Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

about a rain check?”
    He stood up, sighed and readjusted his horns. “That’s what they all say.”
    “Where’s the party?”
    “Not far. The Hyde and Green Plant Store. I’m gonna walk it.”
    “Dressed like that?”
    “Don’t be so … Cleveland. Half the people on Russian Hill look like this.”
    “Well, be careful.”
    “Of what?”
    “I don’t know…. Other people who look like that, I guess.”
    “Have fun with the suicides.”
    “Thanks.” She pushed him playfully out the door. “Go find yourself a nice billy goat.”

Intermezzo
    M EANWHILE, AT THE OPERA HOUSE, THE GENTLE men came and went in the shadows, preening their plumage amid the red leather and dark wood and gleaming fixtures of the men’s room at The Boxes. For the next two hours, it would be the most elegant toilet in town.
    “Guard the door,” ordered Peter Cipriani.
    “What?” said Beauchamp.
    “The last thing we need is one of those tight-assed old dinosaurs stumbling in here ripped to the tits!”
    From his pocket Peter took a Gump’s envelope embossed with the Cipriani crest. He dug into it with a tiny gold spoon and lifted the spoon to his left nostril.
    “Ah! Uncut! The way I like my coke and my men!”
    Beauchamp was nervous. “C’mon! Hurry up!”
    “Ladies first!”
    The spoon went down and up again, catering to Peter’s other nostril. Beauchamp followed suit, then inspected his tails for lint in front of the mirror.
    “God, this is dreary!”
    Peter grinned at him. “Are you going to L’Orangerie with the Halcyons afterwards?”
    “Check with DeDe. She and her mother are calling the shots tonight.”
    Peter extracted a Bill Blass bronzer from his breast pocket and began to touch up his cheekbones. “Why don’t you split with me at intermission and go to The Club?”
    “The club has something planned?”
    Peter groaned. “You poor naïve heiress! I’m talking about the one at Eighth and Howard.”
    “I think you’re on your own tonight, Peter.”
    “Chacun à son goût. Personally, I’m sick of these pseudo-patricians. I’m ready for a few pseudo-lumberjacks.”
    Ryan Hammond swept into the room. Ryan was an Englishman, or at least talked like one. He was renowned in the social columns as an escort of widows and a star of musical comedies on the Peninsula.
    “Well,” purred Peter, “haven’t the walkers crawled out of the woodwork tonight?”
    Beauchamp glared at his friend.
    Ryan ignored him, heading for the urinals.
    “Your date’s real cute, Ryan. How old is she? A hundred and eight?”
    “Peter!” snapped Beauchamp.
    Going about his business, Ryan fixed Peter with his best George Sanders evil eye. “Good evening, Mr. Cipriani. I didn’t know Massenet was your cup of tea.”
    “Well, not ordinarily … but opening night is such a spectacle, isn’t it? Hell, it’s the only night of the year that you wear less jewelry than your girlfriends.”
    The bathroom was empty again when Edgar entered with Booter Manigault.
    Booter was adorned with his European Campaign ribbons and the earplug of a transistor radio. He was listening to the Giants-Cincinnati game.
    The two men faced the wall. “Almost time for ducks again,” Edgar said expressionlessly.
    “What? … Sorry, Edgar.” He pulled out the earplug.
    “I said it’s almost time for ducks again. Seems like the Grove was just yesterday, and now it’s almost time for ducks again.”
    “Yeah … the old tempus really fugits, doesn’t it?” Booter chuckled to himself. “Who says we haven’t got seasons in California? Just about now the hookers are leaving their nests in Rio Nido and migrating to Marysville. I’d say that was a sure sign of fall, wouldn’t you?”
    Silence.
    “Edgar … are you all right?”
    “Yeah … I’m fine.”
    “You look a little white.”
    “Opera.” He forced a grin.
    Booter reinstated the earplug. “Goddamn right!”

Vincent’s Old Lady
    M ICHAEL UNCAPPED A TUBE OF DANCE ARTS CLOWN white and repaired his Pan face in the foyer of 28 Barbary Lane. He loved that old foyer, with its tarnished Deco ladies and gilt mirrors and pressed-tin ceiling full of thirties hieroglyphics.
    Somehow it made him feel debonair—gay in the archaic sense of the word—like Fred Astaire in Top Hat or Noel Coward off to meet Gertie Lawrence at the Savoy Grill.
    Thank heavens, he thought, for Mrs. Madrigal, a landlady of almost cosmic sensitivity who had never felt called upon to defile the building with