Richard Stevenson - Shock to the system

I said, "I guess you can change roommates, but you can't change your dogs' names."

"You can change dogs' names," St. James said, "if you do it gradually over time-there's no harm in it. But I really don't see any reason to." Mike and Bob lay on the rug on either side of St. James, peering over at me and emitting fluids in various states.

"Steven," I said, "it's time to fess up."

He stared at me. "You said something about Emil, and about blackmail. What on earth does that mean?"

"I think that's something you need to tell me."

He kept staring and was starting to sweat. He was going to need a fresh T-shirt. "I just don't get it, is all that I'm saying. What does Emil have to do with it?"

I said, "There are pictures-photographs."

"There are?"

"Paul Haig had them."

"But who took the pictures? And what does Emil have to do with it all?"

I said, "Are you telling me Emil wasn't involved?"

"Of course not. Don't be ridiculous."

"This would be easier to sort out," I said, "and a lot less confusing for everybody concerned if I knew what the hell it is we are talking about, Steven. On Friday, I asked you what you and Crockwell and Bierly and Haig were mixed up in together, and you said, quote, 'You don't want to know.' But I do. Because it now appears that Paul was trying to blackmail one of the participants in the you-don't-want-to-know business, and he may well have been murdered in order to halt the blackmail and shut him up. Neither Bierly nor Crockwell has yet explained to me what was going on among you, so it's up to you to break the logjam. Either that or the lot of you are likely to be hauled in by the Albany Police Department, which will read you your Miranda rights and then start peeling your skin off in strips figuratively speaking, of course, though you'll hardly notice the difference."

He was shaking his head again, not in denial but in apparent disbelief. "This is incredible. I never wanted to do it in the first place. It wasn't my idea. But I was high and I just-went along."

"Along with what?"

"We did something that I knew was wrong."

"Uh-huh."

"We'd never have done it if we hadn't been flying high. I know that's no excuse."

"No, it never is."

"But there was nobody to say, Wait a minute, no, this is crazy, it's cruel, it's torture, it's-illegal. We were all under the influence-a terrible, terrible mistake."

"You and Paul and Larry and-?"

"The three of us."

"No Emil?"

He laughed once. "God, no. Emil? Where did you get an idea like that?"

I could no longer remember. I said, "I'm not sure. But aren't you-involved with him? Look, I'm gay and you don't have to hold back. I'm hip to these things."

"Oh, well, I'm glad you're hip," St. James said, with a Mellors-like sneer. "I knew you were gay-Larry told me but I didn't know you were hip too. That makes this whole thing so much easier."

I said, "So you and Emil aren't an occasional item?"

" 'An occasional item.' Such a sensitive way of putting it, Strachey. No, we're not. Emil happens to be in love with me. He sometimes imagines that I'm in love with him-which I'm not- and that I hold my passions in check because he's married and because of class differences. But it's all in his head. I haven't done a thing to either lead him on or to make him believe I'm abstaining from sex with him for any reason other than that I don't happen to be interested. I do like him-he's a sweet old guy from another age who's as gay as I am but who grew up differently and who's trying to find a way to be true to his sexual nature, but can't. Sometimes I wish I was attracted to him, because he's a decent man and deserves better. But I'm not attracted, and our relationship exists entirely within Emil's fantasy life-which is real enough to him that he's powerfully jealous of the other men in my life, real and imagined."

I said, "I misunderstood the situation. Sorry."

"Oh, no problem, no problem at all. God."

"So Emil wasn't involved in-'it.' Who was?"

"I told you. Larry and Paul and I. And of course Dr. Crockwell."

"Right." I waited. He looked at me and said nothing, his scent becoming Mellors-like again.

"Paul and Larry were very, very angry," he said tightly. "Especially Larry."

"At Crockwell."

He nodded.

"So?"

St. James started breathing hard. "I think-I think I could go to prison for this," he said.

"You all got high and you did something to Crockwell?"

He nodded.

"Which was?"

He said, "I-I can't tell you."

"Why?"

"We all swore we'd never tell."

"Even Crockwell?"

"Especially Crockwell. He said he'd never press charges if we all kept our mouths shut."

"Jesus, did you rape him?"

Now he grimaced. "God, no! What kind of people do you think we are?"

"The kind that could go to prison for whatever you did do. You just said so, Steven."

"Yes, but-no, I would never do a thing like that. And neither would Paul or Larry, even though they despised Crockwell. Especially Larry."

"Is Larry an old friend of yours?"

"Not old, but good. We met in a bar in Albany when Paul and Larry were having some hard times on account of Paul's drinking. We slept together once in a while, especially after Larry moved out and had his own apartment. We turned on together occasionally, and one time we ran into Paul when he was drunk and he joined us. And that's when it happened. One Thursday night in January when they knew Crockwell would be alone in his office. They started talking about Crockwell, and they got angrier and angrier about what he does to gay people and what he did to them, and that's when Larry got this idea about how to get even."

He sat there breathing hard again, the wet circles under his arms as big as grapefruits now. He started to speak several times, but each time nothing came out. For a minute, I thought he might faint.

After another minute, I said, "Am I going to have to ask Crockwell what happened?"

Still breathing erratically, St. James nodded. "You can ask him. But I don't think he'll tell you."

"You realize, Steven, that there may be blackmail involved, and murder. You may be obstructing justice, a felony in itself."

Looking bewildered again, he said, "You keep saying that, but I don't understand it at all. Who would blackmail any of us? The only people who know about the incident are me, Larry and Dr. Crockwell. Paul wouldn't have blackmailed Larry, I can't imagine. And he didn't try to blackmail me. And even if he had tried to blackmail Crockwell, Crockwell would have just said, 'Okay, tell the world. Then you'll go to prison for what you did.' So why would Paul do that?"

"Maybe," I said, "Crockwell’s reputation was at stake, and that meant more than anything to him, and so Paul knew he was vulnerable."

"That's possible," St. James said. "But Crockwell could have just said to Paul, 'Tell anybody you want. I'll just deny the whole thing. You're just a disgruntled former patient who went over the edge, and you're a drunken sexual pervert nobody will believe.' And anyway, Strachey, where did you get the idea that there are pictures? Nobody was taking pictures, I can tell you that for sure. I know, because I was there."

St. James seemed to be breathing more evenly and sweating a little less now, though his dogs were slobbering up a storm. I felt like getting down on the floor and slobbering too. It seemed as though I had systematically eliminated all useful knowledge pertaining to Paul Haig's death and that I was nearly all the way back to my state of useless innocence of five days earlier.

I said, "Steven, unless you can find it within yourself to be more forthcoming with me on exactly what happened in Crockwell's office that night, I do believe that I'll have no choice but to go to the Albany police and relay to them the admissions you have made to me here tonight."