Saratoga Hexameter

by Stephen Dobyns

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

A colleague's murder embroils Charles Bradshaw in literary mystery as a poem written in iambic pentameter provides a clue to a series of mysterious deaths, a poet-thief stalks the Bentley Hotel, and he poses as a poet to find the culprit harrassing a pompous literary critic

Release date: July 23, 1990

Publisher: Viking

Print pages: 256

Sample

The music was a rag by Scott Joplin—a piece that always reminded Charlie Bradshaw of the up and down movement of many musical yo-yos. Neglected for over fifty years, the rag had been rediscovered by Hollywood and now could be heard in supermarkets, dentists’ offices, restaurants, and, in this particular instance, a carnival merry-go-round parked in a small shopping center in the city of Cohoes, about seven miles north of Albany. The shopping center itself was dark which was not surprising since it was past ten o’clock on a drizzly Sunday night, the last day in July. In fact, almost everything was dark—the only lights coming from several streetlights, the headlights of Charlie’s Renault Encore, and, strangely enough, the merry-go-round. Charlie shut off his engine and got out. The music grew louder. It was the only noise anywhere except for the creak and groan of the merry-go-round itself as it circled and circled. Charlie pulled his tan raincoat around him, then hurried across the lot toward the chain link fence that surrounded the carnival—half a dozen rides, some games, and a popcorn wagon. Above him the Ferris wheel loomed wet and desolate with several of its seats rocking in the wind.

Charlie had come down to Cohoes from Saratoga Springs for a meeting with Blake Moss, an Albany private detective. Moss had called that morning saying he had some work for him. He wouldn’t elaborate except to remark that it concerned poetry.

“What kind of poetry?” Charlie had asked and thought he heard Moss chuckle over the wire.

“You know, ta-TUM, ta-TUM, ta-TUM. I need your advice about it.”

“And this is a job for a private detective?”

“You bet.”

Moss had asked to meet Charlie at nine-thirty outside of this small carnival parked in a Cohoes shopping center. Again he had been mysterious, saying only that he had wanted to show Charlie something. For days afterward Charlie kept wondering if Moss had said “something” or “someone,” but he was almost sure he had said “something.”

Charlie didn’t like Moss, which was probably one reason he was late. Moss was a liar and an inveterate gambler who could no more walk by a poker game than he could walk by a ten dollar bill lying on the sidewalk. And even though many of Charlie’s best friends were gamblers, they weren’t whiners and Moss was also a whiner—always complaining about his losses and how something had conspired against him to keep him from winning, a win that he saw as rightfully his.

But unfortunately Charlie needed the work. His small house on Saratoga Lake had developed a leaky roof over the winter and all the pots and pans and patching no longer helped. Of course, he could have taken a job at the Bentley, his mother’s hotel in downtown Saratoga, but Charlie had done that once before and swore never to do it again. It had been like spending his days in a straight jacket. Still, as he approached the open gate of the carnival, he wondered if at fifty-two he wasn’t too old to go traipsing about on rainy July nights. Right now his friend Victor Plotz, who was hotel detective at the Bentley, was probably sitting in front of a fire with his feet up and sipping an expensive brandy. Most likely there was an attractive woman nearby as well. But then Charlie thought that if getting wet on a cold July night was the cost of his freedom, it was cheap at the price. After all, many of his heroes had worked alone: Billy the Kid, Gentleman George Leslie, Willie Sutton.

But the primary mystery concerned the merry-go-round. Why was it going round and round? And why was the music playing? The parking lot was deserted except for Charlie’s Renault and a dark Alfa Romeo Milano which Charlie assumed belonged to Blake Moss. Across the street were a row of non-descript two-story buildings, darkened storefronts, a sub shop, a unisex beauty parlor and a Midas Muffler garage. There was no sign of Blake Moss. Charlie paused by the entrance of the carnival and glanced around. The Joplin rag started up again and Charlie found himself whistling along under his breath.

“Moss,” he called, “are you in there?”

There was a padlock and chain on the gate but the padlock was dangling open. Charlie passed through the fence. He could feel the rain spattering against his bald spot and wished he had brought a hat. On his right was a kiddie ride of miniature race cars designed to let the dimmer toddlers imagine they were taking part in the Indianapolis 500. Charlie made his way around it and continued toward the carousel which was clearly the center of all activity.

