why we're being followed."

"Followed?"

"Don't look now. But behind you, over by the column. The fat man in the gray suit. He was at the cafe. Near Rose Forsythe's house."

He thought for a moment. Then he said, "I recall that gray suit. It was a disaster."

He stroked his goatee. "What shall we do?"