Wilde West Read online

  Henry called from the closet, “You be wantin’ the green jacket, Mistuh Oscar?”

  “Indubitably,” said Oscar, and exhaled another elaborate rolling plume. Silently, brilliantly, it flared in the sunlight.

  What a truly glorious morning this was. How absolutely top drawer.

  It was the sort of morning when even a rustic Denver hotel room could seem as hallowed and sacred as a Doric temple. The sort of morning when the simplest, most mundane objects—the round white porcelain water basin atop the pinewood dresser, the plump white porcelain pitcher beside it, the squat black wood-stove, the round red bedposts gleaming in the sunstream—abruptly acquired a profound beauty and significance. Each of these, by its very uniqueness, its irreducible singularity, was suddenly numinous, suddenly resonant with import. Each in its own way was flawless, and each by its perfection implied a higher Perfection which, however transcendent, still somehow lay, miraculously, just within the scope of human understanding and achievement.

  Everything this morning, including Oscar, was divine and immortal.

  Henry emerged from the closet carrying the green velvet jacket and a white silk shirt with a ruffled front. “You be wantin’ the knee britches?”

  “Trousers, I think,” said Oscar. “The black ones. And the patent leather shoes. Black stockings.” Conservative, subdued. Mustn’t overwhelm the woman on our first rendezvous.

  Henry nodded, set the jacket and shirt upon the quilted bedcover, then returned to the closet.

  Had she appeared in his dreams, this miraculous Elizabeth McCourt Doe? Had she stalked through them like a red tigress, those violet eyes glowing in the night?

  What a thoroughly stunning, what a remarkable, woman.

  And soon, in only an hour or so, he would see her again.

  Poor Vail had been entirely against this breakfast tryst. Outside Tabor’s mansion, climbing into the carriage behind the business manager, Oscar had asked him, “Why the sudden departure? I thought we were supposed to charm this Tabor fellow.” He pulled the carriage door shut.

  “Yeah?” said Vail. He plucked the cigar from his mouth and turned to him. “You figure raping his doxy, that’s gonna charm the guy?”

  Oscar was clapped back against the seat as the carriage lurched forward. “Raping? What on earth are you talking about?” But glad that the darkness hid the sudden blush that bloomed across his face.

  Vail shook his head. “Jesus Christ, Oscar, I gotta tell you, I never saw anything like it. The two of you were going at each other like a pair of minks. Right in front of the guy. Another five minutes and you would of been humping right there on the floor. Yeah, that would of charmed him pretty good, I guess.”

  Oscar made his voice curdle with disdain. “Humping?” (But, unbidden, inescapable, the vision flashed across the back of his brain: he and the woman atop the Persian carpet, a tangle of white arms and legs, a tumble of red hair.)

  “Look,” Vail said. “You got to forget this breakfast deal tomorrow.”

  “Don’t be absurd. I’ve already told them I’ll be there. He asked me himself. You heard him.”

  “Oscar, I’m telling you, the woman is poison. Poison. You get involved with her and Tabor’s gonna find out. Nah, you think. Not him. Sure, right, he looks like a dope. He acts like a dope. He is a dope, prob’ly. But he’s rich, Oscar boy. He’s powerful. And people like to tell stuff to rich folks. The servants, the neighbors. Believe you me, he’ll find out. And he’s not gonna take it kindly, you putting the hose to his chippy.”

  “Putting the hose?”

  “He could hurt you, Oscar. Hurt you bad.”

  “The man is three feet tall, Vail. What will he do, kick me in the shins?”

  As the streetlight passed across Vail’s face, his eyes narrowed. “What do you figure it costs, a town like this, filled with six-guns, for him to get someone to plug you?”

  “I couldn’t begin to imagine.”

  “About thirty-five cents.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Oscar said. “I’m merely going to breakfast. Nothing more.”

  Vail shook his head firmly. “You got to forget it.”

  “Now see here, Vail. When it comes to my business dealings—costs, finances, guarantees—I’m perfectly happy to listen to your no doubt sage advice. Providing sage advice is what you’re paid for, after all. But outside the framework of commerce, my life is my own. I’ve been asked to breakfast with Mrs. Doe. I am going to breakfast with Mrs. Doe. Is that understood?”

