V.

Stencil would have liked to go on believing the death and V. had been separate for his father. This he still could choose to do (couldn't he?), and continue on in calm weather. He could go to Malta and possibly end it. He had stayed off Malta. He was afraid of ending it; but, damn it all, staying here would end it too. Funking out; finding V.; he didn't know which he was most afraid of, V. or sleep. Or whether they were two versions of the same thing.

Was there nothing for it but Valletta?

Chapter Twelve

In which things are not so amusing

I

The party had begun late, with a core of only a dozen Sick. Evening was hot and not likely to get any cooler. They all sweated. The loft itself was part of an old warehouse and not a legal residence; buildings in this area of the city had been condemned years ago. Someday there would be cranes, dump trucks, payloaders, bulldozers to come and level the neighborhood; but in the meantime, nobody - city or landlords - saw any objection in turning a minor profit.

There hung therefore about Raoul, Slab and Melvin's pad a climate of impermanence, as if the sand-sculptures, unfinished canvases, thousands of paperback books suspended in tiers of cement blocks and warped planks, even the great marble toilet stolen from a mansion in the east 70's (since replaced by a glass and aluminum apartment building) were all part of the set to an experimental play, which its cabal of faceless angels could cause to be struck at any moment, without having to give their reasons.

People would arrive, come the late hours. Raoul, Slab and Melvin's refrigerator was already half filled with a ruby construction of wine bottles; gallon of Vino Paisano slightly above center, left, off-balancing two 25-cent bottles of Gallo Grenache Rose, and one of Chilean Riesling, lower right, and so on. The icebox door was left open so people could admire, could dig. Why not? Accidental art had great vogue that year.

Winsome wasn't there when the party began, and didn't show up at all that night. Nor any night after that. He'd had another fight with Mafia in the afternoon, over playing tapes of McClintic Sphere's group in the parlor while she was trying to create in the bedroom.

"If you ever tried to create," she yelled, "instead of live off what other people create, you'd understand."

"Who creates," Winsome said. "Your editor, publisher? Without them, girl, you would be nowhere."

"Anywhere you are, old sweet, is nowhere." Winsome gave it up and left her to scream at Fang. He had to step over three sleeping bodies on the way out. Which one was Pig Bodine? They were all covered by blankets. Like the old pea-and-nutshell dodge. Did it make any difference? She'd have company.

He headed downtown and after a while had wandered by the V-Note. Inside were stacked tables and the bartender watching a ball game on TV. Two fat Siamese kittens played on the piano, one outside chasing up and down the keyboard, one inside, clawing at the strings. It didn't sound like much.

"Roon."

"Man, I need a change of luck, no racial slur intended."

"Get a divorce." McClintic appeared in a foul mood. "Roon, let's go to Lenox. I can't last the weekend. Don't tell me any woman trouble. I got enough for both of us."

"Why not. Out to the boondocks. Green hills. Well people."

"Come on. There is a little girl I have to get out of this town before she flips from the heat. Or whatever it is."

It took them a while. They drank beer till sunset and then headed up to Winsome's where they swapped the Triumph for a black Buick. "It looks like a staff car for the Mafia," said McClintic. "Whoops."

"Ha, ha," replied Winsome. They continued uptown along the nighttime Hudson, veering finally right into Harlem. And there began working their way in to Matilda Winthrop's, bar by bar.

Not long after, they were arguing like undergraduates over who was the most juiced, gathering hostile stares which had less to do with color than with an inherent quality of conservatism which neighborhood bars possess, and bars where how much you can drink is a test of manhood do not.

They arrived at Matilda's well past midnight. The old lady, hearing Winsome's rebel accent, talked only to McClintic. Ruby came downstairs and McClintic introduced them.

Crash, shrieks, deep-chested laughter from topside. Matilda ran out of the room screaming.

"Sylvia, Ruby's friend, is busy tonight," McClintic said.

Winsome was charming. "You young folks just take it easy," he said. "Old Uncle Roony will drive you anywhere you want, won't look in the rear view mirror, won't be anything but the kindly old chauffeur he is."

Which cheered McClintic up. There being a certain strained politeness in the way Ruby held his arm. Winsome could see how McClintic was daft to get out in the country.

More noise from upstairs, louder this time. "McClintic," Matilda yelled.

"I must go play bouncer," he told Roony. "Back in five."

Which left only Roony and Ruby in the parlor.