Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

matter.”
    “He’s giving you nine inches, Mother. Nine inches.”
    “What?”
    “In Western Gentry. He’s devoting most of his column to …”
    The bathroom door swung open. Frannie stood there, red-eyed, holding a Mai Tai. “Did you ask him to stay for breakfast?” she said.

The Case of the Six Batons
    T HE CATERERS MADE SCRAMBLED EGGS FOR THE REM nants of the party at Halcyon Hill. While Frannie was cornering Carson Callas, Edgar slipped away to his den and placed a phone call to Barbary Lane.
    “Madrigal.”
    “It’s me, Anna.”
    “Hello, Edgar.”
    “I’m sorry about Mona, Anna.”
    “You don’t need to apologize.”
    “Yes I do. I shouldn’t have snapped at you this morning.”
    “I … you have a job to do, Edgar.”
    “If I had known how much Mona means to you …”
    “I shouldn’t have called. I meddle too much.”
    “I have a free day next week. We could beach it again.”
    “Fine.”
    “Thank God!”
    “Go on, now. Get back to your guests.”
    Back at Barbary Lane, Mona was prone on the sofa with New West when Michael dragged in.
    “Well,” she said. “How’s the wonderful world of gynecology?”
    “I wasn’t with Jon.”
    “My! How soon the flame of love can die!”
    “He had a meeting tonight.”
    “So you went to the tubs?” She frowned at him, only half-jokingly.
    “It isn’t good to put all your eggs in one basket.”
    “So to speak.”
    He grinned. “Yeah.”
    “My lips are sealed.”
    He wriggled onto the sofa next to her. “Guess who was there?”
    “The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”
    “O.K., if you don’t wanna dish, we won’t dish.”
    “No. Go ahead. I want to.”
    “No. First I have to tell you about Hamburger Mary’s.”
    “I hate it when you punish me.”
    “I’m setting the stage, Mona. Relax. Pretend I’m your guru. Maharishi Mahesh Mouse. I bring you the Keys to the Kingdom of Folsom Street. The Holy Red Bandanna That Sitteth on the Left Hand of the Levi’s. The …”
    “Michael, you fucker!”
    “All right, all right. There I was at Hamburger Mary’s, eating a bean sprout salad and wondering if my new Sears work boots looked too new, when this couple waltzed in and took a seat in the middle of a heavy biker contingent.”
    “A couple of guys?”
    “Hell, no. A guy and his wife, slumming. Radical chic, vintage 1976. She was wearing a David Bowie T-shirt to show where her sympathies lay, and he was looking grossly uncomfortable in a Grodins sports ensemble. I mean, five years ago you could have caught these turkeys down in the Fillmore, chowing down on chitlins and black-eyed peas with the Brothers and Sisters. Now they’re into faggots. They want desperately to relate to perverts.”
    “It’s nothing but heartbreak, I can tell ‘em!”
    “O.K., so the scene gets more rough-trade by the minute. And then this dude sits down next to them and he’s wearing a ring in his nose and a Future Farmers of America jacket and Mr. Grodins Ensemble is freaking out so badly that he may have to split for El Cerrito any minute.”
    “What about his wife?”
    “Oh, God … extremely PO’ed that hubby’s not getting off on the decadent ambience. Finally, she looks at him intently and says, in a voice fraught with meaning: ‘Which do you think you’d prefer, Rich? S or M?’”
    “And?”
    “He thought it was something to put on the hamburger.”
    “So who did you meet at the tubs, Mouse?”
    “Well … I met him after I’d been there a couple of hours. I was walking down the hall, looking into rooms, and this gray-haired guy motioned me to come into his room. He seemed pretty old, but he had a nice body. So I went in and sat down on the edge of his bed, and he said, ‘Had a busy night?’ and I immediately knew who it was by his accent. I also recognized him from his album covers.”
    “Who?”
    “Nigel Huxtable.”
    “The conductor?”
    “Yep. Nora Cunningham’s husband, no less.”
    “Did you two …?”
    “Are you kidding?”
    “Well, I didn’t …”
    “I got out of there as soon as I saw what he had in his bag.”
    “Go on, go on….”
    “A cassette recorder … a tape of his lovely wife singing the ‘Casta Diva’ … a piece of gold brocade cord which he said came from the curtain at La Scala … and six rubber batons!”
    “Jesus Christ!”
    “I didn’t do anything, Mona. With anybody.”
    “Tell that to your gynecologist!”

Back to Cleveland?
    D AYS DRAGGED LIKE WEEKS AT HALCYON COMMUNICA