Apart from his disinclination to see Moss, Charlie was also late because he had been with Janey Burris, a woman whose very name made his pulse beat faster. Janey was a registered nurse. She was supposed to work that night but at the last moment her job had been cancelled and she had shown up Charlie’s house at the lake around eight thirty. And then they had talked. It seemed they were always talking. And before Charlie had realized, it was past nine-thirty and he still had a twenty mile drive ahead of him. But he also knew that if he had any real interest in seeing Moss, he wouldn’t have forgotten. And what had he and Janey talked about? Maybe politics, maybe the weather. Charlie could hardly remember, but before him he could see her animated face and hear her laugh.

The merry-go-round was on the other side of the tilt-a-whirl. Charlie knew all these rides although he hadn’t been on any for nearly forty years. Through the shell shaped disks of the tilt-a-whirl he could see the horses rising and falling and the little scarlet wagons where the more timorous children could sit with their mothers. The merry-go-round was old and the colors had faded. Charlie wondered if some glitch caused by a decaying part hadn’t made the whole thing to start up accidentally. But then who had opened the gate?

It was at that moment that Charlie saw Blake Moss. He was sitting in one of the little scarlet wagons and as the wagon went up and down, Moss’s head bobbed up and down as well. Perhaps Moss wasn’t sitting so much as slouching. Actually he seemed asleep. Charlie hurried forward. As a private detective he had come to distrust the appearance of sleep. There was always so much death about.

Grabbing a pink and chartreuse horse, Charlie swung himself onto the platform, then began to make his way back toward Moss. Within the merry-go-round itself the Joplin rag was quite loud, almost aggressive and military, and many of the notes were being struck off-key. Then it occurred to Charlie that all the horses were race horses. It was a matter of posture rather than design: they were stretched out, elongated as if running fast. Even the scarlet wagon in which Moss appeared to be sleeping was drawn by a pair of purple race horses. Charlie wound his way toward it, catching hold of the horse rods for support. The surface of the platform was slick with rain and Charlie had to take care not to be thrown down between the plunging multicolored hooves. Moss leaned back in the seat with his arms spread out along the top. He wore a dark raincoat and dark suit. His blond hair was mussed and there was a small bruise with a trickle of blood on his forehead. Then, as Charlie got closer, he saw that Moss’s eyes were open. He’s watching me, Charlie thought.

“Moss,” he called.

And then Charlie realized that Blake Moss was dead.

In the second floor lounge of the Phoenix Colony, Alexander Luft was pontificating. It was something he was good at. Expressing his ideas in a positive and aggressive manner was to Alexander Luft what water is to a flounder: it was his natural element.

“The linear,” he was saying, “is a prosaic mode. The artist’s approach in a poem should dance. It should shimmer with a multitude of directions. The surface of the poem should be as multi-faceted as one of those baroque churches one finds in Vienna—all sparkle and dazzle. And the artist’s treatment of his subject should zigzag and circle like a hare evading a hound.”

“But wouldn’t that make the poem difficult to understand?” asked a young woman, a photographer who read few poems and who found in Alexander Luft’s words good reason to read even fewer.

“That is why we have critics,” said Luft, touching his fingers to the strangled knot of his necktie. “The critic is like the conductor of a symphony who guides the musicians toward a correct interpretation of the score. In such a way the critic guides the reader.”

Six people, all artists of one kind or another, were sitting on the over-stuffed couch and armchairs. All were guests of the Phoenix Colony, an estate on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs where artists came for periods of a week to several months to pursue their various crafts or just to sit and rebuild the interiors of their heads. Most were watching Luft, who had stood up in preparation of returning to his room. It was late Sunday evening and he was tired. Luft was not an artist but a critic and he had been invited to the Phoenix Colony for a six-week stay in order to work on his biography of Wallace Stevens. But it had been a troubled time and he wasn’t sure if he would remain. The room was shadowy, the only light coming from a lamp with a Tiffany shade on a dark mahogany table. On the walls were Piranesi prints showing massive blocks of crumbling stone.

