“It was a list of names. Venable gave it to the police.” MacTeague took a photostat from his desk drawer and handed it to Regina. “This is a copy.”
“How—?”
“The long arm of ATOMICS.” MacTeague smiled. “A clerk in the Homicide Division supplies us with copies of all documents of interest.”
“It looks like the original was ripped over the top name,” Regina observed. “That means some names might be missing.”
“Venable told the detectives it must have happened when he pulled it out of his dead sister’s hand.”
“But then the police would have found the top piece there.”
“According to our man in Homicide, when Lieutenant Rodriguez pointed that out to Venable, he suggested that you must have removed it.”
Regina shrugged and looked at the four names on the list. “I know one of them!” she exclaimed.
“Intimately?” MacTeague inquired with a delicacy that didn’t quite make it.
“Wash out your mind with soap!” Regina suggested.
“Which one?” he persisted.
“Do you still beat your wife?” she ducked sweetly. “Hey, this list is alphabetical,” she noticed. “The first name from where it was ripped begins with ‘G’. Whatever names are missing must begin with the letters ‘A’ through ‘F’.”
“If you think that narrows it down,” MacTeague retorted sarcastically, “try checking the first two hundred pages of the Manhattan telephone directory. Be- sides,” he added, “there’s only one name missing.”
“How could you know that?”
“We checked the manufacturer of the original sheet. It only comes in one size. Given the consistency of Faith Venable’s handwriting, there would only be room for one name above the others.”
“So if we add one to the four names here, that means we have five suspects,” Regina said. “Not counting Dwight Venable.”
“Right. Also,” MacTeague told her, “a preliminary check of those names reveals that they were all disciples of the dead girl, members of her cult, or whatever you call it. They were—how do you say it—taking instruction from her on the road to Nirvana. Something like that. She saw each of them three times a week—privately.”
“I’ll check them out,” Regina assured him. “But first I want to talk to Dwight Venable. I want to see if he can plug up some of those holes in his story.” She shook hands with MacTeague and started for the door. “I’ll be in touch,” she promised.
Angus MacTeague watched the lovely redhead undulate out of his office. He was still bemused with the fact of her having conned him into the job. There she goes, he told himself. Regina Blue, ex-whore. There she goes: Regina Blue, ATOMICS dick. There she goes:
A dick in a mini-skirt!
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Gay Lament
“Hemorrhoids! Oh, cursed fate!
“Turned a passive fairy straight!”
“That’s not funny, Dwight! I don’t like words like ‘fairy’ , or ‘kike’, or ‘nigger’.”
“National Brotherhood Week."’ Dwight Venable snapped his fingers. “I forgot. What is it, Rev? A hundred dollars a plate at the Waldorf wedged between the rabbi’s kosher chicken and the priest’s Friday fish?”
‘“I wish you wouldn’t call me ‘Rev’! It’s--well—- disrespectful!”
Dwight guffawed. “Sorry about that, Petey-sweetie.”
“I don’t mean disrespectful to me. I mean to the cloth. The clergyman ran his finger around the inside of his stiff white collar. “Why do you keep this place so hot?” he complained.
“I m getting the steam room ready for you. It heats the whole place up. It can’t be helped. It’s an old house.”
“You really are too much, Dwight. Who else but you would build a steam-room and a sauna right into his house?”
“Petey-sweetie, you’ll be glad I did,” Dwight told him. “A sitz bath in the steam room will do wonders for those hemorrhoids of yours. And then maybe we can get back to a normal sex life.”
“Normal?”
“Just listen to the guilt in the tone of that voice! Lordy save us all from the Protestant Ethic!”
Dwight shook his head ruefully. “You wouldn’t feel so guilty, Petey-sweetie, if you’d just come out of the closet.”
“I could never do that! I could never compromise my religion that way!”
“Compromise your religion!” Dwight snorted. “What the hell do you think you’re doing now? Hypocrisy—”
“Please, Dwight!” Petey-sweetie held up a majestically ministerial hand. “I’ll simply go all to pieces if you make us have one of our scenes now, dear. Between my hemorrhoids and my aching jaw -”
“Your jaw wouldn’t ache if you weren’t so up tight!”
“I can’t help it. When we do that, it makes me feel used!”
“Used? Or abused?”
“Please, Dwight? Not today!”
“Oh, all right.” Dwight relented. “Take off your maxi-skirt, sweetie, and-—”
“Dwight! How many times have I asked you not to refer to my cassock as a skirt?”
‘Tm sorry, Petey. What I meant was if you take off your cassock, we can go in the steam room. You can have a sitz bath, and I’ll rub your back.”
“Oh! That would be Heaven!”
“Sacrilege!” Dwight chuckled. “Sorry.” He apologized again as Petey-sweetie started to react. “Peace.” He formed the V symbol with two fingers.
Petey-sweetie returned the signal and held up a third finger, a pinky. “And a little piece on the side,” he said in the good-fellow voice of camaraderie which ministers usually reserve for post-Rotary-meeting smut sessions.
“Peace on you, Padre!” Dwight replied, giving a fair imitation of a Mexican accent. Then he settled back and watched openly as Petey-sweetie divested himself of his clerical garb.
Despite his teasing, Dwight had genuine feeling for the minister. The Reverend Peter Norbert was something else again. Dwight really loved him, and had since the first night they’d met.
The meeting took place under the 95th Street overpass of the East River Drive. The spot was a gathering place for male homosexuals and Dwight had been parked there, lights out, hoping for a pickup with appeal enough for more than a one-night stand. He’d caught his breath at the sight of the Reverend Peter Norbert, in mufti, obviously cruising the area.
The pickup had been easy. They were both looking for the same thing. Mutual appeal was immediate. They made out in the back of Dwight’s car. Then they went to Dwight’s place where they spent the night together.
It worked out so well that Dwight asked him back. The relationship had begun. It wasn’t until after their third lovemaking date that Petey-sweetie confessed to Dwight that he was a minister of the cloth.
Dwight was floored. Petey-sweetie looked like a truck driver. It had been a surprise to find how compliant and passive he was when they made love, following Dwight’s lead, shy and fluttery, sometimes even coy. Even so, the revelation of his ministerial role was so inconsistent with the abundance of hair and muscles which so aroused Dwight that it took him awhile to get used to the idea that Petey-sweetie really was a clergyman.
Now, watching him undress, Dwight was reminded that Petey-sweetie had also been something of a jock in his college days. A three-letter man—wrestling, track and football-he’d come close to making All-American linebacker before going on to the seminary. Even today, as a minister, he was still involved with athletics, organizing “straight” adolescents into church teams, training them and working out with them, and taking them on hikes, and never—never!—getting out of line with them because Petey-sweetie really didn’t dig young stuff any more than most gay people did, and because in any case Petey-sweetie really did believe in most of the morality he preached.