  “Oscar boy, there ain’t nothing at all that’s outside the framework of commerce.”

  Oscar frowned in annoyance. “A typically American remark. In Europe, even in England, we understand that life isn’t merely a matter of shopkeepers and tradesmen. There is, thank goodness, an entirely separate universe. Of Beauty. Of Truth. Of Compassion and Nobility.”

  “Yeah, well, first of all, this ain’t Europe. And second, I notice you generally got a pretty good idea, every night, what the receipts are gonna be. Down to the penny. You count the house pretty good for a poet.”

  “Poetry,” Oscar announced, “is by no means incompatible with arithmetic. Look at the ancient Greeks.”

  “Jeez,” said Vail, “that’s all we need, the ancient Greeks again.”

  Oscar stared at him. “And what does that mean?”

  Vail shook his head, waved his hand. “Nothing, nothing.”

  “Are we back to young Mr. Ruddick now?”

  “I didn’t say a word about the fella.”

  “I know your feelings on the subject.”

  “Look, all I said was that maybe he was a bit on the lavender side. I didn’t mean nothing personal.”

  “Mr. Ruddick is an extremely sensitive young man. He shows great promise as a poet.”

  “Right. Right. He’s swell. You want him along on the tour, he comes along. I’m flexible, right? I can compromise. So how come you can’t? Oscar boy, for your own good, you got to forget about seeing this chippy tomorrow.”

  “Permit me to determine where my own good lies. I was invited. I am going.”

  Sadly, Vail shook his head. “She’s poison, Oscar. I’m telling you.”

  “Perhaps, but the fact is, I’m not having her for breakfast.”

  Vail frowned glumly. “Yeah, well. We’ll see about that.”

  And they had sat in silence, the light from the streetlamps ticking slowly over them, until they returned to the hotel.

  Now, sitting in his room, Oscar blew another stream of smoke at the slab of sunlight.

  Poor Vail. Impossible, of course, for him to comprehend how two souls might come together in a companionship that was spiritual, literary, Platonic.

  The poor man would never understand that each soul possessed, as it were, its own distinctive vibration. That when a particular soul—through one of those lovely tricks of frivolous Fate—came upon another which vibrated at the same frequency, it began at once to hum. Like two tuning forks of identical pitch—which need never actually physically touch each other—the two souls beautifully resonated in sympathy.

  So it had happened with himself and Elizabeth McCourt Doe.

  Oh, no question that the woman was attractive. Yes, that lavish titian hair, those uncanny violet eyes, those wide red lips, those firm full breasts, that unsullied skin, that long lithe body so exquisitely and extravagantly sensual …

  No question at all.

  But of course it was not this which fascinated him. Well—he smiled—to be entirely honest, it was not this only.

  No, far more than her undeniable physical beauty, it was the beauty of her soul, incandescent behind those uncanny violet eyes, that drew him irresistibly to her. It was her soul’s obvious compatibility and harmony with his own that drew the two of them irresistibly toward each other.

  Poor Vail. A decent enough chap. Good hearted even if mercantile. But of course the union of two pure souls was something he could never fathom.

  From the closet Henry came carrying
the boots, the socks, the black trousers, and a pair of black silk undershorts patterned with grey fleurs-de-lis. He set the boots on the floor and arranged the rest on the bed beside the other clothing. “Anything else, Mistuh Oscar?”

  Oscar blew another cone of smoke. “Could you hire up a carriage and have it waiting outside in, say, forty-five minutes?”

  Henry nodded his white-haired head.

  “And could you tell Mr. Ruddick that I won’t be joining him this morning for breakfast?”

  “Mistuh Ruddick,” Henry said, “he already left. He say he goin’ up to the mountains, talk to the wildflowers.”

  Oscar smiled. “How very fortunate for the wildflowers. They’re certain to find Mr. Ruddick’s conversation stimulating.”

  Henry nodded again, his black face, as always, expressionless. “Yes suh.”

  “Thank you, Henry. I’ll see you at twelve-thirty then, before the matinee.”

  “Yes suh, Mistuh Oscar.”