“What about Walt Whitman?” asked a man with a beard, a poet of sorts. “He seems pretty linear.”

“Whitman was a cretin, a misdirected autodidact,” said Luft, taking a step toward the hall. “Those few poems of his which have any merit were produced purely by accident.”

“What about Dante?” asked a woman. “He marches down through hell and up to heaven. What could be more linear than that?”

“In my opinion Dante is a much over-rated writer,” said Luft. “His reputation owes far more to politics and squabbles within the Catholic church than to ability. Basically he was a novelist who never discovered his proper medium. But now I’ve said enough. We critics need our periods of repose if we are to make sense of the intuitive projectiles flung at us by you artists.” Luft chuckled. He was a big man in his fifties whose thick graying hair fell in waves to his collar. Apart from those occasions when he swam in the Phoenix Colony pool, he was never seen without a suit and tie. “Good night, good night.” He lifted a hand above his head in a casually dramatic wave and moved off down the hall. He knew they didn’t like him. Even the painters and composers were suspicious of him. He, after all, sat on the panels and chaired the committees that awarded fellowships and grants. He had the ear of the prize-givers. He wrote the reviews that made a book or sent it sliding into the yawn of oblivion. And of course he had his favorites.

Luft didn’t see himself as hungry for this power, nor did he feel he abused it. The passing of judgment was only part of his job. He was a critic, a professor at a major university in New York City, and he took his work seriously. There were many poets, a confusing jumble of names, and people turned to him to sort them out, to list and to categorize, to raise up the best and cast down the scribblers. This was his duty.

He had not expected to be fawned upon at the Phoenix Colony, but he had expected to be treated with respect. But of the thirty or so guests, at least half a dozen were poets and most of those were triflers. Certainly they were not people whom Luft would have expected to find at a serious artists’ colony. It almost hurt him to see them, for how could it be an honor for him to be invited to the Phoenix Colony if they were here as well? He realized of course that a place like the Colony would accept a certain number of unknowns—young artists whose work showed potential but who had not yet achieved public success. But several of these poets were men and women whom Luft had reviewed. Surely the book was already closed upon them. But here they were pursuing their bogus craft like legitimate artists. And most likely they had complained and told stories about him until the other artists had grown suspicious even though he was probably more committed to poetry than any of them.

But considering his work and why he had come to the Phoenix Colony, none of that mattered. Indeed, it even hardened him. And if it was friends he wanted, there were many among the critical establishment who took pleasure in his company.

Luft opened the door to his room—a large bedroom with windows looking out on the great lawn. His studio or workspace was through a door to his left on the other side of the bathroom. Many of the guests had cabins in the woods as studios or had studios in other buildings, and of course the painters and visual artists all had regular artists’ studios with north light and turpentine smells. Luft felt lucky to have a studio adjoining his bedroom. He disliked all useless movement. Besides, it suited his purposes to have his studio so close.

He passed through the bathroom—a long, narrow room with marble floors and a six foot tub. He wanted to see his desk and think about what he had worked on earlier. The studio was dark. He fumbled for the top of the articulated lamp that hung over his computer, then flicked on the switch. The effect was dazzling. Everything was red. Luft gasped and staggered back. His desk was covered with blood and his papers were floating in it—a scarlet, brilliant blood that shimmered and sparkled in the light of the lamp. But even more shocking than the blood was the single bare foot, a bloody foot which rested on the keys of his portable Kaypro: blood was spattered over the keyboard and splashed across the screen, while that blood-stained foot stood in the midst of it all. A metrical foot, Alexander Luft told himself.

Then he stumbled back toward the door and began to scream.

The woman on the other side of the small marble table had what Victor Plotz thought of as a fine pair of hooters—large soft breasts which seemed to recline upon her chest, leaning heavily against the purple fabric of her diaphanous gown. The woman was about fifty and her name was Mrs. Bigalow. She was a widow. Victor was partial to widows—women who had regained their single state through nothing more complicated than death. And Mrs. Bigalow’s breasts had seen a lot of life: children, lovers, a husband or two. They weren’t the hard ignorant breasts of a twenty-year-old, the chest muscles of a cheerleader. They were pillowy and welcoming and Victor imagined resting his head between them.

“Like another cognac, Mrs. Bigalow?” he asked.

“I really shouldn’t.” Mrs. Bigalow smiled. Twenty years ago she had been a beautiful woman and Victor thought there was still much beauty about her. Her eyes were large and blue with large dark pupils and as she looked at Victor she blinked slowly several times.

“Just a taste,” said Victor and he raised his hand to summon the waitress.

They were sitting in the bar of the Bentley, which was fairly deserted on this rainy Sunday night: a few ballerinas, a few jockeys’ agents and several middle-aged couples who had come for the start of the races on Wednesday. Victor had been pleased to learn that Mrs. Bigalow had signed on at the Bentley for two weeks and that this was her first night. He had spotted her at once. She was, Victor thought, idly in the market for an adventure and he was only too happy to oblige.

The waitress brought two more Hennessys and Victor told her to put them on his bill.

“It must be exciting to be a hotel detective,” said Mrs. Bigalow.

“It can be,” said Victor, “and dangerous, too. Sometimes there’s a lot of money in the safe. You’d be surprised how many desperate characters there are even in a civilized place like Saratoga.”

Mrs. Bigalow sipped her brandy. The fire in the large fieldstone fireplace snapped and crackled. “I feel better just knowing you are here,” she said.

Victor reached across the table and patted her hand. On her wrist was a diamond bracelet that sparkled in the candlelight. Victor looked at it speculatively. He was about ten years older than Mrs. Bigalow and thought himself thoroughly capable of exploring her charms. He was a large man, not fat or particularly tall but solid. He wore a three-piece gray suit which exactly matched the frizzy hair which rose above his scalp like a dust ball. His face seemed a collection of over-sized features, as if nose, mouth, teeth, jaw, ears had all been bought secondhand from a used parts place. It was not a handsome face but it showed a lot of character.

“Just last year one ruffian threatened me with a shotgun,” said Victor. “Super Sunday, I’ll never forget it.”

Mrs. Bigalow leaned across the table. Her decolletage seemed as big as a birdbath and Victor imagined dabbling within it. “You must tell me,” she said.

Victor glanced around the room. “Perhaps some place more intimate.”

Mrs. Bigalow leaned back in her seat and seemed to stiffen. Victor wondered if he had gone too far, but no, it had just been a small jolt of adrenaline which had caused her movement.

“Give me ten minutes,” she said. “Room two eleven.” She rose from her chair and glided toward the door. Victor watched her go, exhaled a long breath, and poured the rest of her brandy into his snifter. What he liked about women was that they made his heart beat fast. He began to imagine how they would spend the remainder of their evening and perhaps a number of evenings to come.

Victor’s thoughts were interrupted—rudely, he felt—by the arrival of Raoul, the manager of the Bentley, who plopped himself down in the seat recently vacated by Mrs. Bigalow.

“Working hard?” asked Raoul with a smile which signified neither friendship nor good humor.

Victor stirred in his chair and glanced at his watch. “I like to make our guests feel secure in their surroundings, to let them know someone responsible is watching over their interests.” He did not like Raoul whose whole appearance and metaphysical being struck Victor as slicked-back and prissy. Raoul’s shiny black hair made him look like a young Don Ameche, while his fastidiousness had led Victor to think of him as a machine which ran on talcum powder and Vitalis.

“You would do better,” said Raoul, “to circulate among the floors rather than to chat up the female guests.”

Victor finished the last of his brandy. “I was just about to do so,” he said, getting to his feet. “I need to stretch my legs.” He nodded to Raoul and strolled into the lobby where, despite the hour, several people were checking in. August was the busiest month, the month that paid for everything else, and Victor felt himself ready for it both as a detective and as a militant hedonist.

The Bentley was an over-sized Victorian hotel in downtown Saratoga Springs which had been purchased some years before by Charlie Bradshaw’s mother, who had raised the money through the sale of a successful race horse and then by investing wisely in several roulette wheels in Atlantic City. Once in command, Mabel Bradshaw had completely remodeled the dilapidated building until now it was a museum of Victorian design. Victor found it dark and fussy, but he appreciated the clientele who tended to be big tippers and sometimes, like Mrs. Bigalow, older women interested in adventure.