  As Henry left the room, Oscar stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. He stood, untied the silk belt at his waist, slipped off the robe, lay the robe across the chair, unbuttoned his pajama top, stripped it off, lay that over the robe. He untied the string of his pajama bottoms, awkwardly stepped out of them, lay them over the rest, and then naked he padded over to the full-length oval mirror.

  Frowning in disapproval, he looked down the length of his pale reflected body. Doughy flesh, podgy breasts, slack saddles of meat slung over broad hips, white stomach sagging over the presumptuous thatch of black hair and that limp comedy trio dangling below, Freddy Phallus and the Testicle Twins.

  Ah well.

  What we have here is not precisely the classical ideal. Not precisely Adonis.

  Narcissus, yes, perhaps; but a Narcissus working under enormous handicaps.

  Good shoulders, though. And rather shapely legs.

  It was possible, of course, that she liked shoulders and legs; that she favored them.

  It was possible, of course, that she did not.

  A new regimen, perhaps. Brisk walks in the morning.

  Perhaps a change of diet. Something Spartan. Watercress and champagne. An occasional stalk of celery.

  For a few weeks. For a few days, anyway. To see how it went.

  He turned sideways, sucked in his belly. Better. With a little imagination, and perhaps a little myopia, he might pass for a prizefighter. One of those dim pugilists who pounded each other to bare-knuckled oblivion amid cigar smoke and shouted wagers in the London clubs.

  He put his fists up in approved pugilistic fashion, moved them in determined circles.

  He frowned again.

  Charming. Here we have a poet, a playwright, an Aesthete, the heir apparent to Ruskin, to Pater, who at his very best resembles a modern-day gladiator, soft and seedy and sad.

  He lowered his hands, turned to face the mirror, permitted his stomach to slide back to its natural position. Then, stepping lightly forward with his left foot, swinging his long right arm in a graceful sweep, he presented himself an elaborate formal bow.

  He looked up into the mirror and broadly smiled. “Madam,” he intoned, “we who are about to die salute you.”

  No butler this time; she opened the door herself. The elegant tumble of red hair shimmering about her oval face like an aura, she wore a green satin dress that was, technically, an extremely proper affair: gravely long-sleeved, severely buttoned up the bodice to a trim, prim collar. But from waist to arch of throat the fabric embraced her flesh as though she had grown into it, completing the process only moments before; and proudly, mockingly, it revealed all the magnificence it pretended to conceal. Her red lips smiled faintly, her violet eyes glittered. “Oscar,” she said. “Come in.” By daylight the color of those eyes was even more extraordinary.

  He stepped into the hallway and she closed the door behind him.

  “I gave the servants the day off,” she said, smiling still.

  “Ah,” said Oscar.

  He thought suddenly, Ah? What a brilliant rejoinder.

  He could smell her fragrance again, the musk, the forbidden spices, the pale white flowers that bloomed only in the light of the full moon; and perhaps it was this that had made his head suddenly drain itself of thought, become as taut and buoyant as a soap bubble. Soon it would pop off his neck and go sailing up to bounce lightly against those dreary nailhead moldings along the ceiling.

  “Come along,” she said. Lightly she touched his arm: beneath her fingers, fire flashed along his skin.

  He followed her down the hall as though leashed to her by that dark sweet streamer of scent.

  Suddenly he remembered seeing once, in Ireland, in late summer at Lough Bray in the Wicklows, the neighbor’s collie loping behind his father’s setter bitch, the male dog’s thin aristocratic nose twitching behind the other’s frisking rump, the two dogs trotting in file through the angled amber light of early evening to disappear among the long purple shadows of the forest.

  The setter’s fur had been red as well.

  The recollection of that moment, its resemblance to the present one, did not even slightly distress him; indeed, and rather to his surprise, it inflamed him all the more.

  At the base of the broad stairway, she stopped and turned to him. Smiling, she put her hand atop the mahogony rail. “Are you terribly hungry?” she asked.

  In fact he was famished. The mere idea of living on watercress and celery had generated a ravenous appetite. And yet some spirit within him, some guardian angel more wily than he, counseled a show of indifference.

  “Not terribly, no. Why?” My God, but she was beautiful.

  “Horace won’t be back till late this afternoon.”

  “I see.” He didn’t, really; just then he could recall only vaguely who Horace was.

  “We’ll have breakfast later,” she said. She smiled. “Afterward.”

  “Ah.” Afterward?

  And then she was coming closer, the luminous violet eyes peering up at him, the red lips of her smile slowly parting, the slender hand rising to his face.

  For the briefest of instants he hesitated. For perhaps a second, thoughts of Dishonor and Disgrace, Sin and Six-guns chased like collies and setters around his brain, collided, rocked and scuffled one atop the other.

  And then the hand was settling at the back of his head, like a door closing to shut out the cold, and the lips were against his, soft and moist; and then a slick, knowing, pointed tongue was tapping, teasing, at his teeth.

  All at once, as though toppling from a precipice down through perfumed clouds, he surrendered to this amazing moment, telling himself that soon it would be a part of the past, over with and done. The past could be managed; it was only the future that presented difficulties and decisions. Later, afterward—yes, at breakfast—his life would continue its familiar forward march.

  Set suddenly free of his will, his hands moved on their own and slipped around her narrow waist and slid down the electric smoothness of the satin to cup her sleek round buttocks. The nerve endings along his fingertips had multiplied a thousandfold: they could detect, and celebrate, every individual silken thread of the dress; and, still more remarkable, every individual tingling atom of the firm straining flesh beneath.

  Her breasts were cushioned against his chest, her leg was nuzzling between his. Her tongue roiled in his mouth. The air was dense with the dusky intoxicating smoke of her scent.

  His body was adrift, bobbing on a tropic sea where the woman’s deep sultry currents met his own, the two giddy streams merging to carry him off, blindly, relentlessly. From a distance, far back in the remaining sliver of mind that still watched and noted and judged, he had no idea, none at all, where they might sweep him. Nor did he care.

  Swept away, he thought.

  Dear God, he thought, a cliché.

  Her hand snaked up his thigh and found him, and he stopped caring about this as well.

  From the Grigsby Archives

  MARCH 15, 1882

/>   TO:

  U.S. MARSHAL ROBERT J. GRIGSBY

  FEDERAL BUILDING

  DENVER, COLORADO

  VICTIM FEBRUARY 14 KNIFING DEATH HERE

  PROSTITUTE SALLY ZUVAH STOP AMERICAN BORN

  GERMAN DESCENT 40 YEARS 110 LBS 5 FOOT 4

  INCHES STOP YES RED HAIR STOP SINGLE THROAT

  WOUND NEARLY SEVERING HEAD CAUSE OF DEATH

  STOP VISCERA REMOVED PLACED BESIDE BODY

  PRESUMABLY BY KILLER STOP UTERUS EXCISED

  AND UNFOUND STOP PLEASE EXPLAIN SOONEST

  YOUR REASON FOR INQUIRY

  FROM:

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR CARL LOGAN

  SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPARTMENT

  SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

  “THE REAL POWER TO create,” Oscar pronounced, “lies with the artisans, the people that work for you and make things for you. The great trouble in America is that you give your work over to mere machines. Until you change this you will find little true art.”

  How many times had he delivered this lecture? Fifteen, twenty?

  However many it had been, he had never delivered it before with such elan, such effortless consummate skill.

  Earlier today, the matinee had gone badly. After his morning with Elizabeth McCourt Doe, his knees had been weak, his delivery weaker. The thin crowd had been restive, distracted, and he had plodded through the English Renaissance like a mule through a bog, thinking only of its end.

  (Afterward, a sour and suspicious Vail had asked him how the breakfast had gone. “Dreadful,” Oscar had told him. “The local minister was present, and also three ladies from the Women’s Temperance Society. My eyes glazed over so badly that for several moments I thought I had gone blind.”)

  But Oscar had napped before supper, a light, restful sleep threaded with vivid visions of his morning, and now he felt expansive, weightless and airy, and yet somehow more charged with himself, with his own unique potency, than he had ever been in his life.

  This was something more than mere self-confidence. It was a feeling almost blasphemous, something akin to what a god might feel when, out of ennui perhaps, he visited the shrine where he was worshiped.