It was as he was thinking of adventure that Victor began to hear a woman screaming on one of the upper floors. For a moment the lobby went silent, then everybody began talking and calling to one another at once. Victor turned to the stairs and broke into a run. He was aware of a lot of commotion behind him and of doors opening and slamming. The screaming continued, an angry indignant wailing over and over. Victor thought that the voice bore certain resemblances to Mrs. Bigalow’s. But was that possible?

Unfortunately, however, the voice was indeed Mrs. Bigalow’s. Furthermore, she was distraught, not to say unreasonable. Victor ran into her room and immediately regretted it.

“Somebody has broken in here and stolen my great aunt’s diamond necklace,” she said, giving Victor an angry shove. “What sort of hotel detective are you, anyway?”

Victor stumbled across the carpet and regained his balance by sitting down abruptly on the king-sized bed. Although this was exactly where he had imagined being, the circumstances were cruelly different. He glanced around. Drawers had been pulled out and clothing was scattered across the rug, including the most delicate and revealing of Victorian lingerie. Raoul had hurried into the room and now stood near the television set attempting to console Mrs. Bigalow. He kept trying to clasp her hand and she kept jerking it away. Squeezed together at the door, a crowd of guests looked on with moon-shaped faces which bore expressions of alarm and trepidation. Victor felt something crinkle beneath him and found he was sitting on a piece of paper. He pulled it out from under him. It was a poem.

They are but fools

Who leave their jewels

Where thieves like me can take them.

But they make me rich

So I won’t bitch—

For their kindness I do thank them.

The Cohoes police lieutenant unbent the paper clip until it was a straight piece of wire, then delicately inserted it into his ear. “People die of heart attacks all the time, Mr. Bradshaw,” he said.

“But who turned on the merry-go-round?” asked Charlie. He couldn’t take his eyes off the paper clip which seemed to have gone into the lieutenant’s ear farther than humanly possible. Charlie thought that if the paper clip had gone that far into his own ear, he’d be dead.

“Perhaps he was signaling for help, perhaps he felt funny and started up the merry-go-round as the only way to attract attention.” The lieutenant—his name was Melchuk—removed the unbent paper clip and inspected the tip, which appeared clean. He was a thin man in his thirties with thick black hair which seemed to rise up like some jungle weed out of the collar of his white shirt. Charlie couldn’t get a handle on him, couldn’t decide whether he was stupid or just unusually calm.

“What about the bruise on his forehead?”

“He could have fallen.”

“Do you really think that Blake Moss suffered a heart attack?” asked Charlie.

The lieutenant moved some papers around his desk as if that very action encouraged thought. They were in his office and on the wall behind him were pictures of eight black-haired children of different ages. It was ten thirty Tuesday morning and Charlie had arrived a few minutes earlier, although of course he had talked to Melchuk Sunday night as well. A patrol car had driven up shortly after Charlie had discovered Moss’s body and Charlie had had a lot of explaining to do, explanations which had led to his introduction to the police lieutenant. The merry-go-round had apparently been running for about half an hour and people had called the police to complain. Melchuk had also been suspicious and took Charlie back to headquarters where he called the police in Saratoga to find out just who this Bradshaw guy was. The Cohoes police department was in the same building as the city hall, on the corner of Ontario and Mohawk several blocks from the Mohawk River: the boundary between Saratoga and Albany counties. It was a small department, about thirty men.

“The state police couldn’t find any evidence that any one else had been around,” said Melchuk. “The body went to the coroner and the autopsy was done at the medical school. Some of the arteries to his heart were pretty well clogged. I mean, look at Moss. He smoked, he drank, he was overweight. The fact that he was forty-five means nothing. On top of that, he was diabetic.”

“But do you really think he died of a heart attack?” repeated Charlie. On Monday Charlie had expected to hear from the Cohoes lieutenant but he had been out of his office all day, partly dealing with the confusion at the Bentley and partly trying to avoid it. He dreaded the thought of being caught up in an investigation in which he was responsible to his mother and had spent a lot of time trying to reassure everyone that Victor was